User talk:Edgerck/comments


 * For general comments (not related to this experiment), please leave your message at my talk page

Comments on Reliance on Information Experiment
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A CRITICISM OF WP. IT IS INTENDED TO POSITIVELY CONTRIBUTE TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE DYNAMICS OF INFORMATION RELIANCE IN GENERAL AND WP RELIANCE IN PARTICULAR, WITHIN THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT STATE OF WP TECHNOLOGY AND USER RULES.

Experiment description

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Comments On Reliance On Information 1

Stress-Testing Wikipedia
Edgerck thought that it would be easy to prove that wikipedia science articles are unreliable. Anyone can edit wikpdia, so why not just pick an article that looks like it isn't being edited by physics experts and smuggle in statements that are false?

Edgerck picked the relativity article because it mentioned "relativistic mass" a lot and that is an outdated concept. Also Edgerck correctly spotted some errors in the logic, like that the mass defect explains the energy release in nuclear energy while, of course, this is explained by nuclear binding energy and that this explains the mass defect.

Edgerck then tried to prove his point. He edited the relativity articles, making some improvements concerning the relativistic mass and the nuclear binding energy. But his main aim was to put in a statement saying that the invariant mass of a closed system can decrease (in this experiment he simulates someone who is mistaken about the invariant mass, but in reality he knows all too well that invariant mass of an isolated system is conserved). He tried to use the wiki rules, his knowledge of the literature etc. etc.


 * There was NO incorrect information inserted in my edits. My experiment rules make this absolutely clear. Edgerck 18:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

But in the end he failed. He was unable to show that the way wikipedia science articles are edited in practice (and that may deviate a bit from what the wiki rules suggest) allow someone to smuggle in bad edits. Even worse, the person is not banned, and the edits he makes that are ok. are kept.

Count Iblis 22:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You assertion that one of my edits may have been wrong on purpose is a bad call for bad faith, which I may delete according to WP policy. It is a personal attack, in contradiction with the facts below.


 * Regarding my purpose on editing WP, I edited exactly those articles that had misleading information and/or were NOT neutral. All my edits are well documented and explained.


 * All my edits represented an honest attempt to improve neutrality of the articles, which were biased to use outdated information. The current inability of some editors to see that my edits were indeed based on correct information (including WP verifiability and NPOV) is quite understandable and is observable day-to-day in WP.


 * As I explain in my experiment's conditions for impartiality, if, because I am not perfect and the volume of my edits was very large, any of my edits contain material that is found to be incorrect, that can be taken into account. So far, I see no reason to consider any of my edits as incorrect, not verifiable, or not clear.


 * Further, I did not take an anonymous identity exactly so people would understand that this is an honest attempt to 1) improve some WP's "eye-sore" articles; and 2) see how long that improvement would last, be improved more, or just disappear. Thank you. Edgerck 17:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Not a contentious area for test of WP
The relationship between mass and energy is a contentious area. There is no doubt that if the circumstances of an experiment are fully described it can be valid to interchange the concepts of mass and energy so a blanket ban on any reference to this possible equivalence is a violation of NPOV by you. You might consider amending articles with comments such as "although this is the case for ... it is not the case when dealing with the mass of a photon (see...)" etc.. This is much more in the spirit of Wikipedia than sticking an NPOV notice on an article or section. Incidently, because you have chosen a contentious area to implement your experiment the experiment itself is contentious and of little value. Why not choose an area that has clear-cut physics for your experiment?


 * No. None of the areas that I chose are controversial (or "contentious") at all in physics -- and that is why I chose them (please see the article on the experiment). For example, the concept of "relativistic mass" fell in disuse more than 50 years ago, even though it is still used in explanations in WP today (whereas it should be cited mostly in a historical context only). Readers of WP may feel confused when comparing the SR articles with current literature, which is what I was trying to avoid with my edits (in addition to the experiment interest, I wanted to make a qualitative improvement on the WP articles from the viewpoint of WP:NPOV and WP:Verifiability). Thanks. Edgerck 00:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * "fell into disuse more than 50 years ago".... but you admit that Rindler and many others still use it. This sounds like a contentious area rather than a simple dispute. The concept of mass-energy equivalence applies in some applications, as you admit, but it cannot be used unconditionally as anyone will admit. My challenge to you is to produce a simple explanation of the way that the manifold mediates the increased kinetic energy of a moving object (the short-hand explanation of "relativistic mass increase" is clearly inadequate). "Gamma change" instead of "relativistic mass change" is far from satisfying because it misses the inertial consequences of the change, give us a detailed explanation suitable for a well-educated 16 year old. Do this and we will all be grateful to you instead of irked. Dypteran 15:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

15+ pages of back-and-forth argument over the span of 4 SR-related Talk pages say that at least one of your claims are controversial, Ed. I don't see how it can be seen any other way. It is not a conspiracy against you. It is not a failure to understand something basic, elementary and true. It is a controversial subject. If you cannot see this, I don't know what to say. -Mike —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.158.232.66 (talk) 01:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)