The New Fizzle

Facts are facts, or why Darden et.al will lose the ECAT Case

This is a post, last updated in August, 2016, on thenewfire.wordpress.com, a site apparently owned by Rends, a lenr-forum.com moderator. I never saw any abusive moderator actions by him on lenr-forum, but when Alan Smith claimed to have the support of Staff, in his deletion actions and perhaps for his later ban, he could be part of that.

The blog is full of misinterpretation and conspiracy theory. The tagline is “Supporter of the LENR Revolution”, but, in fact, this is Planet Rossi, at its worst.

I received an email asking about a claim made on the blog page, so I’m looking at it in detail. Continue reading “The New Fizzle”

A guiding light: The Guerilla Skeptics

Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia

If you would like to join our project, we would love to have you. Open up a Wikipedia account, friend me on Facebook so I can add you to the Secret Cabal and write to me at GSoWteam@gmail.com

This is behavior that has gotten other users sanctioned on Wikipedia. As Susan Gerbic gains experience, and as experienced users join GSoW, they will exert power, Wikiedia is highly vulnerable to coordinated factions, it is vulnerable even to uncoordinated, ad hoc factions (which is what I confronted, and the evidence — which was clear — was rejected by the Arbitration Committee, and even deleted, later). The problem is Wikipedia decision-making process, which is arcane when conflict is present. Few know how to navigate it. Those who know, on what might be called the “believer side,” will be attacked and sanctioned as “POV-pushers,” but GSoW is pushing a POV, it’s been called “SPOV,” the “Scientific Point of View,” which is a misnomer, because science has no point of view, it is a process that transcends point of view, thus CSICOP, “Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.” Notice: not “Skeptical Investigation,” because science is always skeptical, but not opinionated.

The other side, the “believer side” is disorganized, generally, and uninformed. And then neutral Wikipedians, who may be skeptical but who seek to follow encyclopedia creation process and policy, are considered “believers,” or otherwise as enemies, by the SPOV faction, and may face threats or the reality of sanctions, if they make any mistakes at all, whereas the SPOV users who make mistakes are supported by factional administrators, often the same administrators who push for sanctions or declare and execute them.

I studied all this years ago. The Arbitration Committee majority, my opinion, saw the problem but had no idea how to fix it, and the Committee tended toward black-and-white decisions, implementing retroactive application of new ad hoc policy, that never created precedent. A bureaucratic nightmare in a community that supposedly rejects bureaucracy. So instead of a functional bureaucracy, with responsible bureaucrats, they get ad hoc bureaucracy, disorganized and following no clear policy, such that user could expect community response, i.e., “rule of law,” they get a complete mess which most sane users abandon after they realize what’s going on, leaving behind an increase in those who love to exercise power over others.

All created naturally without intention. So who is responsible?

We are.

Susan Gerbic, in that post, outs some of her members. I would guess with permission. I would hope with permission!

I want to make clear that I consider Arbitration Committee’s past sanctions of those who participated in an “interest group” mailing list to be short-sighted and immature. The problem is not coordination, the problem is a decision-making system that is vulnerable to factional editing. In that environment, there is a motive to create factional communication, and it will happen. It is unavoidable, but most of it will be invisible. It cannot be prevented, and most factions never become visible. GSoW is unusual. In fact, it should be encouraged, with some policy caveats. How to deal with the problem is not necessarily a simple issue, but if it is resolved, Wikipedia would become far more reliable.

So to her members. She gives a list of articles and names members. So here I will associate those with the Wikipedia accounts, if it is clear or likely.

From Gerbic’s post:

December 2015 I announced that GSoW was going to focus on Skeptic Books. We had big goals and worked off this Wikipedia list. This list was envisioned and written by GSoW and during the 6 months we focused on this Book Project we completely expanded this list of over 500 books. 

From the timing, yes, very likely created by a GSoW member.

List of possible members, numbers of edits in parens where small. There are some who edited the page who are general Wikipedians; however, editing the page shows possible interest in the topic. It would take more careful research into the overall editing patterns of the user to confirm or disconfirm possible factional POV, rather than “cabal” affiliation, or the cabal may have some long-term sleepers who become — or were — already Wikipedia editors and who continue.

Being listed here is not, in any way, an allegation of policy violation. Possible policy violations will be considered separately.

2013: NmillercheDaniel Skitt (17), LineJockey (9), 81.7.185.2, (2) DynamicimanydJoshH21122.109.40.153 (1), 75.118.113.129 (2), Jin-oh Choi (7 edits), LarianLeQuellaOttRider?, Caem586Rjmail98.217.42.67 (1), Your Funny uncle (22), BuboetheratBullRangifer?, KConWiki?, PetertrussellMrBill3JoolzztNorthamerica1000?, Dthomsen8?, Bgwhite?, JourneySarah?, JustAGal?, 

2014: Welsh?, OnlydemiDodafiskarBrainDadProper StrangerNederlandse LeeuwLaurencarr24PCHS-NJROTC?

2015: Gronk Oz188.25.25.155PapaSmirkJollyfisch, 211.30.17.74?,  Neptune’s TridentVaDawn

2016: Topbanana?KrelnikPh250076.174.20.198JulieMay54

101.119.14.128 is notable in the editors, supported deletion of the article in Articles_for_deletion/Skeptic’s_Library. Susan continues:

 What happened is that GSoW went through a complete turnaround with its training, organization and leadership. It was a massive change that I called GSoW 3.14, because of this we lost our focus on the Skeptic Book Project. 

So I apologize to anyone out there that was expecting great skeptic book pages to be turning out every couple days. The fact is that it takes a very long time to write a Wikipedia page correctly and everyone on my team has busy lives and we are all volunteers after-all.

Yes. She noticed.

Enough with the excuses, lets see what we did turn out. 

Right. We watch with interest.

Several of these books were not done in the last 6 months, but in the last few years. I’m going to include them anyway as they were created by GSoW and well worth some extra attention from our community. 

Tracking the Chupacabra by Ben Radford was created by Nathan Miller in June 2013. 

I Sold my Soul on E-bay by Hemant Mehta re-written by Christine Daley Feb 2014


Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait was created also by Nathan Miller as well as Plait’s other book Death From the Skies


God Sent Me: A Textbook Case on Evolution vs. Creation was a Wikipedia page I wrote after reading a review of the book in a Skeptical Inquirer magazine. The book was written by Jeffery Selman. 


The Psychology of the Psychic written by David Marks was created by April Poff


Paranormality by Richard Wiseman I wrote March 2016


Psychic Blues written by Mark Edward received a brand new page by April Poff


Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova was written by Janyce Boynton


Flim-Flam! by James Randi was rewritten in August 2014


Mysterious New Mexico written by Ben Radford was written by April Poff


Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend written by Joshua Blu Buhs received a brand new Wikipedia page from Janyce Boynton

Far far less than was our intention. Yet, each of these pages are strong, well researched pages that our community can be proud of.

And giving us plenty of material to look through for factional editing. Thanks, Susan. Most of this is likely to be decent encyclopedic work, my opinion starting out.

One more thing. What do the numbers look like? How many views have these Wikipedia pages received in the time that GSoW can say they took responsibility of the page?

This number is only a page view count, we can not know if these are unique visitors or how long the viewer stayed on the page. Just raw page views.

As of the writing of this blog on July 31, 2016 they have received

57,016 total views

4,387 in the last 30 days

975 in the last 7 days

Still quite an achievement.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Compared to what? My top Answer on Quora has about 800,000 page views. One Answer. However, it’s a factual Answer to a silly Question, that’s part of what made it popular, the deadpan literalism, sarcastic or not? That shows what is popular! Susan is demonstrating how to lead a project. My question for her would be if she knows how to turn it over. There are signs in what she writes that maybe not. She’s the leader and that’s that. But this is guesswork on my part.

Her greatest accomplishment so far: doing what she has been doing since 2013, and not being sanctioned.

If you would like to join our project, we would love to have you. Open up a Wikipedia account, friend me on Facebook so I can add you to the Secret Cabal and write to me at GSoWteam@gmail.com

My experience is that many will complain about situations, but few will actually do something. Fewer still will persist. It is the human condition, so far.

My plan here is to, if there is any interest, examine the vast array of linkages now exposed as possibly connected with the “cabal.” So far, I’ve seen nothing that truly violated policy. But I have not looked carefully at that AfD, at the voting there. There has been no seriously controversial editing on the List page, the GSoW work there was mostly unopposed, except for that AfD.

So what about the AfD? The arguments given for deletion were cogent, though it is possible that a consensus solution would be Merge.

The result was keep. LFaraone 05:48, 26 November 2013 (UTC).

This was a classic lazy close. In theory, Wikipedia does not vote. But many administrators treat AfDs as a vote, and just look at what appears to them to be a majority opinion. “Wiki” means “quick,” and these processes often exemplify that. To study an AfD, to consider all the arguments, to assess consensus with a consideration of who might be involved and who might not, would take hours. What Faraone did took minutes. And then, nobody and no faction being seriously offended, he was elected to the Arbitration Committee in 2014. This is adult supervision on Wikipedia:

LFararone, own work:

Very nice, to be sure. I have not reviewed anything else from LFaraone, nor do I plan to. He might be brilliant, it is only in this case that he did not explain his close, when there were real issues involved that remained and are still active, likely. Basically, the notability of the books and authors. And, again, I have not studied the article. Yet.

New files with a $150 million tidbit

Several new files appeared on the Rossi v. Darden case docket in the last few days. This is mostly technical stuff, but there is a bombshell buried in it, or at least a loud firecracker! A piece of fireworks! It’s in red below if you are an Impatient Cow.

Continue reading “New files with a $150 million tidbit”

Activity on 3rd Party Motion To Dismiss

Yesterday, IH filed an Opposition to D.E. 90, the renewed 3rd Party Motion to Dismiss, which had been filed on December 19, 2016.

Summary: Not much is likely to happen here, the arguments to dismiss are weak, unlikely to prevail in an MTD, where all plaintiff allegations that appear to have any factual basis at all will prevent dismissal and require at least discovery and perhaps trial to resolve. Continue reading “Activity on 3rd Party Motion To Dismiss”

Is LENR real?

Yesterday, on lenr-forum.com, THHuxley wrote:

As someone who tends to be a debunker I can answer that [question about why people argue so much on lenr-forum]. Internet sites like this tend to be fan sites, where the object is admired. In this case people here would believe or hope LENR exists and come to see what new proofs and applications have been found.

I introduce here evidence for the reality of LENR. Continue reading “Is LENR real?”

Lenr-forum miscellany, with a fast and clearly-earned ban

I’ve been cleaning up the blog, creating structure, having fun, and, today, mostly, I wrote for the private CMNS list. Then I looked at lenr-forum, and saw some Stuff. This is miscellany and I don’t know yet what I’ll call this, it’s just what hit me. Continue reading “Lenr-forum miscellany, with a fast and clearly-earned ban”

In the heart of Planet Rossi

What is “Planet Rossi”? This was originally a pejorative term, apparently coined by Dewey Weaver, for the community that “believes in” Andrea Rossi’s work. However, I recommend to those who support Rossi that they accept the language. “Planet” really just means a community. Human communities will have characteristics, but individual “members” may vary greatly.

There are two hearts to Planet Rossi. The first heart is the Rossi blog, which is how Rossi uses the Journal of Nuclear Physics, regularly commenting there in comments that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the article they are appended to. This is almost the only regular information as to what “Rossi Says.”

The other is E-catworld.com (ECW), apparently founded by Frank Acland, who authors most posts. While critics of Andrea Rossi often think that commentary on ECW is heavily censored, I have not personally found that to be so.

The occasion for this post, today, is a discussion on ECW of the recent disclosure of “interested parties” by J.M. Products, see Does Rossi’s “customer” matter?
Continue reading “In the heart of Planet Rossi”

Krivit’s con-fusion re power and energy

This is about two recent Krivit articles on his blog, New Energy Times, that showed his too-common misunderstanding of power and energy (crucial to understanding LENR research), combined with his yellow journalism that interprets conflict with his beliefs as “lies” and attempts to explain this to him as “cover-up.”
Continue reading “Krivit’s con-fusion re power and energy”

Planet Rossi or just plain Planet Confusion?

The Rossi v. Darden developments thread on Lenr-forum.com has moved into more general discussion of the case. Randombit0, I call Zero, showed up with Planet Rossi arguments. He actually provides, as he has in the past, a hint that he is Rossi, not that it matters much. I’ll come to that.

The usual mishegas is studied and compared with case evidence and, ah, expert opinion.
Continue reading “Planet Rossi or just plain Planet Confusion?”

Better late than never, or better let sleeping dogs lie?

About the Rossi Motion to File Late confusion, insisted upon by both Annesser (initial Rossi counsel) Chaiken (partner at Annesser’s new firm), a bad sign, and discussion about this on lenr-forum.com.
Continue reading “Better late than never, or better let sleeping dogs lie?”

Ignorance is bliss

“Ignorance is bliss” is a reference to easy assumption that a site has free discussion. Even when it starts to become obvious that this is not so, it’s easy to make up excuses that allow us to think that everything is cool, moderation is a difficult job, nothing need be done, etc. All of that may be somewhat true, but it allows situations to fester and grow. After all, the community must support it, because if they didn’t….

If they didn’t, what? Why, they would just go away! Which may leave no visible sign of any problem. A site may be far less successful than possible, but who will know?

Most people, as well, will be afraid to “rock the boat.” After all, they might be next ….
Continue reading “Ignorance is bliss”

The owner of JM Products

This post covers information we have on the ownership of J.M. Products, the “customer” for power produced by the “1 MW” Rossi reactor.

Summary: as claimed by Industrial Heat, this was a company created for the “test,” controlled entirely by Johnson, the President of Rossi’s company, Leonardo Corporation. Naughty, naughty!
Continue reading “The owner of JM Products”