Secret Mailing List Rocks Wikipedia

privatemusings writes "Wikipedians are up in arms at the revelations that respected administrators have been discussing blocking and banning editors on a secret mailing list. The tensions have spilled over throughout the 'encyclopedia anyone can edit' and news agencies are sniffing around. The Register has this fantastic writeup — read it here first." The article says that some Wikipedians believe Jimbo Wales has lost face by supporting the in-crowd of administrators and rebuking the whistle blower who leaked the existence of the secret mailing list.

Comments

What's wrong with wikicruft? (NS)

[Pinky's Brain]

Nuff Said.

Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago...

[QuantumG]

See, that's the kind of stupid argument that causes people to have so little interest in science. Newton had an opinion. Before him Aristotle had one. Both were equally valid and continue to be, until such time that it was shown that Newton's theory was a better predictor than Aristotle's. As such you can say that Newton's opinion is *better* than Aristotle's, but that in no way says that Aristotle's opinion was not or is not valid. They're two different things. Both are still just opinions. Most everyone now knows that neither of them are true. Maybe Einstein's opinion is true.. maybe it isn't. We will never know, and that is the only truth.

Re:Yeah, that's about what I thought

[pln2bz]

What does your theory propose as an explanation for what we know?
What does it predict that is different from the standard model?

50 words or less will be fine.

EU Theory states that space plasmas are being mathematically modeled improperly, and that we should look to laboratory plasma physics to understand how plasmas in space behave.

27 words.

The predictions of EU Theory are listed here:

http://www.mikamar.biz/predictions.htm

Re:Yeah, that's about what I thought

[pln2bz]

The prior link is by no means comprehensive. There are quite a few more predictions related to EU Theory that have come and gone in EU's favor. The prediction of lightning on Venus came to pass just this past week. The problem with lightning on Venus is simple:

"It's hard for people to imagine how the atmosphere of Venus would create
lightning," says planetary scientist Larry W. Esposito of the University of
Colorado. Venus, he points out, seems to lack the lightning-generation
system so familiar in terrestrial thunderheads: strong updrafts of
condensing vapor, which provide the particles that can carry opposite
electrical charges and the vertical motions needed to separate them. (The
sudden combination of the separated charges is a stroke of lightning. ) On
Venus, the clouds tend to resemble fog banks, says Esposito. "You don't see
much lightning in fog," he notes.

News of the announcement ...

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/071130blazingmane.htm

The planet Venus plays a critical role in EU Theory, as ancient cultures record its arrival as a comet-like body. It has been a contention for decades now that Venus is still cooling off from a catastrophic event.

Tim Thompson has spent much time trying to debunk EU Theory. His websites are frequently referenced by people as apparent proof that EU Theory is not true, but Tim Thompson has had a bad week. It's funny how all of these online conversations just fall into a black hole when enough time goes by. As a recap, Wal Thornhill clearly won this debate against Tim Thompson ...

From http://www.kronia.com/thoth/thoth14.txt:

[EDITOR'S NOTE: IN PREVIOUS POSTS WALLACE THORNHILL
HAS CONTENDED THAT THE PLANET VENUS SHOWS SUBSTANTIAL
EVIDENCE OF ELECTRICAL INTERACTION WITH ITS ENVIRONMENT,
A CONDITION SUGGESTING BOTH AN ELECTRICAL IMBALANCE
AND AN UNUSUAL, "COMET"-LIKE HISTORY.]

[Wal Thornhill, continuing his dialogue with Tim Thompson]:
>> The Venera spacecraft found continuous lightning activity from 32km down
>> to about 2km altitude, with discharges as frequent as an amazing 25 per
>> second. The highest recorded rate on Earth is 1.4/sec during a severe
>> blizzard. The Pioneer lander recorded 1000 radio impulses. Thirty-two
>> minutes after landing, Venera 11 detected a very loud (82 decibel) noise
>> which was believed to be thunder. Garry Hunt suggested at the time that:
>> '... the Venusians may well be glowing from the nearly continuous
>> discharges of those frequent lightning strokes'. A 'mysterious glow' was
>> detected coming from the surface at a height of 16km by 2 Pioneer probes
>> as they descended on the night hemisphere. The glow increased on descent
>> and may have been caused by a form of St. Elmo's fire and/or chemical
>> reactions in the atmosphere, close to the surface.

[Tim Thompson:]
>I cannot trace or verify Thornhill's remarks with regards >the Venera
>spacecraft. (PIB -- I assume Mr. Thornhill's original paper for the SIS
>included such references. Perhaps Mr. Thornhill or someone from the
>SIS can get a copy to Mr. Thompson for his perusal.) While the initial
>reports of lightning from Pioneer are easily available [1,2,3], those
>from Venera appear not to be [4,5], as they were published in obscure,
>or difficult to obtain sources. The Pioneer lightning detections were
>based on the observation of whistler mode waves (about 100 Hertz) when
>the orbiter neared periapse. The interpretation of those waves as
>lightning, supported by Scarf et al. [3], continues to be a matter of
>considerable controversy. There are a number of ionospheric processes