Wikiversity:Community Review/Fringe research

This review will be used to reconsider fringe research topics that have been excluded from Wikiversity.

Our Wikiversity:Research guidelines state:

“ At times, it may be useful to amend the Wikiversity research guidelines so as to explicitly exclude some types of fringe research if they disrupt Wikiversity or distract the community from its educational mission. ”

Excluded research

Two projects have been both disruptive to our community and a distraction from our educational mission: Cold fusion[1] and Parapsychology[2]

Any future work on these topics, broadly construed, is subject to pre-approval of research projects which will be conducted here. Any participant who desires to create resources on these subjects must present a formal request to the community at this page. Any new pages created on these topics without pre-approval will be speedily deleted. If you wish to pursue these topics please present a proposal below before contributing. --mikeu ^talk 19:13, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Requests

Please add your request below.

Cold fusion

Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.

Discussion

• I have the following research project Plasmas/Plasma objects/Nucleosynthesis. It is not limited necessarily by temperature but does look especially at nuclear fusion. The Cold fusion resource could become a sub-page Plasmas/Plasma objects/Nucleosynthesis/Cold fusion with all of its 125 sub-pages so that I can review them hopefully undisturbed. It would be a slow-moving, multi-year project with any outside comments restricted to Discuss pages only. If this is okay, let me know and I'll move all. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 02:03, 29 December 2017 (UTC). Copied over from user talk:Mu301 What I would be looking for are experimental results as documented in the scientific literature. Nuclear fusion doesn't always produce heat or neutrons. Much of the work I performed at Argonne National Laboratory on advanced materials for both fusion and fission reactors and the nuclear processes involved should provide a unique insight into this alleged 'fringe science'. Those pages containing valuable contributions, some of which I've already read, should be available for learners, teachers, educators, and researchers. I may also consult other experts for peer review. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:14, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Reviews

Oppose An important astronomical application I know of to cold fusion is the suggestion by Steven Jones of Brigham Young University that it could be a heating mechanism in gas planets. This is already briefly mentioned in w:Cold fusion, and more elaboration could be placed directly into the Wikipedia article. Also, the proposed page is already present on Wikiversity and does not need to be duplicated (or moved).--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 02:08, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Just FYI, but a review is a critique in this case of the proposal above regarding any potential cold fusion resources developed for Wikiversity. The likelihood of acceptance on Wikipedia of your modification is small even with your expertise, but Wikiversity loses much more. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 03:45, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

When I first read your text above it appeared as if you are suggesting an alternate proposal and opposing mine at the same time. Perhaps or perhaps not? The only page containing "Steven Jones" or "Jones" and a search with "cold fusion" here are in those up for deletion. Is there another page missed by the search? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 15:46, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

My references to "Jones" was to wikipedia:Cold fusion. I strongly support a Wikiversity page on Cold fusion that will serve as a hub for both fringe (or "alternative" or "new age" ect) research, as well as conventional teaching resources. But the consensus seems to be that we now remove all "questionable" items until some decisions are made. These "alternative", "fringe", or "questionable" resources need to be somewhere in the internet, and in wikitext, because history has proven that the "fringe" can evolve into the "mainstream". But Wikiversity lacks the resources to adequately referee articles, so we need to find a place for these items that will not make it impossible for educators to use Wikiversity for conventional education. Please respond on discussion page at User:Guy vandegrift/Blog/Making Wikiversity less chaotic; we need your support on this effort to reform Wikiversity.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 17:28, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply! I wholeheartedly agree with "I strongly support a Wikiversity page on Cold fusion that will serve as a hub for both fringe (or "alternative" or "new age" ect) research, as well as conventional teaching resources." And I will take a look at User:Guy vandegrift/Blog/Making Wikiversity less chaotic! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 18:13, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Oppose very strongly: It might be possible to conduct original research on this topic that complies with our research guidelines, but this topic requires too much attention in order to keep it within the scope of our policy and that effort stretches our resources too thin. This topic had divided and disrupted our community for far too long. It is time for us to take a long break and focus our attention on the other important (and neglected) resources that are in need development. --mikeu ^talk 21:57, 4 January 2018 (UTC) Oppose It's time to take a break from disruption. That includes both disruptive content and those supporting it. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:17, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Parapsychology

Discussions are archived for review purposes. Please start a new discussion to discuss the topic further.

Discusion

I'm not quite certain what to propose here and I've already got a lot to work on. My interest as illustrated by the reference I provided is in the results found through application of the scientific method regarding alleged paranormal events. These should be available as with the above for learners, teachers, educators, and researchers. Steigmann was putting together an enormous cited reference list so I'd probably start with the main page instead. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:24, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

The comment below is in reply to mikeu's oppose.

I wasn't asking to restore the content. I was quite specific about what I would be looking for. Once transferred the sentences and references could be given any title(s). I believe the "commercially profiting from" portions are on some subpage or have already been removed. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:48, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Reviews

Oppose very strongly: User:Ben Steigmann (currently indef blocked on two projects[3]) was commercially profiting from the deleted Parapsychology pages in violation of our ethics policy. Restoring that content would allow him to continue profiting from that work. Any new work on this subject should exclude all of his contributions - past, present, or future. There are also larger issues with those pages. The cross-wiki attacks of wikipedia content and contributors falls into the category of: "Unwelcome research... that threatens or compromises the reputation or public image of the Wikimedia Foundation or its various projects." The presence of these pages disrupts Wikiversity and distracts the community from its educational mission. I could go on and on and on listing numerous other problems with these pages... Why is this topic so important to our mission that the community should devote even more time and effort discussing such a problematic project? We also have a lot of work to do. These pages were deleted to remove an unwelcome distraction from that work. --mikeu ^talk 23:37, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

This comment refers to statements in the above opposition so I'm putting it here for relevance. Most abuse here and cross-wiki abuse (some 95 %) is not the pages themselves but were found by checkuser to be illegal sockpuppets including impersonations of Steigmann, hopefully all of which are now globally blocked and locked. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 18:27, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Oppose Echoing, it's time to take a break from disruption. That includes both disruptive content and those supporting it. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 22:17, 4 January 2018 (UTC) Oppose I would have opposed this earlier but was under the impression that a decision on Parapsychology had already been reached. I echo Dave's comment about disruptive content and suggest we declare that consensus has been achieved. On another page and in another discussion we can talk about how best to handle questions like this. I am in no rush to do this, and suggest we wait until we better understand the wikidata inter-linking system that crosses all wikis s might give us a reason to hold mainspace pages to a higher standard. I will ponder this on my blog, but meanwhile, let's close this discussion.