Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Depleted uranium

After due consideration I have decided to end my participation in these proceedings. I have come to the conclusion that there exists enough evidence, both in diff and in kind on the three active pages for the Arbitration Committee to come to a decision. More sterile debate with Salsman will not move this case forward any faster and I assume that the Committee isn't made up of dullards.

Should the Committee choose to place sanctions on my editing after they have deliberated, I would appreciate a note to that effect on my talk page or by e-mail. I will no longer be monitoring these pages on my watch list. --DV8 2XL 01:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

A nice cup of tea and a sit down
I have the following good things to say about those participating in this debate:

Dr U knows when to admit a mistake;

DV8 2XL wants what is apparently best for humanity;

Cadmium finds good thermodynamic references and does good math;

Physchim volunteered to help when no other mediator would;

TDC is persistent and loyal;

The non-parties may have the best interest of the community at heart;

The clerks certainly have the best interest of the community at heart;

The arbitrators deserve to be thanked and everyone's appreciation for reading so much in service to the community. Why the Foundation hasn't made their positions paid is beyond me. --James S. 05:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Some recent authoritative sources
I recently sent the message below to Dr. Carl Alexander, who has been active in uranium physical chemistry for almost half a century, and is a famous scientist in other fields, participating in the Voyager space probe program and currently working on missile defense systems. He replied thusly:

Forwarded Message Subject:    RE: uranium combustion produces how much UO3(g)? Date:    Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:31:15 -0400 From:    Alexander, Carl A (alexandc at BATTELLE dot ORG) To:    James Salsman (james at bovik dot org) I would expect that gaseous UO3 would be the major product of such “burning” in air. I consulted and reviewed Wendell Wilson’s paper prior to publication so I am familiar with it although I haven’t seen it in a good many years. I don’t know the health hazard of gaseous UO3 but chemically it behaves a lot like WO3 and WO3 is certainly a bad actor. Gaseous UO3 is quite stable and you are correct that upon condensing it would likely become U3O8. -Original Message- From: James Salsman Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 4:11 PM To: Alexander, Carl A Subject: uranium combustion produces how much UO3(g)? Dear Dr. Alexander: Thank you for publishing your paper, "Volatilization of urania under strongly oxidizing conditions," which I recently read with great interest. I have been trying to determine the amount of UO3(g) produced from combustion of uranium. I have recently been corresponding with the famous coordination chemist Prof. Simon Cotton, who suggested that I contact you with my question. Depleted uranium munitions such as those used for 20-30 mm and larger antitank ordnance are incendiary due to the pyrophoric nature of uranium. More than 30% of such bullets' uranium metal burns in air when they are fired against hard targets. It seems that the burning temperature should usually be above 2500 Kelvin, because the bullets are described as fragmenting into a spray of tiny particles as they pass through armor. (Mouradian and Baker (1963) "Burning Temperatures of Uranium and Zirconium in Air," Nuclear Science and Engineering, vol. 15, pp. 388-394.) Inhalation of uranium combustion fumes is suspected in major illnesses reported in veterans and civilians of the February, 1991 Gulf War. However, none of the people responsible for determining the health hazards has yet reported measurements of the gas vapors produced, only the particulate aerosol fumes, which are described as 25% UO2 and 75% U3O8 (Gilchrist R.L., et al. (1979) "Characterization of Airborne Uranium from Test Firings of XM774 Ammunition," Technical report no. PNL-2944 Richland, WA: Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory.) Based on the thermodynamic formation energy data I have been able to find (H. Wanner and I. Forest, eds. (2004) Chemical Thermodynamics of Uranium (Paris: OECD and French Nuclear Energy Agency) http://www.nea.fr/html/dbtdb/pubs/uranium.pdf -- see table V.4 on p. 98) it seems like production of UO3 would be much more likely than UO2 or U3O8. Moreover, condensation and subsequent decomposition of UO3(g) can explain the U3O8(s) product: see Wilson, W.B. (1961) "High-Pressure High-Temperature Investigation of the Uranium-Oxygen System," Journal of Inorganic Nuclear Chemistry, vol. 19, pp. 212-222, at the bottom of p. 213. If there are substantial amounts of UO3(g) produced in uranium fires, that could explain discrepancies in both troop exposure patterns and the solubility and resulting pharmokinetics of those exposed. Most people have been assuming that only the particulate aerosols present any exposure risk. But those settle out of the atmosphere much more quickly than gas, which is absorbed immediately if inhaled in contrast to the great length of time which it takes for UO2 and U3O8 particles to dissolve in the lungs. Urine tests intended to determine exposure which measure the ratio of uranium 238 and 235 isotopes assume that only particulate aerosols and not quickly absorbed and dissolving gas have been encountered. Those urine tests have been negative for exposure in patients who have the symptoms of uranyl poisoning. Can you please help shed any light on the amount of UO3(g) produced when uranium burns in air? Thank you. Sincerely, James Salsman

Also, a few days ago I found this:


 * ...when DU burns, the high temperatures created act to oxidize uranium metal to a series of complex oxides, predominantly depleted triuranium octaoxide (U3O8), but also depleted uranium dioxide (UO2), and depleted uranium trioxide (UO3)....

-- on an official U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense web page: Unsuprisingly, my atempt to add this information to Uranium trioxide was quickly revertd by DV8 2XL without any explanation. So, I have added a POV-because tag to that article, and I ask that it remain there while this dispute persists. --James S. 21:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Note by User:Separate Issues
Moved from log of blocks and bans.

Please note: Please be more careful next time. SeparateIssue 07:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 216.173.207.10 has very little editing overlap with Nrcprm2026
 * 216.173.207.10 is a static IP in Olympia, Washington while Nrcprm2026 claimed to be in Menlo Park, California
 * No checkuser was performed before this block.
 * claims to be 216.173.207.10, and not Nrcprm2026

Request for clarification from Jan 2007
To the extent that the decision in Requests for arbitration/Depleted uranium was influenced by the claimed credentials of anonymous users compared to my admitted amateur status, and a vigorous factual dispute about the production of uranium trioxide gas was taking place at the same time, and the fact that I have been repeatedly shown to have been on the correct side of more than 10 out of 12 protracted factual disputes related to depleted uranium (e.g., per Carter and Stewart (1970) half of burning uranium becomes a gaseous vapor fume), I reclaim the right to edit Gulf war syndrome to remove the very old conflicting graphs which serve only to delay people searching for the table of contents on that A-class genetics article. If this is improper, please let me know why. Please note that I have not been accused of editing Uranium trioxide improperly, and those accusing me of having edited Depleted uranium improperly have been shown to be incorrect. Thank you. James S. 17:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, I'd like to place Carter and Stewart (1970) as a thumbnail in Uranium, because I read somewhere that fair use images need to be in articles, so I'll do that unless an arbitrator tells me not to. James S. 17:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I also removed a redundancy in Uranium trioxide and believe that to be proper at this stage; if it is not, please let me know why. Thank you. James S. 18:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * All three of my edits were reverted by a participant in my original arbitration case, although the last one was unreverted by a third party as useful. I await clarification. James S. 03:32, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You are banned from editing these articles. You can appeal or ask for a reconsideration of the remedies in your case, but you can not edit the articles in the mean time.  Consequently I'm blocking you for violating the terms of the decision.  I would also like to note that the article block was not imposed because the content of your edits was wrong, but because your editing behavior was unacceptable, and Requests_for_arbitration/Depleted_uranium does not look promising in this area.  It appears that you are not banned from the article talk pages; in the future if other editors won't adopt your suggestions, you should try mediation, RFC or third opinion rather than violating your article ban. Thatcher131 05:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Simply using the article's talk page, or, if you are banned from it, user talk pages or noticeboards, should suffice until your ban is over. Dmcdevit·t 07:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I ask for a reconsideration of the remedies in my case, because whether my editing behavior was appropriate or not (and I re-assert that it has been, now that we know for scientifically-established fact that half of burning uranium becomes gas vapor) my edits have improved the quality of the encyclopedia, and my detractors' edits have damaged the factual accuracy of the encyclopedia.

Please do not understate the importance of this issue. Many people try to make Wikipedia and the rest of the web say that depleted uranium munitions have no serious lasting effect. If I remain blocked from editing, that hurts more than my desire to bring truth to light. Perceived insults will be forgotten over time, but chromosome damage can affect millions of generations. I beg the committee to choose accuracy and truth for the Uranium, Depleted uranium, Uranium trioxide, and Gulf War Syndrome articles, and for the people who read them, and for the decisions those people make, because those decisions will affect all of us, if they have not already.

I ask that the remedy be modified allowing me to edit Uranium as I have proposed on Talk:Uranium, and whatever other modifications the committee thinks just. James S. 03:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've just familiarized myself with the case. Even this appeal seems to miss the very first principle cited in the the final decision: Wikipedia is not a soapbox. It doesn't matter a bean (in terms of the articles you are banned from editing) whether you are 100% or 100% wrong; it's the way you were going about your editing that got you where you are now. Since you still don't seem to recognize what it was you were doing that resulted in the ban, it doesn't seem likely to me that you will not resume exactly the behavior that made the bans necessary in the first place. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 08:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I continue to believe that creating an accurate encyclopedia is so much more important, especially in this case, than the injury supposed by the incorrect theory that I have been trying to use Wikipedia as a soapbox, that I believe all arbitrators will, when they look closely enough, want to eliminate all of the remedies against me. As that has not been the case, I would ask that the arbitrators take a closer look at the factual disputes surrounding the matter.  I understand that the committee is not expected to rule on content disputes, but that the results of factual disputes often control the correct outcome of behavioral disputes.  Again, except for a few slight mistakes made a long time ago, I maintain that my behavior has been exemplary, especially given the circumstances.  James S. 01:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * James, do you also believe that the creation of multiple single purpose accounts is the best way to evade your block? I especialy like your newest one, User:Stan Ison. Ison creates an account, and edits only the articles you are banned from, and surprisingly enough, argues from the same exact POV. Then again, this is simply one you dozens of attempts to perform and end run around your ArbCom ban! And now we know why, apparently you are a bit flustered that the published version of Wikipedia is going to be published without your favorite version in it! As far as you being correct, all anyone here has to do is brows the Talk:Uranium trioxide pages and see the discussions you have had with multiple credentialed experts in chemistry to see that this is a bold faced lie. Simply repeating yourself over and over again does not make it true. Does the arbitration committee think its fair that you have been in large part responsible for driving off at least two editors User:Olin and user:DV8 2XL (one being a PhD in material science engineering and the other in chemistry) who were actually educated and knowledgeable on this subject? I would as that someone here review the relevant evidence and ban James from editing talk pages or pestering users into making these changes for him. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 06:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Even if I was another user, that wouldn't be as bad as inserting old lies that should be obvious. James S. 16:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I would endorse a talk page ban. On Talk:Uranium trioxide James merely rehashes the same old ideas that earned him his ban from Depleted uranium and associated articles, and he refuses to involve himself in any others aspect of the encyclopedia. Dr Zak 18:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Please have a look at Talk:Uranium and tell the arbitrators, "Dr" Zak, does uranium trioxide gas exist or not? As for your other accusations, I've contributed to Wind power, Battery electric vehicle, Nutrition, and hundreds of other articles. James S. 21:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * One wishes you would involve yourself elsewhere and stop being prolific and unproductive on uranium-related talkpages. Thanks for your cooperation. Dr Zak 12:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Removing inaccuracies from those who try to claim that uranium trioxide gas does not exist or is not a substantial combustion product of uranium is one of many productive tasks I work on here. An accurate encyclopedia is more important than the risk of disgruntling a handful of editors who have been deceived by pro-uranium munitions propaganda, of which there is no short supply. James S. 20:51, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm still here. I'm just not wasting precious moments of my life on this topic any more.Olin 18:26, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Would this biographical stub be associated with depleted uranium?
I am prohibited from editing articles "associated" with depleted uranium, but what is and is not associated has never been defined. This has caused some difficulty, but not so much as to be insurmountable. For example, an arbitration clerk has claimed that Gulf War syndrome is associated with DU, while my erstwhile arbitration opponents insist that there is no such association.

I would like to create the following biographical stub:


 * John Taschner is a member of the technical staff in the Environment, Safety and Health Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory where he is involved in radiological transportation accident exercise planning. Prior to coming to Los Alamos, Taschner was Deputy Director of the US Navy's Radiological Controls Program Office in Washington, DC, and has held numerous key health physics management positions with the US Navy and Air Force. Since the 1970s, Taschner has served on several radiation protection standards committees. Since 1992, Taschner has been the Vice Chairman of the American National Standards Institute's N43 Committee, which writes radiation safety standards for non-medical radiation producing equipment. In the 1980s, Taschner received an award from the US Navy for convincing them to use tungsten instead of depleted uranium munitions in the Phalanx CIWS ship defense system. Taschner has been a member of the Health Physics Society since 1958 and is a member of the American Academy of Health Physics. Taschner earned his M.S. in radiation biophysics from the University of Kansas in 1966 and, in 1973, received his certification in Health Physics by the American Board of Health Physics.

My inclination is that Taschner's association with depleted uranium is not strong enough to consider his biography "associated" with DU. I respectfully request clarification from the arbitrators concerning their opinion on this question. In the event that the biography is considered associated with depleted uranium, I would request suggestions for how I should submit this request to other editors (because a non-existant article doesn't have a talk page.) If no comments are forthcomming within seven days, I will create the biographical article in the interest of making a comprehensive and accurate encyclopedia. James S. 19:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * And in comes the camels nose! Non notable biography and would not survive a Vfd as his name only brings up 79 hits in google Torturous Devastating Cudgel 19:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Taschner easily satisfies Notability (people) because he has made widely recognized contributions that are part of the enduring historical record in his field, and has received multiple independent awards for his work, as TDC's Google hits show (and is even more clear if you include his middle initial.) James S. 19:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I would say he's clearly "associated" with depleted uranium. The only even arguably notable sourced detail in that stub is that he received an award for his opposition to depleted uranium.  My recommndation would be (1) if you wrote a stub that didn't mention depleted uranium in any respect or link to any page discussing depleted uranium, you would probably be fine; (2) if you do write about depleted uranium, then you're writing about something "associated" with depleted uranium; and (3) since your stub doesn't include reference to multiple independent non-trivial published accounts discussing Dr. Taschner, it will probably get deleted as non-notable under WP:BIO.  TheronJ 15:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Note: On Feb 5, 2007, James added the John C. Taschner stub that he proposed above, using his new username. As I stated, I personally think that adding a stub for a government employee whose only claim to notability is his opposition to depleted uranium is pretty clearly editing an article "related to depleted uranium," but maybe we need some clarification from an Arb Comm member or clerk. Thanks, TheronJ 16:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Firstly, he isn't notable because he was opposed to DU, but because the Navy gave him an award for convincing them not to use it, and because the Health Physics Society awarded him a fellowship -- multiple independent awards, as per WP:BIO. His interaction with DU was a very small part of his life, most of which has been spent on the Accident Response Group preparing to clean up after nuclear weapons incidents.  Secondly, without clarification on what is and is not "associated" with depleted uranium, my restriction is unreasonably vague. James S. 03:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * James, you are Wikilawyering. I have nuked it, leave it to some other editor who does not have this sanction against them.  It is self-evidently the case that his purported notability rests in large part on DU, and if you edit the article you;re asking for trouble.  Please just respect the ruling. Guy (Help!) 23:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * "he isn't notable because he was opposed to DU, but because the Navy gave him an award for convincing them not to use it." Say wha...? Perhaps others can handle cognitive dissonance better than I can. Raymond Arritt 23:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Asking a question isn't wikilawyering. What is "associated" and what is not? Am I at the mercy of what is or is not "self-evident" to any admin? James S. 07:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. Nandesuka 05:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)