Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for suggestions by Arbitrators and other users and for comment by arbitrators, the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies. Anyone who edits should sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

Calvinball

1) My motion is that the Arbitrators consider that we are engaged in Calvinball. I.e., as Jimbo has said, we are making this up as we go along.

For example, how can Edward Schaefer claim that current versions of Wikipedia articles give the Actor model undeserved importance? Because of the advent of Web Services and many-core computer architectures, the Actor model is becoming increasingly important to experts in the field of concurrent computing. Unfortunately, Edward Schaefer's performance on the Wikipedia has disconfirmed that he has any expertise in concurrent computing although he may have made important contributions in physics.

For my part, I am certainly not the most perfect Wikipedia editor and unfortunately I have made many mistakes. However, I do learn from my mistakes and try not to repeat them. Unfortunately, our technology is still very primitive and so editing on the Wikipedia is more difficult now that it will be in the future when we have better technology.

Based on my limited .5 year experience in contributing to the Wikipedia, I believe that The only long range hope for the Wikipedia in technical areas like concurrent computing is to attract more expert contributors. Banning me is probably not going to contribute to attracting more experts ;-)

Since there are no active content negotiations on the table at the moment, I suggest that the Arbitrators send this whole thing off to an appropriate mediator.

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 04:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

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Motion by user:ems57fcva

1) My motion is that Carl Hewitt be found to be a disruptive editor who regularly abuses the openness of Wikipedia to

• Promote the actor model in inappropriate categories and articles and/or to give it an undeserved importance.
• Promote the Scientific Community Metaphor through inappropriate references in other articles. In general, the relationship of the scientific community metaphor to the subject in question is obscure and the mention undeserved. In addition, it is highly tied to Carl Hewitt's views of concurrent computing.
• Promote in various articles on quantum mechanics such as quantum indeterminacy a view of the imcompleteness of quantum mechincs that is not generally accepted and which does not belong in mainstream quantum mechaics pages.
• These issues are exacerbated by Carl Hewitt's habit of regularly moving contested content of other articles or categories, forcing editors to chace down the content. Often this is done in the face of an AfD or CfD request, thereby evading the intent of the AfD or CfD. In the process, Carl Hewitt has caused much grief for other editors who have found themselves having to chace content and dealing with unproductive exchanges in talk pages on the contested content.

A remedy is proposed below. --EMS | Talk 16:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

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1. Comment by Carl Hewitt

   Response to Edward Schaefer's motion which is quoted in italics below:

   1) My motion is that Carl Hewitt be found to be a disruptive editor who regularly abuses the openness of Wikipedia to

   • Promote the actor model in inappropriate categories and articles and/or to give it an undeserved importance.

   The alledged unimportance of the Actor model is personal Original Research on the part of Edward Schaefer and is contrary to the published scientific literature (see Actor model).--Carl Hewitt 20:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

   • Promote the Scientific Community Metaphor through inappropriate references in other articles. In general, the relationship of the scientific community metaphor to the subject in question is obscure and the mention undeserved. In addition, it is highly tied to Carl Hewitt's views of concurrent computing.

   The alledged obscurity and undeservedness of the Scientific Community Metaphor is personal Original Research on the part of Edward Schaefer and is contrary to the published scientific literature (see Scientific Community Metaphor).--Carl Hewitt 20:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

   • Promote in various articles on quantum mechanics such as quantum indeterminacy a view of the imcompleteness of quantum mechincs that is not generally accepted and which does not belong in mainstream quantum mechaics pages.

   The article Incompleteness of quantum physics to which the Harvard physicist CSTAR and I have contributed reports on generally accepted published research of world-renowned physicists (Fuchs, Hawking, etc.) and consequently belongs in the mainstream pages of quantum physics.--Carl Hewitt 20:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

   • These issues are exacerbated by Carl Hewitt's habit of regularly moving contested content of other articles or categories, forcing editors to chace [sic] down the content. Often this is done in the face of an AfD or CfD request, thereby evading the intent of the AfD or CfD. In the process, Carl Hewitt has caused much grief for other editors who have found themselves having to chace [sic] content and dealing with unproductive exchanges in talk pages on the contested content.

   Edward Schaefer's comment above is objecting to the necessity for Wikipedia editors to sometimes reorganize the content of articles and create new articles in order to improve. In this course of this reorganization, we had to move content.

   His allegations about AfDs and CfDs are myths.

   Instead of engaging in the improvement of the Wikipedia, Edward prefers to try to ban those of us who are working.

   See How POV Neutral are Carl's detractors?

   Regards, --Carl Hewitt 18:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

2. Response to Carl Hewitt by Edward Schaefer

   As best I can tell, Carl is reaching for a convenient label here in calling my allegations "original research". I trust that the inappropriateness of that label in this format is obvious. Indeed, Carl seems to have refused to acknowledge the underlying issues here regarding his behavior again. --EMS | Talk 06:18, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

   As I look at it, I think that the statement that the "allegations about AfDs and CfDs are myths" needs some comment. In the general relativity incidenct (Sept dates in my evidence), Carl moved a categorization from category:general relativity to category:Relativistic Information Science to category:Information science (relativistic), with the last move being in response to a CfD as noted in teh evidence. I have no doubt that in Carl Hewitt's mind he was attempting to preserve what he saw as valuable content, as opposed to maliciously evading the CfD. Yet the effect was the same. Simlarly, the contested content that was in quantum indeterminacy I have recently learned came from another article, and was placed afterwards in Actor model, mathematical logic, and physics. In response to an AfD attempt on the later resulting from the content being there, it got moved to incompleteness of quantum physics, which is actaully a good place for that content. None-the-less, it was a major pain-in-the-neck to get that content placed in an appropriate article. Note that each move was in response to an attempt to delete the content, and the first two moves were from one inappropriate place to another. BTW - The statements about the incompleteness of quantum physics statements not completely documented in the evidence section at this time. I will attempt to rectify that ASAP, and understand that they may be regarded as hearsay in the meantime. --EMS | Talk 19:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

3. Response to Edward Schaefer by Carl Hewitt about Edward attempting to ban other parties as a tactic in content negotiations

   Partly because of our primitive communication technology on the Wikipedia, content negotiations can be difficult. Since we can't get content perfect, adjustments need to be made later. Also, since content is growing, we periodically need to reorganize.

   In fact, content negotiation is what this arbitration is about: it seems that Edward Schaefer prefers to carry out his content negotiations by attempting to ban those whom he perceives to be unworthy. Edward believes that a person is unworthy if they have published work in the scientific literature for areas in which they have contributed to articles in the Wikipedia. E.g., Edward Schaefer is proposing that Stephen Hawking should be banned from contributing to Wikipedia physics articles on subjects for which Hawking has published.

   In summary, Edward Schaefer is attempting to use banning other parties as a tactic in content negotiations on the Wikipedia.

   Regards, --Carl Hewitt 03:22, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

4. Response to Carl Hewitt by Edward Schaefer

   First of all, I kindly submit that this Stephen Hawking remark belongs in reponse to my second motion below.

   Secondly, I do acknowledge the truth of it. I see little need for Hawking to document his own work (as others are happy to), and doubt based on my experiences with Carl Hewitt here that one can easily document their own work with a NPOV.

   Thirdly, the proposed action below would even apply to myself and to my own research should it become published. Given that, Carl Hewitt's implication that I may lack sincerity in that proposal is hopefully refuted.

   Finally, these remarks by Carl Hewitt fail to address the fundamental issues of his style of editting, which are at the core of this action. --EMS | Talk 16:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

5. Response to Edward Schaefer by Carl Hewitt

   There is no doubt that my style of editing can be improved and I am working to do so. However, I do not deliberately violate the policies of the Wikipedia unlike some other editors who have done the following:

   Made personal accusations: E.g. "I wonder if this chap is a bit in his dotage." and "I tend to think his problem is more emotional than neurological."

   Committed vandalism: Another editor removed the legitimate categories of Actor model history and replaced them with Category:Pseudoscience. (Thank you for helping to resolve this problem.)

   Attempted to win content negotiations by having the other party banned: The core of this action.

   Regards, --Carl Hewitt 18:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

6. Further Response to Edward Schaefer by Carl Hewitt

   Edward Schaefer believes that experts should be banned from editing Wikipedia articles in their areas of expertise. On the hand, I believe that the Wikipedia needs to attract as many experts as possible to contribute to articles in their areas of expertise. Only experts can successfully negotiate highly technical issues in areas like Category:Concurrent computing when these issues are at the edge of the state of the art. For example, when Allan McInnes (an expert who has published in the area) started contributing, we were able to negotiate a number of issues. As a result the article Actor model was dramatically improved.--Carl Hewitt 19:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

7. Response to Carl Hewitt by Edward Schaefer

   See talk --EMS | Talk 19:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. Comment by linas

Carl, the AfD's and the CfD's are not myths, they are amply documented in the evidence section. User:CSTAR was not one of you collaborators; he was rather someone you drove into leaving (also documented in the evidence section.). You behaviour in editing this page and making these types of statements is exactly what is alienating everyone who comes in contact with you. Why don't you understand this? Why can't you decist, and take to heart the advice and suggestions of others? linas 21:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Another motion by user:ems57fcva

2) That Wikipedia should look into making it a principle that people ought not to document their own work. (Kindly note that this is not specific to this case.)

Part of the trouble here is that Carl is documenting his own work here. It therefore is natural that he would approach it from a highly biased POV, and the result has not been the kind of standout editting that we would expect from someone with his credentials but instead a very disruptive hyping of the actor model in all sorts of venues outside of computer science, along with a hyping of his own views on quantum mechanics. So this raises a question: Given that a work cannot be considered encyclopedic without someone other than the authors being willing to document it (since otherwise it is original research), and given what we are seeing with this particular editor when documenting a encyclopedic subject which is of his own creation, should people be allowed to document their own work in Wikipeida at all? Commenting on the talk page and draft proposed updates to articles in their user space could (and probably should) still be permitted, but the outright edits in the article space should be left to others who at least in theory would form a community having a more reasonable POV. --EMS | Talk 17:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

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1. It seems that this is already covered in the existing guideline Wikipedia:Autobiography. --EMS | Talk 21:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

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proposed injunction by ems57fcva

1) That Carl Hewitt be barred from making edits in the article space for at least 6 months. Commentary in the talk pages would be permissible. --EMS | Talk 16:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

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Writing about yourself

1) You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. Writing about yourself and your work is inherently point of view, see Wikipedia:Autobiography.

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1. The essence of the problem

Comment by parties:

1. Will the Wikipedia, de facto, adopt the policy that Wikipedia editors are banned from contributing to articles for subjects on which the editors have published outside of the Wikipedia?--Carl Hewitt 12:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

   No, the guideline is enforced only when breaking it results in major disruption Fred Bauder 18:44, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

   It has been proposed in Wikipedia_talk:Autobiography#Not_banning_intellectuals that the guideline be clarified as follows:

   I think a flat ban on people editing things about which they have direct involvement is a bad idea, as it would cut out many of the people with the most knowledge about, and motivation to edit, the things in question. However, if they show inability to stick to NPOV and NOR, some individual sanctions might be in order. *Dan T.* 19:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

   Yep, that sounds right; it also seems to be pretty close to existing practice. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

   Sounds fair to me as well. As Fred said, no one makes a big fuss over this unless the editing is disruptive. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 06:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

   Regards, --Carl Hewitt 03:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

2. I also find that this summarizes the reason that Carl Hewitt's editing is so disruptive. I wish that I had known of this guideline earlier, as it already call for the editors to obey the rules I suggest in my second suggestion above. --EMS | Talk 21:06, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. I haven't looked at any of the details of this case, but this proposed remedy does not mean that editors should not contribute to articles for subject on which the editors have published outside of Wikipedia. What it means is that you should not create these articles in the first place. The problem here is that it can be difficult for someone closely involved in a subject to be objective about its importance. If you find yourself having to quote publications you yourself have written to justify the edits you are making to Wikipedia, you have to question very carefully whether you are adding information for the right reasons. When others question the edits you make, then there is a problem. If you are editing in an area in which you are very familiar but quoting other people's writings that is somewhat different, jguk 13:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

In this case, we are dealing with Wikipedia articles in computer science that increasingly address issues that are at the edge of the state of the art. The important thing is that the Wikipedia articles report objectively on the published scientific literature regardless of who was the author. Getting the reporting right is more important than whether I, one of my students, or my colleague Robin Milner authored the published work being reported.

At this point, the issue is not so much creating new Wikipedia articles out of whole cloth as managing and evolving the articles that we already have. In particular, we have an unresolved policy issues regarding preprints (articles that have been accepted for publication but not yet published). For example, can results from preprints be mentioned on on discussion pages to help provide guidance on how to proceed?

It would be a great help if we could persuade more researchers closely involved in the subject matter to become contributors to the Wikipedia. On every possible occaison, I encourage my colleagues to participate. However, at the present time they are very reluctant to participate for reasons discussed in User_talk:CarlHewitt#Rest of the quote.

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 07:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I find that in this case, Carl has done a wonderful job of misstating the proposal. The proposal as I read it (or at least intend it) is a narrow prohibition on writing about yourself and your direct creations. Certainly neither myself nor the aribtrators want to prohibit people from contributing to their areas of expertise, of which one's own creations are usually a very minor part. Also, I for one call for people to contribute indirectly to articles in the proscribed areas by using the talk pages. That way their requests can be "vetted" by other editors, thereby providing these articles a "POV filter" of sorts. It may speak to how focussed on his own work Carl is that this proposal is for him tantamount to barring him from his "area of expertise". That this focus may be part of the source of the problem here is IMO something that is worthy of consideration. --EMS | Talk 21:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It is worth noting that the Actor model is not my direct creation. As pointed out in the article Gul Agha, Beppe Attardi, Henry Baker, Will Clinger, Irene Grief, Carl Manning, Ian Mason, Ugo Montanari, Maria Simi, Scott Smith, Carolyn Talcott, Prasanna Thati, and Aki Yonezawa have made important contributions to the semantics of Actors. Important contributions to the implementation of Actors have been made by Bill Athas, Russ Atkinson, Beppe Attardi, Henry Baker, Gerry Barber, Peter Bishop, Nanette Boden, Jean-Pierre Briot, Bill Dally, Peter de Jong, Jessie Dedecker, Ken Kahn, Henry Lieberman, Carl Manning, Tom Reinhardt, Chuck Seitz, Richard Steiger, Dan Theriault, Mario Tokoro, Darrell Woelk, and Carlos Varela.

We are talking about a whole area of research whose contributors include famous academics from Caltech, Keio University, MCC, MIT, Northeastern, Paris 6, SRI, Stanford, Tokyo University, University of Pisa, University of Illinois, etc.

So what exactly are you proposing to ban?

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 21:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

The first sentence of the actor model article reads as follows:

In computer science, the Actor model, first published in 1973 (Hewitt et al. 1973), is a mathematical model of concurrent computation.

As you are responsible for the first publication, that makes the actor model your direct creation. The others whom you name are subsequent contributors to it and/or related theoretical works. Indeed, most of these other people are mentioned only in a the section "Actor researchers", while the name of Hewitt is mentioned quite frequently. --EMS | Talk 21:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Almost all of the people mentioned have authored published scientific contributions and many of these are listed in the references of the article. Their contributions are not diminished by there not being space in the top level article Actor model (of all the articles in Category:Actor model), just as the contributions of important physicists are not diminished by not being mentioned in the top level article General Relativity. The published research of the above listed researchers will in due course be reported in forthcoming Wikipedia articles unless you succeed in having the reporting banned. --Carl Hewitt 03:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

This response does not address the main point I made above, that you are the originator of the actor model, and that your reporting on it is therefore autobiographical and in conflict with the Wikipedia:Autobiography guideline. --EMS | Talk 06:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Banning due to disruption

2) Users may be banned from editing articles if there is history of them editing the articles in a disruptive way.

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1. Only solution I can see Fred Bauder 22:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

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Carl Hewitt

1) Carl E. Hewitt is an Associate Professor (Emeritus) in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who has done significant creative work, see Carl Hewitt.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Background Fred Bauder 18:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

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Aggressive autobiographical editing

2) Carl Hewitt has aggressively edited articles which concern himself and his work in a point of view way, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt/Evidence

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I think this covers the situation well enough Fred Bauder 22:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Carl Hewitt has negotiated with other Wikipedia editors the content of Wikipedia articles on subjects in which he has published articles in the scientific literature, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Carl_Hewitt/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_Carl_Hewitt and User_talk:CarlHewitt#Discussion_with_Allan_McInnes_from_arbitration. Some of these negotiations raise issues of unresolved Wikipedia policy because the articles have reached the stage of development that they are addressing issues right at the edge of the state of the art.--Carl Hewitt 12:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The job of the Arbitration Committee is to address those "unresolved" issues in a commonsense way. In this case a big bruhaha is rather obvious. Fred Bauder 18:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I did not know that it was the job of the Arbitration Committee to resolve such policy issues. Wouldn't it be better to resolve them by consensus in discussions on the policy pages?--Carl Hewitt 00:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It's simple enough, create a situation where we must make a decision and we will make one. It is almost always better to respond reasonably to what others say, rather than forcing a third party to impose a solution. Please try good faith negotiation or mediation next time. Your input in policy discussions is welcome. Fred Bauder 03:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I prefer good faith negotiations and mediation. It was Edward Schaefer's idea to escalate directly to attempting to get you to ban me in order to win the content negotation after the effort to delete Scientific Community Metaphor failed.

I have initiated a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Autobiography#Not banning intellectuals on the possibility of clarifying the guidance in Wikipedia:Autobiography.

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 08:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

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Carl Hewitt banned from autobiographical editing

1) Carl Hewitt is banned from autobiographical editing regarding himself and his student's work. This ban includes creation of links and categories which refer to that work.

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1. Will the Wikipedia, de facto, adopt the policy that Wikipedia editors are banned from contributing to articles for subjects on which the editors have published outside of the Wikipedia?--Carl Hewitt 12:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

No, but in cases where there is a major disruption such as this one a solution will be imposed. Imagine it as a ungoverned flywheel or a cancer. Fred Bauder 18:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there hasn't been any disruption for some time. Edward Schaefer's complaints are about ancient history. It is true that content negotations are becoming more difficult when the issues involved are at the edge of the state of the art. Also some things will need to be renegotiated when new literature is published next summer that bears on some of the articles to which I have contributed. But these issues can also be negotiated by the members of the community who are both knowledgable and judicious.

However, if you allow this caper to succeed it will be a black mark on the reputation of the Wikipedia. It will show that people don't have to negotiate content in good faith. Instead it can work to complain, escalate, and then get the Arbitration Committee to ban the other party.

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 04:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

1. From Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Carl_Hewitt/Workshop#How_POV_Neutral_are_Carl.27s_detractors.3F--Carl Hewitt 18:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

   == How POV Neutral are Carl's detractors? ==

   The people out to get Carl are not, themselves POV neutral. They want to claim a strict hieracrhy of categories for physics topics and exclude anything that is not a physics result, i.e. not published in a peer-reviewed physics journal. I think that's too strict a standard. Carl is not claiming a physics result but a model of computation that crucially depends on physics results, i.e. a relation to physics that, I think, is important. His critics have not tried to understand it. It is deep and not easily understood. In the physicists' zeal to keep out crackpot science, I think, they've gone too far. Carl Hewitt is a reputable computer scientist [ Carl Hewitt ] that deserves to be argued with, not banned, and that the WP should want to retain.

   Montalvo 03:16, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

1. Carl says above "Actually, there hasn't been any disruption for some time. Edward Schaefer's complaints are about ancient history." However, the evidence presented continues till mid December. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

By disruption, I meant by Edward Schaefer ;-)

It is true that Allan McInnes and I engaged in some negotiations as documented in User_talk:CarlHewitt#Discussion_with_Allan_McInnes_from_arbitration that resulted in substantial improvements in the articles Actor model and Actor model and process calculi. However, even that seems to have quieted down. Of course on the Wikipedia, nothing is final!

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 04:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Carl Hewitt placed on probation

2) Carl Hewitt is placed on Wikipedia:Probation. He may be banned from any article which he disrupts.

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Enforcement by block

1) Should Carl Hewitt edit any article from which he is banned, he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the case of repeat offenses. After 5 blocks the maximum block shall increase to one year.

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Analysis of evidence

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General discussion

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