Talk:Mars sample-return mission/Archive 1

Article provenance
This article is the outcome of a discussion on the Talk:Mars sample return mission page, see Talk:Mars_sample_return_mission—Robert Walker (talk) 14:19:10, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Quotations in citations
I have no particular problem with quotations in citations, and think they can be particular helpful in an article on a controversial subject like this one.

However, I think the format being used is rather unsightly, and I don't believe the large boxes around the citation quotations are appropriate. I have changed two citations in the article, the first two that had the large boxed quotations (currently, nos. 21 and 22), to a different format using the rather standard and widely-used cite template that is used on many many Wikipedia articles. See if you don't think this might be a better way to handle the citations, and then give it a try yourself.

NOTE: both of the two examples I put in happened to be amenable to "cite report", since they were from NRC reports. But note that there are other cite template formats for books, news, journals, etc. (e.g., "cite book", "cite news", "cite journal", etc.).

Cheers. N2e (talk) 17:20, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that looks good, and takes less space in the refs. I understand what you are saying now and it makes total sense :). I've done a few more and will do the rest later. If anyone else feels like doing a few feel free to go ahead :) Robert Walker (talk) 20:10, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Cool. Thanks.  Your work looks good.  I've added cite names to the three cites you added; this is often a good practice in the event the same citation can be used again in the same article:  saves a lot of repetition.  In this case, since the five existing citations with the extensive quotations are all page-specific, it is somewhat less likely that the same page will be used again, but that will only be determined in the future, and by editors who are familiar with that source.  N2e (talk) 20:54, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay great. Also see the change to blockquotes of first few quotes, and that looks okay to me too :). But might be better to use bq to make it easy to convert between different quotation formats e.g. if new ones are created in future or some editor wants to change it. I'll try doing them all as bq just now. Template:Bq Robert Walker (talk) 16:48, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Original Research
This article contains a lot of original research. Warren Platts (talk) 15:05, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In what way? Say more Robert Walker (talk) 19:07, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay I've reverted what you did because you deleted some things, when all that was needed were more citations to back them up. You also deleted another section as off topic, apparently because you didn't notice the change of title from the draft when it was in my sandbox. I've answered that belowRobert Walker (talk) 19:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * For the "It is generaly agreed that the question of back contamination particularly is a matter that requires full and open public debate" this has been said in every single source on the matter that I consulted. I can supply a list of citations there. For instance most of the studies cited in this article either say that, or take it for granted that there will be a public debate without comment. Also, the legal and the theological discussions cited say this. I haven't come across a single citation that doesn't say this. It seems a reasonable summary to say that something is generally agreed when there are no published papers saying anything else, and when there are many citations supporting it.


 * If you still have issues with the sentence please explain. If you know of any citation that says that it does not require full and open public debate, please give it and I can then correct it accordingly and it would then of course be necessary to give that view its proper place in the article.


 * It is reasonable to ask for citations for this introductory sentence. I will add the necessary citations to this para a bit later today (involves going through the studies finding the page numbers for the sections where this is said). Robert Walker (talk) 19:17, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Just realised you talk about the other things below so have deleted my comments here and answered you below instead.Robert Walker (talk) 19:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Legal requirement for public debate
The article cites section 7.2 of the "Mars Sample Return backward contamination – Strategic advice and requirements", but there is no mention at all in said section of public debates, let alone legal requirements for public debates. Therefore, I am deleting the sentence that says there is a legal requirement for public debate until some positive proof of such legal requirements are presented.Warren Platts (talk) 17:49, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, was a matter of copying the wrong ref into the introductory para, have put the right ref in now and fixed it. Please be considerate of other editors on wikipedia, you shouldn't just delete a sentence for a "citation needed" type issue - it is often just an omission or mistake as in this case.Robert Walker (talk) 19:47, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Section 3 redundant
The entire section recapitulates what was presented in the first section. Also contains irrelevant info. The article is not to be a general arguing against MSR in general; it is specifically about back contamination. Worries about scientific returns are better included in main MSR article. Deleting.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by WarrenPlatts (talk • contribs) 18:49, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I was careful to name this article "Concerns for an early Mars sample return" and renamed it from its original name. Yes, when in my sandbox it did have back contamination in the title. The reason for the change was because there is a wide range of concerns about a too early sample return and I felt it was better to have them all in a single article rather than focus more narrowly on just the back contamination issues.Robert Walker (talk) 19:49, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree that the second biohazard concerns seem a bit repetitive. I think it may help there to make the earlier section "concerns with current proposals for MSR" (or some such title not sure what exactly) and then this can be a general biohazard concerns section. Or something. I can have a go at different ideas of ways to do it. Will give it some thought and take a fresh look at it Robert Walker (talk) 21:14, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Risk Mitigation section
Warren, one interesting point in your revision was the addition of a risk mitigation section. We could do that. However I would suggest keeping it focussed on the risk mitigation methods described in the current NASA and ESA studies. I.e. focus on risk mitigation for the current early return, and not treat the other options of later sample returns as a form of risk mitigation.

I know you can think of all the suggestions including in situ study as a form of risk mitigation, but I think it is confusing for the structure of the article to put them all together and better to focus particularly on the risk mitigation for the NASA / ESA early MSR studies.

As it is at present, I present the concerns, and present the risk mitigation strategy immediately after the concern. Also may focus over much on the concerns and not say enough about the risk mitigation strategies.

It might work better to have an entire section just devoted to the risks of the current MSR proposal without any mention there of the risk mitigation (except as a leader to explain the structure of the section so reader knows to expect the risk mitigation section later), and another section then about the methods used to mitigate the risks.

Then to say that the target is a risk of one in a million of particle release, and that can lead into the discussion of whether a tiny risk like that is still acceptable, need for public debate, legal situation etc. I could have a go at that in my user space and see if it looks as if it would work, and if so you can comment on that - of course or try out anything else you suggest similarly it is just a thought. I think we are both acting in good faith and want to achieve a balanced article, and so this should be possible to achieve. Robert Walker (talk) 21:03, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Major Surgery
Robert, I know you feel strongly about this issue, but Wikipedia is not the place for opinion pieces. I agree than a separate article on POTENTIAL back contamination risks would be useful. However, it should balanced, and include possible mitigation strategies. I have gone through the entire article and rearranged things so that it is more organized and balanced. I have also deleted items that are clearly your own opinion--e.g., issues with biohazard facilities. Your concerns here are your own and shared by nobody. None of the citations you cited support your idea that Biosafety level 4 facilities are inherently unsafe. After all, these are where they do small pox research, Ebola, etc. Same with your idea that there is some sort of legal requirement for public debate to be held.

Please take a look at it before you do a wholesale reversion. We can get in an edit war if you want, or we can work together to make this a good article.Warren Platts (talk) 19:53, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, first thanks for your ideas. Please though, talk about it first. I am going to revert what you did. Partly it is obviously because you are under the impression that the article is just about back contamination and it isn't see the title. Please talk about what your issues are first, rather than just edit it and remove entire sections without discussion. That's not the best way to do this sort of thing.


 * I don't want to go into an edit war. I just want to have a proper discussion of the issues before we do any large scale changes of the article. You can do an alternate version and put it into your own user space if you want to show what it would be like after your proposed changes. I did that with the article myself and invited comment and only put it here after leaving it for comment in my user space for about a week.Robert Walker (talk) 19:59, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The one in a million chance of release for the biohazard facility is a quote from the ESA article and is their design criterion for the facility. Whether that is a matter of concern is a matter of points of view and I do not give my own POV in this article. Everything I present is someone else's POV backed up by citations. Was very careful about that. If there is anything in the article which seems to be my POV, please say here what it is and where it is, I could have said something POV by mistake, certainly not intentionally as I was careful not to do that Robert Walker (talk) 20:06, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have had a look at your version which of course is still in the history. I can see the basic idea of your approach. The main issue I have with it is that the article is not just about back contamination.


 * I want to also present the views of those who are concerned that an early sample return is scientifically flawed because we wouldn't know which are the best samples to return, or because it would inevitably be contaminated by Earth micro-organisms which would confuse sample analysis. Those are valid concerns but not to do with back contamination so can't be fitted into your proposed new structure for the article


 * You are right that all those involved in the debate as far as I can discover are of the opinion that a Mars sample return should be carried out at some stage, and that differences of opinion are about whether that should be done now, or at a later stage, not about whether it should be done at all ever. But putting all that under "mitigation strategies" I felt didn't well represent the range of different views on the matter, suggested that the differences in view are much less than they actually are with some strongly opposed to an early Mars sample return, while others regard it as not an issue at all provided appropriate measures are taken to contain the hazard. This diversity of views needs to be fully represented in the article.


 * I am interested in any suggestions you have for different ways to arrange the material. I suggest you put suggestions for alternate structures in your user space for now so that we can all look at them and discuss them at leisure. It would need care to restructure it anyway, and better to work on it somewhere else first.Robert Walker (talk) 20:15, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

We don't need two articles on Mars Sample Return
Robert, I know you spent a lot of time working on this article; however, it is not a blog post, nor is it a "thread" in some discussion forum. In general, it is not a good idea to get married to an article you wrote. It's going to get mercilessly edited, no matter what you want. That's how the process works. Now, I must insist that the article be sharply focused on the back contamination issue. Otherwise, it might as well be named "anti-Mars sample return"; if that's what you want, I suggest starting yet another thread at nasaspaceflight.com. If there are valid issues with the scientific value of MSR, then they should be addressed in the "Scientific Value" section of the main MSR article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_sample_return#Scientific_value


 * I had thought about putting the section on other objections to an early MSR into the MSR article itself. But feel that is better focussed on actual existing and proposed missions rather than concerns. It has a short section on concerns, and I have separated this off into a separate article, indeed that was the origin of this page, a discussion on the talk page for the main MSR article and a consensus agreement that the best approach was to create this new article. I don't feel the scientific value section of the MSR is a suitable place for it. Though there would be good idea to have a section here about the scientific value of a MSR for reasons of balance. The studies quoted often have sections on the science value to motivate an early MSR so would be entirely appropriate and maybe go into it more here, in a way that wouldn't be appropriate to do on the MSR page into the philosophical and ethical arguments in favour of an early MSR for its science value. There is some material on that in the reports and perhaps it is an example of bias in my part (unintended) that I haven't gone into it here yet. Robert Walker (talk) 22:54, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Also note, it puts forward all the points of view in the debate. It's possible it doesn't put the POV in favour of an early MSR strongly enough. If so the solution is to put in more material pro an early MSR. There is plenty of material of that type in the ESA report that can be used in a new section that could be called "Advantages of an early MSR" or some such. I can give that a go, can certainly see the advantages of an early MSR so wouldn't be hard to write it, my POV wouldn't get in the way. Mix of quotes and paraphrasing should do the job nicely. Robert Walker (talk) 23:21, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Have found a good passage about it in the NSF document, just copied it over works okay I think. It also makes more sense of the page because otherwise the reader might find it hard to understand the reason it is proposed at all :). Which of course I fully understand myself, and the reason I didn't have anything about it was surely just through familiarity with the material and assuming the reader would know already. Robert Walker (talk) 23:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, I suggest renaming the entire article, so that it is more searchable. How about "Back Contamination Risks of Mars Sample Return"? Moreover, this whole attempt to define "Early" is more of your editorializing--they way you define it places a value judgment on the mission.

(For other editors: in case you have doubts about Robert Walker's agenda, it's clearly spelled out in his blog and numerous threads at nasaspaceflight.com)

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32017.0 http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31940.0 http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31914.0 http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31914.0

I propose we delete all references to "early" and divide the article into 4 basic sections: (1) potential biohazards; (2) legal issues; (3) moral/ethical issues; (4) mitigation strategies

I'm going to revert it, and suggest if there's some things you want to add back, then go ahead, but please do it incrementally. The main reason being your original article is very rambling. You have a tendency to write "walls of text". That's not what people want when they read a Wikipedia article. Just the facts ma'am is what people want. Have mercy on their time. If you'll read it, I think you'll find that my version of the article is much more readable. Note that I did not delete any of your material that was directly related to what is currently known in the literature about potential risks of Mars sample return.Warren Platts (talk) 21:17, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay this is definitely turning into an edit war. Because I don't agree with your view that it should be focussed on back contamination concerns only. And I don't agree that it is a good structure of the article to put all the material into mitigation strategies when it is clear that many object to a MSR at this early stage and don't just want to mitigate it. It is completely wrong to put them into a mitigation strategy for the current MSR proposal.


 * There is no point on an article who's sole reason for existence is to provide a random shotgun blast of reasons why not to do MSR. I vote for complete deletion in that case. I do, however, believe that an article focusing on back contamination issues would be very useful for people googling about it.Warren Platts (talk) 22:26, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It is entirely reasonable to have an article on various reasons for not carrying out a particular public policy. Makes it easier for the reader to find all the points of view in one place. What ties it together is that there is a decision that has to be made and the public will be involved in that decision, and all the relevant views that need to be considered for the debate belong in one place in a single article. Robert Walker (talk) 22:59, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have added a para about this in the draft to help make the scope for the article clear. Hopefully this helps deal with the appearance of a shotgun blast approach, and bring the article together and explain the point in it. I say: "NASA have plans to return a Mars sample possibly as soon as 2018. Before that time, the public will need to be involved in a debate about the mission. This debate will need to take account of all the views on the matter."
 * User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return


 * So what do we do about this? I've never been involved in an edit war before...


 * Re your links to nasaspaceflight.com - then I come over in those discussions as putting forward a lone point of view on the matter because naturally it is a forum where many have the view that landing humans on the surface as soon as possible is the way ahead. Also I have been very careful not to put my own POV into this article as far as possible. You are not free of POV as if anyone looks at those discussions you put a very strong POV opposed to me. That doesn't mean that you don't have an agenda or POV of your own. It is an area where anyone is likely to have a strong POV and that doesn't stop one from contributing articles to wikipedia.


 * By Early I do not intend a value judgement. It would be a value judgement if it said "too early". Early by itself is not a value judgement.


 * Come on Robert! Who do you think you're fooling. Of course you mean "too early" by "early". Otherwise there would be no point in labeling it "early"! This is clear by the way you make a special definition of "early" just for this wiki article that appears nowhere else. More original "research". What it is is you inserting your POV. It's a value judgment.Warren Platts (talk) 22:26, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * No I do not mean "too early". Of course my own POV is that it is too early. But Early here just means Early not "Too Early". Also the phrasing is not my own invention but is used in this context by advocates of an early MSR.


 * Here is an example of it in use by a paper that advocates an Early Mars sample return.An Early Mars Sample Return Mission Through the Mars Scout Program (abstract) Robert Walker (talk) 22:49, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Anyway this is an edit war for sure the way you immediately reverted it back to your proposed article without discussion and despite my request here to discuss it first. So I will research and try to find out how you deal with edit wars.Robert Walker (talk) 21:47, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay seems I can ask for administrative assistance. But before best to try to resolve it amicably of course. Since you don't want to work on your version of the article in your own user space, then I will work on my version in my user space and then you can see what it is like. I will use the earlier version from just before your new reversion because I simply don't agree that this is a good structure for the article, and don't feel I can work with it simply by adding material back in again. It groups things together that don't belong together, and it omits points of view such as Craig Venter particularly that are highly relevant to the whole debate.


 * But will try the idea of a section on risk mitigation and use the best bits of what you have just done. Robert Walker (talk) 21:53, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

New draft
For Warren, and everyone else who is interested and following this article: this is a draft so mainly the idea is to show another possible layout for it. I think it answers many of your issues with the current article. What do you think?

User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return

First - what do you think about the organization of the article?

Second - we can now discuss any sections that you think should be removed or changed. Notice that I titled the first para. "Scope of this page - definition of an early Mars Sample Return" which also I think makes it very clear that "Early" here is not a value judgement and it shouldn't skew the reader's assessment of the issues one way or another.

To my mind everything on that page is on topic. But you may have other ideas - let's discuss them. It is just an idea at this stage. Robert Walker (talk) 22:38, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

You are welcome to edit my draft there to add new tags for citations needed etc. But please don't radically restructure it or delete sections of it without discussion here first. Instead if you need to do that please use your own user space and put a copy there with proposed new structures. I strongly recommend we both stop edits of the existing article until we reach a consensus, to avoid edit warring. Robert Walker (talk) 22:40, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Does this work? Is it progress in the right direction? If you don't like it, what on a positive note do you like about it, and what on the negative side do you not like, and do you have any constructive suggestions? Robert Walker (talk) 23:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW with the quarantine period issue, I had a thought myself which can deal with the human guinea pigs ethical issue. The only problem is I haven't found a citation for it yet so it would be original research. It is simply that if a contamination is found and there is any uncertainty about whether it is of Martian origin then the astronauts have to remain in isolation in the quarantine facilities wherever they are (whether in orbit around Earth or on the Moon or Mars orbit), supplied from Earth but in a contained way with nothing returned to Earth, until the situation is thoroughly understood for as long as that takes. If they are taken ill they have to be treated in a similar way by sending medicine and including telepresence surgery etc but can't be returned to Earth. Whether that would be an acceptable solution ethically I don't know but it is an idea. Haven't found a citation suggesting it yet though, so can't include it here. Robert Walker (talk) 23:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Have edited the intro sentence you objected to before to "It has been argued on moral grounds that the question of back contamination particularly is a matter that requires full and open public debate[8]. This is also a legal requirement" - I thought that finding material to back up "it is generally agreed" would be tricky as the refs I checked just took it for granted that there would be a public discussion and didn't debate whether it is needed. So, strictly speaking, it is more like a general assumption than a general agreement. And you could argue it might be for legal rather than ethical or moral reasons that they assume that. So decided to just put in "It has been argued that" as a simple solution, with the ref to a theologian who has said so explicitly, so that's what I did. Robert Walker (talk) 02:02, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

New draft is ready for discussion
I've done enough work on it for now, please review and see if it is okay. Have done several quite major changes and worked on it all evening to deal with the issues as best I could Robert Walker (talk) 02:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return

The draft answers all the points made so far point by point (see below). So, I will leave it as it is in my user space for a day, then if there are no more comments will replace the existing article with my draft to avoid confusion if other editors edit the page itself. Robert Walker (talk) 10:21, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Robert, I did not ask for more walls of text. This is not a discussion forum. This version is worse than the first. It is an opinion piece, not an encyclopedia article. The give away is the very title of the article "concerns" for an "early" MSR. As I pointed out above, "early" doesn't mean ASAP, it means "without a detailed microsocopic analysis first, and thorough analysis of the sample for signs of life and potential biohazards." This is a special definition of the word "early" made up especially for this article, it contains the connotation "too early", it appears nowhere else in the literature. It is not appropriate. I will not allow it stand. Section 1 should be deleted.


 * I've already answered your concern that it contains the connotation "too early". If that is so why is it that those in favour of an early MSR also talk about "Early MSR". If it had the connotation "too early" then those in favour of an early MSR wouldn't use the word. And early does not mean ASAP. Also other uninvolved editors of the draft had no problems with the use of early, I was just asked to clarify the meaning of the word, which I did.


 * As for need of a special definition for the article. Well the focus of the article is on mars sample returns that are undertaken "without a detailed microsocopic analysis first, and thorough analysis of the sample for signs of life and potential biohazards.". That is exactly what I want the article to focus on. We are in agreement on that point. It is just a matter of how best to present it so that the intent of the article is clear. Any way of doing it that makes that clear and is easy to read is fine by me. The use of the word "Early" and its definition here was done to assist in clarity, to make the article easier to read. You can't just keep repeating "without a detailed microscopic analysis first, and thorough analysis of the sample for signs of life and potential biohazards" throughout the article. Alternative suggestions very welcome. But in your version the focus of the article is lost. It seems to be just an article about the current NASA msr proposal and not about MSR generally or return of the sample before microscopic examination and search for life. Robert Walker (talk) 13:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * 2nd: We don't need two articles on MSR. Worries about the scientific value of MSR should be put in the main article. (Perhaps you have already tried, and the editors over there keep deleting it? If so, there is plenty of literature from the Decadal Survey I could point you to where people argue that resources would be better spent on sample returns from Enceladus, for example) Section 3 should be deleted.


 * That indeed would not be appropriate here. No I haven't been involved in edit wars on the MSR or anywhere else. I don't act like that. As you can see in the way I responded to your edit warring on this article.


 * I posted a long section there first which was cut back because it was too long and out of balance for a page that is focussed on MSR missions rather than concerns with the missions. I agreed with that decision and then suggested this article in a discussion on the talk page for MSR. The consensus was in favour of the article. I then created a draft in my user space and then opened that for discussion. After several days for discussion I then created the existing article as a result of consensus agreement. In all this I followed wikipedia guidelines carefully.


 * The concerns presented in my version are not to do with funding allocation of resources to Mars rather than other missions. They are concerns that a MSR would not be scientifically useful, or would be of less use, for reasons other than back contamination. This is highly relevant when assessing what is the best approach to MSR from Mars. It is nothing to do with other mission proposals to Mars. Robert Walker (talk) 13:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * 3rd: The title needs to be changed to either "Mars Sample Return back contamination" or "Safety of Mars Sample Return". I vote for the former, as it's more searchable.


 * I disagree here for the reasons already given that though the debate of course would be focussed on back contamination concerns, the other concerns are also relevant to the debate because it has to consider all the alternatives and consider the scientific value as well as the ethical considerations when weighing things up and deciding what to do. Robert Walker (talk) 13:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * 4th: your various sections are all over the map, and don't flow naturally. E.g., Sections 4 & 5 should be consolidated. There should be section that outlines the biohazard risk of a Martian Andromeda Strain killing everything on Planet Earth. There should be a section on the legalities involved, possibly a section on the environmental ethics of back contamination, then a mixed section of risk mitigation strategies--along with possible failure modes of those strategies. There does not need to be separate section on "alternatives to MSR"; the concerns here are redundant and can be included in the "Mitigation Strategies and Potential Failure Modes" section.


 * There certainly I welcome suggestions of ways to improve my structure.


 * However, I feel that the alternatives do need a separate section. It is just because of your POV that you consider the concerns there to be redundant.


 * They refer to significantly different suggestions for future ways to deal with MSR. In your version you have also completely removed the telepresence suggestion which was also backed up by citations. In this I think you show your own POV which is against telepresence and in favour of surface missions. There was a major conference in 2012 organized by NASA to explore ideas of telepresence exploration of Mars so it is not even a minor point of view that this is a good way to explore Mars. These are alternative approaches and not just minor changes in the existing suggestion. So I feel your version does not reflect this clearly. 13:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * 5th: section titles framed as leading questions must be renamed.


 * Okay do elaborate, what do you mean, with examples? Robert Walker (talk) 14:10, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * 6th: Check out the article on the Safety of the LHC. This should be your model. Above all, try to keep it as brief as possible--by that I mean avoid repeating yourself.


 * I agree that it is necessary to avoid repetition. There may well be repetition in my draft, it involved cut and paste moving of text around to change the structure, and of course needs more polishing. The idea was to show the overall structure of the article. Robert Walker (talk) 13:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Bottom line: I got news for you Robert: I'm not trying to be mean, but you are not the best writer in the world. You are too close to this subject to be objective about it. You are on a crusade to save the world, and you are attempting to use the Wikipedia as your latest soapbox. My advice would be to take your article and rework it and submit it to a peer reviewed ethics or philosophy journal. Honestly, the best thing for you would be to walk away from this article. You have achieved your main goal: there is now an article on Wikipedia that explores back contamination issues associated with MSR. You have given birth to the baby: now let it grow up on its own. You have won. If you insist on it being your personal editorial page, it will get taken down entirely. Don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.Warren Platts (talk) 12:23, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I would argue the other way that you are also too close to the subject because of your strong POV in favour of an early MSR and against telepresence which you have shown in the forum discussions. Also your version is now your baby. It goes both ways this sort of thing. I am not trying to win any battle. I just want a balanced article that shows all points of view. Your version doesn't have this balance in my view because it doesn't show clearly that the alternative suggestions are genuine alternatives rather than just tweaks to the existing plans.


 * In short you haven't convinced me that your version is better, and the way you did it, just substituting your version, in an edit war, without discussion first, and despite my request to do your new version in your user space first, is the sort of thing people do when they have a strong POV of their own which they are trying to put forward. Which I think is the case here. And though you attempt balance I think you are too close to your POV to see how you have slanted the article by these changes. Mainly by omitting things that are not in agreement with your own ideas on the subject, and restructuring to make the alternative suggestions seem like they are minor tweaks in the "official" NASA approach, when they are significantly different approaches to the topic. Robert Walker (talk) 13:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I do indeed have my own blog post on the topic which is a POV article: Need for caution for an early mars sample return. As you see, that is indeed a blog post, presenting a particular POV. I speak there with my own voice and the way it is presented is very different indeed. But here, I was careful to present all the POVs, and took great care to let all those concerned speak with their own voice through extensive use of quotations. It is intended as an encyclopedia entry and not as an article presenting any POV. Robert Walker (talk) 14:17, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Deleted section on human quarantine
Since the article is about the proposed NASA MSR mission, discussion of human quarantines is irrelevant.Warren Platts (talk) 12:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Well that shows your POV in a nutshell. The article should reflect all ideas and not just the proposed NASA MSR mission. When discussing the NASA ideas then all alternatives need to be discussed, including the possiblity of no action. One alternative is to use human quarantine. Therefore this needs to be included in the article and discussed.


 * Also it is a general article about MSR undertaken at an early stage in exploration of Mars. It focuses on the current mission plans because those are reasonably likely to happen in the near future. But if those are cancelled, it would then still be relevant to any other future MSR discussions.


 * Do you understand what I'm saying here, and why the section is relevant? Robert Walker (talk) 14:00, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Changed title of Section 3
I changed the title to "Back contamination risk mitigation strategies and potential failure modes", and added a sentence or two to make it clear that there is a failure mode associated with each risk mitigation strategy.Warren Platts (talk) 12:57, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * For other editors please note, this article is subject to a edit war. For that reason I did a new version in my own user space. I recommended that Warren do the same. The current version is one of two alternatives in an edit war, and so if editing this article please be aware that this may not be the final version of the article depending on how the edit war gets resolved.


 * The alternative version in the edit war is here: User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return
 * Robert Walker (talk) 14:03, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Consolodation of 4 & 5 in the draft
Warren, this was the main point in the draft, the idea to separate those out into two separate sections, one on concerns and one on the way of mitigating them. I thought that it helped the structure, to focus on one and then the other.

I've added an intro para to the concerns section 4.: "The concerns will be presented first, then the methods used to mitigate them in a separate section."

Does that help?Robert Walker (talk) 14:29, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return
 * IMHO it doesn't help: it makes for disjointed reading, and it's backwards besides. The mitigation strategy should come first, followed by whatever concerns about potential failure modes that may be found in the literature. (In this regard, I think your concerns about level 4 biosafety labs constitute original research on your part.) Better to have the discussion of containers, for example, in one section so that the reader doesn't have to skip around. Did you see how I changed the section in the live article? Do you think /that/ helps? Warren Platts (talk) 14:55, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay it was just an idea, if it doesn't work then can go back to the other approach. I can give that a go in my draft and see how it goes.


 * Those concerns about biosafety labs are not original research, I paraphrase the material in the study cited for that section, every single one of those concerns including the particle sizes, and the alternative forms of life are considered in the document. There is nothing original in the entire page as far as I know. I was very careful about that, as an experienced wikipedia contributor. If you see anything OR please point out a particular sentence that in your view is original research. I will then back it up with citations, or if it is indeed OR will of course remove it.Robert Walker (talk) 16:12, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't understand the point in putting the mitigation strategy before the issue that it is intended to mitigate, it doesn't make sense to me. How can you describe the strategy without describing the issue it is intended for?


 * With your current article, then the problem is that you simply left out a lot of the issues in my version of the article. This does simplify it but only at the expense of presenting only one POV on the matter. Also I find it confusing to mix up issues to do with the current MSR proposals with general issues, and there is no logical structure to them, just a mix of different things some to do with the current MSR and some to do with any MSR. It seems confusing to me, the way you structure it. Robert Walker (talk) 15:32, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have now put the sections in order with the risks first then the risk mitigation strategies. Could try doing it the other way around but not sure it will work. What do you think? User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return Robert Walker (talk) 16:04, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we are going to need to ask for assistance in resolving this edit war. I gather that the first stage is to try to find uninvolved third parties to read our discussion, in a request for a third opinion or a request for comments or both.
 * In that case I will nominate the "article" for deletion on the grounds: that (1) you're using it as a soapbox and vanity press to promulgate your distinctly minority views and original research; (2) a general lack of notability; and (3) it represents an unnecessary content fork from the main article on Mars Sample Return.Warren Platts (talk) 15:05, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay that makes it a really serious edit war from the point of view of wikipedia policies, if you aren't interested in a request for comments or a third opinion. Are you sure? If so we might need to go straight to arbitration after doing our best to resolve it ourselves. Note that any editor resolving this will notice that I suggested amicable resolution via third party opinion and request for comments, and you did not agree to it, which I think would count against you in arbitration. Robert Walker (talk) 15:23, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * All this about attributing motivations to me is beside the point. I am not using it in those ways and do not need a soapbox or vanity press. There is no original research to my knowledge, and you are just asserting that but haven't pointed out any particular thing that in your opinion is original research. It is okay to present minority views in wikipedia and is not a reason for deletion. You have to make it clear that they are minority views but you are encouraged to include them if well supported by citations etc. The topic of the article itself is clearly notable according to Wikipedia criteria due to the huge amount of published material on the subject in reputable sources. Robert Walker (talk) 15:34, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Shall I just replace it by my version, and then you can nominate it for deletion and then we can go through an AfD? If your real concern is that you don't think the article is appropriate for Wikipedia at all, that might be the best way to deal with it. Just a thought. I would do my best to improve the draft first taking account of any other criticisms you have. Robert Walker (talk) 15:45, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

RE: Nomination for deletion
Robert, I think a concise, informative, and readable article tightly focused on "Mars Sample Return Back Contamination Risks" is both timely, interesting, and notable enough to warrant a separate Wikipedia article.

However, your first version and the version currently residing in your sandbox /should/ be deleted. For a number of reasons: (1) it represents extreme POV-pushing (cf. your idiosyncratic definition of "early"; (2) it's basically a general rant against the proposed NASA MSR mission and therefore not notable; (3) it contains a lot of irrelevant info; (4) there are a lot of your opinions/"original research" mixed in; (5) most of it represents an unnecessary content fork from the main MSR article; (6) it rambles; (7) it's longer than the main article on MSR.

Like I said in my first comment, we can work together to make this a good article. I respectfully suggest we take the trimmed down, refocused, and reorganized version as a starting point, and that the next step be to change the title to "Mars Sample Return Back Contamination Risks". But if you insist on not allowing any major editing of "your" article (and believe me, it needs it--I'm only trying to help) then I feel I have little choice but to nominate the article for deletion for the reasons enumerated above.Warren Platts (talk) 16:40, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I've already answered all those points. Will try again. Though this sort of dispute is exactly the sort of thing you can deal with via requests for comment and other opinions. We can probably go around for ages saying the same things over and over, and in that situation you might not be able to resolve it by continued discussion.


 * 1) I do not put forward any particular POV. I include all the different published POVs known to me in the article. The definition of early is not a POV as no value judgement was intended, and other editors who read the article didn't see it as a value judgement, and even mission proposals for an Early MSR by proponents for an early MSR use it in the title for the mission proposal. The only thing that is at all novel is clarifying what is meant by "Early" here. That is just a definition for sake of clarity of organization of the article and it is not OR to do that. You seem to count it as POV pushing to include alternative POVS apart from the main NASA official one which I include and feature prominently. But that is not what POV pushing is, to include your POV or POVs you are sympathetic to in an article. It is POV pushing if you omit all other POVs or give POVs that you sympathize with undue weight. What you did with your version of the article could be seen as POV pushing because you omit several POVs that do not fit your ideas about a MSR.


 * I don't even mention my own POV in the article (because it is just a blog post and not a peer reviewed article).


 * My own POV (never mentioned in the article) includes


 * mention of the Drake equation as a possible reason for concern that ETs may make themselves extinct so one should take especial care whenever one encounters a decision with an unknown probability of causing extinction of humans (actually I am pretty sure that Carl Sagan makes this point somewhere but so far have not found it so can't include it in the article)
 * a detailed discussion of problems of assessing probabilities, assignment of high probability to presence of life on Mars currently
 * assessment of high probability (relative to other suggestions, still low overall) to the biohazard potential of that life.
 * I also argue against the current practise of a single "risk assessment" figure saying that scientists should be encouraged to come up with different numbers for the level of risk, rather than try to reach an agreement.
 * I also have detailed and original suggestions about how to handle MSR via telepresence.
 * All this is just a blog post. Yes, I might have a go at getting it published in some journal, but I haven't done so yet, it is just a blog post as a basis for discussion. All that is indeed OR, but I have been scrupulously careful not to include even a mention of any of it in the article.


 * I also have OR things to say about the precautionary principle, and about the quarantine issue of human guinea pigs and have not included those either as they are also OR. That's the sort of thing that counts as OR and that you have to be careful to avoid as a wikipedia editor.


 * 2) Well this is just saying it is a rant, well it is not, what can I say there. That can only be resolved by requests for comment or third party opinion.


 * 3) The info you count as irrelevant is only irrelevant because from your own POV, e.g. omitting mention of quarantine because it doesn't fit with the official approach, and omitting mention of telepresence presumably for the same reason. They are irrelevant to your own POV but highly relevant to other POVs on the subject.


 * 4) There is nothing original or presenting my own POV. I do have ideas of my own which I have not included because they are my own original ideas and not mentioned in the literature. Everything in the article is attributed to sources, and summarizes the material in those sources. There is nothing that is my own OR to my knowledge. I have asked you to let me know of any particular sentence in the article that is OR. I ask again. Please instead of saying the whole thing is OR please quote from it, sections or sentences that are OR. I can then add citations to fix them, or will of course remove them if they are indeed OR.


 * 5) I already discussed it on the MSR talk page and the consensus was that it is better as a separate article.


 * 6) That could be true. Please point out particular places where I repeat myself, it is something I know I am prone to do and have done my best to avoid it, but it may still have repetition.


 * 7) There is no requirement in wikipedia that articles on related topics have to be the same or similar in length. The draft in my user space is just over 60 KB including markup code, which is getting towards the long side, but not too bad, especially since a fair bit of that is due to the long quotations embedded in the citations, which are not in the body of the article itself, and are added to assist with verifiability of the references by other editors. It should be as long as it needs to be to adequately cover the topic.


 * If too long, a large page can be split into separate smaller pages, but it is not a sufficient reason for removing POVs and important material from the page to say that the page is too long. It can be a reason for splitting an over long article, but I don't think we have reached that point with my draft.


 * The problem with using your version is that in my view the way you structure it does not make it clear that there are alternatives to the current NASA plans for MSR, instead presents it as a single mission idea that needs to be improved by listening to objections to the plans and incorporating them using risk management strategies.


 * But some of those who are concerned about it feel that no MSR to the Earth surface is appropriate at this stage. Others have intermediate views. This is not reflected properly in your structure.


 * Also your version omits entire sections of significance with no obvious place to put them back in again. For instance the section on telepresence and telerobotics.


 * Can you not see some way to make progress using my version instead? Robert Walker (talk) 17:20, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I am open to suggestions for alternative structures. Not fixed that it has to be as I have it, and have already tried a couple of alternatives there. You are welcome to come up with other alternatives. The one you have at present doesn't quite fit the subject IMO, and I can't see how to fit the material into that structure in a way that properly reflects the POVs of those concerned about MSR at this early stage. But that doesn't mean mine is the best way to do it, and there may be other ways that would work better than either of our ideas so far. Robert Walker (talk) 18:01, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That is another way that a request for comment from others not involved in the subject in the way we both are could help. They would have a clear objective view, as I understand it then they are particularly advised not to comment if they have a strong POV of their own on the subject, but rather disinterested editors, who can see the whole thing with a clearer head than either of us because not emotionally involved in the topic. And their focus would be simply on the best way to structure the material. Could also ask for opinions about whether some of it is out of place in this article and should be included somewhere else again, as you suggest. Robert Walker (talk) 18:05, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Attempt at new clarity in the dispute

 * OK don't get in a hurry. I'm busy for the rest of the day and it must be getting late in England. I will get back to you tomorrow.Warren Platts (talk) 21:48, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That's fine. I could do with a break from this debate too, and have lots of work to do which I need to catch up on (as a self employed programmer, set my own working hours), take your time :). Robert Walker (talk) 22:11, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Warren, first, I don't think you want to delete the article, so am going to ignore that. Obviously the debate is about how it should be structured and what should be included, not about whether there should be an article at all.

Then on the POV then if you agree that minority POVs do need to be included as per wikipedia policies, if notable, then there is no argument there either, that all the material representing different POVs should be included. There can be discussion there about undue weight but they should all be represented if notable.

So, that makes the main questions, if we are to work together on this:


 * How best to structure the article. You can't work with my structure and I can't work with yours. Therefore we need to find a new structure that is acceptable to us both, which may include elements of both, or be entirely new.

This is something we can work on together. Do you have any other suggestions? Are you interested to hear them if I try to come up with new suggestions myself? If we can't solve this ourselves, it is possible that a request for comment might help here, mainly by bringing in ideas for new structures that neither of us have thought of, or by new insight into what the issues are with our suggestions.


 * ===> Hi Robert, I guess I still don't see what bugs you so much about how I restructured the article. As for it representing only one POV, I respectfully disagree. The article clearly states that the risk cannot be eliminated entirely--only reduced. Whether such risk management is adequate is left up to the reader to decide.Warren Platts (talk) 20:04, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Warren, it is because it focusses on the NASA proposals and on the attempts to mitigate the risk for their proposal. But their "official policy" is not the only suggestion for ways to do a MSR, and focussing on risk mitigation for their proposal means the other suggestions such as Levin's and the telepresence approach don't have a place in the article. That's why I can't work with it. E.g. study of the sample and return by telepresence to Mars orbit can't be presented as risk mitigation for the Nasa proposal to return it directly to Earth. It is a different approach. Treating it like a single mission with risk mitigation hides the diversity of ideas involved about how best to deal with concerns about MSR. Robert Walker (talk) 08:48, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Use of the word "Early". Does it suggest "Too Early" to a reader who comes to the article afresh? Please try to forget any associations you may have from our debate on nasaspaceflight.com because a reader will not be coming here from that discussion (normally anyway). For the general reader, does the word "Early" suggest "Too Early" in this context, as used as an encyclopedia article?

This is something we could resolve by asking for comment. It is just the sort of thing that works well in a request for comments. Another option is to find some other word that has the same meaning but without the negative connotation in your mind. Again if we can't come up with a mutually agreeable word ourselves, a request for comment might lead to other suggestions neither of us have thought of.


 * ===>What I mainly object to about "Early" is that it is a special definition you concocted just for this article. It is therefore "original research". I only secondarily object to the fact that it represents a value judgement: "early" missions are by definition premature since certain precautionary measures that YOU favor haven't been undertaken--someone else could easily argue that the measure you would recommend are superfluous, and then the MSR wouldn't be "early", would it? In any case, pretty much the same risks will ensue for "late" MSR missions as for "early"; as you know, back contamination risks can never be eliminated entirely because there will always be a rock on Mars that someone hasn't yet kicked over that might contain the Andromeda Strain that could cause the extinction of /Homo sapiens/.Warren Platts (talk) 20:04, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * No, missions to Mars are just called Early, meaning early in time compared with other mission plans that are later. It is not a value judgement indeed in many contexts Early would be regarded as admirable, as you can see by the mars mission I cited that calls itself an "Early MSR". Here those who think there are no contamination concerns would consider an Early mission to be a good one.


 * When you say that pretty much the same risks apply for a later MSR then that is your own POV. One criterion for an acceptable level of risk is to reduce it to the risk of contamination from naturally occurring meteorites from Mars. All those concerned agree that the risk is very low as best we can assess it now. The point for discussion is, do we know enough yet to be sure it is of no concern? Also, if not, at what point will we know enough about the sample to return it with a reasonable level of safety? It is also a matter for discussion, how low is low enough to be of no concern?


 * For some then a one in a billion chance of a severe outcome might be okay. For others that sort of level is unthinkable. So some argue, that billions of lives would be affected and it could lead to disruption of ecosystems and even extinction of the human race, so even a tiny probability of one in a billion, even one in a trillion, is not acceptable. But others as you argue say - but the probability is so tiny, why worry about something so unlikely to happen? These are different POVs. Those on both sides of this debate are likely to see the others as biased towards their opposite POV.


 * Then the probabilities involved are impossible to assess, but must be guessed on present knowledge, so depending how you do that you will come up with different personal opinions about whether it is okay to do it now or has to be left to later. The official studies supply answers to those guesses, presumably based on an attempt at consensus by all the scientists involved in the study - but other scientists can have other points of view. So there will be widely different points of view on how much of a risk there is. Once we know the conditions on Mars and the sample better, then it is likely to converge to a consensus on the level of risk, which might be the same as the typical view now, or might be lower, or might be higher. For instance if life is discovered on Mars then that would change perception of risk, and depending also hugely on what type of life is found, whether it is related to us, how many species there are (if just one species for instance, or closely related species, can sequence, study and cultivate and see what it does) and so on.


 * If no life is discovered on Mars, and no evidence that life ever evolved there so we study the earliest sediments there and the salt that should preserve early life - if we do all that and no life is found, and it is agreed that Mars is as dead as the Moon then that will hugely change perception of risk towards the POV that there are no problems at all. Or i the surface of Mars is reasonably conclusively shown to be sterile with no habitats for life, then again everyone would surely agree that Mars MSR is of no more concern than samples returned from the Moon.Robert Walker (talk) 09:14, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Whether some of the content is appropriate for the article. Should it focus only on back contamination concerns, or should it also include other concerns? Should it focus only on issues to do with the current NASA MSR or should it include all issues to do with MSR. Is it right to cut out the sections on telerobotics alternatives, and on quarantine? Is it right to cut out the section on Craig Venter's views on MSR, and the section on Jeffrey Bada's views?

I can't see myself agreeing with your points of view on that, and it looks as if you are unlikely to come around to my POV either. So that is a bit of an impasse. This I think can only be resolved by requests for comment, or in the end, arbitration.

It is not at all appropriate to tell me that you will ask for the article to be deleted unless I remove that content. That is not how these issues are resolved on wikipedia. It needs to go to others for comment at this stage, if we can't solve it ourselves. If that doesn't work then it has to go to dispute resolution and arbitration.

Does this help? Robert Walker (talk) 19:22, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * ===> I added section and references on Craig Venter; as for Bada, that should be included in the main MSR article IMO. Furthermore, in the MSR main article, the link to this page states that it's about back contamination risks. In the talk page over there you state that you were going to make a back contamination article. Instead, you've created a second, albeit "anti-" MSR page. It's a content fork. You know what those are right? They are not good because they result in inconsistencies and needless duplication of information. You still have not responded to my proposal to change the name of the article to something more appropriate.Warren Platts (talk) 20:26, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes you are right, content forks are bad and should be avoided. For instance if we added both of our articles to wikipedia under different names that would be a content fork and a bad idea.


 * However, this is not a content fork. The MSR article is about current and future planned missions to Mars. This is about concerns about MSR. There is a short section on it in the MSR article, and that is a common way of handling this sort of thing, to have a short section, e.g. many articles on Mars have a short section on water on Mars, and then there is a big entire article on water on Mars which goes into the issues in more detail. That's not regarded as a content fork if you do that. I discussed this on the MSR mission talk page first and the other editors agreed it was good to create a new article like this. Robert Walker (talk) 08:56, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My reason for the title change was that it should talk about all the options and concerns to do with MSR in one place. Although the main focus and the reason for the debate is because of back contamination, some scientists have other concerns about the methodology of the MSR and consider that it is not of as much scientific value as it is often said to be at this stage, without study on Mare first. This is relevant for public debate on whether or not to do a MSR - as one of the main arguments in favour of it is the perceived high value of doing a MSR. So to just focus on the back contamination concerns means the article ignores that other thread which is an important part of the debate.


 * So - debates about whether to put money into say Mars or Europa or into human or robotic missions would not be appropriate here. But debate about whether or not the MSR has scientific value, and what the value is, are appropriate here. They could also go into the main MSR page as a short summary but this is the natural place to include detailed discussion. Does that make sense to you? Robert Walker (talk) 08:56, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The title change was not motivated by any wish to promote one or other POV in wikipedia. If you have ideas for another title that is general enough to include these debates, then we can talk about it. Though I think the existing version is neutral IMO especially with the intro para saying "How early is too early"? It is good for the title to show that there is a diversity of opinion on the matter and it should not present it as if the NASA official view that 2018 is not too early is the only POV of value on the subject.Robert Walker (talk) 09:00, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

POV
Hi Warren, thought it might help to say something about POVs and how they are handled in a situation like this. Your new "No action" section is partly why I feel it is necessary to do this.

With an article like this, you need to present the argument from several different POVs. Neutrality is achieved by letting all the POVs be presented. If you feel a notable published POV is not presented, you add it in. If you feel that a POV is presented but not strongly enough, you find citations and improve exposition.

However what you don't do is to rephrase the entire article to present a single POV. Nor do you remove things that do not accord with the POV.

Also you have to be careful to not use your own words where there is any question of POV might creep in. For instance in your version you say several things that are POV and are in your own words.

As a simple example, you say "Although the potential for back contamination due to MSR is minimal,...". That is a particular POV. You should say

"xyz says that the potential for back contamination due to MSR is minimal"

Actually I haven't come across anyone who does say that, but maybe you have a reference to back it up. If so then you can say it and attribute it to them, obviously a notable published paper that says that.

In a situation like this where loaded language can creep in so easily, it is good to quote. That is why I have so many quotes.

So you can quote the same thing I did, "Consequently, risk-mitigation strategies will focus on eliminating the hazard and/or reducing the probability of a negative event. Both will lead to a risk that is considered acceptable, since achieving zero risk is not possible"

But you can't summarize that as "it is minimal" because that is not what was said. You can say it is a non zero level of risk that is considered acceptable. It is best to use the original wording rather than rephrase in your own words. And attribute to someone.

Then, for your new "No action" section - I contemplated putting in such a section, but there is no-one in the literature who proposes no action. So you can't put it in unless you can find a citation for it. I have sympathies for the idea, though it is not my own POV, but since nobody says it in any notable source, it simply can't be included in the article. Except in the context of the precautionary principle where you say that all options have to be included including no action. There it is appropriate to say it because that is just the way the precautionary principle is stated.

If you find someone who adopts this POV, then you need to put in their arguments for no action, not your own ones.

It is also inappropriate to comment on it and say why, in your own opinion, you think that no action will still permit contamination in your own words. You have to find someone who has said that in the literature, and put in their words as well. Even if it seems obvious, yet your POV will creep in if you try to say it in your own words, find what someone else has said and quote or paraphrase.

Incidentally the thing you say about meteorites is already answered in the NSF section above so what you did there is a case of repeating that but omitting the reasons why the NSF considered that the MSR is still of concern despite the natural influx of Martian meteorites.

If in doubt, the solution is, citations, citations, citations. Then quote, or paraphrase but never just describe how you see the situation in your own words if you can't back it up with a citation. The reader wants to know what the published literature says on the subject. They do not want to know what you yourself think about it, however interesting or relevant you think your own ideas are, unless of course you have published work on it yourself, in which case you can cite that as a POV.

It takes some getting used to, because we nearly always write from a POV. It took me a while to get used to it when I first started to edit wikipedia though now it is becoming second nature somewhat.

It is difficult to get in the way of only writing other people's POVs and relying on citations from the literature for everything. Your criticism of me was that I was presenting my own POV but in fact I never did. I presented many POVs that I disagreed with, in their own words and without comment, and some POVs that I partly agreed with and there were in fact no POVs on the page that I totally agreed with myself. But I made no editorial comments about any of them, just said things that were in the citations themselves. Some of the things on the page I actually thought were wrong from my POV, but still, just presented as in the source, without comment.

That's why I think my version is much better, because I was so careful to only present other people's POVs.


 * ===>And this is flat out wrong, Robert. You are only fooling yourself. The very title of the article "EARLY Mars sample return" followed by YOUR own, unique, unsourced, idiosyncratic, POV-centric definition of the word "early"--as in too early to suit the POV of Robert Walker--is you editorializing. Warren Platts (talk) 21:29, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It is not intended as POV at all, and the other editors didn't find it so. I suggest a request for comment on this, as it might be the only way to resolve it.


 * Did my section "How early is too early" not help? I no longer define "early", but have it as a question about when is too early. And "early" is often used to describe the mission plans for a MSR in the literature so it is not my own coinage to use the word "early". The definition was my own, just as a way to help structure the article, to have something precise to talk about it instead of the vague "early" which could mean anything, and actually, the idea of making a definition for it was not my idea either. It was a request of another wikipedia editor. If you look at the comments I was requested to define "early" which is why I did it. Originally it was not defined. Another editor added the comment "we will need to define "early" in this context: definitely in the body of the article, and probably in summary form here in the article lede as well." and that is why I did it. Robert Walker (talk) 22:38, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Slight rephrasing of that section: "The question for debate is whether or not it is appropriate to return samples to Earth at this stage. All concerned are keen to study the samples on Earth as soon as it is safe to do so. So the question is, how early is too early? At what stage would it be appropriate to return them?". To my mind it seems totally neutral and that is certainly the intention. I have absolutely no wish to present a biased article on Wikipedia. It would be unprofessional to do that. I do hope you can accept that and understand that; if you accept I am acting in good faith, and presenting it as neutrally as I know how, which I do by presenting all the POVs, it should help with this discussion.Robert Walker (talk) 22:54, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return

I think we should start with that one, and you can then talk about any concerns you have that it doesn't represent the POVs that you are sympathetic with strongly enough. Because it presents a diversity of POVs without any editorial comment in as neutral a way as I can.

If you want to continue to work on your own, or on other ideas, it is probably better to work on these ideas in your own user space, your sandbox, or create a new page as I did, so can show several different ideas and try a radical rewrite if necessary. It is recommended to refrain from editing the main page during an edit war.

Hope this helps. It does take some getting used to, I know. Robert Walker (talk) 20:25, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Added "No Action" section to Mitigation Strategies
Since Robert mentioned this as a possible alternative to MSR, I added a section on that.Warren Platts (talk) 20:04, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Also added Craig Venter's proposal to send a DNA sequencer to Mars.Warren Platts (talk) 20:18, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I can see why, but please see what I said about POV above. Would Craig Venter describe his approach to MSR as "no action"? Also does he recommend halting all proposals to return samples to Earth or is it just a parallel development along with the NASA approach. Just because he says his is safer doesn't imply directly that he is saying that NASA should not go ahead with their own mission.


 * It is a good point though, that he says “We can rebuild the Martians in a P-4 spacesuit lab instead of having them land in the ocean.” I had missed out on that detail and thought he was only concerned about contamination of the sample by Earth micro-organisms but seems from that quote that he is also concerned about back contamination too. It is a good point to mention in the article though not sure if it really fits under "no action" unless he also advocates that NASA halt their own MSR and also rejects all the other solutions too such as examining it on the surface with DNA + SEMs then returning to Mars orbit first. I.e. is it an alternative that he envisages going on at the same time as other projects, or is it an attempt to prevent all the other projects from going ahead by putting forward an idea that makes them redundant.


 * I may be wrong, but think it is just his idea for an experiment that if it worked would be a really neat way to find out about martian life without returning it to Earth, but without any particular implications about whether or not to use other approaches as well. He would also surely agree that it will only work if the Martian DNA is the same as ours. I found it hard to be sure what he has in mind in detail from the limited evidence of newspaper articles as he hasn't published a paper on it as far as I know, but of course notable being who he is, and able to carry through a project like that. Robert Walker (talk) 21:14, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I've added the bit about Venter to my version of the article here: "Venter additionally sees his proposal as a way to return Martian DNA to Earth while bypassign most of the back contamination issues, “We can rebuild the Martians in a P-4 spacesuit lab instead of having them land in the ocean.” "
 * User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return
 * Robert Walker (talk) 22:46, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

The overall risk of an Andromeda Strain is "quite low"
Robert, the below wall o' text on POVs is very rich. Unbelievable is what it is. This is great: "Actually I haven't come across anyone who does say that the potential for back contamination due to MSR is minimal, but maybe you have a reference to back it up. If so then you can say it and attribute it to them, obviously a notable published paper that says that."

OK, here's a quote for you: "the risk is probably very low". Author? Robert Walker in his sand box.


 * That is not me, in the article I say: "There is general agreement in the literature on the subject that, though the risk is probably very low, the samples should be treated as biohazards until sample analysis demonstrates the samples are not biohazardous to the environment of Earth". That is paraphrasing what is said over and over, and in the literature they say "the risk is probably very low". I should have added a list of refs to that phrase, have them later on in the article and quote them too. I am using their words not mine. And actually that sentence was a rephrasing of what I orignally said by another wikipedia editor of the page. I did have some discussion of it after I completed the draft. Talk:Mars_sample_return_mission As you see it was well received by the other editors with one saying "FWIW - the article seems Excellent and Worthy"

Here's another for you: "the overall risk posed by returning a dangerous biological entity from Mars is quite low, not even considering the reduction factor of one in a million recommended in Chapter 4.5." From the ESF: Mars Sample Return backward contamination – Strategic advice and requirements (page 35). And BTW, the copyright is 2012--not 2010 like you have it in your article.


 * Missed what you said about the date. Yes you are right there, probably a mistake in copy and paste, have fixed it now Robert Walker (talk) 09:30, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Quite low does not mean the same thing as "minimal". Minimal means so low that there is nothing else lower in risk. May be me as the mathematician but I think also in common language if not understood quite as precisely as a mathematician does, it is understood as a risk so low as to be of no concern at all. I don't know of anyone who says that and no-one uses this particular phrasing to my knowledge. Do you understand why I say this? It is a small point, but this is how POV creeps into an article without you realizing, to say things like that without attributing them to anyone. What happens is that you are then presenting a POV as if it was the POV of wikipedia rather than any particular author, and most often when that happens you are actually presenting your own POV as the POV of wikipedia.

But your point is valid, so I will add the above reference to the sentence you cherry picked out. I'll fix the date. Hope that helps. :-) Warren Platts (talk) 21:02, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In my version of the page have now fixed the refs for the first "very low" mention you asked for attribution for.


 * I felt the "quite low" needed its own section because reading it carefully, it turned out that in the ESF study they concluded that this "quite low" threat was completely containable saying


 * User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return.
 * OK, thanks for the references. Added your content on acceptable levels of risk to the live article in the "Risk mitigation" section... Warren Platts (talk) 13:58, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That is a different POV from the other studies, most of which say that it is a risk, just very low, which can't be reduced totally to zero. This is the only place I've seen an assertion that humans would be able reverse the contamination if it happens. So included it there, just as they say it, as its own POV.Robert Walker (talk) 13:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh may have misunderstood they might just mean it could be contained by sterilization, so hard for it to escape, not saying that the contamination can be reversed if it escapes. It seems ambiguous. I've added the later quote to help clarify, I think both interpretations could be made, but the idea you could reverse a contamination that has escaped from the lab and started to reproduce in the wild by sterilization doesn't seem to plausible, so I doubt they did mean that. Robert Walker (talk) 13:40, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes what you put there is okay now. But the overall tone of your article is very much slanted. I could go through picking out all the things that are POV if you want me to, the things you omitted from my article that make it seem as though there is only one POV on the whole thing, and the way you have restructured it to do that. (Of course I don't mean deliberately so, this is such an easy thing to slip into and it is only natural that it happens).


 * In particular, the "Back contamination risk mitigation and possible failure modes" title makes the whole sections on quarantine and telepresence on Mars not relevant as they are not risk mitigation or possible failure modes in the current NASA plan. You have also removed Levin's 10 point plan too. All that is left of the article is basically the NASA proposal, and the methods that they suggested for fixing the issues in their proposal. Plus this new "no action" section but that is not enough to balance it, indeed is not certain it is anyone's POV. That makes it very unbalanced. It just shows the official NASA POV on the whole thing. Except for the mention of "no action".


 * And you are right to leave all those things out with the current structure you have for the article as you have structured it around the NASA proposal and problems with it. The only other thing you could put in at that point is "no action". But I can't work with that because I want the article to include all the POVs and not just those of NASA.


 * With all the other options deleted from the article, the legal discussions and discussions of the precautionary principle seem relevant only as legal hurdles that need to be overcome to implement the NASA policy, by adopting suitable risk management policy to alleviate the concerns of the public with the official mission. It is like, "this is the only way ahead, let's see how we can make it work", that is the tone of the article as you have it.


 * Just because the dissenting scientists are not representing an "official" POV doesn't mean you should leave them out. And indeed the telepresence section for instance actually describes alternative ideas presented at a conference hosted by NASA - they themselves are interested in alternative POVs as well. Robert Walker (talk) 21:31, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Levin's "10 points" were never deleted. I added content on telerobotics, since you are keen on that, (though not the sentence saying that telerobotics /increases/ dexterity, which is simply not true). Also added concerns about quarantine. Anything else important that's left out?


 * Sorry about the 10 points.


 * As with all the things you've deleted as OR (at least all the ones you've mentioned or I've noticed so far), the dexterity thing is not my own words or my own editorial POV. It is a paraphrase of one of the points in the conclusions of that NASA conference. The reason is because, if you've ever seen astronauts trying to do things in gloves and spacesuits, they are quite clumsy, it is not easy to do. If you have hands operated by telepresence then they can be as dextrous as handling the samples directly with your own hands.


 * Indeed telerobotics is used for surgery, especially keyhole surgery because it lets you be more dextrous than clumsy large human hands. Sometimes by surgeons operating the telepresence equipment in the same location, but nowadays sometimes it is done by an expert surgeon in a different country from the hospital. There was one example often quoted, I think it was a US surgeon operating on a patient in France.


 * That is just me explaining to you in my own words, but if you follow up the link then you will find that they say the same thing. To my knowledge there is nothing on that page that is either original research or editorial comment. So best to assume it is backed up by the citations unless you know it isn't, in which case please draw it to my attention and it will probably be because I have given the wrong citation or forgot to add one. If anything is OR I will of course remove it.Robert Walker (talk) 13:47, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The way you framed it was as a broad generalization that telerobotics improves dexterity in general. Yes, I am well aware of robotic surgery. And yes, it can be done from a remote location these days. But you vastly underestimate the difficulty of doing it from orbit, because your comm links are constantly changing, and there are significant time lags. At ISS they have telerobots, but have never used them for anything important. If it was so easy, repairs could be conducted from Earth by telepresence. It is not done because humans in spacesuits are still more dexterous. Your blanket generalization remains in the realm of science fiction for now. No point in bringing it up in the article; it's irrelevant at best.Warren Platts (talk) 13:58, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * First with the ISS I think you are talking about robonaut. This is a prototype that is meant to be both semi-autonomous so able to act by itself, and can also be operated by telepresence. It is just a prototype and not meant as a finished thing, and not too surprising they didn't find it that useful though being NASA they did try to "big it up" a bit as they tend to do with anything new. It was very slow for instance in autonomous mode which is how it was mainly used. It had no legs (at least the version I saw) so couldn't move around by itself. It was used for some tasks such as when they needed to hold something in place for a long period of time, but wasn't that useful, as expected. It doesn't give a good idea of use of telepresence which is use regularly in real world field science e.g. in oil wells or the bottom of the sea, and is improving all the time. This is a point that was made in that telepresence conference.


 * What my version of the article says there is quoting the POVs of the scientists at the NASA telerobotics conference last year. They have the opinion that it will be very useful for Mars, and strongly recommend that NASA includes telepresence and telerobotics capabilities in the first human orbital mission to Mars. That is not me making up some sci. fi. theory. That is me reporting what is said in the published report of the NASA telerobotics conference. So it is not appropriate to remove it on grounds that it is OR, or speculation or not notable. As with everything else in my article, to my knowledge, it satisfies all the wikipedia criteria for notability. Robert Walker (talk) 15:29, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * As for your contention that the tone of the article is "this is the only way ahead, let's see how we can make it work", you are merely expressing your own POV. You are chagrined that it no longer reads like an editorial against MSR. In other words, because it does in fact express POVs other than your own, in addition to the POV that is your own. But all the so-called "risks" are clearly spelled out. For each possible mitigation strategy, counterexamples are brought up to show how they might not work. You really have no cause for complaint IMHO.Warren Platts (talk) 13:23, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My version does express many different POVs . However, it doesn't express my own POV anywhere. I've said this many times. Personally I disagree with all the POVs in the article, either in minor or major ways, because I have my own unique slant on the question which is appropriate to put in my blog and in the forum discussion but not in a wikipedia article because it is just me expressing my own opinions on the matter.


 * Can you point to a single thing in my article that is not backed up by citations and is not a quote or paraphrase of a notable published source?


 * You mean like your contention that NASA is required to comply with NEPA and go through the EPA in order to undertake MSR?Warren Platts (talk) 15:33, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry just spotted this. Tbat was the conclusion of Race, a lawyer who looked into the legal implications in detail. I gave the citation at the end of that section. Have now moved it to the top, with an explanatory para. See User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new Robert Walker (talk) 10:08, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Is there anything in the structure of it that leads the reader to a particular POV in preference to any other? Is any given undue emphasis as if it is the only correct solution? If you answer No to all of those you can't say that it expresses my own POV or is biased. You can say it includes many biased POVs but that is normal and okay. Robert Walker (talk) 13:57, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW did you see N2e's comment about the ordering of these posts below? You might have missed it because it is at the end of the page. On Wikipedia then talk pages are usually added to from top to bottom rather tha bottom to top as we are doing it. So, I plan to re-arrange this page to suit the wikipedia convention with the newest posts at the bottom. That way you can follow the thread consecutively from top to bottom. That will be especially useful when we ask other editors to give their opinions and to help resolve this edit war. Any objections do say.


 * Also in an edit war, I've said it before, but just another reminder, you are normally advised to leave the page unchanged until a consensus is reached amongst the editors. What you are doing, continuing to work with the actual article itself, is not the recommended way of doing this. Please don't feel that because you are working on the "real page" and that I am working on the version in the sandbox that yours has any preferential status over mine. Which is chosen (or some other version that is in between the two in some way) will depend on either us coming to an agreement, or else, third party opinions on the matter. Robert Walker (talk) 13:57, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Your version is full of POV, I really wouldn't know where to start. For instance, just one of many: "At least one problem with conducting more in situ research is that it is difficult to know when enough research is enough to say definitively there is no significant risk associated with Mars Sample Return. Absence of positive evidence for the existence of Martian life is not necessarily evidence of absence of Martian life." Who said that? I mean the whole thing including absence of evidence not necessarily evidence of absence?


 * I was paraphrasing the ESF paper where they say there is no evidence of life (= absence of evidence of life), yet despite the lack of evidence, we cannot be sure there is not life on Mars (=absence of evidence <> evidence of absence). Citation added. Does this help? Warren Platts (talk) 18:10, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Missed this too. Yes you could summarize that as saying that they said that absence of evidence is not enough to establish evidence of absence, though beter to use their own words. But the thing is they weren't using that as an argument to suggest that it is impossible to ever have evidence of absence, just that it is the reason we don't at present have evidence of absence.


 * To understand the difference, in the case of the Moon most scientists would say we have good evidence that there is no life on the Moon because it would not survive the formation of the Moon during a collision of protplanets, and the climate on the Moon would not support any known form of life. Yet it is still true that on the Moon we have an absence of evidence of life and can't conclude just from that absence of evidence that there is evidence of absence. The evidence of absence is derived in a different way.


 * They also weren't arguing against a POV that there should be no MSR unless 100% confident. Which you do. So it is a synthesis, the things you say individually are attributable but the way you combine them together to make an argument is not and the view you argue against doesn't correspond to anyone in the published literature. Does that help? Robert Walker (talk) 10:17, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

And who were they replying to when they did that, who is there who asserts that absence of evidence is evidence of absense? It is both OR and also a strawman. I know not deliberately but that's what happens when you just write the article without making sure everything you say is backed up and cited properly.


 * I don't recall any published source that says any of that, do you have one?


 * It doesn't matter too much in a straightforward scientific article where generally everyone agrees anyway. But in a situation like this, it slants the entire article when you do that.
 * If not, you are just putting your own POV on what you see yourself as the problem with in situ research. Because you do this many times, the thing comes over with your own POV on the matter.


 * The reason my article is not written with an editorial POV is because I never do that. I never say anything in the article that is not a paraphrase or quote of the cited material (to the very best of my knowledge, it is possible to slip up but I was very careful about it, so there may be some slips but I don't think many if there are and probably minor things if any).


 * Do you get what I'm saying here? Why I say those sorts of things are editorial POV while what I say, though it seems very biased to you, is not editorial POV but rather reported POV for the cited sources, which is a very different thing.Robert Walker (talk) 14:07, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

More on POV
Warren, this may help you:

Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ

"It is a frequent misunderstanding of the NPOV policy, often expressed by newbies, visitors, and outside critics, that articles must not contain any form of bias, hence their efforts to remove statements they perceive as biased. The NPOV policy does forbid the inclusion of editorial bias, but does not forbid properly sourced bias. Without the inclusion and documentation of bias in the real world, many of our articles would fail to document the sum total of human knowledge, and would be rather "blah" reading, devoid of much meaningful and interesting content."

Robert Walker (talk) 23:23, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Yeah right, Robert. Then why do you refer to astronauts as "human guinea pigs"?!?Warren Platts (talk) 13:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That again is not my words. It is a direct quote from the book cited. It is also a common way of talking about humans in quarantine. Just try a google search for "astronauts "human guinea pigs". It is neutral in tone, just colourful language, for instance here is a news story of Colonel Hadfield as a human guineapig. Here is another story about the Apollo 11 Astronauts as human guinea pigs. It is just the most natural word to use in this context of astronauts involved in human experiments or quarantine, so given that the source uses it, makes sense to use it in the article itself. Robert Walker (talk) 14:23, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Does that answer you?


 * No it does not. Referring to humans as guinea pigs is a pejorative comparison. That's the reason we do experiments on guinea pigs: because it's unethical to do such experiments on humans. Thus, for you to call astronauts "guinea pigs" in the first sentence of a section an /encyclopedia/ article presupposes that having them examine a MSR sample in orbit is unethical. This much should be obvious to you....Warren Platts (talk) 17:07, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * But the same words can be perjorative in one context and not in others. In the context of astronauts and spaceflight there is a long tradition of referring to astronauts as guinea pigs all the way back to Apollo 11 and it is the standard way you refer to this in news stories and also in published books too. The quote I used is from a published cited source. It was not intended as perjorative either in the source or by myself and I have no reason to want to say anything derogatory about astronauts either.


 * For my own POV, which I don't express anywhere in the article, but just so you know it, I think that it is too soon to send astronauts to the surface of Mars but that doesn't mean I am agaisnt astronauts generally and indeed am keen on space colonization and orbital habitats, telepresence and telerobotics missions to Mars, Jupiter, Venus manned missions to the lunar surface etc, in my vision the solar system would be teaming with human explorers, just none of them on the surface of Category IV solar system destinations such as Mars, Europa etc until we understand them a lot better. Robert Walker (talk) 10:24, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Although I don't see it as perjorative, looking at it again now it doesn't add anything and you could as easily say "human quarantine". The phrase "human guinea pig" here might be seen as journalistic, although it is also used in books.


 * Also if there is any chance anyone would find it perjorative, as obviously there is, since you did, why run that risk? So have removed the phrase now. I think it reads better this way too, thanks.User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new Robert Walker (talk) 10:48, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what the objection could be to it anyway as to my mind it doesn't express any POV, not in this context of astronauts at least, did you think my POV was disapproving of quarantine? Not particularly, though I think it's good to recognize its limitations.


 * BTW for what it is worth, my own POV which I can't put into the article is that a human quarantine is possible if you have it in a location isolated from Earth and under the understanding that if any problems are encountered, that they can be supplied indefinitely from Earth until it is known for sure if it is a Martian or Earth originated issue, and whether there are any problems with it potentially. So rather than say as Levin does that the astronaut should be sacrificed, rather you put in place measures that would permit a permanent stay in their facilities wherever they are (and my own preference would be for quarantine in Mars orbit because more isolated and probably won't be too far into future when we can keep astronauts alive indefinitely there as supply costs to Mars orbit are similar to supply to moon, and you can use ISRU quite probably from the martian moons too). And I would do the quarantine only at a late stage when you are pretty sure it is not needed, but have it as an additional precaution just in case, i.e. once you are already just about sure it is safe to return, but why not use quarantine first. And before the quarantine, you do tests in greenhouses and human cell culture etc so you are pretty sure what is going to happen.


 * To my mind Levin's ideas are unethical or else impossible to enforce as no-one in practise can make that decision that an astronaut should be killed to prevent a disease or plague which in any case is highly unlikely to happen. But an extended quarantine with the understanding it can be extended as long as needed, and also of course, once you have artificial gravity (not far away with centrifuges) and ability to keep an astronaut healthy long term in space .- that seems reasonable enough Robert Walker (talk) 14:50, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * But I can't put any of that into the article, it is my POV and I don't know of any notable citable source that has exactly those same ideas in it. I can't comment on Levin's ideas or the ideas in that book cited about quarantine. That is what is meant by not letting editorial POV go into an article and not permitting your own POV creep in and to take care that nothing you say is your own POV, which on a controversial subject like this, I find myself personally anyway from past experience, you can only do by relying totally on citations and paraphrasing or quoting your sources throughout. It is so very hard to be editorially neutral and keep your own POV out of the article if you don't do that. Robert Walker (talk) 14:40, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW just about to do a reordering of the page for other editors, say in five minutes, in case you are editing right now. Robert Walker (talk) 14:23, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk page section order
Hey everyone. It seems that you all are adding new Talk page sections to the top, while leaving the earliest TP sections on the bottom. This seems backwards from the usual Wikipedia practice, and I think, standard.

Is there some special reason for doing this? I'm having trouble keeping track of what is added and in what order. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * No reason as far as I know, I was going to comment on it myself actually. If there is no objection I'll re-arrange the sections to the wikipedia practise. Is that okay, Warren? Robert Walker (talk) 06:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅ now, thanks, N2e Robert Walker (talk) 14:38, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I think the "newest at the bottom" makes the most sense, and an archive bot can take care of archiving the oldest threads.  N2e (talk) 02:52, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Preamble needs to be completely reworked
Robert, did you see that somebody added an editorial warning tag to your article? Still needs a lot of work, evidently. Warren Platts (talk) 14:46, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, I removed the references to "Early", as well as the concerns about the relative worth of the scientific value of MSR (Bada) and Venter's worry that MSR returned samples could be contaminated by Earthly organisms upon return to Earth. As previously argued, this article should be tightly focused on back contamination only, and not be an editorial against MSR in general.Warren Platts (talk) 15:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Which tag? There were lots of comments, such as that request to define "Early" which I mentioned, and also requests for citations, dealt with most of them, may have missed a few. Robert Walker (talk) 15:42, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The big tag at the very front of the article inserted by BatteryIncluded this morning? The one that says "This article reads like an editorial or opinion piece. Please help improve this article blah blah blah?!?Warren Platts (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, the tag is for your version of the article not mine. It is because of what I've been saying in all my comments on this talk page, your editorial voice comes through all the way through, and it reads like original research as most of the things are things you just say, which are opinions, and you don't use a neutral tone in your report but put forward your own opinions of all the things you say, in the way you describe them, the tone of your personal "voice". That makes them OR and it makes it an opinion piece.


 * It refers you to No_original_research and NOTOPINION.


 * My version wouldn't get a tag like this because everything is cited, backed up, I use quotes and paraphrasing using the language of the sources I cite.


 * Wow. Now you're a mind reader as well.... Instead of putting words in other people's mouths, why don't we let BatteryIncluded speak for him or her self? :-) Warren Platts (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Of course I don't know for sure but am familiar with wikipedia policy and have never had any article or a contribution to wikipedia tagged as editorial although I have contributed a fair amount of material. Sometimes I get tagged as original research which I almost always am able to fix with addition of more citations.


 * What you did is totally natural for a first time wikipedean (correction, wikipedian new to this type of article where many different POVs need to be presented and backed up by citations). The wikipedia rules are likely to seem strange and a bit arcane. But they are there for a reason, and you can see the benefit when they are used i other articles that you are not personally involved in. They tend to seem rather silly and pointless in articles you write yourself because they just seem right :) Robert Walker (talk) 16:46, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I think your best thing you can do is to work with my version and comment and say ways in which it doesn't put forward your favoured POVs strongly enough, or if it misrepresents anything, just e.g. by failure of emphasis or whatever. But only do that for POVs that are published that you like, not your own personal POV. I am happy to try to help you to find more published material that support your own POVs too. If we do that we can come up with an article full of biases as is appropriate in wikipedia but with no particular bias over emphasized, which is the way ahead.


 * The thing is - focus is on diversity. Let all the views speak for themselves. It should be full of biased views, ones that you consider biased (and ones that I do too). Let all the published notable views on the debate come through in the article in their own voices, and not in your voice. Also make sure the most common view (or views) gets special emphasis and is clearly stated as the majority view. That way we can create a really good article. Robert Walker (talk) 16:46, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It is your POV that it should be focused just on back contamination and not on the general debate about MSR.
 * No, it is about you inserting unnecessary and misleading content forks.Warren Platts (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have argued the other way that the scientific merit is also of importance because, first the mission makes no sense without considering the scientific reason for doing it, and then also that those who criticize it on basis of scientific merit and who suggest alternatives such as telepresence and examining in situ on the surface first, and return to Mars orbit or ISS or Craig Venter's "teleporting DNA" idea, are presenting alternative actions. According to the Precautionary principle these will all need to be examined. And the whole thing can't be debated without taking account of differences in POV on the scientific value of the mission.


 * There is already a "Scientific Value" section in the main MSR article. Take your "concerns" there.Warren Platts (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Do you not see the relevance to the precautionary principle and the need to consider all possible actions? Or that the article doesn't make too much sense to someone unfamiliar to the subject if it doesn't discuss the scientific rationale for it, and is also biased if it only shows one point of view about what is best science, when there are many different views about what is of value for science? Robert Walker (talk) 17:03, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Please don't get too attached to your version as I think there is a reasonable chance the decision might go against you once opened to debate for instance in a request for comments, or whatever else. Of course don't know for sure but I think there is a reasonable chance. That you are editing the "main page" and I am editing it in my own user space won't count in your favour particularly. Indeed in an edit war that might count against you though since you are a "new wikipedian" who joined wikipedia just to edit this article, that will probably count in your favour as it is a natural thing for a newbie to do.
 * What are talking about? I have edited Wikipedia for years now. You are the newbie who is using the Wikipedia as your personal soapbox and vanity press because no one is reading your blog, no one takes you seriously on any discussion forum, and you can't get your stuff published anywhere else! Warren Platts (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh, sorry, the thing is I went to your talk page and it says you joined on 29th April 2013 which is why I assumed you are a new wikipedian, also you don't have a user page and most people who have edited wikipedia for some time have a user page. Perhaps you had a previous alias here and rejoined under a different name after a gap?? I've been editing since 2006 as you'll see from my talk page. Also the way you seem somewhat unfamiliar with the details of how NPOV and OR works and didn't respond to my request to stop editing the article during an edit war comes over as typical newbie behaviour (but might just be it has never come up before, easy enough if e.g. your main editing is for science articles)..Robert Walker (talk) 16:57, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not like there are two equally valid versions of the article. There is your original article that I would have nominated for deletion on several grounds, and there is your article that I have revised extensively in order to bring it up to Wikipedia standards. Most of my later revisions have been to incorporate YOUR suggestions. E.g., on telerobotics, quarantines, adding references, elaborating where necessary, etc. You have no cause for complaint.Warren Platts (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That doesn't matter. If my version is not valid, that will soon become clear in the dispute resolution process as experienced wikipedians help us using their understanding of wikipedia policies. So if you are right then the dispute resolution will bear it out. Momination for deletion is for a different type of situation where you feel that wikiopedia shouldn't have any article at all on the subject. It isn't used for content or validity disputes. Robert Walker (talk) 11:24, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Just a friendly warning, of course it could go your way but it could as easily go my way. I think because I was so careful to follow the wikipedia policies in my article, and you omit significant POVs that you see as biased or irrelevant, that's why I think there is at least a fair chance it might go my way if it comes to it. Robert Walker (talk) 15:42, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Whatever Robert. I got no skin in this game. I would just as soon see this entire article deleted. What you fail to realize is that I have done you a huge favor in improving your editorial by trying to turn it into an encyclopedia article. Go ahead and revert it, and then we'll see what happens. Let the chips fall where they may is what I say... Warren Platts (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * No I won't revert it. That is edit warring. What you do in this situation is put in a RfC (Request for comments). That is best done with mutual agreement that other help is needed. But if necessary one editor can just do it themselves, if I understand right. You can also do dispute resolution etc. but the request for comments is a good start I think. A third party opinion I think is for minor things easily settled by a third party and doesn't really apply here.Robert Walker (talk) 16:57, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Since you have used the main page basically as your sandbox to present your idea for how the article should be done, then we can present the main page and my version as the two alternatives for comment. Robert Walker (talk) 16:59, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That is - unless you would like me to give it a go as the main page and see what happens... Certainly willing to do that and can use the best ideas from your page incorporate it in as best we can. I'd copy your version over into my user space first, if you don't mind, so that it is available for reference (unless you want to copy it into yours), so can easily use any new things you discovered, plus whatever there is about the way you organized it that can be merged in a useful and productive way. I can do that with your permission but don't want to just go ahead. Robert Walker (talk) 18:27, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. I would recommend starting by changing the title to something like "Mars sample return back contamination"Warren Platts (talk) 19:14, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Now you know that doesn't work for me. But perhaps I can explain a bit better.


 * I want it focused on the concerns. It is not just a factual page about what the back contamination scientific research has discovered. It is about human points of view and the concerns, and of not just scientists, also lawyers, theologians, etc.


 * You see, it is a human story not a scientific presentation of the results discovered by scientists. So though in a science article it makes sense to use a title like "MSR back contamination" for an objective account of the current state of knowledge about MSR back contamination, here it is about "Concerns for ...".


 * Then, the ... I think that Early is the best word I can come up with for now. Has to express somehow that it is not to do with concerns about whether or not to do an MSR at all, because all the ones I've found agree on the need for an MSR eventually, but is a concern about the timing of the MSR - as well as about the method used, but main thing, that the majority of the published concerns are about, is about the timing, that a time that is fine for some of those quoted is too soon for others. So, I just don't have an alternative title yet though we can think over if you have any suggestions can debate them.


 * Something else to bear in mind, you don't need to be too hung up on the title, though it is good to settle on a great title if we can. Because if there is something wrong with the title, then there will be plenty of other editors who take a look at it, and will pick up on it and may have their own ideas about it. Might be a big long debate just about the title some time down the road. So if we can't find a perfect title for now, can go with it as is, until something suitable is suggested, or indeed use a RfC to find one. Titles for wikipedia articles get changed all the time, and also because of the automatic forwarding from the old title, it is not a big deal if they do. Whatever title we choose may well get changed anyway. Robert Walker (talk) 20:19, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Example of global warming
This might help, to see how it works with an example where probably we are both in agreement that there is global warming. But in the article on global warming, it gives a long list of minority views by many who have other opinions. At the head it makes it clear that the general consensus amongst scientists is that there is global warming, and then the other points of views are backed up by quotes and citations, and allowed to speak in their own voices. Also when it mentions the scientific consensus it does that in citation backed way as well citing the IPCC and listing the last major scientific organization to change its published POV on the matter, and paraphrasing the conclusions of the IPCC, so it is the voice of the IPCC not the voice of wikipedia that says it. Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

This is the sort of article I am trying to achieve. It is not so simple because in the case of MSR, not so easy to structure so I don't think we should try to copy the way it is done there exactly.

Also MSR is not a simple "yes no" thing like global warming. It is not "yes do the NASA idea" or "no, don't do it at all". The consensus is that a MSR should be attempted at some point amongst all the scientists, lawyers, philosophers, and theologians that I read. It is also a consensus that a MSR should be treated as a biohazard until better characterized. The differences in view are to do with the stage when it should happen, and to do with the best way to do it, and it is a complex subject with many nuanced ideas about what to do, and it is also all tied up with the questions of scientific value, and opinions about probability of life on Mars, whether human error can be totally avoided, and whether a tiny chance can be taken when the possible consequences are severe. So lots of other things to cover, not just a simple "yes no" argument.

But the basic idea to use lots of quotes and let all the sources state their own POV, and absolutely no editorial comment on any of the sources, especially about whether the ideas are good or feasible or not, or if they have drawbacks that no-one else has noticed, all that if has to be totally forbidden in an article like this. No editorial comment, just cited responses by others who have differing views. Even if they say something you think is totally silly, or unethical, or that they are missing the point, you can't comment on that in your own voice. All you can do in that situation is to see if there are any other notable published sources that criticize them, and if you do, express what they say, again in their own language.

So, that is what we should aim for.

Think how bland that global warming page would be if you simply deleted all the material by people or organizations that think global warming isn't happening or are non committal, on the grounds that they are biased, or perhaps, unscientific. It wouldn't be much use for someone interested to know the diversity of views on the matter. Also think how hard it would be to read if after every quote from the organizations that don't believe in global warming or are non committal, there was an editorial comment from the wikipedia editors that explained why they were wrong in their view. Robert Walker (talk) 17:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I believe all valid POVs are included in the live article. Who has been left out? Warren Platts (talk) 18:13, 30 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Just think about what you deleted from my article, it was mainly other POVs. There was a lot that you deleted. Some you thought was editorial comment, perhaps those weren't adequately backed up with citations. Plus the ones you include you didn't let them speak with their own voice like the climate change page does.


 * Probably best to start with what I included and say if there is anything there you reckon is redundant, repetitive, doesn't represent anyone's POV or represents it inaccurately, or whatever, and go through it case by case. Bearing in mind the climate page example that if published and notable it must be included, and without any editorial comment. Everything on the page is citation backed and paraphrased or quoted - which is a lot of work, took me about a whole working day to do it all, didn't time it but might well have been eight hours of work easily, it is also why it is easy to make mistakes and include something but put the wrong citation to it, or omit a citation or put in something from one source that belongs to another (e.g. that mistake of copy / pasting the wrong date into the ESF report) so such mistakes are possible. Robert Walker (talk) 20:09, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

It is going to take a while, draft in progress
Hi Warren, and anyone else interested. I'm gradually going through. Have spotted quite a lot to fix e.g. repetition, lack of clarity or focus and so forth. Partly because it is with fresh eyes, and after our debates here which helped with that too, it also helped a lot to have your version and mine next to each other to see things in a new perspective somewhat, and I have also copied some sentences over from yours to mine, and then edited them.

Here it is as it is right now, the NEW VERSION: User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new
 * ABSOLUTELY NOT!! HOW "EARLY IS TOO EARLY"?!? GIMME A BREAK!! EDIT WAR TO CONTINUE.... Warren Platts (talk) 02:31, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay then Houston, we have a problem... How else can it be done then? I did that as neutrally as I could. You have to explain that the whole debate is mainly about the timing of the MSR and that some are of the opinion that it is okay to do a MSR with samples that are comparatively unknown, and some are of the opinion that that is not okay. You must present that clearly right at the top of the article. How else to do it?

These are guidelines that I am following myself, so it might be productive to review the guidelines:


 * 1) It must not suggest that the current NASA MSR proposals are accepted without question.
 * 2) It should make it clear that the majority POV amongst mission scientists is support for the current NASA MSR.
 * 3) It must not suggest in any way that there is consensus amongst scientists generally, or amongst interested people in other disciplines such as law, ethics etc, that a mission returning a sample direct to Earth in 2018 is appropriate.
 * 4) It shouldn't even say that there is a majority view or consensus amongst scientists generally or the general public, outside of mission planners and assessment as this would prejudge the public debate, which hasn't happened yet, especially since the question is seldom discussed and most are currently unaware of these issues and concerns (see below).
 * 5)  It must make it clear that some consider 2018 to be too early to return a sample.
 * 6) It must however not do any of this in a way that suggests that those who consider that 2018 is okay are wrong, or that the ones that say it is too soon are wrong. It must not give any guidance to the reader about which POV they should believe themselves.
 * 7) None of those should have any editorial comment or loaded language, or synthesis, or opinions given in any way about their POVs.  just present all the views as POVs described neutrally using their own language where possible. Imagine that they are given the opportunity to write the section about their POV in their own language - how would they do it, how would they like it presented? For each of the POVs of interest that is what you do. And no notable POVs should be omitted.


 * I stepped very carefully between all those various pitfalls when writing this intro para. Any other alternative must do the same. So, it might be useful to say which of those points I have just listed I have gone against in that intro para, or if you disagree that any of them need to be followed, say which and why, or do add extra points that need to be taken care of, or whatever, to help make this discussion more productive. Robert Walker (talk) 07:20, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW on the third point, in my own private discussions, most agree that there is some reason for concern. Only on the nasaspaceflight forum, of several places I have discussed these issues, have I come across a majority of people saying that these sorts of things are a non issue. There as you know I was vastly outnumbered with only one other person holding a similar view to myself, and only in a single post (I think he must have got intimidated by the others arguing against the view). Amongst my own private discussions, I would say that especially microbiologists are concerned. That includes some friends that are professors or lecturers in microbiology (unofficial opinions so don't want to name them). Interestingly Carl Sagan did a thesis on origins of life and worked with micro-biologists and Lederberg was a microbiologist, as was Carl Woese, so microbiologists feature prominently amongst those most concerned in the published literature.


 * I think all you can say there is that most scientists including microbiologists haven't thought through the issues involved and accept the NASA proposals because they haven't given it any thought. Which isn't the same as a consensus in support of them. Just assume, surely it must be right if NASA are doing it kind of a thing. It would be hard to back this up either way with citations, it is just my personal experience, so anecdotal, can't conclude from that anything either way about people in general, so best just to say nothing. If you say majority of scientists should really say majority of scientists involved in the mission assessment and planning, or majority involved in COSPAR (if you can find a source) or the scientists involved in such and such a study etc, similar to the global warming page. In the intro para. I say "Many scientists" instead of "Majority of scientists" which you can't say, solving the issue by making a vaguer statement. But "The majority of mission planners and mission scientists" might be a more accurate thing to say there, not sure what is best, on the other hand it's not like there has been a poll so you can say 83% are in favour or whatever the number is, but can certainly say that many do, for details, perhaps better to refer to particular studies and their conclusions as I do later on in the page. Robert Walker (talk) 07:26, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

This is YOUR OLD VERSION (WARREN): User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_-_Warren%27s_version

This is MY OLD VERSION: User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return

I will sleep on it, and look at it some more some time tomorrow. Still hopefully you can see the direction it is going which I think and hope you agree is a definite improvement :). So is probably best to wait for that before comment. If you see some immediate obvious issues with my approach you could mention now, but might be best to let me just finish it as it is now and then comment, so you can see how it works out when it is all done. I don't want to move it to the main page mid-edit like this, and with it nearly finished, so will leave that for now, probably tomorrow if all goes well. Robert Walker (talk) 23:20, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Absence of evidence
Just saw your elaboration of that section. They are good points, some of them, but I don't know of anyone who actually raises this question of how long is needed before it is safe to return a MSR sample. It is certainly a FAQ in the sense that it has come up many times when I've discussed this e.g. on nasaspaceflight.com, reddit, and with my facebook science friends. But I simply haven't yet come across a paper that discusses it yet. So it can't be included sadly (like many other things I'd like to include that I've mentioned).


 * Wrong. It's like one of those things like "The capitol of France is in Paris". You of all people--the mathematician--ought to realize this. You can't prove a negative. That's basic. It's attributable. It's not worth mentioning, just like it's not worth mentioning that the capitol of France is in Paris..... Warren Platts (talk) 02:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That's okay, if there is no controversy, it is fine if common knowledge. It is okay to just say Paris is the capital of France. If there was any controversy about whether France was the capital of France you have to step carefully and cite sources for the other views. Of course not going to find notable sources that say anything else in this case, but hypothetically for sake of illustration, e.g. "Joe blogs says that France is the capital of Luxembourg", "John Smith says France is the capital of Spain" etc. And has to be relevant to the page, e.g. if they are notable people and a well published gaff, might be of interest in the page about the person themselves but probably not of interest in a page about France.


 * Where it is non controversial and common knowledge it is fine, and especially in science and maths, music also, you get a lot of non controversial stuff that is taken for granted as basic knowledge. You could cite refs for it all by hunting up textbooks etc, but assuming there is no variation in the way it is understood or none of any significance and assuming any competent scientist or physicist would agree, you don't have to do that which saves a lot of work and saves a lot of unnecessary footnotes that would just confuse the reader. Basically that is okay if there is only one point of view on the matter.


 * What you have to watch out for is building up of things that individually are all well verified facts or obvious to make any kind of an argument from them, as that is synthesis in this context, and not permitted in wikipedia. It counts as OR or as editorial opinion.


 * No_original_research


 * You can do that too, in maths or science if it is an immediate consequence and is not itself notable requiring citation. So for instance you could say if needed for clarification "The maximum temperature reached is -80C, below the sublimation point of CO2 of −78.5 °C" if for some reason that was relevant and needed to be said to help the reader understand what is said in a technical published source, and was not mentioned because familiarity with this figure was assumed in the publication. You can then back up that extra fact with a citation if it is a figure the general reader might not know and want to check, or in this case, it would probably be enough to just link to the wikipedia entry on dry ice as it is common knowledge amongst specialists and explained in that article.


 * But you can't join those together to say something notable that hasn't yet been published, e.g. in Maths, a proof that should be published in a reputable journal can't be included even if every single step is spelt out and a competent mathematician would have no trouble following the proof. That is because wikipedia is not considered a suitable location for first time publication of such results.


 * You can use it when it is just something you do for clarification to help the user, and does not put forward any significant or interesting or original view or present any kind of editorial comment on the material's validity or such like.


 * It is easy to slip into this without realising that you do it. Sometimes you need another editor to point it out before you can see it, a bit like spotting typos. Robert Walker (talk) 06:30, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In this case you are right to say that an absence of proof for life does not prove that there is no life. But you are using that to advance an argument. I can argue the other way for instance I'd say that with enough investigation of the early conditions on Mars you should be able to have a pretty clear idea of whether there was life on Mars in the first hundred million years, at least in the main oceans. Also with extremely sensitive measurements of the atmosphere you can detect traces of even small quantities of life through imbalance, and if you also examine all the most likely types of habitat on Mars, especially several different types of habitat with liquid water, and deep habitats, and still find no life, and backed that up with a thorough understanding of early Mars and present day Mars and for instance an explanation of why panspermia from Earth to Mars hasn't happened, then you could expect to be as confident that there is no life on Mars as you are about the Moon. Of course you might find life in the process of the investigation, but if you don't, and you also have a clear understanding of why it was not discovered. then that is like your absence of evidence but also backed up by positive arguments giving evidence of absence to make a compelling argument.


 * After all we don't totally for sure know that there is no life on the Moon, but no scientist believes it, even after the discovery of water ice at the poles, because the water ice is believed to be permanently kept at extremely low temperatures similar to the temperature of the surface of Pluto. But some sci. fi. stories posit life on Pluto just for fun and can make it seem plausible, at least enough for entertaining sci fi (with liquid helium for blood in an example I remember). Also the reason for believing the Moon is totally dry otherwise is due to a theory about how the Moon formed, which could be wrong, or there might be some detail that has been missed that permits water in some favoured location. So you can't really say there is no life on the Moon. But no published paper to my knowledge puts it forward as a serious possibility. Though one paper I know of does advocate caution on return of life from the Moon, even now with all our knowledge of it and the Apollo samples, on the very remote chance that a sample might be returned that does have unusual "weird" life in it. Note that is not my POV, but is a notable source that could be mentioned in an article on return of samples from the Moon and other Category II bodies. It is in a paper that is critical of the current COSPAR division into 4 Categories, saying that it is based on insufficient knowledge of the limitations of life and conditions in the solar system, such as fixation on water as the only possible location for life (in the paper's author's opinion).


 * All the things I just said are synthesis and can't go in to an article on concerns about an early MSR, for the same reason your comment can't go in.


 * Your remark about absence of evidence is also a straw man as well as synthesis type OR, because no-one in the debate advocates that we wait until we are totally 100% sure there is no risk of life on Mars. So it is a straw man, making up a position that no-one holds, because it is an easy position to argue against.


 * Tufts and Greenberg suggested use of a “natural contamination” standard in their discussion of mission to Europa. “As long as the probability of people infecting other planets with terrestrial microbes is substantially smaller than the probability that such contamination happens naturally, exploration activities would, in our view, be doing no harm.”


 * I thought of including that but it would be synthesis as they don't suggest using their "natural contamination" standard for back contamination, only for forward contamination, and I can't find anyone else yet that suggests it for MSR, though it seems a natural thing to do. If anyone knows of a source I can use for that do say! It is synthesis and original research to apply the principle here without a citation, because though it seems like just a single step deduction it is entirely possible that they have a different perception of how to assess risks when the risk is for the humans on Earth, or if the risk is for contamination of life on other planets and solar system bodies. So I can't attribute it to them, and could only attribute it to myself which is not permitted.


 * It is reasonable to ask, what level of probability or confidence is good enough to permit a MSR. But apart from discussion of protocols and mission plans such as saying, "if we do this and that and find no sign of life or biohazard, it is fine to go ahead", I haven't found any debate of what counts as a low enough probability to be okay. Apart from this one discussion by Tufts and Greenberg, which sadly is only about forward contamination. I tried to find later papers by them discussing MSR, but nothing. I very much want to include a section on this, but have just not found anything yet in the literature to use for it, and if anyone does know of anything it would be great to hear about it. That is, not looking for an assessment of probabilities particularly, but discussion of what level of probability is low enough, either as figures or by equi-probability comparison with something else, and how you can tell if a sufficiently low probability has been achieved, e.g. by comparisons with natural contamination. Robert Walker (talk) 06:47, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Tufts and Greenberg also interestingly discuss the possibility of an absolute ban on anything that could cause any level of forward contamination, not as their own opinion but as a possible opinion that could be held theoretically, which they call the "Prime Directive" as a kind of microbial analogue of the Star Trek idea. If someone mentioned the same hypothetical position for backwards contamination, then it could be mentioned as a hypothetical position that has been discussed though no-one holds it. Then in the context of that discussion, if they or someone else then mentioned the problem of absence of evidence meaning that this principle would put a stop to spacecraft exploration altogether, again that could be said as a purely hypothetical point made in a notable cited source about a hypothetical position that no-one holds. So long as you make it totally clear to the reader that it is all hypothetical and doesn't correspond to the POV of any published source you have. Robert Walker (talk) 07:04, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

On your remark that there has been no detection of life despite 20 missions, the thing is of course, that no missions since Viking have searched for life. Curiosity could look straight at an endospore or even a sparsely growing algae plant or similar on the rocks and not see it. It was also not rated to go to regions of Mars where life is possible so was sent to one of the driest places on Mars where there is believed to be no ice at all, not on the surface and not even tens of meters below the surface (though there are suggestions that there may be some deep down equatorial ice deposits on Mars which opens a small chance of habitable regions in the equatorial regions if they sublime and deliquesce on salt deposits on the way up or melt and are trapped under an impermeable layer). The thing is also the life on the surface is almost certainly sparse and slowly metabolizing, and probably non cultivable in standard media (which of course doesn't make it totally impossible for it to infect us or cause some kind of eco-catastrophy, as for instance cholera is uncultivable). All of this makes it no surprise that the life if it exists hasn't been spotted yet.

So would be nice to have a section on all that, putting both sides or indeed many sides of the debate as I am sure it could be highly nuanced (I just gave one alternative POV to yours above). It is relevant, but I don't know of anyone who discusses any of this in connection with MSR so it can't be included (once you start allowing exceptions like that then it easily loses all focus and objectivity and becomes an opinion piece). Robert Walker (talk) 23:51, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Robert, I'm not even going to read your wall o' text. If you can't make your point in half a dozen lines, it's because you have no point. Warren Platts (talk) 12:46, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, oh sorry, it is just that I type quickly basically, close to touch typing speed and get carried away by it without realising sometimes. Okay well in brief, the thing is you were attacking a "straw man" position that no-one holds and is easy to argue against but it is only a hypothetical point of view - the view that you should only do a MSR if certain there is no life there.


 * Then to that hypothetical POV you then add a hypothetical argument too, that absence of evidence means evidence of absence, which again no-one holds. So in short you are attacking a hypothetical argument by a "straw man".


 * To explain some more, I talked a bit about how you could establish a reasonable level of certainty for evidence for absence of life on Mars, not based on absence of evidence.


 * It could still be discussed but you have to say clearly that it is a hypothetical position, and that no-one holds that POV. If you do that, it is no longer a "straw man" but a philosophical point about hypothetical points of view, and hypothetical arguments for those POVs, just the sort of thing philosophers love to discuss. Nothing wrong with that if you make it clear what you are doing. But in wikipedia, that is still OR, if you have no citations for anyone who discusses in this way.


 * So it was OR, and it was also editorial because you were using this argument against a "straw man" as a way to imply that there was something wrong more generally with other POVs related to it.


 * Which is a thing people do all the time in ordinary conversation, also in blog posts and online arguments etc. But it is not an encyclopedic way of proceeding. Robert Walker (talk) 17:15, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Huh? "that absence of evidence entails evidence of absence" I believe I said exactly the opposite. Tilting at windmills again Robert.... Warren Platts (talk) 17:19, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I think I am slightly dislexic or something, as I sometimes swap letters around, and words, that's probably what happened here. I meant what you just said. The point is, that no-one in the published literature says anything about arguing from an absence of evidence to an evidence of absence. And no-one in the published literature says that the MSR should be delayed until we are 100% sure that there is no biohazard possibility. So it's you who are tilting against a windmill here. That's what makes it editorial. The best way to stop that from happening is to check every single sentence, and ask, "Is this something someone says or is it just something I say", and "Who says it, and in what context"? You don't have to do that in science articles about pure facts, but in articles about controversial subjects and about matters of public debate and so forth you absolutely have to. Robert Walker (talk) 19:32, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Robert! You have completely lost it! This is beyond dyslexia. Look at what you just wrote: "arguing from an absence of evidence to an evidence of absence." I said just the opposite: ~(absence of evidence ≡ evidence of absence). Unbelievable... — Preceding unsigned comment added by WarrenPlatts (talk • contribs) 01:32, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, it was not intentional. I often swap words and phrases as well as letters. Also occasionally when speaking I come out with a word which doesn't mean the same thing as the thought I had in my mind, and often don't notice it until someone comments on it. Minor handicap you can work around it by just being very careful and getting used to the things you tend to do and look out for them, after all I am a programmer and have to write bug free code.


 * I am a reasonably fast typist, over 60 wpm and it is also easier to swap words in this way when you are also a fast typist I don't know if it is dislexia, it is a minor issue so not been enough of a nuisance to attempt to get diagnosis. But there are many aspects to dislexics and letter reversal is only one of them that not everyone has. Others have issues with word retrieval (e.g. coming out with the wrong word in conversation, sometimes to hilarious or unfortunate effect) and the ordering of words as well as many others: Characteristics_of_dyslexia


 * When this happens, the words I write don't correspond to the thoughts in my mind. They get scrambled somehow on the way from my mind to my fingers. Mild issue usually, one reason I correct my posts more than most for instance, but occasionally causes problems. (you don't always see it even when you re-read, as the eye passes over it if you have this tendency to swap words anyway, unless you go through slowly almost word for word) Robert Walker (talk)


 * Oh sorry just re-reading again, it wasn't word swapping. It was because I was talking about straw men.


 * Start again: Yes you argued that absence of evidence does not imply evidence of absence. But you were arguing against a "straw man" - a straw man is a POV that you invent as an opponent in your argument. So - since no-one in the debate takes the POV that an absence of evidence implies an evidence of absence, then by arguing against that POV you aren't arguing against any position held by anyone in the debate. You are arguing with a "straw man" or like arguing with your shadow. It is easy to win a debate with a straw man because you can attribute anything you like to them, and they don't answer back.


 * Here is the wikipedia article about the type of argument you were using, it may be clearer to read that rather than what I say here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man


 * I am interested in these informal fallacies, as someone who studied logic and also interested in the way people argue in daily life. Somehow we get along in everyday life and people generally counter informal fallacies with other informal fallacies as part of normal debate, all mixed in with deductive reasoning, it is quite a mixture. Including e.g. politicians, public speakers, orators, it is pervasive if you are really nit picking about it.


 * I would normally not point it out though, as it is "nit picking" but in the case of an encyclopedia entry, then the various informal fallacies need to be avoided in presentation of the material. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy


 * Robert Walker (talk) 12:58, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * All that is avoided if you use quotes, or if you paraphrase exactly what was said, exactly the same arguments that were used in the source, and use their words for things and ideas instead of your words for them. Which you don't have to do in scientific articles but it is the safest way to proceed in articles about people's opinions, concerns or views. Also to be careful not to string them together to present new ideas not in the source you are citing. That makes it a fair bit easier to do this sort of editing in my experience anyway, FWIW. Robert Walker (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Wrong yet again. No straw man. It's a paraphrase of ESF report. Try reading it. The section on "unknown unknowns". Warren Platts (talk) 13:32, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, in that section then, to quote:


 * (I have left out the last para as not part of the actual argument you are citing).


 * Yes you used their statement that from an absence of evidence you can't say anything about evidence of absence. That much was okay. But it is how you use it. They didn't use it to argue that you can never have enough certainty to return a sample return and therefore it doesn't matter much when you do it. They used it instead to argue that we have considerable uncertainty in our current knowledge of Mars, and that it is impossible to know how likely it is to be hazardous for sure, so you have to rely on expert judgement from experts in the field. They then conclude that the risk is probably low because of the consensus amongst experts that the risk is low, but that you can't assess the probability in the same way you do normal probabilities, and in the context of the whole report it is clear that they are using it to argue that it is important to treat the samples with caution.


 * They didn't argue that the risk is so low that it makes hardly any difference if you return it now or later, and they didn't argue that we will never be able to reduce the risk enough to be reasonably certain that there is no hazardous life on Mars. They don't consider alternative missions that would return samples later. They didn't use it in anything like the same way that you used it. That is what makes your writing editorial, synthesis, OR, etc.


 * The only way you should use that material is to present an argument that leads to the same conclusion they did, and to report as accurately as you can, in shorter form, i.e. paraphrasing, exactly what they said and what their conclusions are. You can't take ideas from the paper, and combine them to new conclusions not in the paper. That is synthesis and is forbidden in wikipedia though of course it is encouraged in other places that publish original research. Is that clearer? Do you see how what you wrote does not paraphrase what the ESF say in this section of their report?Robert Walker (talk) 13:51, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

This may help: SYNTH and: What_SYNTH_is_not Robert Walker (talk) 13:51, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Absence of evidence (part 2)
(was getting a bit unwieldy so split it here)


 * I see you've changed your tune, but that's OK. I'm glad you now agree that the ESF report does in fact argue that the absence of evidence of Martian life is not proof that such life does not exist. Correct me if I'm wrong: what you now object to is my sentence, "Further in situ research would not necessarily eliminate these uncertainties." However, this is not a synthesis: (a) it merely a restatement of the logical truism that one can't prove a negative; and (b) it is a paraphrase of the decadal survey where they say that more fundamental advances cannot be obtained by more in situ research.Warren Platts (talk) 14:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It is still a straw man IMO what you do, but I won't argue it if you don't see it, it is a minor point, not worth making a big deal about if you don't see it that way.


 * But will try to explain why it is a synthesis. Just this short section. Almost your whole article is like this though apart from the sections you copied over unchanged from my article.


 * I will go through it sentence by sentence. But basically that whole paragraph is OR and synthesis and editorial. Not suggesting you fix it, because I don't think you can, just so you can see why it reads like synthesis to me and I am sure would to other wikipedians too.


 * So - the section is about "in situ research". You have removed most of the material that I included that explains the value and motivation for in situ research (not my own words but cited sources).


 * Then after a very brief explanaiton of what it is you go straight into a long editorial paragraph about twice as long explaining why in situ research is of no value.


 * The argument in this para is almost entirely your own. First you say, that it is difficult to know definitely when there is insufficient risk.


 * You say that despite 20 missions to mars there has been no in situ detection of life. This is a synthesis because no-one else uses that particular argument. You are saying "after 20 missions we have seen no life so it is unlikely to be there". Nobody published says that. So that is OR. You have also omitted to say that none of those missions since Viking was intended to search for life or exobiology, and that the aim was to "follow the water" to find out about ice and geology and surface materials instead. I


 * The ESF report you cite there does say that there is no evidence of extinct or extant life but the first half of that sentence, "Despite at least 20 successful robotic missions to Mars" is not combined with the second half. Basically you are saying "surely we would have found life by now if it was there and we haven't found it" but the ESF report doesn't say that. So that is synthesis and editorial.


 * In fact those who do discuss this in the published literature are careful to say that since Viking no spacecraft have been sent to Mars with any direct life detection capabilities and so though our knowledge of geology, water, surface materials such as clays, salts etc have advanced hugely, our knowledge of whether there is life there or not hasn't advanced significantly at all. Curiosity has biomarker detection but it would only detect very obvious life especially since sent to the very driest part of Mars. No-one at all says that we would expect to find life by now if it is present.


 * You then go on: "Nevertheless, the report further notes that absence of positive evidence for the existence of Martian life is not necessarily evidence of absence of Martian life"
 * That is sort of okay but they don't actually use the words "absence of positive evidence" and "evidence of absence" in their report, and it is better to use their words rather than yours when praphrasing.


 * "because of this uncertainty, we cannot realistically assess the probability of contamination that could result from an MSR mission"
 * Actually they say, that you can't assess the probability in the classical way as the limit of a frequency of a collection of experiments. That's not the same as "we cannot realistically assess". And they in fact say that what you can do is to use a consensus of opinion of experts in the field as a guide.


 * You might have personal scepticism about that approach, but that is your POV. Here you have to report their POV, so you just say what they say, exactly as they say it.


 * Basically don't think for yourself, I mean - don't put your own thoughts on the page. Just say what they say, and only use your own thought processes to make sure you understand what they say and to structure it well.


 * You go on "Further in situ research would not necessarily eliminate these uncertainties. Indeed, the entire motivation behind MSR is that Mars research with rovers has already reached a point of diminishing returns"


 * Who says that "Further in situ research would not necessarily eliminate these uncertainties"?


 * Also when you say "would not necessarily eliminate these uncertainties" that assumes that someone wants to eliminate the uncertainties, otherwise what is the point in arguing that it won't eliminate them.


 * But no-one argues that it is even possible to eliminate the uncertainties, at least not completely. Just to reduce. Don't actually give a level to reduce to. But presumably if reduced e.g. to the same level as return of Moon samples to Earth, or natural influx from Mars or of diseases from extremophiles on Earth then everyone would be satisfied it is safe enough to go ahead.


 * This is still the "straw man" that I talked about before, you've removed it mostly but left this bit still in there.


 * You can do it if you find someone who did say that to attribute it to, both ways, the argument you are giving - attribute that to someone. Then, who were they arguing against? The reader will want to know more about their opponents POV, so, where can the reader go to read their opponents POV in case they are not convinced by the argument you just gave? But this is all rather hypothetical in this case as no-one uses this argument and there is no opponent who says the opposite argument, as far as I know.


 * By just saying them as the editor you are putting it as wikipedia's POV that "Further in situ research would not necessarily eliminate these uncertainties".


 * You have also deleted a whole lot of cited material I had in this section about proposed future instruments to be flown on future missions to Mars and about the capabilities of those instruments, including the instruments for ExoMars which is not so far into the future, and will be a major step forward in life detection e.g with its capability to detect a wide range of actual specific organic chemicals that on Earth anyway are indicative of life. In anyone's book that is a major step forward and shows we haven't exhausted their capabilities, and that's not taking account of the others coming on stream probably not so long after such as miniaturized SEMs


 * So putting one side of the argument and deleting everything in the article that presented the other side, is the only way you can get this to work. If the other material was included it would just be obviously false.


 * Then on your next sentence, who says that "the entire motivation behind MSR is that Mars research with rovers has already reached a point of diminishing returns"? You haven't attributed that to anyone so it comes over again as the wikipedia POV or the editorial POV.


 * It is okay to put these things in if attributed to someone. If you can find someone in a notable source you can then say that "Joe Blogs said that the entire motivation behind MSR is that Mars research with rovers has already reached a point of diminishing returns"


 * But you haven't said this and there are many different POVs on the motivation for MSR, I have seen arguments a bit like this if not quite in those words. But it is only one POV and so must be attributed.


 * Your very last sentence is okay:


 * According to the 2011 Decadal Survey Report, "The Mars community, in their inputs to the decadal survey, was emphatic in their view that a sample return mission is the logical next step in Mars exploration. Mars science has reached a level of sophistication that fundamental advances in addressing the important questions above will only come from analysis of returned samples."


 * I was unaware of that report and it is a good find, I will put it into my version of the article. That sentence is the only bit of that paragraph that is NPOV and not editorial in tone. Robert Walker (talk) 17:23, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Added yet more clarification to "Further in situ Research Section". According to the NASA OPP summary, they say exactly what I said, that further in situ research "can reduce" the risk by not finding Martian life, but cannot eliminate it.




 * This should settle the "Absence of Evidence" challenge definitively IMHO. Warren Platts (talk) 17:31, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The way to paraphrase that is something like: "further study of Mars can reduce the possibility of extant martian life. However the samples should be assumed to contain viable lifeforms until proved clean." - or some such - okay to use your own less technical language to say the same point.


 * Don't try to put it into a larger argument or build up arguments out of it. Because if every step of an argument is cited and sourced, but the steps come from different sources, the result is synthesis. It is only okay to do that if the complete argument is presented by someone, and then you use individual sources to help clarify the details of the argument. You then say that "... argues that" attribute it to the person or group who present the original argument. And in a controversial area like this, just never just put the arguments as if it was wikipedia's POV. For instance, any time you argue for a conclusion, if others could argue to an opposite conclusion, you have to find a source for your entire argument, not just for individual steps in it.


 * It is okay to structure the material e.g. a logical way of presenting it to make it easy to read, put some sections before others etc. But it is usually pretty clear if you are doing that, or if you are connecting them together like in a row of dominos each one leading to the next until the last one falls down, if you know what I mean (not sure the analogy works). If you do that sort of thing, it is editorial POV.


 * Is this making sense at all? If I can't explain it well, then maybe someone else can. I am just explaining the basic wikipedia policies on POV. It's not tricky really once you get the idea of how it works. But it is kind of a novel way of working - in the sense that many people can go through their entire lives and almost never do this, never just clearly and accurately report, without comment, the POV of someone who thinks differently from themselves. Robert Walker (talk) 17:57, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This is what I wrote:


 * How is that substantively different from your suggestion:


 * So, actually no, your criticism doesn't make sense to me. More walls o' text are not the answer, either.


 * Your point about listing various proposed new instruments is valid, so I cut and pasted that section over to the live article.


 * As for your point that "the entire motivation behind MSR is that Mars research with rovers has already reached a point of diminishing returns" was not attributed in that sentence, in order to make it more clear, I added a colon to combine it with the sentence you thought was OK.


 * As for your contention that I mis-paraphrased the ESF report re: "realistically assess", this is what I wrote:


 * This is what they wrote:


 * There is no substantive difference in the content between the two sentence. Furthermore, neither sentence contradicts their later point that we are not doing classical frequentist probabilities. Warren Platts (talk) 18:47, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. It is because of the way you take it out of context, leave out the clarification that by "real" they mean "classical frequencies" and their next part that therefore because you can't do classical frequencies you need to rely on opinion of experts, and the bit about the opinion of experts, and instead chain it together with other things to create an argument that is not in the original.


 * 2. The thing to do is to stand back, look at your paragraph and the conclusion you draw and ask yourself, "does this whole paragraph accurately summarize the ESF report?". If one of the authors of the ESF report read your para would he or she say "Yes, that is exactly what I said"?


 * 3. Also why do you think your page got the editorial tag then?


 * 4. If this doesn't help (suspect it won't) then probably means I'm not the right person to say this to you because I am too involved in the dispute for you to be able to accept that I am just explaining wikipedia policies to you.


 * 5. Let's ask for third party opinion and see what they say. Robert Walker (talk) 05:46, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. Incorrect. It is you who is taking the quote out of context. Here is the context:


 * Their use of "classical frequency definition of probability" specifically refers to the probability that harmful effects will occur upon release into Earth's biosphere, whereas "real assessment" refers the chain of 3 probabilities they list: (1) that there is life on Mars; (2) that such life will find it's way into an MSR sample; (3) that such life will be able to interact with Earth's biosphere. Of course, it's also the case that none of these probabilities are frequentist. I thought that went without saying. But if even you, the purported mathematician, are confused about this point, I will add a point of clarification that we are talking about Bayesian prior probabilities rather than frequentist probabilities.


 * 2. Pretty much...


 * 3. Because you wrote most of it?


 * 4. You're projecting again.


 * 5. Go right ahead. What's stopping you? Warren Platts (talk) 08:24, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Too Early again - does this help?
I've added a sentence:

The difference is that it shows clearly that concerns about timescale and about returning the sample too early are concerns for all involved including the NASA mission planners. Nobody in the published papers takes the opinion that we could without any appreciable risk return a MSR to Mars today to existing biohazard laboratories.

(have just deleted a couple of comments I made here that were based on a misunderstanding of the quoted timescales, fixed by re-reading the cited sources. Thought not particularly helpful to keep it especially since there were no comments in between, though of course you can find it in the history Robert Walker (talk) 11:21, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Latest here: User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new


 * Robert, you are tilting at windmills. Worse than that you are not even reading your own sources. It's not my job to be your personal fact checker. Suffice it to say you don't know what you're talking about: there are no plans by NASA or anyone to bring anything back from Mars by 2018. Get some sleep.Warren Platts (talk) 12:50, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, okay, then seems the MSR mission page is wrong: Mars_sample_return_mission. I should have checked that more carefully. They refer to this page Bringing Pieces of Mars to Earth: How NASA Will Do It which is the citation I used too. But that is dated last September. Need a more up to date citation and the main MSR sample return page also needs to be corrected as well as my one. Robert Walker (talk) 13:19, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I can't find a date for a MSR on the Nasa pages. Looks as if that date should be deleted from my Concerns page, will do it right away, do you have any other dates? Perhaps it should be deleted from the main MSR page too because it is about a proposal which surely was never funded or we would know about it.Robert Walker (talk) 13:26, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * You cite a /space.com/ article for your 2018 date: http://www.space.com/17780-nasa-mars-sample-return-options.html
 * Here is the relevant quote: "NASA is hoping to launch its first piece of the Mars sample-return architecture in 2018 or 2020, Grunsfeld said. The agency has just $800 million or so to work with until then — too little for a rover, so NASA will likely launch an orbiter if it chooses the 2018 opportunity, Figueroa said.


 * But just when pristine little pieces of the Red Planet could make their way to Earth — and into scientists' labs — remains very much up in the air.


 * "As far as time frame — that's all forward work, to figure out," Grunsfeld said."


 * It's hard to understand how anyone with basic reading comprehension skills can get "NASA have plans to return a Mars sample possibly as soon as 2018" out of the above statement.


 * In the event, it's a lot worse than the article makes out. The Mars program was largely defunded in the latest proposed budget. So even the first leg of the MSR isn't getting launched. The only thing that's happening is there is now evidently a plan to basically send an updated clone of MSL "Curiosity" by 2018. More in situ research in other words. Meanwhile, MSR has been pushed off into the indefinite future. It may never happen in our lifetimes. Mars is getting rather passé anyways these days. This was probably the last window of opportunity. If MSR ever happens, it will probably be the Chinese or Russians or a private commercial venture--not NASA IMO.


 * So congratulations Robert! You win! You've got your way! MSR isn't going to happen "early"! You can go home now! No need to lose any more sleep! TEOTWAWKI isn't going to happen on your watch! Hope this helps! :-) Warren Platts (talk) 17:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's the presser link. Note that the words "sample" or "return" do not appear anywhere: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/dec/HQ_12-420_Mars_2020.html Warren Platts (talk) 17:08, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay yes, you are right, I didn't read it carefully. Sorry about that. Don't know how it happened, it wasn't my main focus in the article, and must have just assumed the main MSR article got it right.


 * Sorry, reading the main MSR page then they say mission starting 2018 just as in the other one. I don't know how it happened. I am usually so careful to get the facts right, but this completely slipped through the net somehow.


 * Yes that is a relief for me, that NASA won't be doing a MSR so soon. This article is still relevant though, as an article about the timescale of an MSR, just isn't so imminent. After all when Carl Sagan discussed it, then it was hardly imminent then either, and people have been concerned about this for decades - just because it probably won't happen in the next decade doesn't mean you can't have a wikipedia article about it..


 * Also NASA are no longer the only game in town, it is quite possible that someone else between now and then could attempt a MSR from Mars. There is the China proposal too to return a sample by 2030. China to collect samples from Mars by 2030 which I suppose is now the most imminent of the proposals.


 * With Nasa now hoping for humans in orbit by the 2030s, then I suppose that would also be the time when they would retreive the MSR from orbit??


 * And whatever it is no excuse for having an article on a controversial subject, that puts only one POV and is editorial in tone.Robert Walker (talk) 19:43, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Have now updated my version to mention the Chinese pre 2030 mission proposal and the potential but uncertain NASA 2030s idea Robert Walker (talk) 10:31, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Too Early - what am I doing wrong in your opinion?
Warren, to make progress, have to find out what it is that I am doing that needs to be fixed.

Do I give too much attention to a particular POV?

Do I (unintentionally) recommend to the reader that they should adopt one POV rather than another? If so which POV do I seem to recommend to them?

Or is it some other issue, if so what exactly? Can you be a bit more specific rather than just say it doesn't work for you, so we can see if there is anything we can do about it?

Or any other thoughts at all, ideas for ways we can make progress on this impasse?

Do you go along with my basic idea that like the global warming it should just present all the POVs without editorial comment and without recommending any of them to the reader? How can we best present the main topic of debate if not using "how early is too early?" Want to somehow present in a succinct easy to understand way what the main topic of concern is about.

The reader needs to know what the debate is all about and why there is one, what the variation in views is, and that needs to be made clear from the outset, in a brief easy to grasp way, then you can go down to details of the debate later on. So the intro para. needs to emphasize the diversity of views, as clearly as we can possibly present it.

When you just quote " "How early is too early" gimme a break" - remember I don't see it how you do, and I don't see any bias in that title. I simply don't understand what you are getting at there, what makes the title a problem. Perhaps you can explain a bit so I can understand how you see it and why you see it as an issue.Robert Walker (talk) 15:16, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Also on the page title, even if you understood Early as Too Early, what would be the problem with for instance, calling the page "Concerns for a too early Mars sample return"? (apart from not being very idiomatic English).

Let's try some brainstorming:


 * Why should I repeat myself? I was think my meaning was clear enough the first several times. It's a moot point anyway. The only person you can cite that MSR is too "early" is the late Sagan writing in pre-Viking days. Now it's 40 years and 20 missions later: MSR is already beyond "early" and there are no concrete plans to launch MSR at any time in the near future. There's nothing "early" about it. It's a peculiar definition invented by you, it's unattributable, it's not notable, it's an attempt to sneak in your editorial POV under the radar. It fools no one. Drop it please. Warren Platts (talk) 17:13, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Title ideas
Concerns for a Mars sample return that's too soon

Concerns about short timescales for Mars sample return

Are any of those better?


 * The title should be either "Mars sample return safety" or "Mars sample return back contamination"


 * The words "concerns" and/or "early" should not be included because they are POV-centric. Warren Platts (talk) 16:51, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Are you saying that because you are of the opinion that no-one has any concerns about it? So that by saying that there are concerns I am putting a personal POV? Asking because what you said before sounded almost like that was your view, and also because of the way you are continually erasing more and more stuff from your version including concerns that NASA themselves raise in their reviews of MSR.


 * If you accept that there are people who have concerns about it, who have also published those concerns in notable sources, so they are notable, then we can hope to make progress in some way or other, but if your idea is that it should not imply that there are any concerns at all then we can't make much progress because I can't see how to fit that to the article I want to write, and I see it as editorial and pushing a particular POV that there are no concerns despite what seems to me blindingly obvious evidence in the literature that there are such concerns. Robert Walker (talk) 01:50, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it's poor writing. That's the problem. The article is not about "concerns"--a.k.a. "worries". That is, it is not about the peculiar yet all too common psychology of hysterical and/or mistaken beliefs that disaster is immanent. The topic of the article is about the safety or lack thereof of MSR. Period.Warren Platts (talk) 13:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you are talking here about apocalypse beliefs - the idea that "the end of the world is nigh" and that we can't do anything to prevent it. Here though, it is about saying "there may be a tiny risk that humans may become extinct, or can seriously damage the ecosystem of Earth, let's take the proper precautions to make sure this doesn't happen.". These human extinction causing or ecosystem damaging events are credible and don't derive from hysteria or religious views. They derive from a sober scientific assessment of potential results from things that our technology can permit us to do that no previous generation was able to do. Robert Walker (talk) 06:59, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It is about averting a tiny scientifically credible risk of such a thing, it is not about the idea that it is inevitable. Robert Walker (talk) 06:59, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It is correct for the article to state clearly that potentially there is such a risk, and all the expert reviews of MSR have agreed on this assessment that the potential for an existential risk can't be ruled out and though the probability is something we don't have enough knowledge to assess accurately, on current knowledge it is believed to be tiny but non zero and significant enough to take precautions to prevent it. All the reviews in the published literature agree on this and confirm Carl Sagan's call for caution as valid, they just differ in how they propose it should be dealt with, and that is where the debate comes in. Robert Walker (talk) 07:04, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I think "Concerns" sums this up well and "Safety" does not really give a good first idea of the nature of the topic. Robert Walker (talk) 07:06, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Another title idea:

Debate about methods to avert low probability existential risks of Mars sample return


 * The idea is to express confidence that it can be averted in the title, so that it can't be mixed up with those "it is inevitable" apocalyptic religious ideas, which as you say are fatalistic and unproductive in a situation like this.


 * I'd be happy about that so long as it is also recognized that the discussions about scientific value, as far as they bear on the debate, also need to be included as it makes no sense to debate it without mentioning the scientific value of the alternative proposals and compare that as well.

Debate about scientific value of Mars sample return and methods to avert low probability existential risks


 * would be more accurate though rather long for a wikipedia title. The debate on scientific value I think needs to be included somewhere, doesn't belong in the main MSR article except as a short mention, and better combined with this than as a separate article. It could be a separate article with a short summary here, just seems too much proliferation on articles about MSR to do that, especially as it would be fairly short, perhaps a couple of sections. Robert Walker (talk) 07:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Section ideas
How short a timescale is too short?

Is a short timescale appropriate?

What I'm trying to get at here is, is it just the particular choice of words, that the word "early" has loaded meanings for you for instance? Or is it the entire concept behind the words that is the issue? If so, why exactly?

Do you agree that the timing of the MSR is one of the main issues and needs to be presented as an important issue?


 * In a word: No... Does this help? Warren Platts (talk) 17:34, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Not really, doesn't give much to explore by way of a way forward in this impasse.


 * I was going to suggest another idea like:

Diversity of views on timescale


 * But seems you claim there is no diversity of views on the timescale, and that everyone is in agreement that the NASA approach is the right one to follow, and basically that they all agree with you in your editorial POV in the article. Is that it?


 * Carl Sagan is just the first historically to present the view and I have given many quotes and citations to support the diversity of POVs.

I can see now, anyway why you would object to Early. From your own version of the article with all your editorial comments on it, it would seem that we could return the MSR tomorrow if NASA just had the cash to do it. So there is not much use me trying to think of more neutral ways of saying that there is a diversity of POVs in the intro. The title is probably already neutral, as I thought it was, and it is just that you don't want it to say that there is a diversity of views.

So, what about the official POV of all those studies, that we are not ready to receive a MSR right now and that it will probably take a decade to design and construct a suitable facility to receive it, which will need to be a new design never tried before, and that it must be in operation for 2 years before launch of the sample return mission? Since you removed all that material from your version of the article, then the impression one gets from your current version is that simply returning the sample to a normal Biohazard 4 facility is okay.

No-one in the published literature says that. (Which of course makes it OR, and editorial POV, and so not suitable for wikipedia). Doesn't mean you have to change your own POV of course :). Or that there is anything wrong with it, or anything like that, just means it is not published or notable according to the wikipedia criteria.

Also another short thing. People love controversy. They like articles that explore the controversies and put all the different POVs. Like with the Global Warming one. Some they may just laugh and say "How could anyone seriously believe this" but still like to read about them. You don't need to tell them what their opinion is or should be, because they will make up their own mind. Diversity is great and makes it an interesting encyclopedia to read.

Another draft
Warren, I doubt if I can ever do a version that will be totally satisfying for you. But is this better?

I have changed all the section titles with ?s in them to statements, and used the "diversity of ideas" title, and also dealt with some minor repetition.

For the biohazard concern section, looking at it fresh, it didn't make sense to put the methods for dealing with it before the actual concerns, as a reader totally new to all this wouldn't have a clue what that was all about. So have put it into a more logical order, it starts with the "scary stuff" without any comment, but you just need to be a bit patient because it then goes into all the mitigation after that. It is not that I want to give a false idea or to scare the reader, and the tone all the way through must be that we are talking about something extremely unlikely to happen at all, but just to present it in such a way that the concerns make sense, otherwise it just reads as rather absurd that anyone would care about it at all (that is if you come to the article for the first time and haven't read any of it before).

User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new

Also just to say, if you asked me, what do I really think, will it happen, especially with all the NASA precautions? - my answer would be - it seems not at all likely, maybe one in a billion chance. But if you asked me, should we do it then, my answer would be - no we aren't ready because the outcome would be so severe that even though it is incredibly unlikely to happen, yet we shouldn't do it. That's what those concerned about it think too. It is a philosophical / ethical thing how you deal with such situations and that is most of the reason for the diversity of views on it (apart from of course different ideas also on how probable life on Mars is, and what sort of things are even possible etc).

So - wouldn't be like I feel major terror that it is bound to happen if the MSR did go ahead. I would be like 99.9999999% confident everything would be fine. But would have just a slight concern that it just possibly might happen, and that maybe it would be the end even of the human race, a background tiny tiny level of concern that that just possibly could happen, unlikely as it seems.Robert Walker (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

If I anywhere give the impression that anyone thinks there is more than an exceedingly tiny probability then do say, as it was quite tricky to present this properly.

Are we at a complete impasse?
Warren if we can't come to an agreement, from the nature of our disagreement, I don't think a request for comment will help too much, especially as you don't seem to be keen on the idea, I have suggested it several times.

Maybe has to be a case of posting to the dispute resolution noticeboard, and then going through the process of dispute resolution. It is surely a common enough thing on wikipedia though I've not been involved in it before myself.

But do see if you can make progress with my latest draft, does it help? Sadly there is no chance that I can work with your current version which is continually getting trimmed down to little more than a bland "everything is fine" type of page, not even taking account of issues that NASA themselves are concerned about, and as I've said is full of material I consider to be editorial comment which you seem not to recognize as such yourself. Robert Walker (talk) 00:14, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * There is no impasse. I've been reading your suggestions and taking content from your sandbox that is valuable and incorporating into the live article. Furthermore, I am not continually trimming the live article. That is a lie. As for me redacting info that NASA itself is worried about, that is also not true. If there's something important on a NASA publication that's missing, then point it out. As for the live material being "full of" editorial comment, either point out exactly what you're talking about or drop it.Warren Platts (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Dispute resolution process
Warren, please take a look at this, and see if you feel we can make progress using some form of dispute resolution, or mediation:

Dispute_resolution

Or if you think we can make progress without needing to go through it do say, any thoughts you have for a way ahead.

Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 01:31, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Request for assistance
Hi Warren, I have put in a request for assistance as a first step towards finding a way forward/

See Editor_assistance/Requests

Robert Walker (talk) 08:31, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

You misspelled my name. Show a little respect, please. Warren Platts (talk) 16:28, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, typo, I fixed it and apologized for it on the page. Robert Walker (talk) 05:47, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Some replies I missed before
Hi Warren, just gone through and answered some things you said that I didn't notice before: diff to show what I added Robert Walker (talk) 11:48, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Mars Community
Hi Warren, wondering where to put the quote you discovered, and how to attribute it: "The Mars community, in their inputs to the decadal survey, was emphatic in their view that a sample return mission is the logical next step in Mars exploration. Mars science has reached a level of sophistication that fundamental advances in addressing the important questions above will only come from analysis of returned samples."

Do you know what they mean by "The Mars Community"? I mean, I can attribute it just as you did, to the decadal survey but wanted to be more specific if I could as I have no idea what it means myself (can think of several different but unlikely possibilities).

I'm wondering whether to have an extra section "Reasons for an early MSR" or some such. The science benefits of a MSR already covers many of the points, but if it is a significant published group of people, there is a need for a more advocacy section, for people who strongly advocate an early MSR. So have a section as is saying the value of it, and then another one on groups or studies that advocate a very early MSR or one as early as possible. This is about the strongest statement I've seen in print, but I've seen others not quite so strong in the NASA studies, and with this as well would be enough to bring together to make a new section. Robert Walker (talk) 18:21, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The "Mars Community" is simply the community of active planetary scientists working on Mars.Warren Platts (talk) 20:13, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Robert Zubrin against MSR
Hi Warren, actually I was looking for someone likely to advocate an extremely early MSR, and thought, I've been focusing too much on academic papers, what do the Mars Society say, for instance. I was surprised to find out that Robert Zubrin is strongly anti-MSR. He says we should do a vigorous study with rovers instead. He thinks the MSR mission is too complicated and expensive and not worth doing when we could crank out lots of copies of Curiosity with different payloads for a few hundred million pounds each and get much more information that way about Mars.

So I am adding that as a new section and POV. It isn't the same as study in situ first because he doesn't want to do a MSR at all right now. Of course it is in the context of a plan to send humans to the surface, and would do MSR at that point.

Am still looking for advocates for an early MSR. If I find enough material I could have a section "Advocacy for an early MSR" and then call the complete article something like, "Concerns and advocacy for an early Mars sample return". Putting both into the title might help with your feeling of bias. But need to find some advocates of it to do that :). I suspect more in the private sector than NASA, or academic journals, but will see. Robert Walker (talk) 20:07, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There is already a section in the main MSR article on the scientific value of MSR. You are introducing a POV content fork. Suggested reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_forking


 * Warren, I know what you mean but here it isn't a POV fork. All depends on how you do it and why you do it.


 * You always do get cross over between different articles, and that's okay. E.g. just because there is an article on water on Mars doesn't mean that none of the other articles on Mars can talk about whether or not there is water on Mars. There is no ban on discussing the Martian polar icecaps in one article on Mars, because they are discussed in other articles. If one article discusses the solar UV flux, it doesn't mean that all other articles have to refer to whichever is the most important one that discusses UV flux on Mars. So sometimes you have sections that are duplicated in different articles. If it is a big complicated subject like water on Mars then it gets its own article of its own as well, and then the others still have their sections where they talk about water on Mars, but those sections then also have cross over type links to the big main article.


 * It does have its drawbacks as an editor. You find a new citation say, which is very relevant, and useful, and add it to one article on polar icecaps of Mars and if you want to be thorough have to go through to all the other articles that discuss the same thing and add it there as well. But can't be helped, as that's just the nature of the situation.


 * Here it helps to give balance to the article, and it is also needed because some discussion of the scientific value is needed as part of the debate. You can't debate about whether or not to do an early return if you don't discuss the science value issues which is the main motive for doing it early - while others say that you don't get so much science value from doing it early. That's part of the whole debate about the matter.


 * It is of course only because of the other concerns that it makes sense to put it here. If it was only about the science value and there were no contamination issues or legal issues etc of a MSR, then it could all go into the main MSR article. But the concerns issue is just too vast to put in as just a section in the MSR and so for that reason has its own article, and so then it is okay to duplicate some of the content.


 * See here:

Content_forking


 * So - in the main MSR could have some mention of the relevance of the science value to the debate, but it is not appropriate to go into all the details of e.g. that Zubrin in the Mars society advocates one approach based on his interpretation of what is of scientific value, and that the MMP advocates another approach based on their interpretation etc. That would be overwhelming in the main MSR article where readers just want to know about future planned missions for MSR or proposed missions, not about all the controversy. Because there is just too much of it. If it was a minor thing you could have a short section on it. But instead have a summary as it has already and link to the full article.


 * Also in the concerns article, it makes sense to have a link to the MSR discussion of science value, I will add that in. The MSR section on science value is very short, doesn't go into detail at all, but still worth linking to.


 * If you like we can ask for mediation / assistance on this but I am confident that this is how it works in wikipedia. Robert Walker (talk) 21:09, 1 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I saw in your formal complaint where you misspelled my name on purpose. There you stated that I am "not interested" in formal "mediation / assistance". That is false. I don't care what you do. Go for it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: let the chips fall where they may.... Warren Platts (talk) 00:35, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * We both need to take part, for it to have any chance of success. We will need to be respectful to the third parties who try to help, and accept that they are disinterested parties that are doing their best to resolve the situation, as volunteers whose priority is to make sure that wikipedia is a good encyclopedia and are giving up their own time to help to do that. We don't have to take what they say as the final word, but do need to engage with them. It won't work if I am the only person who responds to the third parties or mediators, which is why I have to be sure you are on board, and ready to start the process. Robert Walker (talk) 07:27, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, it was a typo. And just look back up this page. I asked many times if you want to go through formal dispute resolution and your only response was to say that there is no impasse. I am really glad to see that you do want to go through the formal process now. Robert Walker (talk) 00:39, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * That was no typo. You know how to type. You did it repeatedly. Even after I first mentioned it. It is your passive-aggressive attempt to insult me. The depth of your condescension is revealed by the fact that you still haven't gone back to correct your "mistakes". Warren Platts (talk) 02:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay whatever it was, it was a mistake, unintentional, not purposeful. I didn't know that I had done it until you pointed it out. I have also apologised. I only noticed it in the title and have fixed the other misspellings now. And I am sorry about the mistake. Robert Walker (talk) 07:21, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Latest
Hi Warren, here it is, to my mind it is a huge improvement, am really pleased with it. Adding the advocacy of early MSR gave it the balance in an easy way that I was attempting in a rather more clumsy way before.

Do hope you agree or at least feel it is moving in the right direction. I think it could be a really good article, certainly best I've done for wikipedia :). You helped a lot with that.

Do bear in mind that I am trying to create something like the Scientific opinion on climate change page, lots of quotes and different biases and POVs presented as they are, without comment, just with enough structure around them to set them in context, and let the reader make their own opinions on it. Also let's them find out about the views they may disagree with, perhaps find strange, but just want to know what these other people think. It is cheating the reader to leave out those views that they might want to know about, or might come across somewhere else and wonder about them and want to understand how they fit in.

But no-one likes it if you tell them what they have to think about a subject and you can generally pick that up right from the start when you come across a wikipedia article with an editorial tone and chances are will then treat it as an article of low importance and not much significance or value.

Please give it a chance :).

User:Robertinventor/Advocacy_and_Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new

I suggest as the new name for the article:

Advocacy and Concerns for Early Mars Sample Return

or

Concerns and Advocacy for Early Mars Sample Return

Not sure it makes a difference either way. Am trying out the first one. _________________________________________________
 * Or how about


 * 99 Reasons to oppose NASA Mars Sample Return


 * or


 * Why Mars Sample Return is Dangerous


 * or


 * Psychology of Fear of Mars Sample Return


 * Warren Platts (talk) 00:30, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay doesn't work for you, I am out of ideas, have tried my best. I can't work with an article that suggests there is no dispute.


 * Did you understand, I meant it as Advocacy for an early return, and Concerns for an early return, to be combined in a single title? Idea was to mention those in favour an early return, as well as those against both in the title to make it neutral. That was the idea, doesn't seem to work but that is what I was trying to do.


 * Is this better?

Should there be any concern about an early Mars sample return?


 * It is a bit clumsy for a wikipedia name so would need to be tweaked but is that along the right lines for you?


 * I am doing my very best to find a solution. I have tried so hard and spent many many hours this week to try to find a solution. Robert Walker (talk) 01:05, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * How about "Mars Sample Return Back Contamination Risks"? You still haven't said why that doesn't work for you... Warren Platts (talk) 02:40, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Because:
 * It doesn't show that it is a controversial subject. Too bland. Look at that title and you just expect a scientific study of the risks. Not POVs and personal opinion about the ethics and other issues. Looks like a scientific study rather than an account of a controversy
 * Focuses it too narrowly on back contamination, doesn't recognize that an essential part of the debate is to weigh up the science potential of different missions as well as their back contamination risks, and that some scientists are concerned mainly on the grounds that it is not of great scientific value, which has to be part of the debate.
 * Indeed even if there were only the science value concerns, what with all the Zubrin Curiosity clones argument + telepresence advocates + Venter DNA teleporting, there is enough material on that alone to justify a medium sized article separated out from the main MSR article. "Controversy on science value of different ways of doing MSR". But it belongs as parat of the same debate, you can't really separate out the debate on science value from debate on back contamination because the mission only makes sense because of science value.
 * Without the science value, MSR would be an open and shut case, no point in doing it to do something even slightly risky if no reason is given for doing it.
 * To debate the reasons you need to discuss in detail what it's scientific value is. (e.g. if it was a court case, and you gave no reasons for doing a controversial action, the jury has no choice but decide against it).
 * Better to have it all in one place.


 * Have I answered you yet? Do you understand my reasons (if maybe not agree with them)? Robert Walker (talk) 09:40, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Just a thought, does this website help you understand at all? He talks about how if you can reduce the chance of extinction of the human race by e one millionth of one percentage point, and if you then take account of the effect of exinction on the future 10^18 humans that would live in the next billion years, removing that tiny possibility of a risk is at least a hundred times the value of a million human lives.

http://www.existential-risk.org/

Has a couple of videos of him too.


 * I wondered whether it could be added to the page somehow to help clarify the idea that to some people an exceedingly low probability of a risk still seems of great importance when it is multiplied up by its potential to affect the entire human race.


 * Sadly, he doesn't mention a MSR, or back contamination risks in general. Also can't find a discussion of MSR risk that cites his paper. So probably I can't include it in the article. But it may help you understand - and I do not wish to scare people in the article.


 * The aim is a sober assessment of the probability, very low, and possible severity if it does happen, extremely high, done entirely through quotes from people speaking in their own voice.


 * What makes it tricky as Nick Bostrom explains in that video is that we simply aren't evolved to think about such risks. Either people latch onto the severity and find it scary, or latch onto the tiny probability and think there is nothing to worry about at all.


 * It is very hard to keep both in your mind at once in proportion, and very hard to do a good exposition that doesn't over emphasize one or the other.


 * The aim is to present both the unknown, but likely to be tiny probability. Also the unknown but could be high severity if it did happen. Then talk about the different POVs of different authors who write about this issue as well as related things that come up in the debate that need to be taken account of such as science value, types of mission etc.


 * The whole thing about the tiny probability of risk, but severe and different attitudes to them is not presented as my POV. It is the POV of many of the people I cite on that page as well as the sober assessment of the situation in all the NASA studies.


 * No-one in the published literature I found so far says that it is of no concern or of only minimal concern. I wondered if Zubrin might but haven't got a quote from him saying he thinks it is of no concern. So far, though I have searched for one, I have no quote from anyone notable in the sense of wikipedia to say it should be ignored as of no significance. I know you and many of your colleagues in that forum say this, but don't seem to have written any published papers saying it at least not that I know of. Will of course put a section on it if you can find a published source for it or someone notable like Zubrin says it. Robert Walker (talk) 00:56, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * "I know you and many of your colleagues in that forum say that [MSR] is of no concern or of only minimal concern" -- Yet more intentional misrepresentations. You KNOW very well I have never said such a thing. The risk of global catastrophe from MSR is extremely low. That is what I say, and that is what the scientific consensus says as well. Furthermore, it must be acknowledged that the Bayesian prior probability that there is zero risk is not quite zero. That is what I say, and that is what the scientific consensus is. Therefore, simple, common sense precautions ought to be undertaken for the time being. That is what I say, and that is what the scientific consensus says.


 * You said minimal in your earlier version of the page. You removed all the material about the need for a new type of biohazard facility never constructed before, lead time of decade, two years to try it out, the novelty of having to deal with potentially smaller organisms than ever before, and possibly completely novel life forms, the novelty of also having to keep the sample clean as well as biohazard etc etc which are all in the original report, which has the effect of suggesting that the sample is a minimal concern, of no more biohazard potential than say a well known disease required to be kept in biohazard 4 facilities such as smallpox.


 * Those who are cautious, including all those in the published literature that I have found so far, would say that there is near certainty that it is not even a biohazard in the smallpox category. But there is judged by experts in the field to be a very low but not demonstrably non zero chance that it is something unimaginably worse than smallpox, and one that we don't know absolutely for sure that we can contain (can aim for e.g. one in a million chance of failure). That is to say, an unquantifiable probability of an existential risk like that, but regarded as very low based on expert opinion.


 * It is just the tiniest chance it is like that, but it can't absolutely be ruled out. That is what they think anyway all the ones I've read so far.


 * Minimal would be, the POV that it is at worst something like smallpox, easily contained, and though quite nasty if released, with absolutely no chance of an existential crisis for the human race. I tried to find a source that says that, as it should be put in if it exists as a notable POV. But haven't yet found anyone who says that. Some forum posts put forward POVs close to that, but you can't cite forum posts in wikipedia as sources, or blog posts etc. Robert Walker (talk) 06:41, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The fringe, unattributable POV is yours and yours alone: that MSR must be postponed indefinitely until impossible standards of proof of absolute zero risk are met. No one says this, not even the late Carl Sagan. You are the lone voice in the wilderness. You have no sources. You are OR. I encourage you to publish your very original ideas--just not in Wikipedia... Warren Platts (talk) 02:40, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Did I attribute that POV to anyone in the article? If I said it then it is a serious lapse to be fixed. Also unintentional.


 * It is actually not my POV either.


 * Like most of those in favour of caution if the risk can be reduced e.g. to similar to the natural influx of martian meteorites on Earth, or if Mars samples are shown to be no more hazardous than the Apollo lunar samples turned out to be, then that would be fine. That is not absolutely zero risk but it is not adding to the normal level of risk we have anyway.


 * If you look at my own blog post I detail what I see myself as an acceptable way of proceeding leading eventually in several steps to a return to Earth. It is similar to Levin's but with return to a spaceship in orbit around Mars first and quarantine in orbit. I advocate indefinite quarantine in orbit if a problem is found, e.g. the astronaut gets ill and it is not known if the illness is due to martian life from the sample, or Earth life. Or if for some other reason, during the quarantine, there is cause to believe that the sample might be hazardous after all. That is not the same as saying I advocate postponing the sample indefinitely. Only if there is an issue, it should be postponed until the situation is understood.


 * See the section I wrote "What is the way forward if there is no MSR right now?". As you would expect it is a very cautious approach and I think more cautious than any of those published to date, due to my own POV on the matter, but leading eventually to a MSR. In the meantime, Mars is thoroughly explored by telerobotics, and there may already by then be the beginnings of a vigorous space colonization in orbit around planetary bodies, and in free orbit around the sun, L2 position, and surface of the Moon (and asteroids). I could see all that happening as soon as the 2030s especially if new technology is developed (e.g. the UK Hotol project) to make it possible to fly from an airport runway directly into orbit and land again just like a passenger plane, in a reusable vehicle that breaths air when in the atmosphere. There are chances that that could happen in the next decade or so.


 * Need for Caution for an Early Mars Sample Return


 * That is my own POV on the timescale. Which I present as a POV for others to discuss and think about and come to their own opinions about. As a POV amongst many to enter into the debate. Just saying it exactly as I see it myself. Because I see no reason for hurry, and all reason for caution, because Mars and Earth are so precious and irreplaceable.


 * I also have other original things that are POV. Yes I think I will have a go at publishing my blog posts actually. That I am a mathematician by training shouldn't matter as there are papers on it by philosophers, lawyers and people from many different disciplines. Even space scientists and physicists when they write about this are writing outside of their speciality as the central issue is an issue in exobiology - and there aren't that many exobioligists around. Even microbiologists if they have not done a special study of exobiology, astrobiology and abiogenesis, may be a little bit out of their comfort zone.


 * I have started the process by asking my friends and colleagues on facebook if they have any ideas of a suitable place to publish it. Am not sure yet what is a suitable place for a philosophical mathematician to publish a paper on the ethics of exobiology :). But am hopeful to find somewhere eventually.


 * If it is accepted and published in a source that is notable by standards of wikipedia then I could add it as a cited source here, and attribute the POV to myself as one of the POVs in the debate. That is permitted in wikipedia so long as you do a declaration of COI so everyone concerns knows you are the author of the paper, and are careful about how you do it, e.g. not give it undue weight.


 * It is not mentioned in the current version of the article.


 * Also that BTW is an example of a title that is POV centric. If I called the page "Need for caution" it would be POV slanting. But calling it Concerns for an early Mars sample return, that was just intended to show that it will list the concerns of those who are concerned. Just shows that there are people who are concerned.


 * The attempt at a new title was to try to express that it is about concerns about an early sample return, but also including the arguments of those who are in favour of an early Mars sample return. It didn't work but perhaps we can come up with a title that does express that.


 * Your suggestions haven't worked for me so far because they suggest that there is no concern, that it is a factual article about a non controversial issue where all are in agreement. Robert Walker (talk) 06:50, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * There is a bit of a dispute, but it is not near as severe as you make it out to be. The agreement is near overwhelming that: (1) the risk of global catastrophe in the absence of any mitigation is "extremely small"; (2) that the risk can be reduced by an additional factor of 106 through the use of commonsense mitigation techniques. Such disputes as remain are minor, such as whether the filter size should be 0.2 μm or 0.05 μm. As to the debate about whether to undertake MSR at all--among experts at least, if not among UK Grannies United Against MSR--back contamination is the least of concerns; the debate there centers on whether MSR is best, most effective use of scarce resources. The comparison with global warming is totally overblown. Nor is the MSR back contamination issue nearly as notable as the earlier flap over the safety of the LHC, in that there has been near zero media coverage of MSR BC. You are making a mountain out of molehill. Warren Platts (talk) 09:07, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The climate change example was meant to show an example of how you set out the article, not as an argument that it is equal in importance to climate change.


 * Many things in wikipedia have almost zero media coverage if you mean the popular journals (including popular science journals).


 * You don't have to compare notability with other articles. Just prove that it is notable in itself according to wikipedia. That is the wikipedia policy about there being no printed page type limitations. If it is notable, put it in, don't worry about creating too many articles because since it is not a printed encyclopedia, you don't have to pick just the most notable articles and decide which to print.


 * My citations show it has plenty of coverage in serious academic journals which is enough to make the sources notable enough for wikipedia.


 * If it was an article about say tiddlywinks games played with a group of friends who meet to play in each other's houses once a month or whatever, that's not notable. But this is definitely notable by wikipedia criteria.


 * Robert Walker (talk) 09:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Had another thought today. Remember I talked about Bostrom's ideas?


 * I think it is OR synthesis I think to directly apply the philosopher Neil Bostrom's ideas to this page.


 * But just as a matter of classification, this is clearly an existential risk in his sense, though one of very low probability, and I have found that there is a wikipedia page about those here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans,_and_planet_Earth


 * So I've linked to that page here User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new


 * "The potential of Martian life to create a biohazard on Earth was first raised by Carl Sagan in 1973 in his book "Cosmic Connection".[11] The concern has been reviewed many times since then by experts in the field, with the same or similar conclusions. According to these thinkers, it is an existential risk, though thought to be one of very low probability."


 * I think it helps with the balance - that it is an existential risk first - if reader hasn't thought about those much can then go to that page and find out all the reasons why people first think they should be taken seriously - because of the Fermi's paradox why are there no advanced civilizations argument for instance. Then to say once again, that it is thought to be of very low probability. It seems slightly repetitious but I think you need to keep repeating that it is low probability every time you mention it, to make totally clear you are talking about something low probability, in case the reader gets the wrong idea from the vivid imagery of what might happen if it goes wrong. Because we are not culturally or biologically evolved to think about such things and obviously have no experience of them or we would not be here discussing it. BTW Neil Bostrom in his site says that in a group of people from various disciplines meeting to discuss existential crises for humanity, they came up with a figure of between 10% and 20% of human extinction due to our technology. He says several other meetings have come up with similar figures, and argues that that means that any such threat should be taken seriously, and he presents an argument that if you can only reduce that 10-20% risk by a trillionth, it is still worth doing what you can to achieve that tiny reduction in the risk, given the over 10^18 future human lives that would be affected.


 * It is the way that some people have started to think about these issues. You can say they are silly, and that's fine. You put these views into wikipedia because people have them and they are notable, and if they are silly ideas and biased, still you put them in if notable. Robert Walker (talk) 10:23, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * There is no "controversy" WRT to back contamination. No one says MSR ought to be delayed--only you and your blog. Thus, I'm not saying that back contamination issues aren't notable; what I'm saying is that the Chicken Little's--all two of them--who argue that MSR ought to be delayed until unspecified levels of certainty are obtained--are not notable.


 * As for the controversy surrounding the scientific value of MSR, that's limited mainly within the inner circle of the decadal survey group who decide how to spend NASA's science $$$'s, as well as a few space cadet debates on discussion forums and Twitter. The majority view is that the science value will prove to be inestimable. It's the decadal survey's top priority, despite the high cost; although this is likely to change in the future, given that MSR isn't getting funding traction. Adding this to the back contamination risks article only clutters an already too long article and is a POV content fork (What part of this do you not understand?) that gives undue weight to a minority position. If you really think it's important, then expand the Scientific value section in the main MSR article.


 * And when you say an article title "Mars sample return back contamination risks" is too bland, what you are really saying is it isn't scary enough to suit you. Have you looked at the "Safety of high energy particle collision experiments"? That should be your model. If you want to change the title to "Safety of Mars sample return", that would be an acceptable compromise IMO. Does that help? Warren Platts (talk) 14:55, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, it is better, but the law didn't need to be changed to let the LHC go ahead. Some people also were genuinely scared so a title saying "Safety" seems a good move to me. Also it is a widely publicized issue. A similar title for MSR doesn't seem interesting or worth reading unless you already know about it, just seems like a dull old safety review that no-one is much interested in, which is how it comes over in your version.


 * Here no-one is scared in the sense that some were for the LHC. It is lower probability than that and it is not likely you will be personally scared by a one in a billion or one in a trillion risk, not if you understand probabilities and understand it is much more probable that you will be killed by lightning (say).


 * But it is still an existential risk. Really I don't think you need to worry that anyone is going to read this article in the form I have it, and then come out of it really frightened that something bad is going to happen to them. Certainly when I've talked about it on the forums, those who agree with the POV that it is a matter of concern don't go "OMG I am so scared" they just say "that makes sense, until we know better what we are returning, we shouldn't do it even though the risk is tiny".


 * If you saw a title "Concerns about an early mission to the L2 position" say, you would be intrigued would you not, not scared? You haven't heard of any such concerns at all, and you would wonder why there were any concerns and what they are.


 * That is all I want to suggest, an interesting title that suggests what the topic is about, and intrigues the reader to want to find out more, but not in a journalistic way, and no hype, just in a sober encyclopedic way.


 * So Safety of a Mars sample return is a bit better, but still a bit bland, also still doesn't capture the notion that it is a matter requiring public debate where the science value also has to be weighed up.


 * Also, on the science value, in the case of the LHC, there was no question about the science value and no alternative way proposed to do the same thing, so there was no science value debate to the question.


 * On the non notability, I've answered that before, not sure there is much point in repeating myself. Your notability bar is obviously much higher than mine, you want them to be views that are "out there" discussed in the newspapers etc like the LHC controversy, and this is not like that, no question about that. It is a quieter debate, so far anyway, mainly carried out in science journals, ethical and legal journals, and books, with a few newspaper stories from the ICAMASR, but notable enough for wikipedia IMHO.


 * Also I've answered your point about POV fork, would just repeat myself there, so won't try again. Robert Walker (talk) 16:40, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, the truth is coming out--albeit ever so slowly. Now you admit it: your goal is to complete a sensationalistic article in order to recruit more activists to your forlorn cause. Thanks for finally laying your cards on the table. However, the Wikipedia is not the Telegraph nor the Daily Mail. It's goal is not to sell newspapers, nor even to generate page views. That is why they don't sell advertising. It's purpose is not entertainment. You will find nowhere in any Wikipedia guidelines that titles of articles are supposed to be sensational or "intriguing". Nowhere is it stated that "blandness" or lack thereof should be taken into consideration when constructing a Wikipedia article.


 * PS No American laws need to be changed in order for MSR to proceed. Quit spreading disinformation. Warren Platts (talk) 18:59, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Please, can we start the dispute resolution process?
Warren, respectively, please let's go through the dispute resolution process, as we aren't going to resolve this by ourselves.

You said on the request for assistance page that you wanted to. Now you seem to be saying you don't want to on the grounds that I purposely misspelled your name. I have fixed those misspellings, said it was not intentional, and apologized. Have just now gone to that page and fixed the ones I missed. Is that okay, do you accept my apology and can we now continue?

Do you want to go through the process? You can start it yourself. Or if you prefer, just answer a clear Yes here to say that you want to do it, and I will start the process myself by asking for a third party opinion. Robert Walker (talk) 06:41, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Go right ahead. Knock yourself out, Robert... Warren Platts (talk) 09:10, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay great, Warren, added it here: Third_opinion Robert Walker (talk) 10:02, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Request for third party opinion
Please help us resolve our dispute between these two versions of the page.

Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return and

User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new

Thanks! 09:57, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments
IMHO the lede should not worry unduly about boring specialists by giving a quick explanation to the lay readers. Here is my version which I hope is both concise and clear to the technically ignorant:

''NASA has proposed a Mars sample return mission (MSR) to bring back to Earth rock and dust samples from Mars to study. Some are concerned that the mission could transfer viable organisms resulting in back contamination — the introduction of extraterrestrial organisms into Earth's biosphere — though it is currently unknown whether or not life forms exist on Mars

''There is general agreement in the literature on the subject that, though the risk is probably very low, the samples should be treated as biohazards until sample analysis demonstrates the samples are not biohazardous to the environment of Earth. However there are differing views about whether or not it is appropriate to return the samples to Earth first before a detailed analysis.''

Sincerely --BoogaLouie (talk) 16:49, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks BoogaLouie, that's good. I've put it into my version. Did a minor mod of the first para said "several missions" so including e.g. the Chinese proposal, not just the NASA one. Works well I think: User:Robertinventor/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return_new Robert Walker (talk) 17:05, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you BoogaLouie! I think your suggestion is a fine improvement to the lede. I have incorporated it into the article. Warren Platts (talk) 18:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

nasaspaceflight.com thread announcing new Wiki article deleted
What happened Robert? Why did you delete that thread? I thought you wanted more commentary. After all, that's how I found out about it... Warren Platts (talk) 16:03, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I didn't delete it. I was as surprised as you are, I went there a day or so after I posted it, and saw it was gone. Indeed decided at that point there is probably not much point in continuing to contribute to the forum, at least for a while, as obviously some administrator at nasaspaceflight.com deleted it and they didn't even do me the courtesy of sending me an email to say what they did. I wondered if it would count as on topic so was slightly concerned when I originally did it. It wasn't up for long, less than a day I think. But I thought I'd get a message about it first as it wasn't obviously off topic especially as there was an earlier discussion devoted to Mars sample return in the forum - checked first.


 * As you know, they are very strict about keeping on topic. I assume one of them judged it was off topic for the forum, and deleted it. Robert Walker (talk) 16:49, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I suppose it could also be administrative error or a number of things, I might have over-reacted... Robert Walker (talk) 18:05, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It could be considered off topic because it is about a robotic mission and the forum is about human missions. My guess is that that is why they deleted it. But as no-one told me why they did it, I can't know for sure. Robert Walker (talk) 06:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Interesting... Warren Platts (talk) 10:11, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

More Title ideas
Warren, here is another idea, totally neutral in tone. How about calling it

Mars sample return debate ?

I'm modeling it on

Nuclear_power_debate

Will think it over some more, that's my best shot at it just now. Robert Walker (talk) 18:03, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * No good. This article had it origins in your seeming inability to write anything besides walls of text: you were adding a back contamination section to the main MSR article that was growing larger than the rest of the article. It was getting unseemly. A couple of other editors agreed that it was a good idea to stop polluting the main page, that needed some legitimate improvement anyways, and where your "concerns" were becoming a distraction. All fine and well. Now, however, it appears disseminating information on back contamination was not your true agenda: it now appears you want a thread that would be best entitled "99 reasons to oppose MSR". Basically you want two MSR articles: (1) the main article that bugs you because of it's apparent gung ho tone; and (2) a separate article on MSR that has a negative POV. Not going to happen.


 * Like I said before, you have achieved your original nominal goal of getting an article on MSR back contamination. It is now much improved over your original post, although it still needs more work to make it into an encyclopedia article. In addition, you have been told that MSR is not going to happen in 2018, that it has been postponed indefinitely, and that it indeed will probably never happen in your lifetime. Therefore, you have achieved your political goal. You have won. Thus, that you continue to insist that the article be a propaganda piece against a mission that isn't going to happen anyway is the sign of an unhealthy obsession IMHO. Warren Platts (talk) 19:18, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, just to correct what you said about the origins of this article. It was the outcome of a civilised decision on the MSR sample talk page, please check out the discussion. There were no complaints about my behaviour. Sometimes in wikipedia one section of an article gets too long and needs to be separated out into a new article of its own. This is common and doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the content, just that it needs a separate place. Especially, it is very common for a section about controversy or debates about something to get put into a separate article with just a short summary on the main page, so that you can put all the details of the debate into the separate article without overwhelming the main page. The Climate change controversy article is an example there.


 * The other editors were keen on the idea and liked the result. They made some minor comments, corrected a few things


 * BTW it is no big deal that no-one yet has responded to the request for third party opinion. They are volunteers, doing it in their own time because they want to help..


 * No-one here has a deadline, and it is a minor article. At the moment it is getting about 100 views a day (though some of those might be us). Which doesn't mean 100 reads of the article, just 100 people who end up on it for one reason or another, might immediately click away.


 * Hardly a big deal in the overall scheme of things :) If someone wanted to get lots of views it would make more sense to post to online forums or set up a blog post about it, and you would probably get much more attention that way :)
 * http://stats.grok.se/en/201306/Concerns_for_an_early_Mars_sample_return

Robert Walker (talk) 21:06, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I am going to give up on alternative title suggestions for now. The existing title is fine by me and since you want a title that suggest there is no controversy, or debate or alternative views, obviously nothing I come up with is going to work.


 * My aim is to to make sure that it is professionally written and without any editorial content. I have added many POVs that I totally and completely disagree with myself


 * I have not put in my own POV since it is not yet published. I do plan to have a go at publishimg it. If it ends up in a notable journal then it might merit a small mention in this page.


 * If so, I would declare my COI on this talk page (similarly to my professional declaration of a COI for the software I am the author of on my user page). I would explain what I have done, so other editors to comment and check I have done it correctly and professionally. Robert Walker (talk) 21:13, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Everything in my version of the article is backed up, cited, quoted, and there isn't a single original thought of mine in the entire page, to the best of my knowledge, and no original synthesis of ideas either. I put everything like that into my blog instead of here. Robert Walker (talk) 21:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Also the main MSR article is absolutely fine in my view. It just needed a short mention of concerns which it now has. I do not see it as biased in favour of a MSR. Robert Walker (talk) 06:33, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * My aim in creating the article is to make sure that wikipedia adequately covers a notable topic - not major notable like climate change - but notable enough to fit its criteria. Before I worked on it, wikipedia didn't have a mention in wikipedia of of this for some reason (it still has a few gaps though nowhere near as many as when I first started as an editor in 2006). Robert Walker (talk) 09:14, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Try out of another new title
What do you think? User:Robertinventor/Debate_about_scientific_value_of_Mars_sample_return_and_methods_to_avert_low_probability_existential_risks

I don't think the title can be interpreted as apocalyptic in that popular sense of helpless feeling of inevitability of an "end of the world" that you mentioned Robert Walker (talk) 07:25, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * That would make a great book title Robert!! ;-) Warren Platts (talk) 10:12, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

On the third party opinion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Third_opinion/User_FAQ#How_long_does_it_take.3F

"Third opinions can take several days to get a reply depending on how many volunteers are active. If your request is short, neutral and expressed as a clear question then it is more likely to be picked up quickly. If your request was highly contentious or complex then it may be the case that few volunteers feel they can take it on and provide a successful opinion."

There I can well imagine that many volunteers would hesitate about stepping in here :). Just because it might seem likely it might take up a fair bit of their time.

I suggest we wait a few days, say till the middle of next week, and if no-one picks it up by then, go to the next step in the process. Robert Walker (talk) 21:44, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, that's to be expected no doubt. It is an esoteric topic. Perhaps a notice on the Solar System help board might help? Warren Platts (talk) 10:14, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Root cause
Had another look on the third party opinion page today with aim of making it easier for us to be helped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Third_opinion/User_FAQ#What_if_my_request_is_complex.3F

It says consider what the root cause is. Seems to me this might help. I.e. more easy to get a third party opinion if it is clear what the dispute is about. Makes sense, when you think about it.

Would it be fair to say the main dispute is over interpretation of wikipedia policies on NPOV? That you think my version is biased because it includes many different POVs, most of which are minorities, and some only held by one person? So presents it as a matter for debate when (in your opinion anyway) nearly everyone is on one side of the debate so it isn't really a serious matter of debate?

While a secondary dispute is over interpretation of editorial content, that you think your version has no editorial content and that mine has loads of editorial content and pushes my POV?

Another dispute that you think I am using wikipedia for some kind of political aim to try to prevent MSR?

Is that an adequate summary of why you think yours is better? Please don't just insult me. I don't mind being insulted but it doesn't help us to make progress. Robert Walker (talk) 23:50, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Or simpler statement. That it is a difference in interpretation of the Wikipedia editorial policies? That we want to know which version of the article best complies with the Wikipedia editorial policies? Robert Walker (talk) 05:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, forgetting about any allegations of my motivation, which they can't be expected to resolve, would you agree that the root cause, and what we want help with, is an understanding of wikipedia's policies on OR, NPOV and editorial content? That is something a third party experienced wikipedian can be expected to be able to help us with, and is fairly straightfoward, to guide us towards a better understanding of them? Robert Walker (talk) 05:32, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The problem as I see it is that you WANT an editorial. Of course you can't say that. So what you want is an article with a long laundry list of why people should be afraid--VERY afraid. What you want is an article that corners the reader into drawing the inescapable inference of "Gee whiz, if MSR were to happen, I could BLEED OUT from a Martian Ebola-like virus and 10^18 humans will never get to be born in our could-have-been-glorious billion year future!" Basically, what you want is a mirror site on Wikipedia.org of icamsr.org; a recruitment tool to gather activists united in the cause of stopping MSR because of the purported potential risk.


 * Above all, you don't want an article where the reader would be free to see as reasonable the conclusion that the great science value of MSR far outweighs the practically negligible, science-fiction, fringe-theortical risk of an Andromeda Strain-induced global catastrophe--especially if biohazard precautions are put into place. Unfortunately for you, the latter position is the one held by the Vast majority of scientists involved in this issue. Yes, there are the scientists at ICAMSR (who can't seem to get their worries published in peer reviewed papers), but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Your "article" gives them way too much weight compared to the mainstream understanding.


 * The problem will not be resolved by Talmudic exegesis of Wikipedia policy. The root cause is that you are a zealot, far, far outside the mainstream scientific understanding. Until that is frankly admitted, no progress can be made. Warren Platts (talk) 10:44, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Can we please do this without allegations of motivation and just look at the content itself? Just see what needs to be fixed?


 * Wikipedias have many different motivations. You have a strong one too, you want to advance a human landing on Mars to the earliest date possible and I could similarly argue that that is your political aim in disrupting what was a perfectly good and balanced article before you messed it up. Do you see? I didn't say that because I don't think that sort of way of talking is productive, and I am still not saying that, I am assuming good faith that you like me want to create a good article about MSR and that you are not engaged in a political campaign to edit wikipedia to in some way promote your objective of a landing on Mars surface. I don't think that is your objective, is it?


 * But of course that is what you want to happen. It is fine to have strong views like that. Just try not to get it in the way of the editing of the article, focus that energy on making sure your own view is presented clearly, rather than on trying to make all other views seem neutral and "washed out" so the reader can't understand what they are. Robert Walker (talk) 15:27, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Aims for the article
Warren, another check list idea:


 * 1) Present all notable views as expressed in the literature.
 * 2) Present the ideas clearly exactly as expressed, and without comment or immediate rebuttal
 * 3) Make clear which views are held by only one notable source or only a few notable sources.
 * 4) Present in a sober non alarmist way
 * 5) Make clear that experts consider the probability of an existential risk to be extremely low but not demonstrably zero. Repeat this whenever it is natural to do so without being over repetitive so reader doesn't get the idea it is considered by anyone to be an "inevitable apocalypse". But equally make sure they don't get the idea that it is considered by anyone to be a matter of no consequence at all.

For myself, if the article promotes clear headed non alarmist thinking, and helps people to think about the risks clearly, also to explore all the possible scenarios, including the worst possible and counter measures to prevent they don't happen, that's what it should do.

If it promotes hysteria, and either a gungho just go ahead don't bother about safeguards, or a "stop MSR at all costs" attitude in the reader - both are going well beyond anything anyone says in the literature and it would be most unfortunate if the reader got either impression from reading the article.

It has to be a balancing line between those two extremes but individual readers will make different choices, just as we both have. By presenting the full range of ideas in the literature you help the reader to think about all the possibilities and then make up their own mind.

For the minority views, I think I do that well enough by attributing them to the authors concerned and using quotes. But do point out any sections where you feel there is any doubt that I am reporting a minority view held by a single notable source.

Robert Walker (talk) 08:40, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * What you just described is the live article. So what is the problem? Warren Platts (talk) 10:50, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I thought start with a list of guidelines, then if you agree then can look at implementation.
 * So, can do that now, here is where I think yours misses the mark:

1. Present all notable views as expressed in the literature.
 * Your article leaves out many notable views. That is why mine is a lot longer than yours.

2. Present the ideas clearly exactly as expressed, and without comment or immediate rebuttal
 * Your article has editorial comment and immediate rebuttals. This I have tried to explain to me but can't. Probably needs a third opinion to help here.


 * The entire "no action" section is editorial comment and synthesis and OR in my view.


 * In your in situ research section, the entire second half of the section from "However, at least one problem with conducting more in situ research..." to the end is an immediate rebuttal, not allowing the reader to just read the argument for in situ research as it is without comment.


 * That part is also presented in the editorial voice and not attributed to anyone. It tells the reader that this is wikipedia's view that there are problems with in situ research. Much of it is editorial, synthesis and OR


 * Your page also leaves out many crucial details of the reported views e.g. in your account of the NASA plans you omit all the details about the novelty and the challenge of the biohazard facilities, the risks that they are designed to mitigate, and the warnings of the committee that the design process should be started up to a decade beforehand, and the facility online and staff trained and active two years before mission launch.


 * Similarly in your Return to the ISS first, then you have an immediate rebuttal in the editorial voice when you say "such proposls ..." and that section again is synthesis, OR, and in your own voice.

3. Make clear which views are held by only one notable source or only a few notable sources.
 * That is okay except that you omit nearly all the views held by only one notable source

4. Present in a sober non alarmist way
 * That is okay

5. Make clear that experts consider the probability of an existential risk to be extremely low but not demonstrably zero. Repeat this whenever it is natural to do so without being over repetitive so reader doesn't get the idea it is considered by anyone to be an "inevitable apocalypse". But equally make sure they don't get the idea that it is considered by anyone to be a matter of no consequence at all.


 * That is reasonably okay except for all the immediate rebuttals, and the removal of the details of the concerns for the biohazard facility, and the concerns about lack of knowledge of what kind of life Mars life is, or its size, that are in the ESF report.
 * A thoughtful reader will look at that and wonder how the NASA proposals counter the Sagan and Ledeberg concerns since clearly a Biohazard 4 laboratory is not sufficient. Because you left out all the material that confirms Sagan and Ledeberg's concerns and then all the detailsof the counter measures for those concerns.


 * Now you may not agree on what I just said. I am pretty sure you won't. But right now, let's just set out what we both see as the issues with each other's version of the article. That could be useful when some third party tries to help


 * I recommend you go through my version in the same way, according to those criteria, and not just say it fails them, but go through and see if you can pick out where it fails them and say why.


 * Of course add more criteria to the list if necessary if it fails on some other basis.

Robert Walker (talk) 11:34, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * 1. Like who? I don't believe I've left anyone out. The reason your version is longer is that you can't state "2 + 2 = 4" without writing a rambling treatise on it.


 * Had another look at your article, you've put most of them back in again, they may all be there now but not in the right place e.g. Venter under no action. Bada's view is not mentioned. More a matter of not giving enough exposition for the reader to know what their views are now plus some somewhat misplaced. Robert Walker (talk) 15:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * 2. You keep saying the live article has editorial comment, yet you never say just what that is. I can't read your mind, Robert. You have to point out exactly what you're talking about. The "No action" section was added because of the Wingspread Conference on the Precautionary Principle quote that you included specifically calls for looking at "no action" in the alternatives analysis. Also, isn't that what ICAMSR wants?


 * Yes it does, but no-one advocates no action. It is fine to say they call for looking at "no action" but that is not a call for you to do OR to write a section on the "no action" yourself. You just have to wait and see if anyone proposes that, and if so add it in. If not well you could have it but I'd just do it as


 * No Action
 * Currently no published paper advocates no action on MSR.


 * If I had that section at all, that is how I would do it.


 * 2.1 re: the endless in situ research section rebuttal: SO WHAT? Of course it has a rebuttal. It's supposed to. That's called being neutral and allowing other POV's (the mainstream POV in this case). By redacting the rebuttal, you're giving up NPOV and giving undue weight to a minority view.


 * Ah I think that's where you are going wrong. NPOV isn't about rebutting every POV with its opposite. That is muddly for the reader, you end up not sure what their view was because it gets mixed up with all the stuff brought in to rebut it.


 * It is about presenting all the POVs in a clear way for a reader to understand what they are. They may naturally rebut each other - an argument you present made by one POV may rebut an argument you present that is made by another. But it is not your job as editor to rebut any of them.


 * If you rebut all the POVs you present, that's what makes the encyclopedia "Blah" uninteresting.


 * Does that make better sense now?


 * 2.2 As for the "editorial voice", you'll have to explain that one. I think you will perceive any non-editorial voice as editorial if it doesn't endorse your POV.


 * I think someone else has to explain this now. I've tried the best I can. Robert Walker (talk) 15:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * 2.3 re: biohazard facilities: your point is valid here: I plan on adding more content on biohazard facilities when I have time, which is in short supply since you insist on playing whack-a-mole all the time. Your point that a positive pressure sample containment system that must be embedded in a negative pressure facility has never been done is false, I believe. I remember reading somewhere that samples of dangerous biomaterials are stored exactly that way already; in any case, the positive pressure "space suits" that they use operate on the same principle.


 * Really I wouldn't spend too much time on this. There is a high chance that your version will be the one that has to be replaced IMO.


 * Just read the section I have already done on that in my version of the article. It accurately reports the original studies. Then if not sure if it does report them, go to the original sources.


 * Really I think it is more productive to work with my version and show what there is in it that you think is OR or SYNTHESIS etc. Which is what you should have done from the first place. It is poor etiquette on wikipedia to replace someone's article by another version of the entire article without a discussion on the talk page first.


 * I tried reverting but it didn't work because of your edit warring behaviour and it is still an edit war. The only reason the current version is yours is because you have not followed the normal wikipedia guideline that in case of an edit war the article should not be changed any more until the issues are sorted out.


 * If you go through my article saying what is wrong with all the sections and saying what needs to be deleted, I think you will find out from my responses why they were all included. And may find some duplicate content or redundant content. But not as much as you would expect I think. Robert Walker (talk) 15:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * 2.4 re: return to ISS "such proposals run the risk of infecting astronauts" If that's OR it's yours because it comes straight out of your version. You were complaining me leaving out human quarantine concerns, so I put it back in. There's nothing OR about it. If there is, please explain clearly what you mean.


 * Synthesis that's all.


 * 3. Again, who is left out? I can't think of anybody.


 * Go through my page and tell me what needs to be deleted from it. That's a better way to do it because you deleted most of my content. So I would have volumes of stuff to add.


 * 4. Wow. We agree on something....


 * 5. Re: existential risk being low but not zero. That IS in the article. It is spelled out in the very first section. There is no need for needless repetition, and in fact it should be avoided as it is a well-known propaganda technique used by, for example, Hitler, among others. (Yes, I am intentionally bringing up Nazis in the hope that this discussion will end sooner or later...)


 * 5.1 However, I am going to fix the following section:

This is false as it stands. The vast majority of scientists who "raise concerns" in fact believe that the NASA and ESF recommendations are in fact adequate and that MSR should proceed. Also, you cite Lederberg, who discusses back contamination, but makes no specific recommendations on what to do about it--he certainly doesn't say proposed precautions don't go far enough. Also, you cite Paige, but he is against MSR for the entirely different reason that he thinks it's a waste of money--he makes no mention of back contamination at all.


 * 5.1.1 This is yet another item in a very distinct pattern: of you not carefully reading your own sources or else not caring what they say. This is basic fact checking stuff. I shouldn't have to be doing this. It makes me think that you are either intentionally misrepresenting things or that you are cognitively incapable of contributing productive content. I know you're going to say "Oh I'm sorry" yet again. Whatever, that doesn't change the fact that your prose is shot through not only with editorial content, it apparently deliberately distorts the truth. You're not doing yourself any favors. It calls into question the validity of any and everything you write.


 * Okay this is more to the point, this is what you should have said from the beginning. I will check the sources and see if I have misrepresnted them. Robert Walker (talk) 15:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * 5.2 re: immediate rebuttals. Again you are contradicting yourself. You say on the one hand that all views should be included, and then say on the other hand, views that rebut other views should not be included. Which is it Robert?


 * Editorial rebuttals shouldn't 'be included at all.


 * Non editorial cited rebuttals are fine.


 * 5.3 re: "Clearly Biosafety level 4 laboratories are not sufficient". WHAT?!? In YOUR mind they are not; in the vast majority of scientists' view, they are more than sufficient. You are mad because the article is NOT editorial in tone. Unbelievable!! Warren Platts (talk) 14:18, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The ESF report and the other earlier reports say that to return the samples to a standard Biosafety level 4 laboratory would not be sufficient, a new facility has to be constructed especially. Everything in that section that you removed about the needs for a new Mars receiving facility and about the novel types of potential hazards it has to contain and the need to be a clean room as well as containment - that was all directly sourced to the ESF report. It is ESF and NASA saying this. Robert Walker (talk) 15:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Add paragraph on existential risk of NOT doing MSR
I'm thinking of adding a paragraph to the No Action section that would explain the risk of not doing MSR. It is well established in the literature that the risk of extinction for Homo sapiens could be radically reduced if we could get some of our eggs in different baskets, as it were. It is also well-established that Mars is perhaps the most benign place in the Solar System for the establishment of human settlements. It is also well-established that MSR is practically mandatory before manned exploration of Mars is to take place. Delaying MSR will delay human settlement of Mars; in the meantime, there is a tiny, but non-zero chance that Planet Earth could get creamed by an asteroid or comet, causing the extinction of the human race and the non-births of 10^18 future persons.

Any thoughts on this one, Robert? Warren Platts (talk) 11:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Warren, as it is it is OR. You need to find someone who argues against MSR on those grounds. Try a google search or a google scholar search to see if you can find anyone who presents those arguments, then you can include it but must summarize what they say in their own words, or at least, presenting their own thoughts and arguments, and nothing more, nothing less.


 * Also if anyone says that, they will almost certainly have others who have other ideas - after anyone presents an argument like that, others will pop up and present their own very different take on it all. So you need to present their opponent's views too, as far as they relate to MSR, in a section of their own too.


 * I've got many additional arguments of my own that would be nice to put in and have put them into my own blog about it. But can't include them here for same reason.


 * If you just want others to think about your idea, and to get comments on it, you can write a blog post to say what you just said, as I did, or a forum post.


 * If totally sure of it and well researched, you can also try publishing a paper. If you get it published successfully you can then come back here and put in a short para. about your paper, clearly declaring on the talk page that you are the author of the paper and so have a conflict of interest (as they say in wikipedia in these situations).


 * To give you an idea of how someone else knowing the same things you do could argue to a different conclusion based on the same long term aims, take a look at my POV :)


 * My own POV is that Mars in its present state is not the most benign place, because it is too cold (the turning planet shields you from the sun every day and average temperatures same as Antarctica, lowest temperatures far lower than any on Earth because of wider temperature range), the reddish tint of all the colours makes it hard for humans to distinguish colours on the surface which would be depressing long term IMO, and the dust storms that blot out the sun for months on end.


 * So - when you say it is well established - it is amongst those who you pay particular attention to, because you are a "Mars firster" by persuasion. But there are many "Moon firsters" and "Space habitat firsters" and they think differently.


 * I also would say, even if you are a Mars firster, by colonizing the surface so quickly you are losing an opportunity to do research which might be of almost unimaginable value. And also may be losing the opportunity to do ecopoesis which may lead to a much more habitable planet in the longer term - like wait a century before humans for a stage of transforming the planet with microbial life and setting up a carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, sulfur cycle, and the beginnings of an oxygen cycle, and you end up with a much nicer place for humans longer (if those things are possible at all which needs more study).


 * I am actually not against ecopoesis of Mars long term, if it can be done sustainably with cycles that will last for geological timescales (for those 10^18s of people on future Mars), and if it is done after careful study of what it was like before terraforming so you know what you are going to lose and can make a good well informed judgment


 * And - I'm a Mars telerobotics firster :). I think it is one of the most important missions to do after we manage to do long space journeys, and able to live long term in space, to have an orbital colony around Mars exploring the surface via telerobotics. Though because of my high level of concern for risk, that's why I feel small NEO or Moon colonies may have to come first.


 * For the "all the eggs in one basket" I advocate space colonies close to Earth, and on the Moon (easy to supply from Earth and communicate in real time with experts on Earth in case of emergency, easy to export to Earth for economic sustainability). Then next Mars telerobotics orbital colony, possibly quite soon after the first small LEO / Moon colonies if we get new efficient ways to fly into space from Earth. Smaller colonies for Venus (especially if it has life in its atmosphere) and the Jupiter system, eventually further afield, and Mercury. Eventually we would spread to the Oort cloud and then colonization of the galaxy would be well under way - I am somewhat concerned though if we are a mature enough civilization yet to colonize the galaxy if we are indeed the first to do it.


 * So - anyway that is just to show that there is another POV on all this. There are many POVs you can take about the "all in one baskets" debate.


 * But it is not much to do with MSR, unless someone in the literature uses it as an argument for or against MSR.


 * For this article you have to focus on things actually published as reasons for or against MSR,


 * Basically the rule is, No Originality of Thought :).


 * Cite, quote, paraphrase, google search to find people who think the way you do who published in notable sources. If you have a particular POV that represents a group of people, then they may have a society page too such as the Mars Society or some other notable organisaton that represents them, some kind of space advocacy organization. If it is notable and has an official policy, specifically of course here, an official policy on MSR, that also could be notable enough to cite in wikipedia. Robert Walker (talk) 11:51, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It is not OR. Every sentence is attributable. The existential risk of a dinosaur-killing asteroid hitting the Earth is on the order of 10^-8/year--that is easily sourced--and much, much higher than the risk of Martian Andromeda Strain. Note also that this is a frequentist probability rather than a speculative, subjective Bayesian prior probability. Therefore, if a human colony on Mars is delayed by even one year because of back contamination concerns, the risk of extinction is higher than it would be not taking into account back contamination. Warren Platts (talk) 13:24, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The thing is, it is not enough to attribute every sentence. Have another look at No_original_research


 * Both parts of that sentence may be true, but by combining them together you are doing an original synthesis. Also by contrasting in that way and using the word "but" to connect them together you imply that the UN is somehow failing at its stated objective.


 * Then to show how it is synthesis they show how someone else can combine the same data to get an opposite conclusion using


 * Now if someone else, if a notable source says "The United Nations' stated objective is to maintain international peace and security, but since its creation there have been 160 wars throughout the world" you can cite that source as saying that. But you can't say it yourself. Not in wikipedia. You can do it in a blog or a paper you publish yourself


 * It seems a strange rule at first. But it works really well as a way to encourage encyclopedic style of writing and as a way to keep your own POV and editorial voice out of the article.


 * If you still don't see it, we need a third person to clarify the wikipedia synthesis policy. Robert Walker (talk) 13:31, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * We can discuss your argument elsewhere as it would be a digression to start discussing it in detail here, I'm sure we could go back and forth many times raising alternative points, I see several "flaws" in the argument as you just presented it that I could argue against.


 * Like - if you presented that argument to someone in conversation if they didn't agree with you they would argue back. Your ability to cite and verify every single sentence wouldn't stop them having the opposite conclusion and arguing back at you.


 * But that is all beside the point here.


 * The point is just, do you see that it is OR and SYNTHESIS yet? Robert Walker (talk) 13:35, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Just had another thought. Maybe you can see it is synthesis if I do it?


 * It is well established in the literature that there is a tiny, but non-zero chance that Planet Earth could get creamed by an asteroid or comet, causing the extinction of the human race and the non-births of 10^18 future persons.


 * The current coverage of Spaceguard is incomplete, in particular it does not give a long timescale alert for comets from the Oort cloud, which normally spend some time in the Kuiper belt first


 * These comets are a greater hazard although less likely, because they can't be predicted and we have already mapped almost all the larger NEOs in the inner solar system.


 * Therefore there should be a high priority project to map out all the comets in the Kuiper belt


 * Any funding for Mars exploration or MSR reduces the funding for this essential task of mapping all the comets in the Oort cloud.


 * Therefore we should not do MSR and should not study Mars or do any other form of astronomy - it is just a distraction and waste of time if it does not help prevent this risk.


 * We should cancel all other space projects in order to devote all our efforts to the vital need to map the Oort cloud.


 * I don't actually agree with that argument at all. Just spinning it as an argument from known facts. Do you agree that it is an example of OR and SYNTHESIS?


 * There is nothing actually wrong with that argument as such. It is just based on a different way of looking at things and different priorities from most people (including myself). You could imagine someone who is a bit OCD about the Kuiper belt danger sincerely believing such an argument. Robert Walker (talk) 14:01, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Or, closer to your original:


 * It is well established in the literature that the risk of extinction for Homo sapiens could be radically reduced if we could get some of our eggs in different baskets, as it were.
 * It is also well-established that the Moon is perhaps the most benign place in the Solar System for the establishment of human settlements.
 * It is also well-established that MSR is of no value for establishing a colony on the Moon.
 * A MSR program will delay human settlement of the Moon; in the meantime, there is a tiny, but non-zero chance that Planet Earth could get creamed by an asteroid or comet, causing the extinction of the human race and the non-births of 10^18 future persons.


 * Is that synthesis? A super keen "Moon firster" might argue like that. Robert Walker (talk) 14:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

OK Touché Robert! I'm not sure if what you say is OR since if we dug hard enough, there's probably someone somewhere on the internet at least who has already said it; but we'd have to include all the arguments and counterarguments, and it gets unwieldy rapidly. Point taken. Will not include in article.

See? We can work together! :-) Warren Platts (talk) 14:46, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay great, thanks, definitely making progress :) Robert Walker (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Do have a look at my version and see if there is anything there that is OR or SYNTHESIS that you can make a similar reverse point about. There is no need really to worry about the tone of the whole thing. Look for synthesis. The whole article will take care of itself if you fix any cases of synthesis or editorial voice.


 * It is very easy to slip into it unintentionally, everyone finds that, so I may well have some left despite all the care I took when writing the article.


 * the lead I think is okay now
 * undue weight, which I think is also okay (thoug you may disagree, do say)
 * the overall structure if it may somehow make one view more prominent. E.g. you can't help putting the views in a particular order, and then some would say the first argument in that list is the most prominent so should be the majority view, others might say it should be the last to get the final word, or somewhere in the middle.
 * again I think that is okay now but might be wrong.