Wikipedia:AMA Requests for Assistance/Requests/October 2006/TJ0513

Wikipedian filing request:

• TJ0513 (talk · contribs)

Other Wikipedians this pertains to:

• Noroton (talk · contribs)

Wikipedia pages this pertains to:

• History of Norwalk, Connecticut (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Talk:History of Norwalk, Connecticut (edit | [[Talk:Talk:History of Norwalk, Connecticut|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Questions:

Have you read the AMA FAQ?

• Answer: Yes

How would you describe the nature of this dispute? (policy violation, content dispute, personal attack, other)

• Answer: The incident stemmed from what I origionally thought was a (WP:NOT) policy violation, and over the course of the debate things have gotten a little heated (towards me).

What methods of Dispute Resolution have you tried so far? If you can, please provide wikilinks so that the Advocate looking over this case can see what you have done.

• Answer: I had listed a neutral request for a third opinion. Several wikipedians had listed other opinions, which show up on the article's talk page.

What do you expect to get from Advocacy?

• Answer: From advocacy, guidance in the dispute process (if there is anywhere else I should take my dispute, if there is a better place for it he handled). My short-term goal for the page is an end to the dispute, of course, but in the long run I would hope the other user would realize I have only good intentions for the article, and since we seem to have a common interest in the article (and other related articles) and will likely conflict in the future, to not take my edits of his work personally, which I fear the user may be doing (which may be driving some of the hostilities).

Summary:

The article in question is the history of Norwalk, a small city in Connecticut. The other user (Noroton) wishes to list 9/11 casualties from the town (and other towns in southwestern Connecticut). I do not think this is relevant to the town's history (the event occured elsewhere), that it violates the premise that wikipedia is not a memorial (and linked to discussions showing these types of lists have been rejected before). My discussions with the user are failing, he seems to think I have some underlying motive for my objection, and so with things getting personal I began to think one-on-one discussion failed, so I requested 3rd opinions. In summary, other users suggested at most only listing the number of casualties, not the names, if at all the mention was nessecary, which didn't seem to be for definite. User:Noroton did not much participate in the discussion aside from accusing two users giving opinions of being sock puppets (perhaps of me? <--- not true of course, but this is my worry). So, the dispute is still not resolved and I'm hoping to learn of next steps. The full story is on the talk page. I hope I have not made this too long. Thank you for your time.

Discussion:

Hi, thanks for taking the case. If you don't think there is a case for advocacy, then I don't want to waste your time. The third opinions didn't seem to resolve the issue. Fundamentally, the other user involved and I disagree on whether certain information should be included or not. Neither wants to change their minds. I am trying to go through the dispute process (but now am afriad just pushing the issue is casting me in a bad light).

Well, so far as the notion of compromise goes, I don't think you can realisticly get any closer than you did before the debate got personal. To me, neither the 9-11 victim mention nor the murder trial have anything to do with Norwalk history, however there is nothing else in that article under that heading. Perhaps a case can be made for scraping the 21st century history section altogether, or perhaps it can be filled out with content that actually has to do with municipal issues of Norwalk, with the former two items maintained as incidentals. --Amerique 23:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, there is a larger issue on many pages of lists of September 11th victims added by this user, which I am not sure belongs on wikipedia. If there is generally not a problem with them, then they can stay, no problem here. If the material is innappropriate, then I think it ought to be taken off. And that's where we are. What ought to be done, rather than take a long break from these articles? I doubt opinions will have changes even after a prolonged hiatus. TJ0513 18:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, can you point these out? I've taken a look at the last 200 or so contributions of this user and can't see that he has been doing anything with 9/11 victim lists recently. Also, I can't seem to find these lists on WP. They don't seem to link to the page on September 11, 2001 attacks, but there are a lot of links to this page. --Amerique 23:02, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

For example, ex. #1 or ex. #2. The names seem to have been relegated to the footnotes, because the user Noroton changed them about two weeks ago, but everything used to look more like the bottom sentence of ex. #3 and ex. #4. Examples 3 and 4 are what everything used to look like. I think it's a violation of WP:NOT. I really only watch the Norwalk, Connecticut-related pages, and brought up the 3rd opinion request about that page, which is the subject of this AMA request. Examples #3&4 I think are out of line...the footnotes are better but I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with it, and not sure if September 11th is appripriate material at all for the histories of these-towns-which-aren't-New York City. We're just two users, what I'd most feel comfortable doing is getting a sense of the larger community's opinion about these kinds of things. It seems they've been deleted before, for reasons that I feel. TJ0513 00:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, what we could do to that effect is design a straw poll WP:POLLS or an article content Request for Comment WP:RFC on the contested passages. The outcome of doing this would be to bring in more input on these issues, but the input could go either way, and Noroton has already compromised to the extent possible while keeping the reference. Personally, while I agree the victim lists are not of immediate interest to the subject of the articles, a case could be made that they are at least of tangental interest, and since they are only a single line in their respective articles I don't think a strong case can be made that they in themselves attach undue weight or constitute outragious violations of WP policies per se. Without any other information on the main subject matter of the articles it may look like undue weight, but in my opinion this situation would be better rectified by just filling out the articles with more pertinent information. Let me know what you think about pursuing a straw poll or RFC on this, we could argue for deletion of those lines that way if that is what you want to do.--Amerique 04:30, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

What I'd most like is more imput on the issue, esp. when it seems to be a dispute between two users. How is request for comment different than Wikipedia:Third opinion? Or, maybe I should take up your point about tangentile interest. Noroton really wants the reference to 9/11...I think the most I'm comfortable with is just a number of deaths, but I still am not comfortable with names, even in footnotes, so perhaps attempt to model everything like how it is currently handled at History of Norwalk, Connecticut. Actually, I think I agree with your last point, most, now that I think about it. With the 9/11 line the *only* sentence (or one of few) in the section, it does look like undue weight. I think you're right, that this may be the best course to go. I think the names may have to be removed, though. TJ0513 12:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Very sorry for getting back to you so late. An RFC is only different from a Third Opinion request in that it is meant to solicit more than one outside "third opinion" on an issue. A straw poll more or less does the same thing. (I did not invent this system, I'm just navigating it.) As I understand it, what you would like to do is propose, through the RFC, the elimination of the 9-11 victims reference from these articles, as it is of at best tangential interest to the subject matter, correct? Thank you for your patience.--Amerique ^dialectics 06:16, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Followup:

When the case is finished, please take a minute to fill out the following survey:

Did you find the Advocacy process useful?

• Answer:

Did your Advocate handle your case in an appropriate manner?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), how polite was your Advocate?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel your Advocate was in solving the problem?

• Answer:

On a scale of 1 to 5, how effective do you feel the Advocacy process is altogether?

• Answer:

If there were one thing that you would like to see different in the Advocacy process, what would it be?

• Answer:

If you were to deal with this dispute again, what would you do differently, if anything?

• Answer:

AMA Information

Case Status: open

Advocate Status:

• Accept.--Amerique 02:41, 21 October 2006 (UTC)