Talk:Street light interference/Archive 1

message: This article makes several grandiose claims that aren't cited, particularly under the "Causes" section. I'm calling shenanigans. Please cite with reliable sources or the unverified information will be deleted.
Jdoty 18:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unverified claims 

message: Removed this section since it is not a neutral Point Of View. There are such words used here as "...may believe..." and "...but in fact..." with no bases for this representation. It is only a person's opinion (whomever wrote this originally), which alone does not make it a fact as they state (only an opinion, their personal point of view: not neutral).
The way this is written is to show in their point of view that it is simple a cycling of the lamp going on and off on its own, when in fact they have no proof for such an opinion(i.e. previous article written up on that fact by a reliable source). It is only what that person "believes", in other words their biased Point of View with no reference to show for this "opinion". Below is part of the wording of this completely biased Section that I removed because it is not neutral, but a slanted personal opinion. They really don't know that the lamp is going on and off on its own and there is no previously writtten up article from a reliable source that states this; therefore this is only a person's personal biased opinion as to what is happening. 
The effect of this is that a failing lamp glows for a while and then goes out, repeatedly. Those who believe they cause street light interference may believe the lamp is going out specifically because they are there, but in fact the lamp is turning on and going out repeatedly whether anyone is there or not.--Doug talk 12:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was an elaboration of the same thing the skeptical side of the about.com article observes -- when a streetlight goes out near you, it's a startling event and you tend to notice it -- along with some common knowledge about street lights. But if you must take it out, I will settle for leaving it out unless I happen to find more thorough sources for it. It's not something I'll lose sleep over. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  23:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Observer bias 

message: It's clear we disagree on the content of the article, but it should be possible for us to both go on contributing to this article with a cool head.
I've worked on revising the article to meet Wikipedia policy, based on the version you wrote. Since I understand you are likely to object to some of these changes, I broke my changes down into several steps to aid the discussion.
The first steps are the technical (grammar, usage and formatting) changes, which I presume you won't object to. Incidentally, it's not in Wikipedia style to bold every phrase referring to the subject of the article; you should only do this in the first sentence.
The content changes I made are all based on policies about the content of Wikipedia, which I recommend that you should review:
* Articles must be based on reliable sources. Forums are explicitly not reliable sources, so you can't make claims based on them.
* Articles must be written from a neutral point of view. I recognize that absolute neutrality is hard to find when editors disagree, but things that are clearly excluded are statements of opinion such as "SLI deserves further study because...". One way to turn non-neutral sentences into objective ones is to report on who believes it; if the statement "Y happens" is controversial, you might instead say that "People in group X say that Y happens". I've done this in a few places.
* Articles cannot contain original research. Wikipedia isn't for publishing new conclusions that an editor has arrived at, so I removed text such as "It could therefore be the only instance where human beings actually affect their physical world surroundings with a "force" of some type now unknown in science." If you believe my description of observer bias was such a conclusion as well, I'll accept that; since I don't plan to spend time looking for a source, I won't put it back.
* As a subtler point, I think compiling together a photo gallery of supposedly-affected streetlights is original research. This is something I've drawn from other Wikipedia discussions: photographs are generally objective, but the point you illustrate with those photographs can be subjective or original research.
That said, I'd like to ask you (as an advocate for belief in SLI) a couple of questions about the content, in a sentence that I haven't revised. Why are "fictional magical devices" listed as an explanation for SLI? I don't think you seriously mean that SLIders believe that fictional devices are non-fictional, but I can't tell what you do mean.
Also, what connection do SLIders suggest exists between Planck's law of black body radiation and SLI?
rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  10:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  My changes 

message: What's wrong with linking to The Straight Dope? It's a widely-read newspaper column.
Incidentally, reading that article was all I needed to do to find a source about "cycling". Quoting a GE engineer, no less. I hope you don't mind if I soon add the cycling explanation and source it to the Straight Dope article. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  22:11, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Straight Dope article 

message: The below language I entered 9 February 2007 did not reference any text to forums, but only referred to it as showing there are thousands of people reporting the SLI phenomena. Street Light Interference is not secret information (or information that needs to be surpressed for any security reason) nor is it validating anything by saying thousands of people report it worldwide. My reference is to the fact many people report the phenomenon, not validating or proving anything other then that.
:This phenomenon is presently reported in dozens of independent forums that can be found on the internet by anyone using normal search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. While most have scores of reports, some have hundreds of reports that have occured in the last few years. This then shows SLI occurs to not only thousands of people in the United States and Canada, but to just as many in Europe and Asia.
:No, it shows that thousands of people claim SLI happens to them. Which we knew already. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  22:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forums 

message: Another reason why the Arc Lamp diagram is needed in the article is to help technically understand the electrical term called "cycling" that some associate with this phenomonon. In electrical engineering this term is more correctly referred to as hertz. One cycle is one hertz. The SLI phenomonon is not a wave function as inferred by "cycling". It also does not have a frequency or oscillation. These are functions that are associated with events consistently happening within certain periods of time (i.e. 1 hz, 60 hz, 870khz, 2.5 Ghz, ultra violet light, infra-red light, microwaves, gamma rays, x-rays). This square wave diagram demonstrates an "on / off" cycle (a.k.a. hertz). Notice it is consistent with time, meaning it occurs at regular intervals; hence the term "cycling". The definition of "cycle" is recurring series (Random House Dictionary version 2006). That means it has to occur on a reqular basis (not random).
In the Wikipedia mercury vapor lamp article they speak of End of Life of the lamp mechanism, which explains the function of the Arc Lamp diagram:
At the end of life, mercury-vapor lamps commonly exhibit a phenomenon known as cycling. These lamps can be started at a relatively low voltage but as they heat up during operation, the internal gas pressure within the arc tube rises and more and more voltage is required to maintain the arc discharge. As a lamp gets older, the maintaining voltage for the arc eventually rises to exceed the voltage provided by the electrical ballast. As the lamp heats to this point, the arc fails and the lamp goes out. Eventually, with the arc extinguished, the lamp cools down again, the gas pressure in the arc tube is reduced, and the ballast can once again cause the arc to strike. The effect of this is that the lamp glows for a while and then goes out, repeatedly. More-sophisticated ballast designs detect cycling and give up attempting to start the lamp after a few cycles. If power is removed and reapplied, the ballast will make a new series of startup attempts.
What this means in layman's terms is that the lamp is "weak" because it is older. The actual physical properties of the lamp have changed over time; making it "weak". The electrical ballast can no longer supply the voltage necessary to maintain the arc discharge within the gas bulb itself when it is hot (technically: it is too much resistance). When the lamp cools the resistance decreases and the electrical ballast supplies enough voltage to maintain an arc then. However in this "weak" state (old age) the lamp gets too hot and then cools on a consistent time (i.e. 100 seconds). It can then be seen as "cycling" constantly within this time frame (i.e. 100 seconds +/- 10 seconds). This is entirely different than the Street Light Interference phenomenon, which is quite random (not doing a consistent cycle). A Lamp that is cycling will present that display (rather someone is there or not) on a regular timed basis.
The videos show this was not the case. The lamps stayed off until a SLIder came within range (i.e. 10 feet) to effect the function of the lamp (i.e. either turn it off or turn it on). The lamps in the videos on their own stayed in the one state (either stayed on or stayed off) when the SLIder (one that effects these type lamps) was not present. They did not display a cycling function on their own. Now it could be that the SLIders are affecting "weak" lamps only (that has not been determined for sure). If that is the case, then perhaps they are affecting the properties of the gas somehow to effect the resistance within the lamp causing it to turn off or turn on (since they are highly susceptible to this anyway being in a "weak" state). If they are affecting the properties of the gas to increase the resistance then the lamp turns off. If they are affecting the gas properties to decrease the resistance internally, then the lamp turns on (since the ballast then has enought voltage to sustain an arc). In any case, the videos are showing that it is the "presence" of the SLIder person causing the lamp to go on and off - not the lamps themselves cycling on their own accord! This then would explain the reason they do not effect these other bulbs (because it is a function of internal gas property resistance).
--Doug talk 22:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your explanation is interesting. Let me (not the article page) know when you test it using a controlled experiment. If you get a statistical significance of p < 0.01, then you may be on to something. Until you do that, your claims are "not even wrong". And no matter what, they're original research that can't go on Wikipedia until they're published in a reputable source. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  22:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (Guidance information in italics for those wanting to play Wikipedia videos)
The videos are large files. While they may take up to 30 minutes to download with dialup, they only take a few minutes with broadband (i.e. wireless, ethernet, cable, DSL, LAN). It is recommended that those with Windows download this file in order to allow the Windows Media Player to play these "ogg" files used in the Wikipedia articles with videos. Without this file (2 minute download) it may not play properly or at all. The installation is very easy. Download, then follow  instructions of the Setup Wizard (Next, Next, Next, Install, Finish). It installs automatically. This allows the Windows Media Player to play Wikipedia videos ("ogg" files), like these above.
are just showing what has already been published in the source book on the research that had been combiled and put into a book called The SLI Effect by Hilary Evans in 1993. These ideas of certain people (called "SLIders") having some mysterious effect on street lights is not anything new that I have brought in. It is a well known phenomenon by thousands of people worldwide (evidenced by dozens of forums on the subject), which information about it just happened to be compiled and reported by Hilary Evans. I do not personally have to be a "qualified" photographer (i.e. previously been written up in photography industrial journals as a recognized professional) in order to photograph something myself showing the item. An example would be of the 90 pictures I have uploaded showing items of Brookgreen Gardens. They have been divided in several groups (Stone Sculpture, Metal Sculpture, Botanical, Azaleas). I am not a professional photographer, nor a sculpter expert, nor a botanist. However I can enter in my own photographs in Wikipedia projects on these items. Someone else (the sculpturest) already determined that it was a sculpture. Is it a good sculpture or a bad sculpture is not the issue, 
or even what kind of stone (i.e. marble) it is from. The fact is, it is a picture of a sculpture.
This is the same for video. I am just photographing the item (phenonenon of certain people being able to effect lights to go on and off ). The concept has already been established in a reference source book that compiled the information (The SLI Effect). I am not a professional photographer nor an electrical engineer (similar to Brookgreen Gardens idea of not being a sculpturest). I am only photographing the item and putting these photos on Wikipedia. Because these photos happen to be a series of hundreds of photos (a.k.a. video) does not disqualify my photo's. Many have various moving GIF files called "videos" on their articles; which is nothing other than a series of photographs (or animations).
What I am showing has already become known knowledge and published in England in 1993 in a research book that compiled the information called The SLI Effect. I am within the guidelines of not presenting original research. Wikipedia defines original research as research that is not exclusively based on a summary, review or synthesis of earlier publications on the subject of research. The purpose of the original research is to produce  new knowledge, rather than to present the existing knowledge in a new form. I am only presenting the existing knowledge in a new form (video, being a series of photo's). The new "video" files called GIF's are similar to digital video and are used on Wikipedia articles all the time. My photographs of Brookgreen Gardens stone sculpture does not establish that they are in fact stone scuptures; they may very well be metal (many times I am confussed even when I touch them).
If my videos are considered "unpublished analysis", then all photographs taken by anyone that have been entered into an article could be considered an  "unpublished analysis". Take for example the article you worked on of Serge Lang. Do you know for sure this is that person? Since there is no previously published articles directly linking this exact photo to that of a Professor Serge Lang, it could very well be anyone (an imitator; its done all the time, especially to promote certain products to increase sales). Also how do you know this person displayed certain characteristics (marked in the article as original research and unverified claims). In all my articles I have started (Street Light Intereference not being one of them) I have not once had any administrator (or editor) mark the article (or any sections) as original research and unverified claims; because I have backed up all the information with extensive sources and many times external internet links too boot. I have entered in hundreds of pictures on dozens of articles and not one picture has been objected to. Contrary to this is your article Wearing Someone Else's Clothes of your use of a copyrighted album cover. I use only photographs that I have taken personally and released the rights to public domain. I do not believe it is proper to use someone else's photographs (i.e. photograph taken by a professional photographer paid by the record company to make the album cover). You are using their photograph and have not been given release from the record company (anyway that is the way the photograph is marked now). It shows that you just downloaded it from Amazon.com. You know, as well as most Wikipedia editors and administrators, that material like this on the internet (i.e. other's photographs or other's text) is automatically copyrighted; unless the material copyright expired due to age (highly unlikely in your case of the album cover photograph since its only a few years old). Even this diagram showing an "On / Off cycle" I did myself, explaining furhter the concept of cycling in relationship to time. --Doug talk 14:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electronics 

message: Doug, your rewrite was against Wikipedia policy in many ways, most of which I've brought up before (because you wrote almost the same material before).
* Read the external link policy. Really. Every single link you added fails it.
* Please understand WP:NPOV. The fact that you think something is true doesn't make it neutral. Your new additions are clearly advocating a point of view, especially given that you start off with a ridiculous straw man. ("Cycling" is a description of the failure mode of street lights; it clearly does not refer to the unit of hertz). Similarly, if you want to include material that supposedly refutes normal explanations of street lights turning on and off, it has to be attributable to a reliable source, not your own videos.
* It is clear that your videos are not intended for illustration but as original research, since you once again referred to them in the article as if they were a source.
Also, it's not up to you to "allow" a third opinion on the page. You do not WP:OWN this page. When two editors disagree over content and can't resolve it, it's important to the way Wikipedia works that other people come in and address the issues. It's disappointing that all the commenters got hung up on the technical hurdle of the videos, and didn't talk about anything else on the page, because we seem to be back where we started.
Do you have any ideas for resolving this impasse? I'd suggest a different third opinion request that doesn't mention the videos at all.
rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  09:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert 

message: Somewhere above in all the verbiage I saw the claim that a home video might be original research. That can't be the case; there are all kinds of ways to fake videos (and photographs too, for that matter), so any media created by a Wikipedian cannot be proof or disproof of anything. The purpose it serves in the article is merely to illustrate what the text is talking about, so it doesn't actually matter whether the video purports to be of a real incident, or is a simulation showing what the real event might look like. NPOV does require that the video be captioned carefully, so as not to suggest that it's proof or even evidence of anything - you would say something like "this video shows what the effect might look like", which would be equally true of a real event or a simulation. Stan 06:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, that's about the state where the article has settled down. There was a time when Doug wrote a version of the article that referred to the videos as evidence of SLI, and there was a time when I removed the videos entirely, but the current state seems to be acceptable to both of us. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  09:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Videos as original research 

message: With no response from Doug, and with further checking convincing me that "The SLI Effect" has never been anything but self-published, I've removed the article text that depended on it as a reference and made it into an external link instead. This necessitated removing instances of the word "SLIder" from the article, as it's a neologism without a reliable source. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  08:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reducing "The SLI Effect" to an external link 

message: Welcome back, Doug.
I'm going to maintain that the videos you've re-added are not a particularly helpful illustration of the article. The captions say that they are meant to illustrate what a light turning off or on looks like, but every reader knows what that looks like without the help of a long video. (Also, the anon who removed the links left the comment that they "aren't even street lights", which strikes me as a valid objection when they're supposed to illustrate an article on street light interference.)
The videos illustrate something else, however, that the captions don't mention: an apparently skeptical observer behind the camera, who is then audibly astonished when the light goes off for whatever reason. That strikes me as rather biased toward making it look like SLI is real.
If you just want to illustrate "what it looks like when a light goes on or off", couldn't you cut the videos to just illustrate that moment, and why is it so important to you to illustrate such an obvious thing in the first place? Basically, what do you hope to accomplish by including these videos?
rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  01:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you've missed my point a bit. The article's about the belief that some people can mysteriously cause certain lights to go on and off, which is certainly not obvious. The videos, however, purport to be about what it looks like when a light goes on and off, which is obvious, and certainly shouldn't take 40 seconds to illustrate, if it's necessary to illustrate with a video at all. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  23:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: What changed was that another user showed up and disagreed with the inclusion of the videos. It wasn't important enough for me to make an issue out of it, especially if it would just be a one-on-one disagreement that went nowhere. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  22:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back to the videos 

message: In the free download PDF it is showing an ISBN number of . Clicking the link on that number up on WorldCat it shows the University of Illinois as having a copy. It is also showing 3 places in Great Britian as having copies - which seems logical since this is where it apparently was written. Maybe you could order it through your local library through the Interlibrary loan system to put a physical copy in your hands. It apparently is small since it consists of only 52 pages, so the postage would be small (probably free through the library). Verification that this is a correct ISBN number can be done through ASSAP "contact us" Research Department or phone or write them.
--Doug talk 16:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for finding this out, and you were right to restore the word "SLIder" to the article. But why did you put it in bold and italics again? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  22:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ISBN 

message: Here is some additional information pertaining to "prominent adherents"  associated with ASSAP.
This information I obtained from the ASSAP home page
The president of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena ("ASSAP") is Lionel Fanthorpe.
He is a well known cleric and Fortean researcher. His website is here and here is his "bio". Wikipedia has an article on Lionel Fanthorpe as well as Fortean Times and Charles Fort (a famous American writer and researcher on anomalous phenomena) of the Fortean philosophy. Here is the website for Fortean Times. Affilated groups that are associated with ASSAP can be found here that do research on anomalous phenomena.--Doug talk 15:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Though I won't put much stock in "prominence by association" through the Forteans or groups affiliated with ASSAP, it seems that Lionel Fanthorpe himself is somewhat prominent and specifically states his belief in SLI. So I think you have shown that belief in SLI qualifies as at least a "minority point of view" as described by WP:NPOV. However, I think it is relevant that Fanthorpe is only notable because of his advocacy for the paranormal. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ  16:08, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prominent Adherents 

message: This wording is not original research, however an exact quote from page 16 of the book written by Hilary Evans. It is so marked and noted in the article. The reference source is at the end and is a free download into a PDF file. This information is attributable, since it is an exact quote from a reference source book written in 1993 on this subject called: The SLI Effect..--Doug talk 12:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, thanks for making that more clear in the article.  Someguy1221 17:58, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page 16 

message: This particular statement would be original research since that has not been proven one way or the other. I have removed the statement since there is no reference from a published source that states this. The videos that show what could possibly happen when a light goes out shows that the SLIDER did not notice the bulb had actually gone out, while it was observed by the observers only. While the bulb could have been turned off by another person outside the video, it does show that the SLIDER did not notice the bulb went out while the observers did. The video shows just the opposite of this statement - rather the video is real or faked. Interestingly all the other bulbs on the bank of lights at the apartment building stayed on and only the one that the SLIDER went under went out. The bank of lights are all on the same light sensor on the outside of the building which means that normally they all go on or off at the same time. It would be most unusual for just one light to go out since they are all on the same electrical bank controlled by one sensor - however electronically it is possible and could be arranged with special wiring to show a possible fake presentation on a video. In either case, the below statement has not been published and verified by a reliably source.
:Another important point worth mentioning is that those people who are not sliders do not notice that the lightbulb goes out while the slider does. <-- this statement can be put back in IF there is a source that says this, which so far I have not been able to find. Perhaps the editor that put this in ORIGINALLY has a reference source for this statement. That is the reason I removed it - since there is no source for this information. --Doug talk 23:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Noticing light goes out