User talk:JzG/Archive 2

Skytran

Hey, I was wondering why you listed Skytran for deletion and put nothing on its talk page. Why.. ? Its a pretty extensive article, and Avidor's flouting of "current status of SkyTran" isn't justified. Not only was that written *before* the Unimodal name was made for that SkyTran idea, but the creator is still working on the idea. Whats the deal? Fresheneesz 03:16, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I nominated it for the reasons stated: it is a puff-piece for an imaginary technology. I know when it was written, I checked the history. Just zis Guy you know? 08:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia shouldn't be an accomplice to this hoax. Watch how the Skytran flim-flammers use the media[1] Yep, Skytran technology exists "now" and it's "15 times cheaper than LRT"....right... if you go the Skytran website, their expert on maglev is an old guy who makes little toy trains using plastic milk crates...he's also a member of the Seattle-area anti-light-rail group CETA .

I'm sure they told the news station to go read the Wikipedia Skytran page... that's what the PRTers always say "read the Wikipedia PRT page"... and they wrote the PRT page. Wikipedia should not allow this tiny group of anti-transit PRT promoters to use Wikipedia to monkey-wrench the hard work of public officials and citizens.

At the very least, I strongly suggest requiring all "editors" to register with real names in order to make changes to these PRT articles. If real names were used, it would be very clear that PRT is promoted by a small group of people, most of whom live in suburban Seattle or Twin Cities area.

Could you check IP addresses for sock puppets?-Thanks-Avidor 14:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

You should put your reasons for nomination on the talk page for that page. I removed the deletion tag because there was no discussion - and noone answered my comment on that page. Perhaps the SkyTran article should be scaled down, but it should NOT be deleted. Fresheneesz 00:09, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I did put my reasons on the nomination, as I do for all nominations I make. This is not the first piece of non-notable fiction I've nominated, as you'll see from my contribs list. Just zis Guy you know? 21:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

You really should have added a comment on the talk page, but I added a link to the nomination. Also, Unimodal is a real company - why are you so adement about killing the article? Fresheneesz 00:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

No, there is no need at all to add a comment to the Talk page, the debate is at the AfD, which is linked from the AfD header, substed in as part of the nomination process. Trust me, I have done this before. Just zis Guy you know? 07:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I ask the administrator to caution "Fresheneez" and others not to attack me personally or delete my contributions. Thank you.Avidor 12:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I do trust that you have done this before, but every deletion proposal I've seen has been discussed on the talk page, and I think it'd be helpful for those not so well versed with wikipedia to see a discussion about the page, on the page's talk-page. Fresheneesz 22:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Please take a look at the comments on my Talk pageAvidor 00:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The deletion failed. I'm going to keep that "current status" thing off that page - since it is not current in the least. Do you agree? Fresheneesz 07:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I have nominated many articles for deletion, deleted some myself per AfD and CSD, participated in literally hundreds if not thousands of AfD debates. The debate goes on the AfD page not the article Talk page. If you are goign to close AfDs you need to know two things: first, there is a form for doing it; second, it is extremely bad form to close an AfD with massive editorial comments, especially on a suject where you are personally involved. Closing consensus is merge what is verifiable and significant to the PRT article, leaving no redirect. We do not have subpages in main space, especially when they are POV forks of other articles. I will go and fix the mess you left at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Personal rapid transit/UniModal. Just zis Guy you know? 08:21, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Skytran and merge/delete/ and your vandalism

Hi, I noticed that you tried to delete the entire article on SkyTran, after a vote was had for keeping it. I'm not an admin, but I am not willing to accept your vandalism. I realize you're only acting on what you think is right, but as an admin, I believe it is your duty to be patient, and allow majority to surpass your opinion. There was no vote to merge, and I don't care how many articles you've deleted, what you are trying to do with this page isn't quite right.

Please note with my utter respect that I will bring issue to any more of your actions that I consider vandalism (like deleting the Skytran article in favor of an rd). Please don't do it again. Fresheneesz 08:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I posted this on the admin noticeboard. There was universal agreement that I did the right thing. The discussion is here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#AFD_closure. AfD is not a vote, and your actions were outside process. Report it to whom you like. Just zis Guy you know? 09:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I read a bit about AfD, and while it isn't a vote, the article says "the deletion process can proceed based on Wikipedia community consensus.". Consensus is basically a vote, and I put up the vote to determine consensus. You however went against consensus. There was maybe one or two people that suggested merging, not consensus. This needs to be discussed.

I'm slightly confused as to why you refuse to cooperate. Why is it so pressing to delete the article on SkyTran? I just don't get why you want to kill it when people obviously think the page is good info. Fresheneesz 02:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur 100% with Fresheneesz. Furthermore, you are biased in support of Avidor's views, and therefore should not be making unilateral decisions on PRT articles. A Transportation Enthusiast 04:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

From the PRT discussion page: "I assume that you value your time much more than I do, so pick your battles wisely."- Fresheneesz 05:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)----Avidor 17:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Fresheneesz is right about one thing... I do have better things to do... thanks for trying JzG...Good Luck. Avidor

SkyTran and request that you talk to someone

Hey, i've talked to the only admin that I know pretty well - User:Omegatron. He thinks your actions are "borderline", but apparently has the same knowlege you do about who "counts" and who doesn't. I guess i'm ignorant in that respect, however he did mention that "Moving it (Skytran) to a subpage demonstrates an ignorance of Wikipedia policy.".

I simply request that you talk to him, since you don't take anything I say seriously. He believes that SkyTran deserves at least as much place as other fictional things. I mean, about a week ago I edited an article on a Reactionless drive, a type of thruster that goes against the conservation law of momentum - but I think you would agree that that page deserves its own article.

Here is his talk page, links to the header I talked to him under:

• User_talk:Omegatron#Help_with_dispute

Thanks. Fresheneesz 03:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I did not move it to a subpage, as you know. But you are ignoring the fact that I took it to WP:AN - in effect discussing it with multiplt admins. Just zis Guy you know? 08:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

You endorsed the move. As an admin you should have been aware of the policy that sub pages are not meant for articles. And forgive me for saying so, but I don't care that you talked to more than one (or more than two or three) admins - you ignored the input of non-administrators. Being an administrator doesn't make you above anyone else here, you may have more power - but only because people have put their trust in you. It has been told to me (also by more than two administrators) that if there is controvery about merging, you shouldn't just do it. And there *is* controversy.

In any case, like I said, I doubt you'll take my words seriously. Will you please have a short discussion with User:Omegatron? I would really appreciate it, I want to stop bugging you as much or more than you want me to. Fresheneesz 09:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Where did I "endorse" the move? And I didn't ignore the input of non-administrators, I listened to what one non-administrator (that would be you) said, and responded in full citing precedent, which you have now established (by asking in at least two places) was precisely as I stated it to be. Had you looked you would see that I also commented on Omegtron's Talk page. Just zis Guy you know? 11:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

give up

I give up. Everyone seems to be supporting you and my lack of leverage isn't helping either. I simply want to know the answer to a question I've posed multiple times - and gotten no answer to. Why did you need to delete/merge/whatever the SkyTran article then, without further discussing it? I have learned on wikipedia that its much more efficient if I'm civil and pacient. I suppose a rouge admin doesn't worry about such things. Do you have an answer to my question? Fresheneesz 07:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

JzG is an admin partly because he understands what is acceptable in WP. This is not always easy to explain. Live and learn, and you'll get your way too. Stephen B Streater 08:40, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Fresheneesz, there are a couple of points here:

First, if you read WP:ROUGE you'll see that the whole rouge admin thing is ironic. Rouge admins do worry about things like civility and patience. If you look back at my Talk archives you will see many long and patient explanations to many editors who have been simply ignored or told to go away by others less patient. I am far from being the world's most patient person, but I think you will have to agree that I have never failed to respond to a civil enquiry.

Second, I merged and redirected the article because in my view it violated policies. It had problems with WP:V (from WP:RS), WP:NOT, WP:NPOV. It also contained many of the more florid claims from PRT, which have been removed from that article as unsupportable in the context of an unproven system. It is the nature of admins that we often act quickly, because we get in the habit of doing so when fighting vandals. In this case there was no rush either to delete or to undelete - the AfD debate ran its full course and (as usual) I did not watch it during its course, because unless I feel especially strongly about something I normally think it's best for people to make up their own minds rather then responding to every "vote" as some AfD nominators do. If I'd watched it I'd have removed the "vote here" section before it became a problem. Ah well. That you consider your question unanswered is puzzling to me, as I was under the impression I'd answered it several times. Maybe the answer is just framed in terms such that you don't see the link.

Third, when lots of people tell you that you're wrong, unfortunately sometimes it's because you are. Try not to care too much. I've had articles deleted too, you know. I've also been wrong many times, and changed my mind, and been persuaded otherwise, and trust me as admins go I am nothing compared with Tony "Fuck Process" Sidaway! There are two kinds of obsessive admin, process wonks and policy wonks. I'm trying to be a policy wonk. Just zis Guy you know? 09:10, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

There's also that extremely rare breed, the content creating admin. Whilst mature CCAs are safe in their habitat, fledging specimens find it difficult to flourish under arid environmental conditions found at WP:RfA where sometimes people make absurd comments like "Hasn't edited in the non-main namespaces enough!". Pcb21 Pete 14:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Sour grapes, Pete? ;-) There is some justification for expecting a degree of engagement in talk and WP namespace, since that implies work to do with fixing problems, and it's fixing problems that requires admin rights. I am not sure of my view on that, I tend to look at the nature of the contributions not the location myself. Just zis Guy you know? 15:19, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Not sure I understand your initial comment. What would I be sour about?

There are plenty of problems in the main namespace that require admin rights. The "delete redirect and move original" maneurve is used all the time for example. Adminship should be given to trustworthy people with judgement. There should not be a requirement that they will use the admin rights a lot. Pcb21 Pete 16:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Check out the deletion log and edit pattern for this nigh-on perfect Wikipedian. Pcb21 Pete 16:06, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean anything much by it, other than that it implies a voted-down RFA for someone you care about. There was a conversation on Wikien-L about this; one or two things were advanced but the only really persuasive one was viewing deleted histories, and there are several of us who will retrieve deleted content on request. The delete and move thing is rapidly achieved by asking. But like I said, I am not really sure of my view on this at the moment. Just zis Guy you know? 18:44, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Well I hope I can persuade to you my "liberal" point of view whilst you are undecided :). To me, the central question should be "do we trust this user", not "is this user going to hang out at AN/I etc and do all the mop work the way we want?". To me, the latter causes us to generate a narrow gene pool of ideas about Wikipedia should proceed, which is not healthy for the project. Btw, I am a little distressed that my comment implied to you "a voted-down RFA for someone I care about". This opinion is derived from my general principles about Wikipedia, not some knee-jerk reaction. Pcb21 Pete 19:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Can admins be removed by consensus? If it's a job for life, clearly the entry criteria should be quite hard to meet. If, OTOH, it is a privelege which can be removed in an instant, more people could be given a chance. It seems most work doesn't need admin privilege - only the contentious articles. Stephen B Streater 21:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they can. The usual process would be to take a case to ArbCom. I don't think it happens often, though. The point is a good one: according to Jimbo, adminship should be "no big deal", but the power to do damage inherent in the admin toolkit is sufficient that it is widely considered at least a moderately big deal. WikiTruth has increased the paranoia level a bit, with deleted "uncensored" (i.e. defamatory) versions of articles apparently being grabbed by an admin "mole" - although it could just as easily be taken from an out-of-date mirror. Just zis Guy you know? 09:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes unfortunately the actions of those behind Wikitruth will cause adminship to become a "bigger deal" i.e. more incestous, more removed from the actual encyclopedia and its creation - exactly what they (at Wikitruth) say they don't want! The two "big" things in the toolkit are the irreversible ones: image deletion (this has never proven a problem, because we've never promoted a vandal to admin yet!) and redistributing deleted material. The latter is a new issue and I would not be at all suprised to see a new user-level ("office") and content type ("hard-deleted"?) created because of it. A shame in a way, but that is better than closing off run-of-the-mill admin tasks to all but a tiny clique of users. Pcb21 Pete 09:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to be an admin some day, but I can't quite see the need yet. As a normal user I seem to have quite a lot of power to create and edit articles, and the consensus model eg AfD still ultimately applies to all articles regardless of status of individual editors. Stephen B Streater 16:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

If you carry on editing as you are it is odds-on that in a couple of months you'll be nominated for adminship. Probably by someone who thinks that grown-ups should be encouraged to contribute. Maybe by another parent, perhaps - quite likely one involved in the computer industry. Ahem. Just zis Guy you know? 18:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Nearly up to 1,000 edits already. I'm managing to help resolve a few edit wars :-) I think I'd have to tidy up my user page before I'd be respectable enough for RfA though! Stephen B Streater 09:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Um.. right. Anyways, you cite WP:V (from WP:RS), WP:NOT, WP:NPOV - all of which the page did have problems with, and I noted that the page could be scaled down and reedited. How bout this, I'll create a scaled down, NPOV, non-advertising SkyTran page, and let you/other-people decide whether it deserves a spot? Fresheneesz 20:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

You could start with a stub. These don't have to be complete, so allow restricting the content to neutral and verifiable material. Personally, I'd like to see something built before it gets its own article, because I think NPOV is hard to maintain for a dream, but when reality arrives it will be widely publicised and analysed. Of course, if it is never built, then notability will be the issue. Stephen B Streater 21:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The problem is, even the stub will be difficult to keep neutral. The root level here is that UniModal is an idea by one man, for which he is pitching for funding. Typically, we do not cover such things separately. They might be discussed (as this is) in an article on the technology itself; if the technology is mianstream we might have an article on concepts which push the boundaries (like freedom ships) but in this case the technology itself is not mainstream, there are no real-world implementations. The article on personal rapid transit is already based on parameters well beyond any of the trial installations. So discussing the UniModal system, which goes beyond even that, is problematic per WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. Just zis Guy you know? 09:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

"The article on personal rapid transit is already based on parameters well beyond any of the trial installations." - Huh? What are you talking about? What parameters are well beyond? A Transportation Enthusiast 14:23, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The article is about PRT as a widespread network of point-to-point transportation with multiple arbitrary source and target destinations, many hundreds of vehicles, probably running over existing rights of way. None of the current systems approaches that. The proposed Heathrow system, for example, will have 18 pods travelling between one car park and one terminal. Just zis Guy you know? 14:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Cabintaxi was tested, approved, and ready to go in Germany - and it was targeted for city-wide application. I believe CVS was also. Taxi 2000 was designed from the ground up for wide deployment, although unlike the others there was no fully functioning prototype (mainly due to lack of funding). Recent systems are starting small mainly because nobody is willing to risk so much capital on a larger system, but this does not in itself imply that these systems are incapable of wide deployment. Furthermore, although you scoff at it, extensive simulations have validated much of the design even in large scale settings. Unlike ridership simulations, which are much more speculative, system simulations such as this are much more accurate and can subject a system design to literally millions of usage scenarios before a single section of guideway is laid. These simulations are certainly not a replacement for real world testing, but they do provide very compelling evidence that PRT designs and control algorithms would scale well from the small existing systems prototypes (which have been tested) to city-wide application. A Transportation Enthusiast 16:47, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure - but it never happened. There never has been and still is not any implementation matching the parameters discussed in the article. The current proposed systems also do not match the parameters in the article. The idea of a wide-scale point to point call-on-demand PRT system has not been and is not currently scheduled to be tested anywhere. The fact that nobody is willing to risk it may indeed mean it is not capable of wide deployment, in practical terms, since implementation necessarily requires funding. However credible the hypothesis is, it remains a hypothesis, and one which faces considerable barriers in the shape of some very powerful vested interests, most especially the private motor lobby - it would be naive to think Ford and GM are going to sit back and let something be built which is forecast to take a substantial proportion of car journeys out of the picture, and equally naive to think that regulations which mitigate against PRT will be fixed, because that would depend on the cooperation of legislators with their noses in the oil and car pork-barrels. Seriously, the only reason the big guns have not yet been wheeled out is probably that these systems are not seen by them as a credible threat. Just like the nuclear industry managed to kill at least three large-scale renewable energy programmes in the UK, in fact. Just zis Guy you know? 11:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

You wrote: "The fact that nobody is willing to risk it may indeed mean it is not capable of wide deployment, in practical terms, since implementation necessarily requires funding." -- I don't disagree with this, but it is a financial argument, not a technical one. From a technical perspective, PRT (even city-wide PRT) is real - untested in the real world and unproven commercially, but still real in every technical sense. Just like the new mega-jumbo-jet from Airbus is real, even though it hasn't flown a single passenger and has yet to prove its commercial viability.

"one which faces considerable barriers in the shape of some very powerful vested interests, most especially the private motor lobby" -- actually, ironically, PRT's fiercest opponents are not the auto industry, but rather transit advocates like Vuchic, Setty, Demery, Avidor. And this goes back to the 1970s... I read an article by J. E. Anderson (which cites independent sources but I haven't been able to verify them online) that sub-second headways were much more actively pursued back in the 1970s, even in congress, until the rail lobby stepped in and effectively squashed it. Since then, subsecond headways have been a political firestorm even though the engineering is well-documented (I believe Irving and Anderson have published on this topic). This is one reason why some companies are coy about advertising sub-second headway capabilities in their systems, because it causes such a fierce backlash in the political/regulatory world. This reluctance to promote sub-second-headway operation, in turn, forces PRT companies to focus their marketing efforts on low-capacity applications as a proving ground for the technology, which, ironically, has enforced the mistaken perception that these systems are incapable of high capacity, city-wide operation. A Transportation Enthusiast 13:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the reason PRT is mainly opposed by supporters of light rail and similar is that it is still being proposed in the form of small-scale local operations, which necessarily compete with these other modes, rather than pitching head-on against large scale car use. In other words, it has yet to become loud enough to wake the sleeping tiger. It is, of course, not Wikipedia's job to remedy this (per WP:NOT as well as WP:NPOV). And the fact that this has led to a (probably false) perception about the ability to serve wider areas is also not Wikipedia's job to fix. At root, I think that was Avidor's concern, and I agree with him - Wikipedia articles do not exist to remedy external controversy but to document it. Just zis Guy you know? 14:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I have never suggested Wikipedia should be a remedy, but as it stands now, one side of the debate has been effectively squelched. Take the Vuchic quote: it is basically a professional opinion that is verifiable. It should be included. But then Anderson answered that opinion with a counter opinion in the same journal as the original, but we are not allowed to quote Anderson's answer. Including Anderson's reply is not "remedying", it is just documenting what's transpired in this well known professional debate. Similar points can be made about the OKI report and the regulatory arguments -- the debate on these issues is well known, but the article only reflects one side. Why is that? And I don't accept the answer that the rest of the articled documents the "pro" side of the contgroversy, because that's just not true: the rest of the article documents verifiable fact about PRT; the only place in the article with verifiable statements of opinion is in the controversy section, and it reflects only one side of the debate. JzG, I've never tried to remedy anything except misrepresentation of what is already known, and I believe the controversy section is a misrepresentation in that only one opinion is presented. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

It's like this: Vuchic is a published professor from a department of transportation and traffic engineering. His opinion is, by Wikipedia policy, accorded some weight: what he has been quoted as saying in reliable sources counts as verifiable and having some authority. Malewicki has a couple of op-ed pieces in non-specialist journals, but has no evident authority as a transportation expert. And yet the article reflects Malewicki's vision of PRT much more than Vuchic's. It is absurd to suggest that one side of the debate has been squelched simply nbecause the extremes of speculation have been reined in. If the Malewicki side of the debate were squelched the article would describe PRT as a small-scale system with a few automatically guided vehicles running between a number of stations and a single destination point, which has in at least one case been found to be inadequate as designed so has been changed to a different system. That's not what the article says. The article describes it as a proposed system of wide-scale mass transit, which is the side you claim has been squelched. Of course the article also points out that no such system currently exists, because this is suppsoed to be an encyclopaedia. Just zis Guy you know? 15:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I was actually referring to the PRT article and J.E. Anderson above, not SkyTran and Malewicki. I don't know enough about Malewicki to speak about his qualifications. Anderson is a respected professor with a point of view, just like Vuchic, so why is Vuchic's view deemed worthy of inclusion in the PRT article while Anderson's is squelched? Especially since Anderson is much more of an expert on PRT and more qualified to give an expert opinion than Vuchic, whose analysis is very generic and high level, reflecting the fact that he's never really studied PRT in depth. Anderson has written books on PRT, and he's barely mentioned in the article, certainly not quoted. Vuchic never studied it, and he has a full paragraph quote. Is this not undue weight?

Furthermore, we've been over this before, the main article documents well-established and verifiable theory, as well as systems that have been fully engineered and tested but only lack a commercial delivery (Cabintaxi, ULTra, and possibly CVS -- Cabintaxi was intended for city-wide mass transit), as well as other systems that were fully engineered and partially tested (several, predominantly Taxi 2000). Why do you continue to dispute this? Once again I ask, is commercial implementation the only criterion for reality? Is the new Airbus jumbo jet hypothetical because it hasn't proven itself commercially yet? A Transportation Enthusiast 15:40, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we've been through this before. It's a hypothetical system (as acknowledged in the lead) whihc faces very considerable barriers to being anything else. The article describes an extent of implementation which is pretty much 100% certain not to be delivered in my lifetime or yours. Per WP:NPOV that is the balance which the article must reflect. Just zis Guy you know? 16:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

"The article describes an extent of implementation which is pretty much 100% certain not to be delivered in my lifetime or yours." - this is pure speculation on your part, with little basis in reality. The same could have been said of transcontinental railroads in the 1700s, subways in the 1800s, air travel in the early 1900s, and ubiquitous Internet connectivity as recently as the 1970s. I could probably cite dozens of other examples. History is filled with examples of systems that appeared impossibly large and complex until they were built, and I still see no evidence that PRT is somehow less feasible or more complex than any of these other systems. Just because you may have the opinion that it will not be built in our lifetime, this opinion should not be used as the basis for making decisions on the content of the article. A Transportation Enthusiast 18:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Yup, pure speculation on my part, based on my view of the likely barriers it would face from some extremely powerful (and well entrenched) vested interests should it ever be seriously porposed on that scale. But here's a crucial difference: I have not created an article saying that PRT is a Quixotic project dreamed about by people with their heads in the sand. Instead we have an article which is every bit as speculative as my comments, at root, but which I have done my best to ensure conforms to policy despite that. Just zis Guy you know? 20:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

"I have not created an article saying that PRT is a Quixotic project dreamed about by people with their heads in the sand." - thank goodness we found an admin without any preconceived biases! Come on, JzG, answer the question: what is speculative about the very real theory, research, simulation, engineering, prototypes, etc, that has gone into PRT? What is speculative about Cabintaxi, which only lacks a commercial installation? Why do you refuse to address these specific implementations? Could it be that Cabintaxi's very existence counters your biased view that PRT is nothing but a "Quixotic dream"? As for the article's level of speculation -- I have never argued that it is too speculative!. I have only argued that both sides of the debate be properly represented! Take a look at Vuchic's quote and tell me what part of it is not speculative, and yet it sits there in the criticism section unanswered as if it is unalterable fact, even though Anderson has responded to Vuchic's statements about applicability in the same journal. There is no way this can be considered NPOV by anybody except an editor who agrees with Vuchic's opinion. A Transportation Enthusiast 20:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

No, no preconceived biases whatsoever on this one. I had never given it a moment's thought before I came along to the article a few weeks back; having read the article and done some background reading I have formed a view. Is that better or worse than coming along to edit it because you already have a view? You mention Kabinentaxi: an excellent example. Was it: (a) a small-scale project with a couple of dozen vehicles running over a relatively short length of track or (b) a city-wide system with sub-second headways, many hundreds of vehicles, frequent stops, hundreds of destinations? Because the PRT article is about the latter, but the former appears to be what has been tested. Just zis Guy you know? 21:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

And until a few months ago I didn't know anything about PRT either, so I have no preconceived biases either. And, by the way, Cabintaxi was (b) with everything you listed except subsecond headways. The German government approved it as a full scale system, even if it was never realized as such. A Transportation Enthusiast 21:27, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually it was b in every respect other than all of them. Cabinentaxi had at its peak 24 vehicles operating over a relatively short track. Just zis Guy you know? 17:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

And the performance of that 24 vehicle, short track system was enough for the German government to approve it for city-wide application. In other words, the German government regulatory authorities were satisfied not only that this 24-vehicle system was ready for public use, but that the results of that 24-vehicle test would scale up to the level of city-wide application. So unlike ULTra, in which a government agency has approved a relatively small scale system for public use, Cabintaxi provides compelling evidence that at least one government agency has deemed a PRT system worthy of a large scale, city-wide deployment. A Transportation Enthusiast 10:40, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

And the real world installations are?... Oh yes, there are none. All we have is the hypothesis that it should scale, but two cases where it fell at the final hurdle due to various concerns. In other words, we still don't know for sure if it would scale. How many cities have trams, light rail, cars, underground heavy rail, bicycles? There are more working car pool schemes than working PRT schemes. Just zis Guy you know? 08:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

All true. Still, PRT is far from being anywhere near as "hypothetical" as freedom ship or space elevators. It's not like we have a fully tested and approved freedom ship test implementation sitting somewhere in Germany waiting for deployment. That's been my point all along. The systems are real. Designs have been validated. The commercial viability is the only thing that is still hypothetical. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Which is why PRT has a large article and freedom ship a small one. But commercial viability is not the only unanswered question - for example, it's not certain whether the manufacturing operation will scale, we don't know about what planning and zoning restrictions might be placed, we don't know the likely real-world costs including the inevitale over-runs, we don't know how many people would mode switch, we don't know how many vehciles would be needed to serve a given area, we don't know what the tradeoffs would be ina real system between delays and more vehicles left at or near outlying stations. There are a great number of unanswered questions, large and small, first of which is whether any city will buy into it without the financial underwriting of a government. Just zis Guy you know? 14:21, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

So you're saying that since the article would be hard to keep NPOV, we should just squelch it? Isn't that what the NPOV tag is for, not the delete tag? There are plenty of other alternatives to deleting an article. Also, I believe that most people would consider skytran not mainstream PRT, and thus the PRT article doesn't cut it. Anyway, I'm going to condense the historied version into a version at UniModal/proposed. 03:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that giving its own article automatically constitutes undue weight.

I still disagree. It is a speculative proposal, but with more basis in reality than something like a space elevator (which has an extensive, and quite interesting, article). I also agree with someone else's point that there are notable distinguishing features in this design (2-passenger, very slim vehicle profile, high speed operation, maglev, even the interesting approach to handicapped accessibility) to merit a separate article. You are of the opinion that nothing was lost in the merge, but I still feel strongly that we threw the baby away with the bathwater here. I would hope that we can revisit this issue once Fresheneesz cleans up the article in his private workspace. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:32, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

But we already have a (large) article on the concept of wide scale point-to-point PRT. This is more like having a separate article on the Acme Space Elevator, which incidentally needs some major upfront funding, please, if you would be so kind. Just zis Guy you know? 14:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Whether it is seeking funding is completely irrelevant -- as long as the technology is presented neutrally and without promotion. Trust the reader, right? Furthermore, if Acme Space Elevator had a novel approach that departed from other space elevator designs, it might merit a small article to discuss the features unique to the Acme implementation. I argue for the same thing for Skytran, as long as it's a neutral presentation and properly qualified as an immature proposal. I don't see where that would violate any official policy. A Transportation Enthusiast 15:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not irrelevant, we typically take a firmer view of commercial endeavours (for example routinely excluding links to commerical sites). But in any case, the technology is presented neutrally, that's what the PRT article is. Elevating a hypothetical implementation of the hypothetical technology to the status of its own article is undue weight. Just zis Guy you know? 16:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"we typically take a firmer view of commercial endeavours (for example routinely excluding links to commerical sites)" - is there a formal policy or guideline page that refers to this? I know that commercial endeavors are represented in some cases -- what are the criteria for inclusion/exclusion of information on commercial content?

Regarding the "commercial" aspect of SkyTran, I would argue that SkyTran is more about concept and design than commercial aspiration. Avidor has frequently pointed out that SkyTran is not actively being worked on, and although Doug Malewicki probably wouldn't turn down commercial investment, I don't think he's actively soliciting it.

"...a hypothetical implementation of the hypothetical technology..." - the technology is not hypothetical at all. This is a hypothetical implementation of real technology. FWIW. A Transportation Enthusiast 18:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Then why does the article fail to list all the wide-scale PRT implementations along the lines it describes? Answer: there are none. PRT as described in the article is a hypothetical system (read the lead sentence some time). Just zis Guy you know? 15:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

What is "hypothetical" about Cabintaxi? It's a fully developed and market-ready system. Its only failure was commercial - for various reasons the funding for a full system was cut - and apparently that's enough for you to call this system "hypothetical", even though it was tested so extensively that it received German regulatory approval for city-wide implementation. How can you still consider this system "hypothetical" with all the evidence that it was (and is) a market-ready implementation of PRT? A Transportation Enthusiast 16:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Nothing. But it bears little relation to UniModal (or the PRT article) in its scope. Just zis Guy you know? 21:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

So you concede that Cabintaxi was a fully developed system that was intended for delivery on a city-wide basis? How does that bear little relation to a PRT article that describes the technology on which Cabintaxi is based, and possible applications of that technology to a city-wide application? First, there is not very much in the article that promotes city wide application (it's mostly just a description of concepts and design) and when there is, it's properly qualified, as it should be. You act as if the PRT article as it stands today is way out of whack with PRT's current status, but it isn't, and in fact by virtue of having only a Vuchic quote and no response, it overly emphasises the view that PRT is technologically impossible. Which, conveniently, is your admitted position on the matter. A Transportation Enthusiast 21:25, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

You are starting to piss me off. Cabinentaxi was a prototype. Which of the two proposed full implementations was built? Hamburg or Detroit? I have never said anything other than that it was a working prototype - no "conession" is necessary. What is indisputably true, though, is that the article as wrtiten desribes a scale of implementation which has never been built. And were it to be built within my lifetime I will happily write the article on the implemented system, because I am a huge fan of public transport and technology. But in the mean time, PRT as described in the article is a hypothetical system - there being precisely zero city-wide implementations as described in the article, and none currently proposed, and no significant systems in current use, with no known systems under production with multiple stops and multiple destinations - and UniModal is a hypothetical example of a hypothetical technology which lacks even a prototype, it's just one man's pipe dream. I don't see why you apparently feel the need to deny this. Just zis Guy you know? 21:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

So much for the ultra-patient administrator. When faced with evidence that he's wrong, he get's "pissed off". But when lowly users like us get pissed off, we get scolded and spanked. Sigh. A Transportation Enthusiast 05:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

For the record, according to Jerry Schneider's website: "The Cabintaxi technology logged over 400,000 miles of vehicle testing and operations from 1975 to 1978. In 1977 the system completed, fleet operation endurance testing, of 7500 continuous vehicle hours, and again in 1978, of 10,000 continuous vehicle hours, for a total of 17,500 vehicle hours of fleet endurance testing... The German Government considered this PRT development effort successfully completed and ready for urban deployment". Does this sound like a "Quixotic dream" to you? Does the German government regulatory authority typically approve hypothetical systems for urban deployment? I did some more hunting around, and found more detail on the Hamburg deployment, which was approved by German authorities and would have been built except for budget cuts. The plan was for 30 miles of guideway and 73 stations. Do you dispute these facts, that Cabintaxi was fully developed and ready for large scale, city-wide deployment? A Transportation Enthusiast 05:39, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I am puzzled as to where you got the idea that I have ever claimed toi have superhuman patience. What part of "the plan was" do you fail to understand in the above paragraph? One more time: how many real-world multi-station, multi-destination PRT systems are there? Just zis Guy you know? 13:45, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

There are precisely zero real-world multi-station, multi-destination PRT systems in commercial existence today. My point is and always has been, the article very clearly states that there are no commercial systems, but to somehow extrapolate the lack of a commercial installation to the point where you call it a "Quixotic, hypothetical dream which is 100% guaranteed never to be realized" is a complete leap on your part, especially since there is very strong evidence (German regulatory approval for installation!) that at least one system had cleared every single hurdle except the budgetary one, for a city-wide, multi destination, multi-station system! Quixotic dream? Come on, JzG. On a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being completely hypothetical and 10 being fully realized in the real world, PRT as a large scale transportation system merits at least an 8 based on Cabintaxi alone. A Transportation Enthusiast 16:47, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

No, it merits about a 5, since cabintaxi was not a wide-scale system but a small-scale pilot with two dozen vehicles. Yes, the article says that. It correctly calls PRT a proposed (i.e. hypothetical, because there is no full scale real-world system and never has been) system. The number of built systems remains stubbornly at zero, as the article notes. There are many good reasons why thios may well remian the case permanently but regarless of that we have an article on PRT, which is an interesting hypothetical develoopment which might just one day become real, we have one on cabinentaxi, which was interesting and worked at least at the prototype level, but we don't have one on a completely hypothetical system which has zero physical reality and not even an identified source of funding, again perfectly reasonable. I really don't see why you have such a problem with this. Just zis Guy you know? 17:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

JzG, honestly, I'm not trying to be needlessly argumentative here. The reason I've been so stringent on this point is that in the past, you have justified decisions on content on the PRT page with nothing more than your judgement that PRT is hypothetical and, as such, deserves a certain level of treatment in the article. And my point is, your opinion that PRT is no less hypothetical than something like freedom ship is not really supported in the facts. So while you may believe that PRT is a Quixotic, pie-in-the-sky idea that has almost zero chance of large scale deployment in our lifetimes, that opinion is countered by verifiable evidence that PRT came very close to large scale, real world deployment. So while you are certainly entitled to have this opinion, it should not be used as the basis for maintaining "balance" in the article's presentation, a justification you have repeatedly used to remove verifiable content from the article (for example, Anderson's counterpoint to Vuchic's opinion on applicability). A Transportation Enthusiast 14:59, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

s/stringent/strident/. It's not just my judgment that PRT is hypothetical, it says so right there in the article. Where are the real-world examples? There are none. That's what makes it hypothetical. Sure it came close to large scale implementation once or twice, but that's it. Sure there are people out there trying to get it into lartge scale use even now - but Wikipedia cannot be part of that because per firm policy we are supposed to reflect what really is, not to promote that which we wish were so. It's really very simple. Until there is a real-world large scale implementation actually running we can't say that it's a practical large-scale transit system. So the article as it stands is right: it's a proposed transit system. Repeatedly proposed, in fact, and repeatedly rejected - and it's not Wikipedia's job to fix that. Just zis Guy you know? 08:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope, strident is too POV for an encyclopedia. :-). Seriously, I really don't have argument with your recent points about PRT not being proven in the real-world. There is some evidence that it probably would work well in cities (simulations) but no proof. No argument on that point. But everything else about PRT is real: the design and engineering has been validated by testing and approved by regulatory agencies. That's been my point all along. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Mine too. Seriously. It's unproven, a curiosity right now which might become significant in future. Just zis Guy you know? 14:21, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

"I'm saying that giving its own article automatically constitutes undue weight." - You've mentioned this a bunch of times now, but I keep reading the little blip on undue weight, and I keep noticing that its about fair representation *inside articles* not about articles in general.

Anyway, I tried scaling down and condensing the article. UniModal/proposed - I removed all the redundant and biased information I could, but

I'm sure the jobs not perfect. I'd like to hear criticism about it. Fresheneesz 20:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Criticism no. 1: It's massively too big for the actual significance of the idea. Anything longer than freedom ship is far too long for an individual theoretical implementation of a theoretical concept. Actually I don't see any need for a separate article at all anyway. Just zis Guy you know? 20:35, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"It's massively too big for the actual significance of the idea." - You're again citing undue weight. Let me quote from that blip:

• "None of this is to say that tiny-minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can give them on pages specifically devoted to them."

As for need - of course if noone wants to read an article about SkyTran, then theres no need. If noone wants to read about freedomship then theres no need. However, I know multiple people that *would* be interested in such a subject - not to mention the countless numbers who I *don't* know. I would have to assume that anyone interested in PRT would want to read the article on SkyTran.

At this point, you're making a jugement call, based on your own opinion. If I'm falsely accusing you of letting your opinion interfere with other people's work, then please cite exactly what says that SkyTran can't have a good-sized article on wikipedia. Fresheneesz 01:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

If I had a pound for every time some wikilawyer has minutely analysed the text of policy in order to justify their pet article I would be rich. Well, moderately so anyway. We have a nicely encyclopaedic article on PRT, which includes UniModal. UniModal is a hypothetical implementation of a hypothetical system, which lacks any objective reality (there is not even so much as a hundred metre test track). I stand by my judgment that a separate article - especially one such as you currently propose - constitutes undue weight. Just zis Guy you know? 07:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

But once again, that is simply your opinion. I would think that you could agree that one person's opinion does not make it policy. Fresheneesz 09:55, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

It's my opinion based on reasonably detailed knowledge of policy and precedent, and significant experience, plus having no vested interest in the article. In other words, I'm not saying simply that we should not have an article, I am telling you why, based on policy and precedent, any article we did have would be likely to be deleted - and why one should not, in fact, be created in the first place. If it is your intention to simply keep asking until you get the answer you want, I'd like you to understand that you're not going to get that from me. Just zis Guy you know? 10:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

It is still just an opinion on your part. Perhaps, if this is Wikipedia policy with respect to such topics, it should be properly codified in policy somewhere. Otherwise, it's just your word against ours. Also, I fail to see how any of us has a "vested interest" in this article. We find it interesting technology, and worthy of an article. As far as I know, Fresheneesz is not affiliated with SkyTran in any way, and neither am I. A Transportation Enthusiast 14:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

As I keep telling you, it already is codified in policy: WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:RS, WP:NOT. We don't need specific guidance to exclude individual pieces of speculation because the existing guidance is quite sufficient. Just zis Guy you know? 15:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment are you guys going to publish this novel anytime soon? A Transportation Enthusiast, no offense, but JzG is who you ask to explain policy to you, not some guy in a bar you can argue policy with. He has done so. Say "thanks" and stop re-hashing already answered questions. Take your arguments about how wrong policy is, or how unclear, to the relevant policy talk page. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, if you're going to keep arguing, keep comments concise - this string is getting ugly. Fresheneesz 00:27, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

"no offense, but JzG is who you ask to explain policy to you, not some guy in a bar you can argue policy with" - my arguments with JzG are mainly about the content of his edits on the PRT page -- content, not policy. If an admin is going to be doing large scale edits of a page, then it's appropriate to debate him on content just as we would with any other editor. A Transportation Enthusiast 05:49, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

The PRT page is much improved since JzG's arrival. If something is so obvious, people (including JzG) will adopt it in due course. Personal attacks do not help, and strident supporters of any particular approach are always open to suspicions of MPOV. I'm reminded of the revolutionary scientific geniuses of the past. Why didn't people believe them? It's because for every visionary, there were a thousand crackpots. PRT may well be the visionary solution, but this isn't proven to be viable to enough outsiders yet. With increased congestion in cities, time should be on its side. Ironically, a completely fictional article like spoo has no difficulty - verifiable, NPOV and no controversial claims to being fact. A redraft of Unimodal as a piece of science fiction may have more luck. Perhaps you could discuss something along these lines for the this article ie remove any contentious claims of feasibility, and treat it as purely an interesting concept which has achieved enough credibility to be studied in detail. Stephen B Streater 07:30, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

UniModal

Since the previous header got kinda gunked up, I'll put this here. I removed about half the content that was in UniModal/proposed and put it on the discussion page. I removed anything I thought had questionable verifiability, and anything that hinted at advertisement or POV.

As I see it, the page now has no issues with the policies you cited: WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:RS, and WP:NOT. I must have gone wrong somewhere again, tell me where that is? Fresheneesz 02:54, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

It has issues with WP:NPOV by virtue of giving undue weight to a single hypothetical implementation of a "proposed" (i.e. hypothetical) mode of transit. There are problems with WP:V because it is essentially fictional so there is no reliable coverage of its strengths and weaknesses, distinct from those of PRT as a whole, in the literature. It has issues with WP:NOR in the same way that Aetherometry does: it is one man's pet project so 100% of the verifiable information on it emanates from one man. It is also a POV fork of PRT, where the concept of PRT is discussed in more robust terms: no detailed criticisms can be added to UniModal without violating WP:NOR because it is not widely recognised as a practical proposition, being still on the drawing board, so there is no prototype, no detailed design available for critique and so on. Everything which reliably can be said about it already appears to be in the PRT article. Just zis Guy you know? 20:35, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

As I have said before, you may have your own personal definition of "undue weight", but wikipedia's policy does not extend into the area you seem to wish it to. As for verifiability, there are parts about it that are verifiable - the fact that it doesn't have a physical manifestation does not mean that its ideas are not verifiable. Also, there *is* no coverage of its strengths and weaknesses in the proposed article now.

No original research refers to "unpublished sources", especially that of the editors own mind. SkyTran and Unimodal are published, in more that just Malawiki's two sites. Also, it is not one man's pet project. Malawiki has many people working with him, and many other enthusiasts - be them crazy or not. Of course, the idea is his, and no sources can verify an idea, can they? SkyTran has had a good amount of media coverage, but all the reported information obviously comes from the group thats designing SkyTran. If its ever built, it will still originate from one man's idea

A point of view fork is a content fork created to escaped NPOV guidelines. The page I'm now proposing is designed specifically with NPOV in mind, and thus it is not a POV fork. "no detailed design available for critique" - I would argue that the design is fairly in depth and specific.

I'm sorry to some crazy wiki-lawyer, but I don't understand your interpretations of these policies. No offense, but it seems like you're twisting policies into what you want them to mean, not what they are. Btw, is there anywhere I can bring this proposed article to a group that can come to a consensus as to whether or not it should be a real article? Fresheneesz 07:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

We deleted aetherometry as original research because the published sources all originated form the same tiny group - it was not considered a valid enough theory to justify rebuttal in the scientific journals, who simply wrote it off as crank nonsense. So it is with SkyTran: all the discussion emanates from the same source. It has to, because there is not even a prototype for others to review. As Malewicki himself said, "there ain't no such thing". So, unlike Cabinentaxi where we can see the hardware, and unlike the concept of PRT where there is informed debate, in the case of UniModal I see nothing but a barrow being pushed. You have already brought this to the attention of the admins, the mediation cabal, AfD and DRV. No I won't suggest any more places where you can pursue your policy of keep asking until you get the answer you want. Just zis Guy you know? 09:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the proposed Unimodal article is well written and would make a nice newpaper article - perhaps in New Scientist. The WP:SOFTWARE debate is possibly relevant here. With software, having articles written by independent people is seen as good. Having a lot of users is seen as good. Having original software is seen as good. Articles with a single company/commercial interest (as opposed to, say customer interest) can attract scepticism. Unimodal would appear to score positively on press, but negatively on the narrowness of source of information for any articles. But looking closely, one sees that the overriding assumption behind the guidelines for eligibility for a software article is the actual existence of the software. There is a lot of vapourware which could be released any time now and which will transform the world, but none of this is eligible. The consensus is to select from the mass of existing software that which is sufficiently notable to be included here. One view is that less notable (but existing) software can get a mention in other articles, though even this is subject to debate on the grounds that if software was notable enough it would have its own article. I haven't formulated a new suggestion yet, but be aware that in other areas, the barrier for inclusion is much higher. Stephen B Streater 10:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

You draw a valid parallel. The fundamental problem is that - however nicely written the article is - we have no objective basis on which to gauge the subject because the sole valid source of information is its proponents, on the grounds that the project has no existence in reality. Just zis Guy you know? 14:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

"aetherometry ... was not considered a valid enough theory to justify rebuttal in the scientific journals, who simply wrote it off as crank nonsense" - but SkyTran is considered valid enough to be considered by places like Popular Science. Its not a very clear comparison in that respect. "Malewicki himself said...." - he said that 5 years ago.

"...keep asking until you get the answer you want" - When I previously brought this to the attention of admins, I foolishly brought under the pretense of improper process. I asked so I could get an actual objective look at the new article, rather than a whole lot of ad hoc attacks exchanged between you, me, and ATE.

Fresheneesz 03:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

So you've tried the admins, DRV, mediation, various talk pages - and got the same answer every time. You've said you give up, but plainly you have not given up. And back in the real world there is still no such thing as UniModal, as Malewicki acknowledges. Just zis Guy you know? 08:22, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I guess I un-gave-up. Now you're ignoring answers I've previously given. I tried admins etc on the wrong basis, as I said in last comment. Also, you're still taking Malewicki's 5yo statment and using it as if he said it yesterday. Fresheneesz 22:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think I'll re-give-up, I really can't see myself changing your mind. I'll have to get a consensus over you. Fresheneesz 22:06, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Caption

The caption in PRT: "A detractor's PRT simulation" didn't seem POV to me.

The article says, for example, "Despite the persistent and fervent claims of its promoters, repeated attempts to implement a working PRT system, even in very small-scale scenarios, have invariably failed". Sounds like they are a detractor. And the caption they use for this image in their own article is: "Simulation of an elevated PRT guideway for Minneapolis curving over an intersection – and this is a single-track segment, without emergency walkway or drip pan. [Simulation: Ken Avidor]". So it seems like a PRT simulation. Hence "A detractor's PRT simulation".

All the information in the current caption is available in the footnote. What is most important: that a Raython design imposed on the image, or that the picture was designed to promote a message? To me, NPOV indicates the latter.

And I like short captions - one line preferably. I was considering "Detractor's simulation", but managed to fit a few more words in to pad it out. Stephen B Streater 10:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

It is a sceptic's view, not a detractor's view. The word detractor is the bit I have a problem with. Just zis Guy you know? 13:09, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I understood that they were actually detractors, having a vested interst in PRT failing. But I'm happy with sceptic. I'll see if it fits on one line still... Stephen B Streater 13:42, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, LRN are proponents of a directly competing technology (light rail). In fact, if I recall correctly, the end of the Cyberspace Dream article has a blurb which actually promotes light rail. "Skeptic" implies neutrality, "detractor" implies opposition, and LRN is definitely opposed to PRT. JzG, if you are so adamant about calling those who support PRT "proponents", you should not object to calling someone who objects to PRT (especially due to competitive reasons) a "detractor" or some other equally descriptive word (maybe "opponent"). I think it should be changed back to either "detractor" or "opponent". A Transportation Enthusiast 18:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

To be a proponent of one kind of transit does not make one a detractor of another, even if one is an opponent of those who promote it. Scepticism is the default according to the scientific method. Just zis Guy you know? 20:57, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Read that article, as well as the whole set of "gadgetbahn" articles, and tell me that they are not opponents of PRT. If a site as strongly opposed to PRT as LRN cannot be listed as opponents, then we should remove all instances of "PRT proponent" from the article and replace them with "PRT expert". A Transportation Enthusiast 23:27, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Opponent and detractor are also two different words. Perhaps we could call the Skytran picture the work of a PRT zealot? Thatw ould also fit the observed facts. But we don't use loaded language where more neutral words are available. But the article should be illustrated by a photograph of Cabinentaxi, being the onyl system which has come anywhere close to widespread use as yet, rather than the whimsies of one side or the other. Just zis Guy you know? 08:36, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, detractor is perhaps too harsh for an encyclopedia, but opponent seems about right (and it balances "proponent" used elsewhere). I also agree, I'd like to see a photo of Cabintaxi in there. Jerry Schneider has a bunch of photos on different pages (see this Google image search). I don't know what, if any, restrictions there are. A Transportation Enthusiast 13:48, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

UniModal

JzG, me and Stephen B. Streater have spent a very long time making sure all of the information is good. May I ask that you please discuss your edits, and do not make large revisions like that without discussion. I really don't want another go-nowhere battle again. Fresheneesz 23:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

No, Stephen has spent a long time trying to get you to relaise that Wiki[pedia is not a soapbox. I have discussed this with others. Just zis Guy you know? 23:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

What others? Discussed what? Discussion belongs on the page's discussion page, not on some obscure admin lounge.

In any case, I have moved some material to the discussion page header "unverified... information". Please discuss things you want to remove, there isn't *that* much there that wasn't in your edit. I really want a civil discussion, and I am very open to your opinions and knowlege about wikipedia policy. However, I can't accept a simple "this page is too big" without seeing some new consensus about that. Fresheneesz 01:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

"No, Stephen has spent a long time trying to get you to relaise.." - Are you trying to say that Stephen Streater hasn't been working a lot on Unimodal? Cause if you were, you would be very wrong. I don't understand why you like to make comments that imply either things you don't mean, or things that simply aren't true. Can you please try to cooperate, people really would be much more comfortable if you did that. Fresheneesz 01:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

What I mean to say is this: UniModal is fantasy. No patents, no prototypes, no funding. Large articles on fantasy projects violate WP:NPOV#Undue weight. Stephen has been very patient with you. So have I. But this constant puffing of a non-existent product has to stop. Just zis Guy you know? 07:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you've missed my comment on the UniModal discussion page which said ": This page says theres multiple patents." Stephen has been *cooperating* with me. If hes been simply "patient" and duping me into believing that hes cooperating, then he did a damn good job. You seem to think that your time is better spent bickering with us about your blatantly biased edits. I just don't understand why you can't cooperate so that we can all agree on what goes online and what doesn't. For this reason, I respect Stephen and give him my full trust. But I guess i'm one of the few who don't trust you. And I hope you can see why I don't. Fresheneesz 10:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, I'd like an answer to this question "What others? Discussed what?" Fresheneesz 10:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Others. This article. And here's what your link says:

• A USA Utility Patent.
• A USA Design Patent that is now obsolete because we no longer run the SkyTran on top of the monorail track.
• A USA Trademark for the now obsolete "People Pod" name.
• The new name SkyTran has been trademark in the transportation systems classification on a worldwide basis.
• Four new Provisional Patent applications.
• Numerous trade secrets under development that will become USA Provisional, then worldwide Utility and Design Patents. These are in the specific areas of the three important low cost unloading and loading station concepts; the more user friendly, lower cost SkyTran vehicle itself; the low cost support pole and track fabrication and erection details; and control system details.

So: one patent, one expired patent, some pending patents (which may or may not be granted) and some trademarks. Which leaves us back where we started: it's a fantasy. Just zis Guy you know? 12:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

"Others. This article." - I'm actually just asking for a link or two to where it was discussed. I'm working on getting actual patent numbers, as the page i cited is at least 3 years old. Fresheneesz 20:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

See WikiEN-l and my inbox :-) Just zis Guy you know? 22:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how to find your inbox from there, I'm sure you could be more specific. Fresheneesz 01:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

If my inbox was publicly viewable I'd be quite worried. Like I said, I discussed it. If this had been on Wiki I'd have linked it or provided diffs, but it wasn't. But remember the discussions at prior AfD and DRV: fictional or speculative topics must be unambiguously labelled as such (which it now is). The short article we had last time I saw it (with Stephen's changes) was acceptable to me, the concept is noised about enough to justify an article I think, even though I'd prefer a redirect. It's a political concept and widely portrayed as more developed than it is, e.g. the New Haven Advocate piece which says "these pods exist", which by any normal definition of the word exist they do not, so requires careful handling to avoid misleading people into thinking it is anything other than a theoretical concept at this point. But the current article is broadly OK. Just zis Guy you know? 08:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not a political concept. A Transportation Enthusiast 10:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course it is. A substantial number of the references "out there" are to political campaigns. Just zis Guy you know? 11:12, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Simply a semantic argument, its concept is based purely in science, and mostly in time-tested theories. However, it is an idea that most definately has and requires political issues.

On the inbox thing, when you said "you've talked to people" I thought you meant that you had people's support. Its fine that you talk to people privately about wikipedia things, but its not something you can use as support, since its not verifiable. Fresheneesz 21:45, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Just remind me again, where is the UniModal test track? And which cities have large-scale PRT systems as described in the PRT article? Just zis Guy you know? 22:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

None of that is relavent to anything I'm talking about. I really don't understand why you seem to like intentionally aggrivating people. Fresheneesz 03:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Because I am a rouge admin and it's part of the job to go around aggravating people. You might not think the objective reality of UniModal is relevant, but in the context of an encyclopaedia, I suggest that it is. And most of all, it is vitally important that we do not mislead people into thinking that UniModal is anything other than one man's dream. No backer + no prototype + no similar systems in use = no objective reality. Just zis Guy you know? 08:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Personal rapid transit/UniModal

Just wondering why you deleted this page. It seems to me as that either its history should be merged into UniModal or its history should at least be preserved at the resulting redirect (for GFDL reasons). In any case, I think its relatively lengthy history should be available somewhere other than Special:Undelete. AmiDaniel (talk) 04:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

UniModal was rewritten from scratch from original sources, I understand, and the subpage was an unlikely search term. Just zis Guy you know? 10:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Given that the history isn't deleted from record, it might be nice to have a link on the Talk:UniModal discussion page to the history of Personal rapid transit/UniModal. If a non-admin is interested, why not give them the history? Fresheneesz 20:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but redirects from unlikely typos are typically kept if they have useful page histories. As I understand, parts of this subpage were merged back into the main article, which means that the page history must be available somewhere in order to remain GFDL-compliant. And the 66 item page history is quite interesting, with edit wars and such. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and restore the redirect for these reasons, and I'd prefer that if you still think it should be deleted you would take it through WP:RfD. Thanks. AmiDaniel (talk) 20:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

<shrug>. I merged the history. All fixed now :-) Just zis Guy you know? 11:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Proof for "the majority view on PRT"?

JzG, on the UniModal talk page, you state the following (emphasis mine):

"WP: NPOV absolutely requires that we show the balance of informed opinion, which means that the sceptical view must be given more prominence if it is the majority view (as it is, with PRT, for good reasons)."

On what evidence do you base your assertion that skepticism is the majority view on PRT? Shouldn't there be a verifiable evidence requirement for making such a statement? In my research on PRT, I've found that there is almost no skepticism on PRT from reliable sources, so your statement that skepticism is the majority view is not supported. There are perhaps dozens of PRT professionals that have worked (and published) on PRT, but I count only three professionals (Vuchic, Setty and Demery) who have come out publicly against the technology. Of these, only Vuchic's is from a reliable source, and he's only published two short essays on the topic. By this standard, the skeptical view is very much the minority view.

If you have more reliable sources that support the skeptical view, then you should cite them; otherwise the current skeptical tone of the article is completely unjustified. A Transportation Enthusiast 18:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Compare the amount of discussion of PRT with the amount of discussion of light rail, tramways, heavy rail, heavy underground rail. Just remind me again, where are the cities which have wide-scale PRT implementations as described in the article? How many systems are currently operational? Whichj corporations are backing UniModal? Where is the UniModal test track? Scepticism is the default in the scientific method. Just zis Guy you know? 22:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, skepticism is the default, but only in the absence of verifiable evidence in support of a theory. When there are reams of independently conducted research that support a theory, then skepticism is no longer the default. PRT has been studied, modeled, designed, engineered, tested and prototyped several times over, by independent groups on 3 different continents over 30 years. Verifiable proof of this is in abundance: to the point where books have been written, regulatory approval has been granted, and passengers have taken rides on prototype systems.

Against all of this evidence, you have... (drum roll please)... two high level essays by Vuchic, and the "Gadgetbahn" article by Setty & Demery, none of which go into sufficient detail to build a solid skeptic's case. After thirty years of research into PRT, there's not one verifiable technical debunking of PRT, its underlying theory, its technology, or its feasibility. Or, if there is one, I certainly haven't found it (and I've looked).

The only thing lacking is a commercial installation. And even in that case, there is verifiable evidence that the lack of commercial installation is caused by a variety of factors, none of which is evidence if PRT's inherent infeasibility. So, even for the biggest knock against PRT, its lack of a running system, the evidence doesn't imply that PRT is unworkable. Against this lack of a running system is the German government's regulatory approval of Cabintaxi for city-wide deployment -- regulatory agencies don't approve concepts.

Furthermore, discussion of light rail, heavy rail, etc, is not in itself evidence of PRT's feasibility. Of course those systems are discussed more, because they've been around longer and have public installations. But is this science or a popularity contest?

Your position that skepticism is the majority view on PRT is unsupportable. A Transportation Enthusiast 23:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Put youself in the position of the reader: their local politician is presenting PRT as an alternative to, say, light rail: you come to Wikipedia to look at the relative merits of the two technologies. Do we say that PRT is a well-tried wide-scale transport system? No, of course we can't. That would be a lie. It is a hypothetical wide-scale transportation system which has had some moderately successful small-scale trials. It probably could work as a wide-scale system, but it is impossible to say so with any confidence because there is no wide-scale system in operation anywhere in the world, so we don't know what the real-world problems would be. It's really very simple. And that's what the article usually says, although the occasional bit of puffery finds its way back in (like describing as "inherent" properties which none of the test systems exhibit). Almost all discussion of publioc transport in the political and technical world is about other systems. That is what I mean by the majority view. Scepticism is the default in the scientific method. And yes, there is no verifiable evidence that wide-scale PRT can work, and there is even less that UniModal can work, since it uses a number of technologies that are essentially untried in this kind of application (as well as there being no data on which to base an assessment of the likely success fo a two-passenger pod; at least one system abandoned small pods in trials). Just zis Guy you know? 08:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What a politician thinks when he reads this article is irrelevant. What kind of a statement is that? Are we an encyclopedia or a political platform?

We should be reporting what is verifiable and trust the reader. Your position is unsupportable in reliable sources, and in fact the opposite view is actually well supported. Everything else, including political concerns, is irrelvant. Period. No amount of negotiating will change this. Why do you keep battling this obvious point? A Transportation Enthusiast 10:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What is verifiable in respect of UniModal is that no prototype exists, no backers have been found, and no system of this type has even been piloted. What is verifiable in repsect of PRT in general is that there have beeen a few small-scale trials, but that no large scale systems (of the type which dominate the article) exist, no large-scale systems are in the process of being built, ridership forecasts are speculative, many of the costs are speculative and several of the technical concepts have yet to be tried or, in some cases, approved by regulators. PRT is a politicised concept which lies at the fringes of transport thinking. As long as we don't imply otherwise, we won't mislead the reader. WP:NPOV#Undue weight applies. Maybe you could try working on some other content areas and get a bit more perspective. Just zis Guy you know? 10:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What is verifiable on PRT is that it has, on at least on occasion, received regulatory approval for city-wide deployment. This is about as reliable a source you can get: a regulatory body from a trusted government approving it for installation in one of its cities. Do you deny this evidence?

"PRT is a politicised concept which lies at the fringes of transport thinking." - politicized by whom? By opponents? The only political controversy I've seen on PRT is generated by people opposed to the technology.

And why are you focusing on transit thinking rather than verifiable sources? How do you know what transit professionals are thinking? This is irrelevant for an encyclopedia. Furthermore, even if we do focus on transit thinking, PRT has been "thought about" in many major cities: just in the US: Chicago, Cincinnati, Seattle, San Jose, Houston (I think)... and there may be others. Why are reliable sources (German gov't approval) insufficient on one side of the argument, while the perceived thoughts of transit professionals is more than sufficient for the other side? Look at the verifiable facts on PRT as a technology, JzG. You need to get beyond your assumption that PRT is not viable. A Transportation Enthusiast 11:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What's been approved is irrelevant. No city-wide implementation has ever been built, therefore any speculation re ridership etc. is exactly that - speculation. Wide-scale PRT is therefore untried. PRT is politicised. You need only look at the debates on the Talk pages. It is proposed by politicians in opposition to other schemes. As far as I can tell every proposal in recent years has come from politicians, not from transport planners. The fact that it has been "thought about" but not iplemented does more to undermine its status as a realistic idea than to support it - and those doing the thinking were, in the main, politicians, which is the whole point. So, I have looked at the verifgiable facts. The verifiable facts are that PRT is a small-scale transportation systemn which has been tried in a few places with mixed success, and which is stated to be capable of scaling to a wide-scale implementation, but this is untested. Please do feel free to cite any sources which contradict this. Just zis Guy you know? 11:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• "It is proposed by politicians in opposition to other schemes." - please cite verifiable evidence of this.
• "As far as I can tell every proposal in recent years has come from politicians, not from transport planners." - Care to elaborate on specifics of that statement? I see no basis for this statement. In Chicago/RTA, Raytheon was at the forefront. In Minnesota, it was mainly JE Anderson and Taxi 2000. At Heathrow and Dubai, the political presence is apparently non-existent. Almost all political controversy on PRT is generated by those in opposition. Look at the facts. And BTW, since when are we using talk pages as a source?

A Transportation Enthusiast 11:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• What, so now you're saying it's not even proposed? Delete it, then. Just zis Guy you know? 11:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? Why do you talk in riddles? A Transportation Enthusiast 12:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

YOu asked me to cite the claim that it is proposed by politicians in opposition to toher schemes (a claim which I thought was amply justified from what we have seen linked from local press coverage in the talk page over time), but you appeared to dispute this. I am prepared to believe that it is no longer being proposed, but I'd want some evidence. Just zis Guy you know? 13:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

"Local press coverage"? Are you referring to the links posted by Ken Avidor? If so, check them out. Most of the articles he refers to are written by Avidor himself -- and are almost invariably blog entries or op-ed pieces. Very little is verifiable, other than the fact that some politicians in Minnesota have supported PRT as part of their platform (just like some support buses, some support trains, and some support highways).

And it seems you are alluding to the fact that politicians are involved in the selection of PRT... but that's true of any transit system. Nothing specific to PRT or UniModal there. That's a fact of life in our society; local transit is almost exclusively a government-driven industry. But then why single out UniModal or PRT? Why not say "Like all topics involving public transit, UniModal/PRT is highly politicized and controversial"?

One other minor quibble: when I contested your statement that PRT is proposed "by politicians in opposition to other schemes", you automatically assumed I was inferring that there are no proposals at all. Why can't there be politicians who are not in opposition to other schemes per se, but just prefer PRT? Avidor turns everything into an absolute: "you're with us or you're against us" - he cannot conceive of someone who would prefer PRT without being rabidly opposed to other forms of transit. But most people are more complex than the caricature that Avidor portrays. Just because they are interested in investigating PRT doesn't mean they hate all other transit -- even if they happen to tout the perceived benefits of PRT over those other modes (which Avidor automatically equates to "bashing transit"). BTW, I only bring up Avidor because you referred to his talk page arguments, not because I'm trying to resurrect that war... A Transportation Enthusiast 16:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

You appear to be bringing your battles to Wikipedia. I don't care about your fight with Avidor, I do care about the neutrality of the project. See Stephen's comments on Talk:UniModal. Just zis Guy you know? 16:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What happens outside of Wikipedia is irrelevant to what happens here. You brought up Avidor's political claims from the talk page, not me. A Transportation Enthusiast 16:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is here to document the real world as it is, not as we would like it to be (i.e. in Wikipedia, as in the real world, PRT must be documented as an essentially unproven concept). Battkles which exist in the real world, such as the one between you and Avidor (which existed wel before I came alone) need to stay outside Wikipedia, but Wikipedia can note that such battles exist, and document them. Unless you are advocating changing the various articles to pretend that wide-scale PRT is anything other than a theoretical concept at present, I don't see why we should have any problem. Just zis Guy you know? 19:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe the point is that we should not pretend PRT exists in any useful form yet. However, we should also not pretend we know that its a scam and that sceptics have debunked it. There are crackpot PRT critics, and also crackpot PRT proponents, and neither is a good source for the project. However, there are a good amount of reliable sources that state without clear POV what PRT is - those are the sources we should use. Fresheneesz 20:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

We're not saying it's a scam, and never have. We do indeed cite the reliable sources, and we steer clear of endorsing (as opposed to reporting) their speculation. What precisely needs fixing? Just zis Guy you know? 20:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

There are many fixes I've put in over the last few months that were based on verifiable evidence from reliable sources, but you reverted them. In some cases, your only explanation for reverting was that the article needed to be "balanced". So you revert my (and others') edits because they do not mesh with your view that the article should sway to the skeptical, based on your assertion that skepticism is the "majority view" on PRT. My point is, this assertion is unsupported by verifiable evidence. PRT skepticism is sparse, mostly unscientific and almost completely derived from unreliable sources, and yet you still believe that skepticism is the majority view. Then, you use that viewpoint to justify reverting good edits in the name of balance. That's what needs fixing. There are probably five different sets of changes that I made (in the past) that you reverted with this flawed justification, and I believe should be re-inserted. A Transportation Enthusiast 02:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Who is "we"? You may not have used the word "scam", but Avidor certainly did - and you have used the word "Fantasy" [2]. I would like to know what "we" you're talking about. When I said we, I implied that we collectively should do something - you're using we as if we all *did* (or did not) do something. What needs fixing is the removal of reliable verified information, when it conflicts with an unverifiable viewpoint - ie POV. Also, unverifiable POV information like the junk you put up about "coverage" that "presents a false picture of its state of development". Sources aren't things to point fingers at and say "ahHa, see. What i say is right." They're things to point fingers at and say "ahHa, they say this!".

Its very clear that you have bias against PRT and thats fine. But every once in a while, your edits show that what you really care about, is that your POV is supported - and that it has equal space as verifiable (and admittedly optimistic) science. Fresheneesz 07:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

What is very clear is that if PRT succeeds, it will take cars off the roads, and JzG will benefit. So I think what is clear to you may be a misreading of the situation. Stephen B Streater 08:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you've noticed, but I am not Ken Avidor. My political campaigning is entirely restricted to cyclists' rights issues, and I have never engaged in public debate on any mass transit scheme. I have used the word fantasy in connection with UniModal, because that's what it is at present. Fantasies have been known to become reality, this one hasn't yet. What I care about is WP:NPOV and particularly the section on undue weight. I have no bias of which I'm aware against PRT, I do have a biasd against presenting as real things which are, as yet, only theoretical conepts - like wide-scale PRT, which does not, as of this time, exist anywhgere in the world (despite some pretty active lobbying and some serious government funding). What I find frustrating is the "he who is not for me is agin' me" mindset of some enthusiastic proponents of particular concepts: more energy is spent in telling me why I am an anti-foo bigot (despite my usually having no previous involvement with the issue) than in actually addressing problems. I've never said I'm always right, and I've been known to change my mind, but rarely in response to dogmatic assertions. I think it was Stephen who said that if your evidence is not accepted, rather than arguing the toss, bring better evidence.

Stephen, by contrast, seems to understand exactly the problem with things like the cost estimates for PRT, especially UniModal. Ths source for them is not reliable in that it's a back of an envelope figure from someone trying to sell something which has never been subjected to rigorous peer-review, let alone established from real-world projects. The only wide-scale project that got anywhere near implementation required (as usual for any public transport project) large scale subsidy. It is a minority point of view which has not been tested sufficiently to balance it with anything else. Just zis Guy you know? 08:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

And another thing...

OK, we seem to be arguing in circles here. Let me take a step back and clarify where I'm coming from. JzG, I agree with much of what you've done. I agree with your mistrust of cost figures, and I can identify with your natural scientific skepticism. Perhaps 95% of what you've done on the PRT pages, I have agreed with. You are, by all accounts, an intelligent and reasonable editor.

But, there is the remaining 5% of edits that several of us believe were incorrect. When we tried to correct them, you reverted, many times without comment, sometimes with comments that show a basic mistrust of our motives as "proponents", and in a few cases, even going so far as accuse us of disingenuousness. In all cases, you seem to be making the following assumptions:

1. That PRT is a fantasy. There is, perhaps, an element of PRT that is fantasy. But, by and large, PRT on the whole is not fantasy. It's legitimate, promising technology that has not yet found a market, and may never find a market. But it's a real technology nonetheless. Cabintaxi and ULTra are real. CVS was real. Taxi 2000 lacked a full prototype, but had some very good engineering. Raytheon was real, though failed miserably. Just because these products failed in the marketplace, this does not invalidate all of the technology and verifiable research that went into them.
2. That, as fantasy, the article must sway to the skeptical view. This may be true for some aspects of PRT, such as cost and projected ridership, but these are already presented with a healthy dose of skepticism. But the whole article is littered with a skeptical tone even for the aspects of PRT that are not in question. And there is some skepticism (Vuchic's essay, the OKI report) that is basically not much more than opinions from opponents, opinions that have been answered by equally valid proponent opinions. You have repeatedly defended opponent skepticism while vehemently opposing any view that counters that opinion, all in the name if this skeptical balance that you believe must be preserved at all costs.

Now, we can go in circles here and basically continue to argue on stuff we already agree on, like the speculative nature of cost estimates. Or we can move on and start debating how to fix the article in such a way that our valid concerns are properly addressed in a neutral way. In the past, JzG, you have not always given us the benefit of the doubt in our edits and in our points, and you've made some mistakes based on your inherent POV against PRT (not extreme, but definitely there) and your distrust of our motives. What I'm hoping is that we can move beyond that now, that you trust that none of us are here to sell a product, and instead of comment-less reverts and distrust, we work together to address the few remaining concerns on the article. A Transportation Enthusiast 11:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

To clarify: in my view, UniModal is a fantasy; wide-scale PRT is a fantasy (call it a hypothetical concept if you think fantasy is pejorative; I don't, but my use of English is quirky). Small-scale PRT trials are not fantasy, of course. Projected costs, ridership, functionality etc. are highly speculative. s for the rest, I'm an electrical engineer by training, I believe it when I can see it. And I don't believe in transistors either, anything less than half an amp is leakage :-) So, overall the tone of the PRT has been broadly acceptable to me for some time, in that it is unambiguously clear that anything on the scale described is essentially untried and speculative. The current UniModal article is about as big as I would be prepared to support (if we must have an article at all, which is debatable given that Malewicki does not appear to be independently notable and this concept has no reality you can actually touch). Your point about opinions from opponents largely ignores the fact that most of the article is itself just opinions from porponents, because the concept is untried on any large scale. Just zis Guy you know? 13:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

"Your point about opinions from opponents largely ignores the fact that most of the article is itself just opinions from porponents" - this is dead wrong, and I am prepared to prove this on a point by point basis. Everything that can be considered "opinion" or "speculative" is already identified as such, except the skeptical opinions, which are presented as unassailable facts.

Please cite specific examples of text that you believe are "just opinions from proponents" and which are not identified as speculative or otherwise open to skepticism, and I will cite the scientific justification for those points. A Transportation Enthusiast 18:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

They are gone, thanks to a lot of work some time ago on PRT and heavy pruning of UniModal. I can't understand why you are still arguing the toss, frankly. Like I say, the articles right now seem acceptably neutral, give or take the occasional edit which soon gets discussed and balanced. Can't you find some other transportation articles to be enthusiastic about? Just zis Guy you know? 18:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

So, on one hand you say "Your point about opinions from opponents largely ignores the fact that most of the article is itself just opinions from porponents", in order to justify the suppression of viewpoints opposing the skepticism.

When I ask you for specific example of these opinions, you say the opposite, that "They are gone, thanks to a lot of work some time ago on PRT..."

Which is it? You can't have it both ways. If the pro opinions are there, then point them out to me. If they are not there, then the article is biased to the skeptical view by virtue of the existence of skeptical opinion. You continue to talk in circles here, while ignoring the fact that verifiable information is being arbitrarily suppressed.

And, in case you haven't noticed, I've ignored your pleas to get off onto a different topic. Right now, this is my focus, and until this is fixed to my satisfaction I will not pursue other topics. If that gives someone the impression that I am POV pushing, then that's their problem. Frankly, it shouldn't matter at all who I am or what else I edit, as long as what I am saying is verifiable. A Transportation Enthusiast 19:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Right, so: you're not going to give it a rest, you're going to keep arguing over what is already done and seems to meet with general approval, you're not going to consider looking at any other articles, you're just goign to - what? stick around moaning that PRT is always the bridesmaid and never the bride? I think I have suddenly stopped caring. Just zis Guy you know? 21:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

"Right, so: you're not going to give it a rest" - oh now you want me to give it a rest. As soon as you have no more answers to my questions about "article balance".

"seems to meet with general approval" - even though Fresheneesz, Skybum, and I have disagreed for months on many of your edits. But I guess our collective judgement is not worth that of one admin's.

I've presented you with a great deal of evidence that most aspects of PRT are based in solid scientific reality, and I've also shown you that the skeptical evidence is all but non-existent. Still, you cling to your unsupportable views, and now that I've backed you into a logical corner, you claim that I'm just whining and you don't care anymore.

If you want to stop caring, go ahead. I'd like to work with you to make this article right, but if it has to be done without your blessing, so be it. A Transportation Enthusiast 22:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Edited any other subjects lately? I have. Oh, and I bougt a house and buried my sister. Busy, busy, busy... Just zis Guy you know? 22:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I know you are busy, and I'm terribly sorry for the loss of your sister. (I really am. I hope and pray that you and your whole family are recovering from your tragic loss). But it doesn't change the facts, JzG, so if you feel like you don't want to be involved on this page anymore, then let us and Stephen handle it. You don't have to be concerned about POV creep with Stephen keeping watch. A Transportation Enthusiast 22:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I've barely been near it for weeks, I have no idea why you are here making this song and andce about it. I really do urge you to find some other content to spend time on - this article is fixed to a fair standard and does not need multiple editors fiddling about with it the whole time. Let it settle for a while and do some work on one of the many other transportation articles. Just zis Guy you know? 22:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

If you have no idea, then you haven't been reading the talk page. You still refuse to acknowledge that several of us have problems with it, even though several of us have echoed the same concers. These are not major problems, but problems nonetheless. Why do you insist that your judgement is infallible even though there are several of us who agree there are flaws in the article? Really, man, you insist that I should let it go, but maybe you're the one who should let it go, and let someone who isn't so bogged down in other issues (i.e. Stephen) handle it? My intent is not to be a pest here, I just think there are problems with the article that you refuse to let us fix.

As for me editing other articles, I will simply say I choose not to. I'm not interested in becoming a Wikistar here. I just came across this page and I'm interested in getting it right. If another article piques my interest, I'll start editing it. But I'm not going to edit a bunch of articles just to prove that I'm not pushing a POV on the PRT pages. A Transportation Enthusiast 23:45, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Do feel free to point me to the diffs where I have said my judgment is infallible. Maybe slightly less fallible than that of people with a barrow to push, but infallible? I dopn't think I've ever said that, and I've often said the opposite. Congratulations, though - I think the verbiage regarding PRT on my Talk page has now exceeded that on Jason Gastrich. Just zis Guy you know? 10:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Go back and look at this very discussion: You keep insisting there's nothing wrong with the article, even though at least 3 of us have disagreed with this repeatedly, both here and on the PRT talk page. Sure, you haven't said the words "I'm infallible" (which would be ridiculous) but you sure have acted that way. The evidence is there, most recently in last week's mass reverts in which you didn't read the talk page or edit comments (or, if you read them, misinterpreted them or ignored them). You are acting as if this article is just fine the way it is, even though several reasonable editors disagree, and you've enforced this view by aggressively reverting large sets of changes, repeatedly. A Transportation Enthusiast 12:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:UniModal. And once again, please consider finding some other focus for your obsessive interest than pushing for speculative details about hypothetical transport systems. Just zis Guy you know? 13:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)