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Notice to IP and newly-registered editors

IP and newly registered editors: due to vandalism, it has become necessary that this page be semiprotected, which may prevent you from leaving a message here. If you cannot edit this page, please leave me messages at User talk:Abd/IP.

RfC on my conduct relevant to my block on August 11

A user-space RfC on my conduct as relating to my block on August 11, 2008, has been proceeding at a glacial pace, and appears ready to determine a conclusion on the first issue, whether or not I had behaved as charged in the initial warning. Comment from all users is welcome. The RfC summary page is at User:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block, but discussion and comment is at User talk:Abd/RfC/8.11.08 block.

WELCOME TO Abd TALK

WARNING: Reading the screeds, tomes, or rants of Abd has been known to cause serious damage to mental health. One editor, a long-time Wikipedian, in spite of warnings from a real-life organization dedicated to protecting the planet from the likes of Abd, actually read Abd's comments and thought he understood them.

After reading, his behavior became erratic. He proposed WP:PRX and insisted on promoting it. Continuing after he was unblocked, and in spite of his extensive experience, with many thousands of edits,he created a hoax article and actually made a joke in mainspace. When he was unblocked from that, he created a non-notable article on Easter Bunny Hotline, and was finally considered banned. What had really happened? His brain had turned to Slime mold (see illustration).

Caution is advised.

Merry Christmas

A Nobody is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

--A Nobody 03:15, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Merry Christmas. I hope things have been going well for you, and that you have a good holiday. Take care of yourself. Thank you for everything. Ottava Rima (talk) 05:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

PHG ArbCom request

I've posted a request for possible additional evidence at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/PHG/Evidence. Cool Hand Luke 18:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

lenr-canr.org

Thank you for your interest in the lenr-canr.org case. I agree with you, that it is a huge can of worms. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 20:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

So learn How to Eat Fried Worms, so you can have a Diet of Worms! :-) *Dan T.* (talk) 01:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

All in pursuance of the Edict of Worms.

I must say, I started reading up on the field of LENR, which I'd mostly ignored since 1990 or so. Wow! The big obstacle then was that proof of nuclear reactions was thin, easily subject either to experimental error or to accusations of same, etc. Excess heat was difficult to confirm, allegedly involved mysterious experimental variables; however, the SPAWAR work has apparently come up with reproducible results; not only excess heat but such strong and clear evidence of nuclear reactions (beta radiation detected with CR-39) that the shoe has moved to the other foot. It's the smoking gun. The 2004 DOE report, flying in the face of claims that this is "fringe science," recommended further research. My guess is that another, similar review, today, would be more positive. But once a field has been tagged as "fringe," there are some editors who become like bulldogs, defenders of the wiki, saving the world from POV pushers, fringe fanatics, and the rest.

In any case, lenr-canr.org has been an invaluable resource, personally. It seems fairly objective, given the topic. My guess is that there is a bias in selection of papers, but not necessarily one which the site is responsible for: it may be more difficult for them to get permission to put up copies of skeptical papers! --Abd (talk) 00:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The plot has thickened. I'm known for wordiness. However, in response to a query on the meta blacklist Talk page, I was pretty succinct. JzG seems to have come unglued, with reams of irrelevant argument. The spam blacklist isn't a content control device, used to prevent editors from inappropriate sourcing, unless there has been such a level of linkspamming that it can't be controlled in any other way. There wasn't, as far as I've found, any linkspamming. The original edit that got me involved here, in Martin Fleischmann, wasn't added by Pcarbonn or Rothwell, it was added by you, Petri Krohn, and you took it from Cold fusion, where the link had been added by User:LeadSongDog, a critic of Rothwell as far as I've noticed. The original source, the paper by Fleischmann, was indeed first referenced by Pcarbonn, but quite legitimately, and it wasn't controversial, and JzG didn't remove the reference to the paper, only to the copy found on lenr-canr.org. It's all so obvious to me that I really wonder why JzG doesn't just give up. There wasn't any avalanche of linkspamming. The links were there for a long time before he removed them. I'm trying to find if there is anyone whom JzG trusts who might mediate. I've got at least one idea. --Abd (talk) 04:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Account Creation Tool Confirmation

Hi Abd, someone, probably you, requested access to the account creation tool. For security purposes could you please confirm that it was you who made the request so we can approve you, thanks. If you use IRC, please join us on the Freenode Network, #wikipedia-en-accounts. Hope to hear from you soon! The Helpful One 12:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I did not make this request, to my recollection. How was the request made? --Abd (talk) 17:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

It was made through the ACC tool, at http://stable.toolserver.org/acc/acc.php. The account request has been declined. Thanks! :) The Helpful One 21:15, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there a record of the IP from which it was made? Impersonation is a serious matter. --Abd (talk) 21:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Abd!

I'm sorry I wasn't able to participate in this. After my sanction I wanted to take a break to let the dust settle, but five months later this place hasn't changed one bit and the harrassment continues unabated from the usual sources. I dropped out around the time you had asked for my participation. Is there anything I can still do to help or has that run its course?

Anything new and interesting you are involved with around here or is it just the same old thing?

--GoRight (talk) 18:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, Jehochman ended up acknowledging that his warning wasn't justified (in retrospect). That warning was the basis for the block, so the next step would be for me to negotiate something with User:Iridescent. I have other fish to fry, and I assume she does too.... At some point I might ask for a review, and continue examination in my own RfC. You did some good work with relation to the user who had been topic banned, while I was blocked, that I appreciated. Right now, I came across, a few days ago, what appears to be an abuse of admin tools to add a library of documents on cold fusion, lenr-canr.org, to the spam blacklist, based on the admin's POV and personal judgments, without discussion. I'm simply pursuing that one step at a time. The admin is intransigent; he was asked to remove the blacklisting, which he eventually did, but only after going to meta and getting it blacklisted there, again without discussion from anyone knowledgeable; he simply tosses a series of charges -- without evidence, as to the central ones -- and, given that he's a "respected administrator," he is simply believed without investigation. I asked admin DGG to investigate and comment, and he did, with a contrary conclusion: the site should not be blacklisted. There are a number of admins who seem to think they own this place, and, to some extent, they do. But not legitimately, it's simply institutional inertia and the problems of mass process without coherent deliberative structure. There are some good signs, there have been some excellent additions to ArbComm, but ... it's tedious.

My own activity has declined greatly due to the press of other responsibilities. I was doing a lot of vandalism patrol, which I find fascinating and rewarding. Better than video games.... Misplaced Pages is designed to make maintaining the project highly inefficient, and there are proposals that would make it much, much simpler, without sacrificing the core wiki traditions; but the defacto oligarchy has become highly conservative, resisting change simply on that basis: it's change. Users who arrive with a glimpse of the wiki vision, what might be called a common-law understanding of it, are often blocked quite quickly, under all-too-common conditions. --Abd (talk) 20:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Yea, I noticed the elections to the Arbcom too. There were a couple people there that I think will be good additions. I'm glad to hear that some level of resolution on the block discussion came to fruition and it sounds like everyone is moving on. That's good. If only I could get others to do so as well, eh? --GoRight (talk) 00:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't been watching the admin noticeboards, but, looking for a report on the webmaster of lenr-canr.org, Jed Rothwell, I did notice the activity there about you. I commented. Damn crystal ball, ugly images in it! What a waste. --Abd (talk) 23:48, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Well there is no controlling these things, but I trust that the neutral parties there will see this for what it is and come to the right decision. I plan to stay out of the discussion other than my one statement, unless something significant develops that requires a further response. Thanks for your support, though. --GoRight (talk) 00:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, good to stay out of it. Let others defend you. And if they don't ... shame on them! What's sad to see in so many AN and AN/I discussions is how someone makes a charge against somebody and the crowd starts to shout "Off with his head!" It's a strange perversion of WP:AGF. When one editor is accusing another, AGF is fine, but it should not go to the extent of assuming that the charges are accurate. Far too many editors will comment without any investigation, or will investigate very shallowly, jumping to conclusions. I can understand it -- it takes a lot of time to do better -- but it's frustrating to read. I can see why some editors lose it and start raving. --Abd (talk) 00:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly what happened to Wilhelmina! --GoRight (talk) 00:45, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

cold fusion report recommendation

as my edit says, it's a cookie-cutter standard recommendation, it was used to POV push that the controversy was still open, so I'd rather keep it out of the page for now unless a proper explanation can be done for it. --Enric Naval (talk) 04:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look, Enric. I haven't followed the history, and, to me, it's irrelevant that someone used a reliable source to POV push. It's a reliable source or it isn't, and the text is supported by the source or it isn't. If imbalance is introduced, the standard response is to balance it, not remove it. So ... if you can support the claim that this was a "cookie cutter standard recommendation," by all means, put it in with source. Otherwise it looks to me like what is being pushed is a POV that the controversy is not open. It's obvious that it is, reviewing recent reliable sources. Enric, I was familiar with the topic back in 1990. I had concluded from all the mess back then that the probability was low that fusion had taken place, there were too many mysteries, too many opportunities for experimental error; as you know, cold fusion has been used for years as a paradigmatic example of junk science. The mechanism is obvious: some finding would be very attractive, so lots of researchers try to confirm it. If they fail, they are angry that their time was wasted. Some will "succeed," i.e., perhaps, make the same experimental errors, etc.

However, there is an alternate hypothesis: the conditions under which fusion occurs are very sensitive to poorly understood variables. It seems there is a consensus now among those in the field that deuterium loading must exceed 90%, or excess heating doesn't happen. Most of the early attempts to quickly verify the effect didn't wait for that. There is now a new technique that effectively loads to a high level, approaching 100%, and that, it is claimed, immediately produces excess heat; but even more to the point, it shows immediate alpha particle radiation, as shown by CR-39 detectors, sourced in the active electrode. No cogent alternate explanation for the apparent radiation has been advanced. Alpha radiation is a clear signature of nuclear reactions, and it is essentially helium nuclei, so it simultaneously shows helium production, the ash of a fusion reaction. The best I've seen is the possibility of arcing that somehow burns the plastic detector; however, the phenomenon doesn't only happen under high voltage excitation, it happens a very low voltage; and arcing in aqueous solution? (This is from the SPAWAR experiments, i.e., the U.S. Navy laboratory, and it's been peer-review published, apparently.)

I appreciate your note, thanks. Let's see what we can do with this. This affair may be one of a few examples I know of where what was thought to be junk science turns out, in the end, to be valid, if poorly understood. Pons and Fleischmann made political errors, prematurely announcing their discovery, which they had been working on for many years, before peer review. They were essentially forced to do this by university management, it's claimed. Regardless, whatever errors P and F made is irrelevant to the actual science; their biggest error was in claiming fusion, they didn't have sufficient evidence for that. They'd have been more successful, in hindsight, simply publishing the reports of excess heat and other experimental data, without even speculating on the source of it. Even though it was pretty obvious -- if they hadn't made errors in their calorimetry and if there wasn't some other explanation that they simply couldn't imagine. But the CR-39 results are stunning. The shoe is now, from my point of view, on the other foot, there is the smoking gun or something that looks so much like it that it's time to tackle the one with the gun. Probable cause! Proof if confirmed, and there has been confirmation. The field includes researchers who are now being far more careful, far less simply enthusiastic, actively looking for loopholes and flaws.

As to the "cookie cutter" idea, that's suspicious to me in this case: the recommendation wasn't unanimous, it was "almost" unanimous. If it was cookie cutter, there wouldn't have been opposition, I'd have expected. As to the other findings, there was no unanimity on the review panel, there clearly are independent experts who think that this field isn't closed.

And the 2004 DOE report was before the CR-39 results were available, I think. CR-39 had been tried before, but in order not to interfere with deuterium loading, the detector was placed at a distance from the electrode; apparently the radiation is at relatively low energy, on the order of 1 Mev, which doesn't travel a sufficient distance in water to show results above background at the distance involved. With the new loading technique (the palladium is electroplated on the electrode instead of the electrode itself being palladium, and so it's 100% loaded with deuterium at the same time as the palladium structure is built up, atom by atom, and so the effects, including excess heat, are seen very quickly), the CR-39 could be placed much closer to the electrode.

There are many other findings in the literature of radiation and other signs of nuclear reactions, but this one is so simple and so direct that it's overwhelming. --Abd (talk) 14:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Errrr, I think that I'd rather quote good experts on their interpretations of the CR-39 results, instead of citing directly the results as if they were proof of anything.

You see, in science there are these little issues like reproducibility where you need other people to reproduce your results in a somewhat predictible way, or like measurement problems and other stuff that is not noticed by non-experts like us and that gets noticed only when other scientists look at the results in depth. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:46, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, of course! Enric, this discussion here is Talk, for background. I haven't seen a secondary source comment on the results yet. Anyone who has, please, let us know! Now, there is a question of "expert." Who is an expert on this field? The specific field of expertise would be important. An expert on hot fusion isn't an expert on cold fusion, or on the techniques that are used to allegedly demonstrate it, necessarily. I'm still looking around, becoming familiar, a little, with the recent work. Slowly. --Abd (talk) 17:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you are right, I haven't seen either any secondary comment presented on the talk page. About experts, I suppose that we would want expert physicists for some of the energy stuff, people like User:Kirk shanahan for calibration stuff, maybe metallurgics or chemists for what molecules are getting formed, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:16, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Aether22 block

Hello Abd, I have something I want to tell you, following your message at Talk:Urination about blocking Aether22. I came to that page in response to the RfC, and happened to come down on the side of retaining Aether22's image, but I've been trying to be even-handed in the dispute. I noticed at Aether22's talk page that the block was initiated by Nandesuka and then reviewed by you. I agree with your decision, based on 3RR and incivility, and note your concerns about some of the details of Nandesuka's initial action, but there is something more that I'd like to make you aware of. Nandesuka has also been repeatedly deleting the image, based on copyright violations, and that seems to have been the original reason for the block. However, after the first deletion by Nandesuka, I looked at the image's main page, and could see nothing wrong with the GFDL (unless of course I'm missing something). I repeatedly asked at the talk page for Nandesuka to explain the claim about copyright, but never got an explanation. Bottom line: although I agree with your final disposition of the block, I'm worried that the original block was placed for invalid reasons, perhaps with an agenda of suppressing the image. I hope I'm not out of line in telling you this, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The bottom line is that Aether22 was legitimately blocked the first time for 3RR violation. It's a bright line, he could be doing everything right in terms of policy, except that if he edit wars to that extent, he *will* be blocked assuming that it comes to an administrator's attention, and an editor warned him, and he didn't stop, he barged ahead. There may be extenuating circumstances, but it was only a 24 hour block, not a big deal in itself. Now, if Nandesuka was involved in a content dispute with Aether22, that's a problem in itself. It's a huge can of worms, though, and unless some serious ongoing damage is done, I'm not inclined to waste a lot of time on it.

I've requested that an admin look at it, though I'm not holding my breath. I advise against asserting an "agenda" unless there is proof, it poisons the atmosphere. My suggestion is to seriously defend the image and ignore, unless it becomes *necessary*, the behavioral issues. It looks like the existence of the image in the article has settled, and so Aether22's position was basically vindicated, but not his edit warring. If he'd only been more patient, he probably wouldn't have been blocked.

I'm quite certain that if I were to hit an arguable 4RR, I'd be blocked in a flash. I'm watched closely, possibly by some admins, or by blocked users or others who would drop a hint. I might be blocked below that, I'm an experienced editor and am expected to refrain from edit warring, which, I agree, usually is taking place below the 3RR level. Aether22 hit 4RR or more. The sock puppetry thing was a big red herring; I have an issue with editors who file sock puppet reports for an acknowledged IP edit. That's not sock puppetry at all unless it's deliberately done to conceal the editor's identity, and it probably wasn't.

The second block, though, is shakier. I think a week was extreme, under the circumstances (the relative mildness of any "edit warring," if there was any at all). I'd cut Aether22 some slack on the incivility; he should have been warned, not blocked. Essentially, a block there, without further warning, seems punitive. My sense is that Aether22 would respond to supportive assistance as to how to comply with policy, there is far too much blocking; it's a bit weird. You can come in as an IP editor and vandalized, vandalize, vandalize, and you will usually get three warnings before being blocked.... I have a sense that Aether22 is a bit bewildered by it all.

By the way, to make it clear, I'm not an administrator, so I have no authority to accept or reject an unblock request by Aether22. I simply made some comments. --Abd (talk) 00:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much. That all makes very good sense to me and is very helpful. (My apologies for assuming that you were an admin.) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:14, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Confused

I am confused here. The thread about me at WP:AN is gone, but I don't seem to find it in the archives either. Is it simply gone (other than in the history, of course) or is it archived someplace special or what? What was the final resolution? --GoRight (talk) 23:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, I found it in archive 181. --GoRight (talk) 23:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The final resolution was that the attempt to get you banned fell flat on its face. Be careful. As you were well advised, you may need to keep your behavior spotless. This is still not a safe place, where someone like you could make mistakes and be able to easily recover. Someone like some of those you've been in conflict with can make lots of mistakes, never apologize, never acknowledge them, and nothing happens. There is no policy that Misplaced Pages must be fair. If it were "selling" something, it would fail consumer fraud laws. That is certainly not deliberate, but it's the effect.

Now that you now this, now that you know that we are working, here, in the real world where human beings are irrational, inconsistent, and, amazingly, often right even when they are wrong in how they explain it, which can drive some people crazy, it's up to you what you want to do. Misplaced Pages is highly inefficient, because it doesn't value the volunteer labor. That may be changing, Flagged revisions is a step toward that, and there are others that may eventually penetrate the severe conservatism that has, quite naturally, infected the place. ("Severe conservatism" means that whatever disturbs the status quo, no matter how much damage is being done, and no matter how clearly useful and rational the change might be, will be strongly resisted by those who have some excess power as a result of the status quo, which in a volunteer organization, means those who, as individuals, contribute the most work, often. Practically by definition, the system works for them, so why should it change? If not addressed, the situation will become more and more unstable, as editors burn out and either leave or become increasingly frustrated and therefore angry at the "vandals and POV pushers" whom they see as responsible for their increased workload. Misplaced Pages has been a bit of a Ponzi scheme, depending on a constant influx of new editors to take the place of those who burn out, are blocked, or simply move on because they got a life that places demands on their time. When I've looked at the edit history of an admin with 70,000 edits, and see that every minute or so, even several times a minute, for hours and hours on end in the middle of the night, he pushed a save button for content boringly presented to him by Twinkle or one of the other assistance tools, I begin to wonder what kind of person this takes. Dedicated, for sure. Then, of course, he feels entitled to exercise a little power. It's his project, after all.) --Abd (talk) 01:11, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Your request

Done, except for the talk page (since the only edit to it was Wikiproject tagging, and restoring that in your userspace would just mess with the Wikiproject). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work. If that was the only edit, no problem. If I did want to ask for restoration, I'd simply want the tags poked in the eye.... --Abd (talk) 20:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

FYI: Removing sourced material

I was given the link to the policy you quoted, it came from an arbcom ruling: Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Hkelkar#Removal_of_sourced_edits_made_in_a_neutral_narrative_is_disruptive

I replied to your question about CF if you're interested in reading it. Phil153 (talk) 04:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I've started gathering a list of other interesting rulings here if you are interested. Feel free to add additional ones as they present themselves.

Abd, you might be interested in the context of how Phil153 was given this particular reference. See the current discussion at Talk:Robert M Carter if you are interested. --GoRight (talk) 05:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. GoRight, I'm formally requesting that you inform me of any discussion that you consider might be of interest to me. If you ever do so and are pinged about canvassing, refer to this. However, if you choose, you can email me; and I will occasionally watch your edits. You know and I know that I'm independent and won't necessarily agree with you, that I would make no assumption that your position on a matter is correct, but would investigate as necessary before opining or reporting. I doubt you would waste my time. And thanks. There are some very interesting things going on right now, on and off-wiki. There is hope. --Abd (talk) 14:21, 20 January 2009 (UTC)