Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt/Workshop

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This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for suggestions by Arbitrators and other users and for comment by arbitrators, the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies. Anyone who edits should sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Contents

[edit] Motions and requests by the parties

[edit] Calvinball (further amended)

1) My motion is that the Arbitrators consider that we are engaged in Calvinball. I.e., as Jimbo has said, we are making this up as we go along.

Unfortunately on the Wikipedia, our technology is still very primitive and so editing is more difficult now than it will be in the future. The published literature says that primitive communication technology like our current one contributes to strife and frustration potentially leading to developments like the current action and often much worse.

Based on my limited .5 year experience in contributing to the Wikipedia, I believe that The only long range hope for the Wikipedia in technical areas like concurrent computing is to attract more expert contributors. We now face unresolved Wikipedia policy issues because articles in Category:Concurrent computing increasingly address isses that are on the edge of the state of the art. Without more expert contributors, I am afraid that the level of conflict and general frustration will increase.

Content negotiations among Wikipedia editors can become problematic if the subject area is highly technical with a large published scientific literature. It can become even more problematic if the area is currently under rapid development. E.g., what should we do about results in preprints and talks presented at conferences? Clearly, we can't report them in Wikipedia articles since they haven't been published yet. On the other hand, they can be highly relevant in discussion pages about articles. This is a Wikipedia policy conundrum on which we could use some guidance. For example on article discussion pages, I made remarks to the effect that the Actor model is becoming increasingly important to experts which were then subject to the objection that my remarks were original research. Also please note that the issue of articles addressing issues close to the edge of the state of the art is occurring in other areas as well, e.g., see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afshar experiment.

The challenge for the Wikipedia is: How can we make this a locale where more of my colleagues contribute? At every opportunity, I encourage my colleagues to contribute to the Wikipedia. Some of them are sitting on the sidelines watching and considering whether to take the plunge. One of them asked me "Is it really possible for the Wikipedia to ban an MIT professor from contributing in their areas of expertise?" I replied, "Yes, but don't worry, things usually work out on the Wikipedia. It just might take a while." Unfortunately, they didn't seem convinced.

In this regard, there is an important policy issue involved in this action: Edward Schaefer is proposing that one of the bases for decision in this case is that a person should be banned from editing Wikipedia articles in areas that they have published work in the scientific literature. E.g., Edward Schaefer believes that Stephen Hawking should be banned from contributing to Wikipedia physics articles on subjects for which Hawking has published. If adopted by the Arbitrators, this would be a remarkable policy divergence with previous encyclopedias, e.g., Britannica. Which way the arbritrators decide will have important consequences.

As an academic, it needs to be understood that it doesn't do me any good to either overclaim or underclaim in Wikipedia articles. My colleagues base their judgments on the accuracy and quality of writing of my contributions concerning published work regardless of whether it was written by my colleagues, my ex-students, or myself. If I get it wrong either way their concerns get back to me and I try to fix it because (among other things) it is wholly in my interest to do. I would be very pleased if they would simply fix it themselves! Unfortunately, except for a couple of notable exceptions, this isn't happening yet. It must be said that my colleagues who have shown up here have been immensely valuable in improving, fixing, challenging, adding to, and subtracting from contributions that I have made.

There can be no doubt that I have made serious mistakes in my short career as a Wikipedia contributor (Sorry!). I do learn from my mistakes and try not repeat them. What happened was that an inexperienced editor working in Category:concurrent computing unexpectedly bumped into a couple more experienced editors working in Category:physics. The result was a series of difficult content negotations that are continuing into the current action. At the time I didn't even understand 3RR! My (it turned out somewhat overly naive) idea was that since there were some relationships between the published literature in computer science and physics that I should put in some links. When Edward Schaefer reverted away my contributions, I didn't exactly know what to do and stumbled around a bit. The way that this action got started was that some Wikipedia editors failed in a Wikipedia process to delete an article to which I had contributed and so they decided to initiate this Wikipedia action to attempt to "delete" me instead and so win the content negotiation that way. See Attempting to win a content negotiation by trying to ban the other party.

In spite of incredible stumbling around by the Wikipedia editors who are mentioned in this action, all of the affected articles are in much better shape now than when this all started! Articles that have improved with (sometimes lengthly and difficult) negotiations include Incompleteness of quantum physics, Denotational semantics (by two phases of negotiations), Indeterminacy in computation, Actor model and process calculi, Actor model and process calculi history, Actor model, Actor model early history, etc.

Also I am sorry that Edward Schaefer is so upset. My suggestion is to see if we can find an appropriate mediator and patch things up somehow.

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 12:17, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:
Comment by parties:
Comment by others:
  1. Some comments to Carl's above motion:
    • Carl claims: the Actor model is becoming increasingly important to experts... Carl has claimed this since he first started editing wikipedia article. However, to my knowledge he has never sustained this claim by providing any source that claim this. He has only infered this up by providing long lists of sources. Thence, I can only consider this original research.
      There is no doubt about the importance of the Actor model in the published scientific literature. E.g. See Robin Milner's Turing Lecture.
      As for current ongoing developments, the Wikipedia has an important unresolved policy issue: What should we do about issues that are at the edge of the state of the art? It is impossible for someone to know what is going on now in the field of Concurrency unless they talk to active researchers and participate in scientific conferences, workshops, and meetings. What do you suggest that we do about this Wikipedia policy issue?
      Regards, --Carl Hewitt 09:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Carl says: I do learn from my mistakes and try not to repeat them. The evidence should speek for itself here, but in my opinion this statement is not backed by the evidence.
      It would be great if somewhere on the Wikipedia we had articles by experienced Wikipedia contributors on lessons that they had learned with case histories. (I know that we currently have general guidelines and policies.)--Carl Hewitt 21:14, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Carl says: our technology is still very primitive and so editing ... is more difficult now [then] that it will be in the future. This has no relation whatsoever with the contents of the articles and Carl's contributions to them, which is being discussed here.
      The published literature says that primitive communication technology like our current one contributes to strife and frustration potentially leading to developments like the current action and often much worse. --Carl Hewitt 10:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Carl says: Banning me is probably not going to contribute to attracting more experts ;-) That's not the issue here, I think what we're ultimately trying to eshtabish here is what reasonable behaviour by experts is.
      First of all this was said with tongue firmly in cheek ;-) The issue is: What should the Arbitrators do? I was trying to make some helpful remarks and suggestions. --Carl Hewitt 10:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Carl says: there are no active content negotiations on the table. This is maybe partically due to this arbitration and the reasons for starting this arbitration in the first place.
      The Wikipedia being what it is, we can expect several new content negotiations to spring up immediately. There are lots of unresolved issues and problems with the articles in Category:Concurrent computing. --Carl Hewitt 10:30, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    -- Koffieyahoo 08:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  2. Response to Carl Hewitt:
    • Milner's remark (after reading the complete text of the lecture): I consider this Carl's personal interpretation of the text. I can read no more in it than Milner saying that in hindsight he got some inspiration from the actor model. Hence, it does not more than partially sustain the claim.
      Of course you can have your own opinion. And if you so desire you can contribute to the article Actor model and process calculi history. --Carl Hewitt 10:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Besides the "state of the art" comment being completely besides the point, I don't see what any of this has to do with state of the art, most of the theory has begun development in the 1960s/1970s and it is my believe that large parts of the theory has been "fleshed out". State of the art only concerns very minor parts.
      Actually there are major developments underway in almost all aspects of the Actor model including theory and implementation. For example, a major new denotational semantics for Actors has been developed beyond the one of Clinger [1981]. --Carl Hewitt 10:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    -- Koffieyahoo 10:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  3. Of course you can have your own opinion. And if you so desire you can contribute to the article No, the whole point was that we report neutrally (possibly pointing out multiple perspectives) and as you can see from my "interpretation" it can be doubted that your report is neutral. But back it up with more sources and we can reconsider. The same holds for major developments underway -- Koffieyahoo 11:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    This is the Wikipedia and so you can make your own contributions. For example User:Allan McInnes has contributed in ways that I applaud to making the articles Actor model and Actor model and process calculi more NPOV. This is not to say that I automatically accept all of Allan's suggestions. But we can negotiate our differences.--Carl Hewitt 07:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    Maybe I was unlear, but you're completely missing the point of what I've said: The problem is not that you're providing just one perspective regarding some subject, which I'm very willing the amend. The problem is that you're providing your own interpretations of things, from which you don't want to back down in most cases, even if good counter agruments are made. This simply violates the wiki policy regarding original research. And now we're back at our starting point, the reason why we're having a discussion here in the first place. -- Koffieyahoo 08:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    It turns out that Wikipedia editors often disagree how good an argument is and so need to negotiate their differences in good faith. This can get sticky if the subject area is highly technical with a large published scientific literature. It gets even more sticky if the area is currently under rapid development. E.g., what should we do about results in preprints and talks presented at conferences? Clearly, we can't report them in Wikipedia articles since they haven't been published yet. On the other hand, they can be highly relevant in discussion pages about articles. This is a Wikipedia policy conundrum on which we could use some guidance.--Carl Hewitt 08:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    Please continue reading at the top of this page ;-) -- Koffieyahoo 09:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    Yes, isn't Calvinball wonderful ;-) --Carl Hewitt 09:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    You should really read the definition of Calvinball. This is just circular reasoning, which means one of us is not behaving constructively in this discussion. -- Koffieyahoo 09:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    It turns out that I am struggling with very similar paradoxes in a scientific paper that I am currently editing for publication.
    Be that as it may, how can I constructively help here?
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 08:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
4. Carl writes: I would be very pleased if they would simply fix it themselves! - This is because of a commendable approach of your fellow editors who have tried to seek consensus on the talk pages before making any changes. It looks quite possible that if these editors had been WP:BOLD and changed what they didn't like before discussing the changes, that an equilibrium would have been reached without involving RfCs, AfDs and RfArs. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 08:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Of course showing up and fixing material entails participating in Wikipedia processes for negotiating content. From the perspective of my colleagues participating, it is unfortunate that our technology for negotiating content is currently very primitive. (Maybe we could get some of them to help improve it!)
I have found in my brief career as a Wikipedia editor that how to be WP:BOLD is tricky, e.g.,
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 18:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
5. Carl appears to suggest that banning him will hinder efforts to attract more expert contributors, specifically academics. Based on my experience in academia, I disagree.
Carl says "As an academic, it needs to be understood that it doesn't do me any good to either overclaim or underclaim in Wikipedia articles." I agree (except that I think that overclaiming very slightly would do good, but that's a detail). It is a mystery to me why Carl is nevertheless overclaiming. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:26, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Jitse,
Have you tried to get your colleagues to contribute to the Wikipedia? My experience has been that some of my colleagues are agreeable in principle and even express the intention to contribute. Unfortunately, none of them have. Why is this?
I would appreciate specific examples from current articles where you think that there is overclaiming. User:Allan McInnes found some examples that I agreed with and I was glad to see them go. It is difficult to get it exactly right between overclaiming and underclaiming because it is undesireable to hedge and write convoluted prose. I am not perfect and so there are undoubtedly some left. Pointing them out would help us to improve the articles.
Thanks, --Carl Hewitt 02:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I made some attempts to attract colleagues, though not at every opportunity. The main problem is that academics are busy and spend most of their time outside teaching and admin duties to things that advance their career (writing papers and getting funding). Furthermore, the idea of an encyclopaedia to which everybody can contribute is a big difference from the elitist environment that academia is. But this is hardly relevant to this case.
Methinks the evidence page contains many examples of overclaiming. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
At least for the articles in Category:Concurrent computing, there is good evidence of the lack of blatent overclaiming or underclaiming: Allan McInnes has the expertise to find examples and he hasn't outed one of them for a while. Of course there is always room for negotiation concerning cases about which experts disagree.
An amazing thing about the Wikipedia is how fast errors are corrected. So almost all potential examples of overclaiming or underclaiming on the evidence page have already been corrected and/or negotiated.
BTW, it is just as inaccurate to underclaim as overclaim.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 16:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I guess I'd better comment here, since my name is being used in support of the assertion that there is no (blatant) overclaiming in Category:Concurrent computing. I have been (with the exception of some recent discussion on Talk:Denotational semantics) largely been trying to avoid any work on articles that are the focus of this RfAr, until the arbitration process is complete. There seems to me to be little sense in expending a lot of energy on protracted arguments which may eventually become moot when the arbitration is finished. I have instead been focusing my efforts on trying to make positive contributions to articles that are not going to be subject to extended disputes.
Please note that this is not meant to imply that there is "overclaiming" in the disputed articles. I am simply trying to point out that my lack of "outing examples of overclaiming" is not proof that there is no overclaiming, since I have not been looking at, or working on, the articles in question. Furthermore, my "expertise" is obviously limited, so even if I was looking at the articles in question it would not necessarily follow that no overclaiming exists. --Allan McInnes 19:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Allan,
Thanks for your clarification.
And just for the record, I do appreciate the help that you previously provided in removing overclaiming.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 00:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Motion by user:ems57fcva

1) My motion is that Carl Hewitt be found to be a disruptive editor who regularly abuses the openness of Wikipedia to

  • Promote the actor model in inappropriate categories and articles and/or to give it an undeserved importance.
  • Promote the Scientific Community Metaphor through inappropriate references in other articles. In general, the relationship of the scientific community metaphor to the subject in question is obscure and the mention undeserved. In addition, it is highly tied to Carl Hewitt's views of concurrent computing.
  • Promote in various articles on quantum mechanics such as quantum indeterminacy a view of the imcompleteness of quantum mechincs that is not generally accepted and which does not belong in mainstream quantum mechaics pages.
  • These issues are exacerbated by Carl Hewitt's habit of regularly moving contested content of other articles or categories, forcing editors to chace down the content. Often this is done in the face of an AfD or CfD request, thereby evading the intent of the AfD or CfD. In the process, Carl Hewitt has caused much grief for other editors who have found themselves having to chace content and dealing with unproductive exchanges in talk pages on the contested content.

A remedy is proposed below. --EMS | Talk 16:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:
Comment by parties:
  1. Comment by Carl Hewitt
    Response to Edward Schaefer's motion which is quoted in italics below:
    1) My motion is that Carl Hewitt be found to be a disruptive editor who regularly abuses the openness of Wikipedia to
    • Promote the actor model in inappropriate categories and articles and/or to give it an undeserved importance.
    The alledged unimportance of the Actor model is personal Original Research on the part of Edward Schaefer and is contrary to the published scientific literature (see Actor model).--Carl Hewitt 20:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Promote the Scientific Community Metaphor through inappropriate references in other articles. In general, the relationship of the scientific community metaphor to the subject in question is obscure and the mention undeserved. In addition, it is highly tied to Carl Hewitt's views of concurrent computing.
    The alledged obscurity and undeservedness of the Scientific Community Metaphor is personal Original Research on the part of Edward Schaefer and is contrary to the published scientific literature (see Scientific Community Metaphor).--Carl Hewitt 20:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Promote in various articles on quantum mechanics such as quantum indeterminacy a view of the imcompleteness of quantum mechincs that is not generally accepted and which does not belong in mainstream quantum mechaics pages.
    The article Incompleteness of quantum physics to which the Harvard physicist CSTAR and I have contributed reports on generally accepted published research of world-renowned physicists (Fuchs, Hawking, etc.) and consequently belongs in the mainstream pages of quantum physics.--Carl Hewitt 20:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
    • These issues are exacerbated by Carl Hewitt's habit of regularly moving contested content of other articles or categories, forcing editors to chace [sic] down the content. Often this is done in the face of an AfD or CfD request, thereby evading the intent of the AfD or CfD. In the process, Carl Hewitt has caused much grief for other editors who have found themselves having to chace [sic] content and dealing with unproductive exchanges in talk pages on the contested content.
    Edward Schaefer's comment above is objecting to the necessity for Wikipedia editors to sometimes reorganize the content of articles and create new articles in order to improve. In this course of this reorganization, we had to move content.
    His allegations about AfDs and CfDs are myths.
    Instead of engaging in the improvement of the Wikipedia, Edward prefers to try to ban those of us who are working.
    See How POV Neutral are Carl's detractors?
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 18:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  2. Response to Carl Hewitt by Edward Schaefer
    As best I can tell, Carl is reaching for a convenient label here in calling my allegations "original research". I trust that the inappropriateness of that label in this format is obvious. Indeed, Carl seems to have refused to acknowledge the underlying issues here regarding his behavior again. --EMS | Talk 06:18, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
    As I look at it, I think that the statement that the "allegations about AfDs and CfDs are myths" needs some comment. In the general relativity incidenct (Sept dates in my evidence), Carl moved a categorization from category:general relativity to category:Relativistic Information Science to category:Information science (relativistic), with the last move being in response to a CfD as noted in teh evidence. I have no doubt that in Carl Hewitt's mind he was attempting to preserve what he saw as valuable content, as opposed to maliciously evading the CfD. Yet the effect was the same. Simlarly, the contested content that was in quantum indeterminacy I have recently learned came from another article, and was placed afterwards in Actor model, mathematical logic, and physics. In response to an AfD attempt on the later resulting from the content being there, it got moved to incompleteness of quantum physics, which is actaully a good place for that content. None-the-less, it was a major pain-in-the-neck to get that content placed in an appropriate article. Note that each move was in response to an attempt to delete the content, and the first two moves were from one inappropriate place to another. BTW - The statements about the incompleteness of quantum physics statements not completely documented in the evidence section at this time. I will attempt to rectify that ASAP, and understand that they may be regarded as hearsay in the meantime. --EMS | Talk 19:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
  3. Response to Edward Schaefer by Carl Hewitt about Edward attempting to ban other parties as a tactic in content negotiations
    Partly because of our primitive communication technology on the Wikipedia, content negotiations can be difficult. Since we can't get content perfect, adjustments need to be made later. Also, since content is growing, we periodically need to reorganize.
    In fact, content negotiation is what this arbitration is about: it seems that Edward Schaefer prefers to carry out his content negotiations by attempting to ban those whom he perceives to be unworthy. Edward believes that a person is unworthy if they have published work in the scientific literature for areas in which they have contributed to articles in the Wikipedia. E.g., Edward Schaefer is proposing that Stephen Hawking should be banned from contributing to Wikipedia physics articles on subjects for which Hawking has published.
    In summary, Edward Schaefer is attempting to use banning other parties as a tactic in content negotiations on the Wikipedia.
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 03:22, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
  4. Response to Carl Hewitt by Edward Schaefer
    First of all, I kindly submit that this Stephen Hawking remark belongs in reponse to my second motion below.
    Secondly, I do acknowledge the truth of it. I see little need for Hawking to document his own work (as others are happy to), and doubt based on my experiences with Carl Hewitt here that one can easily document their own work with a NPOV.
    Thirdly, the proposed action below would even apply to myself and to my own research should it become published. Given that, Carl Hewitt's implication that I may lack sincerity in that proposal is hopefully refuted.
    Finally, these remarks by Carl Hewitt fail to address the fundamental issues of his style of editting, which are at the core of this action. --EMS | Talk 16:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  5. Response to Edward Schaefer by Carl Hewitt
    There is no doubt that my style of editing can be improved and I am working to do so. However, I do not deliberately violate the policies of the Wikipedia unlike some other editors who have done the following:
    Made personal accusations: E.g. The following has been written about me on Wikipedia discussion pages: "I wonder if this chap is a bit in his dotage." and "I tend to think his problem is more emotional than neurological."
    Committed vandalism: Another editor removed the legitimate categories of Actor model history and replaced them with Category:Pseudoscience. (Thank you for helping to resolve this problem.)
    Attempted to win content negotiations by having the other party banned: The core of this action.
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 20:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  6. Further Response to Edward Schaefer by Carl Hewitt
    Edward Schaefer believes that experts should be banned from editing Wikipedia articles in their areas of expertise. On the hand, I believe that the Wikipedia needs to attract as many experts as possible to contribute to articles in their areas of expertise. Only experts can successfully negotiate highly technical issues in areas like Category:Concurrent computing when these issues are at the edge of the state of the art. For example, when Allan McInnes (an expert who has published in the area) started contributing, we were able to negotiate a number of issues. As a result the article Actor model was dramatically improved.--Carl Hewitt 19:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  7. Response to Carl Hewitt by Edward Schaefer
    See talk --EMS | Talk 19:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment by others:
  1. Comment by linas
Carl, the AfD's and the CfD's are not myths, they are amply documented in the evidence section. User:CSTAR was not one of you collaborators; he was rather someone you drove into leaving (also documented in the evidence section.). You behaviour in editing this page and making these types of statements is exactly what is alienating everyone who comes in contact with you. Why don't you understand this? Why can't you decist, and take to heart the advice and suggestions of others? linas 21:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another motion by user:ems57fcva

2) That Wikipedia should look into making it a principle that people ought not to document their own work. (Kindly note that this is not specific to this case.)

Part of the trouble here is that Carl is documenting his own work here. It therefore is natural that he would approach it from a highly biased POV, and the result has not been the kind of standout editting that we would expect from someone with his credentials but instead a very disruptive hyping of the actor model in all sorts of venues outside of computer science, along with a hyping of his own views on quantum mechanics. So this raises a question: Given that a work cannot be considered encyclopedic without someone other than the authors being willing to document it (since otherwise it is original research), and given what we are seeing with this particular editor when documenting a encyclopedic subject which is of his own creation, should people be allowed to document their own work in Wikipeida at all? Commenting on the talk page and draft proposed updates to articles in their user space could (and probably should) still be permitted, but the outright edits in the article space should be left to others who at least in theory would form a community having a more reasonable POV. --EMS | Talk 17:58, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:
Comment by parties:
  1. It seems that this is already covered in the existing guideline Wikipedia:Autobiography. --EMS | Talk 21:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment by others:

[edit] Motion by Charles Stewart concerning citations

We should have a Proposed principle covering standards of citation, since complaints about the way Carl justified claims by citation and the way carl put together reference sections were frequently made. I've discussed this issue at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt/Workshop#Remedies. I don't think I could draft such a principle, but someone who has been involved in both arbitration and WP:CITE, such as User:SlimVirgin, could probably help here. --- Charles Stewart 20:31, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment by parties:
  1. I have no problem with converting all of the references that I have contributed to the Harvard style (although it will take a while to do them all). My only concern is that if I contribute a reference to an article whose references are not currently in the Harvard style, which style should I use?
I wish that all articles cited in the Wikipedia were online. However, the literature on concurrency goes back over three decades and so unfortunately there are some references for which this is not possible. I have a remedy for this, but it will take a little time before we can use it in the Wikipedia: Publish updated, improved versions of old results so that we don't have to rely on the old published literature in the Wikipedia that is not online. My colleagues will also help out with new published work. Of course, there is the little problem of who is going to report on these new published results in the Wikipedia ;-)
One principle that might be of help is: Avoid esoterica! In other words keep the discussion as plain and simple as possible in both articles and discussions about articles consistent with accurately reporting on the published literature.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 07:18, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
  • If an article is not online, or is otherwise obscure, it's still fine to cite it, but think if there is something else more accessible that makes the point and cite that too. Publishing updated versions of old works is a very worthy idea (and I admire what McCarthy has been doing in this respect), but i suspect that it is too much work to be practical in an editing context. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 07:40, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Motion on not banning intellectuals and scientists

Additional discussion of the current version of my motion (below) is found at Wikipedia talk:Autobiography#Not banning intellectuals and scientists (proposed language)

People editing articles in the Wikipedia on subjects on which they have published elsewhere per se does not constitute autobiographical editing. The Wikipedia does not wish to cut out many of the people with the most knowledge and motivation to contribute (see WP:NOR#The role of expert editors). However, if they show inability to stick to Wikipedia:NPOV and Wikipedia:NOR some individual sanctions might be in order. In this regard, a Wikipedia editor should take special care in case of articles reporting on their own published work or the reporting on the published work of someone with whom they have personal relationship.

A previous version of the motion is discussed in the rest of this section. --Carl Hewitt 03:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Following the suggestion of others on this page, I move that the following be adopted as Wikipedia policy:

There is no flat ban on people editing articles in the Wikipedia on subjects on which they have published elsewhere. To establish such a ban would cut out many of the people with the most knowledge and motivation to contribute. However, if they show inability to stick to Wikipedia:NPOV and Wikipedia:NOR some individual sanctions might be in order.

In considering this proposal with respect to highly respected academics, we might take the following into account:

  • For a highly respected academic to unfairly promote the work of one of their ex-students on the Wikipedia would only cause resentment among their colleagues (and among their other ex-students as well!).
  • Any overclaiming or underclaiming in a Wikipedia article about the published work of someone else or themselves would hurt their reputation among their colleagues (experts who know perfectly well what the score is).
  • Their colleagues are generally not shy about telling others what they think.

Therefore there is typically no advantage for a highly respected academic to be unfair. In addition, if they were unfair there are plenty of people on the Wikipedia who would promptly challenge them!

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 18:19, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree with this, but the matter is not so simple. There clearly needs to be some sort of restraint in when researchers provide material that supports their scholarly agenda: it is possible to skew articles with a series of edits that provide only NPOV verifiable content. When editing on your own turf, there is a need to consciously ensure that overall balance of coverage is maintained (or at least imbalances are not worsened). The WP rules do not mandate this (it is hard to police), but I believe it will be essential to any resolution of this matter that does not involve preventing Carl from editing in the areas of conflict. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 18:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Charles,
There is not much doubt about the importance of the articles in Category:Concurrent computing. Futhermore because of ongoing technological and scientific developments, the category will be even more important in the future. When I first started editing the situation in the category was miserable. Now with the help of some experts (e.g. User:Allan McInnes), it has improved to the point where I would say the quality is good in parts and overall mediocre but improving.
Balance is certainly an issue. So it is good to have new perspectives such as Allan's. One thing about experts is that they tend to have definite ideas. So it often takes some negotation to come a consensus how to proceed, e.g., see User_talk:CarlHewitt#Discussion_with_Allan_McInnes_from_arbitration.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 08:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad that you are finding that the mix of editors is finding balance, but it is not enough to reassure me. If I were in Allan's shoes, I might be wondering that if I was stubborn on certain points a that I was not entirely sure of, I might be risking consequences when I submitted my work to certain conferences and journals, risking imbalance through the inner censor (I should make clear I am not insinuating anything about either yourself or Allan, just commenting on how the academic arena isn't a level playing field of ideal dialogue). Unless and until more heavy-weight academics with rival agendas in these areas start participating, I think we should try to ensure balance more pro-actively. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 20:47, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, at this point, in time getting heavy-weight academics to contribute to the Wikipedia is a very tough. My experience is that recent events are also unfortunately making it harder. I have found that junior academics have their own reasons for not contributing. So maybe we could encourage more graduate students to contribute?
If the Arbitrators endorse Edward Schaefer's motion that academics should be banned from editing in areas that they have published, then it does look pretty dismal for senior academics contributing to the Wikipedia.
So what exactly is balance and how might we promote it more pro-actively?
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 08:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I thought I had already responded to this. What I mean when I say that an article is balanced when no credible viewpoint is favoured over another, either in terms of the way issues are covered (which is neutrality), or in terms of how thoroughly the issues cogent to each viewpoint are represented. The introduction to the Actor model and process calculi article used to strike me as resembling a series of talking points on how to rebut claims that process calculi represented the more principled way of formalising concurrent processes. The article is much improved now, but I'd say that to be really balanced it should read like an overview of the two approaches side-by-side, showing how they deal with the issue of how to describe concurrent processes; as things stand it rather gives me the impression of being about what process algebra look like from the vantage point of the actor model. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 03:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
You make some good points.
Right now the organization of the article Actor model and process calculi is issue oriented for the lack of a better alternative. Maybe it could be made more balanced by introducing more issues for consideration. Alternatively someone could propose a better organization. Of course we already have approaches "side-by-side" in the sense that we have respective articles reporting how the different approaches describe concurrent processes.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 12:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I can certainly endorse the spirit of this motion, but the letter of it I obviously am not enthusiastic about. Carl Hewitt may see my call "that academics should be banned from editing in areas that they have published" as improper, but I have two issues that drive me in that general direction. The first is obviously Carl's edit history as documented in the Evidence page. The second is my own predicament in being an independent researcher in general relativity, with original research of my own that obviously is inappropriate material for the article space in Wikipedia. I have concluded that my work will be encyclopedic when someone else chooses to start an article on it, and then to assist the development process of said articles as best I can. Let's just say that I find the restrictions of WP:AUTO to be close to the mark. The basic idea is to let others do the work and insert my own throughts via suggestions in the talk page.
By contrast, Carl seems to be all over the place creating hooks to the actor model either directly or indirectly. There is an amazing lack of perspective here. Does this mean that strict enforcement of WP:AUTO should be initiated? Perhaps, but the overall issue really is not just the autobiographical editing but rather the disruption that it has been causing. Wikipedia may have more to learn in terms of dealing with this type of thing, but it needs to deal with it. BTW - I find Carl's threats about scaring academics away to ring hollow. Linas has indicated that himself CSTAR and R.Koot are Ph.D.'s, and they have been documented as having st lest gone on a wiki vacation due to the frustrations of having dealt with Carl. It seems to me that effective action will therefore do more to encourage academic participation than to discourage it. However, I am sure that Carl will take issue with this. --EMS | Talk 06:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
As I have mentioned before, I have been encouraging my colleagues to contribute to the Wikipedia. Last fall, I seemed to be making some progress. But recently things seem to have taken a turn for the worse. One reason is the unfortunate Afshar affair (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afshar experiment (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Afshar experiment, Talk:Afshar experiment, etc.). One of my colleagues was appalled by the way that they perceived that Professor Afshar was treated. Another seemed very perplexed as to how this could possibly have happened.
In partial explanation, I have related some of the history of trolls, cranks, crackpots, spam, vandals, sockpuppets, etc. on the Wikipedia. The response to this explanation has been some increase in understanding of what has been going on accompanied by a huge increase in resistance. My colleagues are dumbfounded when they learn that it has not been accepted on the Wikipedia that they can contribute to articles on subjects which they have published. Some senior faculty (as well as junior faculty for slightly different reasons) have decided that they definitely do not want to contribute to the Wikipedia.
Of course the above observations are annecdotal and not a scientific sampling of the opinions of academics. It seems likely that only a very small number of my colleagues have so far encountered the administrative procedures of the Wikipedia. So it may be possible to turn this situation around.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 20:31, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Carl, I think it's important to keep in mind that many academics already contribute to Wikipedia, and are doing so successfully. Among them are Charles Stewart, Jonathan Bowen, Charles Matthews, Jitse Niesen, and Chris Hillman. Those are just the few I know off the top of my head - I'm sure there are plenty more. So it's not the case that academics in general are averse to contributing to Wikipedia, or that they are unable to do so in a way that doesn't result in problems. Given this fact, perhaps you should be looking at what specifically about Prof. Afshar's edits and your edits have produced such a negative reaction (even among academics - many of the names I have listed above are parties to this RfAr). --Allan McInnes 21:30, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Alan, You make some good points. I agree that some academics already contribute. But extradinarily few professors do so. From my conversations with faculty about the prospects of their contributing and my experience with the Wikipedia, the situation looks to be fairly complex with many issues and ramifications to be considered.
For example, do you support the current wording of the motion?
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 10:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed temporary injunctions

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[edit] proposed injunction by ems57fcva

1) That Carl Hewitt be barred from making edits in the article space for at least 6 months. Commentary in the talk pages would be permissible. --EMS | Talk 16:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

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[edit] Proposed final decision

[edit] Proposed principles

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[edit] Writing about yourself

1) You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. Writing about yourself and your work is inherently point of view, see Wikipedia:Autobiography.

Comment by Arbitrators:
  1. The essence of the problem
Comment by parties:
  1. Will the Wikipedia, de facto, adopt the policy that Wikipedia editors are banned from contributing to articles for subjects on which the editors have published outside of the Wikipedia?--Carl Hewitt 12:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    No, the guideline is enforced only when breaking it results in major disruption Fred Bauder 18:44, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    It has been proposed in Wikipedia_talk:Autobiography#Not_banning_intellectuals that the guideline be clarified as follows:
    I think a flat ban on people editing things about which they have direct involvement is a bad idea, as it would cut out many of the people with the most knowledge about, and motivation to edit, the things in question. However, if they show inability to stick to NPOV and NOR, some individual sanctions might be in order. *Dan T.* 19:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    Yep, that sounds right; it also seems to be pretty close to existing practice. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:29, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    Sounds fair to me as well. As Fred said, no one makes a big fuss over this unless the editing is disruptive. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 06:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 03:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
  2. I also find that this summarizes the reason that Carl Hewitt's editing is so disruptive. I wish that I had known of this guideline earlier, as it already call for the editors to obey the rules I suggest in my second suggestion above. --EMS | Talk 21:06, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  3. Please note that neither *Dan T.* nor TenOfAllTrades actually posted to this arbitration; rather, this text was added by Hewitt [1] However, Mindspillage did post here [2]; it seems he was taken in by this ruse (!?). This entire page and its edit history is a testimony to Carl's ability to mislead, confuse and dodge. linas 06:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    If you look at Wikipedia_talk:Autobiography#Not_banning_intellectuals, you will find that this text is further attributed to comments on User_talk:Jimbo_Wales which have since been cleared off of that talk page. The text is for real, but Carl has committed a number of improprieties here:
    1. Failure to properly link the text directly to its original source (thereby creating an appreance that it was placed on the talk page by the editors themselves)
    2. Failure to place the quoted text into a pair of quote signs or indented from Carl's text and italicized (as is my preference). Without these, it looks the quoted text was placed here by the authors.
    3. Bolding the text. This makes it look like the editors are emphasizing thier remarks
    4. Not including the remarks of Carl's own that these editors are responding to, to give them proper context.
    This is more a matter of incompetence instead of maliciousness, but the result is none-the-less much the same. It certainly is another example of how Carl Hewitt manages to be disruptive. --EMS | Talk 20:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
There is no doubt that the current technology on the Wikipedia is unfortunately very primitive causing many difficulties. For example often it is not possible to link directly with some text that appeared elsewhere. But we have to cope anyway. So one thing that can be done if the text is small is to simply duplicate the gist of it and put in a link to the larger text that was the source. This is what I did. Also it would have been preferable to put quotation marks around the whole thing in addition to indenting and to remark that I added the bold face. So I am not perfect and will do better next time. Carl Hewitt 17:28 23 January 2006 (PST)
Comment by others:
  1. I haven't looked at any of the details of this case, but this proposed remedy does not mean that editors should not contribute to articles for subject on which the editors have published outside of Wikipedia. What it means is that you should not create these articles in the first place. The problem here is that it can be difficult for someone closely involved in a subject to be objective about its importance. If you find yourself having to quote publications you yourself have written to justify the edits you are making to Wikipedia, you have to question very carefully whether you are adding information for the right reasons. When others question the edits you make, then there is a problem. If you are editing in an area in which you are very familiar but quoting other people's writings that is somewhat different, jguk 13:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
In this case, we are dealing with Wikipedia articles in computer science that increasingly address issues that are at the edge of the state of the art. The important thing is that the Wikipedia articles report objectively on the published scientific literature regardless of who was the author of the scientific literature. Getting the reporting right is more important than whether I, one of my students, or my colleague Robin Milner authored the published work being reported.
At this point, the issue is not so much creating new Wikipedia articles out of whole cloth as managing and evolving the articles that we already have. In particular, we have an unresolved policy issues regarding preprints (articles that have been accepted for publication but not yet published). For example, can results from preprints be mentioned on on discussion pages to help provide guidance on how to proceed?
It would be a great help if we could persuade more researchers closely involved in the subject matter to become contributors to the Wikipedia. On every possible occaison, I encourage my colleagues to contribute to the Wikipedia. However, at the present time they are very reluctant to participate for reasons discussed in User_talk:CarlHewitt#Rest of the quote.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 08:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
I find that in this case, Carl has done a wonderful job of misstating the proposal. The proposal as I read it (or at least intend it) is a narrow prohibition on writing about yourself and your direct creations. Certainly neither myself nor the aribtrators want to prohibit people from contributing to their areas of expertise, of which one's own creations are usually a very minor part. Also, I for one call for people to contribute indirectly to articles in the proscribed areas by using the talk pages. That way their requests can be "vetted" by other editors, thereby providing these articles a "POV filter" of sorts. It may speak to how focussed on his own work Carl is that this proposal is for him tantamount to barring him from his "area of expertise". That this focus may be part of the source of the problem here is IMO something that is worthy of consideration. --EMS | Talk 21:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
It is worth noting that the Actor model is not my direct creation. As pointed out in the article Gul Agha, Beppe Attardi, Henry Baker, Will Clinger, Irene Grief, Carl Manning, Ian Mason, Ugo Montanari, Maria Simi, Scott Smith, Carolyn Talcott, Prasanna Thati, and Aki Yonezawa have made important contributions to the semantics of Actors. Important contributions to the implementation of Actors have been made by Bill Athas, Russ Atkinson, Beppe Attardi, Henry Baker, Gerry Barber, Peter Bishop, Nanette Boden, Jean-Pierre Briot, Bill Dally, Peter de Jong, Jessie Dedecker, Ken Kahn, Henry Lieberman, Carl Manning, Tom Reinhardt, Chuck Seitz, Richard Steiger, Dan Theriault, Mario Tokoro, Darrell Woelk, and Carlos Varela.
We are talking about a whole area of research whose contributors include famous academics from Caltech, Keio University, MCC, MIT, Northeastern, Paris 6, SRI, Stanford, Tokyo University, University of Pisa, University of Illinois, etc.
So what exactly are you proposing to ban?
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 21:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
The first sentence of the actor model article reads as follows:
In computer science, the Actor model, first published in 1973 (Hewitt et al. 1973), is a mathematical model of concurrent computation.
As you are responsible for the first publication, that makes the actor model your direct creation. The others whom you name are subsequent contributors to it and/or related theoretical works. Indeed, most of these other people are mentioned only in a the section "Actor researchers", while the name of Hewitt is mentioned quite frequently. --EMS | Talk 21:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Almost all of the people mentioned have authored published scientific contributions and many of these are listed in the references of the article. Their contributions are not diminished by there not being space in the top level article Actor model (of all the articles in Category:Actor model), just as the contributions of important physicists are not diminished by not being mentioned in the top level article General Relativity. The published research of the above listed researchers will in due course be reported in forthcoming Wikipedia articles unless you succeed in having the reporting banned. --Carl Hewitt 03:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
This response does not address the main point I made above, that you are the originator of the actor model, and that your reporting on it is therefore autobiographical and in conflict with the Wikipedia:Autobiography guideline. --EMS | Talk 06:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
It is worth pointing out that Allan McInnes has also contributed significantly to the development of the article Actor model. At this point I don't have any great ideas on how to improve the article and so have no plans to contribute further. Hopefully, some one else will have some ideas for improvement.
In the meantime, we have all the other articles in Category:Actor model which tend to much more report on published work by others than myself. So again, I ask: So what exactly are you proposing to ban?
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 09:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
2. This is, indeed, very close to the heart of the problem, but I find WP:AUTO a very problematic rule: it is only a guideline, it has very little imperative content stated straightforwardly, eg. quoting Jimbo to the effect that writing about yourself is a faux pas, though obviously not so severe that he would not do it himself, and later injunctions from the guideline are phrased in a very hesitant manner. I think that Carl's manner and pace of such autobiographical editing needs to change greatly, but I think the principle we should invoke is much weaker than that proposed here. In particular:
  • It is quite possible for one to write from a NPOV about oneself. It is merely very much harder to do this about oneself that about someone one does not care.
  • One might create a new article in order to better organise existing material. Refactoring, as opposed to covering new areas, should not be out of bounds.
It also does not go far enough. The main problem with Carl's editing has not been what he has worked upon, but that he has not changed course in response to criticism. I would say that because of the increased risk of POV in autobiographical topics, there should be an increased burden of evidence when arguing for one's viewpoint, and an increased deference to opposition. --- Charles Stewart 09:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that you have laregly hit the nail on the head with respect to Carl's responsiveness to criticism. However, part of the problem is that in certain areas Carl really does not "get it", as evidenced by his fighting back on specific points in the action. He actually does try to address criticisms, but often in a way that misses the basic point! In the physics area he finally got it through his head that his viewpoint would not be admitted, but as evidenced by the protests here has yet to comprehend why it is opposed. The result is a very disruptive editor since he constantly revises the problem he is presented with into something that he can deal with without changing his agenda, and yet it is his agenda that often is the primary source of the criticism. --EMS | Talk 04:39, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
3. WP:AUTO precedents:
  1. David Mertz (is User:Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters) - see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/David Mertz and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Requests for comment/Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters --- Charles Stewart(talk) 06:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
  2. Jimbo --- Charles Stewart(talk) 06:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
  3. Other precedents are the following:
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 02:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Banning due to disruption

2) Users may be banned from editing articles if there is history of them editing the articles in a disruptive way.

Comment by Arbitrators:
  1. Only solution I can see Fred Bauder 22:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
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1) {text of proposed principle}

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[edit] Proposed findings of fact

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1) {text of proposed finding of fact}

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[edit] Edward Schaefer

1) Edward Schaefer has contributed to the Wikipedia in physics and other areas under the user name Ems57fcva. He uses the signature "EMS | Talk".

Comment by Arbitrators:
Comment by parties:
  1. Background --Carl Hewitt 06:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment by others:

[edit] Carl Hewitt

1) Carl E. Hewitt is an Associate Professor (Emeritus) in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who has done significant creative work, see Carl Hewitt.

Comment by Arbitrators:
  1. Background Fred Bauder 18:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment by parties:
  1. FWIW, I have never doubted that User:CarlHewitt is indeed the person described above. His actions have always spoken to me of there being a serious intellect behind them. As a result, I have even reprimanded people for claiming otherwise. (See Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_September_15#Category:Relativistic_Information_Science, User:Pdn's comments and Talk:Actor_model#Pseudoscience.)
Comment by others:
  1. I have verified this, by checking that the email address used by User:CarlHewitt is one known to his former PhD student, Will Clinger (whose name arose in the denotational semantics matter). This information was available in November, but the doubt meme was hard to kill. --- Charles Stewart 10:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aggressive autobiographical editing

2) Carl Hewitt has aggressively edited articles which concern himself and his work in a point of view way, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt/Evidence

Comment by Arbitrators:
  1. I think this covers the situation well enough Fred Bauder 22:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment by parties:
  1. Carl Hewitt has negotiated with other Wikipedia editors the content of Wikipedia articles on subjects in which he has published articles in the scientific literature, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Carl_Hewitt/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_Carl_Hewitt and User_talk:CarlHewitt#Discussion_with_Allan_McInnes_from_arbitration. Some of these negotiations raise issues of unresolved Wikipedia policy because the articles have reached the stage of development that they are addressing issues right at the edge of the state of the art.--Carl Hewitt 12:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
The job of the Arbitration Committee is to address those "unresolved" issues in a commonsense way. In this case a big bruhaha is rather obvious. Fred Bauder 18:47, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I did not know that it was the job of the Arbitration Committee to resolve such policy issues. Wouldn't it be better to resolve them by consensus in discussions on the policy pages?--Carl Hewitt 00:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
It's simple enough, create a situation where we must make a decision and we will make one. It is almost always better to respond reasonably to what others say, rather than forcing a third party to impose a solution. Please try good faith negotiation or mediation next time. Your input in policy discussions is welcome. Fred Bauder 03:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I prefer good faith negotiations and mediation. It was Edward Schaefer's idea to escalate directly to attempting to get you to ban me in order to win the content negotation after the effort to delete Scientific Community Metaphor failed.
I have initiated a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Autobiography#Not banning intellectuals on the possibility of clarifying the guidance in Wikipedia:Autobiography.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 08:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
LOL - You write the above while at the same time you keep on quoting R. Koot's remark about your starting another "vanity spree" as some kind of "evidence". It is R. Koot's remark that indeed was the start of this. I'm still not certain what that "vanity spree" was about, but even if we had "won" the AfD mentioned above, that "vanity spree" of yours would have caused this. This is not about one article but instead about an ongoing pattern of conduct. As I emphasize in my evidence section, no one incident justfies an action against you. Instead it is the fact that the incidents just keep on coming. That is something that you keep refusing to address. --EMS | Talk 21:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
With regard to the origins of this arbitration, please see Attempting to win a content negotiation by trying to ban the other party.
As I said on the other page, neither I nor anyone else is perfect. (See Lessons that can be learned from Edward Schaefer's pattern of behavior, How POV Neutral are Carl's_detractors?, and Discussion of Carl_Hewitt's pattern of behavior.)
Since this is the Wikipedia, nothing is ever finished, i.e. the interactions just keep on coming.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 07:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Comment by others:
  1. (1) That it is aggressive is POV based on an initial reaction against Carl's contributions that had anything to do with physics, and (2) that it is autobiographical ignores the contributions of others to the Actor body of work.
(1) EMS's et.al. policing physics initially triggered an overy aggressive response to Carl's contributions. It's based on an overly narrow view of physics content, an old-school view of quantum mechanics and relativity, see Rovelli [3], and a misunderstanding of abstraction in computer science. Which all boil down to a difference of opinion about content.
(2) Concluding that it's nothing but Carl's work just because it originated with him is an overgeneralization. On the positive side it can be argued that this is evidence of non-self promotion, i.e. it has inspired so many others. But here, it's used as evidence for self-promotion. That seems distorted at best, and malicious at worst.
Montalvo 02:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Two remarks: (1) Please note Carl's aggressive editing of this workshop page. (2) Carl's physics suggestions had nothing to do with a "narrow view of physics content", or Rovelli, or loop quantum gravity or anything like that; they were rather outrageous claims unsupported by either facts or theory. This is clarified on the evidence page. linas 19:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Dear Linas,
The following materia appears elsewhere on this page. But because you have ignored it and there is no easy way to link to it, I have reiterated what actually happened below:
Computer scientists showing up and claiming that they have something important to say that is related to older fields (e.g. physics) has become a familiar story. Also familiar is the reaction of horror on the part of traditionalists in the older fields who often feared the invasion of crackpots into their domain. The traditionalists often presented the demand that the computer scientists establish themselves in an older "respectable" field and publish in the journals of an older field (e.g. physics). However, the computer scientists instead in due course established their own academic departments and their own journals and refereed conferences to the consternation of the some traditionalists.
In this particular case, in the early 1970s computer scientists needed to create a new theory of Concurrent computing because of some internal unmet needs in computer science (see Planner programming language). Some computer scientists decided to found the new theory on physics instead of mathematics which had been the previous practice in computer science (see Actor model and Actor model early history). It took several years of work by a number of researchers but they succeeded and the doctoral dissertation of Will Clinger published the first mathematical foundation for the new model of concurrency (see denotational semantics). The new computer science model of concurrent computation made fundamental use of a physical law in its foundations: Discreteness that says that between any two events in the fundamental event partial ordering there are only finitely many events. (See Actor model theory.)
In fact many computer scientists have published work on similar ordering relationships which are related to physics. The fact that this published work has been in computer science does not disqualify it from being reported in the Wikipedia.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 20:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
That's nice, but seems besides the point. You and I, and others, argued because you made a number of statements about quantum mechanics and gravity that I felt were erroneous, and when challanged, you ducked the issue. linas 00:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, indeed, in addition to the above connection between Category:Concurrent computing and Category:Physics, other connections were discussed as well including the following
  • The fact that the indeterminacy in the partial ordering discussed above depends on physical indeterminacy (see Indeterminacy in computation).
  • The fact that the partial ordering discussed above is relativistically invariant, i.e. if one event precedes another in the fundamental partial ordering, then the time of the former is less than the time of the latter in the relativistic frames of reference of all observers (see Actor model theory).
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 09:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
The above
  1. is a red herring with respect to this RfAr,
  2. is a red herring with respect to physics,
  3. cites as support an article (Indeterminacy in computation), which refutes the need for any direct connection between the actor model and theoretical physics [something which I am willing to document (again) on the talk page upon request by someone other than Carl], and
  4. is an example of the disruptive editing and argument style that is the reason for the RfAr.
--EMS | Talk 19:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
The following is indeed a physical effect on which the Actor model depends: the indeterminacy of the fundamental partial ordering of the Actor model depends on physical indeterminacy. The reason is the use of Arbiters in the implementation of Actor systems (see Indeterminacy in computation). The consensus of the scientific community is that that Arbiters are physically indeterminate once they have become metastable. It is true that that there is a controversy about the source of the physical indeterminacy of Arbiters. Some experts maintain that it is simple physical indetermiacy of the usual kind with metastable systems. Others are not so sure. And some believe that the indeterminacy in Arbiters is due to quantum indeterminacy (see Incompleteness of quantum physics). --Carl Hewitt 07:35, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
See talk for response. (This thread has gotten off-topic IMO.) --EMS | Talk 18:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Attempting to win a content negotiation by trying to ban the other party

1) There is an attempt to win a content negotiation for Scientific Community Metaphor by trying to ban a party to the content negotiation for that article. See the following diff:

[4] * Weak keep and Rewrite. Charles Steward and Fastfission convinced me this is just notable enough not to be original research. As this AfD seems to be going to a no-consensus I will start an RfC against User:CarlHewitt, so this article can be rewritten. --R.Koot 23:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Regards, --Carl Hewitt 05:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

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Comment by others:
  1. I think we must avoid claims based in part on speculation in the Findings of fact section. --- Charles Stewart 20:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that the question is whether or not the Arbitrators will uphold the proposed finding of fact. Where do you see the "speculation"? --Carl Hewitt 07:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Of course I can not speak for Charles, but I see a clear difference between an RfC and an attempt to ban. The diff shows that Ruud intended to start an RfC to resolve the conflict at Scientific Community Metaphor. Any conclusion beyond that is speculation. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:49, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
After some further discussion about how to win, the result was,
  • [5] Rudy Koot (aka Ruud Koot) to Edward Schaefer-
    • Carl just started another vanity spree. I want him block, quick. Any comments, suggestions or opinions? —R. Koot 03:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 02:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disrespect for the opinions of others

1) Carl Hewitt is quite disrespectful of the considered opinions of others. He will ignore arguments that he does not like, and persists in maintinaing lines of logic that others have refuted.

Edward Schaefer has expressed his own idiosyncratic views on various issues in Computer Science. In a great many cases his views are opposed to the published scientific literature of Computer Science. But he nevertheless persists in trying to impose them on the Wikipedia. In this respect he has been a disruptive editor in the area of Computer Science with his tactics of attempting to win content negotitations by trying to delete articles and ban other parties who are contributing to the Wikipedia.
In some respects Edward's behavior has been typical of a problem that Computer Science has faced from its formation. People who have some expertise in another field (e.g., physics) often believe that this somewhow makes them experts in Computer Science if in addition they know how to program. Over the last 50 years, Computer Science has developed considerably with its own academic departments and large published literature. So Computer Science has become rather specialized and resolving issues now often requires considerable knowledge and expertise.
When I first began to contribute to the Wikipedia early last summer, the Wikipedia articles for Category:concurrent computing were in dismal shape. Today with the help of a couple of competent contributors most of the outright errors and enormous ommissions have been eliminated. Allan McInnes has initiated a project Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science that will hopefully provide a framework in which we can more systematically tackle remaining issues for Category:concurrent computing.
Originally, I had hoped to attract more faculty members to contribute to the Wikipedia. Unfortunately, because of the recent experiences of Professor Afshar and myself, it has become more difficult. Many of my colleagues now believe that they have good and sufficient reason not contribute to the Wikipedia. I have tried to argue with them that the Wikipedia is in flux and the situation could still turn around to make it a welcoming place. But, unfortunately, they do not seem convinced.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 11:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

2) Examples of this may be found not only in the evidence presented initially, but also in the interactions on this page and on the related talk page.

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[edit] Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

[edit] Template

1) {text of proposed remedy}

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[edit] Carl Hewitt banned from autobiographical editing

1) Carl Hewitt is banned from autobiographical editing regarding himself and his students' work. This ban includes creation of links and categories which refer to that work.

Comment by Arbitrators:
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  1. Will the Wikipedia, de facto, adopt the policy that Wikipedia editors are banned from contributing to articles for subjects on which the editors have published outside of the Wikipedia?--Carl Hewitt 12:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    No, but in cases where there is a major disruption such as this one a solution will be imposed. Imagine it as a ungoverned flywheel or a cancer. Fred Bauder 18:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    Actually, there hasn't been any disruption for some time. Edward Schaefer's complaints are about ancient history. It is true that content negotations are becoming more difficult when the issues involved are at the edge of the state of the art. Also some things will need to be renegotiated when new literature is published next summer that bears on some of the articles to which I have contributed. But these issues can also be negotiated by the members of the community who are both knowledgable and judicious.
    However, if you allow this caper to succeed it will be a black mark on the reputation of the Wikipedia. It will show that people don't have to negotiate content in good faith. Instead it can work to complain, escalate, and then get the Arbitration Committee to ban the other party.
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 04:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    As usual, there is no acknowledgement on his own egregious behavior here, and now a pretense that mine are the only examples being cited! I wonder what Carl will come up with next. To me, the source of a black mark on Wikipedia is the difficulty in getting disruptive editors contained, to the point that it is a flaw noted in the recent and otherwise very positive endorsement of Wikipedia by Nature magazine [6]. It seems to me that Wikipedia is in some need of a more robust process to deal with disruptive editors. R.Koot was to be a partner in this effort, but soon after it began decided to leave Wikipedia instead. Also, as noted below, Allan McInnes, who is another academian, has chosen to keep away from CarlHewitt's "turf" due to the difficulty in dealing with him. So while a process like this is ongoing, editors like Carl continue to cause "damage" not just by the edits themselves, but by the frustration he creates and the way that frustration sours people's feelings on Wikipedia. --EMS | Talk 22:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
For the record, no one has "turf" on the Wikipedia. However, some areas are highly technical (e.g., Incompleteness of quantum physics, Actor model, etc.) which makes it harder for those without advanced knowledge to make a contribution.
With respect to Edward's other comments, please see Lessons that can be learned from Edward Schaefer's pattern of behavior and How POV Neutral are Carl's_detractors?. In particular, I have noted there that just trying to cope with our primitive technology ought to be sufficient to drive most people up the wall. Unfortuntately, it probably does because it compounds our problems with social issues including negotiating article content.
An unfortunate common human characteristic when it is difficult to work with others is to Blame the other person. This can be compounded by complaining loudly to the authorities causing a disruption which then also is blamed on the other person.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 08:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


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  1. From Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Carl_Hewitt/Workshop#How_POV_Neutral_are_Carl.27s_detractors.3F--Carl Hewitt 18:18, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
    == How POV Neutral are Carl's detractors? ==
    The people out to get Carl are not, themselves POV neutral. They want to claim a strict hieracrhy of categories for physics topics and exclude anything that is not a physics result, i.e. not published in a peer-reviewed physics journal. I think that's too strict a standard. Carl is not claiming a physics result but a model of computation that crucially depends on physics results, i.e. a relation to physics that, I think, is important. His critics have not tried to understand it. It is deep and not easily understood. In the physicists' zeal to keep out crackpot science, I think, they've gone too far. Carl Hewitt is a reputable computer scientist [ Carl Hewitt ] that deserves to be argued with, not banned, and that the WP should want to retain.
    Montalvo 03:16, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
    From the above:
    Carl is not claiming a physics result...
    That is the reason the his attempt to attach the actor model to physical theories was rejected. If it is not a physics result, such an attachment is unwarranted. It was also written that
    [The relationship to physics] is deep and not easily understood.
    That is hardly the case. The lack of a physics result is very obvious. Besides, since the validity to the applicability of the actor model to physics is not commonly accepted in the physics community, it cannot be documented in Wikipedia without violating the no original research policy. Truth is not the issue here, but instead existing knowledge. --EMS | Talk 06:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    Computer scientists showing up and claiming that they have something important to say that is related to older fields (e.g. physics) has become a familiar story. Also familiar is the reaction of horror on the part of traditionalists in the older fields who often feared the invasion of crackpots into their domain. The traditionalists often presented the demand that the computer scientists establish themselves in an older "respectable" field and publish in the journals of an older field (e.g. physics). However, the computer scientists instead in due course established their own academic departments and their own journals and refereed conferences to the consternation of the some traditionalists.
    In this particular case, in the early 1970s computer scientists needed to create a new theory of Concurrent computing because of some internal unmet needs in computer science (see Planner programming language). Some computer scientists decided to found the new theory on physics instead of mathematics which had been the previous practice in computer science (see Actor model and Actor model early history). It took several years of work by a number of researchers but they succeeded and the doctoral dissertation of Will Clinger published the first mathematical foundation for the new model of concurrency (see denotational semantics). The new computer science model of concurrent computation made fundamental use of a physical law in its foundations: Discreteness that says that between any two events in the fundamental event ordering there are only finitely many events. (See Actor model theory.)
    In fact many computer scientists have published work on similar ordering relationships which are related to physics. The fact that this published work has been in computer science does not disqualify it from being reported in the Wikipedia.
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 05:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
  2. Carl says above "Actually, there hasn't been any disruption for some time. Edward Schaefer's complaints are about ancient history." However, the evidence presented continues till mid December. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 18:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
    By disruption, I meant by Edward Schaefer ;-)
    It is true that Allan McInnes and I engaged in some negotiations as documented in User_talk:CarlHewitt#Discussion_with_Allan_McInnes_from_arbitration that resulted in substantial improvements in the articles Actor model and Actor model and process calculi. However, even that seems to have quieted down. Of course on the Wikipedia, nothing is final!
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 04:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
    As noted by Jitse, the disruptions have continued, and I have been part of several, the more recent of which I have yet to document in the Evidence section. Let's just say that it is a time-consuming process to document these incidents, and one that I have not had time for recently. I give my thanks to the others who have contibuted evidence, thereby showing not only the true scale of the egregious actions but also the broad extent to which editors are affected by it. EMS | Talk
    I agree that Jitse Niesen has a legitimate concern that also has been voiced by Leland McInnes below. Please see my response under Leland's contribution below. --Carl Hewitt 08:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
  3. It is my understanding that one of the reasons that "...there hasn't been any disruption for some time." is that a number of editors who ran into conflicts with Carl Hewitt became sufficiently frustrated at the lack of progress via negotaition that they have given up editing; in some cases just the articles in dispute, in other cases Wikipedia in general. Via personal correspondence I know that Allan McInnes has largely abandoned any serious efforts to edit the Actor model and Actor model and process calculi articles, and it has been elsewhere reported that users CSTAR and R.Koot left Wikipedia altogether after disputes. -- Leland McInnes 21:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
    People take Wikipedia breaks for a variety of reasons. Rudy Koot took one saying that the reason was this very arbitration and that no matter what the outcome it wouldn't be good for him. But now he is back. I am glad that he has returned and don't hold any grudges against him. CSTAR is on a break with the inciting incident being stated as something written by another Wikipedia editor. Before he left, he made some substantial improvements in the article Incompleteness of quantum physics which was created at his suggestion. My negotiations with Allan McInnes although they had their difficulties did result in substantial improvements in the articles Actor model and Actor model and process calculi. Allan is currently making important contributions to articles in Category:process calculi.
    Having engaged in content negotations with all three, I can empathise with their frustrations since I often feel frustrated myself. No doubt if we were to sit down face to face, we could resolve our all content negotiations in an hour. So why is it so difficult on the Wikipedia?
    Regards, --Carl Hewitt 21:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
    This is sickenning. A careful look at the evidence shows that Carl Hewitt does not negotiate. Instead he imposes, and backs off only at need. On the issue of making his beloved actor model part of category:general relativity, once realized that it would not hold, he created a category to act as a intermediary. He did not ask the general relativity editors if they would accept that, he instead created the category and announced it. When it was objected to and us relativity editors sought to remove it, he decided that the issue was that the category needed to be renamed, and without discussion created another category using the new name. Those are not examples of negotiations. When the anti-quantum mechanics content in quantum indeterminacy was being contested, he never negotiated but instead kept defending his material religiously. After he lost an edit war in which I reverted away all of his edits, he then moved the material yet elsewhere. It then took yet another edit war to get him to place the material in an halfway appropriate location. Even then, Carl did not ask if the new location would be appropriate bust instead he simply acted on a suggestion and announced it.
    I think that it also speaks of Carl's willingness to negotiate that Allan McInnes describes those "negotiations" in his part of the Evidence secion. Note that his comments include the remarks
    We have since “sparred” (that seems the only appropriate term) on a number of occassions ...
    and
    Carl is generally unwilling to take part in any significant discussion on [certain] issues.
    The words "negotiate" and "negotiation" never apprear.
    Carl had had his chances to negotiate, and chose not to do so. I now have no expectation of negotiations in my dealings with Carl as a result, nor would I expect then to be constructive if they should occur. I find his call for negotiations at this late date to be ridiculous and inappropriate, as well as representing an ongoing refusal to acknowledge the nature and effects of his actions. --EMS | Talk 21:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
There is no doubt that in part because of our primitive technology that negotiations on the Wikipedia can be difficult.
Also there can be no doubt that I have made serious mistakes in my short career as a Wikipedia contributor (Sorry!). I try to learn from them and not repeat them.
What happened was that an inexperienced editor working in Category:concurrent computing bumped into a couple more experienced editors working in Category:physics. At the time I didn't even understand 3RR! My (it turns out somewhat overly naive) idea was that since there were some relationships between the published literature in computer science and physics that I should put in some links. When Edward Schaefer reverted away my contributions, I didn't exactly know what to do and stumbled around a bit. As Edward himself elsewhere has said,
I have no doubt that in Carl Hewitt's mind he was attempting to preserve what he saw as valuable content, as opposed to maliciously evading the CfD. Yet the effect was the same. Simlarly, the contested content that was in quantum indeterminacy I have recently learned came from another article, and was placed afterwards in Actor model, mathematical logic, and physics. In response to an AfD attempt on the later resulting from the content being there, it got moved to incompleteness of quantum physics, which is actaully a good place for that content.
Edward is incorrect in stating that I did not negotiate the eventual location for my contribution in the article incompleteness of quantum physics. I negotiated the name of the article with the Harvard physicist CSTAR before it was created. This is not to say that either is completely happy with the current state of the article. We are not. Hopefully, CSTAR will return someday and continue helping to improve it.
What I find remarkable is that in spite of incredible stumbling around by the Wikipedia editors, all of the affected articles are in much better shape now than when this all started!
Also I am sorry that Edward is so upset. My suggestion is to see if we can find an appropriate mediator and patch things up somehow.
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 23:10, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
4. Per my suggested remedies in Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt/Workshop#Remedies, I think that Carl Hewitt should be banned from editing only physics articles. Carl's autobiographical editing on computer science has certainly been problematic, but it has been much less problematic than on physics article and the potential for quality contributions is much higher, and so I think these pages are best covered by probation. --- Charles Stewart 20:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC) Postscript fixed above, thanks to Jitse Niesen --- Charles Stewart 21:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
5. I have thought hard whether this remedy would ultimately be good for Wikipedia and I honestly do not know. However, if this remedy is accepted, I think there should be a time limit or another method to lift the ban. A minor point: I assume that the student referred to in the statement of the remedy is Will Clinger? Why not mention him by name? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
It does seem extreme but I'm not sure that there is an effective alternative. Probation would just drag it out. I doubt very much that the situation would get better over time. Didn't mean to single out a particular student. Fred Bauder 01:51, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
The ArbCom clearly has more experience in dealing with difficult cases like this one so you may well be right. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:45, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Carl Hewitt placed on probation

2) Carl Hewitt is placed on Wikipedia:Probation. He may be banned from any article which he disrupts.

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1. If Carl is, as I suggest, allowed to continue editing on any autobiographical pages, it is clear that we need a technically strong team involved in probation. I suggest we try to figure out who might best fit this role on the talk page. --- Charles Stewart 20:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed enforcement

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1) {text of proposed enforcement}

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[edit] Enforcement by block

1) Should Carl Hewitt edit any article from which he is banned, he may be briefly blocked, up to a week in the case of repeat offenses. After 5 blocks the maximum block shall increase to one year.

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[edit] Analysis of evidence

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[edit] General discussion

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