Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt/Workshop

message: I am not comfortable editting the project page at this time, but here is how I see things.
Perhaps the best introduction to this issue is in a statement that Carl Hewitt chose to use as "Evidence":  To myself (User:ems57fcva) from User:R.Koot:
:Carl just started another vanity spree.
This is not a matter of creating vanity pages, but rather of creating content which gives the actor model and undeserved level of visibility and/or is very much focussed of Carl Hewitt's POV.  When he goes too far, he finds himself up against the opposition of other editors.  His responses are then to:
# Try reverting the changes being imposed by other editors.
# Move the offending content to a new location.
# Move the offending content yet again.
As a result, editors find themselves having to fight a running, moving battle to get the content under control.  The desire to have the actor model categorized under :category:general relativity is just one example.  It was quickly recognized by myself and other GR editors as software instead of theoretical physics, and the categorization was immediately bounced.  Once Carl Hewitt saw that he could not do a direct categorization, he then tried an indirect categorization.  When his initial term was ruled to be a neologism, he then tried to change the name (albeit incompetently, by creating a new category).  As he sought an out, he would charge ahead with his new idea of where to put the content, without consulting other editors and without any regard to their insistance that the content itself is inappropriate.
This is the pattern that makes Carl Hewitt a very frustrating editor.  I for one would not mind a 6-month ban on his editting in the article space.  His writing is in general fairly measured, but he has no sense of how to work within a community of editors.  He compromises only grudgingly, and often seems unable to draw the line between personal opinion and established viewpoints. --EMS | Talk 03:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion of Carl Hewitt's pattern of behavior 

message: Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl_Hewitt/Workshop#Calvinball, Lessons that can be learned from Edward Schaefer's pattern of behavior and How POV Neutral are Carl's_detractors?
Regards, --Carl Hewitt 10:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Response by Carl Hewitt

message: : I won't claim a lack of POV in this matter, although I see my own view of things to be a resonably mainstream one.  I understand the desire of some like yourself to defend Carl, but the actor model being dependent on physics does not make that physics dependent on the actor model, or even make the actor model relevant to the physics.  Yet Carl has pushed that.
: I see why Carl is seen as a valuable resource, but to me he is a persistent pain-in-the-neck.  Perhaps I am especially annoyed with him since I do my own original research (see my user page) and have been scrupulous about keeping it out of the article space.  Carl on the other hand has regularly interjected personal views all over the place, trying to stetch his "authority" into areas where his computer science expertise is not relevant.  If anything, it makes me wonder if Wikipedia should not bar people from documenting their own work here. --EMS | Talk 06:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to [[User:Montalvo|Montalvo]] by [[User_talk:ems57fcva|EMS]]

message: Re this motion: I contacted SlimVirgin, and she said she might be able to think of something. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 05:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree to make the habit of consistently citing the literature in Harvard style if this is the general consensus.  Moreover, I will agree to convert all of the references that I have contributed to the Harvard style (although it will take a while to do them all).  My only concern is that if I contribute a reference to an article whose references are not currently in the Harvard style, which style should I use? --Carl Hewitt 06:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't worry about past references: it's a shared task for cleanup on an article by article basis.  Harvard style is recommended but not mandated by WP:CITE, and that reference explains how to cite tricky documents. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 06:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not clear to me what this motion is trying to achieve. I guess that "Harvard style" means something different to Charles, but for me, it refers to writing "F = ma (Newton, 1686)" instead of "F = ma [New86]" or "F = ma [12]". Was there a conflict related to the style of referencing? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:18, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, not at all, the RfAr appropriate issue is finding a stable citation policy that reduces difficulties when verifying.  I discussed citation styles with Carl a long time back, and he was agreeable to harvard style citations, which are the recommended style for WP:CITE --- Charles Stewart(talk) 15:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I believe that the issue is Carl's habit of generating lengthy "reference" lists, without making it clear which references are tied to which assertions. Requiring some form of direct citation would mitigate this issue. It would also make it easier for others to trim the reference lists down to a more reasonable length, since it would be obvious which references are directly related to the article in question. I think Charles is suggesting Harvard style as the specific type of direct citation simply because it is the recommended style. --Allan McInnes 18:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Motion by Charles Stewart concerning citations

message: I'm optimistic about my proposed remedy above providing a workable solution to this RfAr, because of EMS's support, and because in an offline discussion with Carl, while he had reservations about the proposal, he was not hostile to it.  I'd like to tackle some issues now:
:1. One of Carl's reservations was how to define what are the scope of computer science and physics.  It seems that the wikiprojects might help to define this, although the computer science wikiproject is only now, through Allan McInnes' efforts being revived.  An issue here is how to determine what to do with those few articles in the overlap.  I suggest we can let discussions of the project talk pages determine how to handle these issues if they arise;
:2. Possible EMS has second thoughts after so much time has past?
:3. I haven't talked to Ruud about the proposal.  As the third party to this RfAr, I'd value his input.
--- Charles Stewart(talk) 21:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In #Remedies. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 19:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

text: [o]ne of Carl's reservations was how to define what are the scope of computer science and physics.
is a red flag that more trouble is to come if something is not done.  I find it hard to believe that someone of his intellect could not see that line if he wanted to.  Just to repeat:  The actor model is a consumer of indeteminacy, and is not concerned with its source.  Instead it the Carl Hewitt that likes to be concerned with that.  The arbiter that Carl loves to cite exists at the boundary, being an electonics circuit that generates digital indeterminacy while consuming quantum indeterminacy in the process.  How an arbiter operates is electronics (with the details of electronics being the physics behind it), but how an arbiter is used is computer science.  Since "electronics" intervenes between computer science and physics, I see that issue of an overlap as being a red herring.
With the passage of time, I become more and more convinced that being a expert in a field and being a good editor about the field are two very different things.  A good editor can collect information from a variety of sources and produce a comprehensive and comprehendable article on a subject from them.  An expert in a field, espectially one who is actively expanding the knowledge of that field is instead often more concerned about esoteric details, and often ends up writing narrowly focussed and jargon-laden articles.  Sometimes, the experts are totally POV, or so full of themselves that they cannot write an properly encyclopedic article on any subject that they care about.  My advice is to ignore Carl's status as an expert, and focus on Carl as an editor.  On the one hand, he is adding value to Wikipedia through sharing his knowledge, while on the other he is being (ar at least has been) disruptive and counter-productive.  The issue before us is one of whether the benefit is worth the bother. --EMS | Talk 19:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

text: For me, I think the benefit outweighs the bother, but then I am more interested in the computer science articles than the physics articles,  I am optimistic about Carl editing in a more constructive manner, and I regard this as a test case for highly accomplished expert editors that has something substantial at stake.  Part of the reason I proposed the phased remedy is that it is clear that for most editors of physics articles, the bother much outweighs the potential benefit.  --- Charles Stewart(talk) 22:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed remedy revisited