User:Will Beback/TM-Hickorybark
Hickorybark[edit]
Hickorybark states that he has spent "four decades in scientific academia".[1]
POV editing[edit]
Hickorybark has made POV edits to John Hagelin and to Hagelin's most important research in quantum physics. [2] [3]
Hickorybark has deleted sourced, negative material:[4][5][6][7][8]
Hickorybark has deleted other sourced material simply because it was in the wrong section: [9][10]
Hickorybark has used as a source an article written by Neil Dickie, a member of the Office of Public Affairs at MUM, which was published in a free magazine in Fairfield edited by a TM member as a source for Flipped SU(5), a highly technical article on an obscure theory of quantum physics.[11][12][13]
Hickorybark has added unsourced, OR material to impeach a critic: [14][15]
Hickorybark has rejected making distinctions between the reputations of journals used as sources:[16]
Plagiarism[edit]
Hickorybark has engaged in plagiarism. He copied text from a pro-TM blog into a Wikipedia article without any attribution:[17](see [18])
- When confronted he just said he'd be more careful in the future: [19]
Statistics[edit]
As of February 20, 2010:
| ' | TM-related edits | All edits | Percentage |
| article | 22 | 126 | 17% |
| talk | 27 | 53 | 51% |
| total | 49 | 179 | 27% |
Rebutals[edit]
Hickorybark says that he is a necessary editor, apparently because only someone who knows and respects John Hagelin can correctly edit Flipped SU(5), and because he has the required expertise. He says of his own editing, "In science, personal circumstances, affiliations, etc. do not invalidate research, provided proper scientific method is adhered to." However those affiliations are routinely disclosed. If he truly knows and respects Hagelin, and gives Hagelin a more prominent place in science based in part on a free magazine article written by a MUM press agent, then perhaps Hickorybark's expertise is not tempered by objectivity.
Hickorybark accuses me of "Anti-TM Advocacy". He complains that I removed an unsourced attack on a (living) critic, forgetting that BLP applies to critics as well.[20] Here he adds a long block of text to the Hagelin bio which never mentions Hagelin.[21] He complains that I call Journal of Scientific Exploration a "dubious journal", but its own editors describe it as a "critical forum of rationality and observational evidence for the often strange claims at the fringes of science."
Hickorybark complains that I supported the inclusion of the (well-sourced) word "crackpot" in the biography of his apparent colleague, John Hagelin. I didn't propose or add that text, I just defended it. When we took that usage to the WP:BLPN, editors there agreed that it was acceptable and appropriate. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive70#Use of "crackpot" in John Hagelin Hickorybark also missed the fact that I later suggested it could be removed in place of more relevant criticism,[22] a compromise to which TM editors agreed.[23][24][25]