Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pseudoscience

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Comment This page is not intended as a place to discuss specific articles that may contain pseudoscience. Alerts about controversies should be posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, or other wikiprojects, as appropriate.

The purpose of this page is to discuss changes to this WikiProject and tools useful for this WikiProject. Please create new subsections for new discussion threads, and remember to sign with "~~~~".

Comments will be archived periodically.

-Christopher Thomas 8 July 2005 00:05 (UTC)

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    1. Prior to November 2005
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    [edit] Brad Patrick said what?

    User:Brad Patrick, apparently acting in his capacity as General Counsel for the WikiMedia Foundation, left a very odd message, which I quote in full:

    Representatives on behalf of the company have sent a cease and desist letter to the Wikimedia Foundation office after unsuccessful attempts by its lawyer Kent Forbes to change the content of the article. Please do not comment on legal threats either in the article or talk space. Thanks.

    — Brad Patrick 16:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC) in Talk:Water fuel cell

    Several users have requested clarification:

    1. What company precisely?
    2. Did he really mean the talk page?
    3. Just where are we supposed to discuss specific legal threats, if not on talk pages? Should we infer that leaving a message in the user talk page of user U who has just made legal threat T, warning U not to make legal threats, is now "illegal"? What about discussion of specific legal threats at places like WP:AN/I? Or does he mean just this one threat (does he mean the letter which we wouldn't even have known about had he not left his message?), and not other threats?
    4. And is Kentforbes (talk • contribs) the Kent Forbes who sent the letter, or is that a vandalism account by some troll looking to cause trouble?

    It's all very strange.---CH 07:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

    Brad is just saying that we shouldn't discuss this particular legal threat as it is a meta-issue to the article and will only complicate matters for Wikimedia foundation since Brad is now involved (it has escalated beyond what administrators, the arbitration committee, etc. will deal with). Also, Brad is instructing the editors not to cite the legal threats made by Kent Forbes in the article itself. Just ignore the legal threats and go about doing the work of editing neutrally and verifiably. Brad is simply saying he's handling the situation and will work to resolve the issue. You can wash your hands of worrying about the legal issues surrounding Kent Forbes' posts.
    Of course, this only applies to this particular issue, and not other issues in other articles or with other users. If other legal issues come up surrounding this user or article, just refer them directly to Brad Patrick at his user page (as though he was the uber-administrator). Legal issues not involving them can be handled as you normally would.
    --ScienceApologist 08:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

    OK, thanks, SA, can I copy this to Talk:Water fuel cell? Do you know anything about the other questions I raised? ---CH 08:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

    I would prefer that you don't copy this to Talk:Water fuel cell since it may only aggravate the situation. If other users are curious, refer them directly to this page on their user talks or via e-mail. I don't know what company it is, but presumably it is the company that Kent Forbes works for. As per usual, any other Legal threats not pertaining to this issue that are made on Wikipedia should immediately be reported to admins and blocks should be immediate. AN/I, talkpage discussion, user talk discussions all can and should continue as normal. Guidelines and policies about warning users for making legal threats are all still applicable. However, you should not warn Kent Forbes or discuss any legal threats he made/makes or alluded/alludes to on Wikipedia with respect to this issue and instead refer these things directly to Brad as they arise just so that you aren't unwittingly pulled into a legal battle you probably don't need. From what I can understand from Brad's letter, User:Kentforbes is very likely the same Kent Forbes who sent the letter, however, that's not really our concern anymore. Brad will deal with what to do with this user. --ScienceApologist 08:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] RfArb

    User:Iantresman has started a request for arbitration you may wish to comment on WP:RfArb#Pseudoscience__vs_Pseudoskepticism. --ScienceApologist 12:30, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Another set of pages to watch?

    Yeah, I know. In theory PNA should be used for this, but actually pages listed there don't get much expert's attention.

    I've recently stumbled over the contributions of Viriathus (talk • contribs), especially Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev and Harold Aspden. Comments? ---—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pjacobi (talk • contribs) . 07:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

    (Rolls virtual eyes): "Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder’s groundbreaking 1970 book, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain"? Good grief! Where oh where do they all come from? ---CH 01:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    Good grief. aspden.org is the domain of his website, which is registered in Southampton (but with webhost apparently headquartered in London); see this page search for ample evidence of his anti-relativity campaign. Now see this linksearch for ample evidence of the problem for WP quality control.
    A quick dig suggests that Viriathus (talk • contribs) may be no other than Aspden himself, suggesting that these edits may represent yet another incident of wikishilling, another WP:VAIN vio, etc. Note that Viriathus says this figure "led the Lusitanian guerrilla fighters to several victories over the Romans" which certainly seems consistent with the mood of Aspden's "struggle for acceptance" of his views, which he describes at his website. Of course, we know the fate after the ship named after the province of Lusitania, so some might say this seems to be a rather defeatist choice of "heroic" handle! Perhaps he'll give up easily if challenged?
    Note that aspden.org is the domain of Harold Aspden's website, which is registered in Southampton (but with webhost apparently headquartered in London); see this page search for ample evidence of his anti-relativity campaign. Now see this linksearch for ample evidence of the problem for WP quality control.
    Finally, note that the btcentralplus.com anon may also be Aspden:
    He seems to be a fairly isolated anti-relativity crank.---CH 02:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    P.S. I happen to agree that the PNA notice at the top of this page should be removed for the reasons stated by Peter.---CH 02:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    Hi Chris, please be aware that it is technically impossible to violate a guideline, and there is no obligation to follow guidelines (that's why they are called guidelines). Moreover, I like to put your attention to the fact that your above comments appear to be a strong violation of WP:CIVIL. This is not the first time. Please abstain. Harald88 22:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
    Hello dear fellow editors. Nice deductions about my nick:), thanks anyway for your efforts; but do you really think that Dr. Aspden being an old man with a fine education, strong principles - and who commited his life to pursue truth in science (not dogmas); whose work is known, and avoided, to the highest contemporary and some of the 20th century deceased physicists - would be here editing about his work at Wikipedia (a lovely free encyclopedia, but still filled with materialist-reducionist science editors, like the fanatic bishops of religion in the middle ages who refused to look through Galileu's telescope...)?! lol, I see you haven't studied his work... I come from a different field and you are welcome to study my site too, here. Best regards.
    "Truly, the achievements of modern science are marvelous. The best way to learn the secrets of nature, however, is not by inventing instruments, but by improving the investigator himself.", 1909 --Viriathus 19:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Monitoring continued problematic activity by permabanned users

    As most of you probably already know, I have been maintaining (as quietly as possible, i.e. not very quietly at all, as it turned out!) several pages monitoring sockpuppets and anons used by several permanbanned problem users well known :-( to this project:

    Keeping such notes is permissible according to Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Iloveminun#Keeping_notes.

    I might add a fifth page to this list:

    after hearing comments here. This particular individual has announced that he intends to violate an ArbCom ban on his disruptive edits of Depleted uranium and related articles, by creating a sock and continuing the very activities which resulted in the ban on DU edits from his first user account! He has in fact been done just that, with (I feel) no effective response from the Wikipedia community. IMO, this phenomenon raises serious questions about whether ArbCom findings have any real meaning.

    Note well: I have also created similar pages studying edits by some other users. The other pages seem to be substantially more controversial than keeping notes on permabanned users suspected of posing a continuing problem, and I am currently engaged in negotation with User:David.Mestel regarding the eventual disposition of one of these other pages. Therefore, I stress that in this proposal, I am discussing the possible eventual disposition only of my four (five?) user subpages specifically listed above, which suggest how to monitor recent activity by four specific permabanned users, via socks and/or anons, in violation of their ban, plus one additional user subpage studying edits by a specific user who is openly defying an ArbCom finding.

    These pages seem to have acquired a dual purpose:

    1. illustrations for User:Hillman/Digging and my other user page essays on cruft control (the purpose I originally envisaged),
    2. actively maintained pages for real-time monitoring of these users, who in some cases IMO clearly pose a continuing problem.

    With regard to the fairly uncontroversial set of pages dealing with permabanned users, and perhaps also the Salsman page, I'd like to separate these two functions.

    First version of my proposal: I might propose in Wikipedia talk:Long term abuse or some other such "administrative" page (suggestions?) that the four (five?) pages listed above be moved to some centralized "administrative" location, protected, and thereafter be updated only by admins engaged in active anti-vandalism, ArbCom enforcement, and so on. In fact, I think someone should write a template using the format of these pages as a model, to ensure uniformity of appearance in keeping such "enforcement notes" for admins, and to ease creation of similar pages for other problem users who have been banned or appear to be violating ArbCom findings. These pages would then be carefully interlinked with other relevant administrative pages, e.g. the ArbCom page in the case of the Salsman page.

    A second version of this proposal: copy these pages to subpages of this WikiProject, whose members would then be responsible for maintaining them. Notice that KraMuc (talk • contribs • block log) has frequently vandalized User:Hillman/Dig/KraMuc, so without page protection this could be a real headache. The idea here would be that by asking individual WikiProjects to monitor problem users editing articles under their purview, they might be more likely to recieve the regular attention they would require.

    A third version: keep protected copies here as examples of problems caused in the past, which could be referred to in future proceedings against new sockpuppets of these users, and similarly for other permabanned users who edit pages relevant to this WikiProject.

    A fourth version: keep protected copies of pages modeled after User:Hillman/Dig/Salsman at the associated ArbCom pages, to help the clerks monitor possible violations and to enforce the findings, and keep protected copies of pages modeled after the first four at an administrative sockpupettry site.

    On balance I think I myself prefer the first variant of my proposal, to avoid duplication of effort.

    Should this come to pass, I propose to request protection of the four pages listed above (as well as my "signed" user page essays), so that my statements of my own views on WP quality control problems will be vandal resistant with little interferenece from myself.

    I myself am not very optimistic that the kinds of problems described in the four (five?) pages listed above will ever be adequately controlled at WP, mostly because of the incredibly ineffective and tortuous procedures for creating new policies at WP seem to ensure that WP will never be able to response effectively to new threats to the integrity of "information" presented in its "encyclopedic articles", and there seems to me to have been no recognizable progress whatever since the Boston meeting toward creating an Advisory Board with the mission of reforming the whole administrative policy and enforcement structure of Wikipedia. However, I could be wrong and I certainly would like to give the Wikipedia community maximal opportunity to fix its house. Be this as it may, someone has suggested to me that as per WP:DENY, giving problem users the dubious "honor" of an actively maintained monitoring page might just encourage even more trollery. This is a difficult issue; I don't know what might happen, but on balance I feel that experimenting with "official" pages modeled after the four (five?) pages listed above may be an idea whose time has come for consideration by the Wikipedia community.

    Comments? ---CH 01:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

    I read WP:DENY and was not impressed. My own feeling, based on long-term but admittedly unsystematic observation, is that anyone who might be "inspired" to become a pest by reading an account of an old troll would cause trouble sooner or later without the extra help. Moreover, a solid mass of documentation on past incidents might convince new cranks and trolls that WP is not the proper soapbox for their claims that relativity is a Zionist conspiracy. Perhaps I've been reading too much David Brin [1], but my inclination is to support the first option. Anville 14:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    I think WP:DENY might work for people who aim to get "long term abuse pages" about them: puerile schoolboy vandals. But, for cranks and trolls with ideological agendas they wish to promote, it is important to have a means of identifying and tracking their activities, so that they don't so much as get a foot in the door. So we need to put the pages somewhere, and keep them active and operational (i.e. we should be able to add new sockpuppets/activities etc.); and Hillman shouldn't have to take sole responsibility for their maintenance, either.
    However, navigating around Wikipedia's "meta-pages" is a bit of a nightmare. The people who have primarily been involved with the users Hillman has documented are mostly Wikiproject pseudoscience/physics members. So, if the pages are put in the namespace of "Long term abuse", there should definitely be a page with links from this project to those pages. I think that people are more likely to be concerned with trolls operating in their own spheres, but at the same time a centralised method for dealing with them is also important. So I would go for a compromise between the first and second: keep centralised across all Wikiprojects by putting the pages in "Long term abuse", but actively encourage project members to maintain the pages pertaining to their own projects, by making access and monitoringeasy.
    Since the specific pages in question here are documenting banned users, who mostly edit using throwaway sockpuppets or IP addresses, semiprotection of the pages could be a help, I think. Byrgenwulf 14:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

    Excellent idea! But I hear it is much harder to get a page semiprotected than protected! Or has that changed? I heard that only a few admins have the power to make a page semiprotected and that they were being very conservative. Does anyone know what the current situation is? ---CH 22:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

    Have Christopher Thomas (talk • contribs) and Lethe (talk • contribs) become inactive? If no-one else comments, I propose to be bold and to try copying the pages in question to subpages of Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics. Two possibilities:

    1. ask an admin to fully protect them so they are protected against vandalism as sockpuppets. They could then be updated only by admins or could be kept as static records establishing the nature and scope of past problems with these users.
    2. ask User:FreakofNuture User:Freakofnurture to semiprotect them so we can experiment with maintaining them for active quality control. How many here would bookmark them? If they are not checked at least daily for "revision" by sockpuppets of the subjects, it would be better not to have them at all expect as static fully protected records establishing the nature and scope of past problems. Comments? Any thoughts on what to call them?---CH 20:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

    Oops... User:FreakofNuture was an impostor for the admin User:Freakofnurture. I have approached the latter about the possibility of semiprotection. ---CH 21:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] "Spin-Mediated Consciousness Theory"...

    ...has just been nominated for deletion here. Input appreciated. Byrgenwulf 14:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

    Did you consider AfD-ing Huping Hu, the biography of the inventor? It has the same problems and, coincidentally, was created by the same anon IP, 24.185.23.19 (talk • contribs). According to Hu's article, he attended New York Law School, which that anon IP also edited last April. I suspect a violation of WP:VAIN. Anville 17:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    Update Not resting on my laurels, I nominated Huping Hu for deletion. Anville 17:43, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Rewriting Heim theory

    I'm busy rewriting Heim theory, I'm doing that offline. Within a few days I'm going to upload a version that the pro-Heim lobby probably won't like. So, I need your help to revert to my version. Also you may want to improve my version further.

    Also, we need to check out physics articles that mention Heim theory:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Heim_theory

    Count Iblis 17:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] where is User:Hillman?

    Where is User:Hillman (better known as CH to some)? linas 05:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    Oh oh! ... Apparently he got so frustrated that he quit, as he announced some time ago that he would. That is regretful, since he made many good contributions to Wikipedia thanks to his great mathematical expertise. Harald88 20:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    Unfortunately, that seems to be true. Earlier today I wanted to contact him about the pseudoscience arbitration, and he is gone. Bubba73 (talk), 21:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Pseudoscience arbitration

    This looks to be like a very important case, in my opinion. You may wish to watch parts of it or comment on talkpages even if you are not directly involved: [2]. --ScienceApologist 12:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Decision criteria

    I corrected some non-NPOV suggestions inside the "NPOV" criteria.

    In particular, pseudoscience is not to be confused with fringe science; this project shouldn't increase that confusion. Harald88 21:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    I think it's okay to make sure that fringe science isn't given WP:NPOV#Undue weight. A perfectly reasonable extension of this project. --ScienceApologist 21:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    Yes I also that's OK - but it's not okay to confuse the issues. BTW, you don't own this project either. Disputed (in this case obviously misleading) material goes on the talk page until it's sorted out. A fringe science paragraph may be added, why not! Harald88 21:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    Disputed criteria points in the context of pseudoscience:

    • For NPOV compliance, there are several guidelines that must be respected:
      • No gushing about how wonderful the pseudoscientific theory is. That will be obvious without the gushing if it's true.

    -> I already noticed in the past that that is an inherently one-sided presentation: it gives the impression of partisan editors, while this is about NPOV, thus ridiculing WP:NPOV. Without "pseudoscientific" the problem doesn't exist and the essence is the same.

    I disagree. This is a project about pseudoscience, not "theories" in general. Otherwise it would be WikiProject Theories. --ScienceApologist 21:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Clearly and prominently note points of disagreement between the pseudoscientific theory and mainstream science.
      • Cite sources, and clearly acknowledge mainstream reputability or disreputability of sources cited.

    -> By adding "mainstream", the above are criteria for singling out fringe science; they are erroneous for singling out pseudoscience, see the articles on pseudoscience and fringe science. I have not checked who added those words, but it appears to be an attempt to deviate the main purpose of this project.

    Cheers, Harald88 21:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

    While you choose your own demarcation one way, the rest of us may choose a different way. You don't get to decide whether the fringe is pseudoscience, that's a personal opinion. It is not necessarily wrong to consider people working in the frings to be pseudoscientists. --ScienceApologist 21:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    I notice that your opinion about this matter differs from "mainstream" opinion as expressed in Wikipedia...
    Moreover, your reversal of my move of the contested words to this Talk page despite your above acknowledgement that they confuse the subject is against Wikipedia guidelines. Harald88 21:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    They don't confuse any subjects, but even if they did there are no wikipedia guidelines for projects that this would be against. --ScienceApologist 12:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


    I actually don't understand what is meant by fringe science. I don't think that in physics there exists such a thing. Far out ideas such as this one are not treated in a different way by the physics community than more standard theories. Perhaps this is different in biology or medicine because these disciplines are more phenomenological in nature. Perhaps "nanobes" is an example of a fringe biological theory?
    Anyway, any article has to be written from a neutral point of view, which means that for scientific topics it has to reflect the scientific point of view. E.g., Clavelli's theory on supernovae is not the standard theory and is speculative, so that should then be mentioned in a wiki article. But the accepted theories have problems with the central engine of supernovae, so that fact should be mentioned in an article about supernovae as well. So, I don't really see that we need to do anything else than just stick to the usual rules. Count Iblis 22:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    Yes I agree; but SA is afraid that some fringe science enthousiasts try to promote their fringe ideas on Wikipedia, thus misrepresenting it as "mainsteam". Preventing that could be a useful side activity of this project. As long as we don't mix such issues up, as SA and FM now try to do!
    One last remark before I leave for the weekend: the last thing I found about this criteria section was: "If you feel the phrasing of that section should be changed, change it :). It's flagged as a work in progress, after all. --Christopher Thomas 17:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC)" Harald88 22:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
    Well, I found some phrasing that should be changed in what you contributed, so I changed it. Also, I reject your idea that we're somehow "confusing" issues. I think you may be confusing issues, but you don't have to impose your confusion on the rest of us. --ScienceApologist 12:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] Project directory

    Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

    [edit] New category

    There is now a new category for tagging non-mainstream proposals that the scientific community has ignored in the journals. Check out Category:Fringe subjects without critical scientific evaluation and tag it to appropriate articles. --ScienceApologist 12:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

    Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/k/Wikipedia_talk%7EWikiProject_Pseudoscience_9227.html"