At 01:39 PM 9/9/2012, Alan Fletcher wrote:
> From: "Kelley Trezise" <[email protected]>
> Please consider going to the article, read it and vote on its
> truswothiness, objectivity, etc. at the bottom of the page.
The "talk" page isn't the place to vote. If it comes up for a formal
request for deletion then a new page will be opened up for
discussion (though not for formal voting -- I'm not sure who decides
what the consensus is).
Last time I argued against deletion -- this time I will support it.
Deletion is very unlikely, there is too much "Reliable Source." Don't
confuse Wikipedia RS with an idea that the *information* is
"reliable." It can be dead wrong, even. Wikipedia is a collection of
information from "reliable sources," which has a very technical
meaning. Generally, it means that the publisher is independent and
has some kind of reputation to maintain. If RS information is
questionable, it's still, by definition of RS, notable, so it can be
used in an article with attribution. "According to ..., Romney is a
"poo-poo head."
The E-Cat has been covered in newspapers (RS) and on-line news
publications (like Mats Lewan's reports) (RS).
The Energy Catalyzer article has often contained material that
violates RS guidelines. I'm banned on the topic of cold fusion
entirely, and am site-banned to boot, partly because I completely
gave up on "due process" on Wikipedia, having exhausted it (Wikipedia
can be highly abusive, and violates its own guidelines and policies.
The guidelines and policies are actually excellent, but the
mechanisms for enforcing them are highly defective, and what one is
seeing with the E-Cat article is, often, pseudoskeptics, often the
same people who have sat on the main Cold fusion article for years.
Anyway, I did create a block-evading sock, Energy Neutral, and edited
the E-Cat article, and most of it stuck for a while. I was largely
removing weakly sourced stuff, and synthesis (where editors read
sources and draw conclusions from them, presenting conclusions that
are not found in the sources).
Last time I looked, there was material from a non-notable blog.
Self-published material is ordinarily not allowed as RS; this was
outrageous. There are exceptions, and the blog doesn't fit it. That
the author of a blog is a "professor" somewhere isn't enough. If
someone is notable as an expert in a field (they would probably then
have their own Wikipedia article), and they self-publish something,
it can sometimes be used to show their opinion or view.
The deletion of the page is, as I mentioned, highly unlikely. Lots of
irrelevant claims will be raised, if the past is a guide. For
example, "Rossi is a fraud" is totally irrelevant to the notability
of the topic. There are articles on famous frauds, as there should be.
What is much more possible is that a decision will be made to merge
the article with the article on Rossi himself. I don't support that,
but I would support splitting up the matter into coverage of NiH
claims, if there is enough RS on "Other Than Rossi," and then Rossi's
specific history with the E-Cat in the Rossi article, or some other
such division.
Lumping NiH claims in with "cold fusion" is problematic, but
Wikipedia painted itself into this corner by rejecting articles on
"Condensed matter nuclear science," or "Low energy nuclear
reactions." Way too little is known about NiH work to come to any
strong conclusions about it, but, remember, Wikipedia is an organized
collection of information about what is in RS.
A merge would not result in deletion of the page, what would be done
is to create a redirect to the new page, the "merge target." The
original page history will remain. If you ever want to see a
redirected page history, go to the page, your browser will
automatically load the target. But below the name is a message that
this was redirected from X. If you click on X, you will be taken to
the redirect page, and you can click on the history tab there.
The writer above did not know how the deletion decision is made.
Technically, any Wikipedia editor may close a discussion, but
normally, only administrators make them, and only an administrator
can implement a Delete decision. (I don't recommend non-admins
attempt to make any controversial close, it's difficult, sometimes,
even for users with high levels of experience.) Admins review the
Articles for Deletion discussions and, typically after 10 days, will
review the discussion and close it with a decision, which can be
Keep, Delete, or No Consensus -- No Consensus keeps the article for
the time being. Merge is sometimes a close, but it's a variety of
Keep in that the admin will not necessarily implement the merge,
because exactly how a merge is done is an editorial decision, and
admins are not supposed to make editorial decisions themselves, qua admins.
Theoretically, admins can disregard the vote count. Supposedly,
decisions are made based on the arguments presented; in reality,
numbers do count, but an influx of people who are obviously clueless,
voting because someone posted a notice on the Vortex list, or the
like, can irritate administrators, because it can give them a lot of
noise to read.
My suggestion. If you are not a Wikipedia editor, *do not register in
order to vote.* That will be totally transparent to the Wikipedia
community, and we are, here, dealing with a cadre of highly
experienced editors. If you are interested in helping with Wikipedia,
do register, but be aware that it can be an abusive community, the
policies and guidelines are fantastic, and commonly not followed.
They are not followed because the users who understood them gave up
pushing the boulder up the hill and watching it roll back again.
Users who persisted in insisting on policy, against the desires of
any kind of cabal or informal collection of editors pushing a
particular point of view, often became the target of such cabals, and
cabals that include administrators largely have ruled Wikipedia, and
the Arbitration Committee is largely powerless, because it is largely
clueless, people are in over their depth.
That is, the Arbs know how to be administrators, they all come from
that, but they don't know how to *manage* administrators. They are
chosen by popularity, not for management skills, and Wikipedia
overwhelms even the best of them. They don't have time to investigate
for themselves, for the most part. They mostly just vote knee-jerk,
some don't read all the evidence, or misread it and are attached to
having been right. Add to that real-life threats, the situation is pretty bad.
Nevertheless, if you register an account, take the time to become
familiar with policies and guidelines, you can affect Wikipedia
articles. It is often the lack of a *single knowledgeable editor*
that allows the pseudoskeptical cabal to prevail. I'm happy to
consult with anyone who wants to take this on. There are hundreds of
mistakes that someone new will likely make, and the cabal will
attempt to throw the book at a newcomer who appears to disagree with
them. Less is More. Actually, that is one of the names of a cold
fusion "supporter," long banned. Decent editor, overall. I can tell
anyone who wants to know how to establish oneself as a Wikipedia
editor, how to avoid becoming a specific target of the cabal, how to
move an article toward neutrality and fair coverage, how to appeal to
the larger community, how to negotiate consensus, etc. It can be
done, but one person trying to do it alone is highly vulnerable to
cabals which, following common watchlisted articles, can coordinate
without any "sekrit conspiracy."
The cabals are limited in power, and when ordinary editors stand up
to them, they lose battles, at least, and sometimes a whole war. The
larger community *does* support the guidelines and policies, the
cabals attempt to subvert them and even sometimes openly oppose them.
For example, pseudoskeptics on Wikipedia may claim that the site
should adhere to "SPOV," not "NPOV." Scientific Point of View instead
of Neutral Point of View. That's a code for "what we think is true
about Science." One of the most famous of these was ScienceApologist.
PhD student in Astrophysics, it was actually a pleasure to work with
him. But absolutely Believed that cold fusion was totally bogus. And
what's in the journals? Well, somehow those cold fusion fanatics have
managed to infect the management of Naturwissenschaften, that's a
biology journal, of course, you can tell immediately by the articles
published, and did you know that the author of "Review of cold fusion
(2007)" was a "believer," and that he sits on the Editorial Board of
NW? Besides, that review hasn't been cited, so it must be
meaningless. That there are *no* contrary reviews? Obviously you must
have been talking with those cold fusion fanatics, since only one of
Them would claim this.
Cargo Cult Science. Total neglect of the Scientific Method. Belief,
not merely in established theory, but weak assumptions made based on
lack of contrary experience, which is, of course, rejected because of
those weak assumptions.
Look, want to accomplish something on Wikipedia? Know that for
science articles, the golden RS is a peer-reviewed review of the
field, especially if not contradicted. Later reviews tend to trump
earlier ones for obvious reasons. The NW article *should* be the
primary authority for the cold fusion article. Yet it is not even
mentioned directly. What it concludes, in the abstract, isn't mentioned.
The primary evidence for cold fusion actually being fusion, the
heat/helium ratio, a widely-confirmed result, is not even mentioned
in the article.
All these things were inserted long ago and revert-warred out,
contrary to policy. Attempts to negotiate consensus on the Talk page
were attacked as "POV-pushing."
Minor statements in less reliable sources are heavily used, while
what is in peer-reviewed journals, as to reviews, is excluded. On
Wikiversity, there is a page listing about 16 reviews of cold fusion
in mainstream journals since 2005. All that is rejected and neglected
in favor of weak speculation and early discussion. For example,
helium leakage is obviously a concern with any study of heat/helium.
However, correlation with heat will not arise from leakage from
ambient helium, and claims that, say, the SRI heat/helium results
could be a result of leakage, quite simply, neglect the evidence.
(The evidence presented in the 2004 DoE review was clearly
misunderstood and misrepresented in the final report. If the summary
given there were correct, the evidence would show an
anti-correlation, not a correlation. Further, the levels of helium
found rose above ambient, and no helium was found in control cells.)
Cold fusion was called the Scientific Fiasco of the Century by
Huizenga in 1993. He was right. Most of the story, even though
covered in academic RS, has been excluded from Wikipedia. If you want
to know why, take a look at rationalwiki.org, the article on Cold
fusion, and at the history there. Rationalwiki began as a group of
refugees from Conservapedia, and it is promoting a "rational" or
"scientific" point of view. What does that mean in practice? If we
think you are a "crank," we will revert your changes, and we will not
bother to check the evidence. We will allow text written by One of Us
that actually contradicts the source cited, but not any clarification
of this, by a "crank."
Anyone who "promotes" -- i.e., refers to evidence for -- cold fusion
is obviously a crank, since cold fusion was debunked twenty years
ago, we all know that. Q.E.D.
It is classical pseudoskepticism, a la Truzzi, live and very, very
visible. At least one of the editors active on Rationalwiki was a
major troll on Wikipedia, Hipocrite; on Rationalwiki s/he reveals far
more about his or her thought processes than would be politic on
Wikipedia. David Gerard, also active on Rationalwiki, was not much
involved, if at all, in cold fusion issues on Wikipedia, but cold
fusion was a backwater for this cabal, their primary interest was
homeopathy and other "pseudosciences."
