I'm afraid Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] is acting the ass again in exactly the same way as
he did before. He new stunt was to try to edit the [[Talk:List of
heterosexuals/delete (final archive)]] page.
For people who may not know, to preserve long debates that used to be moved
to talk pages from the VfD but which then ended up deleted if the article
and talk page were both deleted, and to avoid the problem of inconclusive
delete debates on talk pages, where the debate got sidetracked as debates on
deletion and on the article blurred together, a recent innovation is now
being used by increasing numbers. A special /delete page is created and
attached to the talk page. A set of rules are followed:
1. /All/ the delete debate is focused there, not on the talk page.
2. A strict timetable is followed. The article is created on 'x'. A decision
is taken on 'x + 7' meaning that debates no longer meander on for ever but
are decided at the end of a week.
3. The /delete page is kept, even if the article and talk page isn't, and
preserved on a page linked to the VfD page, meaning that we will now have a
back archive of these debates for people researching the history of wiki to
review.
4. Once the page being debated is deleted, the debate ends, the page ceases
to be 'live' and becomes a record of the debate that decided the issue.
Everyone has been following this. All debates have ended when a decision was
taken. But Adam, in one of his tantrum-throwing spoiled child moods, decided
as so often in the past that he wants to be above the rules. The vote on
that page ran from 31 August to 8 September. 70%+ voted to delete the
article. It was deleted, then the /delete page closed, archived and linked
to the [[Archived delete debates]] on the VfD page. Adam however doctored
the archive page to add in his vote and comments, weeks after the page was
closed. I reverted back the archive version that has been sitting there
untouched for weeks. Adam again doctored the page. Ed Poor protected it but
inadvertently preserved the wrong version. I corrected to the archive
version that everyone had originally signed off on and left the protection.
Adam is now going ballistic, throwing accusations of censorship and
bizarrely demanding the right to vote in a vote that finished on 8th
September as to whether to delete a page that was deleted on the 8th of
September. It is so bizarre it is like an episode of Fawlty Towers. He is
alone complaining on the [[Problem Users]] page, where no-one has supported
him and he has been attacked for his behaviour by RickK, Angela, and Cyan.
(I also commented.)
However, all past experience of Adam is that he starts off like that and
keeps at it, childishly setting off edit wars the way some children set off
fire alarms. We all expected that /this/ time he would stop acting the ass
and grow up. It doesn't say much for the future when within days of
returning he is acting /exactly/ as he did as Lir, as Vera, as Susan Mason,
as Dietary Fiber, as Pizza Puzzle, etc.
This behaviour has got to be nipped in the bud immediately or we are going
to have weeks if not months of it, as he plays his little games. I was one
of the first to say Adam should be allowed back, but that was only if he
behaved himself.
IMHO Jimbo, he needs to be told clearly, unambiguously and explicitly - STOP
THIS NOW. Any more antics like that, any more returning to the spoiled child
antics and you will be banned immediately, permanently and for life. No more
warnings. You are back because people, even after all they put up with
before, agreed to give you /one/ more chance. But even the slightest whiff
of your old foot-stomping 'I want my way' screwing around with articles and
you are gone for good.
That /has/ to explicitly spelt out to him now, not one week or one month
later when he has done it 5, 10 or 20 times elsewhere. Wiki doesn't need to
have to put up with Adam acting the ass again if that is his game plan. And
his behaviour on this one article tonight suggests that he has every
intention of acting as before and thinking he can get away with it. He needs
to know, bluntly and directly, that he cannot, ever again.
And for the record, I don't want Adam banned. But he has to stop acting like
a spoiled 9 year old throwing tantrums and seeing how many fights he can
start. Adam has shown for long enough that 'softly softly' doesn't work with
him. The rules have to spelt out to him unambiguously and forceably.
JT
_________________________________________________________________
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Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] will be back and editing. I ask anyone who has had any
trouble with him in the past to be especially welcoming and let's all
try to make this thing work out well for everyone.
In my earlier message on this topic, I said that Adam could edit under
the name 'Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]'. He didn't object to that, but on my own, I
realized that I don't really care what name he uses as long as it's
consistent. A consistent name will let him earn the reputation that
he deserves, based on his edits.
Really, folks, I'm asking everyone for a kindness of heart to let all
bygones be bygones. Welcome home the prodigal son.
This, of course, goes double for me, the guy who banned him in the
first place.
--Jimbo
First, let me thank Mr. Wales for his reasonable reply.
But I find it sad that some people are willing to dismiss a simple
fact without even trying to check the cited source.
Here are the relevant quotes from Wheeler's book, _Spacetime Physics,
page 148 (1963 edition):
"Commentary: The equivalence of energy and mass is such an important
consequence that Einstein very early, after his relativistic derivation
of this result, sought and found an alternative line of reasoning that
leads to the same conclusion."
"[A. Einstein, Annalen der Physik, 20, 627 (1906)]"
"However, to secure a derivation free of all direct reference to
relative principles, he [Einstein] based the conclusion p = E on
the following elementary argument." [etc., etc.]
The fact that E=mc^2 does not support SR is not merely "my fact."
Also, posting to the Newsgroups per se does not make one a crank.
I challenge anyone here to find where I lost any argument to anyone
in the Newsgroups.
I hate to say this, but Mr. Tim Starling is either a liar or an
easily-fooled person because I have never - by any stretch of anyone's
imagination - except Starling's - suggested "a direct test of some
aspect of relativity which is hugely expensive or perhaps even
technically impossible." And I have never ignored "the huge body of
slightly less direct tests of the same theory," and I have not then
"obliquely suggested some sort of conspiracy theory to explain why
no-one is spending millions of dollars on his simple test." And it
is complete balderdash to say of me that "Everywhere he goes, he
feels persecuted by co-conspiring mainstream physicists, who are
out to suppress the 'truth' he has discovered."
Mr. Starling, I demand either an apology or some proof of the above
serious accusations.
Now that I have proved the validity of the E=mc^2 fact, I should be
taken seriously when I note the one-way light speed facts that not only
has no one ever made such a measurement using two clocks, but such a
measurement (sans man's interference by definition or convention) is
physically impossible.
The fact that no one has ever used two clocks to measure the one-way
speed of light is a part of scientific history.
The fact that this has long been technically feasible is also a part
of scientific history.
The only fact that is personally mine is the obvious conclusion that
such an experiment cannot be performed.
If any of you still insist that it is possible, then the burden of
proof is on you to show how it can be done without first forcing your
pre-chosen (and baseless) result (by using some definition of clock
synchronization).
In other words, can anyone out there in WIKI-land tell us the step-by-
step process for using two clocks to measure light's one-way speed sans
any interference from man?
If not, then my final fact has been validated by you all.
(And that fact tells us that there can be no light postulate because
where there is no experiment, there can be no prediction (or postulate)).
(Bear in mind that Einstein's light postulate pertained only to the
one-way speed of light. He did not have to postulate re the round-trip
case because it had already been essentially closed by the round-trip
Michelson-Morley experiment.)
Factually yours,
------RR------
(Sorry for using imminent for eminent, but I wrote it a little
too quickly!) (Nobody's perfect, and certainly not me!)
>From: Tim Starling <ts4294967296(a)hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
>To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce(a)hotmail.com: --A Request RE a
>WIKIArticle--]
>Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 11:07:09 +1000
>
>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>>I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
>>Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
>>are not mainstream? Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
>>made here?
>
>A quick google search shows that this guy is a sci.physics.relativity
>crackpot. See:
>
>http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=XySVa.41611%24F92.4248%40afrodite.t…
>
>>
>>----- Forwarded message from Roy Royce <roy_q_royce(a)hotmail.com> -----
>>
>>From: "Roy Royce" <roy_q_royce(a)hotmail.com>
>>Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:58:58 -0600
>>To: jwales(a)joey.bomis.com
>>Subject: --A Request RE a WIKI Article--
>>
>>Dear Mr. Wales,
>>
>>Your primary policy "You can edit this page right now" hopefully applies
>>to the
>>addition of facts to an article, especially important facts. However, it
>>seems to
>>be impossible to (permanently) add just three simple - but critical -
>>facts to the
>>Wiki special relativity article.
>
>That's right, it's impossible to add facts permanently if they are
>considered by community consensus to be inaccurate. It's the nature of the
>process. Sounds like he's experiencing some Usenet withdrawal symptoms.
>
>
>>I cordially invite you to check out the validity of the following
>>statements for
>>yourself (these are the three facts of which I spoke above):
>>
>>[1] No one has yet used two clocks to measure the speed of light (one
>>way).
>>
>>[2] Since we have long had the necessary technology, the reason for the
>>lack
>>of a one-way light speed measurement must be the physical impossibility of
>>making such a measurement. (In other words, there cannot be a one-way
>>version of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and scientific minds should
>>wonder
>>why not - because the implications are grave for special relativity!)
>
>If anyone cares, this is what he's talking about:
>
>http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=a0ac0bee.0211081401.61c7eee9%40posting…
>
>Suffice to say that he doesn't seem to have any supporters on s.p.r, where
>he's been plugging his theories for years. The tactic he's using is a
>typical red herring: he suggests a direct test of some aspect of relativity
>which is hugely expensive or perhaps even technically impossible. He
>ignores the huge body of slightly less direct tests of the same theory, and
>then obliquely suggests some sort of conspiracy theory to explain why
>no-one is spending millions of dollars on his simple test. Everywhere he
>goes, he feels persecuted by co-conspiring mainstream physicists, who are
>out to suppress the "truth" he has discovered. It's a common story.
>
>>My request is that someone please add these facts to the Wiki special
>>relativity article because pertinent facts are important to any
>>encyclopedia.
>
>Anyone can add them, and anyone can take them away. Luckily for us,
>Wikipedian co-conspirators greatly outnumber the enlightened individuals
>who want to expose the shocking truth.
>
>-- Tim Starling.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
_________________________________________________________________
Get McAfee virus scanning and cleaning of incoming attachments. Get Hotmail
Extra Storage! http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es
> The vandalism of the Main Page was the last straw. I have banned
> BuddhaInside. This should not require Jimbo's approval since it was a case
> of simple and obvious vandalism.
>
> I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages he idiotically created
> now.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik
If you had looked a little closer you would have seen that it wasn't
done on purpouse.
BL
[Poor's message failed to appear in my Hotmail inbox, so I am
replying to him via Saintonge's message, which did appear]
[Mr. Poor wrote:]
>Mr. Royce,
>Please do not call other list members names or otherwise make nasty
>personal remarks.
> "Mr. Tim Starling is either a liar or an easily-fooled person."
Which is worse, calling someone a liar or libel?
As you should know, libel is a false publication, as in writing, print,
signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.
If someone tells lies about you, what are you going to call him?
(And anyone who reads my Usenet messages can see that I am
by no means a vicious person.)
-----RR-----
>From: Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
>Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
>To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce(a)hotmail.com: --A
>RequestRE aWIKIArticle--]
>Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 10:49:02 -0700
>
>Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>>Mr. Royce,
>>
>>Please do not call other list members names or otherwise make nasty
>>personal remarks.
>>
>> "Mr. Tim Starling is either a liar or an easily-fooled person."
>>
>Yes, he has fallen into the same sewer as those who called him a crackpot.
>;-)
>
>Ec
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
_________________________________________________________________
Frustrated with dial-up? Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month
(depending on the local service providers in your area).
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I used to hang out on sci.physics, but was driven away by the crackpots.
IIRC al.sci.physics.new-theories was created especially to keep them off
sci.physics.relativity. It didn't work, they just crossposted. I think we
need a separate policy just for physics crackpots, because they are in a
class of their own.
I'm in favour of wiping the talk page of special relativity. ( it's strange
that they always go for special relativity not general relativity)
Theresa
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Starling [mailto:ts4294967296@hotmail.com]
Sent: 26 September 2003 02:07
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [roy_q_royce(a)hotmail.com: --A Request RE a WIKI
Article--]
Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I know too little about physics to have anything helpful to say here.
> Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing that Mr. Royce's views
> are not mainstream? Is there any helpful accomodation that could be
> made here?
A quick google search shows that this guy is a sci.physics.relativity
crackpot. See:
http://groups.google.com.au/groups?selm=XySVa.41611%24F92.4248%40afrodite.te
lenet-ops.be&rnum=2
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Roy Royce <roy_q_royce(a)hotmail.com> -----
>
> From: "Roy Royce" <roy_q_royce(a)hotmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:58:58 -0600
> To: jwales(a)joey.bomis.com
> Subject: --A Request RE a WIKI Article--
>
> Dear Mr. Wales,
>
> Your primary policy "You can edit this page right now" hopefully applies
to
> the
> addition of facts to an article, especially important facts. However, it
> seems to
> be impossible to (permanently) add just three simple - but critical -
facts
> to the
> Wiki special relativity article.
That's right, it's impossible to add facts permanently if they are
considered by community consensus to be inaccurate. It's the nature of
the process. Sounds like he's experiencing some Usenet withdrawal symptoms.
> I cordially invite you to check out the validity of the following
statements
> for
> yourself (these are the three facts of which I spoke above):
>
> [1] No one has yet used two clocks to measure the speed of light (one
way).
>
> [2] Since we have long had the necessary technology, the reason for the
lack
> of a one-way light speed measurement must be the physical impossibility of
> making such a measurement. (In other words, there cannot be a one-way
> version of the Michelson-Morley experiment, and scientific minds should
> wonder
> why not - because the implications are grave for special relativity!)
If anyone cares, this is what he's talking about:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=a0ac0bee.0211081401.61c7eee9%40posting.
google.com&rnum=1
Suffice to say that he doesn't seem to have any supporters on s.p.r,
where he's been plugging his theories for years. The tactic he's using
is a typical red herring: he suggests a direct test of some aspect of
relativity which is hugely expensive or perhaps even technically
impossible. He ignores the huge body of slightly less direct tests of
the same theory, and then obliquely suggests some sort of conspiracy
theory to explain why no-one is spending millions of dollars on his
simple test. Everywhere he goes, he feels persecuted by co-conspiring
mainstream physicists, who are out to suppress the "truth" he has
discovered. It's a common story.
> My request is that someone please add these facts to the Wiki special
> relativity article because pertinent facts are important to any
> encyclopedia.
Anyone can add them, and anyone can take them away. Luckily for us,
Wikipedian co-conspirators greatly outnumber the enlightened individuals
who want to expose the shocking truth.
-- Tim Starling.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Jimbo writes, in regards to various speculative theories
about physics:
> I think this presents challenges for our NPOV policy,
> but not _special_ challenges. As with any controversial
> subject, and many uncontroversial ones, there are
> mainstream views, minority views, and singular views.
> NPOV does not require us to present all these views
> as if they are equal! ...If a view is the majority view
> of a broad consensus of scientists, then we say so.
> If a view is a minority view of some scientists,
> scientists who are respected by the mainstream that
> differs with them on this particular matter, then we
> say so. And if a view is held only by a few people
> without any traditional training or credentials, and if
> that view is dismissed by virtually all mainstream
> scientists, then we can say that, too.
> The reason we can do all of that is that, usually, those
> statements are not controversial to any of the parties
> in the debate.
I agree fully. My experience on Usenet has shown me that
crank theories arise on every science subject; the topics
that get the most cranks are relativity, anti-gravity,
thermodynamics and "perpetual motion" and anything related
to pre-1200s archaeology. (Lots of odd theories are out
there about mainstream science and/or "the establishment"
somehow surpressing proof of advanced science in ancient
India, ancient Egypt, etc.)
Jimbo's clarification makes sense. The only thing I would
add is that we should follow the above along with the
current provision that Wikipedia is not a place for one's
won personal reasearch. If an idea is by only held one
person (plus or minus their family members!) their views
should not be in any Wikipedia articles. Otherwise, we'd
have literally hundreds of pages on relativity or gravity,
each idea unique, held only by an individual.
> Singular views can be moved to a separate page and
> identified (disclaimed) as such, or in some cases
> omitted altogether.
For such topics it best to omit singular views. There are
hundreds of people out there who believe they have "proven"
that perpetual motion machines exist; each one of them has
their own unique theory and mathematical model of why
mainstream thermodynamics is wrong, and each would probably
want their own Wikipedia article.
Unless a "crank" view starts to become accepted by some
tiny percentage of mainstream science, there isn't much of
a need or reason to discuss them in our articles.
However, there is a great need for a good article on this
phenomenon. We desperately need an article on the
scientific and psychological reasons why so many people
keep working on perpetual motion machines, why they believe
that you can travel faster than light in normal space (*),
why they believe that fully modern humans lived 5 million
years ago, etc.
Robert (RK)
(*) One very well might be able to travel faster than
light, given wormholes, or the Alcubierre warp drive, etc.
But none of these violate Einsteinian relativity. They are
special cases that are included in relativity; they are
accepted as legitimate areas of research by the mainstream
scientific community. The problem with cranks is that they
are ignorant of, or dismissive of, the very open-minded
nature of the scientific community. (Physics is very
open-minded; just consider the proliferation of well
written papers in highly regarded physics journals on FTL,
time travel, quantum computing, etc.) Cranks, by contrast,
are characterized by conspiracism and a refusal to allow
inconvenient facts to enter into their research.
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
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>>>The vandalism of the Main Page was the last straw. I have banned
>>>BuddhaInside. This should not require Jimbo's approval since it was a
> case
>>>of simple and obvious vandalism.
>>>I hope we can get rid of all these Deletexxxx pages he idiotically
>
> created
>
>>>now.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>Erik
>>
>>If you had looked a little closer you would have seen that it wasn't
>>done on purpouse.
>>
>>BL
>
>
> Do you mean the move of the main page was not done on purpose? How could it
> have been an accident? from what others have said this needed a hand-edited
> URL - it wasn't just a mistaken click of a link. Can you elaborate?
>
> Thanks
>
> sannse
Yes I can. What I claim is that BuddhaInside (BI) wasn't intentionally
vandalising the Main Page even though that is what happened. Since none
of the developers had realised that moving a main page was possible, it
is not justified to believe that BI realised that. Because IF BI's
intention was to vandalize, why didn't he continue after the first move
with other protected pages? However *if* we assume that BI believed that
moving the Main Page would create a *copy* of it on his talk page the
story becomes more reasonable. It is possible that he used a URL instead
of a link because he was busy moving his talk page to the Deletexxx
pages. Tim Starling was the developer that solved the problem so I guess
he knows.
A compilation of the relevant edits BI made are up for public display
at: http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BL/evenmorestuff
BL
Hello to all.
I subscribed to this list in order to give my word about what I see some
people perceive as a problem made by my actions. By the way, I tried to
subscribe yesterday, but it seems that that didn't work for some reason.
I noticed that there are two separate issues here: the NPOV of the articles
and the links on them. I think that they are separate enough that I could
discuss them separately.
About NPOV: the site is like it is, some of its contents might be
"propagandistic, wrong and/or biased", it might even contain, as someone
said, falsifications of history, but the particular articles that I copied
from the site are not such. Some of them contain simply raw data that has no
POV at all, and those that were not such I NPOVed and, after I was kindly
asked by Eloquence, I NPOVed them even more then I think is needed. And they
could be even further NPOVed by other contributors. I think that this subject
is closed.
Now, about the links.
First, some people misunderstood the issue: these links are not ==External
links== which, of course, (at least that is my opinion) could be freely
removed by anyone who doesn't think that they belong where they do. These are
links to the site which is the ==Source== of the article, from which the
articles are copied, which is the same case as with the articles that are
copied from, say, FOLDOC. As I understood it, such links are requirement for
copying the data from the site (I used standard permission text, you can see
it at [[User:Nikola Smolenski/FreeSrpska]]).
I understand that some people don't like to see links to such a site here, or
perhaps anywhere on the web, while at the same time don't mind if there are
no articles about the topics. But some other people don't mind the links and
like the articles (and I'm one of them, obviously). I can say that article
about [[Prince Lazar]] is already twice its size, and it did not exist at all
before I copied it from FS. As I said already, the articles would take days
instead of hours to make if they were not copied from the site. And some of
the pictures from them would be very hard or impossible to find elsewhere.
Personaly, I doubt that anyone will click on that links in order to find more
information about the subject (the article is based on a text from the site;
obviously, there is no more information about the subject on the site) or in
order to find information on similar subjects (they are warned that the site
is biased; and if they don't mind reading biased data then why shold we
mind?).
So, to conclude it, I don't think that extracting NPOV data from POV sites is
something wrong or that it will hurt credibility of Wikipedia. To the
contrary, I think that we could be proud for being able to remake even such
sources into brilliant prose.
Finally, I feel the need to stress that, to the best of my knowledge, I have
broke no Wikipedia policy. It is, again to the best of my knowledge, allowed
to copy to WP any material that violates no copyright law, is NPOV, and
encyclopedic in nature, which is what I did. Perhaps new policies have to be
made, but I did nothing wrong.
Mr. Royce,
Please do not call other list members names or otherwise make nasty
personal remarks.
"Mr. Tim Starling is either a liar or an easily-fooled person."
Ed Poor
List Administrator
Wikien-l