User talk:Qwyrxian

Paradoxes without reliable sources

There are a lot of very real paradoxes which don't have reliable sources and yet are very instructive. Can they be listed in "See also", or assigned to a separate section?

To name a few, Meditation Paradox When meditation practice is taken up for a specific purpose, using the practice as a means to an ends impedes true progress. Python paradox by Paul Graham (one of the leading technologists in the world) if a company chooses to write its software in a comparatively esoteric language, they'll be able to hire better programmers.

Kgashok (talk) 04:22, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

No. They can't be listed anywhere on the page. WP:V (the requirement that all content be verified) is one of Wikipedia's core policies. Think about it this way: if we allowed a list of unsourced paradoxes, what would stop everyone from simply making them up? Could I, for instance, add the paradox, "Paradox of not voting: People don't vote because politicians don't listen to what citizens want, but politicians don't listen to people who don't vote"? Not really a paradox (making it up off the top of my head based on a web comic I saw recently), of course, but, then again, not all things called paradoxes actually are. Wikipedia simply has to work off of the principle of verifiability, otherwise, there would be no way to distinguish what is worthy of inclusion and what is not (it's already hard enough even with the policy). Qwyrxian (talk) 04:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. As per WP:SPS does Y Combinator founder's Paul Graham (computer programmer)'s Python paradox qualify? Alternatively, how do I locate references which will make this paradox verifiable, other than [Googling] for it? Kgashok (talk) 08:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

a gentle reminder Kgashok (talk) 16:58, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I never saw your comment the first time (I must have gotten several messages at once). The Python Paradox would only count if other reliable sources had picked it up and discussed it. While Graham is famous, and thus his blog can sometimes be used as a source, it's not sufficient in this case to show that the paradox is widely recognized. And on sources, try using not regular Google, but instead Google News, Scholar, and Books. Books, of course, is too soon for this point, and probably scholar, too, but later something may show up, and those sources are more likely to be reliable. For non-current information, using a university library is always a good approach, if you have one. But, again, that's not going to give you the info you need on such a recent point. At this point, it's probably more about waiting (possibly for months or years) to see if others start to regularly "use" the paradox in their own writing. It clearly hasn't gained immediate notability, because it didn't suddenly become a buzzing topic/idea across news sites, etc. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:35, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Royal College, Colombo

Hello my friend!! Long time. Hope you are well. Could you please see if it's necessary to apply a protective coating to Royal College, Colombo. A bunch of IPs keep adding back this. Cheers!! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello! In a certain sense, it's good that we don't meet, as it means there's nothing no new massive disruption campaign going on. I've protected the college page. I'm going to leave a note for Cossde, though--it looks like xe crossed 3rr, and those changes don't qualify as vandalism. That way xe doesn't inadvertently run into problems in the future. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Good thinking on the Cossade note, and thanks for the page protect. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:47, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Please review my reverts in this article [1] and the content on this [2] you will see a copyright violation, as of the other content additions in the article it is clear vandalism. Cossde (talk) 13:10, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

First, I think you linked to the wrong website, because there's nothing on that website like what you reverted. Second, such a small amount of text being copied doesn't usually qualify as a copyright violation. Third, per WP:NOTVAND, copyright violations are explicitly not vandalism. So by all points, your labeling of those edits as vandalism is wrong, and thus your crossing of 3RR was wrong. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:24, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Pls check again, the additions to the section on Cadet band, was a copy past of [3], additions to the lead are vandalism as well as the additions to the awards and expedition sections. There has been a user who keeps on adding improper information to Rajakeeya Mawatha and Royal College, Colombo. Cossde (talk) 15:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, these articles Lalith Kotelawala, Rajakeeya Mawatha and List of Royal College Colombo alumni is being effected by a logged out user, who had been vandalizing and adding inaccurate infor just as Royal College, Colombo. Cossde (talk) 12:36, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, it has happen again [4] [5] how do i proceed ? Cossde (talk) 02:23, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I've just semi-protected all 3 articles for a week. If the edits had been adding negative or contentious info about the people, you could have kept reverting as long as needed. Since the info was basically neutral, just stopping was best. Normally, on BLP issues, I'd recommend going to the BLP noticeboard, though given that it's around the Christmas holidays, many US/UK editors (bulk of en.wiki editors) are absent. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:05, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Regarding article Misogyny under section Scientology

Although my edits to this article may appear to be vandalism they are not. As a former Scientology (from 1982 - 2008) I have studied many references in great detail while on course at the Los Angeles Day Origination. My edit to the article Misogyny may be original research, but it is not vandalism. "Anything but," is a common American English idiom. L. Ron Hubbard was American, and any comprehensive understanding of his work will show that he used American English idioms quite often. Therefore the correct interpretation of this phrase is "Everything except." Please do not revert my edits without good cause. The correct thing to do is place a "citation needed" next to the statement, not reversion.

For an explanation of the idiom see;

See: http://home.earthlink.net/~idioms/glossary/a38.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.96.242.66 (talk) 08:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I did revert your claims (again), and for just cause. WP:OR is never allowed, and you can't say "put a citation needed tag". You are interpreting what he meant by "anything but". Furthermore, your interpretation is quite deviant from the norm--I'm also an American, and "anything but" means (just like your non-reliable source said) "except", not "everything except". Unless you can provide a reliable source that interprets Hubbard's sentence in that way, you cannot add it to Wikipedia. Any interpretation of the meaning of words is always original research, and it never stands awaiting a citation. If you can find a citation showing that reliable scholars interpret Hubbard with that meaning, then add it. Until then, please reserve your opinion on what he meant for another place. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, please note that I never called your edits vandalism. That was User:ClueBot, which is an automated program that, while reasonably good at what it does, does make mistakes (I think it's intentionally set to get false positives about 3-5% of the time. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I need to consult you...

...on "consensus", again. For how long exactly do we need to humor a single editor who wants to bring a change into the article, a change that is against previous consensus and current consensus (though currently there seems to be just two editors, me and another one, who oppose their change, but in the past it has been discussed at length several times)? Link, link. Because their argument for bringing the change into the article (as they've already tried to do repeatedly) is that "discussion ceased", as if we're supposed to keep discussing this indefinitely. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 11:57, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I've left a note on Jarandhel's talk page, and I'm going to add Otherkin to my watchlist. My basic recommendation was that if Jarandhel wishes to pursue the issue, that xe should try some form of dispute resolution. Personally, I have absolutely no preference either way...I had never heard of either otherkin or clinical lycanthropy until I read the page a few moments ago. And now I need to go look up what a "therian" is.... Qwyrxian (talk) 13:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. :) — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 13:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh hold on, did that bit refer to me: "I think we've interacted before, thought to be honest I don't remember in what context"? I've earlier asked you to determine a consensus on Talk:Nostradamus, and to have a look at the issue with Illuminates of Thanateros (if I remember correctly). I trust your opinion, okay? XD — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 13:19, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, apologies. I knew you'd asked for help before, but I couldn't remember on which articles. I knew I could search my archives, but figured if it was important you'd let me know. I'm glad you find me helpful :) Qwyrxian (talk) 13:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Kayastha

I saw you reverted the surname " Prasad" from the kayastha page. Rajendra Prasad, the first president of India belonged to that community. As usual, no references sighted so you have the full authority to delete that name. Regards.Jonathansammy (talk) 19:52, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you know if the source in Rajendra Prasad#Early life verifies that he was Kayastha? If so, we can probably put the link into Kayastha with a ref. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge

Can you merge Hyoni Kang and Kang Seung-Hyun? I noticed somebody requested in 2010 but never had it done. Both of them are based on the same person. Combining them together will make the article seem better. Jae ₩on (Deposit) 22:29, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, anyone can perform a merge--you don't need an admin. Full instructions are at WP:MERGETEXT, but I can explain the basics:

1. Copy over the relevant info from one article to the other. In every edit where you copy information, make sure your edit summary says, "Merging from X", where X is the name of the old article. This is very important for licensing purposes.
2. When you're finished, remove everything from the old article, and replace it with "#REDIRECT [[PAGENAME]] {{R from merge}}", where PAGENAME is the name of the new article.
3. Then, at the top of both talk pages, add {{Copied|from=source|to=destination|diff=permanent diff}}.

That should take care of it! Qwyrxian (talk) 23:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks. Do you know a tool server page for Commons? Jae ₩on (Deposit) 23:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't--I almost never work on Commons, save for when I nominate copyrighted stuff there for deletion. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:34, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

E8 stuff

I started tackling the lede. I had already a revert. Your guide would be help before it gets annoying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.128.58 (talk) 19:40, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

It may be a few days before i get the chance to look in detail, sorry. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:06, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

That's fine, everybody is a volunteer here. I will keep editing the chronology mess. Just to report something, there was a discussion because Scientryst is claiming that if the D-G critical paper is in the lede, then also all the papers that Lisi wrote have to be in the lede. I disagree, because the fact that Lisi wrote 1, 2, or 1000 papers is not important from the point of view of the theory, especially given that those papers added very little details to the implant of the theory. While a peer reviewed article that has a proof that the theory cannot work is a completely separate issue. It's not a matter of balancing weights. The information in the D-G paper is crucial. Anyhow, happy holidays if your culture is one that is in holiday time! 24.7.128.58 (talk) 23:18, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, I'll start looking at Lisi's personal page, which incredibly has a longer page than physicists who won the Nobel prize and it has a section listing ALL the interviews he has given to magazines. If we did that with everybody WP would become a search engine for interviews. It seems that also that page is extremely unbalanced, with a few fans trying to increase its natural weight. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 23:27, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I requested the personal page about Lisi to be temporarily semi or full protected and reverted to the edits where it's clear that Lisi's theory currently doesn't work. Editor SherryNugil there doesn't want me to include information about the status of Lisi's theory. Xe started an edit war. I stopped and reported. SherryNugil is stating that it's not important to say in Lisi's page the critique or the critical status of his theory, leaving all the attempted accomplishments, but not the failures. A reader just reading Lisi's page would barely see that his theory has problems and that it's not considered correct by the physics community. 98.244.54.152 (talk) 11:43, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm too involved on the other article to be able to protect the page myself. I'll let another admin decide. I'm probably not going to watchlist that page, if only because I don't want to add another big headache to my work right now. Let me know if you need help initiating dispute resolution though, as it can be difficult to know what steps to proceed with. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:45, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, it makes sense. It would be helpful to know the steps. Especially how to deal with the possible sock puppetry of SherryNugil and Scientryst. And whether or not I should start two different disputes or just one. They will have to be related somehow. It is also, inconceivable that an editor doesn't allow the status of the theory to be included in somebody's page, given the theory the reason why that somebody is included in the encyclopedia. Some guidance would be helpful, especially about the amount of material to present. SherryNugil and Scientryst's styles of writing and editing, nearly identical, can be very arrogant and frustating, so it would be good to know what the best way to present things to admins is. Thanks 98.244.54.152 (talk) 11:51, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I thought you might want to read this. From Garrett Lisi's Google+ public profile and his Twitter account: "Merry xmas, someone's furiously messing with long-standing wikipedia pages on me and E8 Theory. I must have angered a wiki elf."

Again in a comment on g+ Lisi states: "The weirdest thing to me about the wikipedia drama has been how it has connected back and forth to outside forces. Jacques Distler complained early on about the E8 Theory wiki page on his blog, and a wiki editor (the same one responsible for recent edits?) commented there with a call to action. I guess they didn't have good sources backing up Distler's criticism of the theory though, so now appears Michael Duff's hit piece on me and E8 Theory in an editorial paper that is ostensibly a defense of string theory. You know, until now, I've tried to be nice to string theorists, attempting to largely steer clear of the string controversy, but the political maneuvering of this particular string contingent is reprehensible."

By the way, you included the Duff part. And it's pretty delusional to think that there is some sort of conspiracy instead of just concerned editors (see also new comment on Lisi's personal page discussion from a person that belongs to the wiki physics project).

Scientryst, SherryNugil and Lisi say things in a very similar fashion, and all the words they all choose are also very similar. BTW, this to me looks like a lot more a call to action than the one on Distler blog, where it was explicitly asked to be NPOV and not offensive. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 17:29, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

This is also good material from Lisi's page, making even comments on who (you) wanted to cut the mathematical part. Were you part of the Distler team?. This material is really giving even a stronger idea that it's Lisi the one that is trying to edit his own page and trying to ridiculously out other people and editors with some social network bullying. And also, it's clear that Lisi is actively worried about how his theory look on Wikipedia. Lisi just said: "you will of course form your own opinion, but anonymous attacks of people which whom he disagrees is very much Distler's style, as is back-room dealing, deception, and extortion. There was such an incident on Peter Woit's blog, where he outed him. I suppose I shouldn't let it bother me, but the main material that's been cut from the wikipedia page on the theory (a week or so ago I think) was the mathematical description and the graphical description. Interested people can read my papers for that, but that description seemed like an OK mathematical summary. The IP's (mainly one person as far as I can tell) vigorously editing the theory page, since April or so, I don't think is Jens Koeplinger. I think it was the same physicist or physics student from UC Davis who posted the last comment to Distler's blog as "Dan" back in July: [link removed]"

I believe this has to be enough to report the fact that it's highly possible that there is a lot of WP:COI in editing Lisi's pages. How should I proceed? 24.7.128.58 (talk) 20:38, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

If these are publicly available, could you give me links to these posts? Qwyrxian (talk) 21:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they are https://plus.google.com/108405429084641270297/posts at this moment it's the first post and its comments. Thanks 24.7.128.58 (talk) 21:55, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I agree with everything you said about the page, except that I asked you already about where to go for the sock puppetry and I think it's normal to discuss such things in discussion pages before going ahead and do formal accusations. It's been months that I'm asking help with all the policies and stuff, and in a lot of cases at the end I succeeded at making changes as much as NPOV I could. But in a lot of other cases these pro-Lisi editors aren't willing to accept anything until an admin shows up. It's hard to deal with editors when they just revert and barely talk about the changes. So, officially, I'm asking for help. It will save a lot of time for everybody. And thanks. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 23:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

If you want to report sockpuppetry, the correct thing to do is to open up a sockpuppetry investigation on the person whom you believe is the main account (I imagine that's Scientryst, since I believe xe predates SHerryNugil, but I'm not exactly sure). Now, one problem is that I think that you can't actually start an SPI, because I think that starting an SPI requires starting a new page, which you can't do as an IP editor. Here's what I'll do: I have created a sandbox page at User:Qwyrxian/SPI draft where you can leave evidence. This evidence should primarily be in the form of diffs (check the link if you need to know how to get those). You need to provide specific edits that the editors have made (either to the talk page or to articles) that show imply that they are the same person. After you do that, I'll review what you wrote. If I think the evidence is strong enough, I'll start the SPI page for you. For the time being, I recommend leaving out any claims about the real world identity of the person--doing so is borderline WP:OUTING, which is not allowed, and, ultimately, isn't particularly relevant (and, even if it were, is better handled through a different type of investigation). Keep in mind that doing this may not necessarily produce the result you want, because it is entirely possible that Scientryst and SherryNugil are actually different people, both of whom just happen to support Lisi/E8. But if the evidence is clear that they are the same person or are acting like the same person, action can be taken (another admin(s) will make that decision). Qwyrxian (talk) 23:21, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I will start with that. Before I start putting energy in this and find out only eventually that it was the wrong platform, I have just a specific question: is it technically considered sockpuppetry if Scientryst edits just the E8 page and SherryNugil just the Lisi personal page? I would assume so, because it would mean that their are hiding, in case it's proven, to be the same person editing both pages, allegedly hoping that their actions won't be considered combined and then showing that it's only one user defending in both cases their point of view, but I'm not sure this is suckpuppetry as opposed to conflict of interests.

Separately, about the page contents, is the procedure similar for COIN and DRN, given that some of the changes in Lisi's personal page can't be made by normal edits (at least for me)? If I understand correctly for DRN I just have to talk about the content, and not the editors, maybe showing why some edits are POV in my interpretation. While in COIN I'm not sure whether or not the accusation would need to be done together with SPI. Anyhow I can provide many many diffs of their edits to show how these authors are similar in actions and definitely with a COI. Again, thanks a lot for your help. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 23:48, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Well...that would possibly be considered legitimate sockpuppetry. It's okay to have more than one account, though you're usually supposed to declare it, as long as you're not vote-stacking, or otherwise disrupting discussions by trying to appear to be two people. However, if they were both making essentially the same arguments on both pages, then I could see the logic of it being bad, because they're basically forcing you to respond to the same thing in two different places. Maybe pull up a couple of diffs that seem the most problematic, and I'll review them, before you do too much work.

For COIN, you would need to show that one/both of the editors in question has a real-world interest in these particular pages. For me, COIN is one of the least useful options, because according to our rules, someone who just supported Lisi (like some of the people responding on the Google+ page you linked to) does not have a conflict of interest (from our perspective), but Lisi, his relatives, and anyone directly connected to him in a financial way does. It is highly unlikely that you'll be able to distinguish between those two groups of people. A far more productive approach is from an NPOV angle (since no one can violate NPOV, even if they don't have an "official" COI), or a general dispute resolution attitude, bringing us to...

For DRN, you basically just need to say, "Here's a problem. We've tried to work this out, and we're not getting anywhere. Could you give us some informal advice about how to move forward"? For the moment, I recommend holding off on DRN, because we already have a similar question up on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard (the one I opened yesterday). Opening a second Dispute resolution process about the page in general could be considered forum-shopping, and that's bad. It's better to wait and see if FTN can help the situation first, and, if it proves to be beyond their ability/remit, use DRN as the next step.

Part of what I'm saying here, btw, is that there's no particular need to rush to get a solution. Are the pages bad? Sure, in some ways, but they're not terrible--they do include both positive and negative comments about Lisi and the theory, though obviously the correct balance is in question. What I think needs to happen is that the voices who just keep harping on and on about the Lisi/Smolin machine stop or are forced to stop (that's the other IP editor, right?) and that there are no more calls for deletion (because that's obviously entirely out of the question), then we can get back to more reasonable discussions. Scientryst is very stubborn, but is at least capable of holding a rational discussion, and has been known to compromise before (I note, for instance, that he hasn't tried to reinsert all of the mathematical details in the E8 article). But all of the calls to delete the page actually give fuel to him to ignore any real, constructive suggestions, since he can (legitimately) paint all of the complaints as extreme. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:05, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, it was really helpful. I will follow your advice. Yes, it's true that the pages aren't terrible, but until yesterday, when an admin finally put a sentence about the acceptance of Lisi's theory in Lisi's personal page, it wasn't really clear that the community doesn't think his theory is going to go anywhere. This is bad, especially now that Lisi started collaborating with a TV show and there is a lot of people interested (maybe) in his personal page. Even though wikipedia is by no means a place to do propaganda, it would be sad if users misunderstand the validity of Lisi's proposal, i.e., a teen ager could think that professors are paid too much and are generally not worth money investing if a surfer solved a problem that they have tried to solve for 80 years. This could lead people to believe, for example, that investing money in public universities and pay a salary to those professors is wrong. Now, of course this is an extreme, although not completely unlikely, point of view. We, as editor, must not take any action about it, of course. And it's not that the universities will close because of Lisi's page either. But the actions that we need to take of are, at least, that we are honest on how the theory is perceived and incomplete. Then people can get their own conclusions.

About the points you raised, briefly. Yes, that is the other IP, and often I tried to stop the deletion direction. Same thing about the Lisi/Smolin enterprise, I often tried to explain that it doesn't matter if Scientryst is Lisi as long as he would be NPOV. The problem is the POV. So, I agree, that needs to stop. About Scientryst, I would like to point out that it's true that he reasons, but if you study his edits, he never gives up unless there is somebody, like you or another admin, that uses immediately some wikipedia policy to finally solve the discussion. He never or very very rarely accepts directly others' modifications. If you have a couple of minutes, you can see that SherryNugil, in Lisi's page, does the same. And xe forced me to create a mess to get someone's attention (because I'm not a policy expert, although I'm trying to learn). The modification you made, about the list of interviews, was immediately opposed by SherryNugil. And other modifications about his theory's reception by the academic word were reverted 6 times with a bogus 3RR exception rule application (now I understand that even though I stopped editing and tried other ways, I was also not allowed to revert things, even though I was explaining them in the discussion page and trying to get to a consensus.

Anyhow, thanks a lot for your help and I'll start writing in your sandbox. Thanks! 24.7.128.58 (talk) 00:38, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the edits of 71.106.167.55, and the fact that you are supporting his point of view with your edits and actions, you should know that he is a well known crackpot and internet menace and has been editing these pages from many different IP's, with negative POV, hundreds of times, at least back to 2008. I have done what I can to deal with his edits and maintain NPOV, but you two gentlemen are NOT helping. You should reconsider your actions here.-Scientryst (talk) 04:03, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I can't be sympathetic with what you are saying. I don't care who 71 is as long as xe is not vandalizing the page itself. Both myself and Qwyrxian have defended the existence of the page and 71 barely touches the pages. Yes, 71 adds a lot of noise in the discussion pages but what that's not very important when the page doesn't change that much. Also, you can see that I have a different approach and Qwyrxian has an approach also different from mine. I'm sorry but the fact that you don't like some edits doesn't mean that they aren't NPOV or that they necessarily are offensive to Lisi. The world, and the scientific world too, have "plenty" of wrong theories, incomplete theories, and so on. And those authors are perfectly respectful scientists. It is not offensive to say that Lisi doesn't have a theory of everything currently working. It would be pretty amazing if he did. Nobody has a full theory of everything, how can you think that stating clear that his theory currently doesn't work is offensive? The fact that the theory doesn't work is not a synonym of being a crackpot physicist. We defended many times Lisi as a scientist and the existence of the page. This doesn't mean that the results can be misrepresented. Nor does it mean that Lisi won't eventually find something valuable and useful for particle physics having testable predictions. But about the page, I think you should take some time off from editing. If you want, signal to others some clear POV or vandalism. But I came to this point because of your excessive refusal to include other editors' edits when they were slightly negative. And you perfectly know that what I write is true. You think it's POV just because it includes some critiques, but the problem is that you don't want to include any the critiques, and instead try to make me look POV. You've gotta understand that your page is longer than pages for physicists who won the Nobel Prize. It's not a disaster if we take some material off for WP:UNDUE. And it's not a disaster if we write about the problems of the theory. Even string theory has this following sentence as the third sentence in the lede, first paragraph "The theory has yet to make novel experimental predictions at accessible energy scales, leading some scientists to claim that it cannot be considered a part of science." So, do you really think that we should have more regard for your E8 page than string theory, which at least has years and years of results and can reproduce lots of things? I don't like string theory that much, btw. The problem is that Lisi believes that his theory belongs to him, instead of the scientific community. It's ok if the theory is wrong in its current version. About the personal page, there is plenty of famous people who have sections with critiques, look at, for example the page for actors. I don't understand in what Lisi would be different. Certainly I'm not trying to be offensive, and neither is Qwyrxian. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 08:43, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

You don't need to care who 71 is, but Qwyrxian should, because they are a banned user. And you are absolutely incorrect when you say 71 "barely touches the pages," he has edited the Exceptionally Simple Theory page hundreds of times, using different IP. Look at the history, starting with this 71 and connecting the dots of different IP posting similar POV language up to the present one. I'm sick of trying to protect it. And you're also incorrect that it's my page. Personally, I think Lisi's model is incomplete, and quite possibly wrong as a theory of nature, but there's a lot there that's right, and that seems promising, which is more than you can say for most theories. But, mine is a minority view. I have some respect for you because you understand a small amount of group theory, and can see that Lisi got some of that right, so you should be able to make sure that fact is clearly expressed in your article, which right now has no mathematics and says Distler and Garibaldi proved Lisi wrong. What you are doing is deeply damaging to those who might be working on this incomplete theory, and you should reconsider your actions. At least 71 has the excuse of incompetence.-Scientryst (talk) 10:40, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Separately, I would mention that in the past something slightly similar already happened, see Bogdanov_Affair. In that case briefly it seems like the two authors tried to edit their pages on Wiki because they became TV people and they didn't want readers to know about their papers being far from meaningful. It was a complicated matter that John Baez and other people wrote on their blogs. Because of all the blog off-wiki entries their page includes also a mention of the actions taken in wiki sockpuppeting and banning. This is the reason why I posted the details from Lisi's google plus on the discussion page, because I thought it was important information in case things were brought up in some action request. I apologize if it was a wrong approach. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 00:47, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

For comparison with the Bogdanov Affair, you should read what John Baez had to say about Lisi.-Scientryst (talk) 04:03, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

You should know, because I think I mentioned it before, that I know perfectly what John Baez wrote about Lisi. The comparison with the Bogdanov Affair holds for the attempts of users to modify wiki pages hiding facts and using sock puppetry and Lisi's specific mention on his g+ account of the wiki edits from other authors and ridiculous attempts to bully and to out editors. The comparison is not a judgement on whether or not they were crackpots and Lisi is not or vice versa. By the way, I don't even think that the Bogdanov's were crackpots, I just think they were sloppy scientists that were pretty confused about the foundations of what they were doing. Sometimes Lisi is sloppy too, but he's too stubborn to see it or admit it. But this has nothing to do with anything we are discussing here. 24.7.128.58 (talk) 08:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Scientryst, what is the name of the banned user, and what is your evidence that it's the same person? Because if there's evidence, then I'll be more than happy to set up the necessary processes in order to get the person blocked, re-blocked, etc.

Regarding us being "unhelpful"--well, we can do to things at once. On the one hand, we have a disruptive editor (71) who wants the article deleted and Lisi defamed. On the other hand, we have an article (Lisi's definitely, E8 a little less so) that is overlong, and doesn't adequately contextualize exactly what status this theory has in the field. More on this later, but it's 1:00 am here and time to sleep. Qwyrxian (talk) 15:58, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Scientryst, you have a completely biased perception of the problems about the page. Most theories don't even appear in wikipedia, even models that actually work. Why do you think that this E8 stuff is so important to be described in a very detailed way in WP when lots of famous theories are barely mentioned? This being said, I am no one to say whether or not Lisi's E8 stuff will go anywhere, and I don't want to say that it's not promising at all. All I'm saying is that there are gaps pretty much universally recognized in the mathematics of it (E8 representations, chirality, triality, antigeneration, masses, mixing), in the coherence of it (BRST, Coleman-Mandula, anomalies, coupling constant runnings) and in its predictions (how is it useful so far? if not for indicating some areas that people might want to look at?). Stating this clearly is by no means something that should damage anybody. At the contrary, researchers working on it could tackle these points and write very nice papers if they find a good solution. What does a wikipedia page have anything to do with researchers? If their work is good the papers will be published well. So, if anything, we need less interviews and more papers.

Here, instead, the problem is not researchers, but the casual readers that would see a misrepresentation of the state of things. Again, I'm not trying to say that Lisi is a crackpot, I'm trying to objectively report what the theory is. What aspects do you think, of this E8 stuff, are right but not well represented in the page? What aspects do you think are better than in most theories (and which theories)? Why do you think that showing some mathematics is really relevant? The mathematics shown had an unusual notation, confusing at the least and maybe not even right (what is this formal addition? does it work? does it predict the right cross sections? can it be used in other theories? how about the unconventional BRST? how does it enter?). Anyhow, I was the one reintroducing the decomposition, because I thought that part was clear enough and most physics people would understand that. The rest of the math was just a way to show off, given that not even physics people would understand it without studying the new notation. Let's just have a much shorter page, with less of everything.

(about 71, lately xe wasn't really editing, that's what I meant. And I'm sure admins will follow through if 71 was banned in the past, or if this new physicsrocks user is a sockpuppet or just POV)

Do you realize that this E8 stuff has had a page as long as QCD? And that Lisi's page was longer than Murray Gell-Mann's? We are talking about fundamental discoveries of the last 50 years, and Gell-Mann even won the Nobel Prize for QCD. Do you realize that this E8 stuff has had a page longer than the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa_matrix and Lisi's page is longer than the three physicists, two of which won the Nobel Prize for it mentioned? And this is just to mention group theory related results. And even if now Lisi is a TV person, SherryNugil's version of Lisi's page was as long as Larry King's. Do you see the problem here? 24.7.128.58 (talk) 21:01, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Qwyrxian, the banned user, Elliot McGucken has made hundreds, if not thousands, of negative POV edits to Lisi related pages. Here is a partial collection of contributions, in roughly reverse chronological order: Physicrocks, 71.106.167.55, 71.105.103.149, 64.134.223.25, 64.134.238.60, 71.106.172.131, 71.106.173.238, 71.106.194.198, 67.102.135.70, 98.96.131.166, 71.232.15.137, 98.97.102.198, 137.159.189.7, 137.159.148.66, 76.16.160.165, 71.167.229.61, 137.159.149.199, 137.159.148.112.

There is another banned user (look at that link to get a quick idea of the magnitude of the problem), amorrow, who has also made hundreds of negative POV edits. Here is a partial collection: Afteread, Totalbr, Verbapple, Wouldbn, Makevocab, Standardfact, Miles1228.

With both of these users, it would be very helpful if you block them. However, it is their MO to come back in a few days, weeks or months with different identities and edit again. It is impossible to stop them with current policies, since it is too easy to change IP, and they are not always easily identifiable. These banned, abusive editors have been seriously effecting the POV of these articles for years. Almost every time any editor injects negative POV, one of these banned editors backs them up. I've been doing what I can to keep the Exceptionally Simple Theory article accurate and NPOV, but it is a lot of work and I'm sick of it. And, since you and 58 are working against me and enforcing your own negative POV, partially justified by persistent negative contributions from banned users, I am now incapable of stopping them.-Scientryst (talk) 22:43, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

71, you are raising many interesting technical and other questions, some rhetorical. Should this be discussed here, which seems somewhat rude to Qwyrxian, or elsewhere?-Scientryst (talk) 22:43, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

If you're debating the article contents, do it there. If you're discussing sockpuppetry or other inappropriate behavior, do it here. Or at ANI (regarding the anti-Lisi sock), where I've just opened a thread, at WP:ANI#Banned user?. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:30, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

That is what I suspected. If 71 cuts and pastes his questions/argument into the article talk page, I will address them there.-Scientryst (talk) 09:18, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Qwyrxian, I have written something in the sandbox. Let me know what you think. (moved in sandbox) 24.7.128.58 (talk) 02:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. My apologies, but it is very likely that I will not be able to review it for about a week. I have only a little bit of WP time today, which I need to use covering my watchlist and other urgent issues...then I'll being losing internet access for 3-5 days. This is something that deserves serious consideration, not a rapid evaluation now. In a certain sense, that's alright, because if the problems been going on as long as you've said, then a few more weeks won't really hurt anything. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Sure. I agree, a few more weeks won't be a problem. If your losing internet is for vacation reasons then have fun and happy new years! 24.7.128.58 (talk) 02:30, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Kshatriya

How weird that you should redirect to this article at this time! I was only thinking in the early hours of today that I should raise this situation with you. It popped into my head while checking out RfC procedures in relation to a thread at WT:INB. Doubtless Rajkris will resurface. - Sitush (talk) 15:59, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Someone added something random to Talk:Kshatriya, which made me look at the page, which reminded me of the concern. If he really wants to revert under BRD, I'm not going to edit war over it....I'll try either NORN or an RfC. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:42, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

	Merry Christmas!
	Best wishes, Fleet Command P.S. How are you? Fleet Command (talk) 17:57, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm good, though I'm mostly in "maintenance mod", Wikipedia-wise (meaning I check my full watchlist and respond to inquiries, but little large=scale work, for the next few days. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:43, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Please comment on Help talk:Citation Style 1

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Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun

Hi Qwyrxian, you locked the page to editing last week. The IP reverted again and hasn't been seen on the talk page in 3 days. I'm not sure what you want to do, but you indicated semi-protection as an option. --Izno (talk) 20:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Danlaycock (TDL)

Hi Qwyrxian. Sorry to bother you with this, but the user who I'd had a bit of bad history with is now interjecting himself in the CCI that you filed on his behalf. I've respectfully asked that he leave it to third parties and finally busy himself with something that doesn't involve me. Would you please ask the same from him? Nightw 04:09, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm still having difficulty getting through to user Night w (talk · contribs) the importance of using one's own words. The user plagiarized the sentence "The ruling families of these states claimed descent from a common ancestor, Hari Patwardhan" nearly word for word from "whose ruling families claimed descent from a common ancestor, Hari Patwardhan". I fixed the problem, but the user keeps reverting me claiming that the source is in the WP:Public domain and as such this doesn't constitute plagiarism. Perhaps you could could have a go explaining to the user that this doesn't excuse word for word plagiarism? TDL (talk) 04:56, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

If we overlook the fact that it's half a sentence, it still doesn't constitute a copyright violation. While I would never skip citing my sources, there is no legal requirement to provide any attribution in cases where public domain text is copied—and policy does not require it to avoid infringements. I gave attribution where and how it was required of me. If you had a problem with how I followed guidelines, that's a different thing (feel free to add a public-domain template or make a note in the references section that half of a sentence was copied from the public domain). CCI deals with copyright violations. This is not one. I'll ask you again, don't interfere with the CCI. Your interpretation of copyright policies are (in another user's words) "zealous" and (in yet another user's words) "over the top" to begin with, and given your history even just with me, I'd prefer you try and branch into things that don't involve me. Nightw 05:56, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Please don't edit my comments. You replaced the source I provided, which contained the sentence you plagiarized, with one that doesn't contain it for some unknown reason. See WP:TALKO for an explanation of why it is inappropriate to edit other editors comments.

I'm confused by your math. Does "The" and "of these states" constitute half a sentence? Because those are the only words you contributed to the sentence. And I'm baffled at how you can still be arguing that plagiarizing half a sentence is acceptable.

The source I linked to above was quite clearly copyrighted. If you want to claim that this material has since been released to the public domain, then you need to prove that and document it. We can't just take your word for it because you say so repeatedly. As it stands, the material has been taken word-for-word from a copyrighted source. That's obviously a copyright concern. If you insist on including the plagiarized material, then the burden is on you to prove that it isn't a copyright violation. Personally, I don't know anything about the copyright laws in India. But since you seem to be an expert, perhaps you can explain why this material has entered the public domain? TDL (talk) 07:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I come with many solutions. First, and the easiest part, is that all books published by Gyan Publishing are considered to be non-RS. This consensus has been agreed to at many India related articles. Gyan Publishing is known to have lifted information directly from Wikipedia articles (without attribution), and to have copied much older works. Disturbingly, they don't even always get the copies correct. So please remove anything that you sourced to anything published by Gyan.

Next, on the issue of copyright...well, half a sentence isn't a copyright vio, but it is absolutely an attribution issue, regardless of whether the original is in the public domain or not. If you take something from a source, and copy it exactly or nearly exactly, you must cite it. If you copy it word for word, it must be quotation marks. Remember, copyright law isn't actually what matters here--it's Wikipedia's rules, which are actually stricter than copyright laws in many countries (I don't know about India). Just because the issue is being reviewed under CCI doesn't mean that other problems can't be examined as well. Like if I looked at a CCI, and determined something wasn't a copy-vio, that wouldn't stop me from also fixing the grammar.

As to this particular book being copyrighted or not...well, like I said, Gyan sometimes takes things from public domain and then reprints them with a copyright. That doesn't mean, however, that they suddenly hold the copyright--the original PD status applies. So the relevant question is, which of the two publications was first, Gyan or the other one? And do the two versions differ?

And finally, on the interaction issue. Danlaycock, it seems like you're not really working well with Night W. If your past interactions have made you unable to discuss issues reasonably, and Night W is unable to hear what you are saying as being constructive, it probably would be better for you to work on other issues. If you specifically want to work on CCIs, well, there's another 50 or so available. If you don't, then well there's about 4 million articles on WP, over half of which have one kind of problem or another. In other words, there doesn't seem to be any gain to having you work on this CCI, since Night W just automatically assumes you're being too extreme, so that even when you raise legitimate points, xe's likely to just ignore them. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:58, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Well that was my thought about this book aswell—that Gyan had directly copied Wikipedia. Jamkhandi State includes the same entire paragraph, so I've likely copied it from within Wikipedia. It's the only explanation I can come up with, as I've certainly never seen that book before. The source cited (and I have cited it by the way) is this one and it was published in 1917, so it's in the public domain. The information is on pages 3–4, and it details the descent so the two are in no way the same. Nightw 13:11, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've found the source: it's from this edit in 2005 (well before it's reproduction by Gyan). Obviously I've copied it from there—without attribution mind you, but again, it's half a sentence. It's too far back for me to confirm but I presumably needed a source for an unsourced statement and so I gave Parasanisa (again, the info is on pages 3–4). I'll leave the rewording by Danlaycock, but this isn't a copyvio. Thanks for your response, Qwyrxian. Nightw 13:31, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that explanation is correct. When you first created the article you cited Gyan not Parasanisa. You didn't add the Parasanisa source until 1.5 years later (while interestingly accusing a use who had plagiarized content from Parasanisa of committing a "blatant copyvio"). Jamkhandi has never cited Gyan, so it can't be copied from there since you wouldn't have known that the content originated in Gyan. You must have either taken it from Gyan or some other wiki article which cited Gyan. This is one very good reason to give credit when you copy within wikipedia: so you don't accidentally copy other editors copyright violations.

Note that the same sentence appears in a version of the encyclopedia from 1996, predating wikipedia itself, so it's impossible that the content has been copied from wikipedia. If you know of other articles which contain material plagiarized from this source, please either remove it or alert me or Qwyrxian so that the copyvios can be excised from wikipedia.

It's still not clear that the Parasanisa source is actually in the public domain. How long are works under copyright for in India? If it was published in the USA it would be in the public domain, but since it was published in India we need to follow their laws. It would be far simpler to just rewrite the content in your own words.

As for the CCI, I'm not actively involved in it. It's been open for nearly two months before my first edit yesterday. When I first discovered the plagiarism problem, before going to AN/I I did a review of the editors contributions to determine the extent of the problem and discovered many copyvios. I hoped to leave the cleanup to the people at CCI, since the user is unable to AGF with me. However, yesterday I checked in on the process and noticed that a couple copyvios which I had previously discovered had gone undetected so I fixed them. I'd already gone to all the hard work of finding the copyvios, and it seems silly that we should keep copyvios in wikipedia just because the editor holds a grudge against me. There are still other articles edited by this user with copyvios that I'm aware of that have yet to be reviewed by the CCI. I'd prefer to let them handle it, but if they miss more it only makes sense that I'd fix them. TDL (talk) 17:41, 29 December 2011 (UTC)