Talk:7 World Trade Center/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions about 7 World Trade Center. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 4

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Cease It

Y'all should be ashamed that there be this much hollering over such a tragic event. Very bad men did this and that is NOT debatable in source that many CHILDREN see doing research, ESPICALLY with the anniversary comin up! 98.216.138.3 (talk) 15:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, we should not permit discussion of tragic events. We should just accept official explanations about them even if they are blatantly false. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.219.192.46 (talk) 20:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Tenants

NAIC Securities was not a tenant of 7 WTC. As stated in that company's wikipedia page, their headquarters is in Michigan. It should read the Securities Valuation Office of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dbrvnk (talk • contribs) 04:38, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. This is now corrected in the article. --Aude (talk) 05:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

POV

We cannot allow the links to WTC 7 videos, becuase the videos look too much like professioanl demolition jobs. They do not look like any previous skyscraper collapse due to accidental fires. For this reason we need to try and keep info about these videos from getting out to the public. Hopefully we can shut down youtube videos regarding WTC 7. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.219.192.46 (talk) 23:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, they look too much like the traditional disaster movies. In some cases, I suspect fowl play.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that, eg, the CBS video here looks like a traditional disaster movie?

http://wtc7.net/videos.html

I don't think it looks like that at all. By contrast, it looks very much like a skilled controlled demolition (as pointed out by the news anchor, Dan Rather, himself). Perscurator (talk) 15:19, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this article as it stands is not POV enough. We should remove any mention of the controlled demolition theory. 220.104.123.23 (talk) 06:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the fact that NIST is government-funded, pulverised dust was viewed, a 'kink' is seen on the roof as it collapses, it collapses in a radially symmetrical manner (it suffered assymmetric damage), and every one of its 80-odd struts wouldve had to fail simultaneously for it to collapse the way that it did, a mention of controlled demolition in this article is an absolute necessity.81.103.164.119 (talk) 16:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you failed to notice the sarcastic tone. 170.148.96.107 (talk) 03:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:SARCASM. Hut 8.5 08:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

still... 221.191.93.206 (talk) 02:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Whether or not the opposing point of view is true or not is irrelevant. As I understand it, the point of view must be in some way 'significant' and worthy of mention for it to be included in the article. Even if the sources of the point of view are considered fringe, the point of view should be mentioned as a fringe view, and be given a small section at the bottom of the page to avoid undue weight..... IF the fringe view is in some way significant. So how could we show that a conspiracy theory involving controlled demolition is significant? Go to www.google.com and type in "WTC7". You may wonder what, if anything, that means, so I will tell you: it means that Google's AI has, after analyzing millions of search result clicks, determined that when users type "WTC7" into the search bar, they are looking for conspiracy theories. True or untrue, biased or not, it IS a cultural phenomenon.BlackFlag30 (talk) 01:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

We determine proper weight by looking at which viewpoint is more prevalent in reliable sources, and the conspiracy theory is scarcely mentioned in the mainstream media and amongst academics. It is very popular in blogs, forums etc, but they aren't reliable by Wikipedia's standards. We do already mention it as a fringe view in this article ("Conspiracy theorists believe the building collapses on September 11...") and there is an entire article devoted to covering these theories. Hut 8.5 09:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Huh. Missed that when I read the article before. It deserves a mention, and it has one. Fair enough.BlackFlag30 (talk) 17:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh yea, lets not give the laws of physics "undue weight"... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.215.3.220 (talk) 04:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Reference to architects, engineers and demolition experts who disagree with NIST's theories

[this section was archived soon after I had entered it, and as it received one pertinent question, I re-enter the relevant parts]

As part of my other modifications to this article, I had added the following sentence after the sentence referring to conspiracy theorists:

"Their concerns are shared by hundreds of architectural and engineering professionals plus a number of demolition experts, who demand an 'independent investigation with subpoena power' into the destruction of 7 World Trade Center and the Twin Towers."

After a reflexive removal and my reversal (in which I pointed out that the sentence was relevant in its context), it was allowed to stay for weeks - until someone made a "spelling correction" and removed it.

Why shouldn't the large number of professional engineers, architects (many of them well-known members of the American Institute of Architects) and demolition experts who disagree with NIST's theories be referred to in this article?

(Note that the actual number of AE professionals is already higher than the 387 mentioned at http://www.ae911truth.org/ - this is because, as I've been informed by one of the verifiers, there is backlog of over 100 persons in the verification of credentials. Yes, careful verification has been place for a long time on the site.)

Earlier someone indicated these people should not be mentioned because they are conspiracy theorists. Can someone really seriously claim that e.g. Danny Jowenko, the head of a Dutch controlled demolition company with 30 years of experience in the field, can simply be dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist"? Jowenko has reaffirmed his original expert analysis according to which WTC 7 can only have been a controlled demolition.

Are the people at Bentham "conspiracy-minded" when its engineering journal published an article by physicists and engineers that challenges the official theories?

"Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction"

Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti and James R. Gourley

Bentham, The Open Civil Engineering Journal, Volume 2, Issue 1

The article is freely downloadable at

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM

The unquestioning reliance on the official investigations in this article is truly mind-boggling, in the light of many obvious problems: for example, no on-site investigation was conducted, and by 15 March 2002 only four (4) pieces of steel from WTC 7 had been salvaged for investigation (from where the steel was temporarily stored before it was shipped abroad for melting). Some of those few pieces revealed a "very unusual phenomenon" - intergranular melting of steel, among other things - prompting FEMA to call for a detailed investigation into this. NIST has not conducted such an investigation. It says "no steel was recovered from WTC 7".

A careful documentation and examination of the steel debris of the building would have revealed the cause and mechanism of its destruction. Instead, we have had pure official speculation, year after year, aiming to come up with a plausible explanation for how random (20-minute) fires and asymmetric damage could have caused 81 steel columns to fail. Anyone can realize that what we have seen is no building disaster investigation. The cause of a skyscraper's collapse is not investigated by first destroying the physical research material and then starting to speculate.

Incidentally, I discussed this at some length in my presentation at the Finnish Social Forum in Tampere earlier this month, as part of a seminar entitled (my English translation) "9/11: a Terrorist Attack by Muslims or a False-Flag Operation Familiar from History?" http://www.sosiaalifoorumi.fi/292 Many members of the audience were visibly stunned by the way in which the demise of this skyscraper - one of the worst building disasters in history - has been "investigated".

Finally, to return briefly to the notion "conspiracy theorists": even in the 1930s Germany, those who saw what the Reichstag fire was used to legitimate and saw what was coming, were often dismissed as such. Similar things are happening in today's USA: illegal wiretapping, the increasing curtailment of civil rights, legalized torture, the loss of Habeas Corpus, no-fly lists, lists of citizens' activists, anyone suspected of terrorism can be detained for an indefinite period without access to legal counsel, etc. At Wikipedia, we should at least maintain neutrality in the articles that deal with the "legitimating" events for these developments, instead of being oblivious of all the problems and even internal contradictions in the official narrative. Perscurator (talk) 16:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

This is normal on Wikipedia - there are hordes of Neocons and Zionists and Judaeochristian fundamentalists busily twisting the content to promote their agendas and they are always backed up by the "dispute resolution" farce appointed by the owner of Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales. Not much point in getting upset about it. Fourtildas (talk) 04:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Who removed it, then, and why? What is the benefit of including this, and what is the benefit of removing it? --Michelle, 22 May —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michelle Kuiper (talk • contribs) 19:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

One benefit in including it is in the recognition of the fact that there are a large number of professionals in the relevant fields who question or reject NIST's (and FEMA's) theories of what brought the building to its foundations. By contrast, no benefit is achieved by raising the flawed official investigations into a pedestal and pretending that there is no serious scientific support for the controlled demolition hypothesis.

In fact, the BBC's upcoming special on WTC7 will be aired in June. In its program description, it also points out that the debris was hastily destroyed without investigation. Surely, that would be RS enough to warrant a mention of the evidence destruction in the article?

In any case, the publication in a peer-reviewed journal (the "Open" in the name refers to the fact that the articles are freely downloadable on the net) of an article by scientists who reject NIST's theorizing merits mention in a neutral and objective Wikipedia article. Suggestions? Perscurator (talk) 15:25, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd strongly suggest you re-read WP:UNDUE, and in particular the section concerning tiny minorities and prominent adherents. The architects and engineers involved in this petition are a very small minority and contain no prominent or influential names. It is right to mention that there are skeptics and to refer to the relevant article on their views: it is undue weight to insist that this particular group be mentioned in the main article, implying some form of currency or influence in the A/E community that simply does not exist. There are roughly 95,000 registered US architects, and hundreds of thousands of engineers. 200 of them are on this list. Acroterion _(talk) 16:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Furthermore, I'd be inclined to treat that source with scepticism, as similar creationist lists of "experts supporting our cause" are highly misleading. Hut 8.5 17:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Completely concur with both Acroterion and Hut. Furthermore, I believe this sentence is a ideal example of WP:Weasel. Not only that, I don’t know how credible the website listing these engineers, architects etc. really is. One look at the website and it is littered with 9/11 conspiracy theory propaganda, it is unquestionably subjective by all means. Cdynas (talk) 00:08, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

First, it is not true that Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has no prominent or influential names. To give just one example: Marx Ayres is a "former member of the California Seismic Safety Commission and former member of the National Institute of Sciences Building Safety Council. Mr. Ayres is a nationally recognized expert in building air conditioning design and analysis, energy conservation, thermal energy storage, commissioning of HVAC systems, and earthquake damage to building mechanical systems, with over 55 years of experience. Co-founder of one of the largest building engineering firms in Los Angeles, Mr. Ayres has been in responsible charge of the design of hundreds of major building projects, including high rise offices, commercial centers, hospitals and laboratories, hotels and residential buildings, universities and colleges, schools, theaters and entertainment centers, jails and correctional facilities, TV and sound studios, governmental buildings and industrial facilities." http://www.ae911truth.org/announce/4

I also don't think it is *right* to try to bypass those professionals who have actually looked into this as "conspiracy theorists". This is what effectively happens when the skeptics' petition is listed as a source in connection with a statement referring to the "theorists". Associating 9/11 skeptics with Creationists seems to be the latest strategy and has apparently found its way here, too.

As already mentioned, in its current form this article represents one-sided propaganda that e.g. completely avoids even mentioning the absurdity of the investigation, which even mainstream sources seem to be starting to address.

Finally: there doesn't seem to be a debate over whether Bentham is a reputable source, which is a good thing. Perscurator (talk) 09:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you're following me. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth is exactly the sort of organization described in WP:UNDUE. As an advocacy organization, they aren't a reliable source. Mr. Ayers is a respected HVAC engineer: if we were discussing air conditioning, he'd be an expert. Otherwise, he's one of a small community of skeptics, compared with 83,000 AIA members or 141,000 ASCE members. Bentham is a different matter: I don't have an opinion on whether it's "good" or bad, merely that information based on that source is more in line with policy, provided it is stated appropriately, and not used for vindication or condemnation of a particular point of view. Acroterion _(talk) 22:00, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I will further note that Bentham appears to be something like a vanity press for scientific articles, so I question its usefulness. Acroterion _(talk) 01:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

First, I suggest you have a bit closer look at the qualifications (and 9/11 statement) of mr Ayres (note spelling) here: http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html

That site, incidentally, lists the qualifications and statements of a large number of respected individuals in different fields, including Lynn Margulis, a world-renowned scientist and former chair of the National Academy of Science's Space Science Board Committee: http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/professors.html#Margulis

The large majority of the members of the American Institute of Architects, for example, have not expressed a stand on 9/11, so the membership of AE911Truth cannot be simply contrasted with other architects and engineers by saying that all the others have the opposite view. From what I have read, there is a lot of skepticism among building professionals, but many are unlikely to voice it for professional or other personal reasons. As a whole, those Americans who question the official explanations of 9/11 are, based on various polls, not exactly a tiny majority either.

I would say that Architects and Engineers of 9/11 Truth are, in fact, a far more reliable source than FEMA and NIST in that they are actually themselves investigating, and demanding an objective investigation of, an obvious alternative hypothesis for the total destruction of three skyscrapers on 9/11. It has to be understood that there have been glaring "irregularities" in the official investigation, protested by several relevant parties. E.g., as already pointed out, the debris of WTC 7, especially, was destroyed without investigation, and the investigation necessitated by (and called for on the basis of) the findings from the few steel pieces that were salvaged was never carried out. Another example: NIST simply ignored the results of its own experiment in which steel was subjected to considerably more severe and longer-lasting fire exposure than on 9/11, and the steel did just fine (as NIST had to note in the relevant section of its report). There are other examples. NIST has clearly done its best to fit the facts into its predetermined conclusions - a clearly unscientific modus operandi.

As such, this is not surprising, as NIST is a government institution. More generally, in different countries, the mainstream media have historically aligned themselves in an unquestioning manner with official stories legitimating attacks against the desired targets. Viewing things from the outside may give a more neutral perspective. Is Italian TV's Canale 5 a "respected source"? It aired a long investigative piece on 9/11. Here's an excerpt from the program that deals with WTC 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58h0LjdMry0 One can actually hear several powerful explosions in it. In one scene, first responders are startled by a loud explosion. Of course, whatever the cause of the explosions (also reported by first responders in the towers), their role in the destruction of the buildings should have been found out!

Now that you got me going, allow me to point out that the evidence that 9/11 was a false-flag operation is, unfortunately, already stronger than, say, the evidence for the Operation Gladio in cold-war Europe - an operation that the EU officially condemned in 1990. In Gladio, hundreds of civilians were murdered in false-flag terror attacks blamed on the Left (for power-political reasons) "in certain Member States", in which "military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime" (from the EU resolution). To substantiate this claim, I copied below a list presented at the Finnish Social Forum earlier this month of some major reasons to doubt the official story. A couple of such points could perhaps still be explained as a coincidence, incompetence or luck on the part of the administration, but in toto they amount to powerful evidence that the official story does not hold up.

1) When everyone knew the country was under attack, President Bush was not carried into safety from his publicized location in the Sarasota school. [Of course, in a "real" attack the President would have been brought into an undisclosed safe location without delay. The White House's revisionist account was shown to be false by the footage shown in Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", since then available on the net. After continuing to listen to the children's reading exercise for a good while, Bush continued his photo-op in the classroom, and then gave a press conference at the school.]

2) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld continued his breakfast meeting until the third target – the Pentagon – had been attacked. [Of course, in a "real" attack the defense secretary would have responded immediately to such a calamity.]

3) The Pentagon was struck over an hour after the attacks had started.

4) The Andrews Air Force Base, where combat units were kept ”in the highest possible state of readiness”, was only 12 miles from the Pentagon.

5) Three completely different explanations for the failure to reach any of the planes have been given. No one has been charged with lying, and no one has resigned due to negligence.

6) Even the FBI acknowledged in 2006 that it has "no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11". Yet Afghanistan was officially invaded in search of Osama, while Saddam was accused of complicity in the attacks in cooperation with Osama.

7) Many professional pilots have said they could not have performed the required maneuvers. The alleged hijackers, in turn, had only flown small planes, and many poorly at that.

8) Simultaneously with the attacks, an anti-hijacking exercise was going on.

9) The Bush administration fought against the establishment of the 9/11 Commission for over 400 days, then manned it with its "trusted persons".

10) WTC: the total destruction of three skyscrapers in seconds; the numerous (ignored) accounts of explosions; the near-total destruction of the steel debris without investigation.

11) Qui bono? Who profited? The attacks provided the desired impetus for the military-industrial complex, triggered "a war that will not end in our lifetime" wherever desired, and legitimated increasingly Orwellian laws, a "national security state", repression of citizens' rights, illegal spying, Guantanamo, and torture.

12) The anthrax letters posted soon after the 9/11 attacks. The bacteria used in the letters were traced to a U.S. military laboratory, after which the investigation came to a halt. Two Senators received a letter. They had delayed the passing of the 342-page Patriot Act legislation, written before the attacks but rushed through under the pretext of the attacks.

Perscurator (talk) 08:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The above is an interesting collection of original research, synthesis, rumor, doubt, suspicion and commentary, but none of it can be the basis of Wikipedia content, except as it pertains to 9/11 conspiracy theories - and even there, it must be appropriately sourced. Wikipedia is not a battleground, nor a place for manifestoes. Since you commented in the ArbCom case, you should be aware of the terms stated for editors participating in 9/11-related topics: please note the particular emphasis on undue weight. Here is the link; please review items 1 to 3 of the principles stated, because they apply here, and affect your participation in this matter. Please respect these guidelines and the consensus of the community, and please do not use Wikipedia as a soapbox. Acroterion _(talk) 21:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that none of the above can be part of Wikipedia content in so far Wikipedia content is based on an unquestioning acceptance of certain sources considered as "reliable". To continue the historical analogy, in the 1930s and 1940s Germany the mainstream sources buttressed the official reasons for the increasingly suppressive legislation and the wars. Similarly, basing everything on the U.S. corporate media very closely connected with the military-industrial complex (excellent documentaries have discussed this, and remember the recent revelations about the Pentagon-sponsored "commentators) and the war-hungry U.S. administration is a very unfortunate policy.

The glaring problems in the official 9/11 narrative have been extensively analyzed in several books published by reputable science publishers and in TV and other documentaries, especially those made outside the U.S. The current Wikipedia policy could be summed up by saying that no matter how absurd or impossible an official explanation, articles will be based on it if it is reported (in the sense "re-ported", or transmitted) by the New York Times or Washington Post - whose office chief, incidentally, acknowledged to me that the WP should have *investigated* several things about 9/11 - and they still haven't, while the independent media have, but their carefully detailed analyses cannot be mentioned.

By the way, one aspect of the absurdity of the official explanations can be wittnessed by simply having a reflective look at the following:

http://www.newguards.us/brent/wtc/WTC_Frame1_Crop_p8310115.jpg

http://www.newguards.us/brent/wtc/WTC_Frame3_Crop_p8310117.jpg

Perscurator (talk) 09:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Your arguments here have no basis in any Wikipedia policy or guideline. All articles must be written according to our rules. If you aren't prepared to live with that then there's nothing obliging you to edit here. Hut 8.5 09:48, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

One more comment: all of the points mentioned at the Finnish Social Forum, quoted above, are verified and verifiable facts. It is just a question if one does not have any problem with those facts - such as the president being allowed to stay in a publicized location long after the attacks started; that no air defense arrived from an air force base only 12 miles from the Pentagon; that no one has been charged with lying although several different explanations have been offered, etc. As a Finn, I can in a way understand why the U.S. corporate media won't critically analyze the (even internally contradictory) official stories - we had our own uncritical media during the 1960s and 1970s, which was "Finlandized" vis-à-vis the Soviet Union.

Incidentally, sometimes rules are worth modifying. Perscurator (talk) 15:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It is verifiable that, for instance, Bush stayed in the classroom for ten minutes after being told that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. You then interpret this fact to support the viewpoint that he knew about the attacks in advance, which contravenes our no original research policy. If you want to change the rules, then you should go to the policy talk page and try and get a consensus for the change. It is unlikely you will succeed. Hut 8.5 16:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It is also verifiable that Bush stayed in the school even longer than that. And to be precise, I'm not trying to support the viewpoint that "Bush knew about the attacks in advance"; what I am saying is that his security detail somehow had to know that the publicized location would continue to be safe for the President (and the children, for that matter). I also pointed out that the White House promoted a false story about the President leaving immediately after being told about the second strike - ie, that they lied. Perscurator (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a general forum for discussion of 9/11. What you are posting here doesn't confirm to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and even if it did it shouldn't be in this article because it has nothing to do with 7 WTC. Hut 8.5 19:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I corrected your claim that I interpreted Bush staying in the classroom as an indication that Bush knew about the attacks in advance. Perscurator (talk) 12:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You're interpreting it as an indication of something. That's where you violate WP:NOR. Hut 8.5 17:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

If the President was allowed to remain for over half an hour in a publicized location, one does not really need to interpret it as meaning that the location was considered safe! http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2026.shtml

(The above article, incidentally, exhibits elements of the kind of investigative journalism that the corporate media should be pursuing. Or does it not matter at all what the Secretary of Defense was doing for half an hour before the Pentagon was attacked, and how he acted after that? To the 9/11 Commission it clearly did not.) Perscurator (talk) 15:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

There are other valid interpretations (what's more interpretations that are backed up by sources). Bush didn't want to spread panic [1], and if he had stormed out of the room the footage would have been replayed endlessly on television and it wouldn't have done much for national morale. Hut 8.5 20:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that is a valid interpretation. The President's security is responsible for safeguarding the life of the Head of State! If terrorists had killed the President in his publicized location, what do you think would have happened to national morale?

The president could simply have calmly excused himself and left (to avoid being carried away by his security detail).

Rumsfeld's behavior was even stranger, in light of the official story. He did not no anything to protect the country the whole time (see the above-linked article). Perscurator (talk) 20:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

You have been told this before, but I will respectfully remind you that neither Wikipedia or the talk pages are to be used as a soapbox. Please stop. {Jazz2006 (talk) 05:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)}

So I should not have had the right to respond to Hut's argument with my counterargument? Perscurator (talk) 15:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I put that argument there to demonstrate that your interpretation doesn't have to follow from the evidence, not to try to persuade you it is correct. Hut 8.5 15:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, given the evidence and logic, I just think it is much more plausible to argue that Bush was allowed to stay at the school because there was no threat to the President there than to argue that the President's decision to "project calm" could have been the reason for not evacuating him (and the children). Perscurator (talk) 16:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding that Bentham article

There is a serious question about whether this journal of Bentham's is legitimate or not, and a serious question about whether the letter submitted by Jones et al was peer-reviewed or not.

The journal appears to be a vanity publication. Bentham is known to spam not only for articles but also FOR EDITORS, asking academics repeatedly to join its editorial board to review articles that are entirely outside of the academics' field of expertise.

Further, with specific reference to this letter by Jones et al (and is a letter, not a paper - take a look at Bentham's submissions page), a fellow over at JREF wrote to Bentham to make inquiries about its peer review process and about the editorial standards of the publication (because the letter, on its face, is blatantly unsuited to a civil engineering journal, as it is badly written, inappropriate in tone and content, presents no new material or argument, does not advance the state of the discipline, and is almost certainly not of interest to the target audience of the journal).

The publishing director, Mahmood Alam, then sent the inquiry to - get this - not to the editors or the editorial board, but to the authors for them to respond to it! If that isn't evidence of a broken "peer review" process, I don't know what is. I have never, ever heard of a legitimate journal sending inquiries about its editorial standards and its peer review process to the submitter of an article for response. That is just bizarre, and I cannot imagine any legitimate journal would do such a thing.

The fellow at JREF then wrote to the Editor in Chief, Dr. Dong-Sheng Jeng of the University of Dundee, and informed him of the situation. Dr. Dong-Sheng advised that prior to him taking over the publication, the publishers handled all submissions rather than the editors. Dr. Dong-Sheng correctly insisted that all publications must go through the editors, but the Jones et al paper did not. What's more, the Editor in Chief tried to find out who were the reviewers were, and he could not. Have you ever heard of a legitimate engineering journal in which submissions don't even make it to the editors, and in which the Editor in Chief cannot find out from the publishers who the alleged reviewers are?

So, in summary, I think that the reference to the Jones et al letter being "peer reviewed", ought to be removed from the article unless and until there is evidence that it was peer reviewed at all. {Jazz2006 (talk) 23:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)}

It has been removed. Even in the tangible reference it didn’t cite anything about a peer-review anywhere. I worried Perscurator is slowly trying to obliterate the neutrality of this article by militantly enforcing his POV. Cdynas (talk) 01:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

He or she added it back in and it is in the current version of the article, as follows: "In spring 2008, a civil engineering journal published a peer-reviewed article written by supporters of the controlled demolition theory." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jazz2006 (talk • contribs) 02:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Sinebot is quick :) I added another comment to say that I had forgotten to sign my last comment and I got an error message "edit conflict" while trying to post the comment with my signature. Good job, SineBot! {Jazz2006 (talk) 02:13, 2 June 2008 (UTC)}

Agreed. I doubt whether thus should be in the article at all, given that the authors sent various articles to several peer-reviewed journals in an effort to find one that would publish something in order to make their cause look more legitimate. [2] Hut 8.5 06:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Since Bentham uses a fee-based financial model, rather than a subscription model, they are more akin to a vanity press than a traditional peer-reviewed scientific journal, and I think we should treat them as we treat other fee-based publishers - as unreliable sources. Acroterion _(talk) 12:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

A conspiracy theorist letter, a minor web publication, a publication fee, very few external reliable sources, Wikipedia:Recentism, ... ...Why is an encyclopedia even mentioning non-notable ultra-fringe stuff like this outside a conspiracycruft article...??? Weregerbil (talk) 21:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. It is way outside the realm of the encyclopedic aims of Wikipedia. It appears to be nothing more than an attempt by members of a fringe group to try to use Wiki in an effort to claim credibility that the fringe group cannot gain on its own. Jazz2006 (talk) 03:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Based on what I read, even the JREF guy didn't have a problem with publication fees per se. After all, they are quite common. If the fees were somehow decisive, there wouldn't be enough space for all the articles that would be published. The peer reviews decide which of the offered articles are published and which not. I don't think publication fees (typically paid by someone else than the author him/herself) in any way detract from the reliability of a journal.

I've read that other papers questioning the official "fire demolition" theories have been accepted for publication. I think this is a welcome development, also because NIST still hasn't explained how fires burning out in 20 minutes in any given place could have weakened a single steel column, let alone cause steel skyscrapers to be destroyed at the average speed of 7 entire floors (or more) per 1 second (110 floors divided by at most 15 seconds). I'd think one doesn't have to be my brother, who is a Master Builder, to see that on average 0.14 seconds (or less) is not enough even in theory for the dropping and total destruction of a floor. Perscurator (talk) 15:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Bentham, however, does not appear to be a reliable source. In the larger scientific community, it appears that Bentham is viewed as a vanity publisher with little to no legitimacy. Bentham seems to be about quantity, not quality. It has been established that they spam for authors, spam for editors, seek out both authors and editors who actually have NO connection to or expertise in the subject matters upon which Bentham asks them to participate. It appears that Bentham publishes on a straight "dollars for publication" basis without even going through any editorial process at all. I mean, come on, when not even the Editor in Chief of the publication can find out from the publishing company what the heck is going on, that does not bode well for the legitimacy of the publication as a supposed "peer-reviewed" "journal".

It is not, therefore, a "welcome development" at all that a vanity journal published a letter for a fee, apparently without a care in the world for its lack of validity, lack of legitimacy, lack of accuracy, poor writing, and its complete void of any furtherance of science or scientific inquiry.

And it harms the reputation of Wikipedia to allow unreliable sources to stand, or even to be linked, because Wikipedia's legitimacy as a resource depends upon the legitimacy of the sources that it cites. So, I am also going to remove the link to the Bentham letter, in the interests of Wikipedia's reputation, until this is more fully resolved. Jazz2006 (talk) 04:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Please, first substantiate the claim that "In the larger scientific community, it appears that Bentham is viewed as a vanity publisher with little to no legitimacy". Cf. also the endorsements here and on the linked page:

http://www.bentham.org/open/index.htm

Certainly, I will collect up some links to legitimate academics who say that Bentham spams for authors and editors for its journals on subjects that the invited authors and editors have no relevant knowledge or experience. There are several such links in the thread at JREF mentioned above. Also, I have already pointed out to you the serious "peer-review" problem that Bentham has demonstrated in this particular case with the Jones et al letter.{Jazz2006 (talk) 01:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)}

Here are some links:

https://listserv.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/wa-iub.exe?A2=ind0604&L=CHMINF-L&P=R10547&I=-3

http://www.library.yale.edu/%7Ellicense/ListArchives/0804/msg00027.html

http://gunther-eysenbach.blogspot.com/2008/03/black-sheep-among-open-access-journals.html

http://www.richardpoynder.co.uk/

http://www.freelists.org/archives/neuroling/10-2007/msg00000.html

There are lots more that you can find online by searching for "bentham journals" and "spam".{Jazz2006 (talk) 03:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)}

Thanks - there does appear to be a problem in this respect. I am wondering what the following sentence implies for the Nature magazine, though:

"In last week's interesting CHMINF-L discussion on Nature's proliferation of new journals, faculty habits, and the serials market, I saw no mention of an ongoing parallel onslaught by Bentham." Perscurator (talk) 15:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Even Nature has been regarded as a "vanity journal" by some, eg:

http://harijay.wordpress.com/2006/06/07/science-review-americal-idol-style/

"Supplementary material at 'vanity' journals like Nature already run into 10s of pages." The article expresses reservations for the review practices used in Nature, as does the one below:

"Publishing Versus Posting: Nature Magazine Turns to a Conversational Content Model"

http://www.shore.com/commentary/weblogs/2007/06/publishing-versus-posting-nature.html

The following might be of interest to Wikipedians:

"Nature mag cooked Wikipedia study - Britannica hits back at junk science"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/

The purpose of the above examples is just to show that similar critiques as those expressed against Bentham have been voiced even against magazines like Nature. Discrediting a particular science publication based on such critiques is problematic. Perscurator (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Except that Nature was conducting a trial of the "open review" process, and (quite rightly) rejected it after that trial.

See: http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/index.html

And: http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05535.html

There is a vast difference between a respected and legitimate journal and the vanity publication that is Bentham's "open civil engineering" journal. That's why Jones et al had to pay an illegitimate "journal" to publish their "letter" while simultaneously avoiding proper editorial processes. That "letter" would not cut muster in any legitimate scientific journal. {Jazz2006 (talk) 06:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)}

Well, another article by Jones et al has just been published in Springer's respected nature science journal "The Environmentalist". See http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10669-008-9182-4

And no, publication fees are not so uncommon, so they cannot be used to discredit a journal.Perscurator (talk) 14:12, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

So, no comment on the numerous academics who have been spammed by Bentham to join their outrageously large editorial board, to opine on subjects in which they have no expertise? No problem with the letter by Jones et al bypassing the editorial process? No red flags raised by the fact that more than 40% of the nine articles published in Bentham's "open civil engineering journal" are written by members of its editorial board? No concerns at all about the lack of credibility that this journal seems to have? {Jazz2006 (talk) 06:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)}

I wrote above "there does appear to be a problem in this respect". I also asked what the following implies for Nature, for example:

"In last week's interesting CHMINF-L discussion on Nature's proliferation of new journals, faculty habits, and the serials market, I saw no mention of an ongoing parallel onslaught by Bentham. In the past month, I have received no less that three invitations to join the editorial boards of new Bentham journals -- "Current this", "Frontiers of that" -- none in areas of my real expertise.

The same old tactics are being used: exploiting a faculty weakness for seeing one's name in print..."

The above suggests that other journals, perhaps even Nature, have earlier been caught using similar questionable strategies. And this is not meant to "purify" Bentham. Perscurator (talk) 15:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be avoiding responding directly to the specific complaints about Bentham here. In particular, the most grievous problems: the letter by Jones et al bypassing the editorial process, the fact that the editor-in-chief cannot even get a proper response from the publishers about whether the letter was peer reviewed or not, the fact that more than 40% of the nine articles published in Bentham's "open civil engineering journal" are written by members of its editorial board, and the extreme lack of credibility that this journal seems to have. {Jazz2006 (talk) 03:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)}

As I wrote, similar complaints about other respected journals do not, per se, exonerate Bentham. And we cannot rely on one individual's story that the letter by Jones et al bypassed the editorial process and that he could not get a proper response. Perscurator (talk) 07:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Except that Nature was conducting a trial of the "open review" process, and (quite rightly) rejected it after the trial.

See: http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/index.html

And: http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05535.html

There is a vast difference between a respected and legitimate journal and the vanity publication that is Bentham's "open civil engineering" journal. That's why Jones et al had to pay an illegitimate "journal" to publish their "letter" while simultaneously avoiding proper editorial processes.

When that "one individual" is the editor-in-chief of the publication and he says that the letter bypassed the editorial process, well, I think that's a rational basis upon which to treat the letter as suspect until there is evidence to the contrary. Jones et al appear unwilling to provide any evidence to the contrary.{Jazz2006 (talk) 06:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)}

Saying that a journal "publishes a letter for a fee" is highly disingenuous because publication fees are common and because the fee is the same for all so that it cannot decide which of the offered manuscripts are published and which are not (there are always many more manuscripts offered than published).

No, nothing that I said was disingenuous, and you cannot make it so by changing what I actually said to something that I did not say. You are incorrect in assuming or insinuating that Bentham charges the "same fee for all" as it does not. Part of its spam for editors, in fact, includes reference to giving them a 50% discount on its publication fees. Bentham's approach appears to be a blatant attempt to appeal to vanity in hopes of attracting authors and editors, and yet their "peer review" process is fatally flawed. {Jazz2006 (talk) 01:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)}

Here are would need to know if and how many other publishers also provide discounts under various conditions. And what about, for example, the following, quoted by Jones:

"PNAS authors who don't want to wait that long for their articles to become available to everyone can make them instantly free by paying a $1,000 open-access fee, which can be waived in cases of need. The fee drops to $750 for authors from institutions that have site licenses for PNAS. "Springer, another commercial publisher, introduced a similar option in mid-2004 with its Open Choice program. Authors who want their articles to be immediately free to all on Springer's website pay a $3,000 fee..." Perscurator (talk) 15:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You do recognize that citing an unsupported quote by Steven Jones is not helpful since he's the guy trying to pretend that his little letter is a "peer reviewed paper" in a "legitimate engineering journal", when both of those points are the subject matter of the dispute, right? {Jazz2006 (talk) 03:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)}

"Unsupported quote"? The passages Jones quotes can be found here: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8320openaccess.html

Perscurator (talk) 07:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the article is well written and offers important information not readily available elsewhere, such as a reference to the evidence independently produced by three research teams of temperatures at the WTC that were considerably higher than what could have been caused by normal building / hydrocarbon fires. It also addresses other important things, including the destruction of steel without investigation. I cannot imagine any of you guys really cannot find any problem with the way WTC 7, in particular, has been investigated - no on-site investigation; 4 pieces of steel collected for investigation by March 15, 2002; the lack of the called-for follow-up on the "highly unusual phenomenon" revealed by some of those collected specimens; delaying the report year after year - or with the media's evident (and quite successful) attempt to bury the subject with its vast implications for construction safety, etc.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. I happen to disagree with you, and I think that the letter is extremely poorly written, in terms of style, tone and content. It also does not include anything new at all. It cites its own authors' unsubstantiated and highly dubious papers from Jones' own non-journal as sources, and dishonestly calls them "published papers". Come on. Publishing something in your own sham "journal" on your own website doesn't make it a "published paper" or a proper reference for purposes of a legitimate article. It advances no theory, makes no claims (only insinuating accusations), offers no evidence, comes to no result, adds nothing to the field of civil engineering, and it doesn't even include any science. It reads like a blog entry or a "Letter to the Editor" rather than anything that would be accepted by a legitimate technical journal. {Jazz2006 (talk) 01:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)}

Well, although I am not a native speaker of English, I have studied the language as my main subject at the university and done quite a lot of translation work. I have also read quite a number of scientific books and articles, and I find the letter well written and stylistically appropriate for a science journal. But this is a dead end, so let's leave it at that. In terms of content, I could not disagree more.

As regards the credibility of the official investigations, I think it is quite adequately illustrated by the following statement from NIST's lead investigator in 2006, as quoted in the New York Magazine:

NIST did have "some preliminary hypotheses" on 7 WTC, Dr. Sunder said. "We are studying the horizontal movement east to west, internal to the structure, on the fifth to seventh floors." Then Dr. Sunder paused. "But truthfully, I don't really know. We've had trouble getting a handle on Building No. 7."

Perhaps they could have got a handle on building 7 if the steel debris had been investigated to determine what had happened inside the facade, and if the called-for detailed studies had been performed. Perscurator (talk) 15:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you put that quote in context [3] you see this is because of staffing and budget problems. That article was published in March 2006 (i.e. more than two years ago), and he must have actually said it a bit before that. Bearing in mind that NIST only resumed investigations on 7 WTC in October the year before, and that investigating a building collapse like this is a very complicated process, they probably didn't know exactly what happened to the building at that time. Hut 8.5 19:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

No. What I meant was that any serious building disaster investigation begins with a careful documentation and examination of the debris to determine the factors and mechanisms causing the destruction (really a platitude, but one that was confirmed to me by one of Finland's leading accident researchers).

Obviously, NIST cannot be accused of destroying the debris without investigation, as that had already been done by the time FEMA published its report in May 2002 in which they said that their hypothesis has "only a low probability of occurrence". However, NIST can be criticized for several things, one of which is not conducting the detailed study called for by FEMA concerning the few steel pieces salvaged from WTC 7 that showed signs of melting, for example. Perscurator (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, even the mainstream media are now (only after 7 years) beginning to address the oddities of the investigation - see the program description of BBC's upcoming WTC 7 special:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/7330169.stm

Again, I don't think it is right to refer to e.g. the over 400 architects, engineers and demolition experts (many of them highly respected in their fields) as "conspiracy theorists" when all they are saying, based on their expertise, that the official theories do not hold. Perscurator (talk) 17:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Well whatever you call them they (even if they all are what they claim, which is by no means clear) don't hold a minority view that raises to the level of inclusion in an article like this. People wave the number 400 around like it means something, it's a tiny minority of whatever group they claim to belong to. Having said that, a solid case can be made that conspiracy theorists is an apt label as that's what mainstream and reliable sources call them in general. RxS (talk) 14:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

For approximately the fourth time: you are applying undue weight to the opinions and qualifications of a tiny minority. Acroterion _(talk) 16:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Several polls have shown that those skeptical of the 9/11 explanations given by the war-hungry and clearly criminal administration (caught in one lie, legal violation etc. after another) are not so tiny a minority. On the other hand, as pointed out before, there are no polls to show how large a proportion of architects, engineers, physicists and demolition experts agree or disagree with the members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. To say that the AEs are a tiny minority needs substantiation. On the other hand, significant minority views need to be dealt with fairly. Perscurator (talk) 15:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Polls of the general public prove very little. 20% of Americans believe that atoms are smaller than electrons,[4] yet this view is not represented on Wikipedia at all. --Hut 8.5 17:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

One may argue that 0.2% of any given population believe in practically any theory you can name on any subject. The idea that the remaining 99.8% apparently have no opinion, or choose not to express one, does not mean that they may be discounted in favor of the stridently-stated opinion of the 0.2%, or that the minority is due greater weight based on the relative depth of their conviction. Acroterion _(talk) 17:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The polls prove that the skeptics of the official 9/11 theory cannot be regarded as a tiny minority. The fact that we do not know the opinion of most architects and engineers cannot be counted as a support for the official views, either.

There is a vast, vast difference between 1) being skeptical that the general public has been told every single thing known to various governmental agencies about the events of 9/11 and 2) thinking that 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by the government. Personally, I am quite sure that we, the public, have not been told every single detail known to the various governmental agencies, but there is absolutely no evidence of it being an "inside job" perpetrated by the government, so I do not buy into the conspiracy fantasies perpetuated by the "truth" movement. If you really wish to go with "public polls", you are going to have to also live with the fact that a mere 4.6% of those polled by Zogby - in a poll commissioned by conspiracy fantasists, no less - answered that they thought it was an inside job, and that 95.4% thought otherwise. 4.6% is a tiny minority. {Jazz2006 (talk) 04:05, 15 June 2008 (UTC)}

I think there is already more irrefutable evidence that 9/11 was a false-flag operation than for, say, operation Gladio, in which hundreds of civilians were murdered in false-flag terrorist attacks blamed on the Left in Cold-War Europe. Gladio, of course, is no longer disputed. On 9/11, see, for example, Peter Dale Scott's "The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America", published by University of California Press after a painstaking fact-checking process:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-11-Wealth-Empire-America/dp/0520237730

"This is an ambitious, meticulous examination of how U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s has led to partial or total cover-ups of past domestic criminal acts, including, perhaps, the catastrophe of 9/11. Peter Dale Scott, whose previous books have investigated CIA involvement in southeast Asia, the drug wars, and the Kennedy assassination, here probes how the policies of presidents since Nixon have augmented the tangled bases for the 2001 terrorist attack. Scott shows how America's expansion into the world since World War II has led to momentous secret decision making at high levels. He demonstrates how these decisions by small cliques are responsive to the agendas of private wealth at the expense of the public, of the democratic state, and of civil society. He shows how, in implementing these agendas, U.S. intelligence agencies have become involved with terrorist groups they once backed and helped create, including al Qaeda."

One cannot brush aside the many troubling questions and evidence that unfortunately points to 9/11 being a false-flag operation. Besides, in the case of past conspiracies too, those maintaining the official stories have probably liked to ignore critics as "conspiracy fantasists". Perscurator (talk) 14:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The Financial Times has just published an article dealing with WTC 7 that actually manages to be fairer than the Wikipedia article.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7d174b42-31fa-11dd-9b87-0000779fd2ac,s01=1.html

It uses the terms "sceptics" and "critics" instead of "conspiracy theorists". It even mentions the fact that the BBC reported the "collapse" over 20 minutes before it happened, notes the near-freefall speed of collapse (=the falling of the roof), and so on. Perscurator (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I found this (Word document), p.263:

The author has confirmed through personal contact with the publisher and the editor-in-chief that this paper, in fact, was not properly peer-reviewed. To be more specific, the publisher and not the editorial board handled reviews, and the editor-in-chief was unable to acquire a list of the reviewers from the publisher afterwards.

The author then goes on to attack the contents of the article. Hut 8.5 16:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

See my comment below. Perscurator (talk) 15:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems that this is not only not a peer-reviewed publication, but it should be put on the blacklist as a known copyright violator. There is adequate evidence that the publishers sent a copy of the request for confirmation of peer review to the author of the article, rather than to the editorial board — a likely copyright violation and a clear breech of confidence. I'm not going to request it — yet. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I am confused. This is regarding an assertion by "Ryan Mackey". Which is NOT RS. Please explain what you are talking about since it is not clear (at least to me). Tony0937 (talk) 01:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps Mackey is lying. Perhaps the publisher is lying about the journal(s) being peer-reviewed.

But one or the other is lying, and Mackey seems more reputable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I've never heard of him before, So I cannot comment on his reputation. Whatever else this document of his is, it is not RS by Wikipedia Standards. Have you contacted Bentham? Tony0937 (talk) 03:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Steven Jones's response to this discussion

I contacted Steven E. Jones and some of the other authors of the letter "14 Points of Agreement..." in Bentham's Open Civil Engineering Journal to verify the peer review process. With Steven's permission, I quote his detailed response at length below in the hope that it helps settle this issue.

[begin quotation] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I have published over fifty peer-reviewed papers including articles and letters in various technical journals, including Nature and Physical Review Letters. I cannot think of any case in which I was informed of the identity of the reviewers, as anonymity is the common practice for the technical journals I have published in, and that includes The Open Civil Engineering Journal. So saying that the peer-review process is questionable because the reviewers have not been identified demonstrates a lamentable ignorance of the standard peer-review process.

We received three separate reviews from three anonymous reviewers. In the end, all three approved the paper for publication. The fact that we have three peer-review reports is demonstration that peer-review has taken place. By convention that I am aware of in my years of publishing peer-reviewed papers, the peer-reviewers' identities are anonymous and their reports made during the peer-review process are privately sent just to the authors (and journal editors).

Here is a statement from Bentham Scientific, the publishers:

"The Open Civil Engineering Journal, a peer-reviewed journal, aims to provide the most complete and reliable source of information on recent developments in civil engineering. The topics covered in the journal include (but not limit to): concrete structures, construction materials, structural mechanics, soil mechanics, foundation engineering, offshore geotechnics, water resources, hydraulics, horology, coastal engineering, river engineering, ocean modeling, fluid-solid-structure interactions, offshore engineering, marine structures, constructional management and other civil engineering relevant areas."

Our paper is a Letter, as identified in the abstract. One reason that we chose the Open Civil Engineering Journal is that they permit Letters (as also does Nature, for example).

Complaints that somehow the journal is sub-standard since it makes page-charges also reflects profound ignorance of the current status of technical publications, since many charge processing or page fees. I recall that many of the journals in which I have published required page fees. This is very common in technical journals and I expected it. Evidently the Bentham Open Journals also raise finances by offering on-line advertising, and I see nothing wrong with that as it helps keep page charges at a reasonable level ($600 for an approved, peer-reviewed Letter).

The Wikipedia article for Physical Review (a series of journals) notes: "The Special Topics journals are open access; Physics Education Research requires page charges from the authors, but Physical Review Special Topics — Accelerators and Beams does not."

An American Chemical Society posting discusses the issue of publication fees and open access, noting in particular:

"The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides free access to its archive after six months. "Not only has it not adversely affected us, it has benefited us by engendering loyalty among authors and reviewers," Cozzarelli said at the workshop. "It generates goodwill." PNAS originally tested a model in which it provided free access one month after publication, noted editorial staff member Sarah B. Tegen at the ACS meeting. But subscriptions declined, and the delay was extended to six months.

"PNAS authors who don't want to wait that long for their articles to become available to everyone can make them instantly free by paying a $1,000 open-access fee, which can be waived in cases of need. The fee drops to $750 for authors from institutions that have site licenses for PNAS. In the April 26, 2005, issue, authors of six articles out of 61 opted for the open-access feature. PNAS will track whether these articles are read more than toll-access articles. So far, on average, the articles that are open access immediately are read 50% more than the other articles, according to Cozzarelli.

"Springer, another commercial publisher, introduced a similar option in mid-2004 with its Open Choice program. Authors who want their articles to be immediately free to all on Springer's website pay a $3,000 fee.... "EACH ARTICLE that appears in PNAS [Proc. Nat. Academy of Science] costs the journal up to $3,800 to publish. The journal covers part of this cost through author publication charges, which average about $1,500 per article. As with several other journals that levy publication charges, PNAS can waive this fee in cases of need, although only about 2% of authors request a waiver." The same article emphasizes, in red letters, "If open-access journals are to succeed in chemistry and physics, authors may have to drop their opposition to page charges and agree to manuscript submission charges." And they note that the New Journal of Physics has page charges ranging up to $900 per paper. From this article with regard to open (free on-line access) journals:

"Fully open-access journals are "gold" no matter what their source of revenue, according to a classification developed by Stevan Harnad, a cognitive scientist at the University of Quebec, Montreal, and a central figure in open-access circles. "

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8320openaccess.html

Endorsements of the Bentham Open Journals can be found here: http://www.bentham.org/open/quotes.htm

For example,

"In principle, all scientific journals should have open access, as should be science itself. Open access journals are very helpful for students, researchers and the general public including people from institutions which do not have library or cannot afford to subscribe scientific journals. The articles are high standard and cover a wide area." Hubert Wolterbeek (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)

And here a comment from a Nobel laureate from Bentham Scientific's home page:

"Bentham's open access journals offer a creative avenue towards the goal of rapid publication and dissemination of relevant science results." Richard R. Ernst (Nobel Laureate)

[end quotation] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It seems that there are no grounds for the claim that the letter was not peer-reviewed. No valid evidence to support that claim has been presented, while the publisher's repeated assurance that a normal peer-review process has been followed are bypassed with arguments that evidently are based on false assumptions about the way in which the process works and may, in some cases (not necessarily, and hopefully not, by any of us here), manifest an attempt, in bad faith, to paint the publisher in an unfavourable light to mitigate the article. Perscurator (talk) 13:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

There certainly are grounds for the claim that the letter was not properly peer reviewed. When the letter from Jones et al appeared, the publisher was contacted to request contact information for the editors and information about Bentham's editorial standards and peer review process, the publisher sent the inquiry to Steven Jones - the contact author of the letter - for response. That is completely inappropriate, and quite beyond the pale for any legitimate publication that it calls everything about the publication into question. That the Editor-in-Chief says that the publishers bypassed the editors - whose role it is to oversee the peer review process - and that the Editor-in-Chief himself could not obtain any information about the alleged peer review of this letter shows quite clearly that the peer review process is badly, badly broken. How anyone can even pretend that this is "normal" is, frankly, beyond me.

That "statement from Bentham" is just the advertising blurb it publishes on its website. Take a look at the articles (all 9 of them) that have been posted on the internet by the Bentham Open Civil Engineering Journal, and you will see that they are about: flexural behaviour of polymer poles, sediment transport in rivers and lakes, piezoelectrical patches, flange connectors, water resource management, flexural behaviour of concrete, airport pavement testing, and bond behaviour in concrete. You will also see that 4 of the 9 articles are written by members of the editorial board. That is more than 40%! This is another thing that should trigger warning bells, particularly in conjunction with the fact that this journal spams for authors and editors willy nilly without making any effort to identify the fields in which those authors or editors have any expertise, and then offers those who sign up as editors a 50% discount on their own submissions.

Those are some of the things that make it substandard. Jones appears to want to focus on the publication fees as the only basis of complaint, when that is not the case at all. The substandard quality of the publication is made evident by the facts set out above, and also by the facts set out in the section above this one dealing with the Jones letter. You can put lipstick on a pig but...well, you know the rest.

Also, the reference to a Nobel Laureate praising Bentham, you should note, has nothing to do with the Open Civil Engineering Journal. The concept of open access journals is good (and there are some excellent ones), but the execution of this one in particular is bad. See the difference? {Jazz2006 (talk) 03:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)}

What we have here are

1) someone calling the publisher and giving his account of that - an account that may be twisted or at least strongly "colored", perhaps reflecting his personal biases, and that certainly cannot verified (and we cannot know what confusion and misunderstanding during the call may have been translated into his own interpretation of the quality of the review process); and

Jones is a far less credible source than Ryan Mackey, and Jones quite obviously has a vested interest in obfuscating about the peer review process, as he seems to be doing in the comment you posted above. After all, he's been trying to get a legitimate journal to publish his conspiracy theory writings for quite some time, without any success. It appears that he finally gave up and paid to publish a completely unscientific, poorly written, poorly sourced piece of fluff in a vanity journal and that he is now simply trying to put lipstick on a pig. I notice that neither you nor Jones has commented on the real issue here - which is that the editor-in-chief of the publication says that the letter did not go through the proper editorial channels.

Mr. Mackey didn't just 'call the publisher' - he wrote to the publisher, the publisher responded to him, the publisher sent Mr. Mackey's legitimate questions about editorial issues, not to the editors but to Jones. This is a startling display of incompetence by the publishers of this "journal". Mr. Mackey then, quite correctly, wrote to the editor-in-chief, who confirmed that the letter by Jones et al did not, in fact, go through the proper editorial channels. I do not understand how anyone can, in these circumstances, be satisfied that a proper peer review process has been adhered to.{Jazz2006 (talk) 05:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)}

2) the publisher's verifiable (oa dot bentham dot org) assurance that peer review has taken place. The former represents a second hand account and cannot form the basis of saying that the letter was not peer-reviewed. Furthermore, the quality of the peer review is a separate issue.

Yet, the editor-in-chief says otherwise. I am more inclined to take the word of the editor-in-chief over an advertising blurb by the publisher. And, no, the quality of the peer review is not a separate issue. Jones et al desperately seek the cache of the "peer review" to lend credence to their conspiracy writings. They are counting on lazy readers to take the term to mean that their letter was properly reviewed by legitimate reviewers. But "peer review" is meaningless if it is not properly conducted. Jones knows this, but he sought out an online journal that would accept his money to publish a very poorly written letter in exchange for a stamp of false "legitimacy" in furtherance of his conspiracy theories. {Jazz2006 (talk) 05:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)}

Other articles critical of the official "fire demolition" theories have now been approved for publication in relevant journals. Will Wikipedia editors question their assurances of peer review as well, just because they are not comfortable with the content of the articles? Perscurator (talk) 15:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, the publishers have a vested interest to distort facts in order to protect their reputation and promote their journals, whereas other commentators have no such vested interest. This is particularly the case when the other commentator is a researcher in the field and has plenty of experience in the field of engineering. If there are other published papers supporting the controlled demolition hypothesis, then list them here and we will evaluate their suitability. And please don't add assertions of peer review to the article until you have a consensus on this page to do so - doing otherwise is called edit warring, it is considered disruptive and can lead to blocks and other sanctions. Hut 8.5 17:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

So you are really saying that some researchers' views can override the publisher's assurance that a peer review process has been followed? There are other researchers who do not agree with that particular researcher. Why should his view override even theirs, let alone the publisher's? I'm at a loss for words here. Can Wikipedia even in principle claim, based on some individual's account, that a publisher has not peer-reviewed a paper it says it has peer-reviewed? I have a hard time believing that, and I think we will need to examine this very carefully, contacting the related parties and considering all the implications of this. Perscurator (talk) 21:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, when the EDITOR IN CHIEF says that the proper procedures were not followed, and that the letter bypassed the editorial process that was supposed to be in place, that certainly can override the publisher's "assurance" (advertising blurb) to the contrary. {Jazz2006 (talk) 05:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)}

Hut 8.5, editing an article, adding things without waiting for consensus is not edit warring. It is editing. Edit warring is the process where two or more editors continually revert each others changes. Please do not say that adding "assertions of peer review...is considered disruptive and can lead to blocks and other sanctions", as a) it is untrue, and b) it is an entirely unwarranted threat against many a good faith editor. Thank you. AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 21:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

He has added this material 6 times, reverting 5 other editors. Even while there was an ongoing conversation on the talk page discussing the material, he put it back in. I call that edit warring. Hut 8.5 21:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Aha. I took your words in isolation, without realising this was a party I'd arrived late at. OK. Perhaps be careful with your wording though, lest anyone else make the same mistake as I :-) AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 21:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I understand. Hut 8.5 09:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Note that one of the reverts was of my own addition: I reverted the expression "peer-reviewed" pending further clarification. Before that I had received a confirmation from the Director of Publications that the paper was peer-reviewed, and I had thought that should certainly suffice. Anyway, regarding the use of mr. Mackay's paper as a source for the claim that the paper was not peer-reviewed, Tony0937 had the following pertinent comment above:

"I've never heard of him before, So I cannot comment on his reputation. Whatever else this document of his is, it is not RS by Wikipedia Standards. Have you contacted Bentham?" Tony0937 (talk) 03:36, 9

Perscurator (talk) 15:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I'm just dropping in on this discussion. I don't know why, but I have a gut feeling that there MIGHT be a problem with the peer-review thing. Truthers are sort of out-cast, and it will be hard for them to get peer-reviews, I imagine, even if their work would be sound. On the other hand, does anyone know who this Ryan Mackey is (apart from: a research scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, specializing in vehicle autonomy and Integrated Systems Health Management for aircraft and spacecraft) and why in God's name he is writing a threehundred (!) page report that some scientist is producing bad work? What is it to him? It might be he has a prejudice against Truthers. Is he getting paid for this work, or is it done in his spare time?
According to this [5] press release last November, Bentham only recently started this project of open access, if I understand correctly, so that might explain there to be only 9 other studies and some confusion about review processes?? Michelle Kuiper (talk) 23:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know who Ryan Mackey is, and no, he is not being paid for the work that he does in his spare time refuting certain conspiracy theories about the events of 9/11. He does not have a prejudice against "truthers" (what an inapt title these people have given themselves) - rather, he has a strong commitment to legitimate scientific research, reality, critical thinking, and teaching. The paper to which you refer (it is not 300 pages long, by the way) was not in response to "some scientist producing bad work" but rather a response to a theologian (David Griffin) who repeatedly publishes utter nonsense whilst pretending that it's scientific. It appears that you, too, were fooled by Griffin's nonsense if you got the impression that he is a scientist. He is not.

Also, Bentham started spamming for both authors and editors prior to November 2007, and if you read prior posts on this talk page, you'll see that the 'civil engineering' open journal dates back to May of 2007, with all of 9 articles to date, and you will see that more than 40% of the articles are written by members of the editorial board, and you will see that the peer review process remains hopelessly flawed, despite the editor-in-chief having given explicit instructions to the publisher in an effort to correct the obvious, glaring, and frankly embarrassing "peer review" fraud that the journal seems to be engaged in.{Jazz2006 (talk) 04:42, 15 June 2008 (UTC)}

"The paper to which you refer (it is not 300 pages long, by the way)"

You are right, it isn't: it is 306 pages long with sources, at least in my Word.

I suggest reading Griffin's new book "9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press"

http://www.amazon.com/11-Contradictions-Letter-Congress-Press/dp/1566567165

Just one hilarious example of the contradictions in the official story: in the Moussaoui trial, the FBI provided evidence that Barbara Olson's alleged call to his husband lasted zero seconds, ie could not be connected.

Now even some current and previous Senators are demanding a new investigation. In fact, anyone with a modicum of critical thinking can see that the official story is full of holes like Swiss cheese. Given the acknowledged record of lying and criminal offenses of the current U.S. administration, it is funny how some people still regard the official 9/11 story as some kind of a sacred cow, implying that everything is as the government says.

Now, to make the article a bit more neutral, I again suggest mentioning in it the important fact that the steel debris of the evacuated WTC 7 was not documented and examined to find out why and how the skyscraper collapsed; that by March 15, 2002, only 4 pieces of it had been salvaged for investigation before being recycled; and that the detailed study called for by FEMA based on the "very unusual phenomenon" revealed by the few pieces that were in fact investigated was never carried out. Perscurator (talk) 08:43, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

May I suggest reading this: http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/mackey/index.html

There are also other rebuttals of Mackey's essay.

The following evaluation by Hoffman sums it up: "Someone reading just the Introduction or Discussion of Mackey's 180-page article might easily conclude that that the entire article is composed of insults, straw-man arguments, innuendo, and appeals to authority. However, the article contains a range of types of arguments, from the obviously fallacious ones to cleverly misleading ones to superficially persuasive ones having some didactic value."

There are a lot of errors - with purposefully deceptive intent or not (although the former impression is hard to avoid in many cases) - in Mackey's essay. I will provide examples if necessary. However, it appears to be clear that (as also pointed out by Tony0937), by Wikipedia's own criteria, it does not constitute a RS and cannot override both the publisher's and the several authors' statement that the letter was peer-reviewed before publication.

Anyway, should we opt for some alternative formulation? What about something along these lines? "... journal reviewed and published a letter by..."? Perscurator (talk) 17:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Ryan Mackey dealt rather decisively and incisively with Hoffman's purported "rebuttal" - did you miss it? Hoffman's purported "rebuttal" is utter nonsense from a scientific point of view. His criticisms were shallow, nonsensical and unsupported. He did not refute anything that Mackey wrote, he did not identify any errors, and, frankly, he didn't even try to do so. He simply wrote a little ditty that he thought would be sufficient to appeal to conspiracy fantasists, as usual. Perhaps you should consider actually reading Mackey's paper and commenting on it if you have any issue with it, instead of just repeating unsupported things that you read on conspiracy sites.

Here you go: http://911guide.googlepages.com/ryanmackey {Jazz2006 (talk) 05:03, 15 June 2008 (UTC)}

I respectfully disagree. Mackey's dishonest argumentation is not particularly difficult to notice. As I said, I can give examples, and I will do so after my summer holiday, which has just begun.

Last night, incidentally, we Finns celebrated Midsummer. Here are some photos I took of a local bonfire, which contained much more burnable material than any corresponding area in the three WTC buildings:

http://juhannuskokko.blogspot.com/2008/06/tali-2008.html

I think the utter absurdity of the official WTC explanations is revealed by the fact that a long, narrow, drooping wooden plank turned out to be more resilient to intense fire than the massive WTC steel columns are suggested to have been.

Much of the time it was possible to stand only a few meters away from the ceiling-height fire. The idea that 20-minute fires - according to NIST, the fires almost without exception burned out in that time in any given spot in all of the affected buildings, which is understandable also because the amount of burnables in office buildings is regulated - could weaken a steel column is ridiculous and can only appeal to those who cannot distance themselves at all from the official propaganda of one's own government (a historically not uncommon but still a sad phenomenon). Perscurator (talk) 08:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Yet again, we can't include original research in this article. Hut 8.5 10:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't intend to include that in the article. I just used it to highlight the absurdity of the claim that a 20-minute or so office fire could in any way weaken a fireproofed construction steel column encased in gypsum etc. Perscurator (talk) 14:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I think editors here are losing a bit of perspective. The claim that the controlled demolition hypothesis has received coverage in a peer reviewed journal, despite undeniably reputable previous studies finding no evidence to support it, is going to be a contentious one. WP:V demands that we be especially careful cases like this with regard to sourcing and if high-quality sourcing is not available then material should be removed. We should also be careful that we are not giving undue weight to the controlled demolition hypothesis. The discussion here has raised a number of problems with the Bentham article:

The publisher is known to spam for reviewers to review papers on subjects they have no expertise in, which means this paper may well have been reviewed by people from unrelated fields and therefore the claim that it has been "peer reviewed" is misleading.
This letter/article was not published due to concern in the scientific community about the hypothesis, but rather as part of a promotional campaign by supporters of the hypothesis, and they had 4-5 papers rejected before they found a journal that was willing to publish one.
Multiple people have contacted the publishers and the editorial board and received responses which indicate peer review processes were not properly followed.
The only actual evidence we have that the article was peer reviewed is advertising blurb from the publisher and a letter from the author of the paper.

There is sufficient doubt here about the reputability and editorial processes which were applied here to mean that calling it "peer-reviewed" is misleading. I propose that we leave a note at WP:RS/N asking for uninvolved editors to come and evaluate this source. Hut 8.5 20:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

How about we step back and get rid of the disinformation being used to discredit Bentham? I've been reading up on what is claimed.

The publisher is NOT known to spam for reviewers "to review papers on subjects they have no expertise in". According to JREF, the evidence they have for spamming is that the majority of the first 20 Bentham reviewers have surnames starting in A, B and C, while no proof is presented that they review outside their expertise. After looking at the list of reviewers I found that the next 20 surnames start with D, E, F, G and H, the next 20 I, J, k etc....This looks suspiciously like the names are listed alphabetically rather than the order in which they were approached.
"they had 4-5 papers rejected before they found a journal that was willing to publish one". I checked and this is interesting. A major Physics Journal rejected one because "the subject is outside our purview", or in plain English "we have no interest in reviewing articles supporting conspiracy theories" which makes rejection irrelevant.
"indicate peer review processes were not properly followed". This is WP:OR.
"The only actual evidence we have that the article was peer reviewed is advertising blurb from the publisher and a letter from the author of the paper". Do we ignore that this claim requires the letter to be the ONLY submission published by Bentham to not have been peer reviewed?
"There is sufficient doubt here about the reputability and editorial processes which were applied here to mean that calling it "peer-reviewed" is misleading". What standard do we use? I point out that Bazants paper which is undisputably accepted was, by the authors own admission, submitted 48 hours after 9/11, used only photographs taken by the media as evidence, was based entirely on previous experience rather than research and concludes "errors of magnitude would not be surprising". We do not dispute Bazant yet we argue over not being given the names of the reviewers of the letter when it is standard practice not to do so. The only evaluation of Bentham we need is if it is accepted by the scientific community at large rather than those organisations and individuals that are biased against conspiracy theories. Wayne (talk) 09:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Well put, Wayne. In addition to Bazant's hastily produced "analysis", one could mention Thomas Eagar's paper published as early as December 2001. Jeff King from the MIT has some insightful comments regarding Eagar's statements (eg the ludicrous "a buildings that is mostly air" comment, which would equally apply to the allegedly-all-crushing top sections): http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/comments/eagar.html

Has it ever happened before that it takes a while before a researcher finds a journal that publishes his or her paper? It is also worth noting that Jones has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers. Some of them have also dealt with controversial subjects, and he has been validated in the end. As I'm quite sure he will be here, too; otherwise there should have been more examples (than the alleged three on one day) of random fires and damage suddenly bringing highrises to their foundations at the speed of 7-8 floors per second.

I think it is quite a stretch to claim that the letter by Jones et al was not reviewed at all or in any way before it was published. Wayne, what about my suggestion for formulation? Perscurator (talk) 16:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

We can't use Mackey's investigation as a WP:RS, but we can use to as evidence that the journal in question is not a WP:RS. Together with the "letter" fiasco, and the fact that "letters" (or even letter-length articles) in traditional journals are not peer-reviewed, this means we can't use the journal article either. The spam accussations are not really relevant except in that it suggests that they select peer-reviewers on the basis of who's willing to reply to spam, rather than professional credibility, but Mackey's statement the the editorial board was not involved in the peer-review seems at least equal to the publisher's and Jones' statement that it was peer-reviewed.

There's a policy question here, as well: can we use an unreliable, but generally credible, source as evidence that another source is not reliable? I think we must. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, I don't think anyone is saying that Jones's letter is the only Bentham paper not to be peer-reviewed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The spam accusations are relevant - the academics who were being spammed admitted they had no experience in the field they were being asked to review papers in, so any "peer review" by this journal may not be reliable. And there is plenty of evidence for this that is unrelated to the names of the reviewers - earlier links were given where academics complained they were being spammed by Bentham. I am not using original research since the conclusion that the practices were not appropriate is the one of the people who investigated the journal. Arthur Rubin is correct to point out that nobody is advocating the insertion of a statement that the letter was not peer-reviewed. To answer Perscurator, the paper was probably reviewed by someone in some way, but it seems to have been reviewed by the publishers and not the editorial board and some of the people reviewing it may not have had expertise in this area, so it is misleading to describe it as "peer reviewed". It would be accurate to describe it as "reviewed", but that is to vague it is meaningless. I furthermore note that the journal allows you to suggest peer reviewers for your paper.

I have posted at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard asking for some more opinions on this. Hut 8.5 20:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

As I wrote above, spam accusations have evidently been levelled against other journals as well, including Nature:

"In last week's interesting CHMINF-L discussion on Nature's proliferation of new journals, faculty habits, and the serials market, I saw no mention of an ongoing parallel onslaught by Bentham. In the past month, I have received no less that three invitations to join the editorial boards of new Bentham journals -- "Current this", "Frontiers of that" -- none in areas of my real expertise. [...] The same old tactics are being used: exploiting a faculty weakness for seeing one's name in print..."

(I also mentioned that this is not meant to exonerate Bentham.) Wayne above already pointed out things that cast doubt on the honesty of some of those who have "investigated the journal". Mackay's strong bias, errors and dishonest argumentation, in turn, is evident when reading his essay (again, I can provide examples if needed), so there is no way his essay can be regarded as a generally reliable source: quite the contrary.

In principle, it does sound "anti-Wiki" to suggest that an "unreliable source" could be used to discredit a generally "reliable source" such as a science journal of an established publisher.

Touching upon the topic, is Elsevier an RS?

http://www.amazon.com/History-9-11-2001-Research-Political-Economy/dp/0762313056

Perscurator (talk) 10:01, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The decision as to whether Bentham (established publisher????) is reliable cannot depend only on what we call reliable sources, because that would leave us with no starting point and no sources. We either have to depend on editorial ~~judgement~~ WP:CONSENSUS to establish whether a source is reliable, or, ... actually, I can't think of an alternative method consistent with Wikipedia policies. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:51, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

And since when is "JAI Press" equal to "Elsevier". Even if it's a subsidiary (which I didn't check), it doesn't inherit reputation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:54, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

POV

Wikipedia is such a good idea in principle - shame a bunch of biased editors/admins with too much time in their hands can bully other editors by interpreting the rules to support their argument. This article without a section or sub-section dedicated to the controversy is just a joke.

I think it's pretty clear to everybody that the neutrality of this article is being disputed on a quasi-daily basis. Why not say so in the article lead? 221.191.93.206 (talk) 02:00, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no controversy, no political, academic, scientific or media controversy. Just an extremely tiny minority using the internet to push an agenda. Our policys don't support covering issues like that in the main articles, they have plenty of coverage in "sub" articles. RxS (talk) 03:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Jazz2006 (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

"I think it's pretty clear to everybody that the neutrality of this article is being disputed on a quasi-daily basis. Why not say so in the article lead?" 222.148.6.28 (talk) 23:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

To "221.191.93.206" - If you have strong feelings about the conspiracy theories about the WTC and WTC7, you should consider taking them to the 9/11 Conspiracies article, where they belong. This article is about the building. Jazz2006 (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody answer the question please? Can we please reflect the fact that the neutrality of this article is being disputed in the lead of the article? Thank you. 122.29.91.176 (talk) 23:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

We don't report on our own editorial debates in the articles themselves. For example, see WP:SELF for more information. RxS (talk) 00:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that some editors are using an odd notion of neutrality. Surely this is meant to be an encyclopaedia. It should therefore be a path to any phenomonon. Among the many phenomena about the WTC is the fact that there is a debate about how the buildings collapsed. Surely the appropriate action of Wikipadia is to provide neutral coverage of the debate, not to exclude one side of it. Gravity32 (talk) 09:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no controversy, no political, academic, scientific or media debate about how the buildings collapsed. See my comments earlier in the section. RxS (talk) 13:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Can we put Template:POV at the top of the article please? 122.29.91.176 (talk) 12:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Not just because someone requests it, no. You would need to outline with reliable sources WP:RS what the controversy is as it relates to political, academic, scientific or media debate - not in terms of an editor disagreeing with the article.--PTR (talk) 14:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

This article without a section or sub-section dedicated to the controversy is just a joke.

Indeed, but actually they are quite serious. Much is at stake. When events like a valid scientific article questioning the official version of events finally comes out -- something that the defenders of the official version cannot allow -- it must literally be supressed. Nothing more to it than that. No use in saying "shame on you" or letting emotions get involved, the admins know just what they are doing. The many side-arguments, convoluted wiki-regulations and distractions posted to "shut up" everyone who disagrees with the official story are only there to cover-up the truth for as long as possible to protect those in power. The official version must appear to have been challenged only by "nutcases." And when a scientific journal article breaks though, it must, very simply, have a lid put on that mistake. Obfuscate, blockade, create Orwellian nonsense arguments and rules . . . whatever it takes. Just shut it up and bury any idea that anyone does not agree with officials.

It's more healthy to be truthful about the situation than play into it. 152.131.10.133 (talk) 20:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

If a valid scientific analysis comes out that contradicts the "official" version, I'll be at the head of the line to put it in. Until then, innuendo and speculation has no place in an encyclopedia. Acroterion _(talk) 21:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Hang on a second. If we had sources that everyone deemed reliable and worthy of inclusion, then we would include them in the article. However, we don't. Therefore, there is an ongoing dispute among WP editors about the neutrality of this article, and this is all Template:POV is saying. We don't need any sources to support that there is this dispute before we include the template in the page. I would add it myself if the page were not protected, as there is no need to ask anybody in normal situations. 122.29.91.176 (talk) 13:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The tag is not added if there is an editor dispute. From WP:NPOVD:

Articles that have been linked to this page are the subject of an NPOV dispute (NPOV stands for neutral point of view; see below). This means that in the opinion of the person who added this link, the article in question does not conform to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

Drive-by tagging is strongly discouraged. The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort.

WP:NPOV states: The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources.

--PTR (talk) 16:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe there are a number of specific issues, being suggested by different editors, that are actionable within the content policies. The problem is that a team of editors and admins are denying that this is the case, which is in itself a dispute. I think we are pretty much at the last resort with this article, although you will certainly disagree and there is nothing I can do about that. 122.29.91.176 (talk) 23:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

NIST report timescale

We currently have "In response to FEMA's concerns, the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was authorized to lead a three-year, $16 million investigation into the structural failure and collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers and 7 World Trade Center." However, this currently gives August 2008 as the latest projected final report date. Given that the time-line has now slipped a number of times, how should we best report this? It is clearly no longer a "three-year" investigation, having started in May 2002. --John (talk) 15:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little disappointed nobody found time to respond to this. I've removed the obsolete timescale and cost from the article. --John (talk) 18:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Upcoming BBC documentary

Apparently the BBC is going to screen a documentary to debunk conspiracy theories claiming "the program will offer the solution to the final mystery of 9/11" (their words). To represent the official theory they are using the former counter-terrorism adviser to the White House, Richard Clarke. "The main proponent of conspiracy theories" the BBC are using (their words) is Dr Nicholas Kollerstrom whom they are presenting as an example of the supporters of conspiracy theories (Kollerstrom was the only "truther" the BBC invited to appear on the program). If you have not heard of him in regards to conspiracy theories it is because the entire truth movement rejects him. Although he has a physics degree he is better known as an Astrologer and Alchemist who claims Auschwitz was a resettlement camp where the Jewish inmates "would sunbathe on Saturday and Sunday afternoons while watching the water polo matches" (his words) and that 911 was a zionist backed government plot. He claims supporters of the official theory are being controlled with mind control devices. And these are some of his more sensible theories. Enjoy. Wayne (talk) 16:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Can you clarify how this is relevant to this article? Hut 8.5 17:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Just clarifying before anyone tries to use it as a source as the BBC claim to have the answer as to why WTC7 collapsed. The BBC may be reliable but not this particular documentary. Wayne (talk) 14:13, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like I was too late. Someone has already added it to the 911 conspiracies page. Wayne (talk) 06:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

These concerns aren't valid. The documentary interviewed a number of proponents of the controlled demolition theory, including Steven E. Jones, several members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (including the founder) and the director of Loose Change. Dr Nicholas Kollerstrom did not appear at all (they interviewed him for a different documentary about 7/7, not 7 World Trade Center). Richard Clarke did appear for about thirty seconds at the end and all he said was that the government couldn't have covered up such a conspiracy based on his (extensive) experience dealing with top-secret material, and they interviewed plenty of other people who supported the mainstream viewpoint. Hut 8.5 14:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a joke

Like somebody said, the controlled demolition theory deserves at least its own section. It seems that the usual suspects are selecting "reliable" sources here. And even so, they report only what accommodates their agenda.

So, for example, if an apparently notable and reliable source like ScrippsNews reports that a "Third of Americans suspect 9-11 government conspiracy", that gets translated to "Conspiracy theorists believe the building collapses on September 11, including that of building seven, were the result of controlled demolition." - even though the article does not mention building 7 at all. "Third of Americans" somehow was not deemed important enough to be mentioned.

The "9/11 truth" petition, ironically, is also used in support of the same sentence, even though there is no mention of the word "conspiracy" in that petition.

And what about the factually inaccurate opinion piece at usnews.com? Can it really be taken seriously? It says: "The World Trade Center towers and nearby Building 7, though struck by planes, were brought down by controlled demolitions [...]" If this is really an article worthy of mention in Wikipedia, we should also report that Building 7 was struck by planes, because that's news to me.

The "official theory" seems to have undue weight in this article, and certainly there doesn't seem to be a consensus on the matter, so I agree that we should really put template:NPOV at the top of the article, thank you very much. 160.79.134.3 (talk) 06:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The article is ok as it stands. I've read the draft NIST WTC7 report and it barely resembles this articles explanation so don't worry too much yet as once the report is released next month there will be major changes. Some you may like and some you may not but it's clear the new report will be more acceptable to conspiracy theorists (without actually supporting any) and shouldn't be as controversial as that for the other towers. Wayne (talk) 05:00, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I look forward to this major development keenly, and I envy you for having read the draft report. It's high time this was made public. BTW, is it at all possible to avoid referring to those skeptical with the official version of events as "conspiracy theorists"? It's pejorative and sneering. Those skeptics can be divided into a) conspiracy theorists and b) those who say "no, sorry, the official version of events just doesn't wash with me". Many thanks, AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 06:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources describe people who believe 7 World Trade Center was destroyed by explosives as "conspiracy theorists", so that is the term we should use. The controlled demolition hypothesis is only held by a tiny minority of the engineering community and we would be violating our policy of undue weight to give it much consideration. The paragraph it currently has is quite enough. Hut 8.5 15:34, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Likewise, since this is a debate on the alternative cause of a controlled demolition, which would have required a conspiracy to enact, proponents of this are theorizing that a conspiracy resulted in a controlled demolition. Thusly, the term "conspiracy theorists" is not to be taken pejoratively. That said, those who hold simply that causes beyond or in addition to the official explanation are responsible for the collapse, then it would be accurate to describe those individuals as skeptics. In the case of the conspiracy theorists, they are simply a subset of the skeptics. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the latter two sentences. It is certainly more accurate to use the term "skeptics" to refer to the architects, engineers and - yes - many demolition experts who support the controlled demolition thesis as "skeptics" rather than "conspiracy theorists". Many of them may not have a *theory* about who the conspirators were; they just don't e.g. believe, based on their expertise, that random fires dieing out in 20 minutes in any location could weaken massive steel columns, or that a skyscraper could "pancake" at the speed of 7-8 floors per second except in a CD. Perscurator (talk) 14:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

@Wayne: "The article is ok as it stands" - This is not addressing any of my concerns.

@Wayne: "there will be major changes. Some you may like and some you may not" - You seem to be assuming that I have an opinion, or that I actually even care about "the truth", whereas in fact my concerns are about the lack of NPOV of this Wikipedia article, based on reliable sources at hand.

@AlasdairGreen27: Indeed, "conspiracy theorists" in this context has been perceived by many editors as pejorative, despite numerous explanations from other editors about how that term should be interpreted - explanations that readers of the article don't have the privilege to see. I agree that "skeptics" would be a more neutral and more appropriate term.

@Hut: You have either not read my concerns or you decided to ignore them.

160.79.134.3 (talk) 22:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a joke. You may have an opinion, but your comments about the article have not been consistent with Wikipedia policies or guidelines. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Would you care to be more specific please? 160.79.134.3 (talk) 05:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Read WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE and WP:RS. Hut 8.5 06:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

More specific please? The OP claims that undue weight is given to the official theory, so you do actually demonstrate that you are not paying attention. --93.144.159.243 (talk) 22:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The reverse is true. To give a whole section to a theory which is rejected by the mainstream media, experts and all reliable sources is giving undue weight to fringe theorists. May I remind you that this article is a featured article and has been featured on the main page. Hut 8.5 16:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

See, many editors seem to disagree on this. Can we therefore have a template:POV tag yet please? You are still failing to address the OP's concerns.

And thank you for reminding us that you and your buddies managed somehow to make this a featured article. Unfortunately however, this fact also fails to address the OP's concerns and is irrelevant to our discussion. It certainly does not mean that it's a perfect article that should never change again. --93.144.159.243 (talk) 09:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

These concerns are not valid. 160.79.134.3 disputes the sourcing of a particular statement, and I have added three more sources to it. The concerns about the usnews article looks to me the result of bad wording rather than factual inaccuracy. This article is not meant to comprehensively cover the controlled demolition theory and other 9/11 conspiracy theories, merely give a summary. There are other articles dealing with these topics exclusively which do cover polls of the American public. Giving additional weight to these claims because of these polls is a bad idea - 20% of Americans believe atoms are smaller than electrons, yet Wikipedia does not cover this widespread opinion. WP:UNDUE says that the coverage of minority views should be limited, and we have to do this here. Nobody has presented any reliable sources which support the claim that this building was brought down by controlled demolition and we should respect the verdict of the sources. Hut 8.5 19:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A POV template is not when editors disagree it's when there is a controversy in the mainstream press that is not addressed in an article - and I'm not his buddy. --PTR (talk) 13:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not my reading of template:POV and WP:NPOVD, which do not mention any "controversy in the mainstream press". I am not interested in continuing a discussion with editors (and admins at that) who spin their way out of existing rules, dodge very precise questions for which it seems they cannot find an answer and deny even this very dispute about the neutrality of the article. --93.144.159.243 (talk) 15:53, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

What I meant was the article is ok for now regardless if it is or not as changes will be made next month based on the report.
Like and not like applies to everyone. For example (much simplified) the damage to WTC7 is dismissed by NIST as a contributing cause and the collapse is claimed to be due entirely to fire so there is something there for everyone.
Apologies...When I use "conspiracy theorists" I always assume it includes everyone who dissagrees with the official story no matter how minor the dissagreement is and it is not meant to mean any specific subset of beliefs.
I read your concerns but until the rewrite they are premature. Wayne (talk) 06:24, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

BBC documentary

The BBC this evening screened an interesting and sensible-seeming documentary (9/11 The Conspiracy Files - which I don't think is the one mentioned above) about the collapse of Tower 7, airing both sides of the theory that it was a controlled explosion. It could be used as a source if this article says a bit more about this controversy.

You (or people in the UK anyway) can watch it for a limited time online here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ck4jd

The main interviewees in favour of the theory were Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth - their case is outlined here: http://www.ae911truth.org/ 79.78.126.201 (talk) 21:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

July Report

If I am not mistaken, I believe the report has already been published. However, I'm just asking about whether if the report has been published here to confirm that I have not been misinformed. If the report has been published, the article should be changed to reflect that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coolotter88 (talk • contribs) 17:46, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It hasn't been published yet, [6] though draft versions have been commented on by the media. Hut 8.5 17:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Use of the phrase "Conspiracy Theorists"

"Conspiracy theorists believe the building collapses on September 11, including that of building seven, were the result of controlled demolition"

should be changed to:

"Some skeptics believe the building collapses on September 11, including that of building seven, were the result of controlled demolition"

The phrase "Conspiracy Theorists" has come to conote "blathering idiots" in the popular media. This casts on unfair shadow on the belief, and hence violates NPOV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessekanner (talk • contribs) 23:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much all sources (other than the conspiracy theorists themselves) call them "conspiracy theorists", hence that is what we should call them. Given the tiny amount of support these theories have we would be violating WP:NPOV to describe them like this (see the section titled "undue weight"). Hut 8.5 09:56, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Truth by committee. I hear not too long ago, pretty much all people (except African Americans themselves) called African Americans the N-word. Sometimes the majority is wrong. Isn't that why articles are supposed to be neutral?BlackFlag30 (talk) 00:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

If the majority ever do change their terminology then we can too. Trying to predict in advance which terms which terms are going to be changed and which will not is fruitless. Hut 8.5 07:41, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Since a good number of them are in fact skeptics who employ scientific methods to come to the conclusion of controlled demolition, "conspiracy theorists" is particularly wild language, even if the particular references use the phrase. We should not necessarily follow today's sunken journalistic standards, but instead act like an encyclopedia and use more accurate, more dispassionate terms. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 05:55, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If we call them "skeptics" that is giving WP:UNDUE weight to what is a very, very small minority amongst experts. Do we then have to label Flat Earth theorists as "shape of the world skeptics"? "Some skeptics" as suggested above also runs into WP:WEASEL issues. Hut 8.5 07:41, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that this position you're taking isn't reflective of the reality. If you accept the absurd government story, that's fine, but please don't diminish the significant number of engineers, architects and the like who have essentially proven freefall and a likely controlled demolition. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, the position you're taking isn't reflective of reality. There's isn't a significant number of people who believe it's "controlled demolition". As it stands, as a Ph.D. in mathematics with the course requirements for a minor in physics from Caltech, I can verify that "freefall" is false. Any structural engineer who claims the contrary will have to deal with the fact that the total collapse time was at least twice "free fall" time. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

And there is not a "significant number of architects", as you assert: there were a number of 9/11 truthers trying to hand out fliers in the street at the American Institute of Architects convention in Boston this year, with around 25,000 architects in attendance. They were politely ignored, and there was certainly no notice taken in the convention proceedings. Acroterion _(talk) 22:24, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The Environmentalist article

A peer-reviewed article "Environmental anomalies at the WTC: evidence for energetic materials" presenting further evidence for the controlled thesis has just been published in the respected science journal "The Environmentalist" by Springer Netherlands. You can read it here:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10669-008-9182-4

I added a mention of this to the relevant section.

And -- connected with the above discussion -- no, I don't think it is appropriate to treat a significant minority view supporting CD unfairly by just saying that it is factually incorrect and thereby does not deserve fair representation, considering the support of the CD thesis among architects, engineers and demolition experts *and* the evidence presented for it in mainstream science journals, other science publications and investigative mainstream TV programs in other countries than the USA. Perscurator (talk) 15:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

This is not the main article about controlled demolition. We don't need to put such details here, especially when the article is not specifically about WTC 7. Try instead discussing this on the Controlled demolition hypothesis talk page. --Aude (talk) 15:57, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

So now that the supporters of CD have published, in a respected science journal, an article whose peer review status evidently cannot be contested, *that* should no longer be mentioned in the relevant section? Perscurator (talk) 16:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Not all Springer journals are peer-reviewed, and not all "articles" in peer-reviewed journals are, in fact, peer-reviewed. Can you find a pointer to their editorial policy? And it's still a CD article, not a 7WTC article, although, if credible, it could fit in the lead of the CD and possibly in the main 911 article. I don't really find it credible, but that's a personal opinion, and, if it is in fact peer-reviewed, it probably should be included. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the details, but according to Jones, one of the reviewers was especially tight (I don't remember the precise word he used), which improved the quality of the article. Based on what I've heard about the publisher's (Springer) reputation, it is one of the most serious names in scientific publishing. Here is the publisher's own description of The Environmentalist:

http://www.springer.com/environment/nature+conservation+-+biodiversity/journal/10669

And yes, the authors also deal with WTC 7 in the article.

I will suggest a reformulation. After all, it was me who added the present (albeit contested and then slightly modified) sentence about the Bentham article. Perscurator (talk) 07:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I suggested a version which also encompasses the new, probably more important article, and which obviates the debate about if and/or how well the articles in question were peer-reviewed. Perscurator (talk) 08:14, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The word "peer" or even "review" doesn't appear in http://www.springer.com/environment/nature+conservation+-+biodiversity/journal/10669 . — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:36, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion did NOT include the terms "peer" or "review". So why was it reverted? Perscurator (talk) 15:09, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

According to Springers website all their journals are peer reviewed and checking what universities etc say about them confirms that as well as journals, everything they publish is peer reviewed. Wayne (talk) 18:16, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems that there is now suddenly an effort to bury even the for long accepted reference to the Bentham publication under one short sentence referring to conspiracy theories. As this happened right after another article appeared in a respected science journal, this amounts to an effort to push the POV in this article in the extreme. My suggestion "In 2008, a civil engineering journal and an environment science journal published submissions supporting the controlled demolition thesis." solves the problem surrounding the peer review debate - not that there is a reason to doubt that one particular article in a Springer journal was somehow not peer reviewed. I think it is an improvement over the previous sentence, and I hope this will be the basis of the discussion. Perscurator (talk) 08:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as any of us can tell, neither the questionable Bentham publication nor the environmental science journal have significant coverage of 7 WTC. The references belong in CDH with a possible mention in the main 9/11 article. Not here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

As the history of this article shows, the reference to the Bentham publication, in its compromise formulation, was included in this article from 6 June to 31 July - ie, almost two months.

It was only removed when I added a reference to a later, peer-reviewed publication. You or some other editors cannot just suddenly and unilaterally decide that it should no longer be included, especially without first discussing the complete omission on the Talk page.

As I have been informed about the Wikipedia rules, changes to a consensus version need a consensus for the change. There is clearly no consensus that the long-standing reference in question should be suddenly dropped. Ergo, I will suggest a revert to the old consensus version, and we will proceed from there. And yes, I am willing to rephrase to avoid any unwanted interpretation of the article text. Perscurator (talk) 06:48, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Destruction of the research material without investigation

Isn't it noteworthy that "all of the thousands of tonnes of steel" were destroyed without investigation, as noted by the BBC in their program "The Third Tower"? Surely that is *very* noteworthy in the context of describing how the skyscraper's unprecedented destruction has been investigated. Perscurator (talk) 16:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps. It was also noted in the 9/11 commission report that samples of the steel were analyzed. If the BBC programme noted that, perhaps both interpretations might be relevant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the 9/11 Commission report does not even mention that WTC 7 was destroyed! The report does mention *the building* a couple of times, but not its destruction.

It is true that 4 pieces of steel from WTC 7 were salvaged for investigation by March 15, 2002, and the investigations revealed a "very unusual phenomenon", including "intergranular melting" of steel. FEMA called for a "detailed study" into this, which was never conducted. But that is less important than the fact that a painstaking on- and off-site investigation was not conducted to determine the cause and mechanism of the skyscraper's unprecedented total destruction in just seconds.

Yes, the BBC programme notes the destruction of the steel debris without investigation.

Based on this, I think the fact should be included, and I added a slightly modified version. I ask editors to refrain from removing it without presenting arguments specifying why it is not relevant in a section dealing with the investigation. Perscurator (talk) 07:22, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Should only be the in the controlled demolition article, rather than here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

But I won't remove it, immediately. I won't remove it at all if you can support the relevance of the article to 7WTC as opposed to CD, or even possibly the main article, if The Environmentalist is clearly peer-reviewed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:39, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Cf. Wayne's comment above. But that is irrelevant, as we are talking about the BBC programme in this context, not the Environmentalist article. The BBC notes the destruction of the steel debris without investigation both in their program and on their website. Perscurator (talk) 15:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

This article shouldn't do more than give a brief description of what conspiracy theorists believe - there are other articles that go into detail. If you can provide a reliable source where this is discussed in a context unrelated to conspiracy theories then it is appropriate in this article. Hut 8.5 17:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is one source, the Fire Engineering Magazine:

http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/article_display.html?id=131225

In January 2002, Bill Manning, the editor-in-chief of the publication, stresses e.g. that the "destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately".

But aside from such quotes from RS's, it is noteworthly that the research material was destroyed without investigation, especially as the total destruction, in seconds, of a skyscraper would surely have warranted the most painstaking investigation. Perscurator (talk) 07:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That article does not refer to 7 WTC. I am not saying that is is not worthy of being included in Wikipedia, I am saying it isn't worth including it in this article. It is already noted (twice) in Collapse of the World Trade Center. --Hut 8.5 08:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The article refers equally to the destruction of WTC 7's evidence, as that was one of the skyscrapers destroyed. Therefore, it is relevant in this context too. Perscurator (talk) 07:08, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It's clearly a general problem with the investigation into the collapse of all the World Trade Center buildings then, and so it belongs in an article about all the collapses - Collapse of the World Trade Center. We don't have to report absolutely everything connected with 7 WTC in this article (and indeed we can't, for space reasons).--Hut 8.5 16:58, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It is a general "problem with the investigation" (quite an understatement, really). It is, in fact, highly anomalous as a research method and thefore relevant when the protracted investigation of WTC 7 is described - also because bypassing on-site investigation coupled with lack of material to investigate elsewhere and later would prolong, or make impossible, any serious building disaster investigation. Perscurator (talk) 14:12, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin keeps claiming that the BBC themselves do not point the following out:

"Although its collapse potentially made architectural history, all of the thousands of tonnes of steel from the skyscraper were taken away to be melted down."

They do it both in the document and here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7485331.stm

The sentence is preceded by this sentence:

"There are a number of facts that have encouraged conspiracy theories about Tower Seven."

Note the word "facts". The BBC points out that it is a fact that the evidence was destroyed, although the total destruction of the skyscraper potentially made architectural history.

The statement is clearly BBC's, not Dylan Avery's. Can we stop this absurd debate now? Perscurator (talk) 07:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

According to the transcript, both statements (that the collapse was unique, and that "evidence" was destroyed) were clearly Avery's. It's possible that the transcript is incorrect, but you referenced the transcript, rather than the video itself.

ArbComm was planning to (encourage) set up (of) a source verification board. Do we have any such board? The dispute here isn't to the reliability of the source, which would go to WP:RSN, but to its content. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The second source does call them "facts", but it also include's 911AE's clear lies as facts (note to readers: buildings fall down, they don't usually fall across.) I suppose it's appropriate here. There's some question as to whether it's a documentary or a fair and balanced pseudodocumentary, but, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we have to assume it's intended as real. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I re-watched the documentary itself yesterday. The statement in question has nothing to do with Avery; it is not even presented in the context where Avery is featured. In the documentary itself, the statement in its context goes verbatim as follows:

"Despite the collapse of tower seven making architectural history as the first skyscraper to collapse because of fire, all the steel from the 47-storey skyscraper was taken away to be melted down. Some made its way into this new U.S. navy vessel."

The BBC's statement quoted above starts at 05:53 in the film.

The narrator's statement follows some short statements by Steven E. Jones and Richard Gage, but these do not refer to the destruction of the evidence. The statement marks the transition to a new topic in the film.

So if some transcript presents that as a statement by Dylan Avery, the transcript is flagrantly incorrect and misleading. I recommend watching the documentary itself.

Similarly, on the BBC page I linked, an almost identical statement is made by the BBC and not attributed to a skeptic.

And no, tall building do not "fall down" even as a result of powerful earthquakes; they topple ("fall across"), as some support structures fail while others do not. There are a lot of examples of tall buildings that have toppled to the ground in earthquakes (with only a small part of the building having crumbled to dust and debris), whereas there doesn't seem to be a single example of a tall building that has fallen floor by floor straight down in an earthquake. Similarly, fires or some asymmetric damage have never caused a single highrise to come straight down, floor by floor, outside the alleged cases on 9/11. Perscurator (talk) 06:26, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the first transcript clearly attributes it to Dylan Avery, and the second seems to be in the voice of the speaker, so I suppose it may be allowable.

But tall buildings do not topple in, for example, an earthquake. They tilt about 5-10 degrees, and then collapse down. I would expect a taller building to tilt less before collapsing down. I'd expect a building with as small a safety margin (with respect to shear forces, according both mainstream engineers and CD engineers) as this buildings, to tilt even less before collapsing down.

And the (apparent) fact that Bentham has been in this article for a couple months, in spite of consensus elsewhere that it is not a reliable source, doesn't mean there is consensus it should remain. Consesnus is not indicated by silence; it is indicated by discussion. Furthermore, I wasn't watching this article 2 months ago, so consensus can change (and apparently has changed, as you are the only editor now in favor of keeping it in the article.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

And ... 7 WTC did not fall straight down. The debris from its collapse damaged two other buildings. Doesn't sound like "straight down" to me. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Please give the address of the transcript. It seems to be clearly misleading, as you can verify by watching the documentary yourself. I don't think Dylan Avery has such a feminine voice and woukd continue by saying

"Some made its way into this new U.S. navy vessel."

But I'm glad we have reached an understanding about this now and that you consider the fact "allowable".

You are completely wrong about what happens to tall buildings in earthquakes, as e.g. the following collection of earthquake photographs shows:

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/docs/taiwan_six.jpg

See, e.g. also:

http://www.greatdreams.com/taipei.htm

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/images/july2005/060705pic2.jpg

http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/effects-kobe.html

A building never collapses along the path of the greatest resistance. If some support structures fail in an earthquake, the failure starts in that region. So, if, say, columns in one side of the highrise fail first, the building falls in that direction, as the photographs of the toppled tall buildings linked above prove. I encourage you to provide a photo of a steel-framed skyscraper or highrise that has gone through itself, floor by floor, in an earthquake. I don't think you can find even one. But there are a lot of examples of such buildings falling across in earthquakes, and the term "topple" is also commonly used in that context.

As regards WTC 7, it came down as neatly as is possible in controlled demolitions - especially without the normal precautions that are used in CDs. It only caused superficial damage to the two buildings right on both sides of the 174-meter skyscraper, separated by just a narrow street in both cases. A third building surrounding it was damaged more. But even that damage would have been avoided if the normal precautions had been applied, which of course, were not.

http://www.truthmove.org/workspace/photos-content/wtc7pile.jpg

Perscurator (talk) 08:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Arthur wrote: "And the (apparent) fact that Bentham has been in this article for a couple months, in spite of consensus elsewhere that it is not a reliable source, doesn't mean there is consensus it should remain. Consesnus is not indicated by silence; it is indicated by discussion"

The comments from more than one editor here show that there is no consensus here that Bentham is not a reliable publisher. There is also no such consensus outside Wikipedia. On the other hand, one does not need discussion to assume consensus. Who keeps silence, agrees: that is a rule which applies even outside Wikipedia. If you didn't remove the sentence at any time during the two months, that can be interpreted as signalling the acceptance of it. But I do think it is quite revealing that, at the very moment I replaced the original formulation with a more succinct and general one that also solved the issue of peer review, it can suddenly no longer stay, as it now also encompassed an article that has been peer reviewed without any doubt. Perscurator (talk) 08:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Transcript at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7488159.stm, following an Avery quote, and with an Avery quote a few more paragraphs down introduced just with quotes, rather than "Avery said"...

Avery points out that Tower 7 housed some unusual tenants: the CIA, the Secret Service, the Pentagon and the very agency meant to deal with disasters or terrorist attacks in New York - the Office of Emergency Management. And some people think Tower 7 was the place where a 9/11 conspiracy was hatched.

The official explanation is that ordinary fires were the main reason for the collapse of Tower 7. That makes this the first and only tall skyscraper in the world to have collapsed because of fire. Yet despite that all the thousands of tonnes of steel from the building were carted away and melted down.

There's no way to tell where Avery's voice and quoted voice ends and the narrator's, speaking for himself, begins. As Avery has specifically said that, I see no reason to believe that it's other than quotes and paraphrases.

And I thought there was a consensus as WP:RSN that Bentham online journals are not reliable sources. Perhaps I was mistaken, or perhaps that consensus needs to be revisted.

Regardless, none of that belongs in this article, but in CDH, or even, possibly Collapse. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

That is not a transcript of the program. It is true that the page could make clearer what is attributed to Avery and what is the BBC's own statement. The document makes it clear, though, that the statement is BBC's. Perscurator (talk) 15:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is a discussion at RSN about this source. There was a discussion here (further up the page), and another at the talk page of the CDH article. I agree this material doesn't belong here. Hut 8.5 16:26, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

A long time ago (in Internet years, anyway), there was a discussion on one of the noticeboards, probably RSN, about Bentham. I thought the consensus was that the primary evidence that they are peer-reviewed is that they say they are, without any supporting evidence, and some anecodotal evidence that they are not. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:39, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The BBC program as a model for relatively balanced treatment of skeptics

The "Conspiracy Files" episode on WTC 7, although transparently biased for the official speculation about WTC 7 and at many points factually incorrect - for example, in suggesting that no other demolition experts than Danny Jowenko support the controlled demolition thesis although many CD experts support the thesis(1) - it treats the architects, engineers and other scientists supporting the CD thesis relatively fairly and regards controlled demolition as a significant alternative theory, based on physical evidence, held by numerous experts. I suggest we strive to make this article more balanced by following the BBC in that respect. Perscurator (talk) 15:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

(1) Here is a partial list of demolition experts who argue that only controlled demolition can explain the destruction of all three skyscrapers at the WTC: http://demolitionexpertsquestion911.blogspot.com/

The vast, vast majority of experts and reliable sources reject the controlled demolition hypothesis. The BBC documentary all but rejected it, and they don't have to follow the same editorial policies as us. Hut 8.5 17:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, you're not comparing like with like. The BBC documentary was specifically focussed on the controlled demolition theory, whereas this article seeks to cover all aspects of 7 WTC. It would be fairer to compare the documentary with an article on conspiracy theories. Hut 8.5 17:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, there is no data to show that a "vast, vast majority of experts" reject the controlled demolition hypothesis. Besides, even if the skeptics constituted a small minority, in science the minority view has often turned into the accepted view over time. The increase of articles supporting CD in established science journals *and* other scientific publications may be suggestive in that respect.

One of the main differences is that the BBC program regarded the skeptics as experts in their field, whereas in this article they are subsumed under the bias-laden term "conspiracy theorists". Perscurator (talk) 07:48, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the BBC is not as good at identifying American "experts" as the mainstream media in the US? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:41, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources which say that the collapse was not due to controlled demolition, and there are also sources which say that the engineering community rejects the idea. The number of people who have signed the various petitions represents a tiny fraction of the number of people who could have signed them. Anyway, the burden of proof is on you to find evidence why we should include more on the conspiracy theorists, not me.

Minority views do become majority views in science, yes, but this doesn't happen to most minority viewpoints, so we shouldn't give this viewpoint undue weight unless it does overturn the majority opinion. Wikipedia merely reports what the consensus of experts is, it doesn't try to change that consensus. The increase of journal articles supporting CD (from zero to two, which isn't much) does not represent an increase in support for CD since it is the result of a small group of supporters trying to get their views more widely known. Note that the three authors of the Environmentalist paper were also listed as authors of the Bentham paper.

The term "conspiracy theorist" is applied to supporters of CD by practically every source which wasn't written by an active supporter of CD. The BBC documentary is one of them - the series is called "The Conspiracy Files" for a reason. Hut 8.5 17:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

When it refers to the architects and engineers rejecting the official fire demolition hypothesis, the documentary actually refers to them as "skeptics". And please, by all means provide a source that shows that the engineering community rejects the idea of a CD. Note also that there are other peer-reviewed science publications from reputable publishers that provide evidence in support of both CD and the false-flag thesis in general.

And regarding Arthur's note, I think someone who looks in from the outside is more likely to have a more objective view of things on the inside than those who are on the inside. Similarly, some historical distance tends to facilitate a more objective view. We also know that, historically, mainstream sources in a country and its allies have typically aligned themselves to support the official reasons for wars and suppressive legislation in the homeland in cases where the official reasons have later turned out to have been based on lies, including false-flag operations. Perscurator (talk) 07:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The BBC have labelled supporters of CD as "conspiracy theorists" numerous times:

"The official version, the conspiracy theories and the evidence surrounding the collapse of World Trade Centre 7 on September 11." [7]

"As a report into Tower 7 prepares to publish its findings, Mike Rudin considers how this conspiracy theory got to be so big." [8]

"Conspiracy theorists have argued that the third tower was brought down in a controlled demolition." [9]

In addition, we are not the BBC and we are not obliged to follow their editorial policy. As for sources that CD is rejected by the academic community:

"As generally accepted by the community of specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering (though not by a few outsiders claiming a conspiracy with planted explosives)" [10]

"their hypotheses are largely dismissed by the larger academic world"[11]

As noted before, you are the one who has to present evidence to support the CD theory if you want it to be included in the article. Exceptional claims require exceptional sources, and the CD claims are exceptional indeed. A couple of papers doesn't change this, especially as one wasn't properly peer reviewed and the other doesn't explicitly support the CD theory but confines itself to listing evidence that might be explainable by demolition. Note that the authors of the Environmentalist article were not experts in their field (Steven Jones has worked in nuclear physics and solar energy, Kevin Ryan used to work for a water testing company and James Gourley is a lawyer). Vague claims that the engineering community might come out to support this theory will not make any difference - Wikipedia will continue to report the majority opinion until they do. Hut 8.5 12:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The two articles you linked just say that, but do not provide any evidence to support the claim. It is not enough to just claim something without backing it up. I think that has been called "handwaving". Here in Finland, too, several respected academics and engineers reject the idea that random fires and asymmetric damage could totally destroy three skyscrapers in just seconds, at the speed of 7 to 8 floors per second. I think that can be regarded as an outrageous conspiracy theory. It is also outrageous that major building disasters are "investigated" by first destroying all the research material. I cannot think how anyone could just shrug something like that off as of little importance, and a lot of intelligent people I know are similarly perplexed. Perscurator (talk) 08:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The topic of debris removal is a more general topic than about 7 World Trade Center. It is covered in detail in Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center#Debris_removal, which is where it belongs. That article also mentions that W. Gene Corley, the lead on the investigation, said in March 2002, "There has been some concern expressed by others that the work of the team has been hampered because debris was removed from the site and has subsequently been processed for recycling. This is not the case. The team has had full access to the scrap yards and to the site and has been able to obtain numerous samples. At this point there is no indication that having access to each piece of steel from the World Trade Center would make a significant difference to understanding the performance of the structures" Anyway, the issue of debris removal can be handled in that article and possibly mentioned in the Collapse of the World Trade Center article. It's not needed here. --Aude (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

That was quite funny. In the case of WTC 7, "numerous samples" constituted a maximum of four (although the BBC program gives the impression that one was acquired). NIST states "no steel was recovered from WTC 7".

As I imply above, a common sense view would minimally equite the endless WTC 7 investigation (or "investigation") with the lack of material to investigate and with the non-existent on-site investigation, also thereby making the debris removal relevant to this article. (Even a History Channel program noted the evidence destruction, although it tried to legitimate it by saying that WTC 7's debris could not be investigated because of the search for survivors, which must be the most ridiculous excuse I've read; first, because the building had been evacuated and second, because after a week or two the search for any possible survivors from the other collapses would have ended in any case. Of course, the cause and mechanism of the destruction could have been determined through a careful examination and documentation of the building's debris (which is the standard way of investigating building disasters), as I have pointed out before. That would surely have helped the investigators to "understand the performance of the structures" a bit better so that Sunder wouldn't have had to say back in 2006: "But truthfully, I don't really know. We've had trouble getting a handle on Building No. 7.". Perscurator (talk) 14:36, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Perscurator, reliable sources don't need to explicitly cite evidence for a claim in order to be reliable - there is no Wikipedia policy which says that. The sources I linked to would be perfectly adequate for a statement in the article saying that CD is dismissed by most academics. Vague unsupported claims about "several" academics don't change that, and your personal opinion is irrelevant here. --Hut 8.5 11:36, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The "As generally accepted by..." view, for example, is that of particular researchers, even if that view was presented in a "rs". (Bazant's "explanation" of the WTC destruction within just two days of the event has been subjected to thorough criticism, by the way.) RS's are known to both err and even to more or less intentionally provide misleading information (cf. the WMD scandal). Perscurator (talk) 14:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The account of the collapse isn't relevant here, what matters is the description of CD supporters as "outsiders", a description which is supported by the other source I cited. You have absolutely no evidence that the source fabricated any data and using these unfounded claims to question the source's integrity is ridiculous. If it later turns out that this source is wrong (you have provided no reliable sources that this is the case) then, and only then, can the article be changed. Hut 8.5 17:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the source(s) fabricated any data. What I'm saying is that they do not back the statements by referring to any verifiable data. A lot of people interviewed by the media - including rs's - make such statements. There is seldom a reason to take such statements as the verified truth. Perscurator (talk) 15:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources do not need to explicitly cite data to support their claims, as I pointed out to you above. There is no Wikipedia policy or guideline which requires it. (There's actually another source I missed above: [12] "It's a non-issue", "There's not really disagreement as to what happened for 99 percent of the details", "in the world of mainstream science, Mr. Jones's hypothesis is more or less dead on the vine") If you want this article to give more weight to the controlled demolition claims, you have to come up with some reliable sources showing that it is a significant minority view amongst experts. Hut 8.5 21:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Does the collapse section depend too much on US government paid reports?

Just looking at this section, most of it seems to reference NIST reports, without even referencing a specific section, chapter, or page of that report. Shouldn't it be noted that reports paid for by the government are being used. Is this single source, the NIST though not a specific document from them, being given too much weight? —Slipgrid (talk) 05:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably not. It's an official ~~reprort~~ report. (Actually, it's an official statement. The report isn't out yet.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 13:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Seems like odd phrasing. We don't discuss who paid for the reports in any other disaster article. Certainly though I'd put more stock into NIST research than most of the crackpot conspiracy sites Dman727 (talk) 15:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Much as I hate to support Slipgrid, he has a point here. One would not expect a government report to show government complicity, even if such were apparently present. (One has been pleasently surprised by reports of other such commissions, however.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I suppose. But we're not investigative journalist here trying to uncover conspiracys (well at least were not supposed to be on :). Naturally if there other reliable/noteworthy sources reporting on investigations done by other reliable research groups, they should be included. But its seems pretty clear that making hay over the fact that the US government funded a US government organization such as NIST is really just an effort to make a disguised POV point. Dman727 (talk) 15:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

We are not talking a political institute here, but a scientific institute that is supposed to make unbiased reports based on hard science. This 'scientific code of honor' is something for which you should have the highest respect. If you don't, I suggest not driving over any bridge or taking an airplane, because your survival is based on this same unbiased science. The guys from NIST also happened to win a few Nobel prizes last few years, so it's not like this is some fringe institute. --151.65.233.84 (talk) 16:51, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Final report released

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc082108.html - Federal report refutes 9/11 conspiracy theory, Investigators say fire — not explosives — brought down nearby skyscraper. The site also includes a FAQ that addresses some of the more common questions about how the fire could have brought the building down. 139.142.226.178 (talk) 21:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

We have already made some updates to the article, and there will be more updates once I read more of the report. --Aude (talk) 23:29, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned with the wording. "The draft NIST report rejected this hypothesis, as the window breakages and blast sound predicted by simulations were not observed." Is this actually in the report? Window breakages are rare in CD but can happen. The presence or absence of such are not an indicator of anything. As for sound, it depends on the explosive used so also is not an indicator. To say these are evidence is POV pushing. Wayne (talk) 03:34, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is what the report says. Please see pages 22-24 and appendix D. Hut 8.5 19:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I read quickly through the NIST report and I agree that the article needs to be further updated to include the new information of the report. I guess some information from the preliminary report can be removed, some of its findings are outdated (e.g. the impact of the WTC1 debris did not trigger the collapse, it was only the fire). I will let the rewriting to someone else, but I thing most of these facts should be included (in random order):

No evidence for controlled demolition: no sound of explosion heard, and no breaking of windows observed (volume 2, appendix D, p683-700)
Debris from WTC1 caused some heavy damage to the exterior on the south and west side (come main columns cut), but this had no major impact on the collapse, which started in the north-east corner.
A number of small fires started after WTC1 collapsed, at some lower floors (7-13), but also higher up.
Sprinklers on lower floors did not work (failure of water pressure due to WTC1/2 collapse), and no effort from fire brigade (too dangerous/lack of organization due to WTC1/2 collapse or chaos), which caused the uncontrolled burning of lower floors (7-13?).
Burning patterns derived from pictures/video and supported by thermal simulation.
Some fires on higher floors died down, they might have been extinguished by sprinklers fed from tank on roof.
The design of the building (trapezoid shape) caused some asymmetric beam connections, in which some main girders had smaller beams only on one side.
Thermal expansion of the smaller beams pushed the main girder to the side, breaking the connecting bolts and eventually pushing it from its seat. This caused the local failure of some floors (first on floor 13?). The long span of some beams (up to 15 meter) played an important role. Also interesting that this effect can happen at much lower temperatures (below 400 C) than needed for structural weakening of steel (above 500 C). This effect has not been observed in other buildings before.
Failing floor caused some local 'pancaking' of lower floors, which might have been similarly weakened.
Failure of floors removed lateral support of main column in north-east side of building, which caused buckling of this column, which then collapsed all the way to the roof. Theory supported by video, on which the penthouse can be seen sinking into the roof several seconds before main collapse.
This triggers similar buckling of adjacent columns in the core of the building, until finally the outer section fails on some lower floor, which causes the whole upper part of the building to fall down in one piece.
Collapse only caused by fire, not by debris damage. Burning fuel also not important. Working sprinklers would have saved the building.
Theory supported by component simulations with Ansys, which was incorporated in very long/detailed simulation of complete building, which took several months to finish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.65.233.84 (talk) 18:58, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}} Excuse me. The presence of a 'conspiracy' is not necessary for a government report to be incorrect, in this case, the NIST report on WTC 7. The allegation that the independent researchers refuting the NIST report are 'conspiracy theorists' is inexcusable. The wording should be changed to indicate that independent researchers refute the final NIST report on WTC 7. Furthermore, there IS concrete evidence that an explosion occurred prior to WTC 7 falling, and that explosion can clearly be heard in the following video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kOIvwThj-U

In order to dispute the accuracy of the official report, you need to provide a cite to a reliable source. YouTube is not a reliable source. Neither are crazy conspiracy sites. If you cannot find a reliable source that actually says what you want it to say, you are wasting everyone's time. 67.184.14.87 (talk) 12:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

You tube is not the source of the video referenced above! The source is a camera person who was filming during the live events of 9/11. You Tube is merely one of any number of sites that may have this particular video posted. The logic you are using to prevent this requested edit is not sound. There are a number of reliable, first hand, sources that dispute certain aspects of the government reports on WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7. Among them is Professor Steven Jones, and AE911. There is no requirement that a reliable source need be sanctioned by a government agency in order to prove it's reliability. The entire idea behind Wikipedia is to provide the public with the most accurate information that is possible at the time. If you cannot provide a balanced article that shows all reputable sides of a story then this entire page should be deleted.

We're getting the information through YouTube, therefore YouTube is the source we are using. Wikipedia has a policy of not giving undue weight to the proponents of fringe theories. Jones et al are representatives of a tiny minority of experts and therefore we should not give their claims more than a tiny bit of coverage. They are therefore not reliable sources per WP:RS and WP:QS. Hut 8.5 19:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of who shot the video or who uploaded it to youtube, the video is not an opinion, it is a piece of evidence. If you want to argue that due to unknown chain of custody, the video may have been edited or doctored, by all means do so, but you don't need to source a video that obviously was created when it was created, and obviously contains what it contains.BlackFlag30 (talk) 00:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It seems the final report has little to do with reality, as pointed out in the following painstakingly detailed response to NIST by 16 architects, engineers, academics and scientists:

http://www.911blogger.com/node/17794#new

Even the "debunkers" have difficulty swallowing NIST's explanation based on the "new phenomenon". Frank Greening, for one, submitted a scathing critique to them.

It's actually funny how NIST contradicts their 2004 report, which states that "Around 4:45 p.m., a photograph showed fires on Floors 7, 8, 9, and 11 near the middle of the north face; Floor 12 was burned out by this time." Now they blame a raging inferno on the very same floor at and after 5 p.m. as the cause for the alleged initiating event.

NIST's computer-generated models of the collapse of WTC 7, such as those presented at http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc_videos/wtc_videos.html do not correspond at all with the way in which the building can be seen descending on the several videos that captured the collapse. In the videos, the perimeter walls, connected to and supported by the large number of perimeter columns, retain their rectangular shape until late in the collapse; the perimeter columns clearly do not almost immediately buckle inwards over the building as they do in NIST's models. But it seems NIST doesn't need to care. Anything goes.

My comment to NIST can be found in its entirety here:

http://www.911blogger.com/node/17785

Perscurator (talk) 18:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Unreliable sources and original research. This article has to adhere to basic Wikipedia standards. Hut 8.5 18:38, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I just pointed out what anyone who familiarizes themselves with the report can see (and this seems to include many "debunkers"): that it has nothing to with reality. I do understand that this is incompatible with Wikipedia's "standards". Perscurator (talk) 18:44, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

If something doesn't directly relate to improving this article then it should not be posted on this talk page. This is not a forum. Hut 8.5 18:49, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hut 8.5, who cares if it adheres to article standards!? We're getting far more balanced info from this talkpage, than is apparently allowed on your "article"! LOL Long live talkpages!! Nigel Barristoat (talk) 18:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Aside from 911blogger.com being a blog, and hence completely unusable in a Wikipedia article (thereby justifying removing Perscurator's comments), I see no evidence of errors or ommissions in the NIST report. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I am commenting on the content of the article, and the way it is currently written, and how balanced I feel it is. The fact that you suggest hiding this entire discussion from my ability, as a reader, to see it and to comment on it, and instead, stifling the discussion, speaks volumes in itself, you know... Nigel Barristoat (talk) 20:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well said. Unlike Mr Rubin, I detected quite a lot of problems with NIST's report draft:

http://www.911blogger.com/node/17785

And the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth found many more problems, as detailed in this copy of their official response:

http://www.911blogger.com/node/17794

Perscurator (talk) 17:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Can you please stop posting links to your blog? We've established that it isn't appropriate for inclusion in this article, and Wikipedia is not here to boost your viewing figures. Hut 8.5 18:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Barry Jennings

Barry Jennings, Deputy Director, Emergency Services Department, New York City Housing Authority, was at WTC 7 on 9/11 said that there were massive explosions inside WTC 7 before the other towers collapsed and that there were several people killed inside the building. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQY-ksiuwKU —Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrostatic1 (talk • contribs) 13:30, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Three problems with that. Firstly, Barry Jennings himself disagrees with that interpretation of his words and asked the Loose Change people to remove his interview.[13] Secondly, if the explosions he heard were responsible for the destruction of the building he would not have survived them to give this interview [14] (he himself speculates that these explosions were from buses and let's face it - the testimony of someone fleeing a burning building isn't going to be that accurate). Lastly YouTube is not a reliable source and that video can't be used in this article. Hut 8.5 14:05, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, Barry Jennings didn't change his mind until he was threatened (for obvious reasons), Secondly he BARLEY survived at all (there are news interviews with him on 9/11 when he was bloody and messed up.), and thirdly that is an unedited, uncut tape of he himself explaining what happened, Fourthly, according to the official story The Building Was Not Burning at That Point In Time.--Electrostatic1 (talk) 14:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

So you're proposing that we give undue weight to a fringe theory by including badly referenced contentious information about living persons backed up by original interpretations of an unreliable source? Please read those links. --Hut 8.5 14:32, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm angry, O.K.... I'm sorry, but I am. I work with engineers every day and have for years. I have never met a single one, NOT ONE, in the real world who believes the official story on the collapse. The minority is by far, when it comes to actual accredited engineers, those who buy the official he story. But then any source which tries to show that is automagically unreliable. Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon lost up to 2.3 trillion dollars the day before the attacks, and then on 9/11 34 out of the 125 people killed inside the Pentagon (over 27%) were budget analysts, comptrollers, accountants, and financial advisors. But any source which mentions that that would be the largest financial motive in the history of man is automagically an unreliable source. The anthrax was made in a government lab by government employees and mailed to people who were holding up the patriot act, but any source that notes that is automagically unreliable. We moved an entire army division into southern Uzbekistan before 9/11, but any source that mentions the peculiarity of having our invasion force in a land locked country on the border of Afghanistan before the attacks is automagically unreliable. Wolfowitz signed his name to a report saying that it should be a short term goal of the US military to carry out multiple wars in different theaters before 9/11, but any source that questions the means by which this was supposed to happen is automagically unreliable. Can you see why people are getting mad? I mean seriously, what do you get out of doing this? Can't you see that something is wrong? --Electrostatic1 (talk) 14:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. There was NO original interpretations. If you had bothered to watch the video you would know that. It was the raw feed. --Electrostatic1 (talk) 14:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

P.P.S, Sorry I felt the need to vent, but there are some things in this world which it is very hard to overlook. --Electrostatic1 (talk) 14:49, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

P.P.P.S I am by far {EDIT} NOT very active on WP compared to most people, but if you check my history you will see that I usually support a balanced viewpoint in such areas, but the amount of information out there now is staggering on this particular subject and I find censorship of documented incidents to be abhor-able regardless of who from.--Electrostatic1 (talk) 14:52, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your opinion of the subject is irrelevant. There are sources saying that the majority of engineers reject the various conspiracy claims of demolition and our rules say that we should present that viewpoint. Your post above attempts to draw several diverse events together in what is blatantly a synthesis of material, in violation of WP:NOR. Sources such as self-published websites, forums, blogs etc (which comprise almost all of the sources supporting the conspiracy theories) aren't good enough to be used on Wikipedia. Yet again, YouTube is an unreliable source, and when the person being interviewed disagrees with an interpretation we can't simply repeat it (and wild conspiracy theories aren't appropriate for evaluating the credibility of sources). If there really is a giant conspiracy out there then any journalist who exposes it would become famous overnight (look at the ones who exposed the Watergate scandal), yet no-one has done that. This is not a debating forum, this is Wikipedia and we abide by Wikipedia rules. Hut 8.5 15:04, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources, even if they are outright lying, must be used in preference to opinion pieces and blogs etc or we would end up with garbage for articles. What you need is an actual poll of engineers to confirm or refute the sources so until that happens the consensus among engineers has to be written as supporting the official theory. Wayne (talk) 04:09, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

How could there have been explosives? Then Al Qaeda would have had to have access to the buildings unnoticed. That is clearly impossible. Why are people still investigating this? It was seven years ago. If explosives are impossible, then it follows that the buildings collapsed due to fire. Right? Kaaskop6666 (talk) 13:27, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

How do you know explosives are impossible? Even experts who support the official theory don't claim this. It makes no difference if CD is impossible or possible the debate will not end until CD is investigated. NIST should have investigated it so they have only themselves to blame for the CD conspiracy theories. Wayne (talk) 15:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

You are right that they didn't gave a 100% disprove of the CD hypothesis, but in my opinion they don't need to do that. First of all, they have a working hypothesis of how it did happen, see the report. This is not some wild guessing, but hard core science supported by the photographic evidence and finite element analysis. Totally ignoring this work is an insult to their scientific integrity. Due to the inaccuracies of the modeling they might not be able to explain everything to the last detail, but, in Mythbusters terms, they confirmed their hypothesis plausible. Second, they showed some evidence (no sound of explosion) which makes the CD hypothesis implausible. Not mentioned in the report, but other factors making it implausible is lack of a clear motive to blow it up, lack of any evidence of explosives, nobody was seen installing the explosives and there was no time to install them between the hit of the aircraft and the collapse several hours later. Using Occam's razor, given one leading theory supported with science and an alternative theory that already contains several holes, any more investigation would be a waste of taxpayers money.--151.65.233.84 (talk) 16:32, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

You overlook a few points. The NIST was not an independent investigation and they refuse to have their reports peer reviewed. The former chief of NIST's fire science division called their methods questionable and also called for an independent review. For example the report seems to say that an explosion would reach 140 decibels and this implies that there couldn't have been any. This is questionable science, while true for most explosives it doesn't consider that Thermate (which is what the CD nuts claim was used) can cut columns without any sound audible at more than a few feet. The NIST have admitted a "new phenomenon" that is still not clearly explained brought Building 7 down which is hardly hard core science. Another strange fact is that the investigations director (and lead investigator), is the professor of accounting, economics, and finance at Yale.... what has that to do with WTC7? Hardly inspires confidence does it? While I don't support CD it can't be excluded without an independent scientific investigation. The cost of one can be justified because it would, with the exception of the foreknowledge theories, put an end to the conspiracy theories once and for all and let everyone get on with their lives. Wayne (talk) 09:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

NIST might not be independent (it is part of US government), but they employ scientists that are supposed to give unbiased claims by training. You have zero evidence that they breached the ethics of their field. And read the titel of the current version of the report: 'Draft for public comment'. In what way is this not peer review? Your claim about the 'new phenomenon' is totally ridiculous. Did you even bother to read the reports? They spend several chapters describing their simulations in great detail. Although the failure mode they observed is new, the physics behind it is simply thermal expansion and standard mechanics, something which every competent mechanical engineer could understand and double check. And all these simulations happen to describe the observed collapse pretty accurate, so your claim that is 'hardly hard core science' is based on thin air. Do you have a PhD in this field to back up this claim? Your argument about the director is also void: it is pretty standard for a lead investigator to be a manager, the real work is usually done by the team below him. And spending shitloads of money just to satisfy a few lonely crackpots can never be justified: these people are too obnoxious to accept evidence based on standard scientific practice but only believe their own wild theories. Money can be spent better in other ways.--151.65.233.84 (talk) 18:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

"Supposed" is the operative word. All are reliant on government funding and include a company that owned WTC7. I never claimed anything....it was a NIST guy and he said questionable not unethical. Please read Peer Review, it is not even close to public comment. NIST used the words new phenomenon not me. You yourself said the mode was new so this is a....hmmm new phenomenon. Simulations are only as accurate as the info used. NIST have a history of altering input to match the results they want from simulations and I have no need of a phd to claim this because NIST amitted it themselves. I have no problem with the lead investigator not being a scientist but this guy is also the one explaining the science to the public! It's hardly a few crackpots. The majority of the engineering community doesn't accept the official theory entirely. CD is only one theory and you can't use support for that for all disagreement. Take off the rose coloured glasses, NIST is not infallible and things are not always whet they seem. So what if CD is a crap theory, that doesn't exclude other theories. I'd rather see money spent on debunking conspiracy theories and finding out exactly what happened rather than on the waste of paper NIST gives us. Wayne (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

"...reliant on government funding...": you keep on questioning their integrity, this is baseless slander. If we cant trust the independence of scientist and engineers, the world is in danger. "it was a NIST guy": citation needed, and if true, was he alone or did he represent consensus among his peers? You might be true that there has not been any peer review so far, but by publishing their report they open their work for review by peers. And note that the reputation of NIST is at play here, if some outside expert can find a major error in their simulations, it should be published in peer reviewed literature and, given consensus in the field about the error, NIST would have to retract its claims. Your words: '"new phenomenon" that is still not clearly explained'. NIST report: new phenomenon that IS explained by basic physics, please read the report and don't distort facts there. "altering input to match the results": this is pretty standard in the simulation business to account for uncertainties in your model and is allowed as long as you alterations are within reasonable limits. And stop whining about the lead investigator, a non-expert boss being able to explain the work of his expert subordinates happens everywhere, media relations is usually part of his job description. "The majority of the engineering community": a few websites is not a majority, please show me a statement by an engineering society or so. But I wont stop them from doing research, if they write a report as thorough as NIST, I will be open for their ideas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.65.233.84 (talk) 04:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not questioning their integrity, i am questioning their bias. Publication does not open the report to peer review. Read up on what peer review means. In fact the NIST can't even be peer reviewed because it is not detailed enough. You do not have to accept CD to reject NIST. The 911 commisioners who wrote the first report all said that the government was covering up something and telling them what to find. Is NIST immune to this? Can we trust computor simulations? Many movies have computor simulations..is Lord of the Rings real? Simulations require that model validation criteria be included in reports to prove that the model was not forced to give a result based on a preconceived conclusion and this is required for peer review. NIST did not include one in their report. "altering input to match the results": this is pretty standard in the simulation business: faking is standard? I will give you a direct quote from NISTs WTC report. The simulations based on evidence failed to make the buildings collapse so..."Complete sets of simulations were then performed for Cases B (WTC1) and D (WTC2) to the extent that the simulations deviated from the photographic evidence or eyewitness reports [e.g., complete collapse occurred]" I believe they increased the magnitude of the forces on the beams. To this day, and despite requests from engineers, NIST have refused to release the model validation criteria for these simulations. This doesn't mean CD happened as collapse could have been by any number of other unknown factors but it does mean simulations can't be trusted. We can not give the NIST report the same weight that we would for an independant report (ie:undue weight). Wayne (talk) 02:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at scientific method, which explicitly mentions bias. Accusing a scientist of bias is thus accusing him either of fraud or of incompetence, both of which I find highly offensive, especially without any proof. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some screw-ups in the reporting and the political handling of the incident, and I don't mind you being critical about that. Questioning the low level research by scientists, who don't have any political or monetary stakes in the outcome of the research, is something that you and I are not qualified to do, we have to trust their peers. The WTC7 report is only out for a few days, so it is too early for the peer review to have taken place. The WTC1+2 reports, however, have been out in the open for several years and I haven't heard of any peer reviewed criticism of their findings (and I don't mean some internet amateur or a lonely scientist on crack, I mean decent opposition supported by a substantial group of their peers, science works by consensus, not by who shouts the loudest). And no-one said anything about faking, they varied their input parameters (which do contain uncertainties) until it best matched the observed evidence. If you know that parameter X is 20 +- 5, and you find a best match with X=24, you can claim the simulation is consistent with reality. If you find that X=80 to explain the observed facts, you know your model is wrong. At least for WTC7, they did a parameter study and found a collapse for various scenarios (eg collapse in case of higher than nominal peak temperature, no collapse for lower temp, slightly different collapse without any debris demage, ...). Your argument that the animations in LotR look realistic is more an argument that supports the use of simulations, not a criticism. NIST did perform experiments to validate their thermal models, see here. The mechanical simulations where largely done with ANSYS, which is the industry standard workhorse for finite element analysis and thus widely validated, its simulation results can be very accurate if you know what you are doing. You clearly lack any experience with scientific research in general and simulations in particular, so I'll stop the discussion here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.65.233.84 (talk) 14:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Precisely. The proof is in the pudding...for those things that are just speculations, we don't do more than mention them briefly if at all.--MONGO 20:10, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

What about data falsification? From: http://researchedu.med.miami.edu/x19.xml "Examples of Falsification * Alteration of data to render a modification of the variances in the data", The thermal visualizations on and around page 30 of the NIST report (PDF page 68) show a blatant misrepresentation of data. The max temperature on the thermal scale was clamped at 1000C, which can be verified by anyone with any computer graphics experience. Take the last image on page 30, for example... The graph is capped at 1000C, yet there is a ~30x16 block of "max temperature" right in the middle of the image. The temperature increase gradient indicates quite clearly that some areas of the ~30x16 block would have had to have been simulated to temperatures notably higher than 1000C, yet the data visualization used attempts to hide this fact. You are absolutely correct in saying that inferring scientific misconduct is a serious allegation, but I do not see how a team of scientists could have overlooked such an obvious falsification of visualized data. The problem as I see it is that anyone who writes about this incontestable fact will be automagically considered "unreliable" by the consensus builders on WP. P.S. I simulate computer reproduced machining of aerospace parts within tolerances of <.005" for a living, and have about 10,000 hours of experience in Catia. --Electrostatic1 (talk) 01:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't you think that nitpicking a whole report for 1 colored bin from 1 graph, without having talked to the creator of said graph, is a little bit light as evidence when accusing someone of falsification, blatant misrepresentation and hiding the facts?--151.65.233.84 (talk) 20:03, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Jargon

I'm stumbling over the phrase "gravity column transfer trusses and girders." It's a bit much for the general reader. Can someone explain this jargon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ineffabilliken (talk • contribs) 07:20, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

"No explosions were observed"

In this video a loud explosion can be heard, along with firefighters saying that "Seven is exploding": http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=58h0LjdMry0 Autonova (talk) 01:21, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The article says "the window breakages and blast sound that would have occurred if explosives were used were not observed". NIST, as part of their investigation into the collapse, calculated that the sound of the explosion, even at a distance of 1 km, would have been the same as standing next to a jet plane engine. Furthermore conspiracy theorist YouTube videos cannot be cited as sources. Hut 8.5 11:46, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The NIST investigation obviously assumed that if 7 was brought down in a controlled demolition, all explosives would have been detonated simultaneously, which was not observed at WTC 7. What was observed were several staggered explosions. If I find a non-youtube source for this video, is it worthy of inclusion? What else could have caused the explosion that is heard on the video? Surely it's worth mentioning.Autonova (talk) 11:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The video merely shows a loud noise, which doesn't necessarily imply an explosion. This article's coverage of demolition theories is brief in order to comply with WP:UNDUE, if you have a better source for this idea it might be worthy of inclusion in one of the articles devoted exclusively to the demolition theories (this does of course depend on what the source is). Hut 8.5 18:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

You're very hypocritical in your approach to this issue. None of us know for sure what happened on that day. None of us has proof that 7 collapsed due to fire, or through other means. Sure the sound in the explosion could be anything, but how many proven facts do we know? This is why we should think critically. The NIST report, while done scientifically and by academically impressive professionals, is not proof of anything- it just seems to try its best to offer a possible explanation to the acceptable outcome. I find it tragic that Wikipedia, one of the few remaining beacons of independent, uncensored knowledge, is still run by people who prefer to trust the source rather than the facts. WP:UNDUE doesn't apply, this isn't like denying a spherical Earth- this is an uncertain crime scene.

We should be treating this event as such, offering evidence and attention to both sides of the argument. Seeing as a growing percentage of people are curious about the true cause of the collapse of this building, we need to give more respect to their point of view. Give credence to the NIST report, but also offer evidence of thermate collected by stephen jones, videos of firefighters saying 'seven is exploding', results of thermal imaging of the foundations of the towers showing temperatures way in excess of conventional fuel-maintained fires. And why do other building in the WTC area still stand- even the Marriot hotel still stood, and it was full-on crushed. If we offer one point of view to something very uncertain, what's the point of Wikipedia? I hope you're not so set in your ways as to just ignore what I just said. Autonova (talk) 19:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE does apply. The vast, vast majority of reliable sources either give NIST's view or something like it, and almost none (if any) give the view that the building was demolished using explosives. Steven Jones' theories are already covered in other articles. Core policy says, and has said for a very long time, that what matters here is whether something is verifiable to sources, not whether it is true. Hut 8.5 21:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

That is because the vast majority of sources agree that the controlled demolition 'theory' is pseudoscientific nonsense. Jtrainor (talk) 09:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry, Autonova. We had the exact same situation on September 1, 1939. Every reliable source in Germany said that Poland attacked Germany the night before, which is why thousands of German tanks which were coincidentally massed on the Polish border started rolling toward Warsaw. It wasn't until the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials that the German officials admitted that the "Polish attacks" were actually a false flag operation called Operation Himmler and the Gleiwitz incident, in which German troops crossed into Poland and fired back into Germany as well as capturing their own radio station to broadcast an anti-Hitler message in Polish. Come to think of it, we probably should not tell the truth about these incidents, since the vast majority of reliable sources were from years of German newspaper articles, indicating that Poland had attacked Germany. What truthers need to do is to get some other country to conquer the United States and generate War Crimes Trials so this can all be brought out. But, since that won't happen, Heil Bush!!!Wowest (talk) 15:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Ignoring for the moment that George Bush isn't president anymore, what change to the article are you proposing? Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Common theme of the radical left is that Bush = Hitler. People like Saddam Hussein and entities like the Taliban are "freedom fighters"...--MONGO 02:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)