![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
This talk page really needs cleaned up. We have 60 some odd entries, and I am sure not all of them are current. I imagine atleast 25% of this could be archived. DerwinUMD 04:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with most arguments above about Ryan, we have to be careful when citing scientific claim outside someone's field. Ok then, let's get to the points. I've looked through Ryan's paper and a first half of his presentation. I've tried to collect his claims into major ones that could be included into the article and then be backed up by adding or citing minor facts or other sources. Second part of Ryan's presentation, which focuses on precise critique of NIST report, I'll try to look through later. To simplify discussion, I would propose to put following chars near the sentences:
I've already put some, I haven't made a distinction whether to include a fact as a quote, a reference or directly into the article. Feel free to add other remarks and please fix language, rephrase claims, etc. SalvNaut 07:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Jim Hoffman's done it already. He wrote a review of 'A New Standard For Deception: The NIST WTC Report' presentation by Ryan. SalvNaut 22:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that Hufschmid has been added to the history. While it is true that he came out early on with a book and that it helped to introduce the idea of the demolitions to people, he was very soon rejected by many groups when people learned of his attacks on average people (sheeple) and his anti-semitic views (holocaust denial and worse). Try clicking on some of the links on his site here.
The article wording currently mentions nothing about what he became known for soon after his book so it gives a false impression that he has good standing in the activist community. Those who associate with him are generally the same people who associate with Jimmy Walter (nukes at the WTC, etc) and Chris Bollyn, a writer for American Free Press, which shares the same mailing address with the Barnes Review, which says that Hitler should be nominated for a Nobel Peace prize.
The argument against including more about Hoffman was that he wasn't published in mainstream published books the way Griffin, Jones and Tarpley were, but neither was Hufschmid, and far worse, so I don't see why a personal history of his efforts should be on the page. Hufschmid's book also paired the idea of the demolitons with the idea that a real plane didn't hit the Pentagon, that instead, a missile must have. Virtually no one supports the idea that a missile hit and this is the primary idea used to discredit the entire movement. Thus the self-published book was highly flawed in its reasoning on the Pentagon but that idea was just as prominent as the demolition idea.
Oilempire has this to say about Hufschmid -
Yes, I appreciate this concern. I had purposely left him out for a long time also, basically for these reasons. But there is no question in my mind now that Hufschmid's book is of historical interest. (McMichael, as far as I can tell, is the first as such to insist on CD--Hufschmid is the first to do so in a book.) Note that PM cites Walter's advertisement in the NYT as the impetus for their debunking. The PM book is clearly part of the story of controlled demolition. I don't think there is any reason to spend a lot of time discrediting Hufschmid or the book by elaborating on his views beyond the WTC, but we should probably add a sentence that makes it clear that the current Jones-Griffin-Tarpley hypothesis is critical of many aspects of this early effort. (I note, however, that Tarpley doesn't reject nukes and other exotica completely.)-- Thomas Basboll 07:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand this concern. :) So he is a nutcase. So are most people pushing the 9/11 conspiracies. It's gonna be pretty unavoidable to mention nutcases in an article about one of the central tenents in the whole web of conspiracy theories... -- Regebro 08:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I make no suggestion to discredit Hufschmid - simply tell the truth about who he is at this moment, which is not who people thought he was when he first emerged with his book. In his eyes, and those who support his positions, this is certainly not discrediting. bov 22:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The current Jones-Griffin-Tarpley hypothesis would not exist without - to some extent - the early work not only of Hufschmid but also Hoffman, whose site, 911research.wtc7.net, is the highest google ranked website on the Internet which focuses on the demolition hypothesis. It's been surprising to me that this apparently this has no meaning on here, that the fact that around 10,000 people per day visit the site and learn about demolition isn't of note. Hoffman's contribution was major in a number of ways (he essentially organized the key points of demolition - the symmetry, the rapidity, etc. - and did key early analyses of the official reports), but the insistence on here has been that a major publishing house has to have published the work for anyone to be mentioned. Griffin, Tarpley and Jones all attribute a significant amount of credit to Hoffman for their work, yet he must be essentially invisible on here because he has not submitted a book to Random House. Pop Mech has cited him specifically in their latest book.
Hoffman recently did an event with Steven Jones at UC Berkeley as one of the two main presenters on the demolitions [10], yet, only Jones can really be mentioned here. It seems bizarre. bov 22:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
While I think this article still needs a lot of cleaning up, I wonder if anyone is still worried about its neutrality. There are basically two senses in which it might lack NPOV. Either the criticism section is insufficiently developed, or there are too many sentences that use POV language in the whole article. If you think this article lacks NPOV please make no more than three specific criticism below (preferably citing specific sentences) in order of importance. We can then fix them and move on to the next three, if any remain.-- Thomas Basboll 00:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The facts mentioned in the captions of these pictures has been discussed on the 9/11 CT article. I propose we sort it our here and transfer a sentence or two back to that article. I've taken them out until the matter is settled.-- Thomas Basboll 21:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I just removed this from the critcism section:
This can't be a criticism of CD since the remarks were made in 1993. In any case, they seem to confirm the core elements of the CD hypothesis: that a plane would not bring down the building and that controlled demolition could. I don't think any CD'ers have used this info, however. If they have, we can include it.-- Thomas Basboll 21:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I've worked on it a bit tonight, and this is as far as I've gotten. I think PM should be added explictly (and McCain's foreword to that book, if I recall, uses the "disrespecting the victims" argument -- he's the right sort of source for that.) Also, we might do a bit more point-by-point refutation. This would probably also help us to focus the evidence section. Happy editing.-- Thomas Basboll 22:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I can see there's some dispute about including a link to the film 9/11 Mysteries. The hypothesis has been propogated to a large extent by way of videos. These are of variable notability, but not all of them are irrelevant. What's the cases for and against this one?-- Thomas Basboll 14:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone. I've gone through the whole article and tried to work it into shape for peer-review. There are still some things to be done, and I've marked the areas that are in particular need of cleanup and expansion. I'd suggest we do a quick job on each of these areas, and then see if we can get some outside editors to review it. I've collected all the rebuttals in the criticism section, and I'm planning to turn it into more orderly prose soon. Do add any major arguments you feel are missing.-- Thomas Basboll 23:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
While a proof read through could probably help, I think we are ready to send this to peer review. What do you think?-- Thomas Basboll 13:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the biggest problem with this article is the assertions in the claims section. Most of the assertioins there (The towers came down just slightly slower than the rate of free fall in a vacuum.) are stated as fact. There are other issues, but that's the one that stands out first. Rx StrangeLove 17:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I have escaped from the indent on purpose. This section was ro discuss whether the article is ready for Peer Review. Instead the discussion is about speed of falling. This is interesting and off topic, though it could just (hmm, that word again) be argued that this is "necessary prior to peer review". However that is not the case. Peer Review is intended for "living articles", so let us look at peer review and not other topics. We surely do not need a vote? Fiddle Faddle 23:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Sorry. What is the procedure?-- Thomas Basboll 23:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I have now done all the respinding to the automated peer review out[ut that I am capable of. Please will someone else finish the work, after wi=hich I suggest Thomas submits the article for Peer review. Fiddle Faddle 22:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.
between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 13 pounds, use 13 pounds, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 13 pounds.{{fact}}
s.You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Fiddle Faddle 00:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I just reverted some material on Scott Forbes and the idea that there was a power down. We need much better sources to establish this as a fact, and non-self-published controlled demolition proponents who use his claims for anything. We also need to include it up in the main section (if such sources can be found), not the criticism section. Sorry.-- Thomas Basboll 12:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
It is highly advised that anyone editing 9/11 pages do a thorough reading of the "Controlled Demolitions and Common Sense" section on this page. Kings 32 06:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Given that the conspiracy theory template is
I see no reason to have a highly erronenous and skewed CT "template" featured on this page which does not even have "conspiracy theories" in its title. This page is about the rationale of the scientific hypothesis for demolition. Tom Harrison, who has had no role in this page, continues to repost it and repost Jeff Rense to the content of the template, despite being asked repeatedly not to. bov 02:55, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
One matter conspicuously absent is the total lack of a motive for the controlled demoltion of Tower 7. The amount of work that this would have taken to achieve what? The demolition of an extraneous building. It doesn't seem to pass the common sense test. ChristinaDunigan 11:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
There is some material in the overview article on 9/11 conspiracy theories about "mini-nukes" and other exotic technologies being used to demolish the twin towers. Maybe somebody should add a comment on this here? -- Robert Merkel 02:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
No radiation was ever found, but tht hasn't stopped anyone talking about it. There probably should be some kind of section on it in this article, as it's now gaining popularity, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth are starting to talk about it. DanCrowter 08:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Man, looking over this article, one would have to be smoking crack cocaine to believe that the conspiracy theories have any proof behind them. Who wrote this crap?-- Beguiled 20:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I am trying to get this article deleted. Does anyone know how to do this?-- Beguiled 20:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I think i found the template that will delete this article. If my template is wrong, can someone please add the correct template? Thank you!-- Beguiled 21:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
If there is some other way to have the article deleted, can someone do it for me, as the page that supposedly shows how to delete an article is very complicated. Why can't I just delete it myself?-- Beguiled 21:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Urgh. I added a link that clearly states that "due to fire and/or debris-induced structural damage of a critical column" is the reason the world trade center building number 7 collapsed. If anyone saw pictures of before the building collapsed, they would be obvious that there was a lot of structural damage from when the towers collapsed.-- Beguiled 21:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I have changed the title of this article to one that is more accurate. I will be working on further removal of some of the ridiculous information here since we can't delete it, we might as well make sure it doesn't continue to make Wikipedia look like fools are writing it.-- Beguiled 21:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
You changed the name back to the wrong title. What we have here is a failure to communicate. Indeed, this stuff is a conspiracy theory and the only "hypothesis" is one that is being pushed by those who want to make conspiracy theories look like truth. I don't see any rationale for your changing the name of this article back, so how do I get the new title to stick? Is this something that is decided by a vote or something?-- Beguiled 22:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay so I can bring it to a vote and see what the community wants then? Is that the best way to do it?-- Beguiled 22:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
But that was a discussion based on changing the word hypothesis to theory or vice versa. I want to change the title to conspiracy theories, no other title is accurate to describe what is being discussed here. To be honest, I don't even know why this article even exists! What facts is it based on? I guess I can understand why the article can exist to descibe the phenomenon, but to call it a hypothesis or a theory is ridiculous.-- Beguiled 22:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Didn't you already ask me if I was a different user on my user page? I said no. So, since you are now accusing me since we disagree with each other, maybe you are being uncivil to me? I am just a bit angry that this stuff is on Wikipedia because it doesn't make us look like an encyclopedia.-- Beguiled 22:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Dear Beguiled, it seems that you misunderstand the premise under which an article should appear in Wikipedia. You ask: Man, looking over this article, one would have to be smoking crack cocaine to believe that the conspiracy theories have any proof behind them. Who wrote this crap? You are entitled to ask everything except Who wrote this crap? which is uncivil and a behaviour which, if continued, is likely to achieve hostility towards you and your opinions, and may well lead to formal action against you by any editor who feels insulted by your words.
That the conspiracy theories themselves may well be total rubbish is fine. They may be. The purpose of this article is to document one set of them. It is not here to say that they are correct, nor that they are incorrect. It is to document in a perfectly neutral and encyclopaedic manner that fact of their existence at all.
The article may well be imperfect, but that does not mean it should be deleted. That means it should be improved such that it is a better record of the fact of the existence of this particular hypothesis. Deleting the article would not remove the documented and well sourced facts that the hypothesis exists.
The hypothesis may be wholly flawed. It may be total rubbish. It may be a tissue of lies and pure fabrication by people with unusual motives. But that does not mean it is not proper to have an article which documents this correctly. In fact it makes it very important to have such an article in order to allow people to draw proper and educted conclusions from the material presented to them.
Many of the editors who have contributed to this article do not subscribe to the controlled demolition hypothesis at all, they, we, are simply documenting that it exists. Fiddle Faddle 00:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Yaya, but if I can't delete the article, then I should at least be able to change the title to one that is correct. I don't see how anyone can call this a hypothesis or theory, but it is definitely a conspiracy theory. I already added a reference since some editor kept removing my facts. By peer review, does that mean someone actually intends to publish this article?-- Beguiled 22:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I have seen your comments. Sorry if I insult, but I find this article insulting. Look "HYPOTHESIS implies insufficient evidence to provide more than a tentative explanation" http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=hypothesis but this is all based on a complete lack of evidence. Where did all this stuff come from? In order to do what this article says was done, it would involve a conspiracy and the best title for the article would be conspiracy theory since that is what this is.-- Beguiled 23:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
What you claim as evidence simply isn't evidence at all. There have been multiple parties that did examine what happened and none of them support a building being blown up. People are now also removing my cited and referenced information just because they don't like facts here obviously. There is s serious problem here.-- Beguiled 05:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC) The place to discuss a controversial name change would be requested moves, I think. Tom Harrison Talk 23:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can tell there is one single action remaining before this article is submitted for
peer review, which is to cite the one {{fact}} tag left, which is
here:
“ | Weakened frame
One of the basis for the controlled demolition theory is that collapse would be impossible because of fire alone. The most detailed efforts to refute controlled demolition therefore involve demonstrating that the fires were indeed exceptionally hot and that the steel would have been sufficiently weakened. The NIST report here supplies most of the data. [citation needed] Leslie Robertson, a structural engineer who was involved in the design of the WTC, debated the issue with Steven Jones on the radio.[88] |
” |
While a peer review is, of course, no guarantee that the article will not be deleted at some future point, it will bring a different, wider population of editors in to look at the article in depth and thus provide valuable input. We may even achieve Featured Article Status.
I have worked steadily through the Automated Review tool Output in order to knock off each of the tasks I cna do, one by one, in order to leave those that require specialist knowledge or research to editors whose interest is the topic per se, rather than my own interest which is the article as an article. This is the final task left prior to submission (which I feel should be by any of the major contributors, not be me as a minor contributor). It probably no longer even needs 'consensus to suibmit' since this has been an end goal since the last AfD. Perhaps the person adding the citation could just be bold and make the submission? Fiddle Faddle 12:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I have edited the reference to comply with the "Cite Web" template, extracted the relevant quotation from within it, and modified the place in the intro where the quote is applied to remove the extra detail since it is firmly and attributably in the footnote. We should note that this reference dos not state that there was damage caused by débris. It states instead "An initial local failure occurred at the lower floors (below floor 13) of the building due to fire and/or debris-induced structural damage of a critical column (the initiating event) which supported a large-span floor bay with an area of about 2,000 square feet;". This means that the document is not definite about external débris. Since we can only report valid sources and not speculate this is the correct way of handling this issue.
Another editor has said I removed it because I did not like it. The edit history shows that I removed it because it did not, in my view, reference débris sufficiently and did not substantiate the statement made with it. Fiddle Faddle 09:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I have taken the step of nominating this article. We must now monitor the comments and respind to them in a timely manner. See the dialogue box at the head of the article. Fiddle Faddle 13:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
-- Stone 14:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
These are excellent references. Do you have an opinion on where they should sit within the article itself, please? They do need to be included in the relevant segments. Fiddle Faddle 15:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Please look at the citations, one by one, and improve them by using the correct citation template within each ref (see the "To Do list"). A list of urls is not acceptable, especially when we are asking for a peer review. I'm sure we had this cracked a month or so ago, but I imagine the article changed substantially. I'm doing them a few at a time, but do not, please, rely on me to finish it. Fiddle Faddle 20:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
'By association with other 9/11 conspiracy theories, the controlled demolition hypothesis is also often accused of being disrespectful of the victims of 9/11 and their families.' - I'm not sure how central of an element that is. There is some of that from both sides, but an exposition of the back-and-forth name-calling might go better in 9/11 conspiracy theories. Tom Harrison Talk 21:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I have just updated the ToDo list to reflect the need to be consistent with citations. The templates are here: Wikipedia:Citation templates and a peer reviewer has emphasised the need for their use. Fiddle Faddle 15:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I am looking at this paragraph:
"All these authors refer to the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center as a hypothesis in need of further investigation before it can be accepted as true. Their three accounts of the hypothesis overlap in many ways, but they each offer a distinct perspective. Jones concentrates on the physical implausibility of the official explanation and on aspects of the collapses that seem easier to explain with controlled demolition. While Griffin also summarizes suggestive physical features of the collapses, he adds a reading of the oral histories that were released by the New York Fire Department in August 2005 and published by the New York Times. These constitute a substantial body of eyewitness testimony of the collapses and the events that led to them. Tarpley takes a more historical view, emphasizing expert opinions proposing controlled demolition shortly after the attacks; the behavior of government agencies (especially the New York Mayor's Office) in the handling of the WTC site; and public criticism of the official investigation into the collapses. This criticism of both the motives and the methods of official investigations is central to the defense of the controlled demolition hypothesis and here Ryan's contribution has become influential."
The key sentence criticised is "Jones concentrates on the physical implausibility of the official explanation and on aspects of the collapses that seem easier to explain with controlled demolition."
Taken as a freestanding sentence I can see that it could be read to be pejorative towards Jones's work. But with the other descriptions of the other people alomngside it the sentence appears to me simply to compare and contrast the three people.
The question is "What, if anything, should be rephrased?" Fiddle Faddle 12:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I changed it in the article already. Sorry I didn't comment here. Anyway, my solution is: "Jones concentrates on the physical plausibility of the official explanation and possible similarities to controlled demolition." By changing it from implausibility to plausibility in a context where Jones is clearly questioning the official line the sentence becomes neutral without adding clunky qualifiers.-- Thomas Basboll 21:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the peer review process depends in the main on "loyal reviewers" making the reviews. That is not wholly effective when an article has the scope for substantial controversy. We've seen that controversy in the past and the article has improved because of it.
I think it would be of great use to the article if many of those who found the article's pre and just post AfD incarnations to have been flawed if they were asked to look at the peer review invitation, and to join the review. I think that should be balanced by inviting those who were positive about the article, too.
I do not think there can be any accusations of spamming since the invitations are even handed and are to participate in the Peer Review process, not, specifically not, to be positive or negative about the article, but to review it in a wikipedian manner.
If the work that has been done is as valid as we believe it to be then the article can only improve further as a result. A downside is that I imagine there is nothing to prevent any editor, peer review or not, from nominating for deletion, but that is an ever present issue anyway.
So I open it to "the floor" as a suggestion. Fiddle Faddle 15:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The Peer Review has a comment that the opening (lead) paragraph should contain the names of the principal proponents of the CD Hypothesis. Because there are so many bit players in this I think we should phrase it as "Key proponents postulating various forms of controlled demolition include..." and certainly list Jones and three of four more main people. I'm not sure that we should list anyone minor here. Thoughts, please?
When listing someone we will have to be careful to unwikilink the name lower down. Fiddle Faddle 11:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the move to open the article with the words "conspiracy theory" is a bit hasty. I'm all for listening to the reviewers, but the association with conspiracy theories is taken up in the very next sentence. The first sentence should simply state what the hypothesis is. The second sentence then places it in the context of adherents and detractors.-- Thomas Basboll 19:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Looks like Mongo is with the reviewer on this. Welcome to the discussion. Please note that the accuracy of the label is not at issue here. The hypothesis is grouped as a conspiracy theory in the very next sentence. Having it in both sentences is protesting too much. It belongs in the second sentence, contrasted with the NIST consensus.-- Thomas Basboll 19:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
The opening sentence is now emphasising the fact that this hypothesis is part of a set of conspiracy theories. That certainly makes it clear. But the second sentence does as well, which is a stylistic "oops". Fiddle Faddle 07:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I've made the change (in favour of option 1) as per the apparent consensus.-- Thomas Basboll 23:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to cut three whole subsections from the claims section:
The first two are covered in the "similarities" section (could perhaps be expanded there a bit. The last is simply too esoteric, though it could perhaps be merged into a discussion of the fire temperatures.-- Thomas Basboll 20:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if other two sections should be cut. Squibs are indeed strange phenomenon and even if not much of scientific evidence they're often shown on videos, pictures, etc. Worth having their own section I think. Symmetry - well I've tried to move parts of it to the list at the begining of the section but then the list lost its symmetry :). Maybe just one more sentence? SalvNaut 02:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I see this page can now be deleted, but there are a lot of people that voted to keep it. So now what do we do?-- Beguiled 21:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so what's next? Doesn't anyone care about the way this encyclopedia looks? How can anyone take this encyclopedia seriously if this is the kind of article that can be found here? Bizarre.-- Beguiled 21:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Ha, I'll wager that the people who have written books and other stuff to make a buck off this conspiracy theory are paying people to vote to keep articles like this one. Since they have the chance to lose money by not having their zany ideas documented in as many places as possible, they have all the reason to do such a thing. The only thing this article does is make this encyclopedia look "blank". (I can't say somethings now I guess).-- Beguiled 21:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
As are those who are here trying to call this kind of abuse of this system an effort to be enclopedia writers. If you look at Britannica, they don't have articles like this one. College professors aren't going to be telling their students to use Wikipedia if articles like this are going to keep being written.-- Beguiled 21:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I would think that one of the strengths of WP is precisely that Britannica doesn't have an article like this. (Nor one on, say, Jump the shark.) College professors are not one sort of thing, but competent college professors will never (I hope) tell their students to use WP like they might use Britannica. They will teach them how to use Wikipedia.-- Thomas Basboll 00:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Inasmuch as my opinion is concerned, the hypothesis is a lot of bull. Nevertheless, I voted for keep because I feel that for as long as it adheres to WP:NPOV and Wikipedia:Notability, and as long it is presented in an encyclopedic manner, then it should stay. Must I comment even though I agree with your opinion on this hypothesis, Beguiled (I am as anti-conspiracy theory as they come), but blanking an entire page just because you disagree with it is not the solution. RashBold ( talk · contribs · count) 23:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Today is the first time that I have given any time to reading this template. it says:
Part of a series on the: 9/11 Truth Movement
But this article is not about the 9/11 Truth Movement, nor is it a part of any series on it. It is about quite a narrow hypothesis.
On that basis I feel we need to give the inclusion or otherwise of this template more thought and reach a consensus about it. I would like to know more abut the rationale for deploying it in the article in case I have misunderstood its purpose. My understanding of it at present leads me to oppose its deployment. I am content to alter that view given sufficient rationale. Fiddle Faddle 22:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the template for now, until it can be discussed further here. At the moment, I don't see the relevance of the template to this article. While some of the 9/11 Truthers espouse the theory, it is not unique to them nor are they featured in the article. Some of the conspiracies, in fact, contradict their versions of events. As such, the template does not seem applicable to this article. -- Kesh 03:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the template is very helpful to the casual reader of the article to help identify the genesis of these theories. All of us who come here regularly are familiar with the conspiracy theories, including this grand-daddy of them all, and might wonder who comes up with this stuff. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 18:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Was this vandalism...? F.F.McGurk 20:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
There's no real mention of what the significance of the core failing first would be. In any case, it seems like a pretty small detail to give a whole section to. We can't have everything here.-- Thomas Basboll 15:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
This sentence set troubles me: Steven Jones has argued that without explosives to destroy the internal support structure of the WTC towers, the fall of the towers would violate the principle of conservation of momentum. He suggests that the angular momentum of the top of the south tower, as it began to collapse, could not disappear unless the center of mass of the top was somehow destroyed.
My background is high school physics, so I may be making a fool of myself. I just can't spot the angular momentum in this. Is this something Jones has said for sure, or are we interpreting his words? Fiddle Faddle 23:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
While they seem accurate, I'm not sure that these new sections belong in this article. That the engineering consensus is against CDH is clear both from the lead and from the overview. There is already a link to the main collapse article. The problem with these sections is that they shift the article in the diretion of being about the collapses rather than a hypothesis about them. The more the article is shifted in that direction (even by means of mainstream information), the more it comes to function as a POV fork.-- Thomas Basboll 07:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
This material is essential because
I intentionally kept the sections short and included a main article reference. If you look at them relative to the amount of body text about CDH arguments, they are not shifting the article in any significant way. They are simply framing material. They do need to be integrated better. Perhaps each collapse's appearance and consensus explanation can be at the top of the section for that collapse. Gazpacho 08:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
A seperate criticism section is going to be a problem. I'm no expert on getting pages to good-article and featured status, but accepted practice seems to be to integrate criticism into a balanced presentation. Gazpacho's points above are valid. Many of the conspiracy theories seem to rely on frequently repeating statements that are false, and this needs to be pointed out.
On angular momentum, it must be an interesting challenge to rationally and accurately paraphrase an irrational theory, without committing original research. "Um, what my learned collegue means to say is,..." Tom Harrison Talk 14:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a Peer Review comment, presented "as is".
Rebuttals should be close to the corresponding arguments, not in a ghetto near the bottom of the article.
We should reach a consensus on this prior to actin since it could mean a substantial alteration to the article. Fiddle Faddle 08:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
A second peer review comment states Tone-wise, the biggest obstacle to overcome is that the article is broken up into proponent and critic sections; it's difficult to take a neutral tone when you are only presenting the one side of an issue at a time. Again I am presenting this here for discussion. Fiddle Faddle 08:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
It is unclear what the point of the "pull it" section is. No interpretation of Silverstein's remarks that supports controlled demolition is offered. The relevant interpretation is of course the idea that it is an informal way of saying "demolish the building". That's a pretty central piece of conspiracy lore attached to this hypothesis. I don't see a reason to leave it out. David Ray Griffin, one of our key sources in this article, does bring it up here. [15] He's puzzled about why Silverstein would admit to such a thing, but there's no doubt about what Griffin thinks Silverstein said.-- Thomas Basboll 19:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I have seen that comment by him misused by those trying to make a buck. We need to make sure that if we are going to make this article into what it needs to be if we can't delete it that we do so in an effort to show how ridiculous the entire conspiracy theory argument is of course. Otherwise, all we have now is an article that makes it look like these arguments are based on some facts or something and they aren't of course.-- Beguiled 19:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Are there any sources that discuss the possibility that Larry Silverstein may have said "pull out" instead of "pull it"? — Loadmaster 14:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Admittedly, it's been a while since I studied German, but I don't see anything in the Ganser source supporting the assertion that "engineers from a Swiss university" support a CD theory for building 7. Gazpacho 20:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I have to say, I kind of like this section as it now (with both the pros and the cons in there), though it goes beyond the heading. It needs to be trimmed and clarified a bit (even beyond where the tags are), but it describes the issue nicely. In fact, I wonder if we could just leave it at that. I.e., remove the criticism section and the particular claims, adding a bit more to this section. Then have the WTC 7 the same way. It might work.-- Thomas Basboll 21:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
The CDers are not "basing their arguments on aspects of the collapse that the official story passes over very quickly." I think, and I think the reliable sources bear out, that the CDers start with a conclusion and look for evidence to support it. It's not that they carefully obesrved the collapse, analyzed the data, and used their experience and judgement to reluctantly conclude that the CIA and/or the Mossad must have planted explosives in the building. They started with that assumption, and then looked for talking points to promote their theory. "Molten metal" and "squibs" aren't physical evidence, they are narrative devices. Using some kind of god-of-the-gaps process to present their points in as favorable a light as possible is slanted, and the height of original research. If the reader wants that, let him go watch Youtube. Tom Harrison Talk 23:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I have asked each to come here to speak to their reversions. I reverted what I hope is the final one of these. The edits themselves may or may not need discussion, but they were not vanadalism. Fiddle Faddle 01:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The message left on my talk page (which I removed) suggests I triggered a script when I removed a lengthy POV comment about debris removal, and that mostly automated edits were made from User:Where's account in response. It's no big deal, just people letting their tools get ahead of them. Gazpacho 01:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The only reason I rasied this here is because I could see that things could, possibly, have escalated into a revert war had we not had an exhortation to come to the talk page. Accidents happen. Sometimes they turn out to be quite exciting. We have all learnt something. Fiddle Faddle 09:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I've done some work on the WTC 7 to make it a more stand alone section. I am now going to move it up so that it goes in right after the overview. As it stands, the article takes way too long to get to any real claims and arguments, merely summarizing various statements disagreements. It seems to me that WTC 7 offers a nice way of getting a sense of what the hypothesis is all about it early in the article.-- Thomas Basboll 20:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm ready to endorse merging the criticism section into the claims section (now called "main towers", which I also think should be kept). If we can keep the esoterica to a minimum (perhaps add a section to gather these little tidbits), and arrange interesting confrontations of major claims and counterclaims, then I think we'll be shipshape in a few days.-- Thomas Basboll 20:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's what I think can still be done:
How do you all like it?-- Thomas Basboll 21:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I think these two sections are way too long given their status in the overall hypothesis. My suggestion is to group them together under the heading "Energy deficit". Both are somewhat esoteric indications (if the hypothesis is in any way true) that there was more energy present in the collapses than gravity could provide. It is unclear what could produce pools of molten metal under the buildings; and it is unclear what could produce and spread that much dust. Five sentences with good refs is all we need to say this, plus a couple of sentences with the (as far as I can tell rather vague) rebuttals and dismisses. (They basically say they don't see what the fuss is about.)-- Thomas Basboll 21:55, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I just had a quick look through the main towers section. I'd suggest basing each section on the most relevant proponent's writings. That is, the "fire theory" section should refer to Ryan, the "thermite" section to Jones, "dust clouds" to Hoffman, "oral histories" to Griffin and "debris" to Tarpley. The "main argument" section will probably draw on a combination of these. As always, this is about using sources that are "primary" for the hypothesis, not for the collapses themselves.-- Thomas Basboll 16:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
"...the idea of controlled demolition is normally presented as a hypothesis still to be tested, not a proven claim." - I don't think that's accurate. It seems to me it is often presented as Truth.
First, what an amazing job has been done in pruning the article. It's currently down to 47KB
Recognising that the references with quotes shoudl stay, and that some references are not yet cited correctly, which will increase the article byte count, we still need to précis the article wherever possible. One of the challenges I have seen in tryng to do so is doing it without introducing any validation of the CDH by the words in the article.
Nonetheless it needs to drop down to a readable length without being dumbed down. Any further ideas? Fiddle Faddle 12:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
If someone wants to have that paragraph there is has to be a balanced presentation of the status of the hypothesis, not an(other) assurance that the mainstream rejects it. (Already clear in first paragraph.) I'd prefer to remove it.-- Thomas Basboll 21:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I have commented these out because such references refer to items of dubious copyright. If the original item can be sourced and made freely available to Wikipedia that is a different matter. Fiddle Faddle 18:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Which previous fires are there which have been "uncontrolled" and have not resulted in teh building collapsing? Midgley 18:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this article should still be deleted, but at least it is better than it was. It still needs a title that makes it clear that it is a conspiracy theory. Calling it a hypothesis is rather silly I think.-- Beguiled 20:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Reliable sources on both sides of the issue (including NIST) refer to the idea as a hypothesis. Also, we should perhaps be a bit more clear about what the argument is about. "Proponents" argue that there is enough evidence to warrant further investigation (not belief in controlled demolition). "Critics" argue that there is not enough evidence and that any such investigation would be a waste of time. That is, the discussion is only indirectly about whether or not the collapses were caused by controlled demolition.-- Thomas Basboll 09:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Though peripheral to this article, it was created because of discussions here. I wanted to notify editors of all opinions that it has been nominated for deletion. That deletion may be discussed at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:911ct. Please visit that discussion and join the discussion. Whatever oyur opinion is, t matters that sufficient opinions are registered to form a true consensus.
For those who also wish to comment on Template:911tm it has also been nominated by the same editor at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:911tm. Comments there would also be welcomed. Fiddle Faddle 11:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm removing this sentence: To date no scientific theory has been presented to explain how such massive clouds of concrete dust could have been created by a gravity collapse. It pre-supposes that such a theory is somehow needed (
WP:OR). For this, reliable sources would need to show that this is a real issue (and not something written by a computer programmer on a conspiracy theory web site) and that non-biased people have honestly examined the claims and commented on them in reliable sources.
The problem is the same as with many conspiracy theories: they are fringe things published on some random web site, and often so obviously nonsense physics that no reliable source will touch them with a stick. Or, to put it in another way, quoting a computer programmer writing on a blatantly biased web site violates
WP:RS to no end.
Weregerbil
12:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I do not care if the wording is changed, but the fact must be recognized that no explanation has been given for how exactly the dust clouds were created, and we are entitled to that explanation, as there are many people who are, rightly, asking that question. If necessary I propose we bring in a third party, neutral intermediary, preferably a contributing editor with experience in physics and structural engineering, who has no demonstrable bias in regards to this issue, to determine whether or not this is a valid point. WhoWillTellThePeople 05:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be useful for this article to have a separate reference list. We would then be able to discuss RS concerns on a case-by-case basis, and confine all citations to author-date references, i.e., "(Jones 2006: 123)", to works on that list. Yes, this will mean removing a number of the references. But it will allow us to discuss the foundations of this article more easily.-- Thomas Basboll 20:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Reference 44 apparently cites a quote, however the newspaper article it links to has no mention of the quote or the instance. <ref>{{cite web |title=Janitor tells 9/11 panel of brush with WTC thug |publisher=New York Daily News |date=June 2004 |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/203065p-175130c.html |accessdate=2006-12-08}}</ref>
drumguy8800
C
T
05:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Those two articles should give the answer here [22] [23]. SalvNaut 16:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" :) New article on this topic have just appeared [24]. Definately, it's going to find its way into the paragraph. SalvNaut 20:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
One thing we haven't dealt with yet, but which seems to be motivating some of the tensions in this article, is the question of whether the hypothesis is properly "scientific". This issue cuts both ways. Jones normally stops to explain how things are done in science, in part to criticize the way the NIST investigations were done. Ryan also develops this criticism in terms of "Bush science". Eagar, of course, dishes it out the other way: talking about the "reverse scientific method" of starting with your conclusions, etc. It could make for an interesting section in this article.-- Thomas Basboll 11:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I reverted WhoWillTellThePeople's edits again last night, but given how late it was I didn't get a chance to properly explain. I'm going to rectify that now.
The edits are phrased in a POV manner. For example, the edit about "squibs" was phrased as if there were squibs in the towers. That's an unverifiable statement. If the information were rephrased that the puffs of dust resembled squibs used in CD (and a source were provided for that), we could then include that information.
My suggestion is that WhoWillTellThePeople bring the statements they wants to include to this talk page and (one at a time) we can discuss them and help create neutral wording to include them in the article. The back-and-forth edit warring isn't helping any of us, so I hope we can work together on this. -- Kesh 15:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I feel that "According to the controlled demolition hypothesis, the World Trade Center was not destroyed by the planes that crashed into it as part of the September 11th attacks, nor by the fires that followed, but by explosives or other devices planted in the buildings in advance. " may be what we have been searching for. In case this gets lost in the mists of time, I have posted the diff here.
It is explicit about what follows. It avoids the words that are in dispute. It neither validates nor invalidates the hypothesis. Thomas, for me, has cracked it. Fiddle Faddle 20:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
This talk page really needs cleaned up. We have 60 some odd entries, and I am sure not all of them are current. I imagine atleast 25% of this could be archived. DerwinUMD 04:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with most arguments above about Ryan, we have to be careful when citing scientific claim outside someone's field. Ok then, let's get to the points. I've looked through Ryan's paper and a first half of his presentation. I've tried to collect his claims into major ones that could be included into the article and then be backed up by adding or citing minor facts or other sources. Second part of Ryan's presentation, which focuses on precise critique of NIST report, I'll try to look through later. To simplify discussion, I would propose to put following chars near the sentences:
I've already put some, I haven't made a distinction whether to include a fact as a quote, a reference or directly into the article. Feel free to add other remarks and please fix language, rephrase claims, etc. SalvNaut 07:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Jim Hoffman's done it already. He wrote a review of 'A New Standard For Deception: The NIST WTC Report' presentation by Ryan. SalvNaut 22:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that Hufschmid has been added to the history. While it is true that he came out early on with a book and that it helped to introduce the idea of the demolitions to people, he was very soon rejected by many groups when people learned of his attacks on average people (sheeple) and his anti-semitic views (holocaust denial and worse). Try clicking on some of the links on his site here.
The article wording currently mentions nothing about what he became known for soon after his book so it gives a false impression that he has good standing in the activist community. Those who associate with him are generally the same people who associate with Jimmy Walter (nukes at the WTC, etc) and Chris Bollyn, a writer for American Free Press, which shares the same mailing address with the Barnes Review, which says that Hitler should be nominated for a Nobel Peace prize.
The argument against including more about Hoffman was that he wasn't published in mainstream published books the way Griffin, Jones and Tarpley were, but neither was Hufschmid, and far worse, so I don't see why a personal history of his efforts should be on the page. Hufschmid's book also paired the idea of the demolitons with the idea that a real plane didn't hit the Pentagon, that instead, a missile must have. Virtually no one supports the idea that a missile hit and this is the primary idea used to discredit the entire movement. Thus the self-published book was highly flawed in its reasoning on the Pentagon but that idea was just as prominent as the demolition idea.
Oilempire has this to say about Hufschmid -
Yes, I appreciate this concern. I had purposely left him out for a long time also, basically for these reasons. But there is no question in my mind now that Hufschmid's book is of historical interest. (McMichael, as far as I can tell, is the first as such to insist on CD--Hufschmid is the first to do so in a book.) Note that PM cites Walter's advertisement in the NYT as the impetus for their debunking. The PM book is clearly part of the story of controlled demolition. I don't think there is any reason to spend a lot of time discrediting Hufschmid or the book by elaborating on his views beyond the WTC, but we should probably add a sentence that makes it clear that the current Jones-Griffin-Tarpley hypothesis is critical of many aspects of this early effort. (I note, however, that Tarpley doesn't reject nukes and other exotica completely.)-- Thomas Basboll 07:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand this concern. :) So he is a nutcase. So are most people pushing the 9/11 conspiracies. It's gonna be pretty unavoidable to mention nutcases in an article about one of the central tenents in the whole web of conspiracy theories... -- Regebro 08:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I make no suggestion to discredit Hufschmid - simply tell the truth about who he is at this moment, which is not who people thought he was when he first emerged with his book. In his eyes, and those who support his positions, this is certainly not discrediting. bov 22:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The current Jones-Griffin-Tarpley hypothesis would not exist without - to some extent - the early work not only of Hufschmid but also Hoffman, whose site, 911research.wtc7.net, is the highest google ranked website on the Internet which focuses on the demolition hypothesis. It's been surprising to me that this apparently this has no meaning on here, that the fact that around 10,000 people per day visit the site and learn about demolition isn't of note. Hoffman's contribution was major in a number of ways (he essentially organized the key points of demolition - the symmetry, the rapidity, etc. - and did key early analyses of the official reports), but the insistence on here has been that a major publishing house has to have published the work for anyone to be mentioned. Griffin, Tarpley and Jones all attribute a significant amount of credit to Hoffman for their work, yet he must be essentially invisible on here because he has not submitted a book to Random House. Pop Mech has cited him specifically in their latest book.
Hoffman recently did an event with Steven Jones at UC Berkeley as one of the two main presenters on the demolitions [10], yet, only Jones can really be mentioned here. It seems bizarre. bov 22:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
While I think this article still needs a lot of cleaning up, I wonder if anyone is still worried about its neutrality. There are basically two senses in which it might lack NPOV. Either the criticism section is insufficiently developed, or there are too many sentences that use POV language in the whole article. If you think this article lacks NPOV please make no more than three specific criticism below (preferably citing specific sentences) in order of importance. We can then fix them and move on to the next three, if any remain.-- Thomas Basboll 00:18, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The facts mentioned in the captions of these pictures has been discussed on the 9/11 CT article. I propose we sort it our here and transfer a sentence or two back to that article. I've taken them out until the matter is settled.-- Thomas Basboll 21:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I just removed this from the critcism section:
This can't be a criticism of CD since the remarks were made in 1993. In any case, they seem to confirm the core elements of the CD hypothesis: that a plane would not bring down the building and that controlled demolition could. I don't think any CD'ers have used this info, however. If they have, we can include it.-- Thomas Basboll 21:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I've worked on it a bit tonight, and this is as far as I've gotten. I think PM should be added explictly (and McCain's foreword to that book, if I recall, uses the "disrespecting the victims" argument -- he's the right sort of source for that.) Also, we might do a bit more point-by-point refutation. This would probably also help us to focus the evidence section. Happy editing.-- Thomas Basboll 22:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I can see there's some dispute about including a link to the film 9/11 Mysteries. The hypothesis has been propogated to a large extent by way of videos. These are of variable notability, but not all of them are irrelevant. What's the cases for and against this one?-- Thomas Basboll 14:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone. I've gone through the whole article and tried to work it into shape for peer-review. There are still some things to be done, and I've marked the areas that are in particular need of cleanup and expansion. I'd suggest we do a quick job on each of these areas, and then see if we can get some outside editors to review it. I've collected all the rebuttals in the criticism section, and I'm planning to turn it into more orderly prose soon. Do add any major arguments you feel are missing.-- Thomas Basboll 23:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
While a proof read through could probably help, I think we are ready to send this to peer review. What do you think?-- Thomas Basboll 13:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the biggest problem with this article is the assertions in the claims section. Most of the assertioins there (The towers came down just slightly slower than the rate of free fall in a vacuum.) are stated as fact. There are other issues, but that's the one that stands out first. Rx StrangeLove 17:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I have escaped from the indent on purpose. This section was ro discuss whether the article is ready for Peer Review. Instead the discussion is about speed of falling. This is interesting and off topic, though it could just (hmm, that word again) be argued that this is "necessary prior to peer review". However that is not the case. Peer Review is intended for "living articles", so let us look at peer review and not other topics. We surely do not need a vote? Fiddle Faddle 23:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Sorry. What is the procedure?-- Thomas Basboll 23:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I have now done all the respinding to the automated peer review out[ut that I am capable of. Please will someone else finish the work, after wi=hich I suggest Thomas submits the article for Peer review. Fiddle Faddle 22:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.
between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 13 pounds, use 13 pounds, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 13 pounds.{{fact}}
s.You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Fiddle Faddle 00:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I just reverted some material on Scott Forbes and the idea that there was a power down. We need much better sources to establish this as a fact, and non-self-published controlled demolition proponents who use his claims for anything. We also need to include it up in the main section (if such sources can be found), not the criticism section. Sorry.-- Thomas Basboll 12:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
It is highly advised that anyone editing 9/11 pages do a thorough reading of the "Controlled Demolitions and Common Sense" section on this page. Kings 32 06:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Given that the conspiracy theory template is
I see no reason to have a highly erronenous and skewed CT "template" featured on this page which does not even have "conspiracy theories" in its title. This page is about the rationale of the scientific hypothesis for demolition. Tom Harrison, who has had no role in this page, continues to repost it and repost Jeff Rense to the content of the template, despite being asked repeatedly not to. bov 02:55, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
One matter conspicuously absent is the total lack of a motive for the controlled demoltion of Tower 7. The amount of work that this would have taken to achieve what? The demolition of an extraneous building. It doesn't seem to pass the common sense test. ChristinaDunigan 11:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
There is some material in the overview article on 9/11 conspiracy theories about "mini-nukes" and other exotic technologies being used to demolish the twin towers. Maybe somebody should add a comment on this here? -- Robert Merkel 02:18, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
No radiation was ever found, but tht hasn't stopped anyone talking about it. There probably should be some kind of section on it in this article, as it's now gaining popularity, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth are starting to talk about it. DanCrowter 08:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Man, looking over this article, one would have to be smoking crack cocaine to believe that the conspiracy theories have any proof behind them. Who wrote this crap?-- Beguiled 20:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I am trying to get this article deleted. Does anyone know how to do this?-- Beguiled 20:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I think i found the template that will delete this article. If my template is wrong, can someone please add the correct template? Thank you!-- Beguiled 21:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
If there is some other way to have the article deleted, can someone do it for me, as the page that supposedly shows how to delete an article is very complicated. Why can't I just delete it myself?-- Beguiled 21:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Urgh. I added a link that clearly states that "due to fire and/or debris-induced structural damage of a critical column" is the reason the world trade center building number 7 collapsed. If anyone saw pictures of before the building collapsed, they would be obvious that there was a lot of structural damage from when the towers collapsed.-- Beguiled 21:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I have changed the title of this article to one that is more accurate. I will be working on further removal of some of the ridiculous information here since we can't delete it, we might as well make sure it doesn't continue to make Wikipedia look like fools are writing it.-- Beguiled 21:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
You changed the name back to the wrong title. What we have here is a failure to communicate. Indeed, this stuff is a conspiracy theory and the only "hypothesis" is one that is being pushed by those who want to make conspiracy theories look like truth. I don't see any rationale for your changing the name of this article back, so how do I get the new title to stick? Is this something that is decided by a vote or something?-- Beguiled 22:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay so I can bring it to a vote and see what the community wants then? Is that the best way to do it?-- Beguiled 22:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
But that was a discussion based on changing the word hypothesis to theory or vice versa. I want to change the title to conspiracy theories, no other title is accurate to describe what is being discussed here. To be honest, I don't even know why this article even exists! What facts is it based on? I guess I can understand why the article can exist to descibe the phenomenon, but to call it a hypothesis or a theory is ridiculous.-- Beguiled 22:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Didn't you already ask me if I was a different user on my user page? I said no. So, since you are now accusing me since we disagree with each other, maybe you are being uncivil to me? I am just a bit angry that this stuff is on Wikipedia because it doesn't make us look like an encyclopedia.-- Beguiled 22:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Dear Beguiled, it seems that you misunderstand the premise under which an article should appear in Wikipedia. You ask: Man, looking over this article, one would have to be smoking crack cocaine to believe that the conspiracy theories have any proof behind them. Who wrote this crap? You are entitled to ask everything except Who wrote this crap? which is uncivil and a behaviour which, if continued, is likely to achieve hostility towards you and your opinions, and may well lead to formal action against you by any editor who feels insulted by your words.
That the conspiracy theories themselves may well be total rubbish is fine. They may be. The purpose of this article is to document one set of them. It is not here to say that they are correct, nor that they are incorrect. It is to document in a perfectly neutral and encyclopaedic manner that fact of their existence at all.
The article may well be imperfect, but that does not mean it should be deleted. That means it should be improved such that it is a better record of the fact of the existence of this particular hypothesis. Deleting the article would not remove the documented and well sourced facts that the hypothesis exists.
The hypothesis may be wholly flawed. It may be total rubbish. It may be a tissue of lies and pure fabrication by people with unusual motives. But that does not mean it is not proper to have an article which documents this correctly. In fact it makes it very important to have such an article in order to allow people to draw proper and educted conclusions from the material presented to them.
Many of the editors who have contributed to this article do not subscribe to the controlled demolition hypothesis at all, they, we, are simply documenting that it exists. Fiddle Faddle 00:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Yaya, but if I can't delete the article, then I should at least be able to change the title to one that is correct. I don't see how anyone can call this a hypothesis or theory, but it is definitely a conspiracy theory. I already added a reference since some editor kept removing my facts. By peer review, does that mean someone actually intends to publish this article?-- Beguiled 22:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I have seen your comments. Sorry if I insult, but I find this article insulting. Look "HYPOTHESIS implies insufficient evidence to provide more than a tentative explanation" http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=hypothesis but this is all based on a complete lack of evidence. Where did all this stuff come from? In order to do what this article says was done, it would involve a conspiracy and the best title for the article would be conspiracy theory since that is what this is.-- Beguiled 23:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
What you claim as evidence simply isn't evidence at all. There have been multiple parties that did examine what happened and none of them support a building being blown up. People are now also removing my cited and referenced information just because they don't like facts here obviously. There is s serious problem here.-- Beguiled 05:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC) The place to discuss a controversial name change would be requested moves, I think. Tom Harrison Talk 23:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can tell there is one single action remaining before this article is submitted for
peer review, which is to cite the one {{fact}} tag left, which is
here:
“ | Weakened frame
One of the basis for the controlled demolition theory is that collapse would be impossible because of fire alone. The most detailed efforts to refute controlled demolition therefore involve demonstrating that the fires were indeed exceptionally hot and that the steel would have been sufficiently weakened. The NIST report here supplies most of the data. [citation needed] Leslie Robertson, a structural engineer who was involved in the design of the WTC, debated the issue with Steven Jones on the radio.[88] |
” |
While a peer review is, of course, no guarantee that the article will not be deleted at some future point, it will bring a different, wider population of editors in to look at the article in depth and thus provide valuable input. We may even achieve Featured Article Status.
I have worked steadily through the Automated Review tool Output in order to knock off each of the tasks I cna do, one by one, in order to leave those that require specialist knowledge or research to editors whose interest is the topic per se, rather than my own interest which is the article as an article. This is the final task left prior to submission (which I feel should be by any of the major contributors, not be me as a minor contributor). It probably no longer even needs 'consensus to suibmit' since this has been an end goal since the last AfD. Perhaps the person adding the citation could just be bold and make the submission? Fiddle Faddle 12:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I have edited the reference to comply with the "Cite Web" template, extracted the relevant quotation from within it, and modified the place in the intro where the quote is applied to remove the extra detail since it is firmly and attributably in the footnote. We should note that this reference dos not state that there was damage caused by débris. It states instead "An initial local failure occurred at the lower floors (below floor 13) of the building due to fire and/or debris-induced structural damage of a critical column (the initiating event) which supported a large-span floor bay with an area of about 2,000 square feet;". This means that the document is not definite about external débris. Since we can only report valid sources and not speculate this is the correct way of handling this issue.
Another editor has said I removed it because I did not like it. The edit history shows that I removed it because it did not, in my view, reference débris sufficiently and did not substantiate the statement made with it. Fiddle Faddle 09:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I have taken the step of nominating this article. We must now monitor the comments and respind to them in a timely manner. See the dialogue box at the head of the article. Fiddle Faddle 13:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
-- Stone 14:43, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
These are excellent references. Do you have an opinion on where they should sit within the article itself, please? They do need to be included in the relevant segments. Fiddle Faddle 15:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Please look at the citations, one by one, and improve them by using the correct citation template within each ref (see the "To Do list"). A list of urls is not acceptable, especially when we are asking for a peer review. I'm sure we had this cracked a month or so ago, but I imagine the article changed substantially. I'm doing them a few at a time, but do not, please, rely on me to finish it. Fiddle Faddle 20:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
'By association with other 9/11 conspiracy theories, the controlled demolition hypothesis is also often accused of being disrespectful of the victims of 9/11 and their families.' - I'm not sure how central of an element that is. There is some of that from both sides, but an exposition of the back-and-forth name-calling might go better in 9/11 conspiracy theories. Tom Harrison Talk 21:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I have just updated the ToDo list to reflect the need to be consistent with citations. The templates are here: Wikipedia:Citation templates and a peer reviewer has emphasised the need for their use. Fiddle Faddle 15:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I am looking at this paragraph:
"All these authors refer to the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center as a hypothesis in need of further investigation before it can be accepted as true. Their three accounts of the hypothesis overlap in many ways, but they each offer a distinct perspective. Jones concentrates on the physical implausibility of the official explanation and on aspects of the collapses that seem easier to explain with controlled demolition. While Griffin also summarizes suggestive physical features of the collapses, he adds a reading of the oral histories that were released by the New York Fire Department in August 2005 and published by the New York Times. These constitute a substantial body of eyewitness testimony of the collapses and the events that led to them. Tarpley takes a more historical view, emphasizing expert opinions proposing controlled demolition shortly after the attacks; the behavior of government agencies (especially the New York Mayor's Office) in the handling of the WTC site; and public criticism of the official investigation into the collapses. This criticism of both the motives and the methods of official investigations is central to the defense of the controlled demolition hypothesis and here Ryan's contribution has become influential."
The key sentence criticised is "Jones concentrates on the physical implausibility of the official explanation and on aspects of the collapses that seem easier to explain with controlled demolition."
Taken as a freestanding sentence I can see that it could be read to be pejorative towards Jones's work. But with the other descriptions of the other people alomngside it the sentence appears to me simply to compare and contrast the three people.
The question is "What, if anything, should be rephrased?" Fiddle Faddle 12:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I changed it in the article already. Sorry I didn't comment here. Anyway, my solution is: "Jones concentrates on the physical plausibility of the official explanation and possible similarities to controlled demolition." By changing it from implausibility to plausibility in a context where Jones is clearly questioning the official line the sentence becomes neutral without adding clunky qualifiers.-- Thomas Basboll 21:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the peer review process depends in the main on "loyal reviewers" making the reviews. That is not wholly effective when an article has the scope for substantial controversy. We've seen that controversy in the past and the article has improved because of it.
I think it would be of great use to the article if many of those who found the article's pre and just post AfD incarnations to have been flawed if they were asked to look at the peer review invitation, and to join the review. I think that should be balanced by inviting those who were positive about the article, too.
I do not think there can be any accusations of spamming since the invitations are even handed and are to participate in the Peer Review process, not, specifically not, to be positive or negative about the article, but to review it in a wikipedian manner.
If the work that has been done is as valid as we believe it to be then the article can only improve further as a result. A downside is that I imagine there is nothing to prevent any editor, peer review or not, from nominating for deletion, but that is an ever present issue anyway.
So I open it to "the floor" as a suggestion. Fiddle Faddle 15:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The Peer Review has a comment that the opening (lead) paragraph should contain the names of the principal proponents of the CD Hypothesis. Because there are so many bit players in this I think we should phrase it as "Key proponents postulating various forms of controlled demolition include..." and certainly list Jones and three of four more main people. I'm not sure that we should list anyone minor here. Thoughts, please?
When listing someone we will have to be careful to unwikilink the name lower down. Fiddle Faddle 11:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the move to open the article with the words "conspiracy theory" is a bit hasty. I'm all for listening to the reviewers, but the association with conspiracy theories is taken up in the very next sentence. The first sentence should simply state what the hypothesis is. The second sentence then places it in the context of adherents and detractors.-- Thomas Basboll 19:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Looks like Mongo is with the reviewer on this. Welcome to the discussion. Please note that the accuracy of the label is not at issue here. The hypothesis is grouped as a conspiracy theory in the very next sentence. Having it in both sentences is protesting too much. It belongs in the second sentence, contrasted with the NIST consensus.-- Thomas Basboll 19:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
The opening sentence is now emphasising the fact that this hypothesis is part of a set of conspiracy theories. That certainly makes it clear. But the second sentence does as well, which is a stylistic "oops". Fiddle Faddle 07:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I've made the change (in favour of option 1) as per the apparent consensus.-- Thomas Basboll 23:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to cut three whole subsections from the claims section:
The first two are covered in the "similarities" section (could perhaps be expanded there a bit. The last is simply too esoteric, though it could perhaps be merged into a discussion of the fire temperatures.-- Thomas Basboll 20:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if other two sections should be cut. Squibs are indeed strange phenomenon and even if not much of scientific evidence they're often shown on videos, pictures, etc. Worth having their own section I think. Symmetry - well I've tried to move parts of it to the list at the begining of the section but then the list lost its symmetry :). Maybe just one more sentence? SalvNaut 02:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I see this page can now be deleted, but there are a lot of people that voted to keep it. So now what do we do?-- Beguiled 21:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so what's next? Doesn't anyone care about the way this encyclopedia looks? How can anyone take this encyclopedia seriously if this is the kind of article that can be found here? Bizarre.-- Beguiled 21:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Ha, I'll wager that the people who have written books and other stuff to make a buck off this conspiracy theory are paying people to vote to keep articles like this one. Since they have the chance to lose money by not having their zany ideas documented in as many places as possible, they have all the reason to do such a thing. The only thing this article does is make this encyclopedia look "blank". (I can't say somethings now I guess).-- Beguiled 21:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
As are those who are here trying to call this kind of abuse of this system an effort to be enclopedia writers. If you look at Britannica, they don't have articles like this one. College professors aren't going to be telling their students to use Wikipedia if articles like this are going to keep being written.-- Beguiled 21:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I would think that one of the strengths of WP is precisely that Britannica doesn't have an article like this. (Nor one on, say, Jump the shark.) College professors are not one sort of thing, but competent college professors will never (I hope) tell their students to use WP like they might use Britannica. They will teach them how to use Wikipedia.-- Thomas Basboll 00:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Inasmuch as my opinion is concerned, the hypothesis is a lot of bull. Nevertheless, I voted for keep because I feel that for as long as it adheres to WP:NPOV and Wikipedia:Notability, and as long it is presented in an encyclopedic manner, then it should stay. Must I comment even though I agree with your opinion on this hypothesis, Beguiled (I am as anti-conspiracy theory as they come), but blanking an entire page just because you disagree with it is not the solution. RashBold ( talk · contribs · count) 23:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Today is the first time that I have given any time to reading this template. it says:
Part of a series on the: 9/11 Truth Movement
But this article is not about the 9/11 Truth Movement, nor is it a part of any series on it. It is about quite a narrow hypothesis.
On that basis I feel we need to give the inclusion or otherwise of this template more thought and reach a consensus about it. I would like to know more abut the rationale for deploying it in the article in case I have misunderstood its purpose. My understanding of it at present leads me to oppose its deployment. I am content to alter that view given sufficient rationale. Fiddle Faddle 22:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I've removed the template for now, until it can be discussed further here. At the moment, I don't see the relevance of the template to this article. While some of the 9/11 Truthers espouse the theory, it is not unique to them nor are they featured in the article. Some of the conspiracies, in fact, contradict their versions of events. As such, the template does not seem applicable to this article. -- Kesh 03:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I think the template is very helpful to the casual reader of the article to help identify the genesis of these theories. All of us who come here regularly are familiar with the conspiracy theories, including this grand-daddy of them all, and might wonder who comes up with this stuff. The Illuminated Master of USEBACA 18:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Was this vandalism...? F.F.McGurk 20:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
There's no real mention of what the significance of the core failing first would be. In any case, it seems like a pretty small detail to give a whole section to. We can't have everything here.-- Thomas Basboll 15:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
This sentence set troubles me: Steven Jones has argued that without explosives to destroy the internal support structure of the WTC towers, the fall of the towers would violate the principle of conservation of momentum. He suggests that the angular momentum of the top of the south tower, as it began to collapse, could not disappear unless the center of mass of the top was somehow destroyed.
My background is high school physics, so I may be making a fool of myself. I just can't spot the angular momentum in this. Is this something Jones has said for sure, or are we interpreting his words? Fiddle Faddle 23:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
While they seem accurate, I'm not sure that these new sections belong in this article. That the engineering consensus is against CDH is clear both from the lead and from the overview. There is already a link to the main collapse article. The problem with these sections is that they shift the article in the diretion of being about the collapses rather than a hypothesis about them. The more the article is shifted in that direction (even by means of mainstream information), the more it comes to function as a POV fork.-- Thomas Basboll 07:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
This material is essential because
I intentionally kept the sections short and included a main article reference. If you look at them relative to the amount of body text about CDH arguments, they are not shifting the article in any significant way. They are simply framing material. They do need to be integrated better. Perhaps each collapse's appearance and consensus explanation can be at the top of the section for that collapse. Gazpacho 08:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
A seperate criticism section is going to be a problem. I'm no expert on getting pages to good-article and featured status, but accepted practice seems to be to integrate criticism into a balanced presentation. Gazpacho's points above are valid. Many of the conspiracy theories seem to rely on frequently repeating statements that are false, and this needs to be pointed out.
On angular momentum, it must be an interesting challenge to rationally and accurately paraphrase an irrational theory, without committing original research. "Um, what my learned collegue means to say is,..." Tom Harrison Talk 14:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a Peer Review comment, presented "as is".
Rebuttals should be close to the corresponding arguments, not in a ghetto near the bottom of the article.
We should reach a consensus on this prior to actin since it could mean a substantial alteration to the article. Fiddle Faddle 08:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
A second peer review comment states Tone-wise, the biggest obstacle to overcome is that the article is broken up into proponent and critic sections; it's difficult to take a neutral tone when you are only presenting the one side of an issue at a time. Again I am presenting this here for discussion. Fiddle Faddle 08:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
It is unclear what the point of the "pull it" section is. No interpretation of Silverstein's remarks that supports controlled demolition is offered. The relevant interpretation is of course the idea that it is an informal way of saying "demolish the building". That's a pretty central piece of conspiracy lore attached to this hypothesis. I don't see a reason to leave it out. David Ray Griffin, one of our key sources in this article, does bring it up here. [15] He's puzzled about why Silverstein would admit to such a thing, but there's no doubt about what Griffin thinks Silverstein said.-- Thomas Basboll 19:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I have seen that comment by him misused by those trying to make a buck. We need to make sure that if we are going to make this article into what it needs to be if we can't delete it that we do so in an effort to show how ridiculous the entire conspiracy theory argument is of course. Otherwise, all we have now is an article that makes it look like these arguments are based on some facts or something and they aren't of course.-- Beguiled 19:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Are there any sources that discuss the possibility that Larry Silverstein may have said "pull out" instead of "pull it"? — Loadmaster 14:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Admittedly, it's been a while since I studied German, but I don't see anything in the Ganser source supporting the assertion that "engineers from a Swiss university" support a CD theory for building 7. Gazpacho 20:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I have to say, I kind of like this section as it now (with both the pros and the cons in there), though it goes beyond the heading. It needs to be trimmed and clarified a bit (even beyond where the tags are), but it describes the issue nicely. In fact, I wonder if we could just leave it at that. I.e., remove the criticism section and the particular claims, adding a bit more to this section. Then have the WTC 7 the same way. It might work.-- Thomas Basboll 21:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
The CDers are not "basing their arguments on aspects of the collapse that the official story passes over very quickly." I think, and I think the reliable sources bear out, that the CDers start with a conclusion and look for evidence to support it. It's not that they carefully obesrved the collapse, analyzed the data, and used their experience and judgement to reluctantly conclude that the CIA and/or the Mossad must have planted explosives in the building. They started with that assumption, and then looked for talking points to promote their theory. "Molten metal" and "squibs" aren't physical evidence, they are narrative devices. Using some kind of god-of-the-gaps process to present their points in as favorable a light as possible is slanted, and the height of original research. If the reader wants that, let him go watch Youtube. Tom Harrison Talk 23:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I have asked each to come here to speak to their reversions. I reverted what I hope is the final one of these. The edits themselves may or may not need discussion, but they were not vanadalism. Fiddle Faddle 01:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The message left on my talk page (which I removed) suggests I triggered a script when I removed a lengthy POV comment about debris removal, and that mostly automated edits were made from User:Where's account in response. It's no big deal, just people letting their tools get ahead of them. Gazpacho 01:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The only reason I rasied this here is because I could see that things could, possibly, have escalated into a revert war had we not had an exhortation to come to the talk page. Accidents happen. Sometimes they turn out to be quite exciting. We have all learnt something. Fiddle Faddle 09:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I've done some work on the WTC 7 to make it a more stand alone section. I am now going to move it up so that it goes in right after the overview. As it stands, the article takes way too long to get to any real claims and arguments, merely summarizing various statements disagreements. It seems to me that WTC 7 offers a nice way of getting a sense of what the hypothesis is all about it early in the article.-- Thomas Basboll 20:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm ready to endorse merging the criticism section into the claims section (now called "main towers", which I also think should be kept). If we can keep the esoterica to a minimum (perhaps add a section to gather these little tidbits), and arrange interesting confrontations of major claims and counterclaims, then I think we'll be shipshape in a few days.-- Thomas Basboll 20:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's what I think can still be done:
How do you all like it?-- Thomas Basboll 21:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I think these two sections are way too long given their status in the overall hypothesis. My suggestion is to group them together under the heading "Energy deficit". Both are somewhat esoteric indications (if the hypothesis is in any way true) that there was more energy present in the collapses than gravity could provide. It is unclear what could produce pools of molten metal under the buildings; and it is unclear what could produce and spread that much dust. Five sentences with good refs is all we need to say this, plus a couple of sentences with the (as far as I can tell rather vague) rebuttals and dismisses. (They basically say they don't see what the fuss is about.)-- Thomas Basboll 21:55, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I just had a quick look through the main towers section. I'd suggest basing each section on the most relevant proponent's writings. That is, the "fire theory" section should refer to Ryan, the "thermite" section to Jones, "dust clouds" to Hoffman, "oral histories" to Griffin and "debris" to Tarpley. The "main argument" section will probably draw on a combination of these. As always, this is about using sources that are "primary" for the hypothesis, not for the collapses themselves.-- Thomas Basboll 16:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
"...the idea of controlled demolition is normally presented as a hypothesis still to be tested, not a proven claim." - I don't think that's accurate. It seems to me it is often presented as Truth.
First, what an amazing job has been done in pruning the article. It's currently down to 47KB
Recognising that the references with quotes shoudl stay, and that some references are not yet cited correctly, which will increase the article byte count, we still need to précis the article wherever possible. One of the challenges I have seen in tryng to do so is doing it without introducing any validation of the CDH by the words in the article.
Nonetheless it needs to drop down to a readable length without being dumbed down. Any further ideas? Fiddle Faddle 12:47, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
If someone wants to have that paragraph there is has to be a balanced presentation of the status of the hypothesis, not an(other) assurance that the mainstream rejects it. (Already clear in first paragraph.) I'd prefer to remove it.-- Thomas Basboll 21:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I have commented these out because such references refer to items of dubious copyright. If the original item can be sourced and made freely available to Wikipedia that is a different matter. Fiddle Faddle 18:40, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Which previous fires are there which have been "uncontrolled" and have not resulted in teh building collapsing? Midgley 18:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I think this article should still be deleted, but at least it is better than it was. It still needs a title that makes it clear that it is a conspiracy theory. Calling it a hypothesis is rather silly I think.-- Beguiled 20:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Reliable sources on both sides of the issue (including NIST) refer to the idea as a hypothesis. Also, we should perhaps be a bit more clear about what the argument is about. "Proponents" argue that there is enough evidence to warrant further investigation (not belief in controlled demolition). "Critics" argue that there is not enough evidence and that any such investigation would be a waste of time. That is, the discussion is only indirectly about whether or not the collapses were caused by controlled demolition.-- Thomas Basboll 09:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Though peripheral to this article, it was created because of discussions here. I wanted to notify editors of all opinions that it has been nominated for deletion. That deletion may be discussed at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:911ct. Please visit that discussion and join the discussion. Whatever oyur opinion is, t matters that sufficient opinions are registered to form a true consensus.
For those who also wish to comment on Template:911tm it has also been nominated by the same editor at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:911tm. Comments there would also be welcomed. Fiddle Faddle 11:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm removing this sentence: To date no scientific theory has been presented to explain how such massive clouds of concrete dust could have been created by a gravity collapse. It pre-supposes that such a theory is somehow needed (
WP:OR). For this, reliable sources would need to show that this is a real issue (and not something written by a computer programmer on a conspiracy theory web site) and that non-biased people have honestly examined the claims and commented on them in reliable sources.
The problem is the same as with many conspiracy theories: they are fringe things published on some random web site, and often so obviously nonsense physics that no reliable source will touch them with a stick. Or, to put it in another way, quoting a computer programmer writing on a blatantly biased web site violates
WP:RS to no end.
Weregerbil
12:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I do not care if the wording is changed, but the fact must be recognized that no explanation has been given for how exactly the dust clouds were created, and we are entitled to that explanation, as there are many people who are, rightly, asking that question. If necessary I propose we bring in a third party, neutral intermediary, preferably a contributing editor with experience in physics and structural engineering, who has no demonstrable bias in regards to this issue, to determine whether or not this is a valid point. WhoWillTellThePeople 05:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be useful for this article to have a separate reference list. We would then be able to discuss RS concerns on a case-by-case basis, and confine all citations to author-date references, i.e., "(Jones 2006: 123)", to works on that list. Yes, this will mean removing a number of the references. But it will allow us to discuss the foundations of this article more easily.-- Thomas Basboll 20:47, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Reference 44 apparently cites a quote, however the newspaper article it links to has no mention of the quote or the instance. <ref>{{cite web |title=Janitor tells 9/11 panel of brush with WTC thug |publisher=New York Daily News |date=June 2004 |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/203065p-175130c.html |accessdate=2006-12-08}}</ref>
drumguy8800
C
T
05:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Those two articles should give the answer here [22] [23]. SalvNaut 16:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" :) New article on this topic have just appeared [24]. Definately, it's going to find its way into the paragraph. SalvNaut 20:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
One thing we haven't dealt with yet, but which seems to be motivating some of the tensions in this article, is the question of whether the hypothesis is properly "scientific". This issue cuts both ways. Jones normally stops to explain how things are done in science, in part to criticize the way the NIST investigations were done. Ryan also develops this criticism in terms of "Bush science". Eagar, of course, dishes it out the other way: talking about the "reverse scientific method" of starting with your conclusions, etc. It could make for an interesting section in this article.-- Thomas Basboll 11:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I reverted WhoWillTellThePeople's edits again last night, but given how late it was I didn't get a chance to properly explain. I'm going to rectify that now.
The edits are phrased in a POV manner. For example, the edit about "squibs" was phrased as if there were squibs in the towers. That's an unverifiable statement. If the information were rephrased that the puffs of dust resembled squibs used in CD (and a source were provided for that), we could then include that information.
My suggestion is that WhoWillTellThePeople bring the statements they wants to include to this talk page and (one at a time) we can discuss them and help create neutral wording to include them in the article. The back-and-forth edit warring isn't helping any of us, so I hope we can work together on this. -- Kesh 15:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I feel that "According to the controlled demolition hypothesis, the World Trade Center was not destroyed by the planes that crashed into it as part of the September 11th attacks, nor by the fires that followed, but by explosives or other devices planted in the buildings in advance. " may be what we have been searching for. In case this gets lost in the mists of time, I have posted the diff here.
It is explicit about what follows. It avoids the words that are in dispute. It neither validates nor invalidates the hypothesis. Thomas, for me, has cracked it. Fiddle Faddle 20:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)