Talk:Ignazio Ciufolini

Reliable source for citation metrics
I prefer to use NASA ADS than Google Scholar. Indeed, it is far more complete, reliable and detailed, offering a full suite of bibliometrics indexes. Moreover, NASA ADS is used in evaluation precesses by several academic institutions, research organizations, etc. 212.27.204.226 (talk) 15:27, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

NASA ADS or Google Scholar?
NASA ADS is certainly not less complete than Google Scholar, and I agree that it is more trustable. Thus, I restored its metrics. Nonetheless, I left those by Google Scholar. Please, notice that the IP of the contributor who removed the metrics by NASA ADS is from the same Italian region (Lazio) where Ciufolini and most of his coworkers live and work. I invite this contributor not to vandalize/censor valuable pieces of information just because she/he does not like them. Thank you. Best regards. Danguard00 (talk) 14:25, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

NASA ADS
NASA ADS should be used instead of Google Scholar. As per the Wikipedia article, Google Scholar has several drawbacks, and NASA ADS is far more complete and reliable. It returns also lot of useful bibliometric parameters. Thanks. Referee23 (talk) 10:26, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Bibliometric information section
Do you think that it is necessary to put the bibliometric information under a specific section? In other biographies of living physicists this information is under the main section. I think it shall be preferable to uniform the article to the other biographies.Cricecio (talk) 15:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, dear Cricecio. I think it is a good idea! I also appreciated that you added more NASA ADS metrics. I think it should be done also for other living physicists. See you. GundarionX (talk) 21:45, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Scientific misconducts
I added a section on the ArXiv case. Its moderators, in removing a paper by Ciufolini, explicitly wrote: “This submission has been removed because 'G.Forst' is a pseudonym of Ignazio Ciufolini, who repeatedly submits inappropriate articles under pseudonyms. This is in explicit violation of arXiv policies. Roughly similar content to this article, contrasting the relative merits of the LAGEOS and GP-B measurements of the frame-dragging effect, can be found in pp. 43--45 of: ” GundarionX (talk) 22:26, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * In response to talk. I changed the section title from "Scientific misconduts" in "Misconducts on ArXiv database" since I think the previous title can be considered challenging some guidelines about Biographies of living persons. In WP:BLPSTYLE I paied attention at the guidelines under paragraph Balance ("Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be fair to their subjects at all times."), and in particular in WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE: "Many Wikipedia articles contain material on people who are not well known, even if they are notable enough for their own article. [...] Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care". The term "Scientific misconducts" shall be used in relation to episodes such as if the subject did published papers containing false data, for plagiarism or for scientific frauds. In this case it seems IC did tried to create multiple accounts on ArXiv using pseudonyms, and the episode can not be considered as serious as "Scientific misconduits" can lead to think.Cricecio (talk) 11:48, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Dear Cricecio, thank you for your contribution. I think that, perhaps, it is better to remove in the ArXiv database since it would tend to diminish the impact of actions which, for me, are serious. ArXiv is not a hyperspecialized place with a narrow audience. It is a worldwide venue for scientisits from all fields, widely followed also by mass media. Moreover, please, permit me to let you note that, actually, Ciufolini did not limit to do what you intended. Apart from the fact that, from ArXiv words, it seems he is currently engaged in an ongoing activity as described, the problems raise from also from a strictly scientific point of view. Indeed, it seems that the content of his article was flawed with incorrect statements, citations, etc.: ArXiv speaks about 'inappropriate'. Moreover, see the comment #282 by Kris Krogh here http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=104694&page=16. In it, he wrote: "I didn't see anything of substance in the paper. The references it cited did not show what was attributed to them." This attitude by Ciufolini has been remarked also by others in formal peer-review publications. Cheers. GundarionX (talk) 12:15, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Moreover, in the peer-review literature there are, actually, allegations of plagiarism by him. GundarionX (talk) 12:18, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Dear Montecristo10000, please, permit me to dissent with you. In no way there were any personal offences against Ciufolini. Nonetheless, it was a serious misconduct (we can plain and politely discuss as done with Cricecio about the nature and the extent of the misconduct, but, unfortunately, it was a misconduct. The reality cannot be changed by merely changing words), not a mere use of pseudonyms. I hope you will discuss here calmly. Have a nice time. GundarionX (talk) 15:16, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Now, I wish to add some more details on this issue. The comment by the ArXiv moderators, in its present form, was originally different. Until May 2011, at least, it was as follows: ‘This submission has been removed because ‘G.Forst’ is a pseudonym of a physicist based in Italy who is unwilling to submit articles under his own name. This is in explicit violation of arXiv policies. Roughly similar content, contrasting the relative merits of the LAGEOS and GP-B measurements of the frame-dragging effect, can be found in pp. 43–45 of: [Ciufolini Nature 2007]’ Evidently, the moderators changed it as a consequences of further, steady actions by Ciufolini. It would be interesting to know the target(s) of such further papers which Ciufolini repeatedly tried to submit to ArXiv. GundarionX (talk) 15:25, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Allegations of plagiarism
Dear Montecristo10000, I added a section to the alleged plagiarism by Ciufolini with references. As you may note, there are neither personal attacks nor offensive words at all. I included also a reference where Ciufolini rejects such accusations, and a reference where an independent evaluation is offered. In particular, the plagiarism issue is discussed in Section 6, pp. 508-509 of Ref. . Among other things, Lorenzo Iorio writes: ‘In regard to the combination of Eq. (10), our papers on it are available on the Internet since April 2003. Moreover, we personally know the authors of Ciufolini and Pavlis (2005) having collaborated with them for some years and sent them various e-mails between April and September 2003 with our results attached; the interested reader can ask us for them. In one case (28 March 2003 and 30 March 2003), Ciufolini asked us to prepare a short table with our results in .doc format in view of a video-conference with NASA officials to be attended in the following days by Ciufolini. A few days before, 26 March 2003, we e-mailed the .pdf of Iorio and Morea (2004) to Ciufolini. Later, on 7 September 2003, we discussed the impact of the GGM01C Earth gravity model on the LAGEOS–LAGEOS II combination with Pavlis.’

I hope all is better now. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Best wishes. GundarionX (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Legal actions by I. Ciufolini against L. Iorio
For the benefit of readers, I translate a recent Iorio's post on the online blog 20centesimi of a local newspaper of the Lecce area: ‘I permit to inform readers that Mr. Ciufolini formally sued me for defamation more than two years ago for some statements attributed to me in this blog. Instead, I did not sue for defamation Mr. Ciufolini, here hidden under the nickname Verità, although he offered me many occasions after some repeated statements by him whose content was blatantly false and defamatory such as I would have been dismissed by all institutions, no institutions would seek me, nobody would read my papers, as well as the disclosure of confidential and proprietary information obtained do not know how, about my relationships with some scientific journals. Indeed, I'm a physicist, not a lawyer and, given the situation of justice in Italy, I would deeply ashamed to let any magistrate waste time with things like that. Contrary to Mr. Ciufolini, evidently. The judgment of similar events is left to readers. ’ GundarionX (talk) 17:30, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Removed the section "Allegations of plagiarism"
I'm removing The section Allegation of Plagiarism since plagiarims is a serious accusation that does not stand on reliable sources. The only source is Lorenzo Iorio. The article by Giacomo Renzetti can not be considered a reliable source since I tried to check on Google Scholar and found only four papers by Renzetti, that are reporting the thesis by Lorenzo Iorio. I can not find any evidence that a physicist named Giacomo Renzetti even exist; I did not find any personal page or any page on any Univerity. The e-mail shown on Springer is not related to a University. Please, can you check if Renzetti does really exist or if it is a pseudonim, before restoring the section? If the accusation did stand on solid basis, other physicists than Renzetti should have recognized it, and it should have been found on other media;
 * Accusation of plagiarism can be considered breaking several guidelines of Wikipedia Biography of Living Persons (BLP):
 * - Writing style, balance: "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. Do not give disproportionate space to particular viewpoints". Lorenzo Iorio and Giacomo Renzetti can not be considered reliable sources;
 * - Reliable Sources, Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material:"Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that is unsourced or poorly sourced; that is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see No original research); that relies on self-published sources, unless written by the subject of the BLP (see below); or that relies on sources that fail in some other way to meet Verifiability standards". I'm removing the section on this basis.
 * -People who are relatively unknown:" Material that may adversely affect a person's reputation should be treated with special care; in many jurisdictions, repeating a defamatory claim is actionable, and there are additional protections for subjects who are not public figures".

I hope in your cooperation.Cricecio (talk) 12:02, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Controversies
This section was removed, as it referenced primary and/or non-reliable sources. If for whatever reason these allegations of plagiarism are covered in an independent, reliable source, then they can be included. Until then this quite frankly smells like a personal conflict being played out here, and Wikipedia is not a battleground for people's disputes. I also removed the citation index section, as that is relevant only if the bio happens to be discussed for deletion. § FreeRangeFrog croak 01:30, 5 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Arxiv moderators are an independent/reliable/non-primary source here. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:57, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Whether they are or are not is a good topic for discussion at WP:BLP/N, so please comment there. In the meantime, I'm not going to play 3RR over negative material in a bio, so please leave it out until there is consensus to include it. § FreeRangeFrog croak 18:44, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Misconducts reinstated: independent sources found
I have added the following content since it is not gossip based on uncertain, poor or fabricated sources. It is not defamatory. Moreover, please note that the strange decision by ArXiv to remove their own comments is not motivated by possible errors by them in the identification of G. Forst with I. Ciufolini, but by an alleged-and quite suspect-change in their policies. Readers must know all of this story. After 5 years that ArXiv moderators kept their original comment implicitly addressing Ciufolini, and after 4 months that they kept the modified comment explicitly addressing him, now they suddenly declare that both their own comments does not reflect their current policies...

According to the moderators of the ArXiv database, maintained by the Cornell University, Ciufolini repeatedly submitted inappropriate articles under pseudonyms, in explicit violation of the ArXiv policies. In particular, in December 2007 he used the pseudonym “G. Forst” to post on the ArXiv a paper criticizing the GP-B mission, direct competitor of his frame-dragging LAGEOS-based tests. The ArXiv moderators retracted that paper in January 2008. As of December 2013, ArXiv moderators removed their comment addressing Ciufolini, posted in September 2013, because of a change in the ArXiv policy.

Rambilon (talk) 13:31, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * References


 * There isn't a single reliable source there. I notified you in your talk page that I undid your edit, and pointed you to the relevant archived discussion on the BLP noticeboard. § FreeRangeFrog croak 03:13, 23 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I noticed that around the time all the SPAs showed up, Lorenzo Iorio has been spamming pretty much every online venues he could find about the arXiv misconduct, some of those linked above, who is apparently hellbent on exposing Ciufolini. For example is a reply to an email/query by Iorio. Since arXiv have retracted their statement, the material is no longer appropriate for inclusion, and anything related to the Iorio/Ciufolini feud should be supported by reliable sources unaffiliated with either. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:45, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's never a good sign. § FreeRangeFrog croak 18:19, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not agree with you, Headbomb and FreeRangeFrog. For the tone you used, inappropriate in some places, and the reasons you displayed, I feel you are not impartial and ar too emotively biased in favor of Ciufolini. One should clearly separate two things which are actually different: the more or less personal Ciufolini-Iorio quarrels and the Ciufolini's misconduct on ArXiv. If Iorio, for whatever reasons like to expose Ciufolini, it does not matter, provided he rely upon on objective pieces of information not related to their personal issues. And this is the case. Then, Headbomb, now you object since ArXiv retracted its own comments: this implies that they were actually good until they were in place. Now, not only ArXiv has reinstaed them in full (and, as it was shown, they did not remove them because of an error), but it has also reinforced them by further exposing Ciufolini with another case of pseudonym, Gianni Felici. On this basis, blatantly protecting Ciufolini from the consequences of his own actions with speculations on the Wikipedia's rules far from reality is clearly unfair. So, please, do not censor anymore. En passant, as a further demonstration of your partiality and favorable bias toward Ciufolini, you did not object anything in leaving in the article the mention to the cover of the Nature journal among his awards and honours, which is clearly absurd. Not to say about the latest change on the fact that the Occhialini prize was given in his hands by Jocelyn Bell, in a clearly promotional tone. So, please, do not censor anymore and, please, look solely at the merit and the content of the article, not to Wikipedia-administrators-paranoia observations like that I just popped out for this sole scope (and the other guys staying here just for promoting Ciufolini? Cricecio? Lalelonoit, and others? Nothing to say about them?) and other similar matters. Thank you. Rambilon (talk) 13:47, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Nope. I did not even know Ignazio Ciufolini existed until this article was brought to our attention as problematic. I am not an administrator. I am one of the editors who volunteer at OTRS and BLPN. As we have agreed here and elsewhere, these "issues" and "scandals" require significant secondary coverage in order to be included. Otherwise the material will be kept off the article, period. Wikipedia is not a battleground for disputes among people out there in the real world. § FreeRangeFrog croak 17:58, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Academic Evaluations and other changes made
In a fair, non-promotional and balanced biography, also negative results must be included. I added the public outcome of academic evaluations. I also removed the statemnets on his supervisors because written in a clearly promotional tone and because they were supported solely by his own curriculum, not from independent sources. I also removed his partecipation in the old LISA etc stuff. since it is common to any researchers and insufficient to single out an individual with a biographical article. Please, do not censore the academic evaluations. Thank you. Rambilon (talk) 14:17, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the information. I found that the section about the supervisors of the PhD Thesis have been restored. I found some other sources and added the quotations.Cricecio (talk) 18:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Awards and Honours changes
I restored the information about the cover page of Nature in the Awards and Honours section since I think it is an outstanding result for any researcher.Cricecio (talk) 18:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Misconduct reinstated. Peer-review article and other third-parties independent sources found
I've found a peer-review article published in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, and other independent sources from Discover (magazine), a blog hosted by the national-level La Repubblica italian newspaper, known also abroad, and a blog in Serbian. Please, keep it and, if you want, discuss the matter here. Thank you. Rambilon (talk) 20:02, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Removed. Please seek consensus here (and ideally at WP:BLP/N as well). The source you added is a blog (albeit a Discover Magazine one, granted) by an anonymous author that quotes the paper written by one of the involved people. I don't feel that could be considered significant secondary coverage, but I will let other editors chime in. In the meantime however, your entire Wikipedia editing history is limited to attempting to add this material to this one article, which rules out your capability to remain neutral. What you should be doing is not editing this article, since it's likely you have a conflict of interest. § FreeRangeFrog croak 20:08, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Reinstated. The article is a peer-reviewed one, published as a Letter to the Editor. Please, keep the focus on the matter of the facts, and do not get misled by such wiki-paranoia pseudoargument. You cannot violate any conceivable rules just because of your suspects and personal preferences. You cannot simply deny the very basic facts that now there are several independent, reliable and third parties sources from all over the world! They are not even anonymous, as you mean. Rambilon (talk) 20:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)


 * A letter to the editor and blogs are not reliable sources for bibliographies of living people. If you can find reliable, secondary sources that attest to these issues, you can add them. Cwobeel (talk) 20:47, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Use of sockpuppets added
I added that section by adding also a link to Retraction Watch, which mentioned this story. Some considerations are in order. a) The individual who circulated this story, whatever conflict of interest may have with Ciufolini, did not have part in uncovering this story, which is entirely due to arXiv b) The sources I included are reliable and independent. It is not true that blogs are not reliable. Blogs, if trustable, are currently used as sources of independent, third-party information throughout Wikipedia c) A Letter to the Editor means that it has been peer-reviewed and approved by not less than one other academic, including the Editor in Chief of the Journal. Censoring this information would be a violation of Wikipedia policies about impartiality. 56OKLO34 (talk) 07:22, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The sum total of Retraction Watch's "coverage" of the issue is a a one-line link to the same blog already discussed here. That is not a significant secondary source. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:46, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The only source of the story is the paper by L. Iorio. The arXiv site did not state anything (at least not now) that can support the claim by Iorio and it is not possible to clarify why in the past time arXiv publicly exposed Ciufolini, and why the statement was changed. Since the accusation does not rely on a reliable source, I think it is better to restore the Wikipedia article to the previous state. I'm waiting for other users opinions before restoring the page.Cricecio (talk) 09:27, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Dear Cricecio, I do not agree with you. This matter has already been discussed in the proper place and settled. The evidence shows that it is not true that the only source of the story is the paper by L. Iorio. Apart from the fact that it was accepted without external review by the Editor-in-Chief of a peer-reviewed journal, the primary source was arXiv itself and the other databases still displaying the name of Ciufolini at those preprints. It does not matter why in the past time arXiv publicly exposed Ciufolini (and why now they have decided to cover it up). It is not true that it is not possible to clarify why the arXiv's statement was changed: on the contrary, it was actually done: arXiv invoked alleged "changes in their policies", not errors in the identitiy of Forst/Felici. Moreover, this story it has been treated by other independent third-party sources such as Neuroskeptic in Discovermagazine, Retraction Watch and COPE. Finally, the Letter by Iorio was retracted only because of alleged legal reasons, not because it turne dout to be incorrect. Thus, I think it is more fair to leave the well balanced version by the previous Editor. Thank you. 56OKLO34 (talk) 13:10, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Moreover, dear Cricecio, let me remark that, while now you ask other editors to discuss here before restoring the CorporateM version, you did not do the same when you altered it. Instead, you should have discussed that issue here before altering it. A final point. Your editing history shows that you act here in Wikipedia only and always to support Ciufolini's positions. This is perfectly legitimate, of course, and I have nothing against your preferences. The (serious) problem is that, unfortunately, you do that by sistematically attempting to remove and censore pieces of verifiable information such as journal articles, etc., showing a disagreement with the Ciufolini's views. This is unfair, and, in my opinion, you should act differently. I hope also that you will not start some endless and sterile tit-for-tat. Thank you for your cooperation. 56OKLO34 (talk) 13:39, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Dear 56OKLO34, if you did check my editing history you saw that I correct and edit also other articles. This one is becaming only an annoying issue, and for the moment I prefer to let it set for a while. I asked for opinions and wait one day before restoring the voice, to see if other authors agreed or not. Maybe however I think will replace the parte about awards (why it was removed? Did it has something to do with the sockpuppeting affair?). I remember you that the only source for the sockpuppetting story is the paper by L. Iorio: Neuroskeptick and the other blog were discussing that paper.Cricecio (talk) 15:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Dear Cricecio, you cannot simply ignore facts just because you do not like them. According to you, it sounds as if Iorio had fabricated or invented the whole story, while he simply aired what arXiv repeatedly made to Ciufolini (I repeat: there is nothing bad in that you support him: the problem is how you do that). If you do not refuse to "put the eye to the telescope", you will see that on the internet there is full evidence of it. And now, please, stop supporting Ciufolini by censoring evidences (as you repeatedly tried to do in the past) raised by other people disagreeing with him. Thank you. 56OKLO34 (talk) 15:56, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Request of deletion by Ignazio Ciufolini
BLP noticeboard Dear Sirs, I am Ignazio Ciufolini (the Wikipedia staff verified my identity) and I am writing here because this page about my biography is being used for libelous statements. For some reason the page provides an unbalanced point of view, giving undue attention to controversies and lawsuits, while information concerning my research accomplishments has been removed.

In particular:
 * 1) the section of "Awards and Honours" has been removed without reason in 2014 (relevant international awards are a measure of the quality of research of a scientist and should always be included in a scientific bio). The other scientists included in Wikipedia have a complete list of their international prizes.
 * 2) Relevant information about my career and research have been removed, for example, but not only, the information about my Ph.D. dissertation, etc.
 * 3) Speculative information about controversies have been added.
 * 4) Someone added a misleading sentence about the lawsuits between me and Lorenzo Iorio.

About the lawsuits, the following statement does not represent the actual legal situation: "He sued twice the italian physicist Lorenzo Iorio for defamation[17]. Iorio was acquitted of these charges in both trials [18][19]." The above statement is misleading, suggesting that the accusation of defamation against Iorio were unfounded. Instead, the decrees of acquittal that are readable in the references (in Italian) state that some of the crimes were statute barred. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignazio_Ciufolini#cite_note-endoftrial-18

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignazio_Ciufolini#cite_note-endofsecondtrial-19

So, Lorenzo Iorio was acquitted from some of the accusations only because the trials endured too long and the crimes were statute barred. Anyway, I do not see how this information is more relevant than academic achievements.

In my opinion the current biography is providing a strongly unbalanced point of view that aims at denigrating my carrier and accomplishments. Therefore, I wish to ask you to remove the page about me on Wikipedia: it seems that the page is acting only as a magnet for editing wars that bring unwanted attention on the libelous attacks against me instead of on my academic works.

Prof. Ignazio Ciufolini

University of Salento and Centro Fermi (Rome, Italy)

Ignazio.Ciufolini (talk) 18:20, 10 February 2020 (UTC) Dear Sirs, I am Lorenzo Iorio (the Wikipedia staff may want to verify my identity if they are so kind to explain me how to do so), and I am writing here because the claims by Mr. Ciufolini here about the outcome of his two lawsuits against me are blatantly false. Indeed, two distinct and independent courts, headed by two distinct judges, have acquitted me in both trials (please, go to Google translate: the italian word ″assolto″ means ″acquitted″, the italian word ″assoluzione″ means ″acquittal″) as per the paragraph 2 of the article 599 of the Italian Penal code, entitled ″Provocation″, which states that one cannot be punished if she/he acted in a state of anger due to an unjust fact. Thus, using the same article of the penal code, two independent courts have acknowledged that Mr. Ciufolini, in fact, acted as a provoker. Moreover, Mr. Ciufolini may not describe my actions as crimes because they were not recognized as such by the courts. Best regards. Iorio.Lorenzo (talk) 15:31, 11 February 2020 (UTC)