Wikipedia talk:Editing scientific articles

First principles

I found "first principles using the underlying theory" to be vague although it may be out of necessity. Can this be more explicit? ClaudeReigns (talk) 09:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think one could clairify this by giving examples. The basic idea is that one should have the attitude of a scientist who investigates something rather than that of a lawyer who argues in favor or against a certain point. Count Iblis (talk) 16:33, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Starting from theory rather than empirical evidence sounds very backwards. This would be a great suggestion on how to edit a pathological or idiosyncratic science article. I think this language needs to be changed if this article is going to be applicable to anything but the derivation of physical equations. Science is split between theory and evidence, claiming that evidence belongs to lawyers is just a demonstration of the audacity of theoretical physicists. Why is there a need for this as a policy is this fundamentally a challenge to WP:OR or rather a method to block trolls misapplying WP:OR?--OMCV (talk) 20:40, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

As previously discussed I have amended "first principles" to include empirical evidence.--Michael C. Price ^talk 21:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I realize that this is an essay rather than anything stronger, and therefore may only reflect Count Iblis' predilictions, but "discuss the issues as much as possible from first principles" sounds like a recipe for tl;dr crankery, and accurately describes the behavior of some of our most tendentious editors. Additionally, isn't going from first principles rather than relying on secondary sources the same thing as original research? —David Eppstein (talk) 21:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Eppstein's assessment. Tendentious editors already try to game the system by selectively misunderstanding core policies on verifiability and sources. I predict that, if implemented as guideline, this will have exactly the opposite of the intended effect. 71.182.248.124 (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The moment it is clear than you're dealing with an tendentious editor, it will be the end of the discussion. Count Iblis (talk) 15:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it always so clear? It often takes a long pattern of disruption to establish this. In hindsight, things are much clearer. 71.182.248.124 (talk) 15:17, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Fringe theories

I like the general thrust of the essay, and hope it can evolve into an accepted guideline before too long. I've just been in a couple of science disputes and need to digest any lessons to be learnt before making a substantial contribution here. But here are my immediate thoughts:

1. The article tells us how to handle an editor who is ignorant on a mainstream topic, as opposed to the out-and-out crackpot. But the scope of writing science articles needs to cover handling fringe subjects and pseudscience crackpots. I like what WP:REDFLAG has to say on the subject. Perhaps we can import some of that stuff.
2. Somewherewhen I saw a suggestion that claims that are near-universally accepted could require a lower level sourcing. What happened to the idea? Was it dropped? It would protect WP against the crackpots who argue that their pet theory -- which has been ignored because no one accepts it -- has not been refuted and therefore merits inclusion.--Michael C. Price ^talk 18:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with importing useful guidelines from WP:REDFLAG. Now, I don't have a lot of experience dealing with real die hard crackpots, so suggestions on guidelines from you or other editors would be most welcome. Count Iblis (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for getting me up to speed Michael. I think WP:REDFLAG works well for many things but it fails for controversial subjects such as cold fusion or even interpretations of mild perpetual motion machines in the form of hydrogen fuel enhancement. Even on more fringe subject like Blacklight Power or Water-fueled cars the WP:REDFLAG ends up being pretty weak. I think WP:RS combined with an opposition to WP:OR is the best possible way to challenge cranks and I'm wary of anything that would weaken these "tools". Furthermore WP:RS forces us to attribute opinions which makes it easier to find consensus on the controversial material. I like the way WP:scientific standards dealt with controversies I'll look over the article and see if I have anymore thoughts.--OMCV (talk) 21:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

All science or some science

I have some sympathy with this essay, but it seems to me that it applies much more to physics articles than it does to biology or chemistry articles. That fits with the fact that it is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics, but I do not think that any other science projects have been notified. One problem with science articles is where the topic is of interest to more than one discipline, in particular in my experience where the two disciplines are physics and chemistry, within the broad area of physical chemistry and chemical physics. The physics editors with their equations and rigour dominate. The articles come to be essentially quite useless to people coming from a chemistry background, let alone the increasing number of people from the life sciences. An example is Entropy which still can not get a generally agreed, simply written, equation-free lede that everybody can understand. I have been pointing this out for years, but I just do not have the time to keep pushing it. Perhaps this essay should say that are equations and symbols are not allowed in the first two paragraphs which must explain what the topic is about and who uses the topic in what is essentially simple english. Sources are a concern but readers will not get to the sources if they can understand a word that is written, --Bduke (Discussion) 04:34, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Banning equations from the start of the lead is an interesting idea. Perhaps that might improve some of the maths articles, which, IMO, are completely incomprehensible to all but experts.

Re: scope I agree that so far this seems slanted more towards the physical sciences and away from the life sciences. Medicine already has WP:MEDRS so I see no problem with us narrowing the scope if appropriate. --Michael C. Price ^talk 06:28, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

You are a physicist, so perhaps you do not notice. Take a look at the lede in Entropy (top down to TOC). How do you think a chemist reacts to that when s/he comes across entropy in "Chemistry 1A" and thinks WP might help? There is nothing whatsoever that links to what the lecturer in 1st year or indeed 2nd year chemistry is saying and a set of equations which are incomprehensible and totally unlike anything s/he has come across in class. Also I am saying that the essay is slanted not towards the physical sciences, but to physics. It really does not apply to any article on actual chemicals or to any article on organic or inorganic chemistry. It applies a bit to physical chemistry, but only because they are written like physicists like things and not like chemists like things. I started by career teaching some specialist parts of physical chemistry to students with a good grasp of physics and spent the last 25 years teaching all the physical chemistry the students got in the degree and they had little background in physics. I understand the difference between those situations. WP is not helping the latter group. --Bduke (Discussion) 09:10, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the formula $dE=TdS-PdV$ should appear a little higher up. Of course even the first sentence of the lead gives away the physics bias by not mentioning chemistry. Is this a problem with just the entropy article or it a more systemic problem that needs addressing here as well? --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:30, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I have been less active with these articles in the last year, partly because I am busy with other things, but partly because I just got fed up with getting agreement on changes that then just drifted back to where they were. It was certainly very common a year ago and I have not seen any improvement. I am even busier now with a trip overseas in a couple of weeks. --Bduke (Discussion) 11:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Quick comment about entropy: A major rewrite is underway, There is an agreement to move the equations out of the lead. But we will define entropy in terms of information theoretical concepts. To make sure that the various wiki articles on entropy, heat, work, the second law etc. etc. are consistent with each other (so that we don't get circular definitions), I've been making some small edits to these various other articles. Count Iblis (talk) 13:23, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Just to say that from a non-specialist viewpoint, Bduke's concern is well justified: there seems to be a culture issue where to physicists or information theorists "entropy is defined as the expected amount of information needed to exactly specify the state of the system," which is gibberish to most of us, who find it more relevant to think of entropy as a measure of the uniformity of the distribution of energy and hence its availability to do work. Both the maths and the concept has clearly diversified into other fields, but the original approach and the approach relating to chemistry are also valid. Unfortunately the cultural view that only information theory is valid seems to obscure explanation. Of course as a non-expert this may be my misunderstanding. . dave souza, talk 10:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, we have a bad case all round of undue weight to the way some physicists or information theorists see the world. The views of engineers, chemists and other scienctists and technologists needs to be better addressed. --Bduke (Discussion) 11:19, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the views of chemists are not represented well because of their dwindling numbers? Lots of chemistry departments are closing down. Re Entropy I think that we should revisit the suggestion of having a more disambigutaion-style approach, and more separate articles for each viewpoint.--Michael C. Price ^talk 12:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

In most places I know, physics departments are in worse shape than chemistry departments. In most cases where there is an excellent physics department, there is also an excellent chemistry department. Here is Australia, year 12 numbers in physics are less than those in chemistry. However, to comment on my approach, I am a chemical physicist but I have always worked in chemistry departments in universities. I can see and understand the physics point of view, but I spent my career teaching chemists, and I know just how confusing it is to them. Back to this essay, I have to say we are all partly to blame. We should be concentrating on making the lead understandable to a layperson. That should certainly mean removing equations. Far too many science articles are just unintelligible. Part of the reason for this, I suspect, is that they are written by Ph D students who are so full of their recent knowledge in detail of a small part of a field that they can not write for the layperson. We learn to do that after a Ph D, if we are employed to teach people who do not have our background. --Bduke (Discussion) 21:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I was overgeneralising from the UK, but chemistry is in terminal decline here. I have a lot of empathy with your teaching perspective (although I only teach physics and maths), and share your views on the unintelligibility of science articles here. But the maths articles are by far the worst, it seems to me.--Michael C. Price ^talk 22:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This conversation of "who is in greater decline" is very strange and rather poor form? I'm resisting entering the fray with all my strength. I'm just trying to avoid making comparisons between the APS and ACS, length of time in train, job opportunities, and other statistics. One things for sure since 0.75$ of every public research dollar goes to towards biology in the US, biologist are doing the best. I think Bduke has a very good point about writing for the layperson first and foremost. When I first joined Wikipedia I was a fresh PhD propeller-head, I was to intimidated to edit on major articles and so I worked on very specific content while there was a greater need for more basic content/corrections. Bduke rightly admonished me for it. Since then I tackled major rewrites on few major articles with an eye to making them more accessible and accurate. Furthermore as a non-physicist non-theorist experimentalist I have very little use for first principles I far prefer empirical information and directions to the origins of the empirical information. It would be nice if you could give an example of where this policy would be applied since its not altogether clear.--OMCV (talk) 20:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I came across some interesting details looking some stuff up after watching a couple videos on the noble website. In 1975 there was 1,300 physics PhDs earned and 1,776 chemistry PhDs earned in the US. In 2005 there was 1,520 physics PhDs earned and 2,127 chemistry PhDs earned in the US. Honestly that is closer than I expected. The data came from the 2005 "Survey of Earned Doctorates". The site http://webcaspar.nsf.gov/ has details on how much money is spent on chemistry and physics by US universities and the portion of that which is funded by the US Federal government. Takes some digging to get the data but its really good data for some questions. I didn't include it since its probably a bit deceptive since I think chemist do a greater percentage of their work within the university setting while physicists have to go institutes/consortiums with big instruments (colliders and space ships) that are funded outside the university system.--OMCV (talk) 04:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Until recently the entropy article had the "chemist's perspective" preferred by Bduke, but some people complained that it didn't explain things well. Someone (not me) changed the article a few months ago and gave it an information theoretical introduction. Since last week, I've started to do some work on this, but as I wrote above, that also requires one to do some work on the related wiki articles on the second law, temperature, heat, work, etc. etc. The way entropy is used in chemistry and engineering will be mentioned quite high up in the article, also in the lead.

But it is not ok. to define entropy in the way it is done in classical termodynamics and then pretend that it is somehow the fundamental definition of entropy. The classical definition of entropy cannot be used to derive the second law of thermodynamics. In classical thermodynamics all the four laws of thermodynamics are postulated to be true. I have to say that the article on the second law, before I started to edit it a few days ago, was completely misleading in this regard. It now mentions this fact in the lead and it now contains a section in which the second law is derived from first principles for a system described by the microcanonical ensemble (the derivation for the canonical ensemble which is much simpler is yet to come). Count Iblis (talk) 13:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The 2nd law can also be derived from the information perspective. Perhaps we're getting a bit off-topic though. What are the lessons to encapsulate here? --Michael C. Price ^talk 22:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

See here Count Iblis (talk) 23:21, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

(deindent)There were 3 suggestions made in Count Iblis' link:

• Editors of a wiki article on a scientific subject should be experts in that subject. If you make substantial edits to such a article, you should be absolutely sure that you have completely mastered the subject you are writing about.
• Wikipedians are encouraged to engage in technical discussions on the talk page. Such technical discussions may be used to improve the article.
• Detailed arguments/derivations don't have to be sourced if included to make statements verifiable. In that case they are not included as encyclopedic content whose veracity should be verifiable to non-experts who are not able to understand the derivation/argumentation.

None of these suggestions is reflected in the Wikipedia:Scientific standards. This article is perhaps a more suitable forum?

Anyway, the first two suggestions we've already raised. The last one relates to my earlier query about not having to source "obvious" statements, restricted to derivations, proofs etc. I like it, of course. --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

First principles and evidence

One problem in this (which, by the way, I like in principle) is that this essay implies that the science is a first-principles, perfectly-deductive one. A historical science, like geology, doesn't have first principles, but rather a series of observations (OK, I know that the grammar stinks, geology cannot have obesrvations, but whatever). But I don't think that this is entirely inapplicable, because it could be important in geology articles to discuss observations of researchers independent of their conclusions. Of course, combining those observations into some synthesis is best done in peer-reviewed-land, but on Wiki we often need to discuss a variety of conjectures based on an ever-growing body of knowledge. So perhaps this could be expanded to say "first principles and evidence". That way, the empirical could be represented as well as the theoretical. Awickert (talk) 04:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Howabout replacing:

discuss this as much as is possible from first principles using the underlying theory.

with:

discuss this as much as is possible from first principles and/or direct evidence.

--Michael C. Price ^talk 01:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I have some doubts about this "discuss this as much as is possible from first principles" approach. I think it often just leads to unintelligibility. Science evolves over time, and we need to address that historical developement because that is how scientists developed new knowledge. Often much later underlining principles are developed that are often difficult to understand. Starting from that point will ensure most people can not read it in a way that develops understanding. For example, do we discuss properties of chemicals entirely on how they are understood from advanced quantum chemistry or even quantum field theory? I do not think so. That is why I think "entropy" should start from the thing that scientists and technologists understand to have units of Joules per Kelvin, and then move on later to show how the whole concept can be understood from informational entropy. The latter is not the place to start. --Bduke (Discussion) 02:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The context here is discussion on talk pages, not in the artcles themselves.--Michael C. Price ^talk 02:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Be bold

An article of this kind will be very useful.

Paragraph No. 1 contains the expression a statement could be invalid under any possible circumstances. I think this should be valid.

Paragraph No. 3 contains the expression Do not simply throw around direct quotes … In this context, throw around is a metaphor and not appropriate in an essay that demands objective language. I suggest something like Use quotations from textbooks and scientific articles to support your stated views, but quotations alone are unlikely to be persuasive.

Paragraph No. 1 also contains the statement To find out, you may need to study carefully the entire source in which the statement is made or look in other sources. This statement is not consistent with WP:BE BOLD and is strongly biased in favor of the original author. Anyone writing an essay on this subject should recognize the competing interests of original authors, and new Users who wish to improve or delete statements. Original authors can be expected to want their statements to stand for a long time, and only be amended or deleted by someone of equal expertise and only after they have done a lot of research. In contrast, Users who want to improve statements, or delete them, want to be free to do so easily and in accordance with WP:BE BOLD. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. No qualifications are required. It isn’t an encyclopedia written by experts.

I believe a more satisfactory solution to this problem can be achieved by writing something like the following:

1. If you find a statement with which you disagree, and the statement is not supported by an in-line citation, you are encouraged to do one of the following:

• add the {{Fact}} tag to the statement
• question the validity of the statement on the Talk page or, if you know who originated the statement, question the originator on his or her User Talk page
• delete the statement on the grounds that it is unsourced material that you consider to be unsound
• delete the statement and replace it with your own statement, preferably also providing an in-line citation to allow independent verification.

2. If you find a statement with which you disagree, and the statement is supported by an in-line citation, you are encouraged to do one of the following:

• add one of the tags shown at Template:Citation needed
• use the Talk page to question the validity of the statement or, if you know who originated the statement, question the originator on his or her User Talk page
• leave the statement unchanged and add your own statement with an in-line citation to allow independent verification, possibly phrasing your statement in terms of An alternative view of this matter is …

3. If a statement with which you disagree is supported by an in-line citation:

• under no circumstances delete the statement and replace it with your own statement without an in-line citation
• under no circumstances amend the statement to change its meaning, orientation or emphasis

4. If you find a paragraph, or major sub-section, or a whole article, with which you disagree a good strategy is to create a User sub-page for yourself and re-create the paragraph, major sub-section or article to match your ideas, your preferences and your in-line citations. You can do this at your leisure and other Users will not interfere with your User sub-page while you are developing your new version. You can then use the Talk page for the original article to alert other interested Users to the existence of your version, ask for their comments, and discuss any suggestions or opposing points of view. When your version has been aired for what appears to be a sufficient time, you can paste your version into the original article.

I look forward to seeing this essay evolve. Dolphin51 (talk) 04:16, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Conflicting with WP:BOLD is not a problem, since many of the problems with edit creep in science articles are due to boldness. Thus guideline is trying to address this problem, not reinforce it. --Michael C. Price ^talk 03:15, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't doubt that edit creep is a problem in science articles in general, but this guideline is not addressing science articles in general, it is addressing science articles in Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a policy known as WP:BE BOLD. There is nothing in Wikipedia to indicate that WP:BE BOLD is suspended for science articles. This guideline should be worded sufficiently carefully that it does not conflict with any of Wikipedia's five pillars or other policies.

Why is conflicting with WP:BE BOLD not a problem? Dolphin51 (talk) 03:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Boldness needs tempering with caution. That's the point.--Michael C. Price ^talk 04:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Mutliple meanings

I'd like to see added a section suggesting care be taken about multiple meanings. For example, the term centrifugal force is used in three or more ways: see Centrifugal force. However, a lot of turmoil resulted because some editors were familiar with "reactive" centrifugal force and acted on the basis that it was the only meaning, others on the basis that it was always a "fictitious force" due to a rotating reference frame, and still others that it was a "fictitious force" due to one's choice of coordinate system (whether it rotated or not). It turned out that all of these uses are employed, some more in one field than another. However, arguments led to heat and to violations of WP:NPA and soon nobody was listening to anybody else. All this could be avoided if (i) an editor assumes from the outset that multiple meanings are likely to occur, whether or not they are aware of them, and (ii) an editor actually Google searches for meanings proposed by other editors, rather than searching only to back up their own understanding.

Maybe a fundamental goal should be to learn from others, not just instruct. Brews ohare (talk) 21:58, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Brews ohare's sentiment above. Another facet of this situation is where two or more definitions or explanations are in use by different authors. In some situations it can be isolated to different usage in Europe and North America. I guess we have all seen examples where one User adds one definition, and cites a suitable source, but then takes offence when another User adds a slightly different definition (and cites a different source.) Users should not labour under the misconception that if a high-quality source uses one definition or explanation, all slightly different definitions and explanations must be wrong. Wikipedia needs to cover all legitimate definitions and explanations, even if that adds complexity. Dolphin51 (talk) 03:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree, too. It's really important to represent clearly the different extant points of view on what a term means. This what I tried to do to break up the arguments between Brews ohare and David Tombe on the centrifugal force article, and what I did on Electromotive force when Brews had inserted text stating that one common interpretation was just mistaken. At the time, he did not act like he believed in this idea, so I'm glad he has come around. Dicklyon (talk) 06:18, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Where's the point

I don't usually top post but I think the poll is better kept at the bottom of the page. I wanted to voice my concerns after reading the text in detail (and not just the talk page). This seems like a good essay but I'm still having a hard time seeing the point. Most of these recommendations would apply to just about any page. That was a critique of Wikipedia:Scientific standards that I didn't care for but at the time but I think its still important to consider. As always WP:CREEP is a concern. Personally I think it needs something that doesn't appear in any other policy on wikipedia. If that aspect is already here it should be pruned down to this original element. Alternately we could go the other way and expand the text by salvaging some of the better parts of Wikipedia:Scientific standards. While I like pretty much all of Wikipedia:Scientific standards I think it could be significantly improved by condensing the text down to the primary points. The specific sections I especially like are Wikipedia:Scientific standards#Controversies related to science and Wikipedia:Scientific standards#Scientific sources. In interest of disclosure I wrote much of the "sources" section. The reason I would like to see it incorporated into a policy is that no where else in WP policy is the respective value and importance of a patent, review article,and institute article (etc.) explicitly and concisely described. This quick outline would be useful to any student of science or laymen unfamiliar with the practical application and growth of science. Understanding the the nature of each of these sources is very important when dealing with controversial science where weighting of issues can be tricky. I don't know how many times I have had to explain the value of a patent to other editors on fringe/debatable articles. (Yes I realize this essay recommends against lecturing.)--OMCV (talk) 03:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific standards is basically about how to present some scientific topic in an article, how to deal with fringe points of view, what are good sources etc. etc. The guidlines I wrote here were motivated to prevent problems like discussed here. If you forget about conflicts with other editors, just assume that you are the only editor and you are not a complete lay person, you have access to some sources. Even then, mistakes are easy to make. My experience is that they tend to remain in article for a very long time. Often these are "sourced mistakes", so you have an erroneous statement in a sentence that ends with a citation to some source. This may lead to people to not even bother to question the validity of the statement.

You want to prevent such errors from being edited in by the original editor in the first place. That requires the original editor to check and double check his edits. If possible (in case of theoretical subjects) it is preferable that the editor derives everything he/she wants to edit from first principles. That would make sure what the source writes is not wrongly interpreted or there are some missing assumptions that appear elsewhere in the source without which the statement is not valid.

If you have more than one editor, then it is a good thing to discuss proposed edits from first principles. What I wrote above in case of a single editor is effectively a discussion of the editor with him/herself. Without such discussions, the editor(s) are far more likely to make errors. Count Iblis (talk) 03:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

So what about "so fix it"? I don't see how that doesn't solve the linked problems. I've come across a few electrochemistry pages with major problems and rehashed almost the entire articles and I didn't need a policy to tell me to do it.--OMCV (talk) 03:24, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The point is that the affected articles wouldn't have needed fixing by me if the original editors or other editors had stuck to the proposed guidelines. I.m.o. this disastrous Wikipedia fallout is a big shame. The reason why I and not others had fixed this was because I have taught this subject and can do the first principles checking very fast. So, the reason why the errors were corrected is fundamentally because someone came along who applied the proposed guidelines.

This is also why I'm reluctant to give references to derivations. They are not needed as the derivation is meant to verify a statement. The derivation itself is not meant to be displayed without being verifiable itself without a ref, as that would defeat the whole purpose of incuding the derivation. Also, you often want to present the derivation in a different way than is given in a textbook, so the ref. may be misleading.

Now, if you do give a reference, then that will put people off from making amendments to it. It may stop people from trying to find flaws in it, as apperently happened in the case of dE <= T dS - P dV which can still be found on Wolfram's site (if I remember correctly, the old Wikipedia article which made this statement referred to the Wolfram site, but Wolfram likely orginally took this statement from Wikipedia). So, to later editors, it looked like the flawed statement was sourced ok. It only takes a limited amount of brainpower to see that the statement is utterly wrong. In practice errors are often noted and corrected this way (using brainpower), rather than by looking things up in a source and then finding that it is wrong. A source will be used only after someone has become suspicious that something is wrong. Count Iblis (talk) 00:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

My favorite example of that sort of event is [1]. But Wolfram isn't a WP:RS for the same reasons that ask.com isn't a WP:RS or any of the other hundred Wikipedia mirrors out there. That's why its important to attribute material to good WP:RS. What you are proposing here is a recommendation of how to edit an article and develop material. Furthermore none of this deals with material that isn't in other recommendations. The only thing that is unique is the obsession with first principles which really only applies to mathematics and theoretical physics.

I hate to tell you again but derivations need references. When I asked for a reference for the underived relationship I just wanted a reference what you call "a statment" to put the statement in context. I know that hyper links do this to some extent but there is not substitute for including one on the page itself. I don't see how indicating the source of a derivation devalues it, it simple means that more people than some dude on the internet thinks this is how the math works out.

Most student are taught to mistrust Wikipedia for very good reason. "Encyclopedias are a good place to begin your research NOT finish it"[2]. The more closely we link our material to primary and authoritative sources the more effective we are in our mission. We are not creating information we are connecting information. Nor are we an oral tradition were you skill at deriving things very quickly can't be relied on. Just cite a source, if you improve the language or slightly adjust the material no one is going to care. No one expects the material to be quoted from the source unless quatation marks are used and if the derivation is so self evident than its relationship to the reference should be just as self evident.

I recommend using zotero to managed references, its works great.

This is not the first time I've said this to you nor am I the only one to offer these ideas. As others have suggest you would do well to write a wikitextbook or something like that but on Wikipedia WP:V is one of the three cornerstones.--OMCV (talk) 02:13, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed policy

• Oppose: Good essay, but way too specific and prone to wikilawyering. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 00:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose: I agree it's good, as an essay; many constructive ideas here. I fear however that it will too much encourage the kind of incessant argument without any source for backup that we've been trying to deal with at speed of light and other places. The sentiment expressed by Count Iblis at Wikipedia_talk:Scientific_standards/Archive_1#Some_suggestions_based_on_my_experience_with_editing_scientific_wiki_articles includes the idea that a derivation or proof is a satisfactory alternative to WP:V; to me, this is worse than a slippery slope. As my math teacher taught me, "figures never lie, but liers can figure"; I've been in enough arguments involving flawed logic to know that they can't be won by logic; only appealing to WP:V provides a way out. Dicklyon (talk) 06:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

  Comment Dealing with cranks is different from dealing with the merely uninformed. As I mentioned earlier, this needs to be dealt with differently (and not by reason). --Michael C. Price ^talk 13:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

  Comment on PriceIf there are different methods applied to cranks I have to ask the next logical question which is what is the method for determining if someone is a crank? Could you point to me where you explained these different dealings.--OMCV (talk) 20:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

  Comment See the section on fringe theories and WP:REDFLAG. As for how you recognise a crank -- believe me that is (almost) never a problem! --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

  Thought experiment: Let's play this game. Give me some statement that is known to be false, and then I have to present that statement as if it is true and then get it edited in into a wikipedia article. I will then have a much easier time doing that by abusing WP:V than if the rules are that I have to give a first principles argument (in the article itself, or on the talk page to convice others that the claim in the source is rigorously true in the particular meaning that I claim). Count Iblis (talk) 14:14, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

  Comment on Iblis But WP:VS will inevitable improve the quality of the encyclopedia especially since WP isn't a primary source but a pointer to good primary and other WP:VS sources. There is no reason not to include "wrong" information as long as its WP:NOTE and properly attributed. If a source is "wrong" I think we can trust in science to to produce another source to correct the "wrong" source.--OMCV (talk) 20:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the proposal suggests abandoning WP:V. It suggests that on the Talk page discussion from first principles is fine, and that when one settles what is to be said, argument from first principles can be used to connect sourced precepts to sourced conclusions. That connection might be done incorrectly (contain some logical error that somehow doesn't change the conclusions, or make a hidden assumption that really is not essential) but no great crime is done, and it is no worse a problem than summarizing a long discussion in English text, something considered as "good editing" in other guidelines. In additional support, I favor derivations because they provide something closer to a working understanding of the principles than the bare statement of conclusions. That is real information. Brews ohare (talk) 19:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• Strongly Support: In my opinion, the best science article on Wikipedia is BKL singularity. This article was painstakingly assembled by User:Lantonov using careful calculations, illustrated by beautiful charts, which would be impossible to direct quote from sources. This article is fully verifiable by consulting the original BKL paper, and by doing a few calculations and checks. It contains no original research as such (or at least not any of sufficient originality to make it an independent work from BKL). Such articles have been surviving on the margins of Wikipedia by the principle of "if you put an equation in it, ignorant people will leave it alone". But it is an act of faith to assume that this will protect them forever. If an editor comes in with the hostile intent to get rid of an article like BKL singularity, they could do so by requiring that every equation and every graph be sourced in the exact form it appears. That would be an abomination, and would destroy most of the best science and mathematics articles here.Likebox (talk) 18:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
• Mild Oppose I've had a chance to read the article carfully (not just the talk page).--OMCV (talk) 03:04, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose tendentious editors (specifically Likebox, above [3]) are already attempting to use this proposed policy to end-run WP:OR and inject their own bogus "proofs" into math articles. The OR policy needs to be kept the way it is to prevent this. The existing flexibility (and possibility of ignoring) in the OR policy is observably good enough to maintain high quality science articles in situations where disputes haven't arisen. But the means of enforcing it strictly also have to stay available. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 23:22, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Please log in to make these sorts of comments, in particular, when accusing an editor of "tendentious editing". It allows the editor (me) to know who is accusing.Likebox (talk) 23:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

It is also good if you would attach a username and a reputation to the statement that a certain proof is bogus, since the proof in question is obviously not bogus, as many people will attest.Likebox (talk) 23:30, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The description of Likebox as "tendentious" can be found in the header of the ANI thread that I linked. I consider that to be good enough for this purpose. I commented further in that thread, which contains many additional comments and links from other editors. The way we tell on Wikipedia whether a proof is bogus (once it becomes a matter of dispute) is whether it's cited to a reliable source. Likebox's proof is not cited to a reliable source, and therefore for Wikipedia's purposes (and according to knowledgeable editors who have examined it [4]), it is bogus. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 23:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

This is why it is important that you log in. Your comments should not have a neutral effect on your reputation, either for judging the accuracy of proofs, or figuring out when to call an editor names.Likebox (talk) 23:53, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Anon, which of the four mentioned guidelines are you disagreeing with? Count Iblis (talk) 00:23, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm opposed to anything that weakens WP:OR and WP:V as Likebox is trying to do. And to paraphrase Likebox, since his tendentiousness is evident from "first principles", under his proposed policy it doesn't need to be attributable to any particular source. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 00:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

This policy does not weaken OR, it interprets it in a coherent way. The point is not that the derivation is verifiable from first principles. That's not enough, because it could still be OR. What you also need to check is if it is also verifiable from first principles that the derivation is equivalent to standard literature. The second point is important--- to check OR, you need to check if the ideas are found in sources, not if the exact text is in sources.Likebox (talk) 01:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I oppose any policy change that lets Likebox "interpret" WP:OR in a way that endorses re-inserting his "proof". WP:OR developed early in Wikipedia history (unlike WP:NPOV, it was not there at the very beginning) precisely because of cranks arguing endlessly from "first principles" that their research belonged in the encyclopedia, with no way to make it stop. There has to be a way to shut them down. It is vital for the encyclopedia's integrity that the OR and V policies be stringently enforceable when necessary. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 01:15, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

There's a misunderstanding here that keeps coming up. The guideline is not proposing insertion of OR into an article; it is saying how we can discuss things on the talk page to ensure accuracy in the article.--Michael C. Price ^talk 01:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The proposal says "It does not constitute WP:OR to provide the logical connection between sourced premises and sourced conclusions". That blatantly contradicts WP:SYN, which says that (at least when a dispute arises), the connection between the premise and the conclusion has to be sourced. And Likebox is repeatedly interpreting the proposal to argue for inserting his unsourced and multiple-times-rejected "proof" of Gödel's incompleteness theorem into that article, because he says it's verifiable from "first principles". So the observable fact is that this proposal is already being used as a shoehorn for inserting OR into articles. If you think the proposal doesn't allow that, feel free to convince Likebox. I just report what I see. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 01:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

69.228.171.150, that quote comes from WP:OR, which says “Carefully summarizing or rephrasing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis—it is good editing.”. If Likebox's "proof" is correct then it seems to me that he is correct in his interpretation. Whether his proof is correct is irrelevant to this guideline and that discussion should take place elsewhere.--Michael C. Price ^talk 07:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Michael, “Carefully summarizing or rephrasing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis—it is good editing.” (what WP:OR says) and "It does not constitute WP:OR to provide the logical connection between sourced premises and sourced conclusions" (proposed on this page) are not remotely the same statement. There is dispute over whether Likebox's proof is correct. Under WP:OR as currently written, its possible correctness is irrelevant. The only way to include the disputed proof is by citing it to a reliable source, which is as it should be. Under the proposal, we abandon WP:SYN and consequently get an endless debate (Likebox has been trying to insert that "proof" for literally years) about whether the conclusions do or don't follow from the premises, etc. The relevance of the "proof" to the proposal is that the hassle over it demonstrates how the proposal makes Wikipedia's OR and TE problems even worse than they already are. Since those problems are terrible already, the proposal (or at least its WP:OR-weakening part) should be rejected. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 08:29, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I would take your claim more seriously if you hadn't said remotely. Rephrasing, in my lexicon, includes rearrangements and clarifications, which is all a logical proof consists of. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

No. Summarizing and rephrasing is fine. Mathematical proof means providing the logical connection between mathematical premises and a mathematical conclusion. "It does not constitute OR..." says that if I start with the axioms of set theory (sourced) and conclude with Fermat's Last Theorem (sourced), then it's OK for me to provide the logical connection between them, i.e. write my own bogus "proof" to replace Wiles' proof and then argue endlessly about whether my proof is valid, since by the proposed principle, it's not OR if it's valid. That is what Likebox is trying to do with the incompleteness theorem. WP:SYN requires, for good reason, that the premise, the conclusion, and the logical connection (e.g. proof) all come from the same source. The proof is OR unless it's reliably sourced, whether it's valid or not. Eliminating that requirement would be a total disaster. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 09:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

"Rephrasing" also covers updating into modern terminology, which is what Likebox is claiming to do. There are no doubt countless scientific statements that are updated from their original formulation, which aren't (and probably can't) be sourced according to the more narrow interpretations of OR and SYN. Also arguing about whether a proof is bogus or not, and therefore worthy of inclusion here, is a productive exercise, or at least it should be. --Michael C. Price ^talk 10:22, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Likebox is intentionally eschewing the modern terminology from the literature, and is instead writing things in his own idiosyncratic terminology. That cannot be described as "updating into modern terminology". — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec) "Rephrasing" may be Likebox's current spin, but his "proof" is not a rephrase. He has written his own purported proof that has completely different structure than Gödel's original proof, using newer technical machinery (computer programs) and not just more modern terminology. That's what he means by "modern". Soare may have done a somewhat comparable proof (I haven't seen it), but that's not what Likebox claims to have "modernized", and (at least) the current version of Likebox's proof does not cite Soare. Have you looked at the RFC or the ANI thread? There is wide agreement from every participant knowledgeable in the subject that Likebox's proof is OR. But, rephrasing is not the issue what I'm objecting to. The problem is allowing presenting an unsourced logical connection (valid or not) between a sourced premise and a sourced conclusion. That is OR, and the proposal to change that is a VERY bad idea. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 10:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

(deindent)Actually I have contributed to the AN/I and I don't agree that it is necessarily OR and I note that opinion seems divided on the article's talk page. But I am not an expert on Godel. However Likebox has faced similar opposition elsewhere (e.g. superconductivity and the Higgs mechanism) where it turned out he was right and others (including myself) were wrong.--Michael C. Price ^talk 11:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, you are reporting what you see. But what you don't see is that the proof I am giving of Godel's theorem is correct, equivalent to standard presentations, clear, and concise. Therefore the encyclopedia is incomplete without it, and this and similar lacunae keep much of the mathematical and scientific presentations at what Count Iblis called "the kindergarten level". This is a sorry state of affairs, which can be easily remedied by a little bit of focus on content.

Current policy allows ignorant editors to get rid of clear and correct text without ever talking about the content of the text. If they find a statement that "nothing goes faster than light", they can remove the obvious statement that the "point" that a laser pointer is pointing to can move faster than light. Even if you find a source that explains that this is true, the editors then find other sources that say "nothing moves faster than light", and without talking about content, the issue is resolved by removing correct content. This makes a mockery of the encyclopedia, removes valuable contributions, and drive away people who know what they are talking about. This will continue to be a problem if you interpret "no OR" in legalistic ways that prevent paraphrase and condensation of text, prevents clarifying remarks, prevents the filling in of intermediate steps, and doesn't allow people to state well known things in different ways.

The only thing that Wikipedia editors are bound to is to the understanding that the ideas presented should be sourced to the proper literature, no original research, and the presentation should be as complete and accurate accurate as possible. There is no guideline against original presentation, so long as the ideas reflect the literature accurately.

It is true that some people who do not understand certain results become uncomfortable with certain phrasings, and sometimes those people fall under the delusion that some text is incorrect. It is easy to explain that this is not so, if the discussion is focused on content. On the other hand, the question of originality is more nuanced, and this question needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis. But I prefer to err on the side of originality, because within mathematics, ideas that have not been reinvented by the author are poorly explained.Likebox (talk) 02:10, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you cite some diffs where your laser pointer example actually happened? Obviously if there is a real dispute about something like that, it should be sourced, and I don't believe for one minute that sourcing it would be difficult. (Something about the phase velocity vs. the group velocity, it's not my field, but the point is that the motion of the dot carries no information and so there is no superluminal signalling happening, as I'm sure you know and which has to be explained in some textbook somewhere). Letting some pseudo-scientist ram a contested assertion like that into an article without sourcing it is the last thing we need. Yes, going to the library and finding citations is work, but nobody said writing properly referenced articles wasn't supposed to be work. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 04:54, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) Reading the anonymous comments again, it occurs to me that anonymous is operating under the delusion that the proof I am putting on Godel's theorem is mathematically incorrect in some way. This is just not true, and this is acknowledged by Trovatore, by Count Iblis, by Hans Adler, and by a large number of editors, even including those that oppose inclusion. The issue here is not that the proof is wrong, just that it does not belong (and this might or might not be true).

The issue with cranks inserting stuff is easily remedied: you ask for sources! Similarly here, the issue of OR is easily remedied: you ask for sources! The sources that prove Godel's theorem by Kleene's method (for example, Soare's textbook) are very close to the proof presented, and to transform Kleene's proof into the text that I put in the article is straightforward.

Wikipedia is not suffering from crackpots inserting nonsense anymore. What it is suffering from is experts who are scared of writing here, because they know that they will have to spend endless hours debating each change with ignorant people, and the one tool that they have at their disposal, the ability to explain it from first principles, is not allowed in the debate.Likebox (talk) 02:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• Re the three editors (Trovatore, Hans Adler, and Count Iblis) who you mention:

• Trovatore says "I also agree that Ron is not paying enough attention to the need to connect the result with arithmetic (which after all is where the question comes from)."[5] which I read as a polite way of saying what CBM says.[6] That is, your proof has gaps.
• Hans Adler says "An exposition like User:Likebox/Gödel modern proof is not adequate for an encyclopedia article on a mathematical theorem. It does have the advantage of connecting several topics that are generally considered cool on slashdot.org. It has the disadvantage of being vague to the point that it would be almost impossible to point out an error in the proof without actually disproving the incompleteness theorem. Phrased as an outline of an existing, peer-reviewed proof this would be OK. Unfortunately, exposing something clearly so that laypeople can understand it is not the same thing as conjuring up an illusion of comprehension. Unfortunately, it seems that only mathematicians understand the difference, after many years of having the mistakes in their own proofs pointed out to them by tutors."[7] Yes that's old but I haven't seen anything since then implying a change of view.
• Count Iblis, with no disrespect intended towards him, has not shown the knowledge and discernment about existing logic literature that CBM, Hans, etc. have shown, so his opinion of your proof is less interesting than those of the logicians. He may be affected by your proof doing what Hans Adler calls "conjuring up an illusion of comprehension". If I could get Count Iblis in a room with a printout of your proof (but no other reference materials) and he was able to fill in all the gaps in your proof under questioning, that might tell me something, but it's not going to happen.

• You also claimed that CBM said your proof was correct, but he called you out on that in the same diff above.[8]
• Anyway, if you really do have really have two knowledgeable editors like Hans Adler and CBM disagreeing about whether your proof is correct, that establishes once and for all that proof-checking is not as trivial as you claim, and it therefore shouldn't be done here on Wikipedia. So we're back to the need for establishing verifiability through citations of refereed papers.
• The current content of User:Likebox/Gödel_modern_proof says "The precise assumptions on S are as follows: 1. S is capable of stating any theorem about the memory state of a computer program....", i.e. your proof doesn't even state the incompleteness theorem (which has nothing to do with memory states of computer programs) much less prove it. Yeah, maybe it's equivalent under a complicated enough transformation, but if equivalence were enough, we could write the ZFC axioms on one page and then redirect all (almost) other the math articles to that page.
• I respect Robert Soare as a researcher but I find his writing style somewhat weird and fringe-y. If Soare's book has a proof like that, I'm fine with mentioning and citing it in the article, but would not want to devote more than a sentence or two to it unless there was consensus that this was not undue weight compared with more traditional presentations. I concede that most of the books I'm used to are not so new any more, but if you think that styles have changed, I'd want to see citations showing that. CBM has given citations showing the incorrectness of your claim that all current books use that style.
• Even for this style of proof, I do not think that your judgement is better than Robert Soare's about what should or shouldn't be in it. So if you put something in your proof that he left out of his (or vice versa), he is right and you are wrong, and we should just cite or summarize Soare and leave out your changes. When you say "to transform Kleene's proof into the text that I put in the article is straightforward", if the transformation is anything other than the identity transform, that is OR, and we should just cite or summarize Kleene's proof instead of "transforming" it.
• To all the other ESCA editors: sorry for the long digression on what's supposed to be a policy development page, but I hope it illustrates the problems that the proposed policy is already causing. (I don't object if the tangential stuff is moved to a sub-page). This RFC has more background if you can stomach it. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 04:17, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The idea that Godel's theorem is not about computer programs is exactly the type of misunderstanding I was trying to adress with the presentation. Godel's theorem is about computer programs, and axiom systems that prove results about computer programs. This has been understood in the literature since Kleene in 1940's. Soare's proof is conventional, and appears in the article as "relation to computability".Likebox (talk) 21:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• IT most certainly should not be a policy. We only have a few. I mildly oppose it being a guideline, but it is good essay. --Bduke (Discussion) 01:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
• Comment "Wikipedia is not suffering from crackpots inserting nonsense anymore." Not counting Likebox, I'm involved in 4 venues on Wikipedia where that's exactly what's happening this month, including 2 with subtle vandalism. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:34, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Likebox has characteristically overstated his case, but his subsequent point is still true and pertinent: What it is suffering from is experts who are scared of writing here, because they know that they will have to spend endless hours debating each change with ignorant people, and the one tool that they have at their disposal, the ability to explain it from first principles, is not allowed in the debate.--Michael C. Price ^talk 08:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Explanations are certainly permitted on talk pages; I see and use them all the time. As an expert editing mathematics articles I have found that the best way to solve disagreements is to both give references and also explanation what is going on. The explanation makes sure everyone agrees on what is going on factually, while the references show how the matter has been interpreted in the literature.

The problem Likebox is having with his proof sketches is not that there are a lot of "ignorant" people who don't understand him. Hans Adler, Paul August, Arthur Rubin, and Trovatore are all experts who have commented there. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

And all of them agree that the proof is correct. Trovatore has called it the way that mathematicians think about the theorem in private. Hans Adler did not say it was incorrect either. In fact, everyone agrees that it is correct, and Trovatore likes the way it proves Rosser's version of the theorem.

The "gap" that you bring up, the idea that a statement like "R halts" is a theorem of arithmetic, is exactly the type of black-box result of computer science and arithemetic that is transparently obvious to many people today. This is exactly the reason that I chose to present the proof the way that I did.Likebox (talk) 21:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I might agree that the proof is OR now. I didn't think it was OR, because all the theorems that I could prove using the method were well known. If a method is original, then it should prove some new result, not just reprove old ones.

But I found a theorem yesterday which does not appear in the literature (as far as I know), and which has a simple proof along the lines of the proof I am inserting. This theorem seems to me to probably be suitable for publication. So I might have to agree that the proof method is slightly original, although for the simpler theorems like Godel's theorem or Rosser's theorem, it is identical to standard presentations. It's a judgement call, and I might be too close to the material to appreciate that it is somewhat original. I'll write up the new theorem and run it by some logicians to see if it is in fact new, or whether it was proven in the 1960s or something. If it is new, then I suppose there is a little bit novelty in the method.Likebox (talk) 22:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I believe the "gap" is that "print your own code" encodes a complicated diagonal (or possibly even injury) argument. If you replace that by the appropriate logical statement, it becomes more complicated than the "standard" proof. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:33, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

That is not a gap, since writing a subroutine to "print your own code" is a standard CS exercise, and is well known to be equivalent to Kleene's fixed point theorem. It does not involve "injury", which requires a much more sophisticated program. I agree that the idea is slightly sophisticated (in fact, it is the whole essence of Godel's theorem in the method), but it is an exercize in the modern curriculum, and so that means that thousands of CS people know it automatically.Likebox (talk) 00:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose A policy or guideline on science editing could be useful, but this essay isn't it. Verbal chat 10:45, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. Turning a description of how some editors operate into a policy would be creeping bureaucracy of the worst kind, and the essay as written encourages original research in contradiction to our existing policies and guidelines. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:12, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

  The essay only gives advice on editing, this is not the same as the policy against, say, personal attacks. It is precisely to make sure that the contents of a wiki article will reflect the current scientific understanding of a topic that the guidelines are necessary. If you have not studied the topic you're editing very well and are just quoting from articles or books without having a good understanding, then there is a real possibility that the edits will be totally flawed. You could call that "original research" too! Count Iblis (talk) 22:01, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Per David Eppstein. Count Iblis's response to David could be applied to every single article on Wikipedia. Science articles aren't "special", and don't need special OR exemptions. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - too specific to become policy. Fine as an essay, but not fine as policy, guideline, or standard you expect everyone to follow. Way too bureaucratic.--Unionhawk ^{Talk E-mail Review} 01:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per David Eppstein, and if it fails, it should be marked as a failed proposal, not an essay, because it advocates violating the core content policies. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: Arguing from "first principles" is an invitation for editors to argue on and on for fringe ideas or their misunderstandings of scientific principles. This would weaken policies and guidelines that Wikipedia depends upon for accuracy and neutrality, and would open science talk pages to endless debates. Consensus against this proposal is clear. Why is it being argued again? (I didn't comment when this discussion was open before because the proposal was such an obvious non-starter and had negligible support.) —Finell (Talk) 03:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

  This point has been shown false in the discussions here in which you did not bother to contribute. So your vote does not count. Count Iblis (talk) 04:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Your discounting opinions of others, saying they "don't count" because they're not contributing to some paricular article or discussion, is getting old. Everyone's opinions deserve to be considered, so cut it out. Dicklyon (talk) 04:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Updating formulae, derivations: Less contentious example

Here's an example of a formula that would be very hard to source, yet the updating required is quite clear to an expert -- so clear in fact that I'm doubtful that it will ever be published because all the experts would just take it for granted.

When the Landau-Lifshitz pseudotensor was formulated it was commonly assumed that the cosmological constant was zero. Nowadays we don't make that assumption, and the formula needs updating from

$16\pi t_{LL}^{\mu \nu }=-2G^{\mu \nu }+(-g)^{-1}((-g)(g^{\mu \nu }g^{\alpha \beta }-g^{\mu \alpha }g^{\nu \beta }))_{,\alpha \beta }$

to

$16\pi t_{LL}^{\mu \nu }=-2(G^{\mu \nu }+\Lambda g^{\mu \nu })+(-g)^{-1}((-g)(g^{\mu \nu }g^{\alpha \beta }-g^{\mu \alpha }g^{\nu \beta }))_{,\alpha \beta }$

The Einstein field equations already have been updated. But how do we do update the above pseudotensor without loosening the overly narrow interpretation of OR and SYN? --Michael C. Price ^talk 12:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think being clear to an expert is generally enough to get around WP:SYN; if someone objects, then the "update" shouldn't go in without a source; if nobody objects, then it can be considered to be a routine calculation. But you can't make the decision by only letting "experts" have an opinion. That's sort of what Brews likes to do; he says his view is right, and therefore his derivations are right, and those who aren't up with him don't get to kick out his WP:SYN. Dicklyon (talk) 01:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

We're not proposing a formal system of judging whether someone is an expert or not -- although that should become clear when someone starts arguing from first principles. In the SoL dispute it was clear who weren't the experts for a very long time.--Michael C. Price ^talk 08:03, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

That seems to be exactly the sort of noncontroversial thing that we already permit. It might be worthwhile to include both forms (zero and nonzero cosmological constant), so that it is clear why the one here differs from the one that people find in books. If someone really complained, you could at least note in the article that the form shown there assumes the cosmological constant is zero, which would make the article accurate, even if incomplete.

The degree to which Wikipedia articles should "complete" the literature has to be solved on a case by case basis. The question to ask is not only whether the new formula is correct, but also whether it is of interest from the point of view of the literature. There are lots of trivial, unpublished, obvious, correct things that we could add to articles, but which we should not add because they are not of sufficient encyclopedic interest (this is the principle of "due weight" from WP:NPOV). In fields where we can verify correctness from first principles, the role of the no original research policy is to keep the focus of our articles close to the focus of the literature. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is pretty noncontroversial and the preferred solution is clearly to update the formula. And in practice we ignore WP:OR and WP:SYN and do just that. But I would rather that we bring policy into line with practice, instead of implicitly invoking WP:IAR (which is a cop-out of course).--Michael C. Price ^talk 13:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The place to fix that would be WP:OR, I think. That page is notoriously poorly written, and also notoriously difficult to change. So, to the extent that WP:OR fails to describe our actual best practices, I think ignoring it is the simplest solution. At least, it's the solution I use. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it might be quite hard to convince everyone that WP:OR needs general change, without first demonstrating that the proposed relaxation works for science articles.--Michael C. Price ^talk 22:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:OR, if anything, needs to tightened, not relaxed. That still works fine for science articles since stringent enforcement usually isn't necessary. Likebox expressed a desire for more coherency of the rules, and maybe that is the basic disconnect here. The encyclopedia's integrity is much more important than coherency of its rules. The longstanding "ignore all rules" policy's main point is that coherent rules are neither necessary nor desirable. Charles Matthews famously said "the wikilawyers and trolls always want a codified set of rules on an issue, so they can subvert the spirit while adhering to the letter".

Efforts to replace good editorial judgement with rule-based processes and turn Wikipedia into "Botpedia" are absolutely misguided. If good editorial judgement is absent, Wikipedia will suck no matter what its rules are. When good editorial judgement is abundant, overly stringent rules don't get in the way of good editing, since paying attention to them isn't required. The rules come into relevance when good and bad judgement are both present. Their purpose is to prevent bad judgement from turning Wikipedia into crap (like cyanide in ice cream, it only takes a tiny amount of crap to ruin an article). Long experience has shown that tendentious OR is one of the worst and most crap-ifying ongoing forms of bad judgement to plague Wikipedia, hence the ratcheting evolution of the OR policy over the years. As long as there is unlimited editor anonymity and a no formal expert authority over content (m:foundation issues), there has to be a no-nonsense mechanism for removing tendentious OR that is as thorough and un-gameable as possible, even if (like a cancer drug that also kills some non-cancerous cells) it can sometimes take out some good stuff. Changing the rules to explicitly allow any form of OR is the worst idea in the world.

(Note: one should almost never "invoke" IAR, in the sense of pointing to a rule and announcing that you're not going to follow it. Ignoring (by contrast) means acting as if the rule is not there and making your edit anyway, on the theory that no one will call you on it if the end result is good. If someone does call you on it, in general, you have to follow the rule, subject to interpretation by consensus, which can in some cases sanction or ban editors who nitpick too much.) 69.228.171.150 (talk) 07:33, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but the idea that we should tighten OR so that we can ignore it more often can't be right. The "anonymous-OR" problem you mention is better solved by semi-protecting the whole of wikipedia, although I realise that this idea faces determined opposition.--Michael C. Price ^talk 09:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Dealing with cranks, and the fear of cranks

One of the objections to this proposed guideline is the understandable fear that this will open the floodgates to cranks to insert their own OR all over the place. But this won't happen for the simple reason that science cranks can't argue from first principles without exposing their crankish credentials -- usually because they don't understand the underlying principles or, less commonly, they understand the principles but don't believe them.--Michael C. Price ^talk 23:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem with cranks in general is that, even if you point out that their derivations are incorrect, they ignore you. Or they post things that are so vague or so misinformed that it is difficult to explain why they is wrong (e.g. not even wrong). For example, there is no end of people who misunderstand Cantor's theorem and claim it is incorrect. They come up with all sorts of arguments, supposedly from first principles, to support their positions.

The motivation for the OR policy in the first place was to avoid having to conduct tedious arguments to explain why an argument is wrong to a person who will ignore your explanations anyway. Instead, they made up a rule that makes it easier to resolve these arguments quickly.

As I said a while back, and still believe, "the spirit of the OR policy is to keep crackpot theories off Wikipedia, not to stop people from writing clear explanations of standard material. The more obvious it is that something is just a neutral explanation of standard material, the less problem anyone can have with it. For example, if multiple textbooks make the same sort of calculation, including it on WP does not violate any policy, even if the form used here is not identical to the form used elsewhere." [9] On the other hand, "neutral" explanations are those the follow the interpretive framework of the literature, rather than creating new interpretive frameworks (the best way to state this still eludes me).

I spent a little while looking up the history of NOR, as described in my post [10]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The guidelines proposed here would make life more difficult for cranks, as Michael C. Price pointed out. The last time I had to deal with someone like that was on the entropy page. It was the crank who was using the wiki policies to defend his edits. It was me (after a few days) who asked him to start discussing a few of his edits from first principles, and he couldn't. That was the end of the discussions and his participation in editing that page. Before I started engaging him from first principles he was editing in strange edits claiming that it was sourced and becoming angry when I reverted his edits. I was "removing sourced edits".

A few years back we had another such crank on the special relativity page. That was a similar case. A crank who claimed that his edits were sourced. He was putting literal quotes from a book into the article. But what he wrote was still wrong, because he was quoting out of the proper context. It took us some time to convince him that he was wrong, most of the time was needed to convince him to forget about the wiki rules and start discussing from first principles. Before he was willing to engage on first principles he was demanding that we stick to the wiki rules and produce a direct quote from another source that would prove wrong his quote. Count Iblis (talk) 02:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Your experiences sound rather unusual and very different from mine on Cold Fusion, Water-fuelled car, Hydrogen fuel enhancement, Stanley Meyer's water fuel cell, Oxyhydrogen, Rupert_Sheldrake, and others. I guess a major difference is that only place that "first principles" are relevant is math, theoretical physics, and material that is best approached through theoretical physics. The rest of science with its reliance on empirical evidence lends its self to WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:OR. I was wondering if you could offer a difference for each of the debates you had so that I could take a look at them.--OMCV (talk) 03:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

OMCV, I picked one of your examples and looked at Stanley Meyer's water fuel cell and, AFAICS, this was a dispute about NPOV, not OR. These guidelines would not have impeded the development of the article (which is currently very good, IMO). --Michael C. Price ^talk 10:59, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I complete agree that depending on when you look at Stanley Meyer's water fuel cell it has had various problems and pretty much everything comes back to NPOV whether it is WP:RS, WP:OR/WP:V, COI, or more bizarre activities of a crank. That page has specific problems with a soak puppets toting editor (now banned), disruptive delusional crank wiki-lawyers (currently dormant), and the occasional troll drive by. For now the page is peaceful with little activity on the talk page but I'm sure once gas prices go back up the page will be very active. Due to the subject matters relationship with energy its a very controversial page. Which brings me to whats missing here. What does this have to offer that doesn't already exist in other policies and recommendations on Wikipedia especially for controversial pages? Cold fusion is one of the best examples of scientific controversy. Based on first principles it looks like cold fusion should work. Ignoring whether cold fusion actually works. The role of Wikipedia is to fairly represent each position of WP:Note without giving undue weight to minority positions. This means we just keep ignoring whether cold fusion actually works and never come back to the question. We don't intentional declare if cold fusion has been realized or not, we just represent the sources in proportion to their WP:Note. This leads to debates over whats a WP:RS and how sources should be waited. The talk page generally assumes all participants are up to speed on the practical workings of science and the pertinent subject matter. I think this proposed policy address these assumptions and nothing more. Explicitly declaring these assumptions already contained within editing recommendations does nothing to resolve any controversy. Do entropy and special relativity really need help with conflict resolution? Does this policy just say we would be better off if we pursued the truth rather than WP:V?--OMCV (talk) 03:10, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I presume you mean could not should in the sentence Based on first principles it looks like cold fusion should work. otherwise I'm not following you.

You say that these guidelines offer nothing in some situations. That is of course true, since it is not the answer to all the world's woes.

Finally you ask Do entropy and special relativity really need help with conflict resolution? Does this policy just say we would be better off if we pursued the truth rather than WP:V? Surely to the first question, we know that we need help, since those pages are persistently plagued by cranks. And the second question should really be Does this policy just say we would be better off if we pursued the truth and WP:V? To which the answer is Yes.--Michael C. Price ^talk 07:53, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

If a set of first principles indicate an event could happen than the event isn't contingent on those first principles and why would I mention them. Speaking as an experimentalist I don't think any experiment is ever run in which the person running the experiment doesn't have an expectation of what should happen. Thus every individual who ever attempts a cold fusion experiment believes it should or shouldn't work. Stating my terms this way makes it appear that I believe that theory indicates cold fusion should happen based on theory. I haven't studied the field well enough to have any opinion other than cold fusion advocates are mostly nuts and what ever theory says cold fusion should work is mostly likely flawed or misinterpreted. I though I hope that helps you follow me.

When we write article we try to provide articles that are clear, concise, complete, useful on many levels, accurate, well balanced, well documented, and many other things. We all want many good things but what if we have to chose between two, for example, is it more important for an article to be accurate or accessible to a novice. Hopefully we never have to make this choice but if we did I would choose accuracy. What if we had to choose between truth and WP:V than policy states that we choose WP:V. I personally agree with this since I think the best way to resolving controversies is by attributing the opinions and facts. This doesn't really work for material whose attribution has been obliteration by incorporation. Such material is uncontroversial for everyone but cranks and I think cranks can be dealt with through existing policy.

I still have the concern that there seem to be no point to this propsed policy. Specific direction to an instance where this policy would have been evoked and how it would be evoked would be very useful.--OMCV (talk) 20:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Surely the point has been repeatedly illustrated already? See previous section and the cited examples of entropy, special relativity by Iblis et al.--Michael C. Price ^talk 15:21, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

You are writing as if the fear you describe is hypothetical. As the Likebox situation shows, it is not. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 07:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

No, the fear is not hypothetical, rather it is misguided. (And Likebox is not a crank; if you think he is then you haven't understood what he is saying.) I have spent some time arguing with cranks and I share Count Iblis' experiences -- they expose their credentials when challenged to argue from principles, rather than endlessly quoting out of context sources. Look at the recent David Tombe/Speed of Light fiasco. When challenged to debate the physics, he resorted to Nazi insults and was banned. Problem solved. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:13, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how "exposing their credentials" is an issue. Even with no credentials they can continue to edit the article and the talk page. But they are not willing (sometimes, not yet able) to actually understand the rebuttals of their arguments from first principles. That's what makes them cranks, after all. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

By credentials I mean "crank credentials". The point is that, exposed as cranks, we find it easier to sucessfully revert their material; they either desist or are sanctioned. I agree that nothing we say, either about first principles or sources, will ever convince them.--Michael C. Price ^talk 12:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Going overboard

Although useful for excluding material, WP:OR WP:POV WP:Fork & WP:SYN also are used to prevent including material that an editor objects to on less than laudable grounds. Taken to an extreme (as often happens) it amounts to a request that a contribution be expressed as a verbatim quote from an "acceptable" source. So, for example, a statement that 4 = 2² and that the notation ² means "squared" does not allow one to say 4 = 2 squared unless that use of verbiage can be quoted. It is WP:OR or WP:SYN. That may seem an unusual case, but in fact it is standard practice among some editors. A little more complex example that I ran into is finding a reference that said A = f(x,y) and another reference that said B = f(x,y) (same f, and same arguments) but was forced to find a text that said A (or B) = f(x,y) before it was admitted that saying A =B was not WP:SYN. Of course, the objecting editor knew full well that this was obstruction, but did not want to see the equivalence of the two terms A and B expressed. Would that it was an isolated occurrence. Brews ohare (talk) 19:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Already covered by OR#Routine_calculations. --Michael C. Price ^talk 22:01, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if my allegorical presentation wasn't clear. The symbols and functions represent segments of text. Brews ohare (talk) 23:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I think what Michael wrote still applies if it is still a matter of a simple substitution. Count Iblis (talk) 13:38, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

So if the statement is of the form "an xyz is one with properties A & B" and another source says "an rst is one with properties A & B", and the assertion that an xyz is an rst is met with WP:OR and WP:SYN, an adequate refutation is OR#Routine_calculations ? I suspect this justification will be met with the reply that it is not applicable. OR#Routine_calculations needs to be paralleled with something similar for simple syllogisms. Brews ohare (talk) 16:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The usual reason people dispute material like this is because the statement "an xyz is something with properties A & B" is almost always an incomplete characterization (at least outside of pure mathematics), and leaves out missing implicit conditions. It's not because the editors can't think logically. For example, a string theory is sometimes defined as the quantum mechanical theory of vibrating lines. You can write down a quantum mechanical theory of a vibrating clothes-line. Is that an example of a string theory? Of course not! There are missing conditions of relativity and unitarity that are violated for the clothes line and are left implicit in the presentation of the string theory. So it is impossible to discuss things like this in the abstract. It should be backed up with specific case-instances of rejected material.Likebox (talk) 02:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Likebox: Yes, incomplete characterization is a possibility, and a genuine opposition to a statement would point out the missing elements. However, here is a case where the characterization is complete, and the opposing editor has no such missing elements to point to. Unfortunately, that does not mean the opposing editor abandons obstruction; WP:OR or WP:Syn still are cited. A request for reasons simply brings back the comment that no source says exactly what is claimed, even though it is the result of a simple syllogism. (For example, A=B in source 1 and B=C in source 2 -> A=C). One could make a Request for Comment and try to raise some support, but that is a lot of trouble and may not work. What is your take? Brews ohare (talk) 05:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

To quote WP:SYN:

Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to reach conclusion C. This would be a synthesis of published material that advances a new position, and that constitutes original research.

And WP:NOTOR:

Simple logical deductions. For example, if A is in district B, and district B is in province C, then A is in province C. This is a simple syllogism. Included are all of the other simple deductions. More complex logical deductions should not be used unless cited to a reliable source. The concerns are similar to the issues with complex mathematics.

Seems rather clear to me. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 05:25, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was not aware of WP:NOTOR. Thank you. Brews ohare (talk) 15:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Derivations as authority

The topic has come up above whether it is desirable to include derivations instead of references to a source. As I understand Count Iblis, he feels that a WP presentation of a derivation often is preferable because it displays clearly the underlying assumptions that otherwise may be buried in a reference in some section other than that cited, or simply assumed as obvious and not stated at all.

Some feel that such derivations are prone to error, and that debate over a contested derivation could prove endless.

It seems that both views have a point.

My own view is that if the premises of a derivation are stated and sourced (fulfilling Count Iblis's point) and the conclusion also is sourced, a flawed derivation doesn't do much damage. If the precepts and conclusions are sourced, the flaws of the derivation are easy to point out without endless debate. For example, one may feel that a derivation is too narrow, and a more general derivation is possible; the restrictions can be stated, or different precepts can be sourced and a more general derivation provided. One may feel there is an error of simple logic; the errors are easily identified, and syllogisms are not debatable.

My thesis would be that if precepts and conclusion are sourced, the advantage of a derivation may be had without the disadvantage of endless debate. Brews ohare (talk) 17:13, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Cranks, OR, and Derivations

The policy of "No OR" is designed to deal with crackpots. It is used to exclude material which does not appear in literature sources. However, it should not be used to discourage novel presentations of well-understood material, which can be checked for accuracy from first principles by knowledgable editors.

The "No OR" policy is very sensible, but it can be carried to extremes. By using lawyerly tactics, editors can claim that well-known folklore theorems and common-sense scientific knowledge is somehow original to the editor that explained it. The way to verify that the folklore and common-sense is in fact folklore and common-sense is to read the literature carefully, acquire some familiarity and expertise with the material, and discuss the content in a sensible way. If there is a real dispute about accuracy, it should be about factual knowledge which can be checked by a deeper understanding of the literature. It should not be about the superficial use of words in particular sources. Thats the whole point of this policy proposal.

In line with this idea, this proposal states in no uncertain terms that derivations of sourced conclusions from sourced premises and sourced deduction methods does not constitute OR, even if the exact details of the derivation are not found in the exact same words in the sources. This is a form of mathematical paraphrase, exactly analogous to the paraphrasing of textual sources in non-mathematical fields. If mathematical paraphrasing is forbidden, there will be no mathematics in the encyclopedia.

Mathematical knowledge cannot be transmitted well without paraphrase, reworking, and reimagining of the ideas. So long as the ideas are sourced, the methods known, and the arguments established, the reworking of derivations and proofs shouldn't be controversial.Likebox (talk) 00:12, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The purpose underlying WP:NOR is not limited to excluding crackpot science, although that is one of the purposes it serves. WP:NOR is really the flip side of the core policy that Wikipedia's content be verifiable in published, reliable sources. It is how this encyclopedia, written and edited by "anyone", can attempt to be accurate. Encyclopaedia Britannica doesn't have the same concern because it is written by reliable sources, and checked by a professional editorial staff—and some errors still get through. Wikipedia would not have published Einstein's Annus Mirabulus papers as articles even if the consensus of Wikipedians was that his theories were sound. Wikipedia would not have published Gödel's incompleteness theorems and proofs, nor would it have published Wiles's proof (either of them). And Wikipedia won't publish Likebox's proof, even if he says that it is equivalent to a published proof and even if he's right. Wikipedia role is to make the body of accepted knowledge freely available. Academic journals and books are the places to publish original research. —Finell (Talk) 02:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Finell: You are not addressing the basic issue, which is that WP:NOR allows that “Carefully summarizing or rephrasing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis and how the idea behind this sentence applies to logical deductions. You seem to say that it does not. And yet rephrasing of source material is just what is done when one logical proof replaces another. Brews ohare (talk) 15:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to address the "basic issue". I was responding to Likebox's misconception about the role of WP:NOR, which is much broader than dealing with crackpots. I don't think that there is a "basic issue" underlying this discussion. I have no problem whatsoever with the sentence that you quote. We paraphrase and summarize what sources say every day in every article. Simple deductions aren't the real issue either, since other editors are unlikely to object to them. The question, if there is one, is what happens when one editor writes what that editor believes to be a "simple deduction" from a sourced statement and other editors believe that it is actually a new "result". When previously asked for examples of this happening, no one had any. The normal solution to such a situation, if it ever arises, is that consensus would decide whether a source for the statement is required or whether the statement is simply a summary of what the cited sources say. Any proof, in the mathematical or logical sense, is a chain of deductions. Nevertheless, finding new proofs is the lifeblood of many mathematicians. Wikipedia isn't supposed to publish new proofs or new anything. Wikipedia collects and summarizes what reliable sources, especially secondary and tertiary ones, have published. Wikipedia uses primary sources only with caution, or for specific purposes, to avoid drawing a new conclusion from what primary sources say. —Finell (talk) 17:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Essay or guideline proposal

This isn't the kind of page that would normally be promoted to guideline and seems more essay-like. Does anyone mind if I change the tag? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:38, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps that is not a bad idea. Note that I have argued here in favor using unofficial policies on certain wiki pages by local consensus. So, if this is made into an essay, nothing would stop, say, Likebox, me and Michael C. Price to stick to these guidelines, even if they are not 100% compatible with what is written on the official NOR page. Count Iblis (talk) 00:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

We all have to abide by the core content policies, Count; we can't have alternative policy pages. But regarding editor consensus, it depends what the issue is. If you're talking about the simple syllogism issue, then, yes, it would be fine for the three of you to agree that something can be deduced from something else in a way that any reasonable person would agree with. But if someone were to challenge it, you'd be expected to supply a source, unless they were being patently unreasonable and everyone could see it (but even then, it's usually faster to find a source than to argue about it). SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:53, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

This is not a trivial syllogism issue. The actual issue here is that every single one of the decent science and mathematics articles are written with a looser interpretation of the no OR guidelines than most non-mathematical editors find intuitively acceptable. There is no exception to this rule: all article with nontrivial mathematical content contain what a wikilawyer could call "OR". I won't give examples, because I don't want to bring trouble to these pages.

The reason this happens is because the policies which are easy for most editors to apply to non-mathematical pages are harder to apply in cases where the language is science or mathematics. A mathematically experienced editor can read mathematics and understand the ideas, then rephrase those ideas in different ways. A mathematically inexperienced editor can then look at the same text and walk away convinced that it is OR, because the equations and arguments have been paraphrased, so that none of the equations appear verbatim in the text, nor do the arguments appear in the same exact words.

The issue is analogous to writing in a different language. If a person does not speak French fluently, and looks at an article on the French encyclopedia, the elementary editing required to write the article look like OR. Any fluent French speaker would immediately see that there is no OR, but a nonspeaker would not be able to judge accurately. In the same way, when a mathematical article is well written, to a person who does not speak mathematics, it looks like OR.

This type of thing comes up many times. People who are not familiar with the ideas will contest any informative derivation until it is sourced to the exact same words, which is usually impossible. The way to fix this is to point the editors to the sources, have them read the sources and understand the content, then resolve the dispute with a focus on content.

This is already the way that scientific disputes are resolved here, but this is not acknowledged in the guidelines. So every once in a while, an editor who does not understand the material and who has edited less scientific pages will challenge some text, and will not be satisfied with any paraphrase. This leads scientific articles to degrade.Likebox (talk) 01:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your point. As you saying that because scientific and mathematics papers engage in OR, Wikipedia articles about the topics should be allowed to as well? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:36, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

He's saying that because all the WP science articles indulge in OR, policy should reflect this. And that what is judged OR is inversely dependent on your level of expertise.--Michael C. Price ^talk 01:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

All the science articles on Wikipedia indulge in OR, or all of them outside Wikipedia? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

At Wikipedia. (rephrased earlier statement to clarify).--Michael C. Price ^talk 01:52, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Very few Wikipedia articles comply with all the policies; at the end of October only 0.0868% were FAs, and I'm sure many of them didn't comply with all the policies. That's not really a reason for giving particular article topics a dispensation to ignore policy. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

0.0868% eh? Suggest that the project is broke. Perhaps people should be stop repeating the mantra that the policies are OK as they are? --Michael C. Price ^talk 02:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Michael, in reverting wholesale, you restored the odd writing too. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:09, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Likebox. On the issue of an editor "being challenged", that can often be dealt with by simply giving a source, but it may be far more complicated than simply giving a source. That's why we have point 3 of the guildelines. Count Iblis (talk) 15:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I've restored the proposal tag, because part of it is directly contradicting the policies, so it will have to be proposed. The community has many times rejected the idea of a special "scientific point of view" that's given priority. We have to adhere to NPOV, V, and NOR, no exceptions. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:54, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

new ESCA template being spammed across physics talk page

The author of this essay is now spamming Template:ESCA across many physics article talk pages, presumably because he thinks that the normal policies and guidelines are not adequate. The template misrepresents his essay as guideline. I think these need to be removed, and he needs to be stopped in this rogue effort to rewrite wikipedia guidelines. Any other opinions? Dicklyon (talk) 18:14, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm adding it to only those pages where I've made significant contrubutions and to which it is i.m.o. essential to stick to these guidelines. If there is no consnensus then I won't insist on it being added to a page. But I think that if on some page the regular editors want to stick to these guidelines they should not be forced not to do so just becuase the regulars on the policy pages who mostly do not edit these sort of scientific articles, disagree.

I've announced on the NOR talk page a few days ago that by local consensus editors could stick to a different version of the core policies. Some people disagreed, some said that de-facto, this is already the case. Count Iblis (talk) 18:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Removing the template that falsely portrays your essay as guideline can in no way to construed as forcing editors to not stick to your proposal. If you want to look for consensus, a good start would be to see if someone else wants to put the tag back after I remove it. So I'll remove it again, and we can see who wants it on besides you. Dicklyon (talk) 18:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The way to deal with that is to modify the wording of the template, which you've done. I'm ok. with that. The guideline only "requests" editors to follow the advice of the essay. I don't see whay even this is not acceptable or even any alternative wording would not be acceptable (as the template is now at TFD). Count Iblis (talk) 20:14, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Briefly (aside from the poorly-chosen wording of the template itself) the problem is that you were placing the template atop multiple talk pages above every other editor's comments and above all of the other messages on the talk page. The implication was that your view on how the pages should be edited and how content policies should be interpreted was the most important and essential reading for any editors who would edit the articles or participate in talk page discussions. I don't imagine it was your intent to do so, but the effect was to imply that your decisions and judgements in this matter – as voiced in what is primarily your essay – should be granted priority and precendence over any other.

By all means, you can announce your essay in an appropriate manner and in an appropriate place (or places). I've suggested elsewhere that the Village Pump and even new sections at the bottom of relevant article talk pages would be acceptable venues. Most editors who've criticized your approach haven't expressed any serious misgivings about your essay's contents — only concerns about the bull-in-a-china-shop manner that you've chosen to present the essay. The problems that you're having mostly stem from an apparent unwillingness to acknowledge that however good and sensible your ideas and proposals may be, the methods by which you choose to introduce those ideas to the community are often imposing or condescending. It's very offputting. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I do see that the way I proceeded was too provocative in the cases where the editors on the talk pages saw this and objected. I will now ask on some pages how the editors feel about sticking to the guidelines. In fact, on the Scharnhorst page, Michael C. Price asked that yesterday and I agreed so there there is a de-facto consensus there to proceed on the basis of this essay. Otherwise BenRG's removal of a paragraph of the article would have stood, because I supported that removal, but then Michael argued that we should let the paragraph stand as it is an alternative, heuristic explanation and we should debate according to ESCA if this alternative explanation is really wrong.

Diclyon's fears of the guidelines being used by editors to get their way is not justified at all. The guidelines are not suitable for that at all, and the events of yesterday on the Scharnhorst page as well as how an editing dispute about the Scharnhorst effect on the special relativity page was resolved show exactly the opposite.Count Iblis (talk) 23:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not at all fearful, but I'm against your attempt to write guidelines in a form that you developed while trying to support Brews ohare in his disruptive editing. I'm against you and Brews working on guidelines at all, since I think you are both working against the core policies of WP:V and WP:RS; it would be better if both of you would try to work within existing policies and guidelines instead. Dicklyon (talk) 23:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The core policies are deeply flawed in some respects. They must either be changed or we'll decide by local consensus to stick to alternative policies. The former is not going to happen, so we've decided to do the latter. And Brews disruptive editing has nothing whatsoever to do with these guidelines. Why do you think Michael C. Price would support these guidelines; he and Brews are not exactly the best of friends :) Count Iblis (talk) 00:48, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

You can do whatever you want with consensus on article, unless it conflicts with policy and someone objects on that basis. No need for the templating to help you do so. Dicklyon (talk) 01:18, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

If the template were not rejected in the knee jerk way as it looks like it has been, other editors could have some constructive input too. E.g., you did make a modification to it. But if this is rejected, then by local consensus, a different text for some article could be agreed to and if you are not editing that article, you wouldn't have any influence over the text at all. Count Iblis (talk) 01:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

To the extent that editors in other subjects understand what is happening, people working on any subject are unlikely to allowed to establish a local consensus to ignore the core principles. What I'd you suggest you talk about is the proper way to interpret the core principles in your subject field. . Provided you can explain how your interpretation is a special but compatible case of the general principles, that may be a more successful direction. If a proposal that each subject area could establish its own local consensus without the acceptance of the community were presented to a more general audience than here, it would be laughed out of court. It is true that editors in all sorts of special areas have gotten away with using their jargon and their idiosyncratic writing and argumentation, because nobody from outside was willing to pay the necessary attention. However, some of the things that are being complained of here, such as the use of quotations out of context, are flaws equally throughout Wikipedia. DGG ( talk ) 01:39, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

(deindent)This is not spam. Count Iblis is trying to protect scientific pages which are informative from ignorant rewriting. This essay emphasizes the special nature of knowledge which is objective to a large extent. When there are articles about subjects which some people understand, it is important for the editors to understand the topic before editing the article. This means that they should be comfortable enough with the subject to be able to see through trivial paraphrasing, and to understand when different equations have the same meaning as sourced equations.Likebox (talk) 02:08, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a personal essay, and a contentious one at that, that often (when its two authors have their way) contradicts policy. Count Iblis is indeed spamming this essay onto article talk pages, and that needs to stop. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Except for the two special relativity pages, we can be quite sure that there is a local consensus on the other pages for the template. The template was removed by an editor with no editing history of the pages. But template or no template, editing on those pages proceeds according to the ESCA guidelines per local consensus. Count Iblis (talk) 21:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

There are no "ESCA guidelines", and "local consensus" never overrides policy. There is an "ESCA essay", whose two or three authors are trying to edit-war into a form that directly contradicts policy. One cannot do an end-run around policy, not by insisting on "local consensus", nor by creating special personal owned essays and templates and attempting to verbally elevate them to the status of guidelines by dint of repetition. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:30, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Local consensus always overrides policy. We don't have Wiki-police editors who forcefully impose the core policies. Editing Wikipedia articles simply does not work that way. If these guidelines violate policies, then as Carl on the NOR talk page points out, it is only in the most pedantic reading of NOR. Writing more about allowed logical deductions on the NOR page to clear this issue up is seen to be not worth it for political reasons.

I believe that one cannot have it both ways. If a problem is recognized to exist, then one either has to fix it or accept that it will be fixed by others in some way. If one objects to the fix here, then one can go back to the NOR page and fix it there. Objecting here and not doing anything there is not ok. Count Iblis (talk) 21:45, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

"Local consensus always overrides policy"? Really? Not on Wikipedia. Wikipedia policies apply to all articles, equally. And there is no "problem [that] is recognized to exist" here. Rather, as happens every month or so, some special interest editor or two decides that they want to loosen up the WP:NOR/WP:NPOV/WP:V policies in order to be able to insert their POV or Original Research into the articles that interest them. The community has, however, consistently rejected this. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:10, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Example. On the Global Warming page the local consensus is against including non-peer reviewed sources for any scientific statements. When someone wanted to include a text taken from the BBC saying that global warming seems to have stopped in this decade, that was reverted. A discussion about whether the BBC is a reliable source then started. It went to the RS-noticeboard. There the overwhelming consensus was that the local consensus on the Global Warming page violates the RS policy. However, the local consensus still had its way. The text did not make it into the article. Count Iblis (talk) 22:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The rejection of a BBC article seems to be consistent with WP:RS which states For information about academic topics, such as physics or ancient history, scholarly sources are preferred over news stories. Newspapers tend to misrepresent results, leaving out crucial details and reporting discoveries out of context. For example, news reports often fail to adequately report methodology, errors, risks, and costs associated with a new scientific result or medical treatment. If I read this correct the local consensus was consistent with WP:RS even if no one bothered to check.--OMCV (talk) 22:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure there are articles where small groups of interested editors have been able to violate policy; that doesn't mean policy is moot. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:52, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with OMCV about the RS issue on Global Warming and many on the Global Warming page agreed with this. However, the pundits on the RS-noticeboard disagreed. Thing is that often that you have a group of editors who simpy what to do their best editing an article. There is then not a shred of edit warring or any other trouble. It will of course be the case that they will interpret existing policies in the way that is most appropriate for them. That reading of the policies may be a bit different from how other editors interpret policy.

If this happens systematically in some category of articles, it may be a good idea to write up those important elements that are not emphasized in the standard policies. This is more or less what these guidelines do, the focus being scientific articles, in particular those that explain things from a fundamental point of view. I think the reason why there is resistance is manly because many editors focus on the articles were edit warring is a common occurence. Policy making is thus primarily driven by the bad behavior of editors on the potics pages. But this then means that the policies will not adequately address the editing on all those other articles that are more or less free from edit warring. Count Iblis (talk) 22:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

If a small group of editors are able to consistently violate policy on a set of related articles, then the proper thing to do is to rein in the violators and correct the violations, not codify them as policy. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

If it is done for good reasons then it is allowed per IAR. Good reasons means that the rules do not adequately cover the editing of the article, not that the editors have just decided to collectively vandalize Wikipedia. So, this will be tolerated. The question is then if one can come up with new rules that will cover editing the particular type of articles where this issue is relevant. Count Iblis (talk) 23:10, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

All the people who try to do this think they are doing it "for good reasons". In fact, it is a given that all editors who violate any policy think they are doing it for a "good reason". However, there is no indication whatsoever that the rules "do not adequately cover the editing of the article". No-one thinks you're trying to "vandalize" Wikipedia. You, like all other editors trying to loosen up NOR, are simply trying to make it easier for you to insert your own POV/OR into the articles that interest you. Everyone thinks that their area of interest is "special" and requires special exceptions. And no, it won't be tolerated. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I gave 3 examples on the NOR talk page of articles that I've edited for which the NOR rule is problematic: The NOR policy clearly fails here, here, here and in many other similar articles. Then, precisely because we do not want to engage in "real OR" (i.e. editing in texts that are not consisent with the scientific understabding of the topic, which usually means that the edit is wrong) we need rules that cover this. This is what the guidelines are all about. Count Iblis (talk) 00:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Please provide a link to the NOR talk page where you proved that "the NOR rule is problematic" or "clearly fails". Jayjg ^(talk) 00:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) Count Iblis is absolutely right--- the NOR rule, applied in the strict interpretation that is common on politics pages, becomes idiotic for scientific pages. Wikipedia is only able to function as a scientific exposition tool because everybody ignores NOR as a matter of routine, except when dealing with crackpot material.

There is no issue with Count Iblis's POV. There aren't any "POV's" to be had about enthalpy. There's only facts. There are correct statements, and then there are incorrect statements. The problem is that people sometimes find sources for the wrong statements in some reliable source. The encyclopedia then ends up with big, blatant, objective scientific errors. In order to fix them, you have to pay close attention to content, context, and mathematical reasoning from first principles. None of this is OR, because all these simple derivations from first principles are common knowledge in any technical field.

Unfortunately, anyone who has not seen how the good scientific articles are made (the ones with equations/proofs/arguments in them) gets a completely wrong idea. The idea is that the material in this article is somehow found in sources. It might be in the exercises, it might be if you read between the lines, but you won't find the exact text, or even a description which is as detailed in the original literature. You have to read it with understanding, work it out for yourself, and verify the content by thinkingLikebox (talk) 05:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

TfD raised

Place your comments here. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Reworked proofs are not OR

If you delete the phrase "linking sourced arguments to sourced conclusions by paraphrased argument is not OR" then you are removing the main point of the guideline. The goal is to make sure that the scientific content of the encyclopedia can be at the same level as the scientific content of, say, scholarpedia. If you allow ignorant editors to remove hard-to-write reworked paraphrase of mathematical text because it does not match the source verbatim, nobody will bother to write anything worthwhile here.

So if you wish to delete this sentence, vote against the whole guideline: it's not a part that can be removed. The whole point is the issue of OR in regard to scientific knowledge.Likebox (talk) 09:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a rejected proposal. I suppose it could live as an essay, but it contradicts existing policies, rather than merely being a questionable interpretation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I am aware that the policy was not accepted, but the text should continue to reflect the proposal's spirit, and not be watered down just because the proposal failed this time around. This policy should be argued, and argued again, and again, because consensus can change through hard experience.

Without something like this, I believe that Wikipedia will not be able to compete with Scholarpedia. The no-OR guideline has long ago stopped being used in the way it was intended: as a tool for crackpot removal. It has become a tool for preventing good scientific writing. Scientific contributors are discouraged by the idea that their work can be deleted frivolously, and must be protected by countless debates, which never are supposed to talk about the content of the material, or common knowledge in the field. For non-scientific fields, nothing is lost: he-said shw-said is pretty much all you need. When technical knowledge is involved, however, it can only be transmitted well by someone who understands what is going on, and who writes from first principles.Likebox (talk) 10:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps something like that would work, but we need a version which eliminates your appoach to mathematical articles, which is not only original, it uses original terminology. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Thinking it over, we'd need to have the statement certified by someone who is a universally recognized expert in the field. Even this would lead to a certain banned editor who claims to be (and may be) the expert in his field, from being allowed to enter his original interpretations in articles about his field, without evidence that anyone else believes or would be willing to publish them. I don't consider that constructive. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

If we allow editors to "write from first principles" then we open up Wikipedia to this sort of crackpottery (an argument that the standard theories of star formation contradict the ideal gas law). An attempt to convince this type of editor that they are mistaken by presenting counter arguments simply goes round in circles. Insisting on reliable sources is the only effective way of keeping this type of original and flawed material out of Wikipedia. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

If during a discusion it becomes clear that someone is a crackpot, then that's the end of the discussion. These guidelines, while not originally written up by me with the crackpot problem in mind, makes life far more easy to deal with crackpots. The last crackpot I had to deal with was someone on the entropy page who was quoting from advanced books and using Wiki policies to defend inclusion of his flawed/misleading edits.

Discussions from first principles exposed this person as a crackpot who did not understand his own sources. The end result: The crackpot left the article. If he had not left all his edits would have been promptly reverted anyway and further comments by him on the talk page would also have been reverted as they would no longer servve any purpuse. Count Iblis (talk) 14:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Your crackpot is not much of a crackpot if all it took to make them desist was talking to them. Don't you realize that on almost all talk page people talk about the fundamentals a great deal. Its been repeatedly suggested by the proponents of this essay that since they are unable to change WP:OR they will circumvent it with this essay, is this true? Furthermore does this policy intended to take "folk lore" and "scientific common sense" and elevate it to the level of information WP:RS. I was under the impression that science helped to correct folklore and common sense, not create it. I full realize there is a vernacular tradition that largely exists outside the literature and WP:RS. Lab technique is a classic example of something that is much easier to know than to cite but I still look for sources whenever I can and I hope other editors do to.--OMCV (talk) 15:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, talking about the fundamentals happens a lot and that's a good thing. Now i.m.o. you cannot force editors to behave in a different way if they do not want that, by imposing some policy on them. It won't work and that's certainly not the purpose of this essay. Compare with the COI. If you have a COI and you don't what to stick to it, then there is nothing anyone can do about it. No one knows who you are in real life. All that COI does is that it asks you to please consider the dangers of editing with a COI and it gives advice on how to avoid problems.

About NOR, it turns out after lengthy debates on its talk page that the regulars over there prefer to keep the issues relevant to this essay ambiguous. They are afraid of "opening the floodgates" etc. From their POV, this is understandable. On many politics pages you have two camps editing with opposing POV and there you do need strict rules. Editing there is more like playing a game where you try to use the Wiki rules to get your way. That's completely against the spirit of these guidelines. I.m.o., this sort of attitude is destructive when editing scientific articles.

Then, if the focus of NOR really has to be the politics pages and no edits can be made there that would help to promote good editing of science pages, then one has to think about separate rules. Count Iblis (talk) 15:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

NOR is not specific to "politics pages". In fact, when initially conceived, it was thought to be well understood and trivially obvious why it was a bad idea to allow OR on "scientific articles". Apparently it was not as well understood and trivially obvious as assumed. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Essays cannot contradict policies, period. This material does. And if you insist that it does not contradict policy, then there's no point in stating it here, since the material is already on the policy page, where it belongs. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:42, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Practice contradicts policy all the time. We want the essay to offer practical help, not to exist in some ivory tower disconnected from the reality of scientific articles. The people over at NOR want to leave everything fuzzy and invoke IAR whenever they need to (which is a lot, apparently). --Michael C. Price ^talk 22:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Practice fails to adhere to policy all the time, just as people speed all the time. That doesn't make speeding legal, or mean that you can avoid a ticket by saying "yeah, but all those other drivers were speeding too!". And it certainly doesn't mean that you can try to codify the statement "speeding, in law, means driving more than 10 miles/hour over the speed limit". Jayjg ^(talk) 22:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

That makes my point, since speed limits are set locally.--Michael C. Price ^talk 23:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

In this case it's the local wiki that's setting the rules. Many other wikis have different rules about OR etc. Feel free to edit them differently. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by "local". --Michael C. Price ^talk 23:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The authority that sets speed limits/content policies for the roads/articles. Wikipedia has jurisdiction over Wikipedia articles. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The question is if there is a good reason to not stick to the rules. E.g. if your son is very ill and you need to bring him to a hospital and no ambulances exist in your country, you may have to violate the speed limit. A better alternative is, of course, for the government to make new laws allowing ambulance services to be set up. Count Iblis (talk) 23:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

What percentage of speeders do you think are rushing their ill children to hospital? 0.001%? You're not trying to ignore the rules in an unusual emergency case, you're trying to create a permanent loophole for a huge set of articles. And you are not an "ambulance service" rushing critically ill Wikipedia articles to hospital. Rather, you're a typical Wikipedia editor, editing typical Wikipedia articles, who wants to loosen up the content policies in your area of editing interest so that it is easier for you to insert you own POV/NOR into articles. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) Let me give an example: string theory has many stages of development, and a lot of the earliest work became very obscure, because it came from Regge theory and S-matrix theory, ideas which became deeply unpopular after the quark model was shown to be correct. Suppose that I would like to write an article on string theory, focusing on the early days. Such an article would be extremely useful, because this old literature contains many great ideas, a few of which were lost or forgotten.

But these ideas are not phrased in modern language in the early literature. This literature is so old, that it does not know anything about branes or holography, and sometimes it doesn't know about gravity. So when summarizing this work today, there are many places where the exposition can be greatly simplified by an awareness of more modern results.

This type of context dependent insertion and modification is very simple for a person writing today, and it allows the old results to be broadly understood. This is a central function of wikipedia--- preserving knowledge which exists, which is verifiable, but which was lost because of the bad communications technology of the past. It is important that technically correct simplifications of old literature, in line with modern understanding, not be dismissed as "OR", because it is not OR to present scientific results this way, it is just good exposition.

Old terminology and techniques are often badly out of date and very sub-optimal. On the other hand, if you modernize too much, you lose the essential ideas. So there is a fine line. The discussions on the talk pages needs to go back and forth on these points

1. What are the all the ideas in the original literature (especially the marginal or forgotten ones)
2. How were they represented originally?
3. How can we present the same ideas today?

This type of discussion happens sometimes. When it does, the literature is presented well, and old ideas are presented clearly in a modern light (see the history section in mass-energy equivalence for an example of good history. The summary of the old literature was mostly written by User:D.H.)

But much more often, the discussion on the talk page becomes "What did source X say vs. source Y?" or "Which experts present the ideas in this manner vs. that manner?". This type of discussion follows the OR guidelines without common sense, and it can be counterproductive when discussing these sorts of issues.

The point of "no OR" is to remove crazy original ideas, not innovative expositions of standard material. It also should not prohibit placing historical literature in a modern context. For example, if I am writing about Newton's methods, I should be able to use modern calculus in the exposition. Similarly, if I write about Einstein's paper that claims that black-holes do not exist, I should be able to point out the obvious flaw in the argument, accepted by nearly all relativists. For historical material, "no OR" needs a good interpretion.

By default right now, if an idea is broadly accepted as correct by all people working in the field, it is not OR to state it, even if it isn't stated in exactly the same words in sources. But this default position has been interpreted as running counter to the "no OR" guideline. The point of this essay is to clarify that exposition is not OR, and that material which presents things in a streamlined way is OK, so long as the ideas are not original.Likebox (talk) 04:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposed again? So soon?

This page was created on 12 August 2009 as a proposed "New behavioral guidline [sic]". Discussion of whether to adopt it began at #Proposed policy above on 11 September 2009. Consensus overwhelmingly opposed adopting it, with 2 "support" (counting Iblis) and 7 "oppose". Even more significant than the number of oppose's is the lack of community support. On 7 November 2009, Tim Shuba properly marked the page as a failed proposal for failure to obtain community consensus despite the proposal being open for ample time. Count Iblis accepted this determination and immediately changed the page's status from a failed guideline proposal to an essay. Now, SlimVirgin re-templated the page as a proposal. She correctly observed that an essay cannot remain in project space if it violates existing policies. That is a good reason to remove an essay from project space. That is not, in my opinion, a good reason to resurrect a clearly failed proposal. I believe that the appropriate disposition is to re-mark the page as a failed proposal. What do others think? —Finell (Talk) 04:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

No, Tim Shuba was wrong to change the status immediately before going to TFD to write there that this is a failed proposal. Count Iblis (talk) 04:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

• failed proposal: Its pretty clear that this is the case and it would be best to end the circular debate.--OMCV (talk) 04:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• My intention was not to resurrect it as a proposal, but to make clear that it couldn't be an essay, and had to be either a proposal or a failed one. Given the history, it seems clear that it has been rejected. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

• I've restored the failed tag that Tim Shuba added. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 05:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• I would like to say that scientific editors work according to this guideline by default. I know from having personally met some. The editors that oppose this guideline have been heard, but since there are editors that support it too, it should be debated endlessly.Likebox (talk) 05:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

As for Likebox's belief that this policy is followed, it should be noted his continual failing attempt to include a unique synthesis of his in halting problem, he believes that it follows this essay. I cannot see that it either follows this essay, fails to violate WP:OR, nor belongs in the article. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Depends on what Likebox means by "according to this guideline"; much of it is OK, but where it suggests "If you find yourself in a dispute with other editors about a technical point, then discuss the issues as much as possible from first principles using the underlying theory and/or from the empirical evidence," it seems designed to support some editors who like to discuss their own logic ad nauseum when others challenge them on not having any support in reliable sources for their views. The statement "Do not simply appeal to direct quotes from textbooks or scientific articles, as then the proper context may be missing" seems to have been written to support Brews ohare who claimed that this is what I had done to him. Naturally, I disagree, and question why this was written. The fact that most editors don't work contrary to the suggestions of this essay is not a reason to think it's a good essay or worth making into a guideline. Dicklyon (talk) 06:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Dicklyon, I wish you'd stop tarnishing this essay by association with Brews. Brews makes a lot of silly claims. This paper grew out of problems at entropy, not the speed of light. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

To Arthur Rubin: I have contributed material of equal "originality" (meaning none at all) in dozens other scientific articles. Most of it was accepted after some back-and-forth about correctness, once it was seen to be equivalent to standard presentations in the literature. The material I placed on halting problem/godel's theorem is of the same type, reworking the old proofs to streamline the presentation. If you call it "synthesis", that just shows a poor understanding of synthesis, and tbis point of view can block editing articles on historical mathematics.

I wouldn't mind if you said "I don't like it!" or "It is confusing!" or even "It is too ideosyncratic and non-canonical!". All of those criticisms are valid (and others have made them). But "original synthesis!" is not a valid criticism. Correct derivations of old well-understood material by well-trod routes are never ever OR. They are never ever SYN, no matter how they are phrased. They could be inappropriate for the article, they might be written badly, but they do not violate any policy.

To Dicklyon: The editors who talk ad-nauseum without sources are not usually a problem. The problem is that sometimes scientific pages leave out a bunch of stuff because the editors on the page don't understand something basic.Likebox (talk) 09:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

To Likebox. No. It was your original notation, reworking old proofs from the literature in that notation, glossing over the difficulties. "Streamlining" is wrong. (I was wrong in my initial statement that your (non-)proof was original, apparently just the notation was original. As the notation was so confusing, I couldn't verify that at first.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

To Likebox (Dicklynon); yes, it appears that you didn't understand something basic. Still, without a specific reliable source commenting on your interpretation, even experts might have trouble understanding your statements. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Note that the guidelines say: "It does not constitute WP:OR to provide the logical connection between sourced premises and sourced conclusions, when the arguments are well understood by experts in the field". Since Likebox's arguments are not (yet) well understood, his proof could not be included. Count Iblis (talk) 14:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Please stop referring to your misbegotten essay as a guideline. "Guideline" has a very specific meaning in Wikipedia, and this is not a guideline. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:34, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You can also AGF and assume that when I use the word "guideline" I'm using it in the normal English sense of the meaning. A bit similar to when a gay couple says that they are "married" when in fact they are in a civil union. A conservative Christian who already had his way when voting down gay marriage proposals, has the choice not to get angry about these choice of words. Count Iblis (talk) 15:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

When it still says "guideline" early in the text, and when there is a section above in the talk on voting to make it a proposal, it makes it difficult to believe that you only ever wanted it to be an essay. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Let's not hyperventilate about this. You are free to change the word "guideline" into something more appropriate. Note that given the lack of consensus, I prefer that it becomes an essay that emphasizes that "one or more editors" support this than a "failed proposal". So, if you can make edits making this acceptable, please do so. Count Iblis (talk) 16:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Case in point

Somebody decided that the phrase "be as careful as when writing in a journal" is not a valid summary of this essay, because nowhere in the essay does "writing for a journal" appear. This editor removed the sentence from the edit summary.

When writing for a journal, you do all the things that are suggested in this essay. You double-check, you read again and again, thinking about every point, reworking and discussing from first principles. This is what it means to be "as careful as writing for a journal". The summary states this in a pithy sentence, and describes it in detail below. But a too-rigid reading of the essay, without understanding, leads someone to delete a good summary because it does not appear word-for-word in the essay! This type of rigid uncomprehending editing is what this essay attempts to prevent.Likebox (talk) 09:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Hah! Good point. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I am now ROFLMAO ! Count Iblis (talk) 15:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This proposal misses the target

I join opposers of this current "ESCA" proposal. A standard or guideline is probably needed, but I suggest this one isn't it. One large point about what's in it and probably shouldn't be: emphasis on first principles would bring a risk of giving a green light to developers of wild or fringe theory.

But even more important, I suggest, is what's missing here that any suitable proposal ought to contain.

I see occasional mention of the issue of 'correctness', especially when quoting sources, but this misses a bigger point. Quotations and other ways of relying on sources can be narrowly or verbally correct, and at the same time unfair and unrepresentative. The range of reasons is wide, problems can arise from unrepresentative selection from sources, and from taking things out of context.

I'm surprised to see so little, or even no, discussion of this issue of fairness/unfairness, or the representative/unrepresentative character of quotes and paraphrases and other ways in WP of relying on sources.

The basic function of an encyclopedia, to re-tell, paraphrase, summarise and explain the reliable sources about the topic in hand, seems to call above all for fair representation of the ensemble of source materials (and their status and weight, e.g. whether they qualify to be represented at all). The necessary quality of fairness in representation of sources is specific to every case. Editorial consensus probably is normally very well able to judge it, though with usual caveats about vote-packing and the rest. Policy can help the editorial community towards an appropriate focus on issues of this kind, by specifically drawing the attention of editors to them.

It seems to me not only that present policies don't do that, but also neither does this proposal. So I oppose it, not as something unneeded, but as something that widely misses the mark. Terry0051 (talk) 14:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you recognise the need for change.

Re "unfairness", that would be applicable across all of Wikipedia, where it is already addressed by a number of policies. Here we are only concerned with changes or guidance specific to science articles.--Michael C. Price ^talk 14:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

On fair representation of the ensemble of source materials (and their status and weight...), I would suggest that at least some of that concern is properly addressed in the core policy Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Undue weight (shortcut WP:WEIGHT).

Abusive paraphrasing and selective quotation are just straight-up academic no-nos, so it's probably largely assumed that it goes without saying that actively deceiving readers by misrepresenting sources is out. Wikipedia:No original research#Using sources notes

Information in an article must be verifiable in the references cited. Article statements generally should not rely on unclear or inconsistent passages nor on passing comments. Passages open to multiple interpretations should be precisely cited or avoided. A summary of extensive discussion should reflect the conclusions of the source's author(s). Drawing conclusions not evident in the reference is original research regardless of the type of source. It is important that references be cited in context and on topic.

Further down in the same policy, we also find WP:SYNTH, which to an extent also addresses (and forbids) the selective combination of sources to generate a novel conclusion. The Manual of Style also implicitly bars the omission of proper context in its discussion on the use ellipses in quotations: "Use ellipses to indicate omissions from quoted text...Do not omit text where doing so would remove essential context or alter the meaning of the text." TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

[From Terry0051] Thanks for the references. they are useful up to a point and I shouldn't say that the subject has been missed out in current policy. All the same, in most of the policy passages quoted, the desideratum of fairness in representation does seem to come in somewhat incidentally as if it was a subsidiary matter, and to an extent it does seem to have been taken for granted as if obvious. I'd still suggest it deserves a more centrally- and generally-declared position: this feeling comes from an impression that many if not most of the problematic edits (and heated discussions on talk pages) that I've seen, boil down mostly to misrepresentations either of sources or of the arguments of discussion-partners in one way or another: the point does not seem obvious to everybody.

I also agree that the need for fairness in representation and explanation of sources is of course a general and not exclusively scientific issue. But it seems to me that putting it more in the forefront would be helpful in particular to scientific articles and to honest editors who may be frightened off from providing useful explanation by the way the various current prohibitions are worded. It should help to illuminate the boundary between forbidden fresh interpretation (OR) and encouraged explanation. In the current position, some science articles seem to remain too literally bound to the sources in their precise technical language, they lack sufficient explanation, and excite complaints that they are too technical. Terry0051 (talk) 23:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

How can something be more central than the placement of WP:NPOV as one of our five pillars? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[From Terry0051] WP:NPOV, as I read it, is focussed on achieving neutrality between opposed and conflicting points of view. I see practically nothing in it that directly addresses the issue of making sure that encyclopedic summaries and paraphrases, and the like, fairly summarise and represent in that way the original that they are intended or pretended to represent. That issue (and the related desirability of avoiding misrepresentation of the arguments of discussion partners on talk pages) could be made more central by addressing it more explicitly in one of the policy documents or pillars that you mention. Terry0051 (talk) 01:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:V

So far as I can see, 98% of this essay is noncontroversial common sense.

The only argument of substance I've seen on this page is that of Dicklyon "figures never lie, but liars can figure", suggesting that the ultimate recourse is WP:V, and if an argument cannot be sourced it shouldn't be included.

The counter to this view is provided by Likebox: too rigid a reading leads to deletion of a good summary because it does not appear word-for-word in a source.

A question is, how does one find the appropriate phrasing to mediate between these two positions?

The present form of the essay suggests that filling in a derivation is given the latitude accorded in WP:NOR: “Carefully summarizing or rephrasing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis—it is good editing.” To aid in applications, the essay says: It does not constitute WP:OR to provide the logical connection between sourced premises and sourced conclusions, when the arguments are well understood by experts in the field. Apparently, Dicklyon thinks that the determination of equivalence of meaning between two logical constructions is error prone (even when the premises and conclusions themselves are sourced), while Likebox doesn't.

It seems to me that it is unlikely that anyone can come up with an example where a problem has arisen, or an example where one might arise. Argument over premises might occur, except these are sourced. Likewise, arrival at sourced conclusions might be possible by different logical paths, but so what? So you can prove Pythagoras' theorem 5 different ways: how misleading is one way compared to another? Brews ohare (talk) 19:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This comes up often in science articles, especially when placing old literature material in a modern context. I could give a list of examples, but I am afraid to call attention to them, because then they will get attacked. A good example of an article with lots of strict-constructionist "original research" is BKL singularity. This one is a safe example, because it is excellent enough and technically detailed enough that I doubt that any wikilawyers will touch it.

I expect all 5 of the ways to prove the Pythagoras' theorem are published so they can be discussed pretty easily. The real concern is when people present the sixth unpublished but logically consistent proof. It begs the question of why such material has never been published. For example if old physics literature is important to modern string theory why hasn't the connection been presented in a WP:RS. Its not only a matter of OR and SYNTH but also a question of whether such material meets WP:NOTE. I think the biggest argument against this policy is that there is no need for it and its just WP:CREEP and/or an attempt to muddle existing policy.--OMCV (talk) 02:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

(inserted later) The 1968-1980 literature on string theory is acknowledged as important in all published sources, but the more obscure content of the old papers is not always summarized in modern sources. For textbooks, authors cherry pick the results which turned out to be the most important to later developments, put some other results in the exercises, and leave some out altogether. But the old literature contains a more valuable stuff which a new generation is rediscovering.

Some results were suppressed for political reasons, and become popular again when the political winds changed. For example, the idea that strings describe hadrons was considered incompatible with QCD by some people, and it was politically a bad idea to insist that hadrons were strings for a long time in the 1980s. This made all the string literature before the 1974 gravity revolution look weird. For example, the otherwise excellent textbook of Green Schwartz and Witten calls the agreement of strings with hadronic physics a coincidence whose content is the existence of a large N expansion, and even says that the work of Dolen Horn Schmidt which started the whole field was like scattering-amplitude numerology (it wasn't like that at all). Nowadays, the connection with gauge theory is acknowledged by everybody, and a lot of the early work is vindicated.

Other examples of politics at work: In the 1980s, people didn't want too many string theories, because they wanted a unique theory. So they said there are these theories and no others: Type IIA/B,two Heterotic theories, and a type I theory. This position is repeated here, but it omits a ton of string constructions due to many excellent physicists, like SO(16)xSO(16) discovered in the eighties, or the string theory emerging from M-theory compactified on a klein bottle discovered a few years ago, and a handful of others. The politics today has changed, now every consistent string background is respected as a point on the landscape, so many of these old papers need to be included here.

Many authors (including myself) didn't read enough of the literature through a combination of late-birth and inexcusable laziness. But when you have an open encyclopedia that aims to include all knowledge, you can do a fair literature review.Likebox (talk) 06:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like you have plenty of WP:RS for your string theory material and there is little need to worry about a claim of WP:OR. If you are accused of OR you should take it seriously and reconsider the text. The only problem is that Wikipedia does not aim "to include all knowledge". Wikipedia aims to contain information that can be attributed to WP:RS. We are not a peer reviewed review nor a textbook. In both reviews and textbooks there is a fair amount of OR, this might be shocking but if you ever write a review or try to find the sources textbooks are based on this will become apparent. Its ok for these materials to contain OR since there is a name on the cover who takes responsibility for the ideas. Since no one can take responsibility at Wikipedia we need WP:RS for everything to prevent WP:OR and insure WP:NOTE.--OMCV (talk) 13:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

This is exactly the core disagreement--- what is WP:OR all about? I am aware that review articles and textbooks contain what some people would call "OR", taking a strict constructionist interpretation of OR. I believe that this is a very bad interpretation of OR, and prevents serious scientific content here. Almost all textbook results should not be thought of as OR, since they are verifiable (with thinking and effort) from reading the original literature.

You are suggesting that no-OR is a policy which is put in place because Wikipedia does not have any experts to blame for mistakes. That's not exactly the way it happened. The encyclopedia was pretty OK before no-OR, but it was vulnerable to crackpot attacks. A crackpot could replace the well-established results of a field with a new theory with little or no support. no-OR was put in place to prevent this. It wasn't an issue of responsibility, the encyclopedia has functioned pretty well with diffuse responsibility.

It is not at all clear that a policy which is designed to exclude crackpot style original research should also be used to exclude review-article style expositions. In fact, when putting the no-OR guideline in place, editors were careful to say that paraphrase and reworking are perfectly fine, so long as the ideas are not original. Since the project is less than a decade old, we have no idea how far we can go. If we take a strict-constructionist reading of OR, and use it to prevent review-article style expositions, we would be robbing the encyclopedia of its potential to present high-level scientific content. Why should we shoot ourselves in the foot?

This proposal is about explaining how to use OR policy responsibly. If you are dealing with common knowledge in scientific or mathematical fields, stuff that can be verified by first principles, you should make sure to do so. If the result ends up reading like a review article, that's great! So long as it is a review (no new ideas), and so long as all the results are properly attributed to the correct sources. The BKL singularity article is a perfect example of what can be achieved if we agree to work this way. This article explains the BKL results clearly and fully, from first principles, with appropriate citations. Scholarpedia could not hope for a better exposition, even if they found a way to resurrect the original authors.Likebox (talk) 22:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Suppose you think there is an error in the proof of the Bogoliubov inequality at some specific place, either based on you checking the proof as it is written or because some book gives a proof that proceeds in a different way. how would you proceed with discussing modifying the proof on the talk page? Note that you cannot copy a proof literally from a textbook in the article as that would violate copyright laws.

Also, even if you were to decide to literally copy a proof from a textbook, that may not be convenient. The proof of the quantum part now builds on the proof of the classical part, while in most textbooks, the quantum part is proved separately. The total proof of the quantum part from start to finish can be made shorter if I had included such a textbook proof, but I could then not have build on the classical proof, so the total length of the proof section would have increased. Another thing is that I avoid unnecessary mathematical formalisms such as the density matrix. This makes the proof accessible to an interested high schooler who has read some elementary quantum mechanics text. A typical textbook proof would be written for upper level undergraduate students and will thus be unsuitable for Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 03:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Generally, when editors agree that an explanation is sensible, there's no problem, as nobody is likely to raise an OR challenge. The problem comes when someone (say me) objects to someone else's (say Brews's) idiosyncratic derivation, conclusions, or explanations, and that someone wants to argue at length based on their own logic, even though no source would touch the topic as they do. The Count wrote this when we were in the midst of arguments about such things, and he was taking Brews's side. So, no, it's not hard to find examples, except you'll have to go back through a few thousand of my edits, or Brews's, to find what the Count was taking sides on. Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

One example of where I wouldn't accept Brews's novel definitions and extrapolations without a source, and he tried to resort to logic, first principles, and derivations to convince me, is illustrated by the lengthy discussions at Talk:Wavelength and Talk:Wave. As an example of why this approach is not so good, it took me days to explain to him a simple error he was making (see toward end of section Talk:Wave#Fourier_series_and_wavelength). When he finally got it, he wrote that it was "moot", since the errorful content was not in the article (because I didn't allow it!). More than once during these problems I appealed for help at wikiproject physics, and the Count stepped in to say that Brews was doing nothing wrong; then he wrote his failed guideline proposal. If I had read the proposal without all this history and context, I might not have seen what he was trying to do; but in general, I think it's a mistake for wikipedians to try to write rules that treat science as special, instead of sticking to the pillar principles. I said the same about Science Apologist's "mainstream" proposal. Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Count: I think you concern for copyright law is overwrote. I don't think mathematical proofs are held to the same standard as fiction novels, copy the proof after all the end result will presumably been copied many times with no concern to copyright. If minor adaptations are needed its unlikely that there will be any accusations of OR (as Dicklyon points out). Basically you need to cite enough sources so that a reader could reconstruct your proof easily. This guideline really addresses none of these concerns.--OMCV (talk) 13:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What the guideline addresses is how to prevent problems when settling any disputes about such proofs using sources. Count Iblis (talk) 18:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Why are you both still referring to this as a guideline? It is not a guideline. It may be a failed proposal, or it may be an essay, but it is not a guideline. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. It is now an essay. Why were we still using the word "guideline"? I think that may be because OMCV and I were discussing the relevant issues and as a result not paying attention to sensitivities about the word "guideline" here. Count Iblis (talk) 22:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That's sometimes the price you have to pay for openness--- there are moments where you have to explain something patiently until it is clear to all the editors. Although this can be time consuming, it is a good thing, because it allows you to straighten out all the subtle points in the presentation, in your own mind too, and you get to know the details of at least one person's confusion. It might turn out that you have confusions as well. As long as everyone is intellectually honest, you will eventually converge on correct content. In science, the material is usually completely objective.

The same type of endless arguments happen in the professional literature too, but they happen behind closed doors--- in referee reports. The back and forth on refereed journal articles is very informative, but it is not part of the finished product, so you don't get to see how the sausage got made.

Because of this openness, the encyclopedia has the potential to be much more complete and accurate than any literature source. There are so many authors, and each one knows how to simplify some point or other. Even the best books are written by a small number of authors, who are far from omniscient.

I don't think that idiosyncratic explanations are a problem, if they are clear and correct, and would be recognized as such by anyone familiar with the literature. There are a thousand ways to present a result, and there is no reason not to include any of them that are helpful. Sometimes a presentation is badly written, but you shouldn't sic the OR hounds on some poor sap who wrote something muddy. Just work out the differences.Likebox (talk) 05:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with a lot of what you've said there. Like "In science, the material is usually completely objective." That's a nice ideal, but not very in line with reality. And we shouldn't have to resort to days of intense argument when an editor is edit warring to push idiosyncratic stuff; it should be enough to say that if you can't show a source of some author who does it that way, then it's not OK in wikipedia, per WP:V. I know you don't like this, as you've been pushing your own novel proof, which is more simple and elegant than one finds in sources; but if other editors don't accept it based on policy, then that's the breaks. There's plenty of room to work out good explanations that are compatible with what's in sources. We don't need a new guideline to tell us to do that. Dicklyon (talk) 06:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Brews likes to say that I demand exact quotes from sources; but that's nonsense, and has never been backed up by specifics (and probably won't be now, as he's prohibited from discussing physics now). But if anyone thinks I do that, please point it out, because that has never been my intention. Dicklyon (talk) 06:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

If the editor is pushing what looks to you like ideosyncratic stuff, you have to treat it with patience, because it might just be the best explanation of the material. It is important that if the material in the exposition is well understood, meaning it can be verified by patiently reading sources and seeing that there is no new idea, that the text be debated on its merits. Even if every textbook says it in different words, who cares? The point is that the presentation here can be much better than any textbook, since there are more editors and more eyeballs.

If you find the debate over presentation time consuming, that's something that you have to patiently deal with. If we don't allow these debates, or close them on specious grounds by accusing well meaning authors with non-original content of "original research", then the encyclopedia will fail to have decent science expositions.

When I say that material is objective, I mean it. If you understand the content of most non-controversial scientific arguments, they can be easily internalized and transmitted from one person to another. There would be no disputes about them, except for an occasional misunderstanding. There is usually no dispute among the workers in the field. When there is dispute, you must treat it very carefully, adhering closely to NPOV, and no OR, and Undue Weight, etc, so that all sides of the dispute are fairly represented. But that's for cases where knowledgable people hold divergent opinions. For most of the disputes that would come up on a page on waves, or on the speed of light, that's not the problem--- everything is well understood. The only question is best exposition.

Looking over a dispute you had with Brews Ohare on Wavelength, it is obvious why you oppose these guidelines. You are completely wrong on every point, and you use the most lawyerly of source readings to try to prevent a well-meaning editor from introducing new figures and text. This type of approach bogs down the growth of science articles, and a good policy like this would prevent non-constructive arguments such as these.Likebox (talk) 08:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

While Brews Ohare was not doing any OR on wavelength, in that the concepts of a carrier wavelength and modulation frequency (or beat frequency) are ancient, he made a mistake on speed-of-light by assuming that a measurement of the speed of light cannot give an exact answer. This is a confusion related to defining standards of measurement, and Brews had the idea that if you use atomic radii and frequencies to define units of space and time, then the speed of light could not possibly be an exact value in these atomic units. This is correct, but irrelevant, since the meter and second are the units of space and time which make the speed of light exact.

It should have been possible to convince him by a reasoned argument, since he is very capable of changing his mind. Instead, it seems that he is blocked from editing physics articles. This means that his beautiful figures will no longer appear as well. Who's interest does that serve?

In thinking about the shabby way in which Brews Ohare has been treated, it becomes more obvious that we need some sort of scientific guideline like this. Otherwise, the elementary science on Wikipedia will suffer.Likebox (talk) 09:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Likebox, please stop saying things a like: "It should have been possible to convince [Brews] by a reasoned argument, since he is very capable of changing his mind." It wasn't possible, okay? But the point of the guidelines still stands: Those who are capable of being swayed by sources or reasoned argument are no problem; those who aren't get dealt with in other ways. But the point is that attempting to dialog with them about first principles exposes their agenda, and that makes it easier to identify which category they fall into; and hence easier to deal with them. E.g. Iblis's example from entropy. --Michael C. Price ^talk 11:00, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

One has to always consider what the proper level of "first principles" are. In case of the speed of light debate with Brews, what went wrong is that the argument stayed at too high a level. You have to go to that level where the issue becomes resolved in a manifestly unambigous way. In this case that simply means reformulating everything in natural units. The speed of light can then be easily seen to be a conversion factor, exactly analogous to the conversion factor between gallons and litres, or joules and calories. Now, while I tried to argue that way, Brews kept his original argument going with others.

Had Brews engaged with me further on this basis, then I think the issue would have been resolved. He could have reformulated his original arguments in terms of natural units too (or any similar arguments he had not yet put forward). E.g., if you have a rod that defines your unit of length and a clock that defines your unit of time, then the fundamental laws of physics that exactly describes your rod and the clock will, in principle, fix the speed of light exactly in these units. And these laws of physics do not depend on a "c", as you can formulate the same laws of physics in natural units. If one whishes, one can put back c, but that simply amounts to rescaling variables in the same laws of physics and the result of a computation won't depend on any such rescaling of variables.

It thus all boils down to the fact that the speed of light is not some nontrivial fundamental parameter in the laws of physics. Brews' POV that motivated his arguments/edits was that it is. Count Iblis (talk) 15:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It's flattering to see so much attention paid to me here as a cautionary tale. It would be nice if I could correct the misconceptions, among them my imperviousness to reason and my tendency to simple error. The connection to reality resembles the classroom exercise where a simple phrase is whispered around the room from one pupil to another and the final version is quite unrelated to the first. Brews ohare (talk) 14:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I have argued with Brews Ohare regarding other things, and while he is stubborn, and needs to understand every point in detail before changing his mind, he has changed his mind before. And he makes nifty figures, and that's a significant contribution.

To Michael Price: I agree that it is sometimes frustrating to deal with simple misconceptions, but there are ways to make it productive for all parties. For example, regarding the speed of light issue, it is true that historically the speed of light was a measured quantity. It shifted to a defined quantity when speed of light measurements became more accurate than any other way of defining units of space and time. The issue can be explained well, and if you have someone who is confused, the person can be helpful in writing the article, because once this person gets it, they can explain it in such a way that others won't get confused.Likebox (talk) 21:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Brews does make very nifty figures, which is what makes this a self-imposed immolation so regretable. And being confused does help one write better articles in the long run, as I have repeatedly found out :-) --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I think what we have here is another example of a fallacy:

• B (sometimes) has changed his mind in response to reasoned argument.
• B has not changed his mind in this instance
• Therefore, what has been presented to B is not reasoned argument.

If it's not already in the literature, may I suggest it as the "Likebox" argument? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Meow! --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

To Arthur Rubin: it may be a logical fallacy, but it is a social truth. We have a lot of contributors, and none of them know everything, nor should they be expected to. People who are honest, interested in a topic, and not already familiar with all the results are an asset, not a liability. They can explain the material much better than a person who has learned something years ago, and has forgetten what was once confusing. Once they get it, they are capable of writing the best expositions. If such a person is not a egomaniacal crackpot (and sometimes even if they are), it is worthwhile to figure out what was confusing to them, and explain it clearly, even though it takes time and patience. We are all volunteers, and it is a waste of precious man-hours to throw someone overboard.

In this regard, shutting down debate by saying "OR" or "SYNTH" is not helpful. It excludes some fresh points of view which can be useful for finding nice expositions.Likebox (talk) 22:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Scholarpedia

Unlike Wikipedia, Scholarpedia has had little trouble building up a library of informative well written physics articles. This is a pity, because these articles are protected by experts, which means that they have limited evolvability, they are not democratic, and they are potentially tainted by academic COI (although so far, alas, many of them are good).

The only difference between scholarpedia and Wikipedia, ignoring qualifications requirements, is that the scholarpedia people do peer review on their pages (and give out brownie points for doing it). That means that they discuss from first principles as much as possible, refering to sources to make sure that they are representing the ideas accurately and fairly. When there is real controversy, they adhere to the same policies as Wikipedia. There is no essential difference between the peer review that they do and the talk-page banter that goes on here, except that the words "OR" and "SYNTH" don't come up too often. This is how science started, and this is how it has always been done. Maybe it's time for Wikipedia to emulate this method for its science pages?Likebox (talk) 09:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Peer review" has nothing to do with arguments from "first principles". I've had (a few; more than 10, less than 50) published peer-reviewed papers and been a reviewer a few times, so I can say this with reasonable confidence. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:48, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It would be more accurate to say "peer review" is not exclusively "argument from first principles". Likebox's statement would be more accurately put as they discuss from first principles where that is effective, referring to sources to make sure that they are representing the ideas accurately and fairly. Brews ohare (talk) 15:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes peer review is a bunch of nonsense, but often, when the reviewer is good, it is very substantive and helps clarify the issue. I was referring to good peer review. We don't need the bad kind.Likebox (talk) 21:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It's still not "argument from first principles". As an aside, if you want to see a bad example of my (among others) attempt, to maintain an article using (a) standard notation, please see matrix calculus. Every week or so, someone adds or subtracts a "transpose", and, because these equations don't actually appear explcitly in the literature anywhere, we have to re-verify from first principles. I can do it, but it takes time. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Are there different international conventions about which way to make columns and rows? Maybe you can solve this problem by using some indices to define the matrix notation.Likebox (talk) 23:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Next steps

It's clear that the three creators of this essay insist that it contradict policy. Given that fact, what is the next step? MfD? Or would it be better to put it into user space? I'm open to either. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:39, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Since the essay is still evolving it is not clear that it will ultimately contradict policy. Anyway, as the essay template says This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion., so there are no grounds for supression. Let it be, and let it evolve. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe that this essay is solely due to Count Iblis. Other editors just think that it is a good idea. The essay only contradicts a narrow minded interpretation of OR policy, an interpretation which goes far beyond the intended purpose of the OR guideline.

The goal of this essay is to fix this, by explaining how OR and SYNTH guidelines are supposed to be interpreted on technical pages. These guidelines need to be used on a high-level, to check ideas and methods, not low-level wording. If this is done, then the OR and SYNTH policies serve to improve the accuracy and quality of the content.

But if OR policy is used to exclude a clever presentation device, or a nice illustrative example which is well-accepted in the field, then this is not OK. It's not OK to call something OR just because you fail to understand the common-knowledge in a technical field.

Since this essay contains non-trivial suggestions, it will always rub somebody the wrong way. Hopefully, the wisdom of Count Iblis' suggestions will eventually be recognized by the majority.Likebox (talk) 04:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the next step is that everybody should take a deep breath and step back from this intense discussion which is getting nowhere. No matter what the non-scientists here, who are sticking to their interpretation of the policies and guidelines, say, there are some problems with science articles. The current discussion is not getting that clear. I suggest that people return after a break and see if they can find new ideas to improve these articles. If this does not happen, we will continue to put off professional scientists from contributing to science articles, and the standard of science articles will remain low. However, let me note that the use of "science" by me here reflects its use in this debate, but the real problem in general and as reflected in this essay is with articles in physics and mathematics. It is the bad distinction made by, I think, Rutherford, who said "There is physics and there is stamp collecting". The stamp collecting science is fine. --Bduke (Discussion) 04:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

You are wrong to assume that everyone (or perhaps even most) who oppose this proposed guideline are not scientists. I think most of the professional scientists who edit wikipedia support WP:V and WP:RS and do not see the benefit in creating special loopholes for science articles. (There are problems in articles in many areas of wikipedia, but it would be folly to propose special rules for each.) I suspect that stricter enforcement of WP:V would actually encourage more experts to contribute than it would drive away. This proposal has failed because it contradicts core principles, but some of its proposers are nothing if not extremely stubborn even in the face of widespread opposition. Quale (talk) 05:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Exactly; as a scientist/engineer, I don't support what the Count is trying to do, which I think weakens important policies that help control quality. His history of support for Brews ohare in his "OR" and "arguments from first principles" suggests that the changes he seeks would likely lead to worse article quality, not better. Sticking to WP:V is better. Dicklyon (talk) 05:57, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Likebox, another supporter of this proposal, also has a long history of edit warring in halting problem concerning a way of explaining the problem that he feels would be an improvement and that everyone else there feels is original research. As this proposal suggests, he has had a tendency to drag discussions there on at length based on first principles. So I don't find his support for this proposal very comforting. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:13, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Can I make it clear that I do not support this essay either. Nevertheless there are problems with some physics and mathematics articles. Problems in many articles on sources are fixed by "A states X, but B states Y". This can not be done in physics and mathematics article. We have to get it right, particularly in well established topics. However, many of these areas are complex and simplified too much in textbooks. There is a real problem in non-experts trying to contribute to these articles. They can get it wrong if they do not understand the topic well. Sticking to WP:V is not easy. The Count has identified some of the problems but has not found a solution. That is why I suggested that everybody should take a break. Maybe later we can come up with something better. --Bduke (Discussion) 07:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Bduke that we should calm down. I also want to make it very clear that in the relevant issue under discussion with Brews about the speed of light, I was one of his strongest opponents. If Brews and me had been the only ones editing that article and we both would not be shy of editing warring, then we would both have been permanently banned from Wikipedia. This essay was originally written up by me based on my experiences editing Wikipedia for several years. I note that when it came to actually editing the speed of light article, I pretty much recused myself from doing that.

On the issue of the editors who oppose the essay being non-scientists, I agree that this is not entirely really true. My impression is that the editors who support the essay are the ones who have edited mathematical derivations in aticles, who are not really opposed to having textbook like wiki articles.

E.g. editor Matsci strongly disagrees with this essay. If you look at his contributions then what you see is very "encyclopedia like" articles. E.g. he gives a formula for the spontaneous magnetization of the Ising model with a brief explanation. What you likely won't see him do in that article is e.g. to write up the complete derivation for the free energy of the 2d Ising model from first principles. Doing such a thing would be much more in line with my, Likebox's, Michael's or Brews's editing style. It would also not be what you can expect Dicklyon to do, given his editing history here on Wikipedia. He seems to prefer short concise articles. Count Iblis (talk) 18:38, 11 November 2009 (UTm)

This is a completely inaccurate statement, like much of what Count Iblis has been writing. Please look at the articles I've seriously edited - eg 600 edits to Differential geometry of surfaces and its talk page. The article Ising model, which I've only glanced at, is in a very poor state at present and I am too busy to rewrite the section on Onsager's solution (it would be quite easy).

Let me explain the fallacy of Count Iblis' naive approach, by concentrating on the Onsager-Yang formula for spontaneous magnetization. Contrary to what he writes, there is an almost complete derivation of Szego's limit formula in Fredholm determinant, mostly written by me. It then does not take too long using transfer matrices to deduce the Onsager-Yang formula by applying Szego's result to an appropriate rational function. In no way can this material be derived from "first principles". That applies to huge amounts of mathematics, e.g. Weyl's character formula, the Riemann-Roch theorem, etc, etc.

Count Iblis has described the method of obtaining Onsager's solution as trivial. As I've said before, this contradicts the treatments in Huang, McCoy & Wu, Itzykson & Drouffe, Baxter, etc; the idea of the transfer matrix is simple but not trivial. Anyway User:YellowMonkey has written a much better account in Square-lattice Ising model. As far as explicit derivations go, in Plancherel theorem for spherical functions, there are several derivations for SL(2,R) and SL(2,C). Count Iblis should please stop misrepresenting other editors. Mathsci (talk) 09:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

How does this relate to the essay? Are you objecting to the phrase "first prinicples and evidence". How would you modify it? --Michael C. Price ^talk 10:31, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci, you know very well that I wrote that obtaining the free energy of the 2d Ising model is rather simple, and that Onsager's method is complicated. You dont even need to use transfer matrix methods to obtain the partition function of the 2d Ising model. There are very simple combinatorial techniques that allow you to directly sum the high temperature expansion of the Ising model or you can transform the Ising model to a close packed dimer model and then the square of the partition function is given by a determinant. The theorem that proves this is also very easy to understand. Count Iblis (talk) 15:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The Essay in question

Editors are editing away the actual content of this essay. That means that instead of having people discuss and think about this proposal, it is being reworded to mean the exact opposite of what it is saying. In order to prevent this, I will put a copy down here in the talk page. This is what was being discussed above (more or less, there is also the original Count Iblis version, which he might want to put here too)

The nutshell bit that says "If you are an expert with a working knowledge of the subject, make sure you are as rigorous when writing for Wikipedia as you are when you write for scientific journals" was added later, and was part of the original proposal, but I find no support for it in the essay (nothing about experts editing, nor rigor, nor writing for journals); isn't a nutshell supposed to be a summary? Dicklyon (talk) 06:00, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

When writing for a scientific journal, you check what you say for logical consistency, for first-principles accuracy, and for accuracy about sources. That's true regardless of whether you are writing original material, or just reviewing a well understood topic. It's just how scientists write. The article is just explaining how this type of writing works in a more verbose way, so that editors who haven't done this will do it too.Likebox (talk) 07:12, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that's a characterization of how we write for journals. But why should it be addressed only to "experts with a working knowledge of the subject"? And if it's supposed to summarize the proposal, why doesn't the proposal say these things? The connection is too implicit to make sense here. And the proposal is really more about how to deal with disagreements with other editors than about how to write. Dicklyon (talk) 07:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Anyone persuing a Ph.D has to write articles, so it is something that many experts will be familiar with. Now, especially if you are an expert you may have a mentality that since this is "just wikipedia", you don't need to be careful.

Only point 3 deals with disputes, point 5 is a good way to prevent a dispute. Disgreements between statements are not necessarily disgreements between editors. Count Iblis (talk) 03:20, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The actual essay (not inverted)

Wikipedia's content policies are often unambiguous when working with sources which use ordinary language and everyday concepts. But scientific terms are much more precise, and require much more care. When writing about science and mathematics, accuracy is paramount, and the policies must be followed carefully to avoid introducing technical errors.

For scientific articles, following the letter of Wikipedia policies often is not enough to guarantee that an article won't contain serious factual mistakes or misleading statements. When editing scientific articles, try to follow these suggestions:

1. Check any non-trivial statements you intend to insert into an article. Determine whether your statement could be invalid under some circumstances. To find out, you may need to study the entire source in which the statement is made, or look in other sources. The validity of a statement made on some particular page of a technical book may well rely upon necessary conditions mentioned many pages earlier, or even in another source. If you find that the statement is valid only within a specific context, you should take the effort find out what this context is, and to include that context in the article.
2. After checking carefully, you may find that a statement you want to insert still disagrees with other statements made in the same article. It may be that the conflicting statements are true under some conditions not explicitly mentioned in the article. Any apparent conflicts should be worked out by the editors through discussions.
3. In resolving technical disputes, the exact wording of quotes from sources is often unhelpful. It is essential that the editors sort out the scientific issues from first principles as much as possible, referring to all the ideas in the sources, not to out-of-context fragments. This means that editors should read the technical literature with the goal of acquiring a full understanding of all the relevant points while editing the article. It is important that every disputed point be explained clearly, so that any remaining disagreements which appear in the encyclopedia reflect actual diverging points of view in the literature, not the misunderstandings between editors.
4. When editing a scientific article, be careful to be as complete as possible. Filling in intermediate steps which are omitted from more condensed literature sources is not OR. Rephrasing content is not synthesis, as long as the ideas faithfully represent the ideas in the sources; remember that “Carefully summarizing or rephrasing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis—it is good editing.”
5. Assume from the outset that multiple meanings of technical terms are likely to occur, whether or not you are aware of them, so search for meanings proposed by other editors, rather than searching only to back up your own understanding. The goal is for the editors to gain a comprehensive familiarity with as much of the literature as possible.
6. Different approaches or explanatory models are often all correct, and different readers will find different explanations useful. Don't delete existing explanations just because they use a different model; add your explanation to the article, so long as it is carefully sourced.
7. Discussions from first principles or evidence are not violations of the ban on original research if they are conducted on the talk pages.
8. The perception of what is original research varies according to the level of expertise of the editor; it would not constitute WP:OR to provide the logical connection between sourced premises and sourced conclusions, when the arguments are well understood by experts in the field, but this might be disputed by someone less familar with the topic.

administrative action

I recieved a comment on my talk page that Jayjg thinks I am being tendentious. This editor would like to take administrative action.Likebox (talk) 04:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Jayjg, it's just an essay for gawd sake. Essays can represent minority views. Calm down. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

There is no requirement that essays have to agree with actual policies or practice. For example, Wikipedia:Delete the junk and Wikipedia:No original biographies. This is why they are called "essays". — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:26, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

FYI Jayjg has succeeded in getting Likebox blocked for a week. --Michael C. Price ^talk 12:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

One may well ask whether Admins are following WP:Block. In my opinion, they are not. Brews ohare (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm unblocked now. Thanks for the help. But it was annoying to deal with.Likebox (talk) 05:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Good to have you back. If Jayjg causes trouble again it might be relevant that he has a long history of repeated edit warring, POV pushing, rushing to sanction others without caution and "unbecoming conduct", for which he he received an indefinite editing restriction. See here for details. --Michael C. Price ^talk 14:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, this is new to me. I remember that Jayjg was under some sort of restriction from a much earlier case, but this is very recent (May of this year). This is what I mean when I comment on Brews ban from editng physics articles. The troublemakers on politics pages are dealt with infinitely more lenient by the same Arbitrators. It is not that I deny that Brews editing style did not cause any problems. My opinion is that having Brews back to editing physics articles, perhaps under some sort of mentoring agreement, would benefit Wikipedia a lot. Count Iblis (talk) 15:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Count Iblis: Thanks for your vote of confidence. I don't know anything about mentorship, but unless it involves a shield from ridiculous blocks and motions that are simply time sinks over complete trivia, I don't think my participation on WP is likely. Statements by TenOfAllTrades, MBisanz, Jehochman and others indicate no tolerance for any activity I might attempt. Brews ohare (talk) 17:25, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Not to derail the thread, but that is not true. We suggested several venues for you to edit that wouldn't be controversial in the least and which would be much appreciated, like expanding stubs or some cleanup. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Brews: That is a misreading of what they are saying. They would have no objection to your non-disruptively editing and discussing articles that are outside your topic ban, for example. There is wide range of "activity [you] might attempt" that would help build the encyclopedia, and to which they would not object. What they do object to is your constantly keeping the Speed of light drama alive by trying to undermine good policies, complaining about arbitrators, complaining about admins, complaining about Wikipedia's culture, complaining about how you've been treated, and other miscellaneous whining, which appears to be all that you are doing here. It's getting very old, tiresome, is not contributing to the project, and will continue to get you in trouble. —Finell 18:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but misreading is from all sides. If you find all this tiresome, try experiencing harassment over trivia for months. Nothing I have been doing is related to Case/Speed of light apart from the fact that that case underlined some major problems on WP. Those problems are endemic and transcend any particular case. They can be found all over WP and occupy WP:AN/I and administrators for weeks and months. It's hard for me to understand why my actions to mitigate this situation should be continuously distorted and misinterpreted. This strange campaign extends the sanctions to include a remark like Superman travels at the "vitesse de la lumière". (Pardon my French.) And even to objections to composing an essay on my user page and a block for answering a question about this essay!!! Brews ohare (talk) 18:33, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

My attempt to keep Jayjg to stick to politics has failed Count Iblis (talk) 21:59, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

"Opposing viewpoint" section in essay

The poor quality of this section speaks for itself. The editor who inserted allows no correction, with the comment " if you npov my section, I'll npov yours.". Fine, have your way. I'm sure the section won't survive in the long run but if, in the meantime, it prevents disruption to the evolution of the main text, then I'm okay with it. --Michael C. Price ^talk 13:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I removed it, we already know that the essay gives the view of a minority. Now if that section is not going to discuss in detail what the problems are, then it is a useless section. It would be similar to Woit coming to the string theory article and writing in that article a one line sentence that Woit, Professor of mathematics disagrees with string theory, without even discussing why. Count Iblis (talk) 14:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

This essay is the statement of a minority? Please acknoledge that in the essay. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 14:40, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

This essay can only discuss the editing of scientific articles and perhaps any potential problems with the mentioned points. So, a discussion section in the essay where some pitfalls are discussed is, in principle, ok. So, if you can argue why some points in the essay could lead to problems and what one can do to avoid such problems, you are welcome to add that in such a discussion section. Count Iblis (talk) 14:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Count, you're correct, but let them have their silly section for the present if it prevents their disruption to the rest of the essay while we develop it. --Michael C. Price ^talk 14:55, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you going to make it clear this essay is the point of view of the minority in any way, or are you both just going to tag-team revert to your preferred version? Would you prefer this essay be userified? Hipocrite (talk) 15:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it a minority view of editors, as opposed to editors who shout a lot? I think it describes actual practice pretty accurately, so it implicitly reflects the views of the majority of science-article-editors. Whether it is a minority view or nor is debatable. As the essay template says, it may be a minority view.

"Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints." seems to sum it up very nicely. This essay describes what actually goes on on science article talk pages already (where there is widespread discussion from principles) along with some anodyne suggestions (which have been incorporated into your essay).

--Michael C. Price ^talk 15:17, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

There is no assumption that an essay reflects community consensus. To the contrary, the essay banner template states clearly that an essay may represent the views of just one editor or a minority. Therefore, there is no need to state that an essay represents a minority view. —Finell 17:57, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Original research

My take is that this essay has wandered from its original purpose and has become less effective. It seems to me that the main area of dispute concerns OR, and that has infected the entire article development. Perhaps it would be clearer for the article to have a separate section dealing directly with the OR issue. Then the rest of the article could be returned to more like its original form, and dispute would be more focused. That division also would be clearer for the reader. Brews ohare (talk) 18:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The OR issue has arisen already on WP:NOR in discussion of syllogism. There is a great fear on the part of some that they cannot tell when a technical derivation is accurate, so it's best to require it to be verbatim from a source. This is the nub of the problem: how can a non-expert tell whether a section is correct or not. If that cannot be done, how can a non-expert determine that another editor is more qualified than they? Or, can non-experts be relied upon to admit to incompetence that they know themselves to be so? Brews ohare (talk)

A different solution, based upon sourced premises and conclusions, would seem to limit the possible damage of an incorrect deduction, but even that fails to reassure the non-expert. Brews ohare (talk) 18:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Yet another solution, the argument from first principles, also is resisted by the non-expert because (i) they don't understand the principles, and (ii) they don't have any confidence in their ability to track an argument. Brews ohare (talk) 18:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that we have to say that non-experts cannot be expected to be able to always verify everything in a straightforward way. Because understanding the sources may require the non-expert to study the topic from textbooks for quite some time.

About OR, we could say that what matters is that the text in an article as judged by scientists working in the field does not contain any novel statements. The editors here have to make a judgement whether or not this criterium is met. If they are in agreement about that, but the text happens to be in conflict with the exact wording of the OR policy, then the text can be admitted per WP:IAR. Count Iblis (talk) 18:29, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I never thought the original essay [11] was about OR in the first place. Of course you are right that we simply do not require all deductions to appear verbatim in sources, and people who believe we do are overreading the actual NOR policy. But I don't think it is practical to try to clarify that sort of thing in a guideline, because there is little one can say in general; the actual policy is to make decisions on an article-by-article basis.

It is pretty common for editors who follow some policy page closely to read that policy as being more strict than it is, and this is visible at least among people who follow WP:V, people who follow WP:NOR, people who follow WP:NFCC, and people who follow WP:CSD. I am sure that if I proposed a guideline that clarified what the CSD policy actually is (versus what the page WP:CSD claims the policy is), that proposal would get opposition for the same underlying reasons that this essay did when it was proposed as a guideline. The same would be true for WP:NFCC, and it is clearly true here for WP:NOR.

So I think that we should just make sure any attempted explanation here is clearly marked as an essay. It might be better, actually, to just put it in userspace. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:30, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I also think that, if I were going to propose any clarifications of the actual NOR policy, the least helpful thing would be to have my proposal strongly supported by editors who have recently been sanctioned, by arbcom or otherwise, for tendentious editing and original research. In the outside world, groups seeking to have laws modified often wait for the perfect case before pursuing appeals to the Supreme Court, and avoid cases where there are distracting or negative factors that might bias the case against them. A similar sort of discretion would be helpful here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:39, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I take that as an invitation to butt out. I would hope that even a felon might have an occasional good idea that might be considered on its merits without the paranoid delusion that it is a Trojan horse. Hannibal Lecter was used as a consultant. Brews ohare (talk) 18:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) On expertise and noOR: There is a legitimate fear among editors that with nontrivial content, which includes derivations of mathematical statements, and detailed exposition, then verification will become a circus of diverging ignorant opinions. This is a reasonable worry, but I think it is overblown. The question is do we need a big boss to step in and say "this is correct" and "this is incorrect"? Or can we rely on non-expert editors to acquire this knowledge through editing, reading, and talk-page discussions.

The notion of expertise was important in the print era, when access to information was slow, and acquiring expertise took years and years of patient study in a university with a mentor. We are living through a transformation in the availability of technical knowledge, and we are now at a point where even the most detailed stuff is widely accessible to anyone with a search engine. This means that it is not absolutely necessary to defer to expert opinions, because anyone can know all there is to know, with patience and help.

This does not mean that every editor will have an easy time verifying technical information in articles--- far from it. They will have to study the subject, read the literature, read the sources, and learn about the topic in an in-depth way. But I think Wikipedia can ask this of its contributors, and in many cases, non-expert contributors have taken the time to do this, and have written wonderful expositions. For historical material, possibly non-expert contributors were able to present technical material in a lucid way that went far beyond standard textbook expositions (although not beyond the literature).

For example, the historical information about Moseley's law on Bohr model is not usually found in textbooks, but it is found in the literature. Same with the discussions of Laplace's argument about the speed of gravity. These contributions are known, but not included as part of the standard curriculum. If we treat out contributors as capable readers, we can expect them to understand the literature that they are reviewing at the highest level. If there is a problem of understanding, we can hope that experts will step in to correct the errors. If the discussions with the experts goes along the way suggested by these guidelines, everyone will get up to speed. Verifying material is a time consuming task, but there is no reason to suppose that it cannot be done.Likebox (talk) 23:04, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

And yet experts have corrected you repeatedly, Likebox, but you never get the message. To place the blame on the experts (they didn't follow "the guidelines", so it's the experts fault and I can keep being disruptive) is extraordinarily offensive, but Count Iblis has implied exactly that on more than one occasion. I'm afraid Carl missed the intent of this proposed guideline as it was clear that from the beginning it was always about weakening verifiability to allow original research in the areas favored by its proponents. Likebox and Brews support the essay because they want to use it to justify their behavior, but this behavior is outside of community norms and it should not be surprising that there is significant opposition to a proposal seen as enabling disruptive editors. The heavy-handed attempt to spam it as a hatnote on several article talk pages was unfortunate too as this suggests an attempt to try to circumvent policy through the back door. If the proponents here have so many problems with WP:NOR they should go to WT:NOR to try to get policy changed there rather than trying to build a walled garden in their favorite science articles in which pesky wikipedia policies and guidelines are not applied. Quale (talk) 23:35, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Quale, you are incorrect that the original intent was to weaken OR. The original intent was to help discussions on the talk pages which are not OR. The essay has flirted with weakening OR, but if you read the current state of the essay you will see no violation or even weakening of OR. --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Michael. Let me try to explain it differently. The purpose of this essay is to make sure no errors slip into a certain class of scientific articles. There exists articles here on Wikipedia for which simply sticking to the WP:V and WP:OR policies are not sufficient to guarantee that no errors slip in. You can think of articles in which there are a lot of mathematical derivations. Far from weaking verifiability and allowing in original research (which in practice means allowing in errors, as typically a novel statement equates to an erroneous statement in most wiki articles on well established subjects were nothing new is to be discovered), we want to strengthen verifiability and make sure that no statements are made that are not consistent with current scientific knowledge.

To achieve these goals, you need to do what this essay says. I have given plenty of examples. E.g. many thermodynamics articles were saying for two years that dU <= T dS - P dV. That error could have been prevented had the editors stuck to the recommendations in this essay. These editors were experienced Wiki editors who knew about WP:V and WP:OR. Saying that sticking to these guidelines would have been enough, because there are plenty of textbooks that say that dU = TdS - P dV, is not a good argument against this essay, because editing practice shows in this and many other cases that the (simple) errors were not promptly corrected.

The problem was that the statement dU <= T dS - P dV was sourced. A flawed derivation for this flawed statement was also given. It was the dumbed down Wiki-mentality that stopped people from even questioning this ridiculous statement. Had they done so, they could have found out that it was wrong and then they could have confirmed their suspicion by consulting another source.

Had someone without much knowledge of thermodynamics seen the correct equation, then a posting by such a person that something seems to be wrong on the talk page would also have been helpful. But that would require a willingness of the regular editors to engage on the basis of the other points metioned in this essay, and not simply saying that the statement in the article is sourced and therefore correct. The lay person could then not contribute to the debate, but you would then hope that the regular editors would start to discuss the issue among themselves. Count Iblis (talk) 00:43, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

If you notice an error in an article, I submit it would be more productive for everyone if you just fixed it yourself (WP:SOFIXIT) rather than complaining that WP:V makes science articles inaccurate and that everyone else is doing it all wrong. You admit that WP:V did not prevent fixing the error you note, but you make the unsupported and I think unsupportable claim that WP:V and WP:OR cause simple errors to not be corrected quickly and that using your proposal would prevent those errors. I don't see any reason to believe that is true. Errors are not corrected quickly because there are not enough knowledgeable editors to fix 3 million articles, and I don't think any policy change can fix that. It is my opinion that wikipedia has many more "expert" pop culture editors than it needs, but not nearly enough true experts in mathematics, the sciences, philosophy, art, literature, etc. Good science articles are often much harder to write than articles on cartoons or pop songs too, so there's even more work to be done by that much smaller group of experts. I appreciate your expertise, but experience shows many science experts can write good articles within the requirements of the policies and guidelines that apply to all of wikipedia, and I think you can do this too if you care to.

You have to do what you want to do, but given your knowledge of physics I would have thought that you would find it more fulfilling to focus more on writing physics articles and less on argument about core policies like WP:V. I also think you do a better job writing about the science you know and I think love than you do wrestling with the wikipedia policies and guidelines which you seem to not hold in high regard. While I support every editor's right to be heard, I don't think that arguing policy or wading into wikidrama really plays to your strengths. Quale (talk) 10:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) To quale: all the arguments I have included are obvious to experts, anyone who disputed them is, almost by definition, not an expert. I did not meet any actual experts who disputed the correctness of the content of any additions I have made, at least not after patient explanation and a rewrite or two. If you think you have an example of such a case, please bring it up, and I will explain what was going on.

Following this guideline does not weaken OR, it removes a bad interpretation of OR which allows sourced misinformation to propagate, because of misinterpretation. For example, the equation "dU < TdS - PdV" is correctly intepreted in the following form: "dS > 1/T dU + P/T dV", which is correct in a certain sense, it says that the entropy can go up even if there is no energy flowing into a system nor any volume change. But it is incorrect when applied to a system like a gas which is already in equilibrium, which is the automatic interpretation found in the article. For such a system, the inequality is an equality. While this statement is easy to source, it is also obvious to all knowledgable editors, and should not be disputed. When a mistake such as this creeps into an article, the only way to fix it is for discussions to go from first principles.

An example of a simplification for thermodynamics articles which is a trivial rewrite is to replace all "dU = ..." forms of thermodynamic identities with the equivalent "dS = ...." forms, as above. While you can find sources that use "dU = ..." and sources that use "dS =....", most often appearing as "d(F/T) = ...." where (F/T) is the entropy-like quantity which is the free-energy divided by the temperature, or the logarithm of the canonical partition function. To put the entropy-like quantity on the left is the better representation, as understood from statistical mechanics, because this way makes the Maxwell relations obvious. But for historical reasons, we are saddled with historical forms. In this case, there is no reason for us to use the most transparent form. We now know that energy is more microscopically fundamental than entropy.

In order to determine which form is clearest, sources are of absolutely no help. Although there are a few sources that make the argument that entropy-like terms should be put on the left, these sources are useless, because we aren't writing a page called "how to write thermodynamic identities". The thing to do it to verify the material from the sources, then put the sources aside and think hard about how to present the material, and think hard about whether to follow the advice about presentation in the other sources.Likebox (talk) 03:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your very clear explanation of the mistake in the thermodynamics articles and I hope that explanation (in encyclopedic form) has a home somewhere in wikipedia. I still don't agree that argument from first principles was required to fix the error. I don't know how the error was noticed and fixed, but Count Iblis admitted that the repair could be made within the bounds of WP:V and WP:NOR. (If I understand correctly, the accurate formula is found in textbooks and is easily sourced.) The high quality of the explanation you just gave of the physics (I would guess that you teach it) makes me wish that you directed more energy to physics articles and less energy trying so persistently to force your unique views and presentation into mathematical logic articles. There are plenty of physics articles that need work, and you write about physics with a clarity I do not find in your writing about mathematical logic.

The issue of what to do when material is presented different ways in different sources is not unique to science and comes up constantly in many areas. Even so, this problem does not require weakening WP:OR. Your advice is sound, and can be followed in accordance with the key policy requirements: WP:V and WP:RS require that the approach used must be found in a reliable source, and WP:UNDUE requires that undue weight should not be given to minority views or rarely used formulations. It is always the case for any article that the sources do not determine precisely how the material is presented and organized, and it is here that subject matter experts and skilled writers can elevate an article beyond the routine work of those who can only summarize by rote. Quale (talk) 10:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Quale: I'm sure you know there is no reason to think WP policies and guidelines are perfect or even as good as they could be. To suggest that Likebox butt out because everything is OK is to avoid the opportunity to discuss improvements. The right thing to do is to distill the problem Likebox sees and solve it.

As I understand the problem in general terms it is this: many textbooks present arguments that follow traditional lines that are not as clear as a more modern attack would suggest. In some cases, a statement of the modern approach can easily be constructed and is more readily understood than a traditional development based on an outdated framework. For whatever reason, however, this desirable approach is not found simply stated all in one place in some source. The issue is then: why not provide the simple modern development that leads to the results? Is there a way to pose this dilemma so its solution fits WP?

I hope I have got the point right. A general statement of the dilemma divorced from particulars like thermodynamics might help in finding a solution. Brews ohare (talk) 15:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Documenting a logical bridge

One proposal is to source certain key premises and results but allow the logical bridge between the results to be unsourced. If there are challenges raised to some unsourced intermediate results, one hopes they could be sourced as well. Thus, the development becomes more tightly verified as time goes on and challenges or clarifications are made. It is not essential that the final product appear all in one sitting: time will allow evolution and challenges always can be raised, just as happens with a normal article. The challenges should not be of a vague nature claiming the entire presentation as WP:NOR or WP:SYN, but to specific items like intermediate results that should be sourced. The request that only premises, challenged intermediate results, and final results need be sourced allows flexibility in the development. Brews ohare (talk) 15:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

In an extreme case, every logical step might be challenged and require reference to a simple syllogism to support it. The result may resemble a proof from Euclid. Hopefully that will happen only rarely. Brews ohare (talk) 15:42, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Carl has raised the point (I paraphrase) that apart from correctness, inclusion of an argument should satisfy other standard criteria such as WP:Weight, WP:Notable.

We are writing for Wikipedia readers, not for University students

Brews, on his talk page, mentioned the audience we're writing for, when arguing in favor of different presentations. This is a very important point to consider. I think Likebox has made this point also.

The readers of a Wikipedia article are not the same students who are following a university course on that topic. But textbooks are written for these university students. This can mean that you have emphasize certain points in a Wiki article that textbooks pay little attention to. You may have to avoid certain jargon that almost all textbooks use. You may have to explain a certain mathematical formalism in much more detail than the textbooks presentations do. It may be advantageous to use a mathematical formalism that textbooks do not use in the context of the topic.

So, textbook presentations should not necessary be the norm of how we present material here on Wikipedia. And editors shouldn't just present material in Wikipedia in their favorite ideosyncratic way either. Count Iblis (talk) 17:45, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe one way round this would be to use the lead to eplain the topic in a more user-friendly way, keeping the in-depth maths till later. Abtract (talk) 17:59, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Count Iblis: Very good points. They argue for some room for flexible presentation that goes beyond finding a verbatim source. The preceding proposal is my suggestion for one way to achieve flexibility. Brews ohare (talk) 18:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I recommend that some form of Count Iblis' comment above be placed into the essay. Brews ohare (talk) 18:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Could you explain what you mean when you say we need to emphasize things not emphasized in undergraduate textbooks? It seems to me that our fundamental job, as article writers, is to give a summary of what is in the literature, using the same sort of terminology and jargon that the literature does. Moreover, it seems to me that inventing a new mathematical formalism is exactly the sort of thing that the OR policy is intended to prevent. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

My take is that a WP reader has not necessarily the same background as a physics major, and yet a greater sophistication than a fifth grader, so the approach has to be tailored, or multiple approaches presented, for different reader backgrounds. Brews ohare (talk) 19:33, 14 November 2009 (UTC)