Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Regarding The Bogdanov Affair

Case Opened on 15:13, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 03:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Complaining witness

 * (status ambiguous)
 * (status ambiguous)

Defendants

 * Various IPs and used by Igor Bogdanov
 * Various IPs and used by Igor Bogdanov
 * Various IPs and used by Igor Bogdanov
 * Various IPs and used by Igor Bogdanov
 * Various IPs and used by Igor Bogdanov

'''Full text of complaint with comments is at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Regarding The Bogdanov Affair

Statement by complaining witnesses
Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement by Snowspinner
The Bogdanov Affair article has been plagued by vicious POV warrioring from a number of sides, including IPs belonging to Igor Bogdanov, the subject of the article. The short form is this: The Bogdanovs published some physics papers, which were eventually widely recognized by the physics community as nonsense. Bogdanovs stand by their papers. Hilarity ensues. The article has been under near-constant revert warring recently, as Bogdanov and people allied with him remove all criticism, and Bogdanov's critics revert frantically. The mediation cabal failed to solve this one. I ask for short term injunctive relief, specifically that the Bogdanovs, YBM, LLL, Laurence67, and XAL all be banned from the article in question. A sample of problematic edits include  (A new user who immediately shows up in the firefight)  and  (For personal attacks). The odds of sockpuppets being involved in editing here is quite high - a lot of users who do nothing other than edit Bogdanov pages.

Statement from User:Rbj
I am not a physicist. I am an electrical engineer with some experience in publishing and in academia, although I'm not in the academia at the moment. Being on the Review Board of a technical journal (Journal of the Audio Engineering Society), I have a little experience about how stuff like this gets published. No journal is immune to it which is why some physicists thought that the Bogdanoff brothers were deliberately stinging the physics discipline in the same way that Sokal did to the sociology discipline.

There are two initial possible classes for the Bogdanoff's work: either it has some merit (perhaps with flaws or perhaps not flawed at all) or it has no merit.

If it's the latter, then it is bad science or junk science or pseudoscience (which would be called "quackery" if the science were medicine). In that case, it doesn't matter what the consensus of physicists think. reality is not dictated by majority rule.

If it is the former, that is that it is not devoid of merit, then it is either mainstream science or it is fringe science or protoscience. But here, which category that it falls into does depend on the consensus of the mainstream of the existing discipline. If a majority or even a large minority of physicists recognize the Bogdanoff's work to be valid (or, at least, to have some merit) a case could be made for it to be called "mainstream". But, given the supposition that the work has some merit, if the Bogdanoff's work is not respected as having any merit by any more than a token set of recognized physicists, then the best that can be claimed for it is that it is fringe science or protoscience. That label is not necessarily disparaging. A century ago special relativity was fringe science or protoscience and now it is standard in any introductory modern physics text.

But if the theory is not accepted by the "mainstream" physics community, there is no basis to claim that the theory is mainstream. And if it is not mainstream, the remaining categories are: fringe science or protoscience, and junk science or pseudoscience. In some manner, even string theory, which has a lot of adherents and respect, must accept such a label. If it turns out that string theory can never be falsifiable, it will eventually fall by the wayside and become an obsolete theory.

So there are two main questions to deal with:


 * 1. Does the Bogdanoff's published work have technical merit or not?  That issue is too technical and arcane to be debated here, however, a bona-fide cosmologist who has identified himself and his credentials has offered an opinion here on the talk page.  Igor would be correct to imply that only the "specialists" can debate this effectively, but he is not correct that this is the salient question for debate about the Wikipedian article.  Wikipedia is not the Annals of Physics nor Classical and Quantum Gravity nor the USENET newsgroup sci.physics.research.  It would be nice if we could get more real physicists other than User:YBM and User:Alain_r involved, but then again, Wikipedia is not the place for real physicists to slug out what is or what is not real physics (but, unfortunately, it looks like it may become that).


 * 2. The other question that is salient is: what does the wider community of physicists say about the quality and veracity of the Bogdanoff's work?  Well, there is quite a record and, despite the publication of their earlier papers in reputable journals, the record is not flattering for the Bogdanoffs.  The VAST majority of the credentialed physics community has utterly rejected and dismissed their published work as "wrong", "hoax", "embarrassing", "incoherent", "gibberish", conceptully invalid (my paraphrase of many positions), and even "BS" (and i don't think they mean "Bachelor of Science").  VERY, VERY, FEW physicists have come to their defense on the record.  We virtually only hear the journal referee's comments (and only relayed to us via the Bogdanoff's, that has to be a dubious source) but that fails to recognize the problem.  No one disputes that the Bogdanoff's got published in a couple of legitimate journals of theoretical physics.  The problem is that their papers are believed by the mainstream to be without merit.  The journal referees competence regarding this arcane field are also suspect (indeed physicist John Baez has said that the referees have something to answer for).  And the merit that Bogdanoff's try to extract from such publication has been destroyed by the fact that the editorial board of CQG has made it clear that the papers, in retrospect, have failed to meet the standards expected of any article published in the journal.  The editors of CQG have repudiated the very papers that the Bogdanoffs have published in their journal.  This is undeniably damning (except that Igor does actually deny that it is).

The Wikipedia policy is that there is no original research and neutral POV (we don't get to write our own autobiographies here). The fact that the Bogdanoffs continue to defend their work as genuine should be reported as such. But the fact that their work is overwelmingly rejected by the mainstream physics community should also be reported as such. Including links to fringe science, protoscience, junk science, and pseudoscience is not inappropriate at all, because there is no way that anyone can claim it to be in the mainstream.

I have been editing on Wikipedia for about a year or two (I think). The Bogdanov Affair is not my only agenda, but that cannot be said for the Bogdanovs, their sock-puppets, and the few flesh-and-blood supporters: XAL, Laurence67, CatherineV; -- they are here for one and only one reason: to paint the B brothers in the most flattering light possible. To turn this stinkhorn into a rose. But it simply stinks, and that stink is of the Bogdanov's own making. Their behavior regarding this, both here on WP, and at other sites/blogs and USENET, has been nakedly dishonest. They act like imposters much of the time, and I am confident that the reason is that they are imposters. They are pretending to be physicists, but the real physicists know that the B. brothers are not.

The admins and ArbCom of Wikipedia are going to have to make a judgement about what the real physicists say about the Bogdanov "research". On the latest version that I or YBM (now a few others have stepped in to defend the article from the B. vandals) have left, you will get links to the extensive web pages and blogs where this has been discussed since 2002 (a quick check of some words as at Talk:Bogdanov_Affair/comments including an older NYT article). This is the very information that the Bogdanov brothers want to suppress. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. r b-j 22:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Statements by defendants
Please limit your statement to 500 words

Statement from Laurence67
First, just a comment about Snowspinner's list of "Involved Parties" : why is Igor not there ? Has he no right to stand up for himself, in spite of the fact that he is, with his brother, the most concerned person ? This "omission", in my opinion, is particularly representative of this "Bogdanoff Affair Affair".

Indeed, I find that the worst aspect of this revert war is the rudeness and the unfairness with which Igor is treated by some contributors and, a lot more serious, by some administrators, particularly Snowspinner. The latter decided arbitrarily that Igor's contributions were "repeated vandalism", just because he is the subject of the article, so he banned him and, what's more, encouraged the other contributors to revert his posts "on sight", without worrying about the 3RR.

This bias had an ill effect on some other contributors, who interpreted this "blessing" as a right to revert any text from which the least extract could have been in favour of the Bogdanovs. To justify this, any contributor who seemed to be "for" the Bogdanovs was suspected to be a sock puppet, which was an excellent excuse to feel free to revert us as easily and systematically as they did for Igor ! Then, when it became obvious that we were not, they created an idiom for us ("meat puppet") which meant clearly that they admitted we were not Igor himself, but which suggested we were "revertable" as well. A good example is given by "Professor Ying" here : 29 september, 11:24, as he writes by reverting me : "reverting a revert of a Bogdanov's sock puppet called Laurence67". This comment is all the more hypocritical as, whereas I have been officially considered to be a "possible" sock puppet (it was inscribed on the top of my personal page), now my name has been removed from the list after I prooved I was a "real person". And what is more, "Professor Ying" knows me for monthes and monthes as a "forumer" (among others on sur-la-toile.com) and knows better than most Wikipedian contributors that I'm "real"...

Because of this lack of fairness, the article has become excessively negative and partial, all the more as most contributors don't even take the trouble to read the details given by Igor in the discussion page - just like r-b-j, who gets 2 journals mix-up but persists in reverting "his" version of the facts.

Moreover, beside the quality and the pertinence of the article itself, I find also that the administrators should be a little more motivated to fight some serious "incivilities" against Igor, who is regularly insulted, without the perpetrators being sanctioned. One of the worst example : "You are bastards", "You are cheaters, liers, fraudster and incompetent in almost any field." (YBM, 26 September, Bogdanov Affair - Archive 3) ; other version, by r-b-j : "They are hucksters, swindlers, con artists" (r b-j, Bogdanov Affair - talk page - archive 2, 03:26, 17 September 2005), before suggesting to add the category "excrement". More recently, by the same "contributor", whose style becomes more and more hysterical : "he [=Igor] lies and lies and lies and lies. that is how he got to the position he is at today. (...) it [=The Bogdanov Affair] is what it is. it stinks. the stink is of the Bogdanoffs' own making and no amount of room freshener will remove that stink." (r b-j 17:42, 29 September 2005).

Beside these incredible "direct" insults, there are many others, more "discret" and indirect, sometimes in the article itself : some contributors try to insert external links, categories or "See also" whose content is very insultating in this context, like "The Emperor's New Clothes", or more recently : "The crackpot Index", an article about "incompetence" etc. (Bogdanov Affair - talk page - archive 2, 03:26, 17 September 2005). Obviously, this kind of contributions is designed only to destroy as much as possible the Bogdanovs' reputation. How a "real" encyclopedical article, which is supposed to be objective, could be written in such a malicious context ?

That's why I think that the "Bogdanov Affair" must be written / supervised above all by neutral contributor(s), and I find that Maru's idea - looking for a "neutral Wikipedian" - is very good. There can be one or 3-4, as suggested by Igor, I think that their number doesn't matter much, as long as they don't try to settle a score by means of the article, as some current contributors do.

Laurence67 21:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

 * Accept Fred Bauder 14:08, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Accept. James F. (talk) 17:49, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Accept &#10149;the Epopt 23:26, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Accept Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 14:07, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision=

Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy
1) What_Wikipedia_is_not provides that advocates either of their own position or critics of someone else's position ought not use Wikipedia in pursuit of their advocacy activities.


 * Passed 6-0

Obsessional point of view
2) In certain cases a Wikipedia editor will tendentiously focus their attention in an obsessive way. Such users may be banned from editing in the affected area.


 * Passed 6-0

Focus of dispute
1) The Bogdanov Affair is a controversy which arose when the merit of the speculative work in theoretical physics by Igor and Grichka Bogdanov, French television personalities, was questioned by other physicists. Participants in the external controversy, including Igor Bogdanov, are editing the Wikipedia article aggressively.


 * Passed 6-0

Violation of temporary injunction
2) A number of editors, apparently involved in the external event have continued to edit Bogdanov Affair using a number of sockpuppets despite issuance of a temporary injunction forbidding editing of the article by them.


 * Passed 6-0

Ban on editing Bogdanov Affair
1) All user accounts used by participants in the external controversy are indefinitely banned from editing Bogdanov Affair. The criteria for determining external involvement shall be a review of their edit history, it being presumed that if the vast majority of their edits are to the Bogdanov Affair they are not Wikipedia editors but persons involved in the external dispute. This group includes:, , , , , . , , , , , and all others who meet the criteria. Any new user account or anonymous IP which commences editing of the article without substantial editing of other articles shall be presumed to be a participant in the external controversy.


 * Passed 6-0

Ban extended to talk page
The ban on editing has been extended to the talk page of the article.


 * Passed 6-0 14:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Notice
2) A notice shall be placed at the top of the article Bogdanov Affair which links to Requests for arbitration/Regarding The Bogdanov Affair which briefly explains that the Wikipedia article has, in part, been conflated with the external event, the Bogdanov Affair, due to participation in editing of the article by participants in the event. The notice shall include an apology for our inability to control this phenomenon and a warning that any editor which is determined to be a participant in the external event may be subject to being banned from editing.


 * Passed 5-1

Enforcement by ban
1) Any user banned from editing Bogdanov Affair who nevertheless edits it, may be briefly banned from Wikipedia entirely, up to a week in the case of repeat offenses, and after the 5th offense, up to a year.


 * Passed 6-0

Additional combatants
2) New user accounts and anonymous IPs which focus on editing of Bogdanov Affair shall be presumed to be participants in the external dispute and, despite not being specifically mentioned in this remedy, are subject to it.


 * Passed 6-0