User talk:Kirk shanahan/Archives/2010/November

Friendly warning

Kirk, I value your contributions to Talk:Cold fusion, though I do think you should be more careful to avoid incivility and to avoid presenting cherry-picked evidence -- but that's just my opinion. However, you proposed to add this to the article, in the section on calorimetry:

Furthermore, the mistake was again committed [13], where Storms states: “Storms (2006) addressed and rejected a number of errors proposed by Shanahan (2005, 2006).” On the surface the statement seems valid, but in fact can not be so. The Storms 2006 publication preceeds the Shanahan 2006 publication and thus could not address any comments made after it. These two papers are typical of topical literature discussions in that the 2006 Storms comment [9] (revised 8/25/2005) refers to the 2002 and 2005 Shanahan publications, and the 2006 Shanahan publication [8] (received 11/14/2005) responds to the 2006 Storms comment [9] (both accepted 11/15/2005). In order for Storms to have addressed propositions put forth in the 2006 Shanahan publication, another comment would have to have be subsequently written, submitted, reviewed, and published. No such publication was ever published, instead Storms has simply claimed success with no evidence [1], [4], [13].

New ref: 13.) Storms, Edmund, (2010), “Staus of Cold Fusion (2010)”, Naturwissenschaften, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0711-x —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirk shanahan (talk • contribs) 15:04, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Kirk, you have, for years, proposed polemic text for the article, text which clearly violates WP:NPOV. Your text involves POV writing and synthesis, i.e., a conclusion you make from evidence rather than only reporting, neutrally, the evidence itself. I've bolded problematic comments, which is almost the entire contribution. Further, this whole issue leads to undue weight on what is only almost a footnote in the history and publication record for cold fusion. I've argued you should be mentioned, but that's about it. The mention would report those sources that were noted by others. But your present analysis, which could easily be flawed, and for which we have no source other than you, cannot be used, in my informed opinion.

I'm not the one who makes decisions here, except as to what I personally do, within COI rules. I highly recommend that, as a COI editor, you not make that change to the article, except possibly as self-reverted, promptly, with notice of intention to self-revert in the edit. You can then refer to this revision on Talk, and recommend that it be accepted. That's fine. But raw editing of the article with something likely to be controversial, no. I write this not to irritate you, Kirk, but to give you sincere advice. I hope you will take it that way, even as you make your own decision.

But as to one point you raise, suppose Storms believed that his 2006 paper adequately addressed all significant points that you raised in your subsequent response. He could then write exactly what he wrote. He did not claim "success." He claimed that he had rejected the arguments, which, of course, he did and still does. If the NW peer-reviewers believed that there were significant objections remaining, they would properly not approve of that text. Did they err? Perhaps. But we can't depend on that! Your argument is a mere technicality, and doesn't belong in the article at all. The summary is that reviewers, at NW and elsewhere, clearly don't believe that your arguments carry enough weight to require new response to them, except for what may have been seen in JEM very recently. My guess is that JEM will consider the matter closed now, but I don't actually have a crystal ball. --Abd (talk) 17:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

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Against my better judgment…

“I value your contributions” – you show no evidence of that. You oppose everything I write, and create ficticious arguments as to why.

“presenting cherry-picked evidence” – such as? (BTW, if XYZ says ABC can’t happen, and EFG has published evidence of ABC happening, citing EFG is not ‘cherry-picking’, it a direct demonstration that XYZ misphrased at best. Make sure you’re not confusing that, because I do do a lot of that. Clear examples are very helpful)

“proposed polemic text…which clearly violates WP:NPOV.” – No, I have not. Unless you want to nit-pick at the level of demanding every single statement in the article text not present any negative fact towards a point without a counterbalancing positive point in the same sentence, which is completely unworkable. The CF article right now has NOTHING of value in it on conventional explanations, but you propose to add more pro-CF stuff, and theory sections too, without doing anything about the imbalance problem. You are fanatically POV.

“Your text involves POV writing and synthesis” – Cite examples. Make sure you are citing proposed article edits, not my attempts to explain things to people who ask questions or write OR and synthesis like you do that is wrong 90+% of the time.

“undue weight on what is only almost a footnote” – This is your personal opinion based on your fanatic belief in cold fusion. It is not ‘undue weight’ to explain what conventional explanations are for all the numerous listing of cold fusion ‘evidence’ in the CF article. Furthermore, the FACT that the CCS can explain away one typical example of cold fusion excess heat is PUBLISHED in RS. An UNBIASED reader would do a double-take if that fact were noted in the article but not explained in summary.

“But your present analysis” – typically, I can’t tell what you’re referring to here? Which analysis? If you are talking about my text you quote above, it again reflects your unwillingness to understand the situation.

Let me try once more to explain this, so anybody could understand it. If we have someone who is using this review paper to judge what to do about the field, we have to assume they know next to nothing, i.e. no special knowledge. In that case, the Storms comment implies a time progression, which is: Shanahan 2005, Shanahan 2006, Storms 2006. Because, everyone knows you can’t respond to unwritten comments. But that is what you say Storms was doing. His 2006 article PRE-REBUTTED mine. That’s pretty darn good. It implies Storms knew exactly what I was going to say, and even after he said what he did in 2006, I couldn’t come up with a cogent response. Note this! I couldn’t look at his article and formulate an intelligent rebuttal, according to your interpretation. That builds up Storms and runs me down, which fits your preference just fine. If you look at the section above where I outline these two papers however, you will CLEARLY see that is not the case. Storms was responding to my 2002 and 2005 papers ONLY. My 2006 response was not even touched. BUT, in 2007, and twice in 2010, he says he did. Read the papers and decide (which I know you won’t do because it might rattle your belief in Storms and CF).

The new CF researcher I was discussing is why “On the surface the statement seems valid”, he/she has insufficient knowledge to realize what Storms is implying. Storms “thus could not address any comments made after it.” because he had no idea how I would disassemble his arguments. “These two papers are typical of topical literature discussions” because they are. First came mine, then Storms, then mine, and nobody pre-guessed what the other would say. Obviously, “In order for Storms to have addressed propositions put forth in the 2006 Shanahan publication, another comment would have to have be subsequently written, submitted, reviewed, and published.”, at least in this reality. “No such publication was ever published, instead Storms has simply claimed success with no evidence” meaning that he says he rebutted my ‘objections’ when in fact you can see by reading the papers, or even looking at the summary above, he did not.

“But as to one point you raise, suppose Storms believed that his 2006 paper adequately addressed all significant points that you raised in your subsequent response. He could then write exactly what he wrote.” – Actually I don’t believe he does, but I grant he might. In the numerous emails he and I exchanged, I did manage to get him to repeat back, error free, my thesis. When I then asked him why he didn’t believe it, he gave no answer. He does know it, he chooses not to believe it has any merit.

“He did not claim "success."” – My words. Wordsmithing is allowed. Block deletion isn’t.

“If the NW peer-reviewers believed that there were significant objections remaining, they would properly not approve of that text.” – This is a completely unwaranted interpretation of the paper getting published, and is another case where you have imposed your own fanaticism on the actions of others. (“CF must be right and these reviewers must know it, therefore any objection is wrong, and comments to that effect are just fine.”) It may be true they believed that, but did they have any idea what they really were, or did they assume ‘they had been dealt with’? How can we know? Do you have ESP? Did they publish their review comments? Answer, no to all. Peer review is not perfect, and as noted, on the surface the comment looks innocuous, until you recall this was submitted in revised version AFTER they had already had their comments to the JEM article accepted. Then you understand there is a deliberate disinformation campaign underway here by the fanatics, successful so far, to make sure no one who matters (i.e. funders) know about the conventional problems. It is much easier to talk about the ones they have addresed from 1989, that weren’t very good objections anyway.

“Your argument is a mere technicality, and doesn't belong in the article at all.” – One of the MAIN points of my RS article is that the CFers refuse to deal with critcism. This is a Langmuir pathological science symptom. Thus my example of ANOTHER case of this, AFTER they had already had it pointed out in print once, is a PRIME indicator of their pathology, which of course is why you are fighting so hard to keep it out of the CF article. Repeated failure to answer critics is not good science.

“The summary is that reviewers, at NW and elsewhere, clearly don't believe that your arguments carry enough weight to require new response to them, except for what may have been seen in JEM very recently” – Again, you seem to have ESP about what the reviewers thought. Have you even been the prime author on a peer-reviewed paper? My experience is that the quality varies very widely. I would assume they just didn’t realize what was going on, which is why it has to be called out in responses (and explained to Wiki readers, who will most likely be like the reviewers). Thus you give UNDUE WEIGHT to your own opinion.

“My guess is that JEM will consider the matter closed now, but I don't actually have a crystal ball.” – Or you might have just read what I wrote when I told people here the editors had refused me the right to publish a response to the response. Normal protocol is to allow at least two cycles. JEM only allowed one. Kirk shanahan (talk) 19:36, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

My, that's a lot of response.... so I'm only pointing to one thing, the last. How you were treated by JEM is how fringe authors are treated. Welcome to the club. Surely you know that the normal cycle of response was interrupted in the early days, at major journals, where rebuttals were published and the original authors of papers favoring evidence for cold fusion were denied the right of reply. Sorry, but Wikipedia depends on the judgments of publishers and peer reviewers. As a result, if publishers and peer reviewers make mistakes, so too will Wikipedia. Lots of experts have foundered on misunderstanding this. WP doesn't have an expert staff, hired to independently review material. This is not a place to establish The Truth (TM). You just confirmed, by the way, my impression that JEM would consider the discussion closed. Thanks. Sure, I might have read that before, but I don't remember everything I read, Dr. Shanahan.

Does that mean that a door has been slammed in your face? Maybe. But if you are right, truth will out. I know, and I've been telling you, and you don't like it, that you are often not right. You might well be right about certain things, even important things. So ... if you start to seek consensus instead of victory for your POV, you might find that things open up for you. You will either recognize your errors, or you will convince others. More likely, both. Are you ready for that? I hope so, because the alternative is very painful. You are welcome to participate at Wikiversity, I'll repeat that. --Abd (talk) 20:22, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

“My, that's a lot of response.... so I'm only pointing to one thing, the last.” – Of course, ignore all the points I bring up that show you are hopelessly biased and incapable of neutral editing, and just go the simple one that says you might have missed a minor point, which of course, anyone can do.

“How you were treated by JEM is how fringe authors are treated.” – No, it isn’t. IF a publication is made, normal practice is to allow 2 rounds of comment/response. I distictly got the impression in my dealings with JEM that they were shocked to have a comment come in in the first place. I.e., they took the CFers at face value when they said there was no legitimate objections to their ‘recent’ work, which is false. The editor didn’t want to support a long battle in his journal, which was bound to occur with additional responses, including follow-up papers that were not part of the comment/response cycle. I.e., he didn’t want CF to become an accepted topic for his journal, which I would have thought meant he wouldn’t have asked for the first article in the first place. But, as I said, I don’t think he knew what he was getting into. I also agree that CF is not an appropriate topic for JEM. Sure, it would have been a fine ‘Perspective’ piece, i.e. a brief description of a tangentially related area, if there had been no objection. But there are lots of those.

Most of the CF papers I have reviewed never give enough infornmation to understand what was done, never give enough results to warrant a new publication, and never address critics. All of which disqualify them as publishable. Do the above honestly and accurately and they will get published.

In the early days, the normal rules were suspended for a time, because of the apparent importance of the topic. Normally, all those negative publications that came out in 1989-1992 would never have even been submitted, but because of the issues that arose out of F&P’s premature announcement of an irreproducible result, some allowances were made. Once it became clear that no one knew what was going on, normal rules began to be enforced again. Journals like Nature and Science quit publishing CF papers because it was no longer a hot topic. What was needed were reproducible results to reignite the flame, but they never came. If someone had actually achieved even 90% reproducibility, their work would undoubtedly have been published. The failure is not in the journals, it is in the quality of the submitted papers.

“if publishers and peer reviewers make mistakes, so too will Wikipedia.” - unless it is so clear that a consensus as to how to handle it can be built. I submit that the recent 2010 JEM publications are a case in point. In all my pubs (2002, 2005, 2006, 2010), I either stated directly the effect was systematic, or I discussed directly the systematics and what might control them, using the word ‘non-random’ several times. It is ludicrous that the responding authors in the 2010 JEM repeatedly called my proposal the “random” Shanahan effect. That is blantant eror and clearly so. Even if the reviewers did not read the earlier work, the 2010 paper states “a previously unrecognized systematic error was demonstrated to have the capacity to explain the observations”. The reviewers should have noted the importance of the random concept to the Response’s logic, and cross-checked, but they didn’t (and I was informed by the Editor that the reviewers were the same for the two articles). Wiki can and should make this clear to its readers.

“So ... if you start to seek consensus instead of victory” – What do you think I have been doing??? I have NOT edited the article in two years! I post my suggestions, and people like you shoot them down based on biased logic, which I refuse to just roll over and accept. Bad logic driven by bias should not be allowed to prevail. Your comments never make sense, or they presume tons of things not in evidence. That kind of garbage is then used to block my suggested changes. No, that won’t do. Wikipedia needs a balnaced view of the controversial field of CF, so BOTH SIDES need to be presented. You refuse to allow the conventional side into the article. YOU are grossly out of line.

I am not interested in ‘Wikiversity’. I am working for a comprehensive, balanced article on Wikipedia on cold fusion, and we’re not there yet. The CF fanatics have gotten their points in, primarily by being the ones to write the base article, but the ‘other side’ MUST be included too, per Wiki policy.

(above comment by Kirk Shanahan). Repeating in italics for response. Individual response sections are signed so that continued discussion may continue, threaded. --Abd (talk) 18:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

“My, that's a lot of response.... so I'm only pointing to one thing, the last.” – Of course, ignore all the points I bring up that show you are hopelessly biased and incapable of neutral editing, and just go the simple one that says you might have missed a minor point, which of course, anyone can do.

No, I won't ignore all the other points, I was simply explicitly responding to one, first. Kirk, is this a personal attack: "you are hopelessly biased," derived from a simple focus on one point at a time? I might have missed a major point, and I did not imply that I didn't. Kirk, surely you are aware that my world does not always revolve around Wikipedia, except some days, it's transient. It takes a lot of time to write. This is a piece of friendly advice: your writing style is guaranteed to alienate some who might otherwise engage with you, you seem to assume attack in just about everything. This must cause you a lot of grief, I imagine!

Instead of responding like that, how about a sentence that simply asks, "What about ...." and that then refers to an important point? Instead, because of how you responded, we get more words about more words, with less substance.--Abd (talk) 18:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

You _are_ hopelessly biased. You showed that long ago before you were banned, and it's why you were banned, and you've proven here since you came back that nothing has changed. Same old tactics that nobody can stand. I doubt you can correctly state the basics of the CCS problem, yet you comment freely, negatively, and vociferously on it. You get confused with the mechanism, just like your collegues do, and misstate everything. Try it. Prove you know what you're talking about. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

“How you were treated by JEM is how fringe authors are treated.” – No, it isn’t. IF a publication is made, normal practice is to allow 2 rounds of comment/response. I distictly got the impression in my dealings with JEM that they were shocked to have a comment come in in the first place. I.e., they took the CFers at face value when they said there was no legitimate objections to their ‘recent’ work, which is false.

Kirk, you are describing how fringe points of view are treated! You are also assuming that the reviewers at JEM would be completely ignorant of the common opinion about cold fusion, that they would be blindsided by anyone even questioning their sterling publication. Do you have any idea how preposterous this imagination is? Cold fusion was very famously and very certainly rejected, and you know and understand what a procedural error that was. It's hard for me to imagine anyone remotely informed in the fields, qualified to be a reviewer, who would not be aware of this, and who would not know that there could be some controversy. Yet they felt, rather obviously, that they could take the heat, that JEM would not be discredited, in the end. I suspect that if they were surprised, it was by the lack of comment, not by the appearance of your paper. I think that they may have received other comments -- almost certainly, given the history and what I see on blogs and media reader response pages -- but none of them reached the quality of your comments. (I see people saying things most ignorantly, such as "Well, why didn't they look for helium! Why didn't they do experiments with hydrogen -- criticizing reports where they did do experiments with hydrogen -- etc.) We know that, in the past, editors of journals were threatened with all kinds of negative consequences if they dared to publish papers in this field. There is a famous case of a patent examiner who lost his job because, on his own time, he organized a conference on cold fusion. He got his job back, and the well-known skeptic who was behind this got raked over the coals by the arbitrator.

There is no recent objection to the field, except for yours, that is anything more, in some occasional places, of writers simply assuming that cold fusion was STILL DEAD. There is no confirmation, from anywhere or anyone that I've been able to find, that your alternate theories are accepted. You can claim up and down and left and right that you were "right." That your objections haven't been considered with specific response, but, Kirk, this is what fringe theorists do. And they may even be right, that is completely beside the point. And by not realizing and acknowledging your position, you are shooting yourself in the foot.--Abd (talk) 18:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

No, I am describing how an off-topic field is treated. All journals have acceptable topics lists. CF work didn't belong in JEM, but was allowed in for unknown reasons. However, that implies a committment on the part of JEM staff to follow-up on that, and conduct normal operations around the newly added topic. As I said normally, 2 rounds is allowed, everyone in science knows this. JEM didn't though. Suddenly, it's off-topic again. And that after the gigantic error made by the authors of the Response in calling the CCS problem a 'random effect'. This unambiguously proves they haven't bothered to even read my papers, yet they derrogatorily discuss it every chance they get. Amazing! Clearly the practice of fanatics.

"There is no recent objection to the field," because there is no one who cares enough to look! The mainstream left CF behind in 1994! What does it take to get that through your head?

"that your alternate theories are accepted." case in point. What does it take intellectually to realize that 4*x + 7 gives you a different result that 5*x + 3 for the same x? That's just algebra for heaven's sake. Yet that is the CCS problem! They use the wrong calibration equation! A 1-3% change wipes out their results! And it's just algebra! There's nothing hard here. Why can't they (and you) get it? Ans. Because they (and you) don't want to. <--pathological Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

What was needed were reproducible results to reignite the flame, but they never came. If someone had actually achieved even 90% reproducibility, their work would undoubtedly have been published.

Kirk, you've not understood a basic issue. Percentage of reproduciblity is not a scientific standard, because some known and accepted results can only be statistically validated. Some results are chaotic, in particular, subject to variations that cannot be controlled. In the case of cold fusion, there are definitely some unknown and therefore possibly uncontrolled conditions. However, He Jing-Tang reported in a review in Frontiers of Physics in China, in 2007, that many groups were reporting 100% reproducibility. This I consider problematic. However, there is one strong result that is very close to 100% repeatable, and you seem to be inclined to set it aside and ignore it, or to make non-sequitur arguments against it.

Run a CF cell, of any of the common kinds, and design the experiment to measure both excess heat and helium. First, get your technique down so that you report excess heat some reasonable fraction of the time. (With Miles' work, it was roughly 2/3 of the time.) Then run a substantial series of cells. Report the excess heat and helium results.

This has been done many times, but only Miles, to my knowledge, as done as many cells in a series, and even they were not all identical. Nevertheless, the data from other experiments can be amalgamated, and it includes, as a control series, all the "negative replications," where there was no heat and no helium. That heat and helium are correlated is a reproducible and conclusive result. It is absolutely not necessary to be able to produce the effect every time! Just some times! Suppose you only could find excess heat in 10% of your cells. But you ran 100 of them. And you only found helium with the ten percent of the cells which also had excess heat, and the amount of helium found varied directly with the excess heat found. Do you realize how powerful a result this would be? That is practically impossible to happen if the variables are not causally connected. (There will be a common cause, narrowing the possibilities, excluding experimental error, almost certainly, unless some error somehow correlates. An example of this would be that the helium measurements were done by someone aware of the heat results. for each cell, who biased them in some way. Hence the need for at least part of the study to be blind.)

(Reliability is necessary for engineering a reliable power source, but that has practically nothing to do with the science. The premature demand for reliability was one of the most serious early errors.)--Abd (talk) 18:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Reproducibility is the only standard of value in the scientific world. Without reproducibility, nothing can be studied successfully. You misunderstand a basic issue. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

You have mistaken "reliability" for reproducibility. Very stupid mistake. Heat/helium is reproducible. Heat is not reliable (at least not with many of the methods, it may be with some). --Abd (talk) 04:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

"This has been done many times" Cite refs please. Peer reviewed, and not in Proceedings of ICCF's. We all know there is no critical review conducted there or at other similar get togethers like them. That was known back in 1994, and it has never changed. I am aware of the one study that Miles did that maybe shows what you claim, but without reproducibility, it is equivalent to a miracle, and gives the rest of us no guidance in how to achieve the same results. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Read the review at Naturwissenschaften. Storms covers the evidence very well. --Abd (talk) 04:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. Doesn't cover it, just assumes it is true. Not acceptable. Just like his book, he uncritically lists all claims as if they were Gospel truth. They aren't. None of them describe how the measurements were done, what the backgrounds were, how they performed on blind controls, etc., i.e. we have nothing but the pasteurized, homogenized final results, which we all feel were 'cooked' to favor the nuclear explanation. Again, not acceptable. Just like in school, show all work. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:43, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs a balnaced view of the controversial field of CF, so BOTH SIDES need to be presented. You refuse to allow the conventional side into the article. YOU are grossly out of line.

Kirk, I have no such power. You simply are failing to convince the non-COI editors of your position. I began as a Wikipedia editor, very concerned about NPOV issues and how NPOV was found. I did not begin as a "believer" in CF, and I became interested in it because (1) I had the educational background to understand the issues, and (2) I saw some abuse taking place. I confronted the abuse, was successful -- one admin was reprimanded and the second lost his privileges -- but there is price for success like that, and I was warned by experienced editors to expect it, so it was no surprise to me that I was banned for a year from the topic -- and also from any kind of intervention, again, in "disputes," i.e., if I see an admin abusing the privileges, I'd better not comment on it or I'll be blocked! This is Wikipedia, Kirk, it's well known about the experienced that it is like this.

Yes, both sides need to be presented. Kirk, I added your papers to the bibliography, have you forgotten that? I rescued the page you worked on, having it userfied at User:Abd/Calorimetry in cold fusion experiments. I will do what I can to get your theories the appropriate expression, and my belief is that they indeed deserve coverage. But it is also my opinion that the article, as it stands, is grossly deficient in so many ways that the lack of coverage of, say, CCS, is small by comparison. Right now, the article basically assumes that you are right! It doesn't present the most notable and clear evidence for confusion, at all. It presents, instead, an error by an anonymous bureaucrat in place of what is covered in multiple peer-reviewed secondary sources, as well as, by the way, Huizenga. The only "theory" to "explain the results" that is presented is "experimental error." (or misinterpretation of experimental results, which your CCS theory claims). That is totally doing the field and the encyclopedia a disservice. You could be a part of the solution, indeed, if you wake up. Otherwise you can continue dreaming that I'm your enemy and that I'm responsible for the exclusion of your excellent ideas and unrefuted theories from Wikipedia.

I'm straight and direct with you. I'll stop, if you prefer. It's up to you. --Abd (talk) 18:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a laff. You respond yes, but you couldn't be straight and direct if your life depended on it. Try this: Explain what the CCS is and then why the CCS is of 'minor' importance. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Laugh all you want, laughing is good, unless it's contempt. Contempt is poison that you drink, imagining that it is hurting someone else.

I've explained what CCS is before, you just don't remember. I may be the only person here who has a clue as to what it is, beyond you. And I will, again, if the occasion arises. But for now it is of minor importance *for Wikipedia*. That's what we are talking about, right? It's of minor importance because nobody -- nobody, Kirk -- has covered it in reliable source, confirming that it is a plausible theory. But I did except, possibly, the recent paper which responds to you at JEM. They may possibly cover it there. I have not read that paper yet, don't have a copy. I'll ask for one. But not for discussion with you. I'm out of here, I've got real work to do. --Abd (talk) 04:22, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

No Abd, YOU don't rememeber. Yes, you have attempted to explain the CCS before, BUT YOU NEVER HAVE SUCCEEDED! You always get some important part messed up, and when I try to correct you, you either argue with me for pages and pages, or you change the subject (just like you tried to do above). I repeat, the fact is you can't repeat back what the CCS is, so you have no right to make statements regarding its validity or notoriety or importance. Kirk shanahan (talk)

I am not interested in ‘Wikiversity’. I am working for a comprehensive, balanced article on Wikipedia on cold fusion, and we’re not there yet. The CF fanatics have gotten their points in, primarily by being the ones to write the base article, but the ‘other side’ MUST be included too, per Wiki policy.

I don't think you realize what Wikiversity is. It is a WMF wiki, subject to the same neutrality standard, overall, as other Wikimedia Foundation wikis, like Wikipedia. However, it encourages forking. Just as a university might have various seminars, taught by different people with different points of view, Wikiversity can have multiple pages on a topic. It also allows subpages in mainspace, which provides for far more flexibility than Wikipedia. You could write, there, an article on cold fusion that is what you would teach were you to take on a seminar at a university. I'd be happy to assist you with that. There are certain basic standards to follow, but original research is allowed. Just as if, say, a professor running a seminar at a unversity decided to invite you to make a presentation to the seminar, and to answer questions, and you would be given great facility to express your ideas, theories, and experience. You can be biased. You can even write polemic there. But it's not allowed to pretend that something is widely accepted that isn't. (But hardly ever would anyone be sanctioned for this, unless they revert warred to prevent dissent or criticism from being presented; but some level of page ownership is allowed, i.e., dissent might be on some parallel page or cited on some higher level page or from it. "A scholar has commented critically, on my work here, on Wikiversity:PageName." (Wikiversity users are called "scholars," it doesn't require credentials, per se. Scholar is a good word because both students and professors are scholars.)

And students working with a resource at Wikiversity can work collaboratively or individually on an article intended to be ported to Wikipedia. (articles can be "transwikied" with complete editing history). If a good article is developed there, it would be possible to propose that shift on Wikipedia at Talk:Cold fusion. And then people, neutral editors, presumably, could decide which article was better, making moot the whole argument you have made about the article being biased on Wikipedia because it was originally written by "CFers." You can rewrite the whole article if you like!

But from what I've seen from you, by yourself, you are very unlikely to write something with a snowball's chance of being accepted by general Wikipedia editors. You write with polemic, even when you are proposing text for the article, which is not acceptable! Any experienced Wikipedia editor will spot it immediately. I've been trying to tell you this, but you seem to take it personally. --Abd (talk) 18:23, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

If you're involved with it, it can't be good. It would mean more of having to deal with your walls of text and your unwillingness to consider anything but the nuclear solution. No thanks, not interested. Kirk shanahan (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Never mind. Kirk, I'll mention that the fate of those who have thought in this way hasn't ever been good, but I'd don't particularly expect you to hear this from me. Suit yourself, you have to live with yourself. This is your Talk page, enjoy talking with yourself. Bye. --Abd (talk) 04:15, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

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Note added 11/22/10. I am done. This account has been abandonded. Delete it if you like. Kirk shanahan (talk) 21:24, 22 November 2010 (UTC) ------