Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:03, 11 April 2009

You can leave messages for me in the section for messages, append them to the relevant section of this page, or on the talk page of my account on the German Misplaced Pages.

Messages

You can leave messages for me here, or append them to the relevant section. I will move messages added to this section to existing or new sections, in order to keep this page organized. --Cs32en (talk) 04:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Why I support a new investigation into the events of Sept. 11, 2001

People who read this page might wonder why I am interested in the events of Sept. 11, 2001, so I give a brief explanation here.

On the day of Sept. 11, I was in the capital of a large Asian country, and, like everyone else, I was stunned by what I saw. Video from CNN, with commentary in a language I did not understand, was one of the few news sources I had. Internet connections broke down or were very unstable. My first thought was: Am I safe in the place where I was at the time? As I assumed that an imminent large-scale attack on the city where I was at the time was not in the interest of any conceivable source of such an attack, I concluded that there would be no reason for panic. However, I also remembered a news item from a few days earlier, citing a US military officer that warned Russia not to violate North American airspace during a scheduled exercise of the Russian Air Force.

As many German citizens, I have been opposed to the policies pursued by former U.S. President G.W. Bush. Like the German Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Joschka Fischer, I did not believe in claims that the government of Iraq would be involved in the conspiracy that perpetrated the attack on Sept. 11, 2001. I was very sceptical of the claims that Iraq would pursue a program to develop and produce weapons of mass destruction, and I considered much of the evidence presented by the U.S. government as unreliable or forged. It was not so much the opposition to the policies of the U.S. administration as the methods it used to advance its case that reduced, in my view, the reliability of any statement by the U.S. government, including statements on the events of 9/11.

At that point, I had a look at some alternative hypotheses about what happened on that day. These hypotheses (no plane at the Pentagon, thermobaric bombs, etc.) seemed outlandish to me, and there is indeed overwhelming evidence that they are not true. I believed for some time that the behaviour of George W. Bush at the Booker Elementary School in Florida would be evidence that Bush knew about the attacks, and that he knew he was not in danger. This assumption is probably held by most people who question the official investigations into the events of Sept. 11. However, if Bush knew, he would have also known that he would behave in a suspicious way if he would not take action immediately. So I rather think that Bush or people very close to him wanted to check the Secret Service personnel, the Air Force One security detail, and the Presidential limousine before Bush left the school, because they could not rule out a danger to the President from someone who would have, for example, infiltrated the Secret Service. All alternative hypotheses leave a lot of aspects of the Sept. 11 attacks unexplained, as does the official investigation.

I have not been engaged in any extended discussions about Sept. 11 until February 2009, but I was in contact with people who were posting, among information about many other topics, views and information related to the attacks. I again looked at the Sept. 11 attacks when I received the information that the head of the FBI Counterterrorism Division considered the theory of an architect, Richard Gage, as "backed by thorough research and analysis". Looking at the website that presented the information, I noticed that it was designed in a way quite different from the internet sites I remembered having seen a few years ago.

What convinced me of the need for a new investigation was not all the speculation about whether Bush knew something, or whether Silverstein, the owner of the WTC, would have been involved. Having some background in chemistry and physics, I was convinced of the need for a new investigation by looking at the way the Towers (and WTC Seven) collapsed.

Outside of the realm of nuclear physics, the rule of conservation of energy applies. If no explosives were in the building, there would have been only the potential energy of the elements of building available, i.e. gravitational energy. This energy would have to be used to destruct the building (weakened and intact steel columns, and the pulverization of the concrete) and accelerate the elements of the building both vertically and laterally. There is not enough potential energy present that could be transformed into the energy that was needed, and, even if there would have been enough, there would not have been a mechanical way to transform this energy into the pulverization of the concrete. Even if the top of one of the towers would have been dropped from 500 meters above it, this would not have resulted in the pulverization of the concrete. So there must have been a source of energy in addition to the potential energy of the building. NIST, the lead investigative agency of the government, has stated that they did not look for traces of explosives, and this was justified with the argument that "NIST did not conduct tests for explosive residue and as noted above, such tests would not necessarily have been conclusive". --Cs32en (talk) 21:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Please do not add comments to this text here. This is not intended to be a blog. Any discussions related to articles on Misplaced Pages on the events of Sept. 11, 2001, should take place on the respective talk pages of these article, or, in conjunction with such discussions on article talk-pages, and as a personal exchange of ideas between Misplaced Pages editors, in separate sections of this talk page, or on other editors' talk pages. See WP:TALK and WP:SOAP for further information. --Cs32en (talk) 00:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Temporary blocking of this account on April 10, 2009

I don't think this will translate, and the notification needs to be here for tracability.

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:54, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

911 conspiracy theories subject to discretionary sanctions

(This chapter heading was added by Tom Harrison. --Cs32en (talk) 18:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC))

Please follow our core policies on Verifiability, Consensus, and No original research. Note in particular the discretionary sanctions listed here could result in a topic ban. Specificaly, stop trying to force in your version against consensus. The burden is on the person who wannts to add the material to justify it. You haven't met that burden. When you have, you won't have to keep reverting. Tom Harrison 23:45, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Tom, please have look at BRD-cycle. It's obvious that the content in question is verifiable, although people might differ on whether the conclusions of the paper are correct. Also, mentioning the article does not fall under the category of original research, as (a) the research was neither done nor published by me (b) the article is about theories on the WTC destruction, so the article itself is a subject of the article, not a piece of research with regard to the topic of the article. --Cs32en (talk) 00:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Your contribution to the encyclopedia so far consists of 5 reverts in 4 hours. That's not the BRD-cycle. That's surprising for someone so familiar with our policies. Tom Harrison 00:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I have reformulated, with a view to shorten, and to improve, a previous contribution that has been kicked out by another user. Let me just point out that the BRD-cycle, in order to work, implies that people start a discussion on new contributions, not simply delete them. If those users that deleted the contribution would follow the BRD-cycle, there would be no need to revert anything at this moment at all. I have also noticed that you seem to approve the BRD-cycle, so let's work out this issue along these lines. --Cs32en (talk) 00:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The first thing you need to do is follow the Three-revert rule. Remove your addition until a consensus supports adding it. Tom Harrison 00:51, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I have moved this discussion to the article's talk page. --Cs32en (talk) 01:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Cs32en (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

I have been temporarily blocked from editing for edit warring on this article. However, the paragraph in question was first added to the article by another user on April 4. The paragraph has been modified several times, and I also have modified the paragraph with the aim of improving it, and to respond to complaints with regard to its content. The addition of the paragraph has been reverted several times, without waiting for a consensus to emerge in the talk page. The last removal has been justified with the argument that the paragraph would be in the wrong section. I therefore moved the paragraph to a different section of the article. While I understand that people who just remove or revert things without attempting to find a compromise that takes into account the views of all sides, are subject to being blocked, I do not think that I have acted in this way. An allegation that my account would be a sock puppet account is also being made, although this is not given as a reason for the block. While my account on the English Misplaced Pages is new, I have been contributing to the German Misplaced Pages since July 1, 2006 . A small fraction of my contributions to Misplaced Pages were about the attacks on Sept. 11 (first contribution on March 8, 2009), and my contributions to the German article have helped to develop this article. (One has not been contested by anyone, another one has led to a constructive discussion and a modification of the respective paragraph.) I hope that the decision to block my account is being reviewed, and that my account is being unblocked, or a more specific justification for the blocking of my account is given. --Cs32en (talk) 02:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Decline reason:

Yes. Well you indeed were edit warring and did violate the three revert rule. I don't know, maybe that's acceptable at dewiki, but it certainly isn't here. —Travis 03:22, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Discussion on the temporary blocking of this account

For what it's worth, I don't think you're a sockpuppet. However, you're still edit warring, and may not be familiar with en.wikipedia guidelines. Please read carefully WP:BRD and WP:3RR to see what guidelines you are not following. If you will acknoledge your violation, and agree to discuss the matter on the talk page and obtain a change of consensus before making edits against the apparent consensus, I would have no objection to an unblock. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:05, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

(Sorry, the first paragraph of this post seems to have disappeared as I was editing the page at the same time as another user. I'm trying to reconstruct the content.)

On the German Misplaced Pages, it is common that a text is being changed while being discussed on the talk page at the same time. Of course, it is expected that users take into account other views and suggestions. In this case, two main objections were brought forward:

• Unreliable sources: The sources that the user who first added the paragraph were not relevant enough to justify the inclusion of the paragraph in Misplaced Pages. I deleted those sources and referred to the four major Danish newspapers (circulation about 8-10% of the population of Danmark). (Reliability is not the issue, as nobody has disputed that the article exists.)

• Wrong chapter: Because some users considered the inclusion of the article in the chapter "Reaction of the engineering community" misplaced, I moved the article to the chapter "History", which appears to be the place where all topics that do no fit into the specialized chapters go to. As chemists and physicists are considered engineers in Germany, I tend to see this issue differently, but the interpretation of these terms in English speaking countries is the relevant issue here.

So, in my view, I have tried to contribute to Misplaced Pages in a constructive way. I may have reacted too strongly to the actions of users that simply removed the paragraph without seeking to take the view of others into account, and it probably would have been better to use appropriate ways to complain about these actions.

My actions may have contributed to an atmosphere where there were - in my view - widespread activities that, while maybe not formally constituting an edit war, were destructive to the purpose of Misplaced Pages to provide a place where people enjoy in expanding the scope and accessibility of collective knowledge. I would be prepared to accept that some of my actions, seen in isolation, can be interpreted as elements of an edit war. At the same time, I hope that all users - independent of their view of the subject of the article - will be judged by the same standard. --Cs32en (talk) 03:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Reliability of the article by Niels Harrit et al., and of the reports about it

Also, for what it's worth, extraordinary claims, i.e. WTC controlled demolition, require extraordinary evidence. The article you reference is anything but extraordinary. —Travis 03:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

In the context of the article, I don't claim that WTC has collapsed due to controlled demolishing. The article is not about a controlled demolition of the WTC, but about the allegations that this was the case. Nobody doubts that such allegations exist, so this - rather than being an "extraordinary claim" - is an accepted fact. The publication is an important aspect of these allegations, i.e. of the topic of the article, as evidenced by the fact that it is considered an important development both by people who support the allegation and by the public at large. (See the articles in the major Danish newspapers, and the internet site of Videnskap, a science journal sponsored by the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology, where this is currently one of the major news items for the month of April. --Cs32en (talk) 04:10, 10 April 2009 (UTC)) The publication has received more public attention than many other publications or facts that are mentioned in the article. --Cs32en (talk) 03:55, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't consider non-peer-reviewed publication by non-expert* (by "expert", I mean people whose non-reviewed pronouncements are considered reliable under WP:RS) scientists writing outside of of their fields notable, even if the Danish and/or Croatian press do/es. However, others may differ. Still, the en.Misplaced Pages essay is WP:BRD; if a bold revision is reverted, there should be discussion and, if possible, consensus, before it's reinserted. Now, Videnskap may be notable, and representative, at least, of the scientific community. Why no German papers or scientific publications picked up a publication originally in German may be a point against it....perhaps there a subtle language variation that indicates to native German speakers that the paper is a joke?

If you hadn't been blocked, we could have been having this discussion on the article talk page, where it belongs. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, as my block is temporary, the damage is limited. I have also noticed that you have been approaching the issue of blocking my account with a somewhat more open mind. So, with everything I knew from contributing to the German Misplaced Pages, I considered your first message to be hoax. (It turned out not to be.) I also would have understood better what Tom meant to say if he had written "The article on 9/11 conspiracy theories is subject to a policy enabling administrators to apply discretionary sanctions".

The journal says that it only accepts papers after a peer review, and the editor-in-chief, Prof. Marie-Paule Pileni, is a highly respected French researcher. I do not think we should start from the assumption that someone like her would put her reputation in jeopardy by allowing a journal that claims to be peer-reviewed to publish articles that have not been reviewed. (Whoever would make such an extraordinary claim would have to present some extraordinary evidence for it.)

Videnskab still features the article, and they would not do so if they had concluded that the research itself would be bogus. I assume that Videnskab must have been contacted by a number of people who object to the article, so this seems to be a conscious decision on their part. That some news are reported in one country and not in another country is often due to the fact that a press agency in one country has distributed the news, while no agency has reported in another country. This often happens with other news, too.

I don't think that German newspapers have seen the reports and would have actively decided not to publish it. I'm not a linguist, but I haven't seen anything that would make a German news reporter believe that the paper would be bogus. A German newspaper would have seen English reports about this first, in any case. Maybe they have received some e-mails from interested individuals (in English or German), but such correspondence is rarely taken seriously, irrespective of its topic or its content. I have written press releases, and relevant parts of these releases were carried by national and international news agencies, such as AP, so I have some idea how this works. --Cs32en (talk) 17:47, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems like you have been caught in the crossfire of an old and difficult dispute on the English Misplaced Pages. If anything notable or reliable were published about 9/11, it would immediately be reported by the entire American press. What seems to have happened, perhaps, is that a very tenacious group of Truthers have fooled a small number of foreign academics or journalists who are not vigilant enough. Jehochman 18:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It's of course easy to fool journalists, even news agencies. I have not done so myself, but I have seen how a bogus translation (from German to English) of one international press agency was translated back to German by its German subsidiary, so the agency was fooling itself, in some way. Whether journalists have been fooled, however, is not the issue, as nobody has expressed doubt about the existence of the published article.

As for fooling academics, this is also possible, but not as easy as fooling journalists. However, the editor-in-chief, Prof. Marie-Paule Pileni, is working at the Laboratoire des Matériaux Mésoscopiques et Nanométriques, so she is an expert in the field of the pubished article. Her CV includes, among other items, the following information:

• 2006: Officier dans l’ordre National du mérite.
• 2003: Research Award of the Alexender von Humboldt Foundation (Germany). (one of the most prestigious German awards, Cs32en (talk))
• 2002: Journal of Physical Chemistry, Board member, American Chemical Society.
• 1990-1994: Société Nationale des Poudres et Explosifs, SNPE, France.

She certainly does know that any research related to 9/11 is a very sensitive matter, and the people involved in the review process would have known this, too. If anyone in the review process would have had the impression that this was bogus research pushed forward by a cabale of "truthers" within the journal, this person would very likely have contacted Prof. Pileni, the editor-in-chief. If everyone at this journal was a "truther", then Prof. Pileni would probably not be editor-in-chief of that journal, unless we would assume that she herself believes in alternative hypotheses about 9/11. If she would do so, however, there would be no doubt that she would be considered to express an expert opinion on the issue, and this would change the whole basis of the discussion. --Cs32en (talk) 19:07, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Communication with Prof. Marie-Paule Pileni

I have now written to Prof. Marie-Paule Pileni, asking for clarification about the paper, and I would encourage other Misplaced Pages editor who take an interests in this paper to contact her as well, so that we have multiple sources for the information that she would include in a reply. She might also be very busy, so she might not reply to a single e-mail. --Cs32en (talk) 19:57, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration regarding 9/11 issues / Question on WP:V

Moved from User talk:Ikip:

Hi Ikip,

Thank you very much for making me aware of this possibility to communicate my concerns at the appropriate place! I am new to the English Misplaced Pages, but I have been contributing to the German Misplaced Pages since 2006. I have joined Misplaced Pages because I felt that two articles were missing (,). I created the articles, and both articles are being developed actively at this time, with additions mostly about information that is genuinely new (recent events) or that has come to the attention of editors. Both articles have nothing to do with 9/11.

I have not been involved in any arbitration case before, and nobody, to my knowledge, has ever demanded or initiated any administrative action against me on the German Misplaced Pages. Therefore, I am not entirely sure whether I understand the technical details of the process; in particular, I hope that my edits on the page are in the appopriate place.

I am equally not familiar with the details of the guidelines and policy interpretation on the English Misplaced Pages. I have had a look at WP:V, and my feeling is that there are two guidelines that are either contradictory in the policy itself, or are widely understood in ways that lead to contradictions and incoherent results. These are, quoting from WP:V:

• "The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth."

• "Exceptional claims in Misplaced Pages require high-quality sources."

I believe that Misplaced Pages should not aim at replacing the institutions that exist to find out the truth, such as universities, and I fully support the first policy item. Yet, if truth is not the issue, but verifiability and relevance with regard to the given topic, nobody should make any such claim, whether exceptional or not. If such claims are not valid reasoning with regard to the inclusion of a piece of information in Misplaced Pages, the second guideline is actually not necessary at all. However, as the guideline exists, various users are, in my view, trying to follow it according to their personal interpretation. This logical contradiction in the policy may not be problematic in most cases, as exceptional claims are, generally, not found in reliable sources. The situation is very different, however, if the article is explicitly, as defined by its title, about exceptional claims. (Then, the issue is whether the source reliably reflects the claim that is itself likely false.)

As a new editor with regard to the English Misplaced Pages, I am, at the moment, a bit reluctant to bring up this issue about possible logical contradictions in WP:V directly on the arbitration page, as there must exist numerous prior discussions about WP:V that I am unaware of.

I would be glad if you could give me some feedback on these thoughts.

Regards, Cs32en (talk) 18:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I would bring up your concerns briefly and concisely on WP:V. Expect many editors to defend the status quo, and few to support your position.

There are many contridictions on the English Misplaced Pages.

My impression is that the German wikipedia is much more restrictictive and confining, with no free use images, and embracing flagged revisions.

I messaged you because of this:

• Cs32en (talk · contribs) informed 23:45, 9 April 2009 on the talk page.

I will watch your page from now on...

Ikip (talk) 19:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for you reply, and for watching my page!

I will consider posting to WP:V later on. Right now, I think I should wait for some comments on the posts that I have already made. I also prefer following the discussion in the arbitration case now, and not to initiate any potentially controversial discussion at another place. (I also think it would not be helpful if the first comment on my text on the WP:V talk page would allege that my account was a sock puppet.)

The German Misplaced Pages, technically, is more restrictive in one respect: edits from new editors can only be seen by clicking at a specific button, so that users (i.e. readers) see the page approved by established editors, if the do not specifically look for the "current version". However, most edits are regularly approved (in the case of the 9/11 pages, every few hours, if necessary, according to my experience; basically the same for "Hitler" or similar sensitive stuff).

My overall impression is that flagged revisions have a positive overall effect on the German Misplaced Pages. One issue would be that editors that approve pages should generally either approve all revisions that have resulted from the editing process or let this process continue without affecting the "clean" page. Another useful guideline would be that all editors who take part in any given sequence of edits on the "dirty" page should not be involved in approving this sequence, unless there is obvious consensus among the editors involved. (There might also be pages where a single editor is engaged for an extended period of time.) Deletions on talk pages should be restricted to obvious vandalism, privacy issues, and similar things, and flagged revisions should not apply to talk pages, which might instead be protected if urgent action is needed.

• Some further observations on the German Misplaced Pages, maybe less relevant:

I have seen people engaging in edit wars on the German Misplaced Pages, with 10+ reverts without triggering any administrative response either during the edit war of after it had died down. People are expected to start a discussion on the talk page, and if that happens, the editor with the weaker arguments often digs a hole for himself during the discussion and gives up on it at some point. Deleting edits on talk pages is very rare, and you can find a lot of funny and not-so-funny stuff there.

My guess is that there may be too few established rules on the German Misplaced Pages, and, possibly, few trusted admins, too, so that there are, as a result, few administrative actions or processes. The English Misplaced Pages seems to have a lot of rules that each work in most cases, but that maybe lack coherence in some respects. Instead of following no specific Misplaced Pages rules at all (the German case), some editors might have started cherry-picking on the rules as a result.

With regard to the images, the German Misplaced Pages regards almost everything that has general copyright restriction as completely non-free, irrespective of the circumstances in which it is being used. This is probably not a Wiki issue, but a result of the legal situation in Germany, where there is no specific law on "fair use", and images taken from videos are not even mentioned in the laws. (The actual rulings seem to be mostly along the same reasoning as in the US, but it's probably quite unpredictable. Also, in Germany, I assume that Misplaced Pages would potentially be faced with numerous individual court cases, so even if Misplaced Pages's interpretation of the laws would prevail in all cases, this would be quite disruptive to the development of the German Misplaced Pages.)

--Cs32en (talk) 21:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)