Talk:Carl Hewitt

Archive 1

Please delete "User talk:CarlHewitt" from the Wikipedia

Please delete User talk:CarlHewitt from the Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Carl Hewitt--67.180.173.91 (talk) 05:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

done --CSTAR (talk) 07:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Carl--98.207.43.7 (talk) 18:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Please delete "User:CarlEHewitt" from the Wikipedia

Please delete User:CarlEHewitt from the Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Carl Hewitt--98.207.43.218 (talk) 05:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't request this be authenticated somehow? Interesting.--CSTAR (talk) 05:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Also please delete User:Prof. Hewitt

Thanks, Carl Hewitt--76.126.57.246 (talk) 05:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for making these deletions, Carl Hewitt--12.49.221.91 (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't all these deletions violate the GDFL? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

In the expanding and ever more confusing set of principles (mis)guiding Wikipedia practice is the so-called "Right to Vanish" which I've seen applied in several cases. If Hewitt (or whomever) wants to vanish, then he/she should post the requests authenticated with a modification label in the diff associated to the account he/she wants deleted. In other words, log on as User:CarlEHewitt and make the request. This gives some evidence that the request was legitimate, namely that the requester knows the login password.

This isn't foolproof of course, but good enough.--CSTAR (talk) 17:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't the use of multiple socks preclude the "right to vanish"? Just curious. I also think he no longer has access to some of the accounts; at least his initial explanation for the use of socks is that he forgot the password of the original account. Furthermore, some IP is requesting edits of the CH article. If that's still the same "person" as (one of) these accounts, it doesn't quite fall under "right to vanish". But I could be wrong. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Your guess is as good as mine. Although I am willing to be loose and allow vanishing of various "instantiations".--CSTAR (talk) 18:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Please delete "User talk:CarlEHewitt" from the Wikipedia

Please delete User talk:CarlEHewitt from the Wikipedia. Thanks, Carl Hewitt--12.49.221.91 (talk) 22:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. Since the main page was deleted, this seemed uncontroversial.--CSTAR (talk) 23:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Carl--12.49.221.91 (talk) 15:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Please delete "Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of CarlHewitt" from the Wikipedia

Please delete Wikipedia sockpuppets of CarlHewitt from the Wikipedia. Thanks, Carl Hewitt--12.49.221.91 (talk) 15:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Well I suppose this falls within the purview of "right to vanish".--CSTAR (talk) 03:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

It's done.--CSTAR (talk) 03:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure such a deletion is appropriate. If we look at WP:VANISH, it explicitly says: "The right to vanish does not extend to pages retained for the purposes of protecting Wikipedia against disruption; for example requests for arbitration, requests for check user, or sockpuppet categories." That's a sockpuppet category, and Hewitt has been disruptive in the past... --Gwern (contribs) 04:51 28 January 2008 (GMT)

Possibly. I won't object to anybody reverting my deletion, but on the other hand, it may be a beneficial bargain with the devil. Moreover, the same argument you make can be made (and has I believe already been made above by Arthur Rubin) that based on the same page you cite, the right to vanish applies only to users in good standing. That characterization of the "vanishing user" I don't think applied in this case. My opinion, and possibly that of the other admins that deleted various Hewitt pages, is that WP will be better off without these pages. However, if you feel strict adherence to these rules is preferable, then by all means undo the deletion.--CSTAR (talk) 05:20, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The category can be resurrected if the sock puppetry resumes. If it doesn't resume then the category is unneeded. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I think some of this may have resumed, if only on this talk page. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:27, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

As I've noticed. --CSTAR (talk) 01:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Please delete article "Carl Hewitt" from the Wikipedia

Please delete the article Carl Hewitt from the Wikipedia. Thanks, Carl Hewitt--12.49.221.91 (talk) 19:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

No quick luck here. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carl Hewitt. Feel free to nominate it again, but I doubt there will be agreement for the deletion. Mr. Hewitt, you are notable, as such, Wikipedia has an article about you. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:54, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that will happen. Now, deleting all the articles about the Actor Model and Mr. Hewitt's interpretation of indeterminancy seems more reasonable and computation theory seems more reasonable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:32, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Protection

Why is this page protected? There's no mention of it on this page that i can see Silent52 (talk) 07:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

According to the protect log, the reason is to enforce Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Carl Hewitt. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 11:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Is that still relevant though? It merely seems to show Carl Hewitt is banned from certain articles, also it's only him, not everyone. Or have i missed the point? Silent52 (talk) 14:24, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you're right that the page no longer needs to be protected. Let's see what Ruud Koot says (perhaps you could drop him a note?), he protected the page. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Done, we shall see what happens Silent52 (talk) 19:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Mmmm, I unprotected the page before I red this discussion beyond the first post. I think the page has been protected for too long. I hope Ruud won't mind. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Inaccurate DBLP article should be removed from external references

In order not to confuse Wikipedia users, the inaccurate h at DBLP Bibliography Server should be removed from the external references. An accurate list of publications Carl Hewitt's Publications is linked to from Carl Hewitt's home page.--65.160.18.38 (talk) 00:36, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello Carl. I've put your publications page on there, for balance, but I've left the DBLP reference because it is a well-recognized and independent external source. (It's odd they haven't recorded any of your recent publications, yet, though.) Sam Staton (talk) 09:38, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Corruption of Wikipedia

Hewitt has published an article titled "Corruption of Wikipedia" on Google Knol that can be found here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.240.23 (talk) 17:48, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Can we use his statement as evidence that he has no intention of agreeing to Wikipedia guidelines, and ban him indefinitely. It seems clear that he has no intention of agreeing to the consensus that he is not god. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:38, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

My recollection is that there was a vague consensus that he should be banned from Wikipedia, but we admins interpreted that as a topic ban.

No, perhaps the article is a relevant self-reference to be included here, if we note the obvious hypocracy. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:42, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

It is worth noting that Arthur Rubin has repeatedly clashed with Hewitt's students on Wikipedia. (See the appendix of "Corruption of Wikipedia.")76.126.127.45 (talk) 22:00, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I have. I, and at least a dozen other editors (Admin and not), were supporting the ArbComm decision that Carl and his students are not allowed to edit articles about Carl and his work, because of his violations of basic Wikipedia principles. It may be that his work is important in the field of asynchronus computing, or it may not be the case. We'll probably never know, as only he and his students have ever said it is important, either here or in print. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Arthur, that's not entirely fair. The Actor model is well-known in computer science, and has been quite influential. An anon user (Carl?) has already posted a mention of Milner's Turing Award lecture. The article to which this talk page is attached also contains several citations showing the influence the Actor model has had (most notably on the development of Scheme). Filman & Friedman's textbook Coordinated Computing devotes an entire chapter to the Actor model, and I've seen it mentioned in several other textbooks. I can't speak to Hewitt's work on logic programming (it's not really my area), or the recent publications on paraconsistent logics, but I think it's safe to say that a number of people aside from Carl and his students consider the Actor model important (and have said so in print). --Allan McInnes (talk) 10:55, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

In his Turing award lecture [Elements of interaction CACM, January 1993], Milner remarked as follows:

"Now, the pure lambda-calclus is built with just two kinds of thing: terms and variables. Can we achieve the same economy for a process calculus? Carl Hewitt, with his Actors model, responded to this challenge long ago; he declared that a value, an operator on values, and a process should all be the same kind of thing: an Actor. This goal impressed me, because it implies the homogeneity and completeness of expression ... But it was long before I could see how to attain the goal in terms of an algebraic calculus...So, in the spirit of Hewitt, our first step is to demand that all things denoted by terms or accessed by names--values, registers, operators, processes, objects--are all of the same kind of thing; they should all be processes." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.8.22 (talk) 02:04, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, so I may have been unfair. I don't see the benefit of treating objects as if they were processes, but I don't see the benefit of object-oriented programming which treats processes as if they were (attached to) objects. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:09, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Arthur, you seem to exhibit one the worst characteristics of Wikipedia administrators: strong opinions and no knowledge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.9.178 (talk) 23:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

An academic would be well advised to think long and hard about whether to participate in Wikipedia

In the comments section of the above mentioned article, Hewitt says

Given the Wikipedia debacles of Afshar, Connolley, Gann, Harnad, Kort, Kowalski, Lanier, etc., an academic would be well advised to think long and hard about whether to participate! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.48.170 (talk) 21:28, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Kowalski hasn't said anything about his words or article being in error; in fact, he seems to have been supporting deprecation of some of Carl's comments. I can't speak for any of the others, but Kowalski has spoken for himself in this matter. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:04, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The most complete academic history is in Middle History of Logic Programming on ArXiv and Hewitt's version of the controversy with quotations from Kowalski is in Corruption of Wikipedia on Google Knol. It seems that both Kowalski and Hewitt have problems with Wikipedia.--67.169.145.144 (talk) 05:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

There is not doubt that Kowalski and Hewitt were involved in a vigorous academic debate (see Middle History of Logic Programming). But Kowalski seems to have given up on Wikipedia and it doesn't look likely that he will return. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.8.22 (talk) 02:10, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

That's unfortunate. I don't see anything unfortunate in Carl's giving up on Wikipedia, though. Even people who clearly are experts in a field have been banned from Wikipedia for being unable to realize that they may be wrong. Now, here, I'm not saying that Carl's edits are wrong; just that they didn't have any sources other than his papers, usually unpublished. I take exception to many of the articles related to the Axiom of choice, but don't express my objection unless I can find a published paper, written by other than my family, supporting the statements. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:31, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

There are many Wikipedia administrators like Arthur who dream of stopping progress in the publication of free, open, online encyclopedias. And it looks like they are succeeding on Wikipedia. Fortunately, Google Knol has appeared where articles can be published without their censorship.67.180.94.190 (talk) 15:20, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Knol and arXiv have their place, as do Wikipedia, Scholarpedia and Citizendium. It probably would have been nice if someone other than Carl had been willing to work on asynchronous computing articles here, but Wikipedia rejects self-submitted material, even if accurate. (I'm trying not to imply whether I believe Carl's submissions have been accurate. English doesn't have the proper conditional tenses.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Because of its business model, Wikipedia attempts to host only articles of conventional wisdom and morality as judged and enforced by the censorship of administrators. However, the power of censorship tends to corrupt administrators. (See Corruption of Wikipedia for examples.) This corruption is tolerated and in some cases even encouraged because Wikipedia is highly dependent on administrators donating large amount of time to their censorship duties. Censorship power over article content is a necessary reward for the unpaid administrators even if it sometimes impairs the quality of articles.67.169.8.122 (talk) 22:39, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I dunno. At a recent Stanford Computer Systems Colloquium, Professor Hewitt said We don't know much. Some of it is wrong. But we don't know which parts! (see Scalable Privacy-Friendly Client Cloud Computing: a gathering "Perfect Disruption" Oct. 22, 2008).

Section on Hewitt's opinion about Wikipedia

I'm not comfortable with this section. Carl Hewitt has done much more important things than criticizing Wikipedia. Such a lengthy section about Hewitt's issues with Wikipedia puts too much emphasis on them and distracts from Hewitt's other work. Quite frankly, it looks like navelgazing. I thus drastically shortened the section and added some historical context, but I would be just as happy if the section were removed all together. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you that the section gives undue emphasis to an issue that is relatively unimportant compared to Hewitt's research contributions. --Allan McInnes (talk) 06:22, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you actions look like more censorship by Wikipedia administrators. In his Knol article, Hewitt criticized the tabloid Observer article that you favorably referenced as follows:

"A recent example of Wikipedia libel occurred when I became involved in an academic dispute with Robert Kowalski over a Computer Science research area called “Logic Programming.” Kowalski appealed to an Administrator of Wikipedia to intervene in the dispute (see the discussion in the appendix of Corruption of Wikipeida). Thus Kowalski was in effect promoting his own side of an academic dispute by participating in my censorship by Wikipedia. (See Middle History of Logic Programming for a detailed discussion of the dispute.)

Although lacking expertise in this particular area of Computer Science, Charles Matthews (a very high level Wikipedia official) favored Kowalski’s side and using his Wikipedia power enforced it by censorship with the justification of “Neutral Point of View.” Furthermore, Matthews “tipped off” a reporter (who he had successfully “cultivated” to write stories favorable to Wikipedia) to enlist her in writing an article that libeled me. Matthews then became the principle unnamed source for the resulting Observer hatchet job appearing under the false guise of an independent “senior academic” in my field of research casting aspersions on me. While he was angry with me because of our academic dispute, Kowalski confided in Matthews. As a result, Matthews sent the reporter off to interview Kowalski. Consequently, the reporter has tape recordings and emails of Kowalski saying some things in anger about me. (Kowalski has subsequently made amends in his emails to me; see below.)

As part of its business model, Wikipedia engages in libel and vilification in an attempt to intimidate people into conforming to the censorship of its Administrators."

The material that you deleted from the article is as follows:

Hewitt has published an article Corruption of Wikipedia on Google Knol that is highly critical of Wikipedia citing "corruption" of its administration. In the article, he characterized the business model of Wikipedia as "generating Web traffic (primarily from search engines) for articles of conventional wisdom and morality (as judged and enforced by a commune of mostly anonymous Administrators) to motivate (financial) contributions." He further claimed:

"Wikipedia does not allow proper vigorous academic discussion and debate because they are incompatible with its business model as follows:

• In normal academic practice, the views of experts are solicited and discussed. On Wikipedia, academic experts who have tried to participate have been denigrated as "self-promoters", censored, and then banned.
• In normal academic practice, expertise is honored and respected. On Wikipedia, expertise has not been honored. Instead, the cult of the amateur has been promoted.
• In normal academic practice, open reasoned discussion and debate is the norm for addressing difficult issues. On Wikipedia, censorship is the norm.
• In normal academic practice, the qualifications and vested interests of participants are open for discussion. On Wikipedia, participants are allowed to remain anonymous. In fact, revealing the real name of an Administrator is a severe violation of Wikipedia policy." (emphases in original)

Thus he claimed that normal academic practice is in conflict with the combined effect of the Neutral Point of View, No Original Research, Conflict of Interest and No outing the real names of administrators policies as currently practiced by Wikipedia.

In his Knol article, Hewitt requested that this biography article be removed from Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.236.203 (talk) 21:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

This deletion indeed looks like censorship. I quite agree that Hewitt has done more important things than criticize Wikipedia, but the section was short and fully referenced (one of the references was deleted and replaced with a tag for no apparent reason). Hewitt obviously thought this issue was important enough to write a lengthy article on the subject, and I agree with him on that point. There was no justification for deleting the section, and I intend to restore it. If you want to revert, please give a better justification than that above. David-Sarah Hopwood (talk) 14:55, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I've now restored a much shorter version of the section. David-Sarah Hopwood (talk) 16:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this deserves no more than a footnote that is if it belongs at all. He wrote one article about it how the project dealt with the situation. This is so minor I don't think it belongs in the article. This doesn't have anything to do with the work he is doing. I say it should be removed again per WP:Undo weight. Not sure if this falls into WP:BLP issues either. --CrohnieGal^Talk 16:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

No, "Hewitt being banned from Wikipedia" and "Hewitt criticizing Wikipedia" are both very irrelevant events in his career and deserve no mention. I see at least 4 people agreeing with that and only you disagreeing. —Ruud 21:07, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Add me to the disagreement column. It may not be very relevant to his career in the grand scheme of things, but it's noteworthy given the rep of the wikipedia and Hewitt taken together. Bios are not just about careers. 67.169.145.127 (talk) 03:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Work on privacy-friendly client cloud computing

Ruud Koot removed the following material from the article:

Hewitt's recent work has centered on foundations for privacy-friendly client cloud computing. This approach to cloud computing focuses on clients that are "privacy-friendly" because of the following

• by default clients store information in the cloud that can only be unencrypted using the client's private key
• semantic integration of diverse sorts of information (calendar, email, contacts, documents, search results, presence information, etc.) is performed on the clients

This work has resulted in the following developments:

• strongly paraconsistent logic using Direct Logic^TM, to more safely reason about pervasively inconsistent information
• concurrent reasoning using ActorScript^{TM for many-core processors (e.g. Larrabee) that cannot be implemented using logical deduction since although strongly paraconsistent and Bayesian inference are used together locally, they are inadequate to accomplish the overall results of concurrent reasoning. (See Indeterminacy in concurrent computation.)}

Observer article on Hewitt and his response

Administrators have repeatedly deleted the section "Observer article on Hewitt and his response" from this article thereby adding to the evidence that Wikipedia is indeed corrupt.171.66.34.182 (talk) 04:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Please delete unflattering photo of Professor Hewitt

Please delete the unflattering photo of Professor Hewitt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.8.136 (talk) 16:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be happy to replace it with another photo. If you send me a photo by email, together with a statement releasing it under an acceptable license (like CC-BY-SA, GFDL, public domain), I'll put it in the article. See http://www.maths.leeds.ac.uk/~jitse/ for my email address. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 17:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but what is so unflattering about this photograph? (Media:Carl Hewitt (40th Anniversary of the Mother of all Demos, 2).jpg) The lighting and angle of the photograph and subject are much less than perfect, but I don't see how it is "unflattering"? —Ruud 21:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't really show his face full on, so it's inappropriate for a bio. It looks like you snuck up on him from behind. If you're worried about libel, you shouldn't be using such a photo. 67.169.48.55 (talk) 02:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Professor Hewitt was critical of Wikipedia before it banned him as well as afterward. In fact, his criticism was one of the reasons for the ban.

Professor Hewitt was critical of Wikipedia before it banned him as well as afterward. In fact, his criticism was one of the reasons for the ban.--67.180.94.82 (talk) 23:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

This is false. His multiple attempts to violate Wikipedia policies, inserting his POV in all subjections in which he was (even peripherally) involved, is the reason for his ban. He may have been critical of Wikipedia before his attempts to subvert it, but that also has nothing to do with the ban. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The article says that he was critical of Wikipedia subsequent to being banned. Also, it only seems fair to point out that according to Corruption of Wikipedia, Arthur Rubin has engaged in numerous Wikipedia conflicts with Professor Hewitt and his students, e.g. Development of Logic Programming: What went wrong, What was done about it, and What it might mean for the future.--67.169.144.135 (talk) 09:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

They accused Arthur of using his administrator power of censorship to try to win an academic debate.--67.180.94.82 (talk) 09:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a Wikipedia version of the classic debate: anarchy vs. academic freedom

1. Arthur Rubin maintains that without administrator control, Wikipedia will fall into anarchy. The tension is that since Arthur is an administrator, he is arguing for his own control.
2. Carl Hewitt and his students maintain that without academic freedom, Wikipedia's content will be determined by the political power of administrators. The tension is that Hewitt and his students are arguing for their newly published results that challenge the previous conventional wisdom.

--67.170.201.26 (talk) 16:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I shouldn't have to defend myself here — in fact, I don't have to. Carl violated the rules of Wikipedia. If he had violated similar rules of journals, unrelated to the validity of the results, his papers would be rejected from those journals, and, eventually he would be banned from publication in those journals. It happens. Think of Wikipedia as a journal. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It's a big mistake to think of Wikipedia as a scientific journal. Hewitt and his students have published numerous articles in scientific journals that have been censored from Wikipedia. For example, just in the last year, Hewitt has published the following among others:

• Carl Hewitt (September/October 2008). "ORGs for Scalable, Robust, Privacy-Friendly Client Cloud Computing". IEEE Internet Computing. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Carl Hewitt (December 30, 2008). "Common sense for concurrency and strong paraconsistency using unstratified inference and reflection". ArXiv.
• Carl Hewitt (January 30, 2009). "A historical perspective on developing foundations for privacy-friendly client cloud computing". ArXiv.
• Carl Hewitt (January/February 2009). "Perfect Disruption: The Paradigm Shift from Mental Agents to ORGs". IEEE Internet Computing. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

In some sense, everyone is just doing their job:

1. As a Wikipedia administrator, Arthur Rubin censors material outside of conventional wisdom. Otherwise, Wikipedia would have lots of unconventional information defeating its business model.
2. As academics, Hewitt and his students publish original research in scientific publications. They get no credit for reiterating conventional wisdom.

Conflict between Arthur Rubin and Hewitt and his students comes from the fact that conventional wisdom is a moving target. Once new results have been published, conventional wisdom begins to shift.--67.170.201.70 (talk) 03:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The above analysis is good. However, there is more to the story. Another important publication was

Middle History of Logic Programming: Resolution, Planner, Prolog and the Japanese Fifth Generation Project

because there was an academic dispute between Robert Kowalski and Carl Hewitt about Logic Programming. Rubin pushed his own Point of View by siding with Kowalski against Hewitt and enforced it by censorship on the Logic Programming article.--67.169.144.85 (talk) 13:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The Church enforced a ban against Galileo similar to the one that Arthur Rubin is enforcing against Hewitt.

Arthur Rubin deleted the following comment from this page:

The Church enforced a ban against Galileo similar to the one that Arthur Rubin is enforcing against Hewitt.--67.169.146.106 (talk) 06:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.210.87.198 (talk)

The original comment was interpolated between one of my comments and a reply, breaking threading. The response I would have given is: They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Which category Carl falls in is yet to be determined. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin deleted the following comment by a Wikipedia editor on the talk page of Logic Programming:

"Arthur Rubin's modus operandi is to insult Professor Hewitt while pretending that he is not."

70.231.253.115 (talk) 15:21, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Galileo did not think that censorship was a laughing matter. Perhaps you aspire to a role similar to that of Francesco Barberini?--75.211.105.32 (talk) 23:39, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

As you should know if you claim to be a scientist, Galileo got in trouble for violating his agreement with the Church not to announce his results until he had convincing evidence. (His technology was not quite good enough to get convincing evidence.) Violating an agreement is no laughing matter.

Actually, the same applies here. Wikipedia provides that people should not edit articles about themselves unless they can do so objectively, although it's only a guideline. There was an ArbComm ruling that Carl and his students so violated the guideline that they were prohibited from adding any information about Carl or his papers to any article unless sourced to a reliable source in the field. I, among others, am enforcing that ArbComm ruling.

As you also should know, if you are at all sane, Wikipedia is not important in science. If Carl is a scientist, he shouldn't bother trying to publicize himself here. If he is on the fringe of computer science or an advocate rather than a scientist, then he may be "right" to attempt to edit Wikipedia, but we don't actually have any evidence of that. It would be something interesting to put in his article, if it could be verified from reliable sources. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:13, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

De facto, Wikipedia is important in science because scientists refer to it all the time.171.66.105.135 (talk) 19:26, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the above editors were focusing on the censorship issue. And you are firmly in favor of censoring Galileo! Even the Church has now given this up and apologized.98.97.104.6 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:30, 15 May 2009 (UTC).

There's no real censorship issue here, for a number of reasons. Most of them are obvious, such as that Carl and his students are only forbidden from posting here on Wikipedia, a notoriously unreliable source. Even so, if someone who is not his student posts information about him, it should probably be considered. However, because of the vandalism committed by him and said students, and the ArbCom ruling, it would have to be someone who is demonstrably not one of his students. This means, I'm afraid, no IP addresses, such as (the probably only one person) posting here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:31, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia Wiki: Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor67.169.8.160 (talk) 01:43, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

And you believe it? After claiming this article is absurd? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:20, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Request to NOINDEX this article

I have requested that the Wikimedia Foundation NOINDEX this article in accordance with a proposal by Lise Broer at Biographies of living persons: An ingenius compromise?. --Carl Hewitt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.241.176 (talk) 07:06, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia instigated the defamatory attack by The Observer on Carl Hewitt

The article refers to the following incident described in Corruption of Wikipedia:

Hewiitt became involved in an academic dispute with Robert Kowalski over a Computer Science research area called “Logic Programming.” Kowalski appealed to an Administrator of Wikipedia to intervene in the dispute. Thus Kowalski was in effect promoting his own side of an academic dispute by participating in Hewitt's censorship by Wikipedia. (See “Middle History of Logic Programming” [Hewitt 2008] for a detailed discussion of the dispute.)

Although lacking expertise in this particular area of Computer Science, Charles Matthews (a very high level Wikipedia official) favored Kowalski’s side and using his Wikipedia power enforced it by censorship with the justification of “Neutral Point of View.” Furthermore, Matthews “tipped off” a reporter (who he had successfully “cultivated” to write stories favorable to Wikipedia) to enlist her in writing an article that libeled Hewitt. Matthews then became the principle unnamed source for the resulting Observer hatchet job appearing under the false guise of an independent “senior academic” in Hewitt's field of research casting aspersions on him. While Kowalski was upset with Hewitt because of their academic dispute, he: confided in Matthews. As a result, Matthews sent the reporter off to interview Kowalski. Consequently, the reporter has tape recordings and emails of Kowalski saying some harsh things about Hewitt. (Kowalski has subsequently made amends to Hewitt; see Corruption of Wikipedia)

When Matthews applied to be reappointed as an Arbitrator, Sarah McEwan (AKA SlimVirgin) raised the issue that “you [Matthews] discussed this story with the Wikipedia Public Relations committee prior to publication [of the Observer’s libelous attack on Hewitt], and they either encouraged you or didn't stop you. The point is that it's an odd thing, in my view, for an Arbitration Committee member to do."

• Carl Hewitt Middle History of Logic Programming ArXiv 0904.3036.

70.231.253.115 (talk) 21:21, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

With Carl submitting libelous reports about Wikipedia on his web site, he and his students are in no position to make comments about improper and/or illegal actions allegedly committed by an Arbitrartor. As it stands, I don't see anything wrong with what Matthews did, as described above, except for an implied, but unspecified "use of Wikipedia power". (Besides, Matthews is not "a very high level Wikipedia official". An arbitrator is a key position, but not an "official".) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:36, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Matthews was appointed to his official position as Arbitrator by Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales, "God-King" of Wikipedia and member of its Board of Trustees. Also, it is important to note that Arthur Rubin has previously repeatedly insulted Professor Hewitt on the Wikipedia Website.68.170.176.166 (talk) 17:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

This criticism may appear hypertechnical, an Arbitrator is not an "official", but the position of Arbitrator may be an "official position". However, since Carl is attempting to redefine "censorship" as meaning "removal of his material" (assuming it to be technically correct, without noting it may be inappropriate), it's important to note what words mean.

And Carl defamed me, whether or not I insulted him. (I think I primarily insulted his students posting from IP addresses.) The primary reason I haven't sued is that none of my colleagues, including academic colleagues, would believe him even if they were aware of the allegations. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin is threatening a lawsuit. Is this allowed on Wikipedia? 76.254.235.105 (talk) 23:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

No, actually, I'm stating that Carl defamed me, but I'm not planning a lawsuit, because nobody I know would believe him. I fail to see how any rational person could read my statement above as my threatening a lawsuit. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:35, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Arthur, as an impartial observer of this ugly conversation, I must confess, I am getting a little annoyed with your overly offensive and utterly one-sided views on Carl. You seem to absolve yourself from all wrong-doing, and bash Carl at any turn. I do not know exactly why he was banned from Wiki, but I do understand one thing: “he who goes to the judge alone, come back happy!” Why don't you let him have his day in court? If need be I will takes up matters with Jimbo himself. Since this page is about Carl, as a living person, the rules of Biographies of living persons should be applied, and every effort must be made to uphold his just reputation by avoiding Libelous comments, and not defame him. You say you are not planning a lawsuit, because “nobody I know would believe him.” I may be considered as one who believes him, and therefore according to your logic, now that you know who I am, you would then decide to sue him?! Please tone down your rhetoric and let him have his say. Enough is enough :( -- Afshar (talk) 20:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)