Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-01-26 Magnetic Monopole NPOV

Mediation Case: 2007-01-26 Magnetic Monopole NPOV
Please observe Etiquette and Talk Page Etiquette in disputes. If you submit complaints or insults your edits are likely to be removed by the mediator, any other refactoring of the mediation case by anybody but the mediator is likely to be reverted. If you are not satisfied with the mediation procedure please submit your complaints to Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal.

Request Information

 * Request made by: Lixo2 02:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * on Magnetic monopole article, about add a Criticism section (reverted by Yevgeny on 22 January 2007). See details on Talk:Magnetic_monopole.


 * Who's involved?
 * User:Yevgeny Kats, 200.153.155.232 and User:lixo2.
 * Pjacobi


 * What's going on?
 * NPOV fainting.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * Add a little and objective Criticism section, very known on Physics community.


 * Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?
 * No (we use lixo2 and IP for discretion), only need add the section... I think if Yevgeny see another people defending NPOV, it is sufficient to Yevgeny not revert the section added (he can colaborate to adapt the section).

Mediator response
I'll take this case (note: is my first one, so be nice people!). I've got a degree in mathematics and physics, and I've been a teaching assistant in the physics and mathematics departments in past years. So hopefully my experience will be of some use here. I'll look over this and review the evidence over the next couple of days or so. And I'll be contacting relevant parties in the near-ish future. Mathmo Talk 13:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Am going to ask on lixo2's talk page (who is the person who listed this case) if the current state is ok. I'll give them plenty of time to reply (at least a week if not two or even more) before going too much further with this. Mathmo Talk 13:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Have heard no response from lixo2, and also the user has not made any edits to wikipedia since before I accepted this case. Long enough has gone by, there appears to be no problem from what I can see. So because nothing more to do with this can be shown to me I shall close this. Mathmo Talk 05:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I am back. Lixo2 17:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I see that 13:46, 25 February 2007 Gareth McCaughan edit was removed the Criticism section. User:Gareth McCaughan is a new person for this case. My sugestion to Gareth McCaughan or other is to rewrite but not delete the Criticism section.


 * No activity. Closing for now, reopen if Lixo2 returns.  --Ideogram 08:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the absence, I did exactly the same as what you above just said. There was no recent activity to be seen, so I closed it. Only for Lixo2 to pop his/her head back up just after I closed it, otherwise nothing to be heard off. Mathmo Talk 00:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

New mediator
I have looked through this MedCab request and the associated talk page for the article, and from what I can see this issue seems to be largely resolved or in the process of being resolved by it's talk page. Does anyone still feel there is a need for this MedCab case to remain open for this topic, or is there still unresolved issues which need further assistance to be worked through? Thewinchester (talk) 18:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The Background section is still marked as disputed. It contains a large amount of material that is based on an unpublished fringe theory. I'd be happy to just delete it and se if the editor(s) who put it their still object to its removal.--agr 11:20, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Compromise offers
This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.



Discussion
Note to self: could nolonger be any problem here. The article currently has a criticism section which covers similar ground to what was reverted. Compare current with reverted. Mathmo Talk 13:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * OPS: section deleted at Revision as of 13:46, 25 February 2007 by Gareth McCaughan ! Please, help!! -- Lixo2 22:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Please mediators, Wikipedia need your help, the dominant POV at Magnetic monopole is systematically DELETING (rv) colaborations.

User:Mathmo, if you haven't been following events on that page then you might want to take a look; there's a continuing reversion war... Gareth McCaughan 21:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

07:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know the correct protocol here, so I just added myself to the case. And added this section.

I've reverted away the "Criticism" section and even semi-protected as the constant re-insertion of it is nothing but vandalism.

It's not only wrong, but it is original research. No relevant source is given and a rather important would be needed, as the article treatment of monopoles is just standard textbook physics. Pjacobi 07:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * There should be notion of criticism of magnetic monopoles. The whole article looks like there is a general oppinion that magnetic monopoles exist and just needs to be discovered. Removing the criticism is severe violation of NPOV --83.131.5.115 14:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (83.131.5.115 please identify your self for help us!)
 * The whole article doesn't look at all that way to me, for reasons I've already explained on its talk page. The very first sentence calls monopoles "hypothetical". The background section says "it may well be that nothing that could be called a magnetic monopole could ever exist". A sidebar right at the start says that whether there are monopoles is an "unsolved problem in physics". The section on "attempts to find monopoles" reports that no good evidence of their existence has been found.


 * Adding anything much like the "criticisms" section Lixo2 and his/her friends-or-aliases have been trying to force into the article, given the generally quite skeptical tone the rest of the article already has, would amount to saying: even considering the possibility of magnetic monopoles is a foolish waste of time. I expect that is the opinion of Lixo2 et al, but it doesn't strike me as something that could reasonably be called NPOV. Gareth McCaughan 20:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I not have friends working for me, but there are a "friends of the monopole" community... I have collaborated (see enhancing notation for show symmetries, and add Maxwell's and usual point of view or (Maxwell's Equations - change design to show (emphasis) that only sign change etc. and also another observations like "... on Earth, at this days, all observed magnetic fields, and all magnetic effects, are actually due to the motion of charged particles...". I agree the assertion "the whole article looks like there is a general oppinion that magnetic monopoles exist and just needs to be discovered" (user 83.131.5.115 at 8 April 2007  above). All other objections and arguments are at article's Talk page. Lixo2 21:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This entire controversy is based on theories that have been rejected for publication by physics journals and are therefore not reliable sources under Wikipedia policy. See WP:V. Wikipedia is not the place to push minority views that have been rejected by the scentific community. What makes this situation a bit unusual is that mainstream physics agrees with the supposed minority view at some level, namely monopoles have never been detected and this poses a problem for theories that predict them. I think one area for potential compromise is beefing up the intro paragraph to include mention of the failure to detect monopoles despite major efforts and that this failure has forced the reconsideration of some theories. However all the unsourced material that was added must be removed. As it currently exists, the "Background" section is pushing a POV at variance with standard physics.--agr 11:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The fact that monopoles haven't been observed doesn't pose a problem. The same particle physics theories that allow for the existence of magnetic monopoles also predict their various properties. In particular, the expected masses of the monopoles are so huge that they can't be created in ordinary environment (and not even in particle accelerators available today). They could be created during the Big Bang when the universe was hot. The fact that those aren't abundant in the observable universe is explained by cosmic inflation. Yevgeny Kats 12:17, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It certainly presents a problem for theories that say monopoles should be abundant. To quote the, I beleive, non-controversial part of the article, "Non-inflationary Big Bang cosmology suggests that monopoles should be plentiful, and the failure to find magnetic monopoles is one of the main problems that led to the creation of cosmic inflation theory. " --agr 12:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)