Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot/Evidence

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Mediation in April 2007 - Six months from investigation to block
Starting in April 23, 2007, I served as the mediator in a case, Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-04-23 Capture-bonding, between User:Sadi Carnot and User:Hkhenson.

The mediation case arose shortly after Physchim62 reverted Hkhenson's edits to Capture bonding to restore Sadi's favored version,  and then immediately protected the page. Physchim62 commented on the dispute at the start of mediation. Hkhenson objected to Physchim62's view of the situation as "biased". After inspecting Physchim62's last 5,000 contributions, I do not think Physchim62 is biased, but I want everyone to understand that this perception could have been held by a reasonable person.

Sadi accepted my services as a neutral party and thanked me when the case ended. I also thanked him. I've been aware of Sadi for six months. Any actions I've taken to judge him have not been hasty. Far from it, because I liked him and did not want to believe that the allegations were true.

During the case Sadi Carnot demonstrate keen awareness with policy:
 * Quoted from Conflict of interest.
 * Referred to WP:COI and No original research:

AfD
I had one eye on Articles for deletion/Georgi Gladyshev which involved Sadi Carnot, and placed this prescient warning at the top of the debate:.

ANI thread, October 2007
For full details, the case file is located at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Sadi Carnot. Coren's evidence below explains why Sadi Carnot was blocked.

After blocking Sadi Carnot I requested discussion:
 * "To prevent further damage or spamming, I am going to indef the account because it's clear to me that it's been used primarily for long term, subtle vandalism and COI editing, causing serious, widespread damage. Let's discuss this and see if any admin is willing to unblock. Establishing a community ban will be helpful because it will allow us to immediately revert and block any socks that show up."

I also offered terms for unblocking:
 * "If Sadi Carnot wishes to continue editing, he can ask to be unblocked, and we can discuss the conditions on which that will occur. An indefinite block doesn't mean "forever." It means, "until the problem is resolved." ... My block is designed to prevent further harm until we can come up with a better arrangement."

I invited comments again:
 * "Folks, User:Sadi Carnot has been indefinitely blocked. As requested by User:Coren, this will be considered a community ban if no administrator is willing to unblock. If anyone sees a reason to unblocked after reading the above evidence please comment."

I noted that there was evidence of bad faith by Sadi Carnot, and reiterated that we should not unblock him yet, but I would consider unblocking with controls in place:
 * "I think the use of multiple accounts is very problematic. If you look at the sheer volume of self-promotional links and POV pushing, this looks like a determined COI editor who does a few good edits to establish cover. Of course, as I said above, if the editor is willing to admit mistakes and agree on editing restrictions and mentorship to avoid further problems, I am open to him returning. However, I think it would be a serious mistake to let him edit again before we have those assurances."

At this point, the only opposition was User:Voltron, a sockpuppet of banned user user:EddieSegoura:

Physchim62 opposes, and unblocks 1 minute later, without discussion
Physchim62 unblocked without discussion, even though Sadi had not requested to be unblocked, nor taken any interest in the case. 

Physchim62 reverts maintenance tags, issues spurious warnings, and makes uncivil comments
In addition to reverting my block, Physchim62 tendentiously reverted the maintenance and sockpuppet tags I applied in response to Sadi Carnot's editing, and P62 gave me a disruption warning. He made these reversions without discussion. P62 issued another formal disruption warning to me for working on policy improvements. P62 also told me that Arbcom would issue "the cluestick beating that you deserve." 

Uncivil edit summaries: witch hunt

I started a thread at WP:AN to discuss what should be done about Physchim62's peculiar actions before this case commenced. 

Physchim62 attempts to poison the well
Physchim62 has mis-characterized evidence to damage my reputation by poisoning the well. 

He claims that my placing a few maintenance tags on articles edited by Sadi Carnot was disruptive. Under the circumstances, this was prudent. P62 demanded a list of articles from me that I believe to be tainted. My answer is that every article edited by Sadi Carnot should be checked. See his edit history. I tagged Sadi's user accounts as sockpuppets help future investigations. These actions were discussed at WP:AN, see, and I have not retagged the userpages, per the consensus.

Physchim62 claims that I have changed policy against consensus and to support my case. In truth, I have been a long term editor at WP:COI and continue to participate there in the normal course of editing. One of my "abusive" diffs that he cites is a reversion of vandalism. Another is based on a talk page discussion with an uninvolved editor. Another is a clarification that COI is a subset of NPOV. .

I have also occasionally participated at WP:SOCK  and the page is on my watchlist. When an editor deleted an entire section without discussion, I reverted discussed  and revised.

My activity at WP:BAN has been widely announced as part of a policy RFC. There have been extensive discussions. The net results have been modest clarifications. Physchim62 reverted my edits and then was  reverted by another editor. P62's editing caused the page to be protected.

Physchim62 engages in forum shopping
After this request for arbitration was filed, Physchim62 has attempted to use other fora to obtain sanctions against Hkhenson, and against me. 

Evidence presented by Coren
More to come, this is a first draft

In this section, I use the Sadi Carnot and Wavesmikey‎ identity as one; they are separated in time but not in the nature or scope of behavior.

Sadi Carnot creates contents designed to obfuscate future spam insertions
As exemplar, one of his first such articles, Human bonding: Created (not forgetting to add links all over the 'pedia (also , etc), which looks a little WP:ORish, but at  he starts inserting links to his site.  Followed by inserting subtle but continuous reference to chemistry  so that by the time his main thesis goes in  it does not look entirely out of place.

Sadi Carnot marks sweeping edits as minor, including spam insertions
Large edit: Spam: 

He also misrepresents the nature and scope of his edits in the summary

Sadi Carnot misrepresents or falsifies sources to support his OR
This has been examined in detail in some of the AfDs, the cases put forth in Articles for deletion/Human thermodynamics 2 (Wavesmickey) and Articles for deletion/Human chemistry (Sadi Carnot) are especially eloquent. (Not being an editor, I am unable to provide relevant diffs from the deleted articles).

Sadi Carnot damages legitimate science articles to push his OR
 

Sadi Carnot knew or should have known his behavior was unnaceptable
His new identity created barely 2 days after his previous identity's last "real" edit, less than a week after his most recent OR article was deleted. He created the new identity immediately after wiping his user talk and started immediately again with his previous editing pattern.

One of his first articles was quickly deleted Articles for deletion/Human thermodynamics, and he admited there he shouldn't have written it. Then comes Articles for deletion/Human thermodynamics 2 less than a month later. He was told in the large number of VfD (then) and AfDs (now) for his original research how and why it was not welcome, but persisted for over two years.

The validity of Sadi Carnot's contributions outside the contested area is disputed
At least some administrators and editors  have disputed that Sadi Carnot's contributions are generally useful.

Miscellaneous evidence of bad faith
This page in his userspace is especially worrisome.

Evidence presented by Physchim62

 * 20 October, 03:20 (UTC) reports his concerns about  at WP:ANI
 * 20 October, 05:11 (UTC) blocks Sadi Carnot with the summary
 * "Disruption only account - long term, subtle vandalism, spamming and COI editing of many articles to promote the owner's book, website and fringe theories"

Initial report to first block (1h 51min)
all users are represented here, although I have not mentioned a few inconsequential contributions.
 * 03:31 (UTC) Jehochman, to say that he had asked to comment
 * 03:39 (UTC) Coren to report that SC had been notified of the discussion (notification)
 * 04:08 (UTC) to accuse SC of sockpuppetry with, calling SC a "dangerous editor", "incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction" or alternatively "an elaborate hoax"
 * 05:00 (UTC) Coren to mention that he had found 132 links to websites associated with Sadi Carnot, the vast majority of which were on articles at AfD
 * 05:01 (UTC) to report his experiences with SC on the now definct WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee
 * 05:09 (UTC) Jehochman to report his intention to block indefinitely and to establish a community ban: "Let's discuss this and see if any admin is willing to unblock." This was also the first mention that SC had not edited since 10 October. Jehochman also refers to deleted article (AfD) as a "hoax" which was "unmasked" at AfD.

Disruption-only account

 * Sadi Carnot first edited on 27 December 2005
 * He has 8593 edits to English Wikipedia

Vandalism

 * A content dispute is not vandalism
 * There is no reason to assume that SC does not believe his own theories; indeed the fact that he runs three websites promoting them and has written a book about them would tend to suggest that he does.

Spamming

 * Spam (guideline) suggests warning and meta-blacklisting as a response to spam: neither of these were attempted before blocking

Conflict of interest

 * Conflict of interest (guideline) suggests warning as a response to CoI: this may or may not have been attempted before blocking

Sockpuppetry

 * In addition to the reasons on the block log, Jehochman took the following actions
 * replaced User:Sadi Carnot with sockpuppeteer
 * listed Wavesmikey as a "confirmed sockpuppet" this was done by
 * listed an IP address as a "suspected sockpuppet"
 * has not edited since 15 December 2005 (before User:Sadi Carnot began editing), except to ask for the user page to be deleted
 * the IP address edited a single article on 24 May 2007

First block to first unblock (33h 37min)

 * 20 October, 06:25 (UTC) Hkhenson admits PoV-forking between capture bond and capture-bonding, also confirms that SC is behind humanthermodynamics.com
 * 09:44 (UTC) Bduke mentions that SC has contributed in good faith to thermodynamics articles
 * 10:37 (UTC) Carcharoth suggests blacklisting SC's websites as a possible solution, and provides details of those websites
 * 10:39 (UTC) Carcharoth points out Hkhenson's COI on capture-bonding
 * 12:26 (UTC) Jehochman, in setting out his conditions for unblocking SC: "I think Sadi Carnot may become a good faith editor, but right now he doesn't understand how to edit Wikipedia"
 * 14:00 (UTC) Kww asks for Wavesmikey to be blocked, claiming that SC "will just immediately switch to his sock when he feels the need."
 * 14:14 (UTC) Jehochman reports the block of Wavesmikey, asks Kww to investigate disruptive use of the account
 * 17:05 (UTC) Hkhenson comments on SC's academic qualifications, points to Talk:Capture-bonding as an example of SC's editing
 * 20:29 (UTC) Jehochman states that the indefinite block will be considered a community ban if no admin is willing to unblock
 * 20:52 (UTC) Coren supports ban
 * 21:17 (UTC) Bduke states that he will not unblock, but points out SC's useful contributions on Entropy and Energy
 * 21 October, 02:40 (UTC) reports apparent cross-wiki spamming (227 links)
 * 02:40 (UTC) MER-C supports community ban, claiming that SC is "one of the worst cases of x-wiki spamming I have ever seen"
 * 03:02 (UTC) Jehochman reports three websites associated with SC to the global spam blacklist
 * 03:56 (UTC) reports that only a small minority of spammed links are outside of enwiki, and that these might have come about by innocent Transwiki
 * 04:05 (UTC) endorses community ban with reason: "socking, spamming, original fringe research pov pushing (if not warring)"
 * 06:10 (UTC) MER-C left messages at WikiProject Engineering and WikiProject Chemical and Bio Engineering
 * 07:04 (UTC) Bduke left messages at WikiProject Chemistry and WikiProject Physics
 * 07:10 (UTC) MER-C retracts claim that SC is "one of the worst cross-wiki spammers ever", continues to support ban because "spammers aren't welcome here"
 * 15:47 (UTC) Physchim62 opposes ban, citing SC's useful contributions and the complete lack of evidence of sockpuppetry
 * 15:48 (UTC) Physchim62 unblocks with link to ANI comment

Reactions of Jehochman
It is instructive to consider Jehochman's contributions to the ANI discussion after SC had been unblocked by Physchim62:
 * 21 October, 16:08 (UTC) suggests that Physchim62 had not read the evidence and unblocked as per WP:IDONTLIKEIT
 * 16:25 (UTC) suggests that a change of account name in December 2005 is evidence of bad faith
 * 22 October, 13:04 (UTC) claims that SC was notified "dozens of times"
 * 13:39 (UTC) accuses of tendentious editing for questioning the reality of the "notifications"
 * 17:23 (UTC) claims that Physchim62's "friendship with Sadi Carnot" (sic) "prevents [him] from seeing what the rest of use see"
 * 23 October, 02:21 (UTC) requests details of valuable contributions from, dispite the many other editors who had attested to the value of SC's contributions in certain areas
 * 14:13 (UTC) "Sadi Carnot has been using tactics to evade the normal controls on POV pushing" – said tactics are never specified
 * 16:20 (UTC) "Physchim62 knew about Sadi's editing problems, and did nothing to stop them." – Physchim62 had merely mentioned knowing of SC's unusual opinions, not the fact that he was writing Wikipedia articles about them

Jehochman also placed expert and COI tags on at least one article for the sole reason that they had been significantly edited by Sadi Carnot. Dispite a request, he has yet to supply the list of articles which he considers tainted for assessment by the relevant WikiProjects.

Jehochman has also edited at least three policy pages related to this dispute since it arose. His edits appear to be an attempt to "fix" these policies in favour of his own views and actions, and do not appear to be the result of any consensus.
 * WP:SOCK
 * WP:BAN
 * WP:COI

Username changes
From Username policy:
 * "Usernames can be changed by bureaucrats. You can request a name change at Wikipedia:Changing username. If you have few edits, it may be easier and quicker to simply register a new account with a different name."

From Changing usernames guidelines
 * "''Personal preference: If a user would simply prefer another username, and there is no common sense reason (or reason listed below) to decline the request, renaming is typically appropriate.´´"

Wikipedia:Changing username, version of 26 December 2005, the day before Sadi Carnot started editing under that username. Note the final sentence of the lead section:
 * "If you have very few edits, it is far quicker to just create a new account."

Reply to Hkhenson
Yes Keith, I consider your views to be pseudoscience and your actions in forcing them on Wikipedia, to the exclusion of other points of view, to be disruptive. This is why I passed the mediation onto someone else (Jehochman took it up). I don't think this is at all relevant to this case, except to make your views on Sadi Carnot devoid of interest in the resolution of this case. Physchim62 (talk) 14:00, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Sadi Carnot is not a "disruption-only account"
When he stuck to mainstream science, Sadi Carnot contributed prolifically. Some examples of reasonable articles started by him:


 * History of the molecule (latest version that only has contribs by SC) - Has some external link spam, but article content is mostly OK, and is being kept after some pruning.
 * History of quantum mechanics (latest SC-only version)
 * Molecular orbital theory (latest SC-only version) - generally OK, although some content was later moved to other articles.
 * Transition state theory (latest SC-only version) - a bit short and there is some argument for merging it with transition state, but it is factual and mainstream.
 * Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire (latest SC-only version).
 * Thomsen-Berthelot principle (last SC-only version) - lacking sources, but seems reasonable enough for a start. I'm certain that he didn't make this principle up.

Sadi Carnot also made some useful contributions to other articles, such as Timeline of chemistry, which went on to become a featured list.(sample diff).

He participated in many discussion pages in articles related to thermodynamics, and while I wouldn't say he was always right, he was generally civil and provided references in many cases. I can add diffs about this later, but I think the point is been made that this was not a "disruption-only" account as described by Jehochman in his block note.

Besides Physchim62 and myself, two other editors who frequent chemistry topics described his contributions in this area in a positive way: Nick Y. and Bduke.

I won't speculate as to whether SC's good contributions were made in a deliberate attempt to inspire confidence, as I refuse to engage in mind-reading.

AfD's were inappropriately used for discussing user bans
This is in response of Kww's complaint that Physchim62 distorts the timeline by starting from the discussion at AN/I. AfD is a forum for deciding what to do with an article. It is not an appropriate forum for debating what is to be done to an editor. Nevertheless, some people repeatedly used it to cry for a lifetime ban on Sadi Carnot, which can only have contributed to the perception of the whole situation as a "witch hunt":


 * First post by Kww
 * Second post by Kww
 * Third post by Kww
 * Fourth post by Kww
 * Fifth post by Kww
 * Earle Martin
 * Ekjon Lok
 * First post by Tree Kittens
 * Second post by Tree Kittens

One can hardly say that there was a long "consensus" on the ban because a few people called for it at AfD. I had arguments against the ban in mind, but refrained from posting them there because it was the wrong place. The only thing I posted at AfD regarding the ban was a suggestion that the issue be taken to RFC or some other form of dispute resolution. . I'm glad that, soon thereafter, Jehochman made the message clear by posting a box about it at the top of the AfD nomination:. When the question of the ban was finally taken to AN/I, the indefinite block was put in place within hours, before I even noticed that there was a discussion going on.

Something that also contributes to the perception of this situation as a "witch hunt" is that people who don't support banning Sadi Carnot are automatically suspected sockpuppets, as was the case when Kww requested a check user of Physchim62 (which was soon rejected as unfounded).

Sadi Carnot attempted to deceive readers
I have restored two of the versions of the deleted article "Human chemistry" at Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot/Evidence/Human chemistry version 1 and Requests for arbitration/Sadi Carnot/Evidence/Human chemistry version 2. Version 2 was created by Sadi Carnot during the AfD Articles for deletion/Human chemistry using material from another of his articles, Human molecule.

Version 1 - Argues that "In science, human chemistry is the study of reactions between individuals who are viewed as "human molecules" or chemical species and with the energy, entropy, and work that quantify these processes."


 * Supports the thesis of the article using a work of fiction by Goethe that is described by Sadi as a "chemical treatise on the origin of love", a book as containing, in Sadi's words "the implicit assumption that humans are reactive species", a book by Charles Galton Darwin that uses this idea as a analogy, a joke article in a student magazine called "The Thermodynamics of Love", and a serious article in National Geographic on brain biochemistry - a completely separate subject.

Version 2 - Created 6 days into the AfD, when Sadi had been made aware that his previous version was unacceptable. The article argues that - "Human chemistry is a theory that describes the reactionary interaction between individuals who are viewed as "human molecules" or "chemical species","


 * Supports the thesis of the article using the novel by Goethe, the book as containing, in Sadi's words "the implicit assumption that humans are reactive species", a book by Charles Galton Darwin that uses this idea as a analogy, new material referenced to his website humanthermodynamics.com, a discussion of a chemist who described people as molecules in lectures - but who is quoted in the actual source cited to support this as saying "Dr Müller hopes his analogies will not be taken too seriously: "Obviously people are much more complicated than molecules—cartoon science is just a way to help someone understand something." - a bizarre aside into nanotechnology, the joke article "The Thermodynamics of Love", and the article in National Geographic on brain biochemistry.

Sadi's response to six days of sustained and detailed criticism of his original research and misrepresentation of sources was to create a longer version of the article containing yet more original research, unreliable sources, and misrepresented sources. This was a deliberate and sustained attempt to deceive. Tim Vickers 19:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Physchim62's perspective of the "beginning" distorts the timeline significantly
Physchim62 presents a timeline for this discussion which would make it appear that from beginning to end of the analysis took somewhere around five hours. This neglects the time that was spent during the AFD discussions. This began at 6:48 AM on Oct. 4th | initial AFD for Human Chemistry, and continued through the AFD for Georgi Gladyshev. For those of us that had been actively working on and reviewing the issue, all of these provided an essentially continuous discussion. Jehocham's block came after 16 days of deliberation by many parties, not the two hours that Physchim62's timeline would present. My statements, which Physchim62 presents as instantaneous, came 15 days after I first started to look into this. There was no rush to judgement ... there was a detailed analysis performed by Coren and Tree Kittens that presents a compelling argument.Kww 00:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Timing is always hard to see in hindsight
My checkuser on Physchim62 was done at a time when he had arbitrarily removed a block on Sadi Carnot without any support from any other user or admin. His actions appeared irrational and arbitrary, and would be what I would expect if an abuser had, over the course of two years, created a respectable persona for an admin.

If a persistent vandal did have the foresight to reserve one account for nothing but ethical behaviour in order to get adminship for that account, and use that account to run interference for his main account, the only way to discover that would be the use of checkuser. Asking the question is not the same as making an accusation ... it's just prudent. I'm not aware of any discreet way of asking for a checkuser. If there was, I would have used it.Kww 14:19, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Wavesmikey had a long edit trail
In | Physchim62's section on username changes, he draws attention to a sentence about people with "very few" edits. Wavesmikey has a edit trail of 300 entries that have survived the deletion of much of his work. Not my definition of "very few."Kww 13:09, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Physchim62 used his admin powers to further Sadi Carnot's interests in the past
During the content dispute on capture bonding, Physchim62 reverted to and protected Sadi Carnot's version. Looking at the history of capture bonding, the version reverted to (credited to Fredrick day) contains the disputed material by Sadi Carnot.Kww 03:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Physchim62 is being uncivil among other things
I wasn't going to comment here, but Physchim62 distorts what I said. "Hkhenson admits PoV-forking between capture bond and capture-bonding, also confirms that SC is behind humanthermodynamics.com"

"Admits" sounds like a criminal confession. I stated that I was going to clean out Sadi's BS in Talk:Capture-bonding ten days in advance of the time I did it. There were no objections.

I did not state that Sadi was behind humanthermodynamics.com, only that he on his user page and "Libb Thims" of that web site both claimed to have double majors in ChE and EE, Libb Thims from U of Michigan at Ann Arbor. I said I had verified that a real person, MK, the person who had registered the web site, humanthermodynamics.com, had graduated with a double major in ChE and EE on 4/30/1998.

"Hkhenson comments on SC's academic qualifications, points to Talk:Capture-bonding as an example of SC's editing"

I don't know directly about SC's academic qualifications. As above, he (or she) claims on Sadi's user page to have a double major in ChE and EE. "Libb Thims" claims on humanthermodynamics.com the same and that website claims that "Libb Thims" and "Sadi Carnot" are the same identity. MK, the person in whose name humanthermodynamics.com is registered does seem to have such a history. Unless you know more, you are jumping to conclusions. (Though you are probably right.)

An engineering degree or even two of them is not of itself qualification for editing or judging others edits on psychology, evolution or the intersection of these subjects in evolutionary psychology. []


 * Actually, in my non-specialist opinion, many modern management techniques make use of capture-bonding! But then my views on the evolutionary basis seem to be different from other authors'.... Physchim62 (talk) 17:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[]


 * Physchim62, could you describe what Xerox sales or management techniques have in common with what the SLA did to Patty Hearst to induce capture-bonding? (". . . blindfolded, imprisoned in a narrow closet, and physically and sexually abused.") To the best of my knowledge there are none, but I have not been a customer of Xerox for a long time. Keith Henson 21:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, actually! Both depend on controlling the social interactions of the individual concerned. Only an explanation of this type will explain all of the phenomena which people try to associate with "capture-bonding". Physchim62 (talk) 15:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

see also []

One of Sadi's more annoying habits was to shift around other people's text on discussion pages and compact out the white space. []

There was a regular dog pile of editors and admins, all supporting Sadi and not a one of them with a clue about the topic.

There is a good deal more here [] and at the bottom of the talk page for capture-bonding.

Keith Henson 20:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Physchim62's Reply to Hkhenson


 * "Yes Keith, I consider your views to be pseudoscience and your actions in forcing them on Wikipedia, to the exclusion of other points of view, to be disruptive."


 * I happen to be an engineer by training rather than a scientist, but "pseudoscience" is an extremely serious charge Physchim62 is bringing against me. Unlike the situation with crackpot scientists, large number of people can die if engineers believe in pseudoscience.


 * I resent Physchim62 sticking me in the same bin as Sadi Carnot. On the subject of evolutionary psychology, I believe my views are essentially congruent with those of the major researchers in the field.


 * Or is Physchim62 claiming evolutionary psychology is pseudoscience?


 * Is Physchim62 qualified to judge my views? If not, has he asked a qualified person to judge them? (I don't think Physchim62 did much of a job judging Sadi Carnot's obvious pseudoscience.)


 * As for "forcing them on Wikipedia, to the exclusion of other points of view" that is another very serious accusation, the kind of accusation that leads to arbitration rulings. Is Physchim62 ready to provide evidence?


 * This isn't distracting from the discussion about dealing with reoccurring Sadi Carnot cases because admins who enable and reward such behavior (as Physchim62 did in capture-bonding) are a significant part of the problem.


 * After due consideration, Physchim62 are you certain you don't want to retract these accusation? Keith Henson 20:51, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Response to Nick Y (below)
Nick states below I am Sadi Carnot's main adversary and that I engaged in similarly bad behavior


 * I don't believe he can make a case that I was Sadi Carnot's main adversary. I didn't know he had been banned until I was notified on my user page (you can see the date stamp, Oct. 20, ten days after his last post). I will grant that I was the first who noticed what he was doing last spring and I did participate on the margins of the Georgi Gladyshev AfD.


 * Re his rather strong language, "self cited, yet thoroughly unacceptable, work . . ."


 * From their web page:


 * "Mankind Quarterly is a refereed academic quarterly journal. Qualified authors wishing to submit manuscripts are invited see Notes for Authors."


 * Mankind_Quarterly "The Mankind Quarterly is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to physical anthropology and cultural anthropology and is currently published by The Council for Social and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. It contains articles on human evolution, intelligence, ethnography, languages, mythology, archaeology, race, etc. It aims to reunify biology with anthropology. The journal was founded in 1960, and originally published in Edinburgh, Scotland, by the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics."


 * I had forgotten that I used capture-bonding as an example of a typical evolved human psychological trait in the EP, Memes and War article as well. (It just isn't that important a part of an article that attempts to account for the origin of war.) But from the web version, I probably did. If anyone is near a large library that carries this journal please look it up. I can't be sure the web version is exactly the same till I find my hard copy of the Summer 2006 issue, but the web version reads:


 * "Evolutionary Psychology


 * "My contention, simply put, is that the evolutionary approach is the only approach in the social and behavioral sciences that deals with why, in an ultimate sense, people behave as they do. As such, it often unmasks the universal hypocrisies of our species, peering behind self-serving notions about our moral and social values to reveal the darker side of human nature. (Silverman 2003)


 * "The understanding that emerges from applying the profoundly powerful tool of evolutionary psychology to strange human behavior is often so obvious that one marvels why it has not been known for ages.

Updated Keith Henson 20:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC). Found my copy, Volume XLVI Number 4, Summer 2006. The above was exact, the next two paragraphs had been copy edited but were close. In print they read:

Consider the mysterious behavior of Elizabeth Smart in Salt Lake City in 2003 or that of Patty Hearst when she was abducted in 1974. In both cases the victims bonded to their captors and resisted leaving them. The evolutionary origin of this psychological trait, known as the Stockholm syndrome (or more descriptively as capture bonding)/ almost certainly comes from millions of years of evolutionary selection where our ancestors-usually our female ancestors-were being violently captured from one tribe by another. Those who had the psychological traits (ultimately gene-based mechanisms) that led them to socially reorient after a few days (i.e., bond) to their captors often survived to pass on the trait. Those who continued to resist, because they didn't have this trait, often became breakfast.

Being captured by neighbouring tribes was a relatively common event for women in human history, if anything like the recent history of the few remaining primitive tribes. In some of those tribes (Yanomamo, for instance) practically everyone in the tribe is descended from a captive within the last three generations. Perhaps as high as one in ten of females were abducted and incorporated into the tribe that captured tbem. Once you understand the evolutionary origin of this trait and its critical nature in genetic survival and reproduction in tbe ancestral human environment, related mysterious human psychological traits fall into place. Battered-wife syndrome is an example of activating the capture-bonding psychological mechanism, as are military basic training, fraternity bonding by hazing, and sex practices such as sadism/masochism or bondage/discipline.

(page 445-446)




 * FYI Update As you can see from all the red former links, 7 hours after I made the above post the article (and more important for an evidence page), the history and talk pages were deleted. Keith Henson 15:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Damage from Sadi Carnot's edits has spread outside the bounds of the English Wikipedia
On a hunch, I did a small linksearch which came up positive across many wikis. I then ran my spamsearch program which searches all Wikimedia wikis (see User:MER-C/Spamsearch.java for the source) and reported the results, which showed 227 links across all wikis. Most were due to uninvolved editors performing transwikis, translations or just thought including them would be a good idea because they are on en.

As a result, the spammed domains



were blacklisted globally to contain the spread of the pseudoscientific fringe materials.

Sadi Carnot and Wavesmikey were unquestionably the same person
Carnot's userpage states that "[y]ou can read a quick bio on me" at humanthermodynamics.com/Libb-Thims.html. The upload log for, , blows the sockpuppet's cover.

Keith Henson (Sadi Carnot's main adversary) engaged in similarly bad behavior
Keith Henson has cited himself to support his own POV in non-peer reviewed "journals" (i.e. a website that calls itself a journal and presents articles in journal format but is not a recognized academic journal). I find this behavior to be no different than Sadi Carnot citing his own self-published non-peer reviewed work. Although there are a very few limited legitimate citations the articles he pushed are clearly not notable without his own work. Sadi Carnot's bad articles also had a few legitimate citations. This should make it clear that administrative faith in either of these editors should be seriously reconsidered. Although Sadi Carnot's views are more easily identified as non-mainstream and his self cited work is more easily identified as illegitimate for supporting an article on WP the greater appearance of legitimacy of Keith Henson's self cited, yet thoroughly unacceptable, work poses a greater threat to WP.--Nick Y. 18:26, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Cross-wiki spamming
I just want to point out that there were no signs of user S.C. (or any account owned by him/her) posting links to Wikimedia wikis other than enwiki. Also, user MER-C:s statement that his/her spam search program (which is very useful, by the way) showed "227 links across all wikis" sounds a bit worse than it is. What was found outside enwiki was some 20 links, none of which seems to have gotten there as a result of spamming. This discussion on meta sums things up (I am user NH there). /SvNH 04:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Guy
Just a very minor point, it is noted above that some of the links added to humanthermodynamics.com are to copies of sources for content; this is not really relevant, since the articles in question contained off-the-page sales advertising, editorial description and other material serving to advance User:Sadi Carnot's agenda, so I would submit that they are not acceptable as sources. Citing the source without the link is acceptable. It's out of copyright so could also go on Wikisource, if the aim was to share knowledge rather than to promote a website.

See www.humanthermodynamics.com/Clausius.html for an example. I'd say that WP:RS and WP:EL indicate that where a copy of a source is bundled with editorial, then we should ensure that said editorial is from a respected neutral authority not a personal website. Guy (Help!) 13:10, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

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