- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was KEEP. Since nomination, the article has been somewhat rewritten to remove the attack tone. The article is certainly referenced. Is the person notable? I would say that being notorious is not the same as being notable, but that argument was not made. Most every commentor conceded his notability. Does the article violate WP:BLP? In my view it does not, being rigorously referenced. I did not even count the votes because of the many puppets, but base the close strictly on strength of argument, which falls to the Keep view in my opinion. Herostratus 13:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Casey Serin
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Massive, well-referenced attack page. The history is filled with too many anon edits to accurately sort out, but in its current state this article is in dire violation of BLP. The sheer amount of personal details (more like documented stalking) disclosed makes this article a candidate for deletion and oversight intervention. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 02:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC) (Note: nomination was based on this revision) (Note 2: article is possibly the result of a vendetta documented at www.exurbannation.blogspot.com - see afd talk) ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 03:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
189.146.102.89 05:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC) *Keep. Casey Serin is famous. He has been on TV, the news. He has a blog. His case is relevant to society. It's not a vendetta - it's an accurate reflection of his actions. --— 189.146.102.89 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep. *What, if any, part of this article seems to you to be incorrect? It is all well researched and most of the facts come from Casey Serin himself. If this is a vendetta, it is a vendetta that is being engineered by posting only the truth. Why protect? Is he suffering from battered blogger syndrome?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.162.29 ( talk • contribs) — 70.106.162.29 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Agreed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.175.105.234 ( talk • contribs) — 68.175.105.234 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Agree Manik Raina 09:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Most of the facts can be verified from Serin's own blog. I don't think any set of facts would be terribly flattering towards him, but he has achieved quite a bit of notoriety, so he meets eligibility requirements for a Wiki article, and it shouldn't be deleted.
12.215.162.213
03:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC) —
12.215.162.213 (
talk •
contribs) has made
few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Personal blogs are not a reliable source. Serin's blog, in particular, provides only primary information and is bound to be biased. To attempt to manufacture notoriety by engineering an attack page is exactly the worst method of creating a Wikipedia article. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 03:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.106.162.29 ( talk) 03:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC).
- Many of the facts in the article are verifiable via the linked public newspaper articles and linked public records. Photographic evidence exists for many of the ancillary facts (i.e. Jamba Juice, Macaroni Grill, The Murse, The Million Dollar Home). If there is a single statement in the article that you do not find credible, note it. You are making an argument to remove an article based on the fact that you don't find the content credible and have yet to point out a single part of it that is not credible.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.162.29 ( talk • contribs) — 70.106.162.29 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- User:SkipSmith, please understand that the burden of proof falls on the accuser. A lack of evidence for the delete crowd does provide strength to the keep crowd. Snu164 03:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- The burden of proof actually falls on the guy making the unlikely claim. 129.186.205.84 19:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Precisely, a person has claimed that this article should be removed due to NPOV and Resource issues, and has not given specific examples. Snu164 23:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- To begin with, this article is basically libel bait. Over the past two hours I've seen editors add and subtract personal information, baseless speculation, and random accusations. The tone of this article is nowhere near Wikipedia standards for neutrality. I don't much care if the content is credible, my concern is that this is a biography tailored for the sole reason of disparaging its subject. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for character assassination, and the massive involvement by various blogs is detrimental to building any sort of encyclopedic article. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 03:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Serin is actually fairly well known among those discussing the housing bubble online. His blog has an Alexa ranking of 46,633, and has 130 pages linking in. I do agree that the page appears to violate WP:BLP and should be rewritten. SkipSmith 03:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. As a Realtor, and having followed the Casey Serin story since early October, and doing a good amount of reasearch on public records regarding his transactions, I believe the Casey Serin article is fair, accurate and unbiased as of 20:22 PST USA on 03/15/2007. There is considerable interest in the Mainstream Media about the story of Casey Serin, and the legal ramifications of his real estate transactions. Removing this article would be a disservice to Wikipedia, considering all the work and research that has gone into its creation. It is not an attack page. Instead, it is a well-researched and documented page that is important, regarding current real estate lending practices in the USA.
- I see virtually no discussion of real estate lending practices in this article, but quite a bit of mudslinging. Saranary 03:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. The subject person is notable. Considerable amount of external references are being quoted. Agree though that there are un-encyclopedic comments and personal attacks going on. -- PeterMarkSmith 03:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Delete or revise to be consistent with NPOV/BLP policies and protect from further edits. The page seems designed to humiliate and harass the subject. Since its inception, it has included offensive or insulting references to Serin's religion, nationality, marriage, family relationships, and appearance - none of which seem particularly relevant. I also question the repeated posting of his family members' names, photographs, and contact information. Saranary 03:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. I think an article on Casey Serin should exist, but to claim that the article in its current form is unbiased is laughable. Do neutral encyclopedia articles contain phrases like "Visitors to his blog are usually surprised at his smug comments, where it's obvious he doesn't believe he has done anything wrong, and that he deserves a lifestyle which includes several luxuries he can't afford to pay" and "Serin's personal eccentricities: his habitually unkempt haircut, his carrying a murse (which he refers to as his "man bag"), and his obsession with juicing"? Like I said, I believe an article on Casey Serin should exist, but only if it adheres to WP:BLP. SkipSmith 03:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Right now its little more than a liability. Serin's story is interesting, but not because of him as a person. Journalist coverage indeed used him as a "posterboy" to illustrate the volatile and absurd state of the real estate market. In a surprising (and not a little narcissistic) twist, Serin embraced this image, and created a blog. All of the negative comments, the structure, research, and defacement of his article are the result of this circus. There are hundreds of speculators who are in debt because of stupid business decision, singling Sarin out to illustrate the phenomenon is simply a poor basis for establishing a fair biography. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 04:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I agree there's nothing inherently notable about Serin, except that other people have decided to talk about him. I guess that makes him the
Paris Hilton of real estate --- famous for being famous. But if people are talking about him, that makes him notable, even if by more objective standards he's not unusual.
SkipSmith
04:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Depends, do claims of dubious notoriety trump the BLP/NPOV requirements of neutrality and doing no harm? Plenty of people were talking about Brian Peppers at one point, yet his article was little more than a freakshow. I'd rank Serin's claim of notability somewhere above Peppers' and quite a ways below Paris Hilton's. Hilton, at least, has a widely documented public image and a mainstream modelling/acting career. Serin has a series of technologically adept bloggers who actively maintain a clearly outlined smear campaign. I sure as hell wouldn't want to monitor this article for impropriety if it is kept, I'd go insane after a day's worth of back-and-forth edits! ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
04:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- It seems clear from the discussion at the Exurban Nation blog (linked in the afd-talk page) that there will be a concerted effort to continue adding information that contravenes BLP/NPOV policies for at least the near future.
Saranary
04:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I noticed that too --- I just went to Exurban Nation and read the comments section regarding this article. It looks like a bunch of people on both sides are intent on having a pissing match over here, so it might be worth protecting the page for a week or two until the kids get bored and go away. SkipSmith 05:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- It seems clear from the discussion at the Exurban Nation blog (linked in the afd-talk page) that there will be a concerted effort to continue adding information that contravenes BLP/NPOV policies for at least the near future.
Saranary
04:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Depends, do claims of dubious notoriety trump the BLP/NPOV requirements of neutrality and doing no harm? Plenty of people were talking about Brian Peppers at one point, yet his article was little more than a freakshow. I'd rank Serin's claim of notability somewhere above Peppers' and quite a ways below Paris Hilton's. Hilton, at least, has a widely documented public image and a mainstream modelling/acting career. Serin has a series of technologically adept bloggers who actively maintain a clearly outlined smear campaign. I sure as hell wouldn't want to monitor this article for impropriety if it is kept, I'd go insane after a day's worth of back-and-forth edits! ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
04:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I agree there's nothing inherently notable about Serin, except that other people have decided to talk about him. I guess that makes him the
Paris Hilton of real estate --- famous for being famous. But if people are talking about him, that makes him notable, even if by more objective standards he's not unusual.
SkipSmith
04:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep but rewrite per SkipSmith. Serin definitely notable, much of the info is verifiable and there are some quality sources cited. So I wouldn't toss the whole thing out. But that said, "unbiased" is about the last word I would use to describe this article. The fairness of tone section of WP:NPOV and WP:AWW. And even though many of the statements are sourced, certainly not all of them are. And some of it blatant opinion. If you're adding in to a biographical article a statement such as "many readers of such-and-such blog feel this certain way" about the subject, there's a pretty good chance that statement shouldn't be there. Mwelch 04:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Serin is a notable figure who has over 40,000 Google hits as of the present date. He has been featured in various magazines and other media, and is well-known among the real estate blogging community. The fact that he himself has been blogging about his financial debacle makes him even more notable. a49erfan 04:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)— A49erfan ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Agreed. The subject is relevant enough to warrant his own page though it might be wise to protect the article until the vandalstorm dies down. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.174.10.135 ( talk) 17:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC).— 70.174.10.135 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep and Protect Needs protected from libel and other content, but it is quite notable and seems mostly verified at present. Kopf1988 04:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Delete this garbage. None of it can be verified.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.10.76 ( talk • contribs) — 64.121.10.76 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Which substantial portion is unverified? Seems to me that the vast majority is well cited from either creditable newspapers or from Serin's words himself. Snu164 18:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)snu164 — Snu164 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Have you watched the episode in question? It may very well contain every piece of this information (however unlikely that is)
Kopf1988
05:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I'll bite. What episode of which show are you talking about? ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 05:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, Serin is a notable guy with even national paper USA Today mentioning him. I believe this article is a bit POV and needs to be NPOVise. We cannot doubt his notability and there are enough sources to establish his notability on Wikipedia. There is a need to remove the biased statements and we should adhere to WP:BLP and try to keep the article as neutral as possible. A complete rewrite is needed actually, to fix this NPOV problem. Terence 05:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. The subject has been discussed in major media such as New York magazine and USA Today. However, many of the citations are from blogs, including the subject's own blog. The article should be cut down so as to contain only information attributable to reliable sources. -- Metropolitan90 05:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Rewrite. Obviously notable. Current article is a mockery of NPOV though.--
ZayZayEM
07:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Not all nominations are a simple matter of notability. If the current article is a mockery, why shouldn't it be deleted according to the
WP:CSD criterion on attack pages? ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
07:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Because that's for when there's no acceptable version to which the article can be reverted. In this instance, not only could the article be reverted to its original (and much more tolerable) stub state, but there's actually some additional decent and sourced material in it now that could be used to expand it at least somewhat from that stub state in a way that would still be NPOV. Agreed with the previous suggestion, though, that given the current state of affairs the article may well need to be protected for a while.
Mwelch
08:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I still think that all the libelous material and personal accusations should be deleted from this article's history. After that, we'll still be left with a short stub about a random guy who made stupid decisions in real estate. ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
08:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Anetode makes a point here. If this is not a violation of any wikipedia policies, I support this move. Libellous material should be nuked if permissable.-- ZayZayEM 15:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I still think that all the libelous material and personal accusations should be deleted from this article's history. After that, we'll still be left with a short stub about a random guy who made stupid decisions in real estate. ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
08:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Because that's for when there's no acceptable version to which the article can be reverted. In this instance, not only could the article be reverted to its original (and much more tolerable) stub state, but there's actually some additional decent and sourced material in it now that could be used to expand it at least somewhat from that stub state in a way that would still be NPOV. Agreed with the previous suggestion, though, that given the current state of affairs the article may well need to be protected for a while.
Mwelch
08:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Not all nominations are a simple matter of notability. If the current article is a mockery, why shouldn't it be deleted according to the
WP:CSD criterion on attack pages? ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
07:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, Casey himself wrote in his orginal blog regards putting all his info on the web, "I still really want it to be public. I don't know exactly why. Part of my just wants to be open and transparent with no regard for other people's feelings about it." He has been in USA Today twice, New York Magazine, NPR, San Fran Cronicle, Motley Fool, on and on. The guy lives on the web, and while he should not die on the web, his very public blog is a lonelygirl15 meets real estate bubble notable event. Much of the material seems amazing, but Casey blogs this stuff and publishes hundreds of replies. Biographies of living persons states: "The article should document . . . in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves." DaveEnglish 13:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Information is traceable via public record and subject has become a figure of notoriety in Mainstream media. Despite the "personal vendetta" you have arbitrarily decided exists, you should do a better job of checking the facts for yourself before making a blanket decision to have the article deleted. It should certainly be edited to be more of a fact-based document as oppposed to a personal attack. However, the true and verifiable facts do not paint the subject in a positive light as a matter of course.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.236.18 ( talk • contribs) — 74.72.236.18 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep, but edit out certain parts* The entire story is pretty much verifiable, it is the tone that is the problem. Please note that this problem did not exist until Serin asked for it to be edited on his blog. Until then, it was very neutral and informative. Research into property deeds, foreclosure notices, and his media appearances is all verifiable, and represents a very current issue in America.-- Jerichohill817 14:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)— Jerichohill817 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- NPOV/BLP issues existed before Serin asked his readers to modify his entry, though. His blog post about the Wikipedia entry is dated 14 March 2007. Versions dated from February to 12 March have these issues as well.
129.186.205.84
15:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Then we edit it to neutrality. Considering that Serin is relatively famous and an very telling example of the subprime meltdown, which is a very hot and current topic in the US, the article should be kept. I dont have a problem editing it down to a more neutral tone, but much of what was on there prior was a stub entry, last I had seen it before this mess. In addition, we cant blame all the edits on exurban. Serin opened up his blog to unmoderated comments for a few hours once, and the vehement posted was NOTHING like we're seeing here. If it helps I would gladly add in the foreclosure notices with his name on them, or the courthouse docs.-- Jerichohill817 19:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC) — Jerichohill817 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- NPOV/BLP issues existed before Serin asked his readers to modify his entry, though. His blog post about the Wikipedia entry is dated 14 March 2007. Versions dated from February to 12 March have these issues as well.
129.186.205.84
15:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, The article fundamentally matches basic facts. Perhaps some editing to a more neutral tone on personal element, but casey serin serves as a walking example
of the Trillion dollar real estate disaster. It is outrageous that people could get houses and mortgages on no more then their say so. While Serin is a fool, far more malevolent criminals used this same environment to strip billions in wealth from our society. To document how one fool could get over $2 Million in debt serves to show how weak the system is. It was harder to buy a car in 2005 then to buy a house." (Note: This entry does not have a signature, and may be the first half of the post by User:70.105.158.193 below. SkipSmith 20:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC))
- Keep. I vote to keep this Wiki entry. I speak not as a "hater", but as a fascinated observer. Casey is unusual. He is perhaps the most potent example of the self-revealing nature of young bloggers today, and he is also succinctly emblematic of the recently manifest real estate bubble and its various causes. All that is posted on his Wiki entry is true, as verified by Casey himself and interested third parties. He has made himself news, and the character flaws revealed by his transparent attempts at obfuscation add layers of further interest. The Casey Serin Wiki entry is a valuable, useful addition to Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.105.158.193 ( talk) 14:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC).— 70.105.158.193 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep. Needs some revision on NPOV, but I believe a large portion of this problem is due to vandalism. I say protect for a week or so, then open to allow a non-biased edit to evolve. As for the accusation that it is unverifiable, it seems to me that it is well cited by creditable MSM and through the words of Serin himself. Snu164 15:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)snu164— Snu164 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep; Serin has made himself a public figure through his media appearances and has developed some notoriety, particularly within the housing bubble blogs. I believe his story is significant enough, as an exemplar of property speculation, to merit inclusion. I'd note that article has actually *improved* in tone and reliability since Serin drew attention to it. Some mixed feelings though: there are NPOV problems, particularly within the Criticisms section; it does rely heavily on citations to Serin's own blog, not a reliable source for any statement not qualified with "Serin claims"; it will continue to be a target for vandalism given that both Serin and Exurban Nation have directed readers to it. -- Jkew 17:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- "Keep". Again, Casey's story has been published in numerous major media outlets and is well known within the real-estate community. As for NOPV, I agree, it needs work in this area but when you have the subject providing information such as "Yes, I committed mortgage fraud." in an audio interview it is hard to not make the article seem as a bit biased against him when he has admitted on many occasions to have committed illegal acts and most people have built in negative feelings towards those who are un-remoseful about committing crimes and openly talk about it. While the article itself may be neutral, it, understandably, may feel un-neutral given that many people will find his actions and lack of remorse for those actions to be morally reprehensible and he has a distinct lack of any effort to rectify them. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.96.236.92 ( talk) 17:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC). — 71.96.236.92 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Saying that it's difficult not to make the article biased because the authors will inevitably demand justice/retribution from the subject is not a good argument for keeping it, in my opinion. Quite the opposite. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for revenge fantasies. 129.186.205.84 17:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: Nigel Swaby redirects to Casey Serin. Swaby is a supporter of Serin who has written about him several times on his blog. This redirect should be deleted; Swaby is not notorious in his own right, not is he closely enough associated with Serin to be synonymous with him. -- Jkew 18:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I couldn't find Nigel on the page. I assume this has been fixed. Snu164 03:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Note: There are a large number of edits here by IP addresses whose only contribution to Wikipedia is their post in this discussion. Does anyone know how to add the "this is not an election" template? SkipSmith 19:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- There seem to be a lot of single-purpose ips/accounts on this discussion... you should go through and tag them with {{subst:spa|username|UTC timestamp [optional]}} per the template at the top of the discussion. — Disavian ( talk/ contribs) 19:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Done ... for now. SkipSmith 20:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. *THe Casey Serin Story is still evoling and the wiki should as well. The verifiable facts are sufficiently damning and unsubstantiated accusations should be redacted but a great disservice would be comitted if the article were to be removed just because the facts are so very distasteful. As a second point in favor of retention Casey Serin himself has sought the articles' expansion rather than requested its removal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.84.154.217 ( talk) 20:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC). — 75.84.154.217 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Restore. *Wiki has "jumped the shark" on this issue. The editors have removed reference to am incriminating video by the subject himself. Perhaps wiki would consider removing any pictures from the biographies of living artists as irellevant to their personal stories? The video documents. The editors need reconsider whether they are hiding behind neutrailty when in fact they are sanitizing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.84.154.217 ( talk) 21:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC). — 75.84.154.217 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Delete Personally, I don't find this type of character, the type that wikipedia should be (even as a tertiary resource) granting notability to. TonyTheTiger ( talk/ cont/ bio) 21:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. I agree it will take work to keep this one encyclopedic, but I suspect that is common of pages for persons with many detractors. I don't think it is Wikipedia that is "granting notability" to Serin. It is that with all the easy lending the media and the blogosphere are predisposed to put a face and a name to this phenomenon. Serin just came along to fit that bill and the bloggers and then the media picked up on it. I have been trying to make a case that we should ratchet down some of the personal content, but wasn't getting anyone backing me up and didn't want to get into an edit war. I think the discussion that needs to happen (where?) is what should be in- and out-of bounds for this article as a bio of a living person. If we can come to some consensus on the ground rules, it will make it easier to edit and police the page. As it is there are differing opinions about how much of his family's details are appropriate given his explicit request to keep them out of it. -- Jake 21:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I can see your point about Serin becoming the face of the real estate meltdown. The biggest problem with this article in its current form is that many of its inflammatory assertions have been sourced to Serin's blog, Ramit's blog, the Exurban Nation blog, other real estate blogs, google caches and Usenet. All of these are considered unreliable sources, as per
WP:ATTR, and cannot be used to support negative claims about a living person. Information gleaned from the news stories may be cited, of course.
Saranary
22:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Right. Because so much of the story comes out of IAFF we are in murky ground in
WP:ATTR between "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves" where "there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it" and "the article is not based primarily on such sources". Are there other blog-centric pages where this has been well hashed out for precedence? --
Jake
- The only one I could find was Kaycee Nicole, a blogger who claimed to be a high school girl suffering from leukemia. It's not a great precedent, since her story turned out to be a hoax. The practical upshot is that the article is now based on a Wired article and a Snopes.com summary of the story, rather than quotes from the blog itself. Hope that helps. Saranary 15:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Jason Fortuny was deleted for attribution issues (blogs/craigslist). It's since been merged with Internet privacy. 129.186.205.84 20:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Right. Because so much of the story comes out of IAFF we are in murky ground in
WP:ATTR between "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves" where "there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it" and "the article is not based primarily on such sources". Are there other blog-centric pages where this has been well hashed out for precedence? --
Jake
- I can see your point about Serin becoming the face of the real estate meltdown. The biggest problem with this article in its current form is that many of its inflammatory assertions have been sourced to Serin's blog, Ramit's blog, the Exurban Nation blog, other real estate blogs, google caches and Usenet. All of these are considered unreliable sources, as per
WP:ATTR, and cannot be used to support negative claims about a living person. Information gleaned from the news stories may be cited, of course.
Saranary
22:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, but with MAJOR rewrite. This article looks to be more mudslinging than anything else, with much reliance on blogs as sources. The guy appears to be notable (more properly, notorious), but this article is by no means NPOV. It looks more like a prosecutor building a case against the guy. Realkyhick 23:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Would you say that it is, primarily, an attack page? ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 23:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- As a regular reader of Serin's blog and of Wikipedia (though rarely a contributor here), I would say the article accurately reflects the public persona Casey Serin has created for himself. He has built a popular blog by continually aggravating his readers, who in turn post sarcastic, hateful, and humorous responses which he allows through moderation. The article here is kind to him, compared to his own blog. 66.75.58.180 00:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Lee Reeves — User:66.75.58.180 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- So you're basically saying that Serin is a troll responsible for manufacturing his notoriety. The Wikipedia article is an indulgent response to the baiting, and it is neutral because it rightfully defames him as a self-important flim-flam artist. Are you sure you don't have Wikipedia confused with Encyclopedia Dramatica? ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 01:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, you've captured the Casey Serin story exactly. But in just five minutes I found Wikipedia articles on Derek Smart, Paris Hilton, Kato Kaelin, Linda Tripp, and Frenchie Davis, so I'm inclined to believe eliding the Encyclopedia Dramatica is going to be a big job. 66.75.58.180 05:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC) — User:66.75.58.180 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Serin is no troll. His real estate dealings are very real. His notoriety stems from the fact that he has brazenly admitted to mortgage fraud, not just on his blog but to major media outlets as well, and has yet to face any consequences. People follow his story to see what will happen to him because many have committed the same offenses on a smaller scale. 205.212.74.143 05:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC) — User:205.212.74.143 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep Casey Serin is not notable for his real estate dealings, but for being a minor Internet phenomenon, and that fame is based on the hatred he inspires. Serin himself appears to understand this: despite occasional misgivings, he continues to allow even the worst of the attacks once posted here on his moderated blog. A truly NPOV requires accurately documenting the notorious persona Serin himself has nutured. 66.75.58.180 00:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Lee Reeves — User:66.75.58.180 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep/restore. This log is very accurate in itself and reliable content mostly suplied by Casey Serin himself in his own blog. While he may defend some of it now, that is only because his version is more biased than any normal person and wavers from day to day between taking responsibility and completely denying the facts as he [himself] stated them. This was his intention to cause so much havoc that Wiki would be utterly comfused and be forced to remove or seriously edit the page in a way that would completely omit the facts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.226.136.208 ( talk) 04:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC). — User:70.226.136.208 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep. If he were just some guy who lost money on real estate, then there would be nothing to write. Casey Serin is notable not for his failed investments, but for the incredible level of detail he provides while talking about them. It's not just a blog; he has posted screenshots and scans of legal and financial documents that most people consider extremely private. The houses are relevant only to the extent that they make the exhibitionism interesting. If we have articles for porn stars, then it certainly makes sense to have one for him, for about the same reasons.
- As far as what the article should say, and what references should be acceptable: this is a strange situation. Serin freely admits (on his blog, of course) to things that would be libelous if you accused someone of them. The anti-self-published guidelines on WP:BLP are written to prevent Wikipedia from propagating someone's self-promotion. They don't seem to mention what to do about self-defamation. 24.91.135.162 04:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Whether or not the current article is any good is irrelevant to question of whether an article should exist at all. Serin's name often comes up in real estate discussions without any explanation of who he is. People are just expected to know, and if they don't they may come here looking for information. They should find something, even if it's just a stub. 205.212.74.143 05:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC) — User:205.212.74.143 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep. The original grounds for deletion are that this page is an attack page. Wikipedia defines an attack page: "A Wikipedia article, page or image created for the sole purpose of disparaging its subject is an attack page." ( Wikipedia:Attack_page). This page was created as a factual, non-disparaging stub based on the USA Today article on Casey. Therefore, it does not meet the definition of an attack page, and the original grounds for deletion are invalid. -- Billgordon1099 17:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. I'm going to go with the poster above who notes that most of Serin's own entries are essentially self-defamatory. Serin admits to multiple acts of fraud, foolishness and self-delusion. Also, there are users who may appear to be single purpose IP's only due to the nature of the modern internet. My ISP uses DHCP, and resets the leases every 24 hours, plus, i wander between work, home and my mobile card, so i pop in and out of 3 Class A networks on a routine basis. Add in the fact, we are using NAT and it becomes very hard to predict what my IP is going to be. I don't login to Wikipedia, because, i want to be anonymous. I worked very hard just creating a table of entries of real estate deals done by Serin, and, i hate seeing it messed with. That table is essential to understanding what went on. YOu can see a slow movement, and then suddenly, a flurry of deals done as the cashback window was closing. Sadly, he blew much of his cash on a foolish house purchase in dallas. Which almost makes him an object of pathos. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.163.166.151 ( talk) 20:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC).— 71.163.166.151 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- The information in the table is almost completely unsourced. Dates and prices of sale are public records and should be able to be cited with reputable (non-blog) sources. Is there any reliable corroboration for the information from the W2 income/cash back columns - say, newspaper articles or television interviews? 129.186.205.84 19:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Seems interesting and notable. Nssdfdsfds 22:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. While we will need to keep an eye on it this article should be retained. Serin has been quite widely covered in the media and his activities do illustrate the machinations that go on in housing markets all rouund the world. By choosing to publicise his own problems Serin has moved in to the public arena and a factual article about him is warranted. Lisiate 23:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- I'll change my vote to Keep, but monitor closely for policy violations. While this article has been greatly improved since it went up for deletion, it's still primarily sourced from blogs and needs more attention. Several editors here and on the article's talk page argue that this is permissible because Serin's own words indict or condemn him; I disagree. Let Serin's words convict him on his own blog, and include only those facts which can be substantiated by reliable third-party sources in the article. Saranary 00:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- To expand, the article on Baron Munchausen does not uncritically accept his stories of his own adventures as fact. We need to keep the reliability of the narrator in mind here, especially as previous contributors to this article have suggested that Serin may exaggerate his financial woes or bait his audience for additional publicity. Saranary 15:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. The guy has appeared in multiple media outlets. His blog receives several thousand visits a day according to sitemeter. The article is a definite "Keep". johndowning 22:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Looks like Casey Serin is going to be discussed on "ABC News, Suze Orman and PBS Money Track with Jack Gallagher" soon. Would be nice for such a public figure to have a Wikipedia entry. DaveEnglish 16:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. There may be a precedent in the AfD discussion for Jason Fortuny. The article had BLP issues similar to the version of Casey Serin that was nominated for deletion -- speculation on Fortuny's mental illness, gossip about his childhood and college career, and inclusion of personal details like contact information and family members' names. Like the current version of Casey Serin, it mostly used blogposts for sources. Jason Fortuny was initially deleted, and then merged with Internet privacy. 129.186.205.84 20:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Note: Fortuny had admitted to a great number of embarrassing and possibly illegal activities in his own livejournal, and these were quoted in the Wikipedia article. Ultimately the consensus was that Fortuny's livejournal was not a reliable source. 129.186.205.84 20:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PlentyofFish
- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was Redirect to Gravitation. Cbrown1023 talk 01:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Gravitational attraction
- Gravitational attraction ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View AfD)
This article used to be a redirect to gravitation. JimJast has created a new article here which fails WP:NPOV in its presentation and WP:OR in its description of how curvature mimics a force. From talk:gravitational attraction one finds that the purpose of this article is to present that which JimJast calls "Einstein's POV", but which in fact is Jim's personal opinion of what that POV is. This article needs to be returned to being a redirect. EMS | Talk 14:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to jump to the top of the queue, but I think this quote should settle this "debate". The following is from the Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, page 3:
- "we first define the mass as the inertia of the object, which we measure by applying known forces and measuring the acceleration. Then we measure the attraction due to gravitation, for example, by weighing, and compare the results." (emphasis mine). Flying fish 14:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation -- EMS | Talk 14:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation Current article has many serious problems. It claims to be partly about the history/interpretation of gravity, but what it says is wrong and is not anchored in history. It then attempts a weak-field approximation to regain Newton's laws, and the derivation is just plain wrong. linas 17:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- question to linas Don't you agree with Landau that total energy E doesn't change with the change of position of particle (and so there isn't any gravitational attraction involved in the movement of the particle)? Jim 09:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - The total energy E of a free-falling particle doesn't change in classical mechanics either. Are you claiming that this should mean that there is no force of gravity in Newton's view? -- EMS | Talk 14:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment The kinetic energy of the particle changes in a free fall (e.g. when particle "drops" its kinetic energy increaes). So from Newton's POV (and so also from POV of non relativistic classical mechanics) there was a need for an assumption of some kind of "gravitational attractive force" F=dE/dx (where E is this kinetic energy and x is distance) that could be responsible for this change of kinetic energy of the free falling particle. To keep the conservation of energy intact this energy has been assumed to be delivered form a source called "potential energy of the particle". And that's why it has been assumed in Newtonian physics and non relativistic classical mechanics that the sum of kinetic energy and potential energy of the particle is constant. In relativistic physics since the energy of the free falling particle doesn't change despite its changing kinetic energy (see Landau) there is no need for an assumption of any "gravitational attractive force" nor any "potential energy". That's why we say now that Einstein eliminated "gravitational attractive force" form physics. Jim 15:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - You did not write "kinetic energy" above, but instead wrote "total energy". You are going to have to learn that if your writing is subject to misinterpretation, the fault is yours and not the reader's. BTW - You still have a goof in the above as you wrote that the "energy of the free falling particle does not change despite its changing kinetic energy", yet the point of your write-up is that the change in c (as determined by a distant observer) keeps the kinetic energy constant in general relativity. -- EMS | Talk 16:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - What do you mean You did not write "kinetic energy" above? I just started my last comment from The kinetic energy of the particle .... When I write "kinetic energy" I mean "kinetic energy", when I write "total energy" I mean "total energy". While the idea of "kinetic energy" is almost the same in Newtonian and relativistic physics, the idea of "total energy" is obviously different in relativity since in Newtonian physics it used to be "kinetic energy" plus "potential energy", the latter being usually "negative". The "potential energy" lost its meaning in relativity where "total energy" is . Could you explain more clearly what you mean by "keeps the kinetic energy constant in general relativity" since in relativity the total energy is constant. The "kinetic energy" isn't constant in neither physics unless in the reference frame of the free falling particle when it is a trivial zero. Jim 20:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - Interesting goof on my part, as you are correct that Newtonian physics lack any rest energy, and kinetic energy does not include that. My point remains that energy is conserved (locally) in any case. More important is that your question to linas can only be valid if potential energy is excluded, but there was nothing in the question to make that clear. You keep approaching things from your own perculiar POV, and have no respect for the knowledge base or the needs of others. More specifically to this case, you seem to think that the gravitational attraction article should be a pro-GR rant instead of an informative review of the topic itself. -- EMS | Talk 21:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment I'm just trying to explain gravitation based on the "needs of others" which I hope is as simple explanation as possible so it could be understood by a high school student. That's why I use just derivatives and not the tensor calculus which would turn off most people. However, as Einstein said, while everything should be made as simple as possible (and luckily physics is simple, even simpler than Newton's) the math shouldn't be made any simpler than possible. So I think I made it the simplest possible. If you can make it any simpler you are welcome to modify my stuff but I don't think that keeping old Newtonian stuff would do anybody any good. Jim 21:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- additional comment - You seem to be one of the guys on the other side of the issue who understands the issue. So you might be able to turn the whole consensus from 9:1 (as it stands now) to 0:10 (as it should be if everybody understood clearly what the issue is). So I should probably explain the issue more clearly. But I had a feeling that I did it already in the "gravitational attraction" page and no one was interested enough to read it all. So if we could discuss, after reading the page, what are the real objections (not just "troll Jim pushing again his POV") I'd have an opportunity to clarify them and explain while in this case Jim's POV is also POV of the hard science that is taught in all universieties around the world, unfortunately only to graduate physics students. And I'd like it to be taught to high school students as well since they are perfectly well capable of understanding this hard science POV, when it is properly explained to them. So if I make dydactical errors, as you seem to suggest, please point thosse errors to me and we may clarify them. One isse that you pointed to already is " total energy". However I also modified this page to fit the contemporary state of affairs and it was reverted to some non invariant nonsens as well. So I just concentrate on the most important issue in my opinion, which is the faith in gravitational attraction. This faith has persisted already for over 300 years, and it is outdated for almost 100 years, but despite that it is taught to high school students around the world, as good enough for them. Which then it has all the features of a state religion (in this case even a world religion). It is tauht with a hope that when those students are interested in the truth then they may study physics and learn in due time what the truth is. Apparently they never do as it is shown by this consensus of educated people, most likely graduated from many high schools, and some even graduate students in physics at Harvard University. Jim 09:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- Responded to at User_talk:JimJast#Teaching_gravitation -- EMS | Talk 16:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation — Ruud 19:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment Any reason for redirection? Jim 21:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation — Flying fish 23:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC) Just seeing the statement in the first sentence that "gravitational attraction is a myth" was enough to convince me that this is an example of someone pushing their own (probably nearly unique) POV. The inverse square law holds in everyday life, and is a great approximation to nature at the energies and in the fields that humans are accustomed to. As others have pointed out, the fact that you don't fly off into space is evidence that "something" is pulling you down. Whether that something is some kind of inverse square law, or quantum gravity, or the result of some field equations doesn't matter, in ordinary human life we observe that we are attracted to the Earth. Arguments about what general relativity means should take place on GR pages, not on a page designed to attack the normal understanding of gravitation. As a final point, consider someone creating a page called "Earth's Geography" and stating in the lead sentence that "the idea that the Earth is round is a myth. It's actually a bumpy elipsoid". Even if the point is true it's badly representing the normal person's worldview.
- comment - Your example with a round Earth is about approximation while sentence about gravitational attraction is about something not existing at all. It seems that almost a century after the gravitational attraction disppeared from physics the high school students might finally start reading encyclopedia's articles that tell them the same thing that physics students learn in their gravitation courses and to learn how gravitation really works instead of believing a nearly century old story. Jim 21:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - Science is about approximation and model building. The model of 1/r**2 attraction works very well (wihthin measurement uncertainties) for almost everything everyone does. Should we change the first sentence of "proton" to "The existance of protons is a myth! In reality the proton is a bound state of three quarks of individual color". (Of course in perturbative field theory "quarks" don't exist either, they're just excitations out of the vacuum, so one can go even further...) We teach high school physics students about friction - but "friction is a myth"! It's really an integral of electromagnetic interactions between atoms (uh oh) on each of the adjacent surfaces.
- Models are used constantly in physics. Condensed matter physicists talk about "depletion forces" (really electromagnetic), electronics designers talk about the AC current through a capacitor (electrons don't actually flow), we even talk about electrons "flowing" even though individual electrons bounce all over the place in the wire, and don't really go in orderly circles through the loop. The model of gravitational attraction due a to 1/r**2 force is an exceedingly good model for everyday life, is VERY important in the history physics, and is a great teaching tool. If you want people to learn about general relativity then include a link to it on Gravitation (I assume it's there already), and mention that the 1/r**2 force law represents the old way of thinking about it. Done. Flying fish 20:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- response - I did what you advise long time ago, and it was removed by someone who believes (without any proof so far, but he believes it is going to be proved in future) that masses attract each other through empty space and a sentence to this effect still opens, untouched, the " Gravitation" page. That's why I stopped editing for a while (as Feynman advised "no argument will convince the idiot" [23]) but then it occured to me that I may create a page about gravitational attraction and clarify this issue according to knowledge delivered by reliable sources. It might have the advantage that idiots can't blank it since it would make an act of vandalism according to Wikipedia's policy. Now you and EMS did just that and additionally you think that high school students should be shielded from contmporary knowledge about gravitational attraction. Apparently you believe that shielding brings them a lot of good. EMS even thinks that admitting that relativity is real might blow people minds ( which he saw happening). So you guys think that telling the truth as we know it is bad and Wikipedia should protect inocent high school students from learing truth about the real world and do it through an administrative action. However it is probably against Wikipedia's policy and for sure against policy of Prof. Dumbledore who maintained that the best way to improve society is to tell the truth as it is known. The simple reason behind such policy is that one can't predict the results of the lies that people are fed with, for noble purposes, and sometimes those lies backfire and then one regrets that those people were ever lied to.
- An example of backfiring of noble purpose might be very recent decision by Polish Government (one of the few Governments that helps us to win the Iraq War) to consider a death during surgery an assasination. It might have ben an attempt to raise the flagging popularity of the ruling party with the voters. One doctor whose patient died after the surgery has been accused of assasination by the Minister of Justice (even before the trial) and jailed after a squad of police, popularly known as Ninja Turtles for their gear, made a spectacular arrest at the hospital for patients to enjoy. However the noble idea of creating a "perfect tool" for improving hospital statistics backfired by refusal of some Polish doctors to perform surgeries, which the Government didn't foreseen. They meant well and yet the bad doctors turned the best intentions into a disaster for Polish people who now have difficulties with having surgeries since 20 years in jail is too big a risk for those cowardly doctors. Unfortunately there is no death penelty in Poland so 20 years for assasination is max the governmant can afford but the Government is working on improving Polish Constitution that would be more like in Texas. So soon if a patient dies so does his doctor. Apparently, Polish Government might assume that it "is an exceedingly good model for everyday life, [...] and is a great teaching tool" to teach doctors.
- To warn anybody who might not know, to call the Polish President, Mr. Kaczynski (don't mix him with this twin brother who looks exactly the same but is a Prime Minister of Poland) by any disrespectful name, according to the Polish law, might carry a penelty of three years in jail, and one doesn't have to live in Poland to be punished, since this law similarly to the American law is universal and may reach you wherever you are. The ruling party is "Law and Justice", and it is dedicated to enforcing the law. So guys, don't jump publicly to conclusions about the Polish Government. Now they are going to help us also in Afghanistan, and even on the ground, they are so tough, with our support only from the air, so be rather gentle with them, and no Polish Jokes please. Except possibly something like "Jim himself is a polish joke", which might be justified because of not folowing Feynman's advice. Jim 14:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- more response - Flying fish, the above story is about a 40 million nation in the middle of Europe, of average IQ as ours, and the purpose of the story is for you to realize that people are not rational creatures and feeding them un-truths make them even less rational and that's why telling the truth, even to idiots, is the best policy.
- Even if you try to think everything over in every detail they always manage to screw up something and then they tell you "you said it yourself". And then your only defense is "well, I lied, since I thought that you are idiots and can't bear the truth since it might blow your minds". And this is a very weak defense. So if you can document the fact that three quarks together is a myth, say it. It is BTW what Feynman always did. When he knew that something isn't true he said so and then he explained what model we may use to work with it anyway. Because science is not about models, as you say, but suprizingly enough it is abobut finding what is false. Which can be done in all relevant cases through experiments. That's why we already know, and are sure of, a lot of myth. By an important epistemological rule we can find what is true only when it is just oposite to a myth that we already proved false. And unfortunately there are many possible things opposite to a given myth. That's why to find truth is so difficult but luckily not impossible in principle.
- One of my professors who taught magnetism always started his lectures by saying: "Whatever I'll tell you isn't true. It is simplified to make it easier for you to calculate certain things and understand what you can't calculate with those methods and why". And so the students were warned that Maxwell Equations are only approximation and could accept the rest and become better physicists than those who believed in Maxwell Equations and thought that magnetic force can exists on its own (you just add one term to Maxwell...) and were looking for " magnetic monopoles" not even suspecting that "magnetic monopole" (a stick with one end) or a graviton (a carrier of inertial force, a.k.a. " gravitational force") might be a myth. Jim 16:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - If you feel that word " myth" is improper you might want to change it to more scientifically correct " urban legend". Jim 23:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment Science is not the search for truth. There are no certitudes in science, only theories and models. Further, since you mentioned Feynman let me quote from page 3 of the Feynman lectures on gravitation: "First of all there is the fact that the attraction follows an inverse-square law... Then there is the fact that the force is proportional to the masses of the objects." Then later on the same page: "we first define the mass as the inertia of the object, which we measure by applying known forces and measuring the acceleration. Then we measure the attraction due to gravitation, for example, by weighing, and compare the results." (emphasis mine). I think this ought to settle this matter. Flying fish 14:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
- response - You say "Science is not the search for truth", making an impression that maybe I said that it is. I said: "science is [...] about finding what is false". Of course finding what is false is not the same as the search for truth since as you agreed there are no certitudes in science. So we agree on this point. Then as it turns out we agree also on a point that The inverse square law holds in everyday life, and is a great approximation to nature ... which you said yourself. So your example with Feynman is about a model that Feynamn explains and which is an approximation to nature. It is all independent of what Einstein discovered, since as Feynman says in section 7-8 (Gravity and relativity) of The Fenman lectures on physics "In spite of all the excitement it created, Newton's law of gravitation is not correct!" (exclamation is Feynman's). Now my POV is that we shouldn't present to high school students something about which we already know that it is false, which contrary to truth can be discovered by science and it's even the purpose of science to find what is false. Because we don't want to live in the world of illusions as lived the people of Dark Ages. So my purpose is to show to the high school students how easy it is to understand Einstein's gravitation (and if I didn't do it well enough you are welcome to help), and so they don't need to believe that the gravitational attraction is real. They should know that it is not real (as far as we know) because this knowledge makes them capable of discovering something on their own in physics. While this opportunity will be taken away form most of them when from the earliest years they are going to believe in urban legends which Newtonian gravitation claerly is as Feynman confirms. We differ then only in POV on the educational policy. The education of most people taking part in this debate is an evidence that the present policy on teaching gravitation starting from Newton's theory is wrong. IMO it should start from stating clearly that there is no such thing as gravitational attraction, how it is simulated (which as you can see from the disputed page, thanks to Landau, takes less than 45 minutes to explain) and only then, when students comprehend the physics of the real world, explaining how simpy we can solve problems involving gravitation with Newton's equations. Otherwise we create mentally challenged individuals who might believe that the real world can't be understood. And later in life have problems with explaining many cosmological puzzles since faith in gravitational attraction affects their clear judgment. Jim 18:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation JRSpriggs 06:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment Any reason for redirection? Jim 21:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation the first sentence does it. there's an insightful quote (perhaps physicists could tell me from whom, is it the relativist Singe?) that goes something like "In GR gravity is part of the stage while, in Newton's theory, it is an actor." IMHO, this article looks like a badly erroneous interpretation of that quote. Mct mht 13:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation, obviously, and beware of further disruption from JimJast. Tim Shuba 22:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - JimJast is referring to other editors as vandals in a similar though less egregious content dispute. [24] [25] Tim Shuba 00:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - according to Wikipedia, blanking someone else's page (which Tim Shuba did) is vandalism. If you don't like the page because it contradicts your particular POV, to proceed in a civilized manner, you should state your offended POV first and then if not satisfied by the response, to request the deletion of the page. E.g. I don't understand why you consider Newtonian physics and relativity (contained in classical mechanics) being the same. Unless you never heard about relativity being different than Newtonian physics, but even then it is not a good reason for blanking a page. Jim 15:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep it as it is since high school students shouldn't be fed majority opinion but they should be told what physicists (and apparently not many of them have time to edit Wikipedia) consider to be a true story. "Two masses do not attract each other, period." ( Robert A. Mitchell 02:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)) and yet read the first sentence of " Gravitation" page to which "Gravitational attraction" is going to be redirected). But even if Eddington wondered who might be the third person who understood Einstein's theory it still made a better theory than Newton's. It is rather a sad picture that now, almost a century later, so many people want to come back to the gravitational attraction as a reason for things not falling off the Earth. In nearly hundred years they couldn't managed to understand Einstein. It means that my job of popularizing Einstein's gravitation is urgently needed to keep Wikipedia from sinking in the see of ingnorance about the physics of the real world. I just see a need to explain at least what this physics isn't and why. At least to high school students who might not yet have their own prejudices about it and could learn physics as understood by physicists and not those who understand only the simplified Newtonian physics. Jim 23:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation. The article is very problematic:
- 1. It doesn't make any sense that people who want to read about the gravitational force would need to understand general relativity first. It would be a very non-standard pedagogical approach.
- comment Apparently this non standard pedagogical approach is urgently needed since relativity is around already for about a century and as demonstratef by this voting list a lot of intelligent people still don't understand it and some don't even know the simplest things about it. Jim 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- 2. The article includes many mistakes. For example, the text claims that gravitational force exists when the body "is prevented from its free movement" and that it doesn't exist when the body is free to move. With or without general relativity, this statement is wrong.
- comment This POV is wrong according to your POV but it is right according to POV of any textbook on general relativity. So to be fair you might say that opinions are divided, and yours aren't supported by any relible source yet since reliable sources support general relativity's POV. Even the autors that you quoted in discussion with me admit that they don't know yet how to prove their POV so they say that existence of attractive force is just their hypothesis. General relativity's POV, on the other hand, has been confirmed by all experiments up to date. Which makes pretty clear choice for Wikipedia. Jim 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- 3. The main claim of the article that "gravitational attraction is a myth" isn't the only existing interpretation of Einstein's equations, and maybe not even the dominant one. I tried to fix the article, included a reference to a textbook, provided additional discussion and references on
Talk:Gravitational attraction, but
User:JimJast reverted the changes and removed the reference, violating many Wikipedia policies just in order to keep his POV as the only way to look at the subject. The whole article has a very POV-ish style. It seems like it's the only reason why
User:JimJast created this fork, after his ideas weren't accepted in existing articles on gravitation.
Yevgeny Kats
00:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment Wikipedia policy is to promote present knowledge (coming from reliable sources). Presenting stuff that even its authors consider to be hypotheses that are going to be proved sometime in the future is not something that should be necessarily placed in an encyclopedia. It is however proper for page like "other hypohteses" (since they aren't even theories yet, if you understand the difference). Jim 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect per EMS et al. above, with special attention paid to Yevgeny Kats's concerns. Anville 22:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- question Which conerns would you pay this special attention to and why? Jim 22:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- note for closing admin - Did'ja like reading this one? If you made it all the way through, I for one wouldn't blame you for flipping out and indef blocking everyone involved, and maybe also a few unrelated editors for good measure. Wheee!—The preceding insane comment was added by Tim Shuba ( talk • contribs)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Have we decided to keep this article like we did the Dodgeville School District? John "Weenie" Wilson still says considered for deletion. I have more information I would like to add. So is the article to stay or go? Frydoggnt55 15:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was KEEP. Since nomination, the article has been somewhat rewritten to remove the attack tone. The article is certainly referenced. Is the person notable? I would say that being notorious is not the same as being notable, but that argument was not made. Most every commentor conceded his notability. Does the article violate WP:BLP? In my view it does not, being rigorously referenced. I did not even count the votes because of the many puppets, but base the close strictly on strength of argument, which falls to the Keep view in my opinion. Herostratus 13:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Casey Serin
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Massive, well-referenced attack page. The history is filled with too many anon edits to accurately sort out, but in its current state this article is in dire violation of BLP. The sheer amount of personal details (more like documented stalking) disclosed makes this article a candidate for deletion and oversight intervention. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 02:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC) (Note: nomination was based on this revision) (Note 2: article is possibly the result of a vendetta documented at www.exurbannation.blogspot.com - see afd talk) ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 03:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
189.146.102.89 05:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC) *Keep. Casey Serin is famous. He has been on TV, the news. He has a blog. His case is relevant to society. It's not a vendetta - it's an accurate reflection of his actions. --— 189.146.102.89 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep. *What, if any, part of this article seems to you to be incorrect? It is all well researched and most of the facts come from Casey Serin himself. If this is a vendetta, it is a vendetta that is being engineered by posting only the truth. Why protect? Is he suffering from battered blogger syndrome?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.162.29 ( talk • contribs) — 70.106.162.29 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Agreed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.175.105.234 ( talk • contribs) — 68.175.105.234 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Agree Manik Raina 09:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Most of the facts can be verified from Serin's own blog. I don't think any set of facts would be terribly flattering towards him, but he has achieved quite a bit of notoriety, so he meets eligibility requirements for a Wiki article, and it shouldn't be deleted.
12.215.162.213
03:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC) —
12.215.162.213 (
talk •
contribs) has made
few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Personal blogs are not a reliable source. Serin's blog, in particular, provides only primary information and is bound to be biased. To attempt to manufacture notoriety by engineering an attack page is exactly the worst method of creating a Wikipedia article. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 03:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.106.162.29 ( talk) 03:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC).
- Many of the facts in the article are verifiable via the linked public newspaper articles and linked public records. Photographic evidence exists for many of the ancillary facts (i.e. Jamba Juice, Macaroni Grill, The Murse, The Million Dollar Home). If there is a single statement in the article that you do not find credible, note it. You are making an argument to remove an article based on the fact that you don't find the content credible and have yet to point out a single part of it that is not credible.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.162.29 ( talk • contribs) — 70.106.162.29 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- User:SkipSmith, please understand that the burden of proof falls on the accuser. A lack of evidence for the delete crowd does provide strength to the keep crowd. Snu164 03:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- The burden of proof actually falls on the guy making the unlikely claim. 129.186.205.84 19:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Precisely, a person has claimed that this article should be removed due to NPOV and Resource issues, and has not given specific examples. Snu164 23:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- To begin with, this article is basically libel bait. Over the past two hours I've seen editors add and subtract personal information, baseless speculation, and random accusations. The tone of this article is nowhere near Wikipedia standards for neutrality. I don't much care if the content is credible, my concern is that this is a biography tailored for the sole reason of disparaging its subject. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for character assassination, and the massive involvement by various blogs is detrimental to building any sort of encyclopedic article. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 03:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Serin is actually fairly well known among those discussing the housing bubble online. His blog has an Alexa ranking of 46,633, and has 130 pages linking in. I do agree that the page appears to violate WP:BLP and should be rewritten. SkipSmith 03:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. As a Realtor, and having followed the Casey Serin story since early October, and doing a good amount of reasearch on public records regarding his transactions, I believe the Casey Serin article is fair, accurate and unbiased as of 20:22 PST USA on 03/15/2007. There is considerable interest in the Mainstream Media about the story of Casey Serin, and the legal ramifications of his real estate transactions. Removing this article would be a disservice to Wikipedia, considering all the work and research that has gone into its creation. It is not an attack page. Instead, it is a well-researched and documented page that is important, regarding current real estate lending practices in the USA.
- I see virtually no discussion of real estate lending practices in this article, but quite a bit of mudslinging. Saranary 03:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. The subject person is notable. Considerable amount of external references are being quoted. Agree though that there are un-encyclopedic comments and personal attacks going on. -- PeterMarkSmith 03:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Delete or revise to be consistent with NPOV/BLP policies and protect from further edits. The page seems designed to humiliate and harass the subject. Since its inception, it has included offensive or insulting references to Serin's religion, nationality, marriage, family relationships, and appearance - none of which seem particularly relevant. I also question the repeated posting of his family members' names, photographs, and contact information. Saranary 03:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. I think an article on Casey Serin should exist, but to claim that the article in its current form is unbiased is laughable. Do neutral encyclopedia articles contain phrases like "Visitors to his blog are usually surprised at his smug comments, where it's obvious he doesn't believe he has done anything wrong, and that he deserves a lifestyle which includes several luxuries he can't afford to pay" and "Serin's personal eccentricities: his habitually unkempt haircut, his carrying a murse (which he refers to as his "man bag"), and his obsession with juicing"? Like I said, I believe an article on Casey Serin should exist, but only if it adheres to WP:BLP. SkipSmith 03:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Right now its little more than a liability. Serin's story is interesting, but not because of him as a person. Journalist coverage indeed used him as a "posterboy" to illustrate the volatile and absurd state of the real estate market. In a surprising (and not a little narcissistic) twist, Serin embraced this image, and created a blog. All of the negative comments, the structure, research, and defacement of his article are the result of this circus. There are hundreds of speculators who are in debt because of stupid business decision, singling Sarin out to illustrate the phenomenon is simply a poor basis for establishing a fair biography. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 04:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I agree there's nothing inherently notable about Serin, except that other people have decided to talk about him. I guess that makes him the
Paris Hilton of real estate --- famous for being famous. But if people are talking about him, that makes him notable, even if by more objective standards he's not unusual.
SkipSmith
04:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Depends, do claims of dubious notoriety trump the BLP/NPOV requirements of neutrality and doing no harm? Plenty of people were talking about Brian Peppers at one point, yet his article was little more than a freakshow. I'd rank Serin's claim of notability somewhere above Peppers' and quite a ways below Paris Hilton's. Hilton, at least, has a widely documented public image and a mainstream modelling/acting career. Serin has a series of technologically adept bloggers who actively maintain a clearly outlined smear campaign. I sure as hell wouldn't want to monitor this article for impropriety if it is kept, I'd go insane after a day's worth of back-and-forth edits! ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
04:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- It seems clear from the discussion at the Exurban Nation blog (linked in the afd-talk page) that there will be a concerted effort to continue adding information that contravenes BLP/NPOV policies for at least the near future.
Saranary
04:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I noticed that too --- I just went to Exurban Nation and read the comments section regarding this article. It looks like a bunch of people on both sides are intent on having a pissing match over here, so it might be worth protecting the page for a week or two until the kids get bored and go away. SkipSmith 05:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- It seems clear from the discussion at the Exurban Nation blog (linked in the afd-talk page) that there will be a concerted effort to continue adding information that contravenes BLP/NPOV policies for at least the near future.
Saranary
04:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Depends, do claims of dubious notoriety trump the BLP/NPOV requirements of neutrality and doing no harm? Plenty of people were talking about Brian Peppers at one point, yet his article was little more than a freakshow. I'd rank Serin's claim of notability somewhere above Peppers' and quite a ways below Paris Hilton's. Hilton, at least, has a widely documented public image and a mainstream modelling/acting career. Serin has a series of technologically adept bloggers who actively maintain a clearly outlined smear campaign. I sure as hell wouldn't want to monitor this article for impropriety if it is kept, I'd go insane after a day's worth of back-and-forth edits! ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
04:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I agree there's nothing inherently notable about Serin, except that other people have decided to talk about him. I guess that makes him the
Paris Hilton of real estate --- famous for being famous. But if people are talking about him, that makes him notable, even if by more objective standards he's not unusual.
SkipSmith
04:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep but rewrite per SkipSmith. Serin definitely notable, much of the info is verifiable and there are some quality sources cited. So I wouldn't toss the whole thing out. But that said, "unbiased" is about the last word I would use to describe this article. The fairness of tone section of WP:NPOV and WP:AWW. And even though many of the statements are sourced, certainly not all of them are. And some of it blatant opinion. If you're adding in to a biographical article a statement such as "many readers of such-and-such blog feel this certain way" about the subject, there's a pretty good chance that statement shouldn't be there. Mwelch 04:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Serin is a notable figure who has over 40,000 Google hits as of the present date. He has been featured in various magazines and other media, and is well-known among the real estate blogging community. The fact that he himself has been blogging about his financial debacle makes him even more notable. a49erfan 04:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)— A49erfan ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Agreed. The subject is relevant enough to warrant his own page though it might be wise to protect the article until the vandalstorm dies down. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.174.10.135 ( talk) 17:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC).— 70.174.10.135 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep and Protect Needs protected from libel and other content, but it is quite notable and seems mostly verified at present. Kopf1988 04:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Delete this garbage. None of it can be verified.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.121.10.76 ( talk • contribs) — 64.121.10.76 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Which substantial portion is unverified? Seems to me that the vast majority is well cited from either creditable newspapers or from Serin's words himself. Snu164 18:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)snu164 — Snu164 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Have you watched the episode in question? It may very well contain every piece of this information (however unlikely that is)
Kopf1988
05:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I'll bite. What episode of which show are you talking about? ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 05:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, Serin is a notable guy with even national paper USA Today mentioning him. I believe this article is a bit POV and needs to be NPOVise. We cannot doubt his notability and there are enough sources to establish his notability on Wikipedia. There is a need to remove the biased statements and we should adhere to WP:BLP and try to keep the article as neutral as possible. A complete rewrite is needed actually, to fix this NPOV problem. Terence 05:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. The subject has been discussed in major media such as New York magazine and USA Today. However, many of the citations are from blogs, including the subject's own blog. The article should be cut down so as to contain only information attributable to reliable sources. -- Metropolitan90 05:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Rewrite. Obviously notable. Current article is a mockery of NPOV though.--
ZayZayEM
07:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Not all nominations are a simple matter of notability. If the current article is a mockery, why shouldn't it be deleted according to the
WP:CSD criterion on attack pages? ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
07:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Because that's for when there's no acceptable version to which the article can be reverted. In this instance, not only could the article be reverted to its original (and much more tolerable) stub state, but there's actually some additional decent and sourced material in it now that could be used to expand it at least somewhat from that stub state in a way that would still be NPOV. Agreed with the previous suggestion, though, that given the current state of affairs the article may well need to be protected for a while.
Mwelch
08:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I still think that all the libelous material and personal accusations should be deleted from this article's history. After that, we'll still be left with a short stub about a random guy who made stupid decisions in real estate. ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
08:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Anetode makes a point here. If this is not a violation of any wikipedia policies, I support this move. Libellous material should be nuked if permissable.-- ZayZayEM 15:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I still think that all the libelous material and personal accusations should be deleted from this article's history. After that, we'll still be left with a short stub about a random guy who made stupid decisions in real estate. ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
08:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment Because that's for when there's no acceptable version to which the article can be reverted. In this instance, not only could the article be reverted to its original (and much more tolerable) stub state, but there's actually some additional decent and sourced material in it now that could be used to expand it at least somewhat from that stub state in a way that would still be NPOV. Agreed with the previous suggestion, though, that given the current state of affairs the article may well need to be protected for a while.
Mwelch
08:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Not all nominations are a simple matter of notability. If the current article is a mockery, why shouldn't it be deleted according to the
WP:CSD criterion on attack pages? ˉˉ
anetode
╦╩
07:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, Casey himself wrote in his orginal blog regards putting all his info on the web, "I still really want it to be public. I don't know exactly why. Part of my just wants to be open and transparent with no regard for other people's feelings about it." He has been in USA Today twice, New York Magazine, NPR, San Fran Cronicle, Motley Fool, on and on. The guy lives on the web, and while he should not die on the web, his very public blog is a lonelygirl15 meets real estate bubble notable event. Much of the material seems amazing, but Casey blogs this stuff and publishes hundreds of replies. Biographies of living persons states: "The article should document . . . in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves." DaveEnglish 13:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Information is traceable via public record and subject has become a figure of notoriety in Mainstream media. Despite the "personal vendetta" you have arbitrarily decided exists, you should do a better job of checking the facts for yourself before making a blanket decision to have the article deleted. It should certainly be edited to be more of a fact-based document as oppposed to a personal attack. However, the true and verifiable facts do not paint the subject in a positive light as a matter of course.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.236.18 ( talk • contribs) — 74.72.236.18 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep, but edit out certain parts* The entire story is pretty much verifiable, it is the tone that is the problem. Please note that this problem did not exist until Serin asked for it to be edited on his blog. Until then, it was very neutral and informative. Research into property deeds, foreclosure notices, and his media appearances is all verifiable, and represents a very current issue in America.-- Jerichohill817 14:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)— Jerichohill817 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- NPOV/BLP issues existed before Serin asked his readers to modify his entry, though. His blog post about the Wikipedia entry is dated 14 March 2007. Versions dated from February to 12 March have these issues as well.
129.186.205.84
15:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Then we edit it to neutrality. Considering that Serin is relatively famous and an very telling example of the subprime meltdown, which is a very hot and current topic in the US, the article should be kept. I dont have a problem editing it down to a more neutral tone, but much of what was on there prior was a stub entry, last I had seen it before this mess. In addition, we cant blame all the edits on exurban. Serin opened up his blog to unmoderated comments for a few hours once, and the vehement posted was NOTHING like we're seeing here. If it helps I would gladly add in the foreclosure notices with his name on them, or the courthouse docs.-- Jerichohill817 19:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC) — Jerichohill817 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- NPOV/BLP issues existed before Serin asked his readers to modify his entry, though. His blog post about the Wikipedia entry is dated 14 March 2007. Versions dated from February to 12 March have these issues as well.
129.186.205.84
15:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, The article fundamentally matches basic facts. Perhaps some editing to a more neutral tone on personal element, but casey serin serves as a walking example
of the Trillion dollar real estate disaster. It is outrageous that people could get houses and mortgages on no more then their say so. While Serin is a fool, far more malevolent criminals used this same environment to strip billions in wealth from our society. To document how one fool could get over $2 Million in debt serves to show how weak the system is. It was harder to buy a car in 2005 then to buy a house." (Note: This entry does not have a signature, and may be the first half of the post by User:70.105.158.193 below. SkipSmith 20:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC))
- Keep. I vote to keep this Wiki entry. I speak not as a "hater", but as a fascinated observer. Casey is unusual. He is perhaps the most potent example of the self-revealing nature of young bloggers today, and he is also succinctly emblematic of the recently manifest real estate bubble and its various causes. All that is posted on his Wiki entry is true, as verified by Casey himself and interested third parties. He has made himself news, and the character flaws revealed by his transparent attempts at obfuscation add layers of further interest. The Casey Serin Wiki entry is a valuable, useful addition to Wikipedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.105.158.193 ( talk) 14:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC).— 70.105.158.193 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep. Needs some revision on NPOV, but I believe a large portion of this problem is due to vandalism. I say protect for a week or so, then open to allow a non-biased edit to evolve. As for the accusation that it is unverifiable, it seems to me that it is well cited by creditable MSM and through the words of Serin himself. Snu164 15:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)snu164— Snu164 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep; Serin has made himself a public figure through his media appearances and has developed some notoriety, particularly within the housing bubble blogs. I believe his story is significant enough, as an exemplar of property speculation, to merit inclusion. I'd note that article has actually *improved* in tone and reliability since Serin drew attention to it. Some mixed feelings though: there are NPOV problems, particularly within the Criticisms section; it does rely heavily on citations to Serin's own blog, not a reliable source for any statement not qualified with "Serin claims"; it will continue to be a target for vandalism given that both Serin and Exurban Nation have directed readers to it. -- Jkew 17:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- "Keep". Again, Casey's story has been published in numerous major media outlets and is well known within the real-estate community. As for NOPV, I agree, it needs work in this area but when you have the subject providing information such as "Yes, I committed mortgage fraud." in an audio interview it is hard to not make the article seem as a bit biased against him when he has admitted on many occasions to have committed illegal acts and most people have built in negative feelings towards those who are un-remoseful about committing crimes and openly talk about it. While the article itself may be neutral, it, understandably, may feel un-neutral given that many people will find his actions and lack of remorse for those actions to be morally reprehensible and he has a distinct lack of any effort to rectify them. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.96.236.92 ( talk) 17:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC). — 71.96.236.92 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Saying that it's difficult not to make the article biased because the authors will inevitably demand justice/retribution from the subject is not a good argument for keeping it, in my opinion. Quite the opposite. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for revenge fantasies. 129.186.205.84 17:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment: Nigel Swaby redirects to Casey Serin. Swaby is a supporter of Serin who has written about him several times on his blog. This redirect should be deleted; Swaby is not notorious in his own right, not is he closely enough associated with Serin to be synonymous with him. -- Jkew 18:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I couldn't find Nigel on the page. I assume this has been fixed. Snu164 03:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Note: There are a large number of edits here by IP addresses whose only contribution to Wikipedia is their post in this discussion. Does anyone know how to add the "this is not an election" template? SkipSmith 19:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- There seem to be a lot of single-purpose ips/accounts on this discussion... you should go through and tag them with {{subst:spa|username|UTC timestamp [optional]}} per the template at the top of the discussion. — Disavian ( talk/ contribs) 19:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Done ... for now. SkipSmith 20:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. *THe Casey Serin Story is still evoling and the wiki should as well. The verifiable facts are sufficiently damning and unsubstantiated accusations should be redacted but a great disservice would be comitted if the article were to be removed just because the facts are so very distasteful. As a second point in favor of retention Casey Serin himself has sought the articles' expansion rather than requested its removal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.84.154.217 ( talk) 20:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC). — 75.84.154.217 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Restore. *Wiki has "jumped the shark" on this issue. The editors have removed reference to am incriminating video by the subject himself. Perhaps wiki would consider removing any pictures from the biographies of living artists as irellevant to their personal stories? The video documents. The editors need reconsider whether they are hiding behind neutrailty when in fact they are sanitizing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.84.154.217 ( talk) 21:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC). — 75.84.154.217 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Delete Personally, I don't find this type of character, the type that wikipedia should be (even as a tertiary resource) granting notability to. TonyTheTiger ( talk/ cont/ bio) 21:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. I agree it will take work to keep this one encyclopedic, but I suspect that is common of pages for persons with many detractors. I don't think it is Wikipedia that is "granting notability" to Serin. It is that with all the easy lending the media and the blogosphere are predisposed to put a face and a name to this phenomenon. Serin just came along to fit that bill and the bloggers and then the media picked up on it. I have been trying to make a case that we should ratchet down some of the personal content, but wasn't getting anyone backing me up and didn't want to get into an edit war. I think the discussion that needs to happen (where?) is what should be in- and out-of bounds for this article as a bio of a living person. If we can come to some consensus on the ground rules, it will make it easier to edit and police the page. As it is there are differing opinions about how much of his family's details are appropriate given his explicit request to keep them out of it. -- Jake 21:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- I can see your point about Serin becoming the face of the real estate meltdown. The biggest problem with this article in its current form is that many of its inflammatory assertions have been sourced to Serin's blog, Ramit's blog, the Exurban Nation blog, other real estate blogs, google caches and Usenet. All of these are considered unreliable sources, as per
WP:ATTR, and cannot be used to support negative claims about a living person. Information gleaned from the news stories may be cited, of course.
Saranary
22:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Right. Because so much of the story comes out of IAFF we are in murky ground in
WP:ATTR between "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves" where "there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it" and "the article is not based primarily on such sources". Are there other blog-centric pages where this has been well hashed out for precedence? --
Jake
- The only one I could find was Kaycee Nicole, a blogger who claimed to be a high school girl suffering from leukemia. It's not a great precedent, since her story turned out to be a hoax. The practical upshot is that the article is now based on a Wired article and a Snopes.com summary of the story, rather than quotes from the blog itself. Hope that helps. Saranary 15:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Jason Fortuny was deleted for attribution issues (blogs/craigslist). It's since been merged with Internet privacy. 129.186.205.84 20:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Right. Because so much of the story comes out of IAFF we are in murky ground in
WP:ATTR between "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves" where "there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it" and "the article is not based primarily on such sources". Are there other blog-centric pages where this has been well hashed out for precedence? --
Jake
- I can see your point about Serin becoming the face of the real estate meltdown. The biggest problem with this article in its current form is that many of its inflammatory assertions have been sourced to Serin's blog, Ramit's blog, the Exurban Nation blog, other real estate blogs, google caches and Usenet. All of these are considered unreliable sources, as per
WP:ATTR, and cannot be used to support negative claims about a living person. Information gleaned from the news stories may be cited, of course.
Saranary
22:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep, but with MAJOR rewrite. This article looks to be more mudslinging than anything else, with much reliance on blogs as sources. The guy appears to be notable (more properly, notorious), but this article is by no means NPOV. It looks more like a prosecutor building a case against the guy. Realkyhick 23:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Would you say that it is, primarily, an attack page? ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 23:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- As a regular reader of Serin's blog and of Wikipedia (though rarely a contributor here), I would say the article accurately reflects the public persona Casey Serin has created for himself. He has built a popular blog by continually aggravating his readers, who in turn post sarcastic, hateful, and humorous responses which he allows through moderation. The article here is kind to him, compared to his own blog. 66.75.58.180 00:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Lee Reeves — User:66.75.58.180 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- So you're basically saying that Serin is a troll responsible for manufacturing his notoriety. The Wikipedia article is an indulgent response to the baiting, and it is neutral because it rightfully defames him as a self-important flim-flam artist. Are you sure you don't have Wikipedia confused with Encyclopedia Dramatica? ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 01:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, you've captured the Casey Serin story exactly. But in just five minutes I found Wikipedia articles on Derek Smart, Paris Hilton, Kato Kaelin, Linda Tripp, and Frenchie Davis, so I'm inclined to believe eliding the Encyclopedia Dramatica is going to be a big job. 66.75.58.180 05:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC) — User:66.75.58.180 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Serin is no troll. His real estate dealings are very real. His notoriety stems from the fact that he has brazenly admitted to mortgage fraud, not just on his blog but to major media outlets as well, and has yet to face any consequences. People follow his story to see what will happen to him because many have committed the same offenses on a smaller scale. 205.212.74.143 05:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC) — User:205.212.74.143 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep Casey Serin is not notable for his real estate dealings, but for being a minor Internet phenomenon, and that fame is based on the hatred he inspires. Serin himself appears to understand this: despite occasional misgivings, he continues to allow even the worst of the attacks once posted here on his moderated blog. A truly NPOV requires accurately documenting the notorious persona Serin himself has nutured. 66.75.58.180 00:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Lee Reeves — User:66.75.58.180 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep/restore. This log is very accurate in itself and reliable content mostly suplied by Casey Serin himself in his own blog. While he may defend some of it now, that is only because his version is more biased than any normal person and wavers from day to day between taking responsibility and completely denying the facts as he [himself] stated them. This was his intention to cause so much havoc that Wiki would be utterly comfused and be forced to remove or seriously edit the page in a way that would completely omit the facts. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.226.136.208 ( talk) 04:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC). — User:70.226.136.208 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep. If he were just some guy who lost money on real estate, then there would be nothing to write. Casey Serin is notable not for his failed investments, but for the incredible level of detail he provides while talking about them. It's not just a blog; he has posted screenshots and scans of legal and financial documents that most people consider extremely private. The houses are relevant only to the extent that they make the exhibitionism interesting. If we have articles for porn stars, then it certainly makes sense to have one for him, for about the same reasons.
- As far as what the article should say, and what references should be acceptable: this is a strange situation. Serin freely admits (on his blog, of course) to things that would be libelous if you accused someone of them. The anti-self-published guidelines on WP:BLP are written to prevent Wikipedia from propagating someone's self-promotion. They don't seem to mention what to do about self-defamation. 24.91.135.162 04:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Whether or not the current article is any good is irrelevant to question of whether an article should exist at all. Serin's name often comes up in real estate discussions without any explanation of who he is. People are just expected to know, and if they don't they may come here looking for information. They should find something, even if it's just a stub. 205.212.74.143 05:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC) — User:205.212.74.143 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- Keep. The original grounds for deletion are that this page is an attack page. Wikipedia defines an attack page: "A Wikipedia article, page or image created for the sole purpose of disparaging its subject is an attack page." ( Wikipedia:Attack_page). This page was created as a factual, non-disparaging stub based on the USA Today article on Casey. Therefore, it does not meet the definition of an attack page, and the original grounds for deletion are invalid. -- Billgordon1099 17:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. I'm going to go with the poster above who notes that most of Serin's own entries are essentially self-defamatory. Serin admits to multiple acts of fraud, foolishness and self-delusion. Also, there are users who may appear to be single purpose IP's only due to the nature of the modern internet. My ISP uses DHCP, and resets the leases every 24 hours, plus, i wander between work, home and my mobile card, so i pop in and out of 3 Class A networks on a routine basis. Add in the fact, we are using NAT and it becomes very hard to predict what my IP is going to be. I don't login to Wikipedia, because, i want to be anonymous. I worked very hard just creating a table of entries of real estate deals done by Serin, and, i hate seeing it messed with. That table is essential to understanding what went on. YOu can see a slow movement, and then suddenly, a flurry of deals done as the cashback window was closing. Sadly, he blew much of his cash on a foolish house purchase in dallas. Which almost makes him an object of pathos. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.163.166.151 ( talk) 20:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC).— 71.163.166.151 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
- The information in the table is almost completely unsourced. Dates and prices of sale are public records and should be able to be cited with reputable (non-blog) sources. Is there any reliable corroboration for the information from the W2 income/cash back columns - say, newspaper articles or television interviews? 129.186.205.84 19:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Seems interesting and notable. Nssdfdsfds 22:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. While we will need to keep an eye on it this article should be retained. Serin has been quite widely covered in the media and his activities do illustrate the machinations that go on in housing markets all rouund the world. By choosing to publicise his own problems Serin has moved in to the public arena and a factual article about him is warranted. Lisiate 23:30, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- I'll change my vote to Keep, but monitor closely for policy violations. While this article has been greatly improved since it went up for deletion, it's still primarily sourced from blogs and needs more attention. Several editors here and on the article's talk page argue that this is permissible because Serin's own words indict or condemn him; I disagree. Let Serin's words convict him on his own blog, and include only those facts which can be substantiated by reliable third-party sources in the article. Saranary 00:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- To expand, the article on Baron Munchausen does not uncritically accept his stories of his own adventures as fact. We need to keep the reliability of the narrator in mind here, especially as previous contributors to this article have suggested that Serin may exaggerate his financial woes or bait his audience for additional publicity. Saranary 15:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. The guy has appeared in multiple media outlets. His blog receives several thousand visits a day according to sitemeter. The article is a definite "Keep". johndowning 22:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep. Looks like Casey Serin is going to be discussed on "ABC News, Suze Orman and PBS Money Track with Jack Gallagher" soon. Would be nice for such a public figure to have a Wikipedia entry. DaveEnglish 16:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Comment. There may be a precedent in the AfD discussion for Jason Fortuny. The article had BLP issues similar to the version of Casey Serin that was nominated for deletion -- speculation on Fortuny's mental illness, gossip about his childhood and college career, and inclusion of personal details like contact information and family members' names. Like the current version of Casey Serin, it mostly used blogposts for sources. Jason Fortuny was initially deleted, and then merged with Internet privacy. 129.186.205.84 20:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Note: Fortuny had admitted to a great number of embarrassing and possibly illegal activities in his own livejournal, and these were quoted in the Wikipedia article. Ultimately the consensus was that Fortuny's livejournal was not a reliable source. 129.186.205.84 20:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PlentyofFish
- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was Redirect to Gravitation. Cbrown1023 talk 01:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Gravitational attraction
- Gravitational attraction ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View AfD)
This article used to be a redirect to gravitation. JimJast has created a new article here which fails WP:NPOV in its presentation and WP:OR in its description of how curvature mimics a force. From talk:gravitational attraction one finds that the purpose of this article is to present that which JimJast calls "Einstein's POV", but which in fact is Jim's personal opinion of what that POV is. This article needs to be returned to being a redirect. EMS | Talk 14:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to jump to the top of the queue, but I think this quote should settle this "debate". The following is from the Feynman Lectures on Gravitation, page 3:
- "we first define the mass as the inertia of the object, which we measure by applying known forces and measuring the acceleration. Then we measure the attraction due to gravitation, for example, by weighing, and compare the results." (emphasis mine). Flying fish 14:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation -- EMS | Talk 14:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation Current article has many serious problems. It claims to be partly about the history/interpretation of gravity, but what it says is wrong and is not anchored in history. It then attempts a weak-field approximation to regain Newton's laws, and the derivation is just plain wrong. linas 17:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- question to linas Don't you agree with Landau that total energy E doesn't change with the change of position of particle (and so there isn't any gravitational attraction involved in the movement of the particle)? Jim 09:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - The total energy E of a free-falling particle doesn't change in classical mechanics either. Are you claiming that this should mean that there is no force of gravity in Newton's view? -- EMS | Talk 14:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment The kinetic energy of the particle changes in a free fall (e.g. when particle "drops" its kinetic energy increaes). So from Newton's POV (and so also from POV of non relativistic classical mechanics) there was a need for an assumption of some kind of "gravitational attractive force" F=dE/dx (where E is this kinetic energy and x is distance) that could be responsible for this change of kinetic energy of the free falling particle. To keep the conservation of energy intact this energy has been assumed to be delivered form a source called "potential energy of the particle". And that's why it has been assumed in Newtonian physics and non relativistic classical mechanics that the sum of kinetic energy and potential energy of the particle is constant. In relativistic physics since the energy of the free falling particle doesn't change despite its changing kinetic energy (see Landau) there is no need for an assumption of any "gravitational attractive force" nor any "potential energy". That's why we say now that Einstein eliminated "gravitational attractive force" form physics. Jim 15:50, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - You did not write "kinetic energy" above, but instead wrote "total energy". You are going to have to learn that if your writing is subject to misinterpretation, the fault is yours and not the reader's. BTW - You still have a goof in the above as you wrote that the "energy of the free falling particle does not change despite its changing kinetic energy", yet the point of your write-up is that the change in c (as determined by a distant observer) keeps the kinetic energy constant in general relativity. -- EMS | Talk 16:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - What do you mean You did not write "kinetic energy" above? I just started my last comment from The kinetic energy of the particle .... When I write "kinetic energy" I mean "kinetic energy", when I write "total energy" I mean "total energy". While the idea of "kinetic energy" is almost the same in Newtonian and relativistic physics, the idea of "total energy" is obviously different in relativity since in Newtonian physics it used to be "kinetic energy" plus "potential energy", the latter being usually "negative". The "potential energy" lost its meaning in relativity where "total energy" is . Could you explain more clearly what you mean by "keeps the kinetic energy constant in general relativity" since in relativity the total energy is constant. The "kinetic energy" isn't constant in neither physics unless in the reference frame of the free falling particle when it is a trivial zero. Jim 20:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - Interesting goof on my part, as you are correct that Newtonian physics lack any rest energy, and kinetic energy does not include that. My point remains that energy is conserved (locally) in any case. More important is that your question to linas can only be valid if potential energy is excluded, but there was nothing in the question to make that clear. You keep approaching things from your own perculiar POV, and have no respect for the knowledge base or the needs of others. More specifically to this case, you seem to think that the gravitational attraction article should be a pro-GR rant instead of an informative review of the topic itself. -- EMS | Talk 21:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment I'm just trying to explain gravitation based on the "needs of others" which I hope is as simple explanation as possible so it could be understood by a high school student. That's why I use just derivatives and not the tensor calculus which would turn off most people. However, as Einstein said, while everything should be made as simple as possible (and luckily physics is simple, even simpler than Newton's) the math shouldn't be made any simpler than possible. So I think I made it the simplest possible. If you can make it any simpler you are welcome to modify my stuff but I don't think that keeping old Newtonian stuff would do anybody any good. Jim 21:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- additional comment - You seem to be one of the guys on the other side of the issue who understands the issue. So you might be able to turn the whole consensus from 9:1 (as it stands now) to 0:10 (as it should be if everybody understood clearly what the issue is). So I should probably explain the issue more clearly. But I had a feeling that I did it already in the "gravitational attraction" page and no one was interested enough to read it all. So if we could discuss, after reading the page, what are the real objections (not just "troll Jim pushing again his POV") I'd have an opportunity to clarify them and explain while in this case Jim's POV is also POV of the hard science that is taught in all universieties around the world, unfortunately only to graduate physics students. And I'd like it to be taught to high school students as well since they are perfectly well capable of understanding this hard science POV, when it is properly explained to them. So if I make dydactical errors, as you seem to suggest, please point thosse errors to me and we may clarify them. One isse that you pointed to already is " total energy". However I also modified this page to fit the contemporary state of affairs and it was reverted to some non invariant nonsens as well. So I just concentrate on the most important issue in my opinion, which is the faith in gravitational attraction. This faith has persisted already for over 300 years, and it is outdated for almost 100 years, but despite that it is taught to high school students around the world, as good enough for them. Which then it has all the features of a state religion (in this case even a world religion). It is tauht with a hope that when those students are interested in the truth then they may study physics and learn in due time what the truth is. Apparently they never do as it is shown by this consensus of educated people, most likely graduated from many high schools, and some even graduate students in physics at Harvard University. Jim 09:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- Responded to at User_talk:JimJast#Teaching_gravitation -- EMS | Talk 16:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation — Ruud 19:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment Any reason for redirection? Jim 21:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation — Flying fish 23:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC) Just seeing the statement in the first sentence that "gravitational attraction is a myth" was enough to convince me that this is an example of someone pushing their own (probably nearly unique) POV. The inverse square law holds in everyday life, and is a great approximation to nature at the energies and in the fields that humans are accustomed to. As others have pointed out, the fact that you don't fly off into space is evidence that "something" is pulling you down. Whether that something is some kind of inverse square law, or quantum gravity, or the result of some field equations doesn't matter, in ordinary human life we observe that we are attracted to the Earth. Arguments about what general relativity means should take place on GR pages, not on a page designed to attack the normal understanding of gravitation. As a final point, consider someone creating a page called "Earth's Geography" and stating in the lead sentence that "the idea that the Earth is round is a myth. It's actually a bumpy elipsoid". Even if the point is true it's badly representing the normal person's worldview.
- comment - Your example with a round Earth is about approximation while sentence about gravitational attraction is about something not existing at all. It seems that almost a century after the gravitational attraction disppeared from physics the high school students might finally start reading encyclopedia's articles that tell them the same thing that physics students learn in their gravitation courses and to learn how gravitation really works instead of believing a nearly century old story. Jim 21:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - Science is about approximation and model building. The model of 1/r**2 attraction works very well (wihthin measurement uncertainties) for almost everything everyone does. Should we change the first sentence of "proton" to "The existance of protons is a myth! In reality the proton is a bound state of three quarks of individual color". (Of course in perturbative field theory "quarks" don't exist either, they're just excitations out of the vacuum, so one can go even further...) We teach high school physics students about friction - but "friction is a myth"! It's really an integral of electromagnetic interactions between atoms (uh oh) on each of the adjacent surfaces.
- Models are used constantly in physics. Condensed matter physicists talk about "depletion forces" (really electromagnetic), electronics designers talk about the AC current through a capacitor (electrons don't actually flow), we even talk about electrons "flowing" even though individual electrons bounce all over the place in the wire, and don't really go in orderly circles through the loop. The model of gravitational attraction due a to 1/r**2 force is an exceedingly good model for everyday life, is VERY important in the history physics, and is a great teaching tool. If you want people to learn about general relativity then include a link to it on Gravitation (I assume it's there already), and mention that the 1/r**2 force law represents the old way of thinking about it. Done. Flying fish 20:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- response - I did what you advise long time ago, and it was removed by someone who believes (without any proof so far, but he believes it is going to be proved in future) that masses attract each other through empty space and a sentence to this effect still opens, untouched, the " Gravitation" page. That's why I stopped editing for a while (as Feynman advised "no argument will convince the idiot" [23]) but then it occured to me that I may create a page about gravitational attraction and clarify this issue according to knowledge delivered by reliable sources. It might have the advantage that idiots can't blank it since it would make an act of vandalism according to Wikipedia's policy. Now you and EMS did just that and additionally you think that high school students should be shielded from contmporary knowledge about gravitational attraction. Apparently you believe that shielding brings them a lot of good. EMS even thinks that admitting that relativity is real might blow people minds ( which he saw happening). So you guys think that telling the truth as we know it is bad and Wikipedia should protect inocent high school students from learing truth about the real world and do it through an administrative action. However it is probably against Wikipedia's policy and for sure against policy of Prof. Dumbledore who maintained that the best way to improve society is to tell the truth as it is known. The simple reason behind such policy is that one can't predict the results of the lies that people are fed with, for noble purposes, and sometimes those lies backfire and then one regrets that those people were ever lied to.
- An example of backfiring of noble purpose might be very recent decision by Polish Government (one of the few Governments that helps us to win the Iraq War) to consider a death during surgery an assasination. It might have ben an attempt to raise the flagging popularity of the ruling party with the voters. One doctor whose patient died after the surgery has been accused of assasination by the Minister of Justice (even before the trial) and jailed after a squad of police, popularly known as Ninja Turtles for their gear, made a spectacular arrest at the hospital for patients to enjoy. However the noble idea of creating a "perfect tool" for improving hospital statistics backfired by refusal of some Polish doctors to perform surgeries, which the Government didn't foreseen. They meant well and yet the bad doctors turned the best intentions into a disaster for Polish people who now have difficulties with having surgeries since 20 years in jail is too big a risk for those cowardly doctors. Unfortunately there is no death penelty in Poland so 20 years for assasination is max the governmant can afford but the Government is working on improving Polish Constitution that would be more like in Texas. So soon if a patient dies so does his doctor. Apparently, Polish Government might assume that it "is an exceedingly good model for everyday life, [...] and is a great teaching tool" to teach doctors.
- To warn anybody who might not know, to call the Polish President, Mr. Kaczynski (don't mix him with this twin brother who looks exactly the same but is a Prime Minister of Poland) by any disrespectful name, according to the Polish law, might carry a penelty of three years in jail, and one doesn't have to live in Poland to be punished, since this law similarly to the American law is universal and may reach you wherever you are. The ruling party is "Law and Justice", and it is dedicated to enforcing the law. So guys, don't jump publicly to conclusions about the Polish Government. Now they are going to help us also in Afghanistan, and even on the ground, they are so tough, with our support only from the air, so be rather gentle with them, and no Polish Jokes please. Except possibly something like "Jim himself is a polish joke", which might be justified because of not folowing Feynman's advice. Jim 14:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- more response - Flying fish, the above story is about a 40 million nation in the middle of Europe, of average IQ as ours, and the purpose of the story is for you to realize that people are not rational creatures and feeding them un-truths make them even less rational and that's why telling the truth, even to idiots, is the best policy.
- Even if you try to think everything over in every detail they always manage to screw up something and then they tell you "you said it yourself". And then your only defense is "well, I lied, since I thought that you are idiots and can't bear the truth since it might blow your minds". And this is a very weak defense. So if you can document the fact that three quarks together is a myth, say it. It is BTW what Feynman always did. When he knew that something isn't true he said so and then he explained what model we may use to work with it anyway. Because science is not about models, as you say, but suprizingly enough it is abobut finding what is false. Which can be done in all relevant cases through experiments. That's why we already know, and are sure of, a lot of myth. By an important epistemological rule we can find what is true only when it is just oposite to a myth that we already proved false. And unfortunately there are many possible things opposite to a given myth. That's why to find truth is so difficult but luckily not impossible in principle.
- One of my professors who taught magnetism always started his lectures by saying: "Whatever I'll tell you isn't true. It is simplified to make it easier for you to calculate certain things and understand what you can't calculate with those methods and why". And so the students were warned that Maxwell Equations are only approximation and could accept the rest and become better physicists than those who believed in Maxwell Equations and thought that magnetic force can exists on its own (you just add one term to Maxwell...) and were looking for " magnetic monopoles" not even suspecting that "magnetic monopole" (a stick with one end) or a graviton (a carrier of inertial force, a.k.a. " gravitational force") might be a myth. Jim 16:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - If you feel that word " myth" is improper you might want to change it to more scientifically correct " urban legend". Jim 23:01, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment Science is not the search for truth. There are no certitudes in science, only theories and models. Further, since you mentioned Feynman let me quote from page 3 of the Feynman lectures on gravitation: "First of all there is the fact that the attraction follows an inverse-square law... Then there is the fact that the force is proportional to the masses of the objects." Then later on the same page: "we first define the mass as the inertia of the object, which we measure by applying known forces and measuring the acceleration. Then we measure the attraction due to gravitation, for example, by weighing, and compare the results." (emphasis mine). I think this ought to settle this matter. Flying fish 14:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
- response - You say "Science is not the search for truth", making an impression that maybe I said that it is. I said: "science is [...] about finding what is false". Of course finding what is false is not the same as the search for truth since as you agreed there are no certitudes in science. So we agree on this point. Then as it turns out we agree also on a point that The inverse square law holds in everyday life, and is a great approximation to nature ... which you said yourself. So your example with Feynman is about a model that Feynamn explains and which is an approximation to nature. It is all independent of what Einstein discovered, since as Feynman says in section 7-8 (Gravity and relativity) of The Fenman lectures on physics "In spite of all the excitement it created, Newton's law of gravitation is not correct!" (exclamation is Feynman's). Now my POV is that we shouldn't present to high school students something about which we already know that it is false, which contrary to truth can be discovered by science and it's even the purpose of science to find what is false. Because we don't want to live in the world of illusions as lived the people of Dark Ages. So my purpose is to show to the high school students how easy it is to understand Einstein's gravitation (and if I didn't do it well enough you are welcome to help), and so they don't need to believe that the gravitational attraction is real. They should know that it is not real (as far as we know) because this knowledge makes them capable of discovering something on their own in physics. While this opportunity will be taken away form most of them when from the earliest years they are going to believe in urban legends which Newtonian gravitation claerly is as Feynman confirms. We differ then only in POV on the educational policy. The education of most people taking part in this debate is an evidence that the present policy on teaching gravitation starting from Newton's theory is wrong. IMO it should start from stating clearly that there is no such thing as gravitational attraction, how it is simulated (which as you can see from the disputed page, thanks to Landau, takes less than 45 minutes to explain) and only then, when students comprehend the physics of the real world, explaining how simpy we can solve problems involving gravitation with Newton's equations. Otherwise we create mentally challenged individuals who might believe that the real world can't be understood. And later in life have problems with explaining many cosmological puzzles since faith in gravitational attraction affects their clear judgment. Jim 18:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation JRSpriggs 06:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment Any reason for redirection? Jim 21:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation the first sentence does it. there's an insightful quote (perhaps physicists could tell me from whom, is it the relativist Singe?) that goes something like "In GR gravity is part of the stage while, in Newton's theory, it is an actor." IMHO, this article looks like a badly erroneous interpretation of that quote. Mct mht 13:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation, obviously, and beware of further disruption from JimJast. Tim Shuba 22:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - JimJast is referring to other editors as vandals in a similar though less egregious content dispute. [24] [25] Tim Shuba 00:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment - according to Wikipedia, blanking someone else's page (which Tim Shuba did) is vandalism. If you don't like the page because it contradicts your particular POV, to proceed in a civilized manner, you should state your offended POV first and then if not satisfied by the response, to request the deletion of the page. E.g. I don't understand why you consider Newtonian physics and relativity (contained in classical mechanics) being the same. Unless you never heard about relativity being different than Newtonian physics, but even then it is not a good reason for blanking a page. Jim 15:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Keep it as it is since high school students shouldn't be fed majority opinion but they should be told what physicists (and apparently not many of them have time to edit Wikipedia) consider to be a true story. "Two masses do not attract each other, period." ( Robert A. Mitchell 02:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)) and yet read the first sentence of " Gravitation" page to which "Gravitational attraction" is going to be redirected). But even if Eddington wondered who might be the third person who understood Einstein's theory it still made a better theory than Newton's. It is rather a sad picture that now, almost a century later, so many people want to come back to the gravitational attraction as a reason for things not falling off the Earth. In nearly hundred years they couldn't managed to understand Einstein. It means that my job of popularizing Einstein's gravitation is urgently needed to keep Wikipedia from sinking in the see of ingnorance about the physics of the real world. I just see a need to explain at least what this physics isn't and why. At least to high school students who might not yet have their own prejudices about it and could learn physics as understood by physicists and not those who understand only the simplified Newtonian physics. Jim 23:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect to gravitation. The article is very problematic:
- 1. It doesn't make any sense that people who want to read about the gravitational force would need to understand general relativity first. It would be a very non-standard pedagogical approach.
- comment Apparently this non standard pedagogical approach is urgently needed since relativity is around already for about a century and as demonstratef by this voting list a lot of intelligent people still don't understand it and some don't even know the simplest things about it. Jim 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- 2. The article includes many mistakes. For example, the text claims that gravitational force exists when the body "is prevented from its free movement" and that it doesn't exist when the body is free to move. With or without general relativity, this statement is wrong.
- comment This POV is wrong according to your POV but it is right according to POV of any textbook on general relativity. So to be fair you might say that opinions are divided, and yours aren't supported by any relible source yet since reliable sources support general relativity's POV. Even the autors that you quoted in discussion with me admit that they don't know yet how to prove their POV so they say that existence of attractive force is just their hypothesis. General relativity's POV, on the other hand, has been confirmed by all experiments up to date. Which makes pretty clear choice for Wikipedia. Jim 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- 3. The main claim of the article that "gravitational attraction is a myth" isn't the only existing interpretation of Einstein's equations, and maybe not even the dominant one. I tried to fix the article, included a reference to a textbook, provided additional discussion and references on
Talk:Gravitational attraction, but
User:JimJast reverted the changes and removed the reference, violating many Wikipedia policies just in order to keep his POV as the only way to look at the subject. The whole article has a very POV-ish style. It seems like it's the only reason why
User:JimJast created this fork, after his ideas weren't accepted in existing articles on gravitation.
Yevgeny Kats
00:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- comment Wikipedia policy is to promote present knowledge (coming from reliable sources). Presenting stuff that even its authors consider to be hypotheses that are going to be proved sometime in the future is not something that should be necessarily placed in an encyclopedia. It is however proper for page like "other hypohteses" (since they aren't even theories yet, if you understand the difference). Jim 16:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redirect per EMS et al. above, with special attention paid to Yevgeny Kats's concerns. Anville 22:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
- question Which conerns would you pay this special attention to and why? Jim 22:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
- note for closing admin - Did'ja like reading this one? If you made it all the way through, I for one wouldn't blame you for flipping out and indef blocking everyone involved, and maybe also a few unrelated editors for good measure. Wheee!—The preceding insane comment was added by Tim Shuba ( talk • contribs)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Have we decided to keep this article like we did the Dodgeville School District? John "Weenie" Wilson still says considered for deletion. I have more information I would like to add. So is the article to stay or go? Frydoggnt55 15:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)