FUD on E-catworld

Quote from Alan Smith

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

With some justification.

Of course. The justification is rather obvious. "I don't like it, therefore it should be stopped." Below, I will consider another possibility.

Quote

I have seen no official complaints.

I have described the behavior publically, on the forum. What is an "official complaint"? If a thread is closed by a moderator, how does one "officially" question this? This forum was set up by a small, fairly tight community, and that procedure, needed when the scale gets larger and the community more diverse, was not set up, is normal. But now what? The situation now appears to be that there is only one truly active moderator, Alan, who is a relative newcomer to lenr-forum, having joined Nov 10th 2015. (I joined Oct 21st 2014, having been invited by an administrator.) Alan has an obvious conflict of interest, but he is personally and highly invested in a particular approach to LENR. I addressed conflict of interest policies on Wikipedia, and the upshot is that those who have a conflict of interest properly abstain from actions exercising power, but, in the other direction, advise the community with their likely expertise. The former is Wikipedia policy, and the latter is also theoretically policy, but, in fact, COI experts are banned all the time, on the thinnest of evidence. I was topic-banned on cold fusion, after having declared a conflict of interest, and the "reason" was "writing too much" on talk pages. The Arbitration Committee tried to ban me for writing too much, then they realized that I wrote no more than a well-known member of the committee, so they looked for other excuses. Long story....

I did discuss the issues with an administrator and I'm not going to reveal what was said yet. I consider those communications private and do not break privacy without strong cause, which doesn't exist yet, and I would request permission first.

Quote

And threats are entirely futile as far as I am concerned.

It is not actually a threat, it is a promise, something that could be expected, i.e, that a particular action would have a particular consequence.

I'm a writer, and suppression of what I write about is about the greatest offense possible. If it's irrelevant, sure. But this isn't irrelevant.

Further, this is a discussion forum. Shutting down a thread is not technically "censorship," except that discussion is being prevented, in a place where focus is sharper; when this cannot be done, the discussion is instead, spread out and dilutes other topics. I've point this out to Alan before, last time he shut down a relevant thread. He doesn't seem to get the harm he is doing to the forum. Each incident is small, but the pattern is negative in consequence. It's the opposite of the direction I would see a thriving lenr-forum as taking, toward more coherence and focus, where discussions build and improve access to information.

Quote

Leaving fora in a huff is your usual modus operandi. I for one am not impressed..

Examples? I have difficulty thinking of any.

Basically, Alan, you are not impressed by your own imagination. Nor am I.

I do not continue participation where I don't see value in it, or I see too much harm, as in waste of time, etc. However, I do not generally leave LANCB comments. Is mentioning that I'm not going to be participating -- for a time -- being in a "huff"? Alan has a view of people and society which is primitive, as I see it. The work he is doing with facilitating access to experimental equipment and materials is great, part of what is needed. Most of his actions as a moderator are defensible. Not all.

The other possibility: Alan may believe that this topic will be a troll magnet, will foment flame wars or the like. I can understand that. However, this is a position that does not trust the community, and that is fatal to administration as service of the community rather than as governance. It is common for administrators (and a moderator here is an administrator for most purposes) to come to think that they know better than the community, and often they do, that is, they know more. However, this fails to understand leadership and facilitation, and the ultimate end of the approach is disconnection from the community, which can slowly kill an administered community. There are far more effective ways. I manage many mailing lists, and the problem occasionally comes up. It is not difficult. It does not involve censorship. It is transparent, and the community can easily bypass my actions. It simply takes a little more work on the part of the administrator. Not much! If any problem arises, such as claims that I am biased, I make sure that there are other administrators, and I recuse.

This is not difficult to understand, but it is amazing how vehement some administrators on Wikipedia became when they were asked to follow policy that the community had established. Or amazing if one does not understand how humans think.

Here I will take a devil's advocate position, to balance. My conclusions are similar to Jed's, but I maintain awareness of alternate possibilities. So I will express some here. Do not confuse this with advocating those possibilities as truth. They are possibilities that remain within what we have as evidence -- and what we don't have.

Quote from JedRothwell

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

We know they did not accept it. See the motion to dismiss, and the press release at LENR-CANR.org. They said "departing from the purported test plan, ignoring inoperable reactors, relying on flawed measurements, and using unsuitable measuring devices." They could not have said it more clearly. It wasn't just I.H. Everyone with knowledge of the test saw that it was farce, and blatant fraud. The data speaks for itself, as described in Exhibit 5.

"Accept" refers to consenting to the protocol as proposed before the test was set up, and then, possibly, not objecting to it early. The press release refers to actual practice in the test. It somewhat implies that they approved the "purported test plan," which is the opposite of what Jed is making of that press release with regard to the plan. Jed is using "accept" to refer to the actual testing, not the proposal.

Once we are totally convinced of something, we tend to get sloppy as to evidence. After all, it's "the truth." I don't blame Jed for being convinced, but I do generally suggest that he maintain awareness of alternate possibilities. It can make him more effective as a writer, if he cares about moving the mainstream. If he doesn't, if he doesn't care, then whatever. The habit can, however, make him look like a fanatic. Given the depth of his knowledge -- it is considerable! Jed has, what, over two decades of experience? -- I don't like that outcome.

(Jed was going strong in 1996: http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue9/wright.html)

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Not just one, but two of the important instruments were planned to be used outside of specified range: the pressure gauge and the flow meter. This was unbelievably sloppy.

No, it wasn't sloppy. No one is that sloppy. It was fraud.[/quote]
Could fraud and sloppy practice be connected? Is it one or the other? Sloppy practice allows fraud, but fraud requires something else. Among other things, it requires sanity. Civil fraud, sanity does not matter, but criminal fraud, it does. If an inventor has routine sloppy practices that cause him to believe he has a real effect, and perhaps sometimes it doesn't work, but he will get the kinks worked out by next month, we can have a gray area, where some kind of civil fraud becomes possible, and maybe even criminal fraud if intention can be clearly shown to the satisfaction of a jury. I haven't seen sufficient evidence for that yet, probably. But civil fraud, where it doesn't really matter what he was thinking, mens rea is not required. Just a deceptive effect of actions.

And how do we distinguish between insane, paranoid behavior and fraud? I don't find much room for a view of Rossi as "perfectly rational, doing what will make him successful," and, Jed, you were the origin of the Mats Lewan idea that he seems to want to be viewed as a fraud, to create suspicion. Why? Well, we can imagine reasons, and some of them involve fraud and some involve something else.

None of this proves he doesn't have excess heat. However, it pulls the rug out from under some -- many or most -- of the reasons to think that he does have such heat. It's circumstantial evidence: if he has real heat, why would he set up a situation where it could not be clearly and conclusively verified? That question has many possible answers! Fraud is not the only possible answer.

What is really weird to me is those who think that the heat is real and he was very smart to set things up the way he did, because IH intended to cheat him. I've even seen opinion that even if he knew he would lose, his dignity required that he sue! They are not the ones who will suffer. They might even like having a martyr for the Cause. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Quote

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

Maybe? The name was "Johnson Matthew." It was owned by Rossi's lawyer, yet Rossi claimed he had no connection to it. And you say "maybe" they suspected something? How stupid do you think the people at I.H. are?

Jed, you have no idea if they checked back then or not, at least I think you don't. What you have just stated appears circumstantial. I speculated that they did suspect. Johnson was the registered agent and President of JM Products. I do not know if they even checked that. Why should they? The Terms Sheet appeared to be all gravy for IH, and no down side. Why look a gift horse in the mouth? Did they think Rossi would sue them?

If there was a real owner in England, as Johnson claimed, the appearance could be as they would have found if they checked on the corporation. And Johnson certified that he and Rossi did not have ownership. If there is no independent owner, Johnson is in big trouble. He could be disbarred over this, not to mention being liable for damages.

Back in 2014, when they signed the agreement, they might have thought "He'd have to be crazy to sue," if it even occurred to them.

So, as I speculate, perhaps they suspected. But with full access as guaranteed, with payments covering their expenses, why should they look a gift horse in the mouth? If they did see a risk of being sued, they would have thought, the way the Agreement and Second Amendment were written, that they were safe, and they could afford the legal costs and if they were sued, they would countersue and maybe recover more money, which is very possible at this point.

You have an imagination of stupidity, which seems to come easy for you, there are many examples. I don't. No, I'm looking at the situation and assume that the actors are not stupid. They might be mistaken, they might even be deluded, but "stupid" is not on my radar, at least not as an operating assumption.

If they knew that JM Products was fake, they might still have proceeded. Maybe Rossi would come up with a Wabbit. As the "test" proceeded, that became less and less likely. They did protest, by the beginning of December, 2015 after the test had been running for almost ten months. Some people think that the lack of earlier protest is somehow evidence of bad faith on their part. We don't actually know when they first objected, and there are examples of objections going back to 2013, but they did not push the point. This all came out of, it appears to me, a decision to go ahead and trust Rossi (meaning allow him high freedom) and allow him to show them the technology, if he would, or, alternatively, to demonstrate that he would not or could not keep his word, and to nail this, either way. To "crush the tests." That is why they invested what might have been about $20 million. To find out.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

The letter signed by Johnson guaranteeing the independence of JMC was one such protective measure.

Perhaps. On the face, that appears to have been signed to satisfy certain federal regulatory requirements. There was something similar in the Agreement,. section 12(n).

Weirdly, the declaration by Johnson was included in the filed Exhibit B by Rossi, the Agreement. It was not a part of the Agreement, that was an error on Annesser's part. It was probably stuck in Rossi's file and he just pulled it out with the rest, and Annesser did not carefully review the documents. (The partially unsigned Second Agreement was another faux pas, it looks like Annesser did not notice this.)

That was where JM Products first became public knowledge, from that accidental inclusion.

Quote from Alan Smith

It is also common for Abd to think he knows better than everyone else. But we live with it. Most of your post is pure self-serving drivel IMHO.

Alan has here created my personality as a topic.

Yes, something like that is common. To be more accurate, where I have researched a topic, I may well know better than most others. Not everyone. Not ever, or, again more accurately, almost never. This, in fact, is how I learn, I express what I have found and then consider what others say. I move into new fields and into the company of those who know more than I, and open my mouth, so that I'm corrected. It is very efficient.

As to raw intelligence, I've lived with being literally off the charts (beyond the range of ordinary intelligence tests) since even before high school. I was skipped more than a grade, so I was surrounded by older kids, and, still knew more than them, about what I had learned. Socially, I was retarded ("delayed") in certain ways. Very common ADHD pattern. I set up my life, in fact, to address this, which took me entirely away from science for many, many years.

Alan may consider this "self-serving." How? What do I gain? In many circles, mentioning one's own intelligence, as I did above, is considered rude or self-aggrandizing. It's an unwritten rule.

In fact, I have come to recognize many different forms of intelligence, and to respect them all, not just my own form. However, what I see here is Alan being smug and apparently believing that his personal judgments are worth posting, when they contribute nothing to the conversation.

Alan has, here, demonstrated that if he is to continue as a moderator, he would, properly, learn to recognize his own involvement, and to recuse when involved. Further, when one has a position of power like that, even an *appearance* of bias can be a problem. (To be sure, Alan did not act, AFAIK, he just expressed his opinion. If he did act, someone undid it and did not mention it.)

The appearance of bias is a problem especially when one is the only active moderator, I faced that as an administrator on Wikiversity. There are solutions that fully respect the community and its rights. Do we care about the community here, or is lenr-forum a plaything for administrators and moderators?

Quote from Timar

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

Well, I do now. Here are three quotes from you. Anyone may add them up and come to his own conclusion:

Led by the nose by Timar. In fact, Timar lied about what is shown. He did not quote, but drew his own conclusions -- as he is suggesting others do -- and posted them as fact. And then at least one other read that and assumed his "fact" and repeated it. This is how entire communities can become confused, led by the nose to conclusions that the facts do not support, but only some appearance.

Quote

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
And, by the way, I’ve been funded, because I do what I do, write. There were no strings attached, I can write for or against or neutrally, whatever, and it was neutral writing that attracted the funding.

Yes. I was funded because I wrote and it was appreciated. What was that writing about? Cold fusion? No. It was about Wikipedia and how it works and does not work. So this is relevant, here, how? As well, the funding did not come from anyone connected with Industrial Heat, and it came before I had any contact with anyone from Industrial Heat, before Rossi v. Darden, which broke the situation open.

Quote

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Because I am under a promise of confidentiality...

. . . because I'm moving into a role of facilitating research, I need to know what is going on, so I am now engaged in a number of private discussions, under a promise of non-disclosure.

Again, yes. It is not actually common, but on occasion people write me and disclose what they do not wish to make public. I respect that, and promise it. I do not disclose the content of private communication where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. This is actually standard ethics. The problem is? How does this relate to the claims made by Timar?

From the sum of all I know, however, I can say this: there is no plot to discredit Rossi, nobody is being paid for FUD, at least not on the side critical of Rossi. Rossi uses sock puppets, as a form of spreading FUD, and has plenty of cash and might very well pay someone on occasion, though I have no evidence for that. It is simply plausible. He might also "pay" them in terms of access to conversation with Rossi the Magnificent. Don't put it down, that could be a motivator.

(And I can imagine the reverse. Maybe someone would criticize Rossi hoping for some sort of access to the major players on the other side. It would likely fail. To get access to Industrial Heat, I would suggest, make major contributions to the field. MFMP might have some level of access, I don't know. Attacking Rossi? Useless to IH. They don't need it, it gives them nothing. Only idiots would imagine they would pay for it.)

Quote

Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
a lawyer suggested I document and study Rossi v. Darden. And we communicate about it. So ... I don't want to disappoint him!

In other words, I am in communication with a lawyer about the case, and I have disclosed that many times. The lawyer has no affiliation at all with Industrial Heat. What I write on the case here is often reviewed by him, and he continues to appreciate it. That does not mean that he agrees with me on everything, but he definitely considers that what I write contributes to the conversation.

Again, what does this have to do with Timar's claim? Basically if one has an image of a conspiracy, and looks at everything through conspiracy-tinted glasses, and squints, maybe one can find something. Otherwise, basically, Timar is a liar or so deluded that we must excuse him from responsibility. Either way, what he writes is not to be trusted without careful verification. I highly recommend that anyone who supports Rossi be very careful about repeating his arguments without becoming sufficiently informed to be personally responsible. Otherwise you can end up looking like an idiot.

Quote

Bragging seems to be your weak spot, Abd.

All of those were disclosure, not bragging, though I am, indeed, happy that I've been supported in various ways. Appreciation is appreciated, like duh!

I have no concern about how someone like Timar looks at me, he is not a friend nor anyone I expect anything from, as far as I know he is an anonymous troll, and most of the time I will ignore his posts, as I blocked him long ago. Here, however, because I referred to the conversation around his claim on ECW, I am making an exception, because part of the purpose here is to notice these "information cascades," where misinformation is repeated and becomes accepted by a community. It is very dangerous in any direction.

Peter Gluck appears to have accepted some of the general premise ("paid FUD") and as a result, has broken very old friendships and collaborations. This stuff does real harm, in this case to an old man, vulnerable and now isolated from a community that was very important to him.

Quote from THHuxley

The point of this thread is to lament the falings of ECW. It will do absolutely no good. But, again personally, I find the censorship on ECW and the way truth is so openly twisted over there to be loathsome and I'm all for knocking it!

Thanks, THH. The purpose is a bit more sophisticated than that. My training suggests the futility of complaint, as to anything "persistent," but praises the study of "what is." I am already seeing some salutary results from starting this. Yes, some will use this to dump feelings. I might even do that some. However, that is not the goal for me. Thanks for your feedback.

Quote from JedRothwell

Paradigmnoia wrote:

I was put on delay every time, and mostly deleted after that.

I do not know if I was always on moderation delay, I might not have noticed it, but I did notice it months ago. Every post must be accepted by a moderator. It is not exactly a "delay," it is a requirement normally set by administrators when they worry that a user might be trolling or something like that.

I often set up mailing lists for new subscribers to be on moderation; then, when they post a decent post, I take them off. More recently, I normally allow subscribers who have verified they are not 'bots to post without restriction and then put them on moderation if there seems to be a problem. This is rare. Most people can be trusted. I take them off rather easily if they submit a few decent posts.

That is why I don't understand being on moderation on e-catworld. They are accepting all my posts, except for two that I mentioned. And those were not as disruptive, if they were disruptive, as what is common there. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, except as a possible intention to annoy, and I dislike forming and holding ideas like that. However, it does have a suppressive effect on the conversation. Nevertheless, it's Frank's blog. And we are also free to talk about it here, my opinion. After all, they commonly mention us as that hive of paid FUDders and fanatic debunkers.

Jed, how about retrieving the content of your recent deleted posts and putting them here, so we can see what is being rejected. One of us might even put it back, quoting you, if we are willing to take the risk of being deleted or otherwise sanctioned. Or one could easily point, there, to the post here. "Jed responded here but it was apparently deleted, perhaps by mistake, so here it is: [link]. My opinion is that this is worth reading."

Don't do that if the post is rude or inappropriate! Do *not* quote insults! But we can discuss this here.