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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 208.242.58.125 (talk) at 17:37, 12 April 2009 (→Neutrality: Writing styles). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Noticeboard Filing

Please note: [[1]]

I encourage other editors to include other diffs that they feel may be pertinent. Guyonthesubway (talk) 20:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Revisions of the article - Origin year - references of the patents - confusion of various patents

There is a possibility to confuse Meyer's patents. I believe that this is happening because we lack inline citations. The most recent edit by Guyontehsubway, reverted attempts to correct this problem. In fact, Guyonthesubway clearly made a derogatory comment regarding my editing. Which leads me to believe this edit is Ad hominem. I undid the edit by Guyonthesubway. Arthur Rubin however reverted it back with this edit. The explanation is unclear, except that it asks that we discuss the edits here on the talk page. --CyclePat (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Origin year

The "origyear= 1989" has been remove because there is no inline citation. Meyer has developed various patents and the references at the bottom of the article indicate that he filed his pattents prior to 1989. (Ref# 5. or patent # 4936961). Given the fact that we are all experienced users here, further explanation and an analysis of why this violates Wikipedia rules and guidelines will be supplied upon request only. (In short though : The responsibility for putting information back into an article is that of the one providing the information. (A fundemental rule by Wikipedia)--CyclePat (talk) 16:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1980s

Same as above. Except in this case the content is being removed. "In the 1980s, several patents where filed by Stanley Meyer for a processes and apparatus for producing hydrogen and oxygen." Arthur claims this to be wrong, but in fact, it is true. Simply look at patents per the references (Ref# 5. or patent # 4936961 filed in Aug 1987, or Ref#6 patent# 4826581 filed in Mar 1987 or Patent # 4798661 filed March 25, 1985. etc...) More references upon request. We must not get confused between the dates of official filling, the dates of patent filling, the dates of approval, this is shown in this edit here (line 45). --CyclePat (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Confusion of patents

This article has a strong tendency to lean towards one particular item of inventor Stanley Meyer... a term that he used in his inventions called "water fuel cell". In reality Meyer has accomplished (as demonstrated by the aforementioned list of patents) much more than a "water fuel cell". The balance of this article, and the way editor are trying to maintain this balance at all cost is hindering the development to balance the article into NPOV. This, in spirit, violate the rules of Wikipedia... in particular I can't help but think about WP:CFORK... which means a content fork of a main article... however, there is no main article on Stanley Meyer. Biography rules would apply... and what a headache to try and think of another solution. Hence, my proposed solution is to continue history section, which was removed by Arthur. Describe a brief of Meyers patents... what patents where applied to make his device (per some of Meyer's patents he does use other peoples patents properly cited within his patent applications). Unlike right now, where all the patents appear to be a violation (and which most likely isn't the case), the inline citations and further development into the other patents will help readers determine which inventions scientist considered to be a violation of the first rules of thermodynamics. Further analysis of the the rules which apply to this (ie. Bio) may be provided upon request. --CyclePat (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As currently organized, Stanley Meyer is covered by Articles about people notable for only one event. If his activities outside of the water fuel cell have attracted sufficient outside attention that we can write a decent encyclopedia article, then we should do so (including a section with {{main}} to this article). If not, then Meyer and his activities can receive appropriate mention in other articles in context of which they are notable. In either case, this article should focus on Stanley Meyer's water fuel cell, not extraneous details about the inventor or his other activities. - Eldereft (cont.) 19:10, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Until someone finds some proof that anything he's done (outside of the water car) is notable, those sections should be removed. A patent is not sufficient to show notability. Guyonthesubway (talk) 00:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Summary: notability does not apply to content... but only the article. expand it! Long answer: Okay! I might be overextending my inference here, no matter the case, there's a fundamental problem with removing the patents from the article. It's not going to work! "Those sections"(note: a vague statement which requires better precision to remove any ambiguity) are fundamental to the article. Anyways, "the term "fuel cell""... is already in the article so their is no arguing that it's not notable. Hence, I believe, any related supporting evidence should be properly discussed. Currently, we do this by talking about the "Water car" (as Guyonthesubway says), but again... it's confusing because we have patents, patent 2, patent this, which just makes this into something I really don't want to think about but do hands on work to fix right now. Anyways, the patents are really some of the best references we have. One issue I think I see is the debate between "water car" --> "water fuel cell" --> water "other patents". Anyways Notability is not really an issue unless we plan to content fork and I doubt this will happen. In fact, per WP:NOTABILITY, notability "guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles". So I disagree with Guyonthesubways and believe that "those section" should not only be kept but that they should be developed. Also, if you remove references to the patents, which we've already included, you remove the explanations and perfectly good primary sources. I do not endorse any removal of links or references to the patents. They are currently the most reliable source (if not only) of information that we have to describe the "water fuel cell". If you remove this, I believe, we have no article. Failing to continue to develop these important reference is probably just as bad. (ie. Please take a look at what I did at the article section Electric_bicycle#Electric_bicycle_history. I started out with all the patent information and now it's expanded with collaborative work!!!) :) This is clear precise... our article lack this precision. Right now we can be leaving our reader wondering what patents are a "violation of the laws of thermodynamics", which patents where found to be "fraudulent in court", which ones pertains to the "water car". I believe, vagueness is what's killing this article and killing us to be able to continue expanding the article! --CyclePat (talk) 10:27, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I dont agree. Anyone else? Guyonthesubway (talk) 13:36, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There have been attempts to expand the article in the past, or write a separate article on Meyer, and the consensus has always been that this is the only (barely) notable thing about him.Prebys (talk) 17:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The examples you give are irrelevant because they deal with WP:CFORKing. The only concencus I currently see is one to avoid expanding this article and frankly this is disruptive to Wikipedia. Also, as I've already said,WP:Notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics and does not apply to content within the article. If you disagree with this fundemental principle then I fear we will require mediation and further dispute resolution. --CyclePat (talk) 04:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict with Abecedare): p.s.: Nevertheless, just by curiosity, what is your current standard for notability of content within an article? How, have "we" supposedly "always" come to a consensus that this article (which is obviously clearly about Meyer's inventions) should focus on only "The term "fuel cell"" which is used within pretty much all of Meyer patent's (and in this case, at the same time, about "Water cars")? (Rhetorical question -->(Why water cars?)--> Yes notability... but, again, notability, per "WP:NOTABILITY", does not apply to content. Do you have any other reasons which could help clarify this issue because right now I can't help but feel as though some dispute resolution need to place and that perhaps some of us should brush up on Wikipedia's official policy : Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. --CyclePat (talk) 04:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I too agree that the "Later Design" section is not appropriate to this page, since we have no secondary sources on it. This article is on "Stanley Meyer's water fuel cell", which is only notable for (a) its pseudo-scientific claims and (b) the related investor fraud, as is established by the newspaper and Nature articles. Aside: Editors may be interested in reading this Philippines' "Stanley Meyer" story, which also ended in court conviction for fraud. (Note: I am not proposing its inclusion in the article) Abecedare (talk) 04:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Abecedare. I will look into this. --CyclePat (talk) 04:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. I have looked into the Policy which applies to your conclusion. The rules is WP:PSTS, section "Primary sources". More specifically it stated that :
  • "Our policy: Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper)...", (I believe this includes patents, such as the ones we are talking about, which some others are already widely cited within Wikipedia articles),
  • "...may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." I believe this means that to remove the content, you must prove that it is being misused.
  • Furthermore it states "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." I believe this section means we can still use primary sources... we just have to be careful and ensure "we" do not make any interpretations.
  • Finally it states "Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages from the novel to describe the plot, but any interpretation of those passages needs a secondary source." Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this section of the rule is the core tenant of your argument, right? Again, thank you Abecedare, this is the section I am looking into. We agree that the disputed content does not have a secondary source. But, please don't trow the baby out with the bath water! (So, I hear they say). The reason I say this is because, I believe the primary source is being properly used to make descriptive claims about Stanley Meyer's Water Fuel Cell. Furthermore, the accuracy of these claims are easily verifiable, as it says, by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge.
Would you care to explain a little further on why you believe the disputed section should be removed? --CyclePat (talk) 05:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pat, find something that demonstrates that the later work was notable or it shouldn't be there. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Guyonthesubway (talk) 00:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indent reset. I don't believe that Meyer did anything incredible at all, except claim to have a car that runs on water and patent a device which purportedly accomplishes this. My position is that people are going to stumble across Stanley Meyer and the Water Fuel Cell. Eventually they will query it on WP. It is our responsibility to present enought information about the WFC to describe what it is, what it supposedly does and present the fact that it violates thermodynamics.I55ere (talk) 19:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of my added citation

I am looking forward to seeing what kind of justification will be used by the resident pseudo-empiricist bigots governing this article, for removing my added citation of PESWiki, which explains that contrary to the assertion within Nature, Meyer's fuel cell does violate the laws of thermodynamics at all.

Although then again, it will probably simply be removed without a word of explanation at all; that, after all, would be the most intellectually/morally cowardly, and arbitrarily fascist option for them to take, and therefore the most fitting.

Petrus4 (talk) 07:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It will probably be removed, and probably because an exceptional claim such as "a machine that generates energy from water doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics" requires a more credible/reliable source than some Wiki, especially when pitted against an article from Nature. Wikipedia is supposed to be here to provide reliable info, not to provide links to some ad hoc physics-based explanation that some guy dreamt up (especially when that explanation is flawed). Oli Filth(talk|contribs) 10:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It has been. Now I know what it feels like to be an intellectual/moral coward and arbitrary fascist, so thank you Petrus4 for bringing that to my attention.
Meyer's invention is a perpetual motion machine.
PESwiki is written by people who believe in free energy and won't get real which makes it not only unreliable, but wrong.
Man with two legs (talk) 12:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I also feel that this doesn't meet our WP:RS criteria. Verbal chat 12:48, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. PESwiki is not a reliable source. Yilloslime (t) 18:23, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have not read the source. But, I must assume, if it was removed that indeed it lacked some peer-review. Hence, if there was an article in the news which talked about this wiki-blog or some sort of peer-reviewed document that indicates similar facts then perhaps that would be worthy of mention. In fact, I believe, if you take the Nature article you may be able to find some information which discusses some of the issues raised by Petrus. --CyclePat (talk) 02:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction - Revert by user Verbal

Hello user Verbal. What do you mean by your edit summary "Npov, overtagging". Why did you revert my recent edits here http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Stanley_Meyer%27s_water_fuel_cell&diff=277944636&oldid=277943649. The reason, I removed perpetual motion from the first sentence of the article is because it is already in the intro, near the end when we talk about the Ohio court case. With the current edition (after you reverted my two edits) we are stating the same thing twice. It is redundant and I personally find it to be insulting towards my intelligence. Furthermore, it is consistent to keep an introduction brief. This would comply with the general principles of "copy editing". Furthermore, user Verbal, you have removed some productive additions which include the Wiki linking to the term perpetual motion. As well as my excellent summary of what and how the term "water fuel" was used by Stanley Meyer. This aspect is presented in the section "The term "Fuel cell", and should be summarized in the introduction. I have copied this conversation from user:Verbals talk page. A response is anticipate on this discussion page. Thank you. --CyclePat (talk) 20:38, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This sentence "One of Meyer's patents [...]" is followed by this sentence "According to the patent [...], which is cited. Can't believe I have to say this, but simply reading those sentences, one knows that the patent being talked about in the first sentence is the one that is cited in the second. Hence your {{which}} tag for the first is overtagging. The extra explanation of how exactly this thing is a perpetual motion machine is needed because many readers seem unable to recognize it and constantly dispute that it is such a device. Intro should be short, but not to the point of being useless. DMacks (talk) 20:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you hold true to keeping the status quo for that one sentence, "One of Meyer's patents ...", I will concede. However, as I'm sure you understand, I believe it is best to be more specific than vague and preferably directly within the text. Thank you for your fead back and again, I will concede this one sentence. Moving on then... I have however made several changes in those 2 edits. So, I put the question back at you. The reason is because, I see no extra explanation with the version we have. I see redundancy. In fact, I see removal of the explanation by removing the wiki linking to the article perpetual motion. I also fail to understand why you would remove information which summarized the section "The term "fuel cell". --CyclePat (talk) 21:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No summary of any kind has been removed, merely a redundant tag and the weasel worded lead edits. PM is still wikilinked. No productive edits were removed. I am sorry about your intelligence, no insult is intended. Verbal chat 20:50, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct about the wiki link. I have stricken it out. The link was already there in both cases. I had placed it at the bottom of the paragraph and you placed it at he top (it was already at the top). So this point is pretty much moot for both sides of the debate. My apologies. However, I cannot accept redundancy because of a few users who cannot understand. Also, I believe it is our job to ensure the article is clear and concise with a minimum of redundancy. I do concede that we need to find a better way to say this is a PM. Also, if you check my last version here, you may notice that the first sentence "Water fuel cell is a term used by American inventor Stanley Allen Meyer (August 24, 1940–March 21, 1998) to describe part of his patented inventions." was removed by your edit. This sentence summarizes the debate within the first section "The term "fuel cell"". This is a summary, because this section talks about the use of the term "water fuel cell". Surely we can think of another way then by removing my summary of the section? --CyclePat (talk) 21:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How about we replace in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the The term "fuel cell" section One of Meyer's patents describes with Meyer describes in a 1990 patent to reduce potential ambiguity? - Eldereft (cont.) 05:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A point of order: Hi user:Eldereft. I believe your afformentioned comment is off-topic because it does not address the problem regarding the changes by user Verbal. More specifically, it fails to discuss the introductory summary. How can changing that sentence in that section help the introductory summary of the article? In fact, I put it to you, that changing the sentence to your version would make no difference and still require a better intro. Asside: I do see some ambiguity in that current section. Your newly proposed section would help clarify this and I do agree with the change. --CyclePat (talk) 05:49, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The edit in question includes reversion of an inline {{which}} tag, as discussed in the second and third posts to this section. I saw no merit in discussing any of the other points raised in this section, and so refrained. Article changed as discussed, but no worries if anyone would like to revert for fuller discussion. - Eldereft (cont.) 06:57, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality

The neutrality of this article is a joke. I quote:

If the device worked as specified, it would violate both the first and second laws of thermodynamics,[1][2] allowing operation as a perpetual motion machine.

"If"? Why is the article speculating on the consequences of the machine working?

The whole article needs rewriting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert Ham (talk • contribs) 01:33, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quite simply: because his device didn't work. He ended being sued (successfully) for fraud. Yilloslime TC
Because the sources do. WP:DUE requires that we treat facets of the topic in the same detail and prominence as the reliability-weighted aggregate of all relevant sources. In this case, it means that we reflect the perspective that it does not and cannot work - if you can think of a better way to phrase that sentence, then by all means make a proposal. - Eldereft (cont.) 02:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What would help, I believe, is something I have previously proposed for this article. We should ensure that we have properly developed sections in proportion to the information presented in the introduction. The current status of the article has the introducation serving to introduce new material which is not discussed in the body of the article. I believe this creates a perception of undue weight specially, if you consider the afformentioned discussion regarding the introduction and section "The term "fuel cell"". --CyclePat (talk) 23:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As has been discussed many, many times, there is absolutely no reason for this article to be "neutral" wrt to the alleged functionality of Meyer's device. To quote the first line from Wikipedia's WP:NPOV article,

"Neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." (italics mine).

In this case, there are no "significant views" that this device worked - or could work - as specified, only those that say it didn't (according to our legal system) and couldn't (according to the laws of physics). The purpose of this article is to educate the reader that Stanley Meyer committed fraud, not to perpetuate the fanciful myth that he had a car that ran on water.

By all means, if you can think of a better way to word the article, then do so, but the emphasis cannot change.Prebys (talk) 14:14, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]


"Because the sources do." - I don't think that just because the source speculates, it's OK for wikipedia to do so. You're misundersanding the problem. Saying "If the machine had worked then ..." is unaccepable for wikipedia. Saying "Joe Bloggs has speculated that if the machine had worked then .." is acceptable. Obviously, presenting facts from sources is not a problem. Speculation isn't the same.

"If you can think of a better way to word the article" - Unfortunately, I don't have the time to invest in rewriting the article. I do have the time to invest in pointing out that it should be rewritten. Robert Ham (talk) 15:21, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"As has been discussed many, many times, there is absolutely no reason for this article to be "neutral"" - Erm.. it's a wikipedia article. It has to be neutral. Perhaps this is the source of the problem; wikipedia has to present information in a neutral way, even if that information isn't itself neutral. You seem to be assuming that because the information is not neutral, there is no need to maintain neutrality while presenting it. This is incorrect and against wikipedia policy. Robert Ham (talk) 15:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You've conveniently clipped my statement before the key phrase. I said "there is absolutely no reason for this article to be "neutral" wrt to the alleged functionality of Meyer's device", and there is not, any more than the article about the Earth must be neutral about its shape. Again, the WP:NPOV policy clearly states the sort of resources which must be treated neutrally, and in the case of Meyer's fuel cell, those resources all lead to the same conclusion: it did not work.Prebys (talk) 16:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You need to be specific as to how the article is not neutral. CyclePat's assertions of non-neutrality have been rejected by reasoned consensus; his complaints do not relate to the article's neutrality. If you have other complaints, let's hear them. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"If the machine had worked it would ..." is a statement made in a peer-reviewed paper. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:43, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that there are two types of people editing and commenting on this article. There are people who are trained in the sciences. They understand the workings of nature and can best describe in detail how "Stuff Works". There are people who thought science was boring. They were good at day dreaming, telling stories and manipulating words. The science types are explaining why this system cannot work. They point out concrete facts and cite laws of physics that have never, NEVER, been broken. The story tellers are good with words. They want to tell the story of Stanley Meyer and his invention without all the boring details. They usually are literary scholars and lawyers. The consensus needs to be made to let the writers make the script and the scientists fill in the details and facts. My two cents.

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