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Wiley Protocol, T. S. Wiley

• Wiley protocol (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• T. S. Wiley (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

For over five years, there has been only one editor for these two papers. I am the subject's husband and, as COI, I do not edit the document, but make suggestions in the talk page. The editor WLU is so irretrievably biased about this subject that I need another editor to look this over. The entries in the article are extremely damaging to the subject, and have been for years. The article is slanted and arguments to the contrary, including sworn testimony to the US Senate, are dismissed. In the most recent conversation, WLU dismissed the topic as a fringe theory on a fringe theory.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• WLU (talk · contribs)
• Nraden (talk · contribs)

Here are some comments from just the past few days short paragraphs from the talk page that illustrate his bias:

Here is the reference to the rebuttal of Rosenthal in the journal Menopause - [1] Thanks for making the changes so far. Neil Raden (talk) 14:39, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The worst part of the article is this phrase "potential financial conflicts of interest regarding financial incentives." No sources. There are no conflicts of interest, that is a criticism from ten years ago. Today, Wiley provides only packaging material (syringes, bags, labels and packet inserts) to the compounding pharmacies (about 100 at present). This is no royalty or kickback. The vast amount of revenue from the Wiley Protocol goes to pharmacies and physicians. Pharmacies purchase the other materials from sources specified in their contracts, and there is no financial activity between those suppliers and Wiley. It's a squeaky clean operation. Unless you can source something to the contrary, I would suggest you remove this right away. The entire relationship between Wiley, doctors and pharmacies is clear and above board. Neil Raden (talk) 14:48, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Is T.S. Wiley's SWORN TESTIMONY to the US Senate not a reliable source? It seems to me that her sworn testimony, where she is articulate about her approach and quite critical of mainstream medicine, more compelling than some doctor with no credentials in this field (Erika Schwartz) who uses her husband's connection to the NYT to trade on Suzanne Somers' notoriety and get published in the newspaper. Seems like a real lack of balance to me. Neil Raden (talk) 15:17, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Here;s an example. Much of the criticism of the WP is based on the conclusions of the Women's Health Initiative (which has itself come under attack.) Wiley states in her testimony, "The failure of the WHI trial is partially due to the lack of understanding of the biology of the reproductive and menopausal state as well as, the indiscriminant choice of study subjects without well defined entry criteria, such as on the average enrolling subjects 12 to 15 years into menopause, creates unfathomable noise for the outcome." Is this not equivalent to Rosenthal's ethical concerns? A published criticism of a trial? Neil Raden (talk) 15:32, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

A letter to the editor is a reliable source only for the opinion of the letter's author. Wiley's sworn testimony is similarly just reliable as a source about her own opinion. In the case of actual experts, those opinions can be worth including, but given Wiley's lack of actual quantification and expertise in a relevant area (a degree in anthropology and three scientific papers), it's a dubious inclusion. Wiley giving sworn testimony doesn't make her right, and it doesn't make her an expert - nor does being articulate. Wiley giving testimony before congress is not the same thing as appearing in a peer reviewed journal, and if I saw Wiley's opinion on the WHI page, I would remove it as a fringe expert not worth including. The Wiley protocol is a fringe theory of a fringe theory that is regarded as dubious by the medical establishment. That's where the due weight should fall, irrespective the failings of Erika Schwartz's page. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 17:37, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

---

Yes, I have been patient with WLU for years, on the Talk page only, but the prominence of Wikipedia in searches is harming Wiley as the article reflects the negative opinion of WLU and no one else. He has stated very clearly in the past that he is very much opposed to the subject matter, whihc makes him a poor choice of editor, especially as sole editor. Here is my question: If someone defames you in a reliable source, how are you to defend yourself on Wikipedia if everything you say is "original research?" Even a letter to the editor of a respected medical journal, WRITTEN BY A THIRD PARTY M.D. is dismissed. If there is controversy, why isn't the whole controversy aired, not just one side?

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Not yet.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Wiley Protocol, T. S. Wiley}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

I would like WLU to be asked to recuse himself from these two article and ask for some help finding some editors who can moderate this objectively.

• How do you think we can help?

I'm not sure, but if we can't get some other eyes on this, it would be better to remove both articles

removed the offending starwmwnt Neil Raden (talk) 04:19, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Neil Raden (talk) 15:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Wiley Protocol, T. S. Wiley discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

The Wiley protocol is a subset of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, which has no mainstream credibility - a fringe theory. Accordingly, due weight requires the page reflect the mainstream opinion and not give the impression this is a well-founded, well-substantiated scientific and medical approach, and should include what criticisms are available. Neil doesn't like this, but we are not a place to promote unfounded ideas. I have no issue with another editor editing the page in compliance with the P&G.

Neil has been admirable in restricting his edits to the page in question, as one of the few regular contributors I am by default the person he is likely to talk to about this - but the page is adequate as is as far as I'm concerned. I have seen no new sources that I think should be integrated. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:54, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

WLU has not been admirable, he poses as a fair editor but wields a heavy pen against ideas he doesn't like. Have a look at his work on the Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy page. He should be banned. Please see my many suggestions ignored on the talk page.

WLU contradicts himself - if the Wiley Protocol is a fringe theory of a fringe theory, why is it notable to Wikipedia? The controversy? That's been over for 5-6 years. Wiley has trained doctors around the world and thousands of people follow the protocol. If Wiley and the Wiley Protocol are notable enough to warrant Wikipedia pages, why not actually DESCRIBE the Wiley Protocol. There are three words of criticism and controversy to every word that describes the subject. Another contradiction is that WLU excoriates Dr. Erika Schwarz but uses her unfounded opinion freely to denigrate Wiley's work. Pick a foot and stand on it. WLU's statements in the Talk page depict a personal tinge and are far from objective. And I would be willing to bet he is completely uninformed abut the subject. All I ask is to have an editor who is not openly hostile to hormone therapy to judge all of this on its merits.

WLU uses a couple of sources to shoot down Wiley, which are full of errors, but allows no defense, even a published rebuttal in the same journal where the paper was published. There are dozens of testimonials about the WP on Youtube, including 6 or 8 by doctors. Dr Erika Schwartz on Page 6 of the New York Post, a gossip page with pinups? That's a reliable source? The same Dr Erika in the National Enquirer? C'mon. If someone defames you on Wikipedia, what are you supposed to do, wait for a stranger to defend you in a "reliable source?" My suggestion is that WLU step aside (as I have in editing the articles) and that we restructure the articles to a pro/con format instead of this 6 years long ad hominem. It is materially affecting Wiley's ability to pursue her work because Wikipedia is a powerful source of information. Neil Raden (talk) 01:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I am a regular mediator/clerk here at this noticeboard. First, let me note that making legal claims or threats, or anything that even resembles them, is one of the fastest and easiest ways of becoming blocked from editing, see WP:LEGAL. If you feel that you need to make legal claims, please contact the Wikimedia Foundation via their contact page, but otherwise entirely refrain from making or alluding to such claims and I would strongly suggest that you also go back through the material that you have posted here (and elsewhere) and remove all references to libel. If you feel an assertion about a living person in an article or in a discussion is not supported by reliable sources, as defined by Wikipedia policy, please follow the instructions in the biographies of legal persons (BLP) policy by immediately removing the material. If it is restored, then report the issue to the biographies of living persons noticeboard, but remember that while issues of libel may underlie the BLP policy, discussing or making claims or threats about libel will still probably get you blocked. Second, this noticeboard and other dispute resolution processes here at Wikipedia generally do not work very well on open-ended claims about bias about entire articles. If you have specific assertions in the article which you feel are not reliably sourced, then please point them out. Otherwise, you may not get much response here. Third, I've not looked at the article or the talk page, but if the example you give above (the one following "Here are some comments from just the past few days short paragraphs from the talk page that illustrate his bias:") is typical, I see no bias at all in his response given there. Sworn testimony and letters to the editor are, indeed, not generally considered to be reliable sources at Wikipedia and I fail to see what it is that you might consider to be biased in that response. Fourth, I see from this discussion that you have expressed surprise and disagreement with Wikipedia's sourcing policy as much as five years ago, but seem to still be struggling with its ramifications. Could it be that what you are identifying as bias in WLU is actually nothing more than the effect of Wikipedia's verifiability policy, where all that can be reported here is what is reported in reliable sources, as defined by Wikipedia? As noted in that 2007 discussion, it sometimes happens that all a matter is notable for, based on Wikipedia standards, is the negative things about it, and positive things have not been reported in a way that allows them to be reported here, with the result that the Wikipedia article appears to be biased when in fact it is merely limited. If the negative things are, indeed, reliably sourced (again, as defined by Wikipedia), then it is unlikely that the article will be removed. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:21, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I did not make a threat of legal action. What I said was that some things the editor said about Wiley in talk pages verged on libelous. There was no threat real or implied. But I'm not satisfied with your answer because when a third party makes damaging claims about you that are not factual in a so-called reliable source, you have no recourse on Wikipedia, and these statements are damaging in a very real way. I found it extremely frustrating that a third party rebutted these claims in the very same journal, but the editor refused to acknowledge them. His application of Wikipedia policy is very selective and I would appreciate it if you would consider this more closely. Neil Raden (talk) 16:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Word to the wise: I strongly advise that you follow the advice TransporterMan gave you instead of denying that you did it. Then once you have purged your posts (including the one above) of words like "libelous", we will be free to examine your claims of bias. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:27, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion I concur with Guy Macon and TransporterMan. Even using the phrase "verged on libelous" suggests that there may be cause for libel charges to be started. We understand that you believe that there is a lack of accuracy in the article, however there are ways to express your thought (such as parliamentary language) without bringing the legal aspect of the equation into play. Hasteur (talk) 13:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Normally I would examine Neil Raden's claims and, if they turned out to be accurate, I would take appropriate action to fix the problems. Instead I am ignoring the claims and not looking at the page; there is no way in hell i am going to get involved in a Wikipedia dispute where one side is making thinly-veiled legal threats that I might get sued if I fail to agree with their position. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I reworded. Mea culpa. Also added c=some comments to the Wiley Protocol talk page. Neil Raden (talk) 18:45, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'll just paste them here to make it easier to follow. This article has so many errors in it, I don't know where to start, There is also a Wiley Protocol for Men, women's testosterone, melatonin and thyroid, all transdermal preparations, and a cortisol replacement. There is also a patented anti-aging cream, also transdermal and dispensed by prescription only, as are the others with the exception of melatonin. There has never been any controversy about any of these except the women's protocol, and hat controversy dates to 2005 and I believe 2007. There is a 400 page clinical practice guide for the doctors compiled from a dozen years of clinical experience (of the doctors), a rigorous program of testing of the preparations for purity and consistency that the licensed pharmacies must adhere to quarterly, as well as testing of the compounding techs to ensure they do not absorb any of the materials. These are all contractual obligations. The wo-day seminar concentrates on topics of endocrinology and her research that lead to the creation of the protocols and the second day lead mostly by doctors teaching clincal practice, a course so packed with material that it is certified for 17 CME's (Continuing Medical Education), 75% of a doctor's annual requirement. So in addition to all of the (dated) controversy, it migtt be a good idea to actually explain what the WP is and the how the program works. All adverse reactions are reported to Julie Taguchi MD and there have been no serious ones in 12 years. There have been cases where people haven't done well, that's medicine. Not every one responds the same, Some are non-compliant (the protocol takes some work to follow) or they've added supplements that interfere with the protocol, which carries a warning: "WARNING: Herbs, Supplements and some Prescription Drugs may diminish the effectiveness of this treatment," as well as detailed packet inserts on use, etc. So I guess you could still say it's "potentially dangerous," but there is no evidence of it._ Neil Raden (talk) 18:53, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

None of the controversies regarding the Wiley Protocol have been resolved, to my knowledge. Debv (talk) 07:48, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Given the lack of sources (beyond Neil's assertions) I can't see any way this can move any further forward as a complaint, or even as an expansion of the article. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm the complainant here, and was hoping to get the opinion of someone other than WLU. It goes without saying that Debv's opinion, owner of a WIley hate site, is not needed here. There is only one source that mentions concerns about the Wiley Protocol. Dr. Highnote was one of the authors and is currently president of the organization that published it. She denies that any doctor ever said that, it was in fact an uninvited guest from Debv's organization. Not a doctor. She wants to get a retraction into the record. What would Wikipedia consider an acceptable reliable source? Neil Raden (talk) 16:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

There are only two citied sources for the negative comments about the Wiley Protocol, Rosenthal and the ACAM Proceedings. I've already asked for instructions about a retraction by one of the authors of the ACAM article. The Rosenthal article in the journal Menopause was full of factual errors that were disputed by Dr. Julie Taguchi MD, published in the same journal. WLU wrote that a letter to the editor is not a reliable source. I disagree. Taguchi figured prominently in the Rosenthal article, was interviewed at length by Rosenthal, and widely misquoted. Taguchi didn't offer an opinion, she disputed Rosenthal's facts. That is relevant. At the very least, mention of Taguchi's rebuttal is essential as it casts doubt on Rosenthal's credibility. Neil Raden (talk) 22:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

There is some background information about this topic and the editors involved in it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive34#Wiley_Protocol_and_T._S._Wiley_.28closed.29 --Guy Macon (talk) 05:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

FWIW I've got copies of the Taguchi letter to the editor and Rosenthal's response (and can provide them if requested). I saw nothing that struck me as requiring immediate addition. I'll re-read them at some point to confirm, but I certainly don't see either as a key source that demands the article be substantially rewritten. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:38, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I find this opinion bizarre. Here is what the Wikipedia article says, "The Wiley Protocol has been criticized as unethical due to the start of a Phase II clinical trial with no Phase I, a lack of approval by an institutional review board, a lack of an experienced scientific investigator leading the trial, no inclusion or exclusion criteria and no evidence that the study population has been told that the research has not passed an ethical review,[6][9]" Taguchi directly disputes every one of those claims in the same journal. How can you NOT reference it when Rosenthal is your only source for this statement? This is precisely why I need other editors to look at this. There should be a follow on statement that says, "These claims are dismissed in a published LTTE to the same journal, claiming that Rosenthals's facts are completely wrong. There was nan IRB number given, and Dr. Taguchi has been a principal investigator on over 40 clinical trials." Taguchi gave Rosenthal this information in phone interviews.I don't know if she just misunderstood or committed academic fraud to make a point, but you cannot let her one source stand when there is credible published evridence it is wrong. Am I just wasting my time arguing with you, since your mind is already made up, or are other editors reading this? Neil Raden (talk) 23:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

You say nothing of Rosenthal's response to Taguchi, which was published in the same issue. Debv (talk) 09:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Debv makes my point for me - Rosenthal's reply starts with something like "Thanks to Dr. Taguchi for indicating she did not understand my article". The two together net to zero as far as I'm concerned. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

You titled the section "Controversy." You can't have a controversy without two sides. Now publish the other side or I will. If you revert it, it will escalate this.This dispute resolution has not been helpful. It's just you and me again. Neil Raden (talk) 15:28, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Wiley Protocol: Who are the players and what are their interests?

I would like to step back and look at the big picture, which might involve asking questions that have been answered before, so please be patient.

My first question is this: among those who have posted to the Wiley protocol article, talk page or to this noticeboard entry, what is your involvement? Are you a relative of one of the people mentioned in the article? Do you control or contribute to an off-wiki website that covers this topic? Are you a patient that has had this or a competing treatment? Are you in any way involved with a competitor?

Note that there is nothing wrong with any of the above, but full disclosure is strongly advised. I will have more questions later. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:50, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

From my user page: "I run the web site Wiley Watch, which scrutinizes T. S. Wiley, her Wiley Protocol, and its stakeholders." My cumulative revenue from this endeavor to date is exactly $0.00. I don't accept donations and I don't endorse Wiley's competitors. Debv (talk) 21:28, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Like I said, nothing wrong with that, as long as it is disclosed. Any connection to rhythmicliving.org, or is that someone else? Also, have you decided to voluntarily not edit the article because of a potential COI? (I am not saying you should or should not or that you do or do not have a COI - I am just getting a feel for the issues and participants at this point).

I also have a question about [ http://wileywatch.org/wiley_and_wikipedia ] (the links to wikiscanner are dead, BTW; -- looks like a temporary situation as they do some work on the site) Have you brought these concerns up on any Wikipedia noticeboard such as WP:SPI or WP:COIN? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:27, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Rhythmic Living is run by a woman whom I’ve come to consider a friend and we’re certainly of very like mind when it comes to the Wiley Protocol. We are not the same person, contrary to baseless claims that have been made here.

No, as the histories show I don’t make substantive, non-minor edits to these articles. I’m content to provide information and perspective on the talk pages. I haven’t edited the content proper of these articles in over five years.

As for the issue with Wikiscanner and the anonymous edits that were happening at the time, that was nearly five years ago. It hasn’t been a concern since, not to my recollection.

Thanks for the time and attention you’re bringing to this. Debv (talk) 05:45, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I am T.S. Wiley's husband and I agreed to not directly edit the Wiley Protocol or the T.S. Wiley article. I contribute my information only to the discussion pages. I did make one exception. I edited the Wiley Protocol page to enter the US patent # it had received. WLU immediately reverted it with no comment, showing his continuing lack of good faith. When I questioned him, he said I included no reference. Duh, it would have taken him 30 seconds to find it on the USPTO website, or he could have just asked me for the link instead of deleting it. When I provided the link, I guess he had no choice but to put it back in. But that is the only instance in five years for which I made an edit to the page. I would like debv to answer your question about her connection to rhythmicliving.org. We believe they are the same person and Debv is a sockpuppet for Laurel McCubbin who runs rhythmicliving. You should also know that rhythmicliving was originally a site devoted to the Wiley Protocol (hence the name rhythmic, which is the keystone of the Wiley Protocol), but became a hate site when Wiley would not allow McCubbin to monetize the site. The sole purpose of both sites is to spread distortion and outright lies about the Wiley Protocol. It's a longstanding vendetta, not a disagreement over a medical protocol. Neil Raden (talk) 04:41, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, I have no direct financial interest in the Wiley Protocol, I am not paid by any of her ventures. I'm just a husband who is sick and tired of seeing his wife's name and work dragged though the dirt by two people (who may just be one person) and by a Wikipedia editor who applies WP as it suits his point of view. All I want is a fair article, not a lot of excuses why half-baked sources are allowed and bonafide ones dismisses. The Wiley Protocol article doesn't even describe the Wiley Protocol. Neil Raden (talk) 04:47, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Without saying who I think is right or wrong (right now I just want a list of the players and their interests), I can assure you that I plan on seeing that this is handled fairly and according to Wikipedia's principles. I will get help from someone more experienced if needed.

I would also like to mention that when I ask a question, "I prefer not to say" is a perfectly acceptable answer. This is not a court or an interrogation room, and Wikipedia has a strict policy of protecting user privacy. That being said, the answers I have gotten so far are incredibly useful. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:14, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm explicitly not responding to any of the baseless accusations above. Debv (talk) 06:16, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Just to save others the investigation: Neil Raden did add content to Wiley protocol on February 1, 2011 about a patent issued: [2] Above he claims that this was immediately reverted by WLU and without comment. Well WLU did in fact remove the text but it was over a year later, on April 27, 2012: [3]. And it wasn't without comment: [4]. Debv (talk) 06:52, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I am still hoping to hear from WLU and to find out, if he/she chooses to reveal the info, whether there is any connection with Wiley, a competitor / critic of Wiley, etc. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:50, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I have no connection to Wiley, personal or professional. I have extensive experience editing the bioidentical hormone replacement therapy page (of which the WP is a type). I stumbled over the WP or BHRT as part of routine editing, since both weren't very good pages I edited both to their current, MEDRS-compliant versions. I don't promote or criticize BHRT or the Wiley protocol in any meaningful way bar my activities on wikipedia (which as far as I'm concerned is simply routine editing of two fringe topics that have very little mainstream credibility). Neil has generally refrained from editing, and the edits I've seen haven't been ones with substantial COI problems (AGF however...) I have copies of several sources (Rosenthal being one I certainly have) in case you need any. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:14, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, I'm a he. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:15, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I just checked Wiley protocol and T. S. Wiley and I don't see anyone else involved other that the three listed above. Anyone disagree?

Which brings up the question, why are there only two editors listed in the "Who is involved in the dispute?" at the top of this noticeboard entry? (No harm done -- the real problem is when someone doesn't get the news that there is a noticeboard discussion -- but please be more careful in the future.)

Also, does anyone disagree with the assertion that those two pages are where the dispute centers?

OK, so a couple of closing remarks and I will start the next section.

No more accusing Debv of being the author of the Rhythmic Living website. She (he?) has said it isn't true, and here at Wikipedia we Assume Good Faith. In fact, let's all try to avoid any personal comments and keep this a discussion about what is on the Wikipedia pages.

If anyone thinks Debv should not be editing because of a Conflict of Interest (nobody has indicated that) the place to bring it up is Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard after this is settled. The description of the dispute only lists a Neil Raden / WLU dispute. With that, I am dropping that topic.

Evidence supporting / refuting alleged bias

In this section, we will be discussing specific edits that someone believes are a problem. I think we all know how to cite sources. but if anyone is a bit rusty with citing edits, please see Wikipedia:Simplest diff guide, Wikipedia:Simple diff and link guide and Wikipedia:Complete diff and link guide for help. I want to see a link for every source cited and a diff for every edit discussed.

I am going to start with this claim from earlier in this thread:

"The worst part of the article is this phrase 'potential financial conflicts of interest regarding financial incentives.' No sources."

That statement is in the lead of Wiley protocol.[5] (Note how I added a diff leading to the edit where it was added. That's the sort of thing I am looking for). The edit comment for that edit was "rewrite to be closer to body text" So the next thing to do is to look at the article as it existed at that time.[6]

So, is that statement in the body text? Yes. It is in the criticism section of the page as it existed when the edit was made, and it is still there today: "...concerns over conflicts of interest regarding financial incentives..." and there is a citation:

(Rosenthal MS (2008). "The Wiley Protocol: an analysis of ethical issues". Menopause. 15 (5): 1014–1022. doi:10.1097/gme.0b013e318178862e. PMID 18551081.)

That edit was made in 2008[7]

The pubmed link in the cite leads to an abstracy that uses this wording: "Breaches of professional ethics include conflicts of interest with respect to financial incentives"

It appears that the claim "The worst part of the article is this phrase 'potential financial conflicts of interest regarding financial incentives.' No sources." is dubious. We will look at the claims made right after that a bit later -- please be patient, one claim at a time.

Is there a diff showing anyone on the article talk page questioning the use of that phrase, either in the lead or in the criticism section? Anything claiming it is unsourced or violates WP:WEIGHT? If so, was there a response? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Debv was inactive when Nraden started this section. On those two pages, I don't think there are any other regular editors. Debv has also in the past indicated she would not edit directly.

Citations in the lead are optional per WP:LEAD, I didn't make a point of including them. I have a copy of Rosental's article if you would like the full text. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:23, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree that there is no need for a citation in the lead if the claim is cited later. I usually suggest that only on articles that are very large, which makes the later cite hard to find.

Thanks for the offer, but I don't need to study the sources in any great depth unless someone claims that the page misrepresents what is in the source.

Right now I am focusing on what Nraden called "the worst part of the article" (thus his main complaint). He claimed that it was unsourced and when I checked I found that it was sourced. That's actually OK - you are allowed to make a mistake about whether something is sourced, especially if you need to look farther down the page to find the cite. What I am focusing on at the moment involves the "have you tried to resolve this dispute already?" question at the top of this noticeboard entry. I am looking for evidence about whether this issue was brought up on the talk page and if so whether the issue was responded to, and I want Nraden to look this up rather than someone else posting the answer. The reason is because if there was no effort to resolve the dispute on the article talk page, I am going to recommend closing this noticeboard entry and sending all of you back to the talk page with the option of opening another one on the same issue if you cannot resolve it there. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings

• 2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

1) The lead states that Merah wished to "avenge the deaths of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank", and is based on this opinion piece. Other sources quote Merah's exact words, "The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine" and report this aspect of his motivation differently, without ascribing the actions of "the Jews" to the "Israeli forces", or limiting the deaths of Palestinian children to specific regions. I would prefer the lead to reflect how Merah's comments were widely reported. See 1234567 Resolved

2) Based on this source I added to Sarkozy's other thoughts on these attacks, that he noted an antisemitic motive. This was improved upon with this edit by Vice regent. Since I have been repeatedly accused of "misrepresenting the source", but no suggestions of improvement have been offered, can you advise me how to accurately present this information. Vice regent, contrary to his previous edit, is now entirely opposed to its inclusion, and I am concerned at the apparent tag-teaming, which has previously been commented on by an admin. My suggestions have twice been stymied with a "Let's wait and see what the other editor has to say".12

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Vice regent (talk · contribs)
• Somedifferentstuff (talk · contribs)
• AnkhMorpork (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Discussed on talk page

• How do you think we can help?

Assess the merits of my statement, and suggest a rewording that would reflect Merah's implication of the "the Jews", and would make note of the antisemitic motive.
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 16:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

1) Reading the Grant article, it's clear that his goal is not to accurately define the motives of the shooter, but to caution against drawing conclusions about motive too quickly. His opinion is more along the lines of "The shooter was quickly (and incorrectly) presumed to be a member of one group, so we must condem that group. But in reality he was a member of some other group, and already people are condemning that group. Let's all stop rushing to judgement." His statement that "The Jewish children were killed to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank." is not his opinion, he's just stating what the collective press/governmental/man-on-the-street opinion is at that moment. In fact, later in the article, he states the true message of his writing: "The point here should be clear: it is far too easy to shift responsibility away from the man and onto the environment in which he operates, and to advance a given political agenda accordingly." As such, I don't think using this article to source a statement that Merah's motivation was to "avenge the deaths of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank" is accurate interpretation of the source. In any case, any time you can quote the direct words of the person, it's better.

2) Sarkozy clearly said it, it was quoted in a reliable source, so I see no issue with including it. It's especially relevant because Sarkozy did not attribute the act to any specific group, but simply commented on the motive. I think the edit by Vice regent clearly and accurately summarizes the quote and puts it in the right context.

Those are my 2 cents, anyway. I would encourage you three to continue to work together on this, as you're all clearly motivated to get the article right. This is a massively good thing. Waiting for commentary by the third person in a three-way dispute can be frustrating, but is in the end the best policy to prevent protracted edit warring. Good luck! Livit⇑^Eh?/_What? 19:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

My observations:

1. Although The Telegraph is a WP:RS, Grant is writing his column as an opinion piece and not as a reporter. If something from his column were to be used in the article, it'd have to be attributed to him, "George Grant says that..." However, given the seven good, reliable sources that Ankh.Morpork provides with a direct quote from Merah himself, there's absolutely no reason (no Wikipedia policy-based reason, anyway) to try to base this statement in the article, written in Wikipedia's voice, on a Grant opinion column. Use the direct quote from Merah, in quotation marks, attributed to Merah.
2. I actually prefer Ankh's version over VC's, but I do not like Ankh's "noted" because that indicates (in Wikipedia's voice) that there are anti-Semitic motives when there may not be. I would go a step further to use a direct quote from Sarkozy, because we have one. I would write,

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that "the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious," and also said "The Islamic faith has nothing to do with the insane motivations of this man."

He didn't say those two things together, according to the sources, so the article should not say "adding." Both thoughts needs to be attributed to Sarkozy, in the contexts he said them. I also would avoid "though" because that makes it seem (however slightly) that it would be natural to assume that something anti-Semitic would naturally be in accord with Islam. Zad68 (talk) 20:33, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Would "Sarkozy said that "the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious" and later added/said that "the Islamic faith has nothing to do with the insane motivations of this man" be appropriate?
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 20:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

If the sources indicate that's the order in which he made his comments, yes. Zad68 (talk) 21:01, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I find Zad68's analysis compelling; if there are already seven good, reliable sources providing a direct quote from Merah, then why would the article rely on an opinion piece by George Grant? And since we have Sarkozy's statement, the article should simply quote it. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree with much of what is above but, given the politicised nature of the response to the murders, the article should generally avoid using quotes from politicians to narrate facts. So, a quote from Sarkozy will be fine in the context of a section about responses, but not in the context of material trying to pin down a motive for the crimes. Formerip (talk) 01:10, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

1. Can someone, perhaps AnkhMorpork, propose how the direct quote would be used? My primary objection to that has been the redundancy of the material. That's fine in the body, but in the lede saying the same thing twice gives it undue weight.

Might I propose the following: Merah said his actions were to "avenge Palestinian children". Many reliable sources, not opinion pieces, report this (BBC Sky News Al-Arabiya etc.).

2. Sarkozy cited antisemitism as a motivation at a time the French authorities believed this attack to be that of a neo-Nazi (please read the source) and not Merah. So while, we can include Sarkozy's remarks, it would be misleading to say that Sarkozy said this about Merah.

Its best to add Sarkozy's remarks on antisemitism in the 2nd paragraph of the lede, which talks about events preceding the Merah's identification as the perpetrator. The remarks on Islam should go in the 3r/4th paragraph.

VR _talk 03:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Apparently what Merah said was "The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine". The word "Jew" keeps disappearing from the quotes being offered - it's almost as if the fact that the children he deliberately shot and killed were Jews had nothing to do with Merah killing them. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

So how exactly would you phrase it? How about: Merah said he attacked the Jewish school to avenge Palestinian children source1source2.VR _talk 06:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Since your primary objection has been "redundancy of material", do you agree to using Merah's exact words as recommended by Livitup, Zad68, Jayjg and FormerIP, and stating: Merah said he attacked the Jewish school because, "The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine". Your last two suggestions have failed to address my concern, reiterated with Jayjg's comment, "The word "Jew" keeps disappearing from the quotes being offered".
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 10:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I do agree to using Merah's exact words, and "avenge Palestinian children" has been cited by reliable sources as Merah's exact words. My above suggestion does use the word "Jewish". What is it that the word "Jew" conveys, that the word "Jewish" does not?

In any case, I'm willing to compromise on this minor difference if it means faster dispute resolution.VR _talk 13:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

You above suggestion contracted Merah's statement and I shall accentuate what was omitted. Merah said he attacked the Jewish school because, "The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine". You are conflating the description of the school as "Jewish", with what "the Jews" did in Palestine, which should both be specified when describing Merah's motivation. Are you agreeable to this change?
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 14:05, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Information from some of the sources that were posted above:

Source 2 above states, "says he wanted to avenge Palestinian children, according to his remarks through the door to the police who urged him to surrender"

Source 3 states, "French interior minister Claude Gueant said Merah had said he was fighting to 'avenge Palestinian children.'"

Source 6 states, "to have killed the Jewish children out of vengeance for the suffering of Palestinian children"

Source 7 states, "the killings were to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children"

• In other words, we shouldn't solely rely on Merah's quote when describing this.

• Also, if you look at sources 4 and 5, the quote is in the present tense, not past: "The Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine." Somedifferentstuff (talk) 09:53, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

A shared characteristic is that all these sources see fit to report Merah's exact comments regarding this issue. Considering other editors' comments, and your stated objection is "we shouldn't solely rely on Merah's quote", are you agreeable to reporting Merah's exact words?
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 10:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

This quote is already in the article (See Motivation section). If we decide to put it in the lead as well, then the context needs to be presented. From Source #5 above: "Asked why he had killed four Jewish people – including three children – at a school in Toulouse on March 19, he said: 'The Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine.'" --- I will comment on the stuff regarding Sarkozy later. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 11:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

How would you like the context of this exact quote to be presented? I had previously suggested, "Merah said he attacked the Jewish school because, "The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine". You seem to prefer the present tense of "kill" used in source 5. This is fine with me; do you consent to, ""Merah said he attacked the Jewish school because, "The Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine"?
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 11:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

So I think there are multiple things Merah said. He said "The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine". He also said he attacked the school to "avenge Palestinian children". So, we have two proposals.

• Merah said he attacked the Jewish school because "The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine."
• Merah said he attacked the Jewish school to "avenge Palestinian children".

Both mention the Jewishness of Merah's targets, although the first one mentions it twice. I prefer the second. Like I said, I'd be willing to compromise because the difference is relatively minor, and there are more significant issues with the article.VR _talk 12:53, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

You correctly state that both mention the Jewishness of Merah's targets. However it is not the case that the first one does so twice, the second mention refers to why Merah did it, a completely different aspect. Thank you for your compromise and I now await for Somedifferentstuff's response to see if he is similarly agreeable.
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 14:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Putting it in the context of the article:

"Merah's motivation for killing the French soldiers was to attack the French Army for its involvement in the war in Afghanistan; his motivation for killing the Jewish civilians was to avenge Palestinian children, having stated, "The Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine"

This ties in with the description in the first paragraph ("French soldiers and Jewish civilians") and the Ozar Hatorah school is mentioned in the second paragraph. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 18:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I dislike combining "to avenge Palestinian children", together with the much preferred method of simply stating his exact words, as it is is repetitive and limiting. I would like to specifically state "Jewish school", which is more informative and how many sources report this. Thus I propose, "Merah's stated motivation for attacking the Jewish school was to avenge "our brothers and sisters in Palestine" killed by "the Jews".
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 21:32, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Source do state "avenge Palestinian children" as Merah's exact words. I agree that Somedifferentstuff's version is a bit repetitive, but it's the only one that seems to satisfy the requirement of all users here (it mentions both "Palestinian children" and "the Jews").

In any case, the differences between proposed versions are getting insignificant.VR _talk 22:35, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Seeing as you have expressed agreement with my previous proposal, I politely request that you withdraw from this specific discussion between myself and Somedifferentstuff. Thank you
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 23:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Mentioning the Jewish school together with Merah's "avenge" phrase seems eminently reasonable. This is what brought these murders to international attention. It is odd to find a wiki editor opposing this. Tkuvho (talk) 16:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with using the Jewish school but not okay with chopping his quote. My proposal is: "Merah's motivation for attacking the Jewish school was to avenge Palestinian children, having stated, "The Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine." ---- "children" is a key part of this which is sourced and needs to be included. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 23:07, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Fine. I accept this form. Can you read the editors' feedback regarding point 2 and explain how you would like the presentation of Sarkozy's comments that "the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious"?Ankh.Morpork 09:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure this is the right place to discuss this, but the phrase "his motivation was X, having stated Y" does not sound grammatical. Tkuvho (talk) 08:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I think you are correct. Are these grammatically preferable or can you suggest an improvement? "his motivation was X, stating Y", or "his motivation was X; he stated Y"Ankh.Morpork 09:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Moving on to Sarkozy: AnkhMorpork, will you post the exact sentence you want in the article. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Either my edit or Vice regent's version, are fine with me, or ""Sarkozy said that "the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious" and later said that "the Islamic faith has nothing to do with the insane motivations of this man"Ankh.Morpork 14:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• I will post a version here with the refs:: French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that the killings were not motivated by Islam,[8] but rather by antisemitism.[9]

So looking at the reference for the antisemitism material, the first thing that needs to be discussed is that this article was written before it was known who exactly the perpetrator was. The first paragraph of the article states, "French police investigating the fatal shootings of a teacher and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday are hunting three soldiers who were expelled over claims they were neo-Nazis, the local Le Point newspaper reported."

Whereas the reference for "the killings were not motivated by Islam", states, "Speaking just hours after it was confirmed that gunman Mohammed Merah had been killed in a gun battle following a 32-hour siege in Toulouse, the French president called for calm. "The Islamic faith has nothing to do with the insane motivations of this man. Before deciding to target Jewish children he targeted other Muslims." Somedifferentstuff (talk) 10:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Sarkozy said, "Of course, by attacking children and a teacher who were Jewish, the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious." Why does it matter if the perpetrator had been identified at that point? Ankh.Morpork 10:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

The reason the timing matters is because the quote you're referring to was before they had actually spoken to the shooter, so the amount of speculation was greater.

Looking at that same quote, you would need to give proper weight to the previous sentence, where Sarkozy stated, "We do not know the motivations of this criminal."

Also, Sarkozy is specifically talking about the Jewish school when he talks about antisemitism; he is not talking about the other attacks. So stating "but rather by antisemitism" doesn't make sense and is not supported by the source. In that same quote he states, "Regarding our soldiers, we can imagine that racism and murderous madness are in this case linked." Remember, there were multiple attacks and out of the 7 people killed, 3 weren't Jewish.

This is what we have: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that the killings were not motivated by the Islamic faith.[10] - Possible addition - Speaking about the Jewish school shootings before the suspect had been identified, Sarkozy stated that "the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious", but prefaced this by acknowledging that he did not know the motivations of the shooter.[11] Somedifferentstuff (talk) 13:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The full quote reads:

"This act was odious, it cannot remain unpunished," Sarkozy said. "Barbarity, savagery and cruelty cannot win, hate cannot win. The republic is much stronger than all this," Sarkozy said, announcing a minute of silence in schools on Tuesday. "We do not know the motivations of this criminal. Of course, by attacking children and a teacher who were Jewish, the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious."

• You state that it should be clear that he was referring to the school attacks. No problem.
• You appear to be having your cake and eating it: you are happy to include Sarkozy's statement about there being no Islamic motivation, yet when Sarkozy mentions antisemitism, you dismiss this because he said, "We do not know the motivations of this criminal".

• Not knowing the motivations does not mean that something does not appear obvious. This can be resolved by writing "Sarkozy said that it appeared obvious..., which does not make any misrepresentation about him knowing anything.

Ankh.Morpork 17:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

AnkhMorpork, I've already said that Sarkozy's statement about antisemitism can appear, but not in a paragraph about Merah. It should appear earlier. Do you think that is reasonable?VR _talk 02:13, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

AnkhMorpork, what you stated above being the full quote is not the full quote. Have another look at the article. Regarding your bullet point #2, antisemitism can be mentioned but it's not okay not to give weight to his previous sentence in the quote where he stated, "We do not know the motivations of this criminal". This material from the quote, "Regarding our soldiers, we can imagine that racism and murderous madness are in this case linked," needs to be given weight as well. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 10:44, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you support stating, "Sarkozy said that the antisemitic motivation of the school attack appeared obvious."Ankh.Morpork 13:14, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

No I don't. You're not giving any weight to the previous sentence nor any weight to what he said about the soldiers. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 09:09, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

We are currently discussing his comments regarding the school attack. Why are his comments about the soldiers relevant to how this specifically is presented? What do you think is an accurate way of summing up ""This act was odious, it cannot remain unpunished. Barbarity, savagery and cruelty cannot win, hate cannot win. The republic is much stronger than all this. "We do not know the motivations of this criminal. Of course, by attacking children and a teacher who were Jewish, the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious. Regarding our soldiers, we can imagine that racism and murderous madness are in this case linked."Ankh.Morpork 18:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

War in Afghanistan (2001-Present)

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. War in Afghanistan (2001–present) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) List of Taliban fatality reports in Afghanistan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? One user keeps deleting the minimum Taliban casualty estimate, linking to a BBC article says no reliable estimate exists. However, the page List of Taliban fatality reports in Afghanistan lists reliably sourced reports of Taliban casualties. If we add them up, we get a reliable minimum. Multiple users have tried explaining this on the article's talk page and in the edit summaries. However, the user continues to delete it. Should it be deleted, or is it permissible to combine the reports with math to get a minimum? Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? X Nilloc X (talk · contribs) Nick-D (talk · contribs) Stumink (talk · contribs) Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Yes. N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Taliban_fatality_reports_in_Afghanistan}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? Talk page discussion. Its going nowhere - NickD just reasserts his position. How do you think we can help? Tell us who is right. Should it be done away with, or can the reports be added up? X Nilloc X (talk) 02:51, 5 May 2012 (UTC) Discussion Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. This is a bad faith post. This matter is under discussion at Talk:War in Afghanistan (2001–present)#Taliban and insurgents casualty figure removed from the infobox as well as WP:RSN#Discussion about Taliban/Insurgent casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) infobox. There is little support for X Nilloc X's position (despite what they say above, multiple editors disagree with them, and not just me), yet they keep edit warring this figure back into the article. I have reported them for edit warring at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring, and this appears to be their response to that (along with further edit warring since I lodged the report). I note that X Nilloc X has only notified the single other editor who agrees with him (as expressed by edit warfare; they've never actually posted on the article's talk page despite me asking them to join the discussion twice) and not the multiple editors who take a different view. Nick-D (talk) 03:01, 5 May 2012 (UTC) It doesn't matter how many editors hold each position. A reliable source ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/01/reporting_afghanistan_casualti.html ) says: "In our coverage of Afghanistan, we at BBC News do not generally report the numbers of Taliban or insurgent casualties and fatalities, because there are no reliable or verifiable source figures available." Wikipedia must report what the sources say, and the sources say that there are no reliable or verifiable figures for Taliban casualties. End of subject unless someone finds a reliable source that directly contradicts the above-quoted source. Counting the numbers in another Wikipedia article is WP:SYNTHESIS and the numbers you get cannot be used to replace a direct statement by a reliable source. How is it synthesis? That's when you report separate pieces of sourced information and manipulate them to imply a conclusion they don't. All we're doing is basic math - If source A reports "this happened 5 times here", and source B reports "this happened 5 times at this other place", then we can establish reliably that it happened a minimum of 10 times. X Nilloc X (talk) 14:12, 5 May 2012 (UTC) You aren't going to get anywhere by writing things that aren't true about Wikipedia's policies. WP:SYNTHESIS does not say not to "manipulate them to imply a conclusion they don't". What WP:SYNTHESIS does say is "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources" Is your conclusion explicitly stated by any of the sources? No. It is not. As for your "All we're doing is basic math" argument, please read WP:CALC, which states "Basic arithmetic, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, is allowed provided there is consensus among editors that the calculation is an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources" Do you have that consensus? No. You do not. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC) In addition, there is a statistical fallacy in play when you count the numbers and add them up. If we assume that the individual sources cited in List of Taliban fatality reports in Afghanistan tried to be accurate (a questionable assumption -- news agencies make money by attempting to panic the readers -- but let's accept it for the sake of argument) then some will be too high and some will be too low. The problem is that there is a limit on being too low (nobody reports a negative number of fatalities) but there is no limit on being too high. This makes the basic idea of adding them up statistically invalid. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:57, 5 May 2012 (UTC) The reports are fragmentary, and a lot don't get added to it - so the total is almost certainly higher that what's there. A lot of Taliban fatalities go unknown, given the nature of firefights there (get shot at from far off, shoot back. Repeat process for a while until the shooting stops.) So, its very unlikely the number is too high. X Nilloc X (talk) 14:40, 5 May 2012 (UTC) The very fact that we are having a discussion about this proves that the calculation is not "an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources". Also, you have not addressed my argument that adding the numbers up is statistically invalid. All you have done is to propose an unsourced theory that, if true, would cause an error of unknown magnitude in the opposite direction. You are getting farther and farther away from a routine calculation that everyone agrees is correct. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC) No need to get huffy. A substantial body of reliable sources have made educated guesses on casualty stats for the Taliban. In most contemporary settings, aside from bureaucratically inclined nations, war casualties are just that, guesses. Doing independent math is a violation of WP:SYNTH but there is nothing wrong with sourcing estimates as long as they are recorded as such. TomPointTwo (talk) 08:31, 5 May 2012 (UTC) Can you please post what these reliable sources for total casualties are? I haven't been able to find any, and they'd be a very useful addition to the article. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC) Here: [[12]] X Nilloc X (talk) 00:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC) Nilloc X, what part of "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources" are you having trouble understanding? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:22, 6 May 2012 (UTC) We're not - we're just using basic math. The example the Synthesis page was something like "The UN says its goal is world peace <reference>, but there have been 180 wars since its inception <otherreference>.". In that case, you were combining two references to make it sound like the UN is a failure. That's not what's going on here. All we're doing it look at the reliably sources casualty reports, and adding them up. Its mathematically impossible for the number we get to not be the verified minimum. X Nilloc X (talk) 14:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC) Adding together uncertain numbers from multiple sources is an obvious example of original research. As well as the statistical fallacy that Guy mentioned, some of these reports are probably references to the same incidents. Different news sources often provide slightly different dates and details that make them appear to be distinct. WP:CALC is for simple calculations that there are no grounds to dispute, not for exercises like this. Readers can add the numbers themselves if they want; we shouldn't make the totals appear more meaningful than they really are. Zerotalk 05:36, 6 May 2012 (UTC) How are they "uncertain"? All the sources say how many were killed. Show me an example on that page where different reports of the same incident have been taken as the same incident. This is a simple calculation, and there is no rational ground to dispute it. Plus, if there's a problem like that, shouldn't we fix it instead of being like "oh, well, looks like this is broken forever and we should disregard it"? By your logic any page with an error should be disregarded forever. X Nilloc X (talk) 14:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC) There is no error to fix. Just a classic case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and WP:DEADHORSE. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC) Not so. WP:CALC clearly allows it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by X Nilloc X (talk • contribs) 00:19, 8 May 2012 (UTC) Exactly what part of "provided there is consensus among editors that the calculation is an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources" are you having trouble understanding? If English is a second language for you or you have some sort of learning disability, I will be happy to explain it in detail. Just tell me which part you don't understand. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC) It is obvious, correct, and meaningful. Most people who have been to the page have left it, so they seem to agree. There's just a strange, small group of people who are (for some odd reason) obsessed with getting it removed. You're not explaining: if we take each verified report as reliable (as is Wikipedia policy), then by definition they are all reliable. So, adding them up is basic arithmetic. Your resistance to it doesn't make any sense X Nilloc X (talk) 00:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC) So your claim is that there is a consensus among editors that the calculation is an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources? Do you have any evidence to back up that assertion? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC) (Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 01:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC) Admin note: X Nilloc X has now been blocked twice for edit warring on this subject. Shii (tock) 03:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC) And been blocked indefinetly for being a sockpuppet of another editor. I think that this can be safely marked as resolved. Nick-D (talk) 08:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Friends episodes

• List of Friends episodes (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 1) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 2) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 3) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 4) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 5) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 6) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 7) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 8) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 9) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Friends (season 10) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

TheRamblingMan and AussieLegend and other users debate over what style to use in List of Friends episodes. None can agree what to do, and there were condemnations toward each other's edits, including transclusions of Season articles. It is also discussed in Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Friends episodes/archive1. Speaking of transclusions, I did make changes to make the list edited as what every episode list is supposed to be, but I'm not sure if I'm counted as part of the dispute because everything is changed in other articles transcluded in the list article. Nevertheless, |RTitle= is used rather than |Title=.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• The Rambling Man (talk · contribs)
• AussieLegend (talk · contribs)
• <Do I count? If not, strike me out. --George Ho (talk) 20:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)>
• Matthewedwards (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Two contacted. If I'm missing more, then feel free to include them above. --George Ho (talk) 20:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I've contacted Lemonade51 (talk · contribs), but I'm not sure if he is part of this dispute. --George Ho (talk) 21:31, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Friends episodes}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

I haven't done much to resolve this dispute. In the article talk page, I suggested here is the best way.

• How do you think we can help?

It's not as messy as List of Codename: Kids Next Door episodes, but I need an expert on lists of any sort and another expert on TV episode lists.

George Ho (talk) 20:43, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Friends episodes discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Comment by Matthewedwards

Whichever way the dispute is resolved, the repercussions could have bearing on huge numbers of articles. The main issue at hand is the WP:Transclusion of article content from one article into another. For many years, possibly up to about 5, many "List of xxx episodes" have transcluded the episode tables from xxx (season 1) et al, resulting in the need to create just the episode tables on the season page, and having an exact duplicate (save for the plot summaries due to markup with {{episode list}}) appear on the parent episode list page. IIRC, List of Lost episodes was one of the first articles to do this, and that page also happened to be a WP:Featured list (but promoted before transclusion - it only transcluded after the season pages also became Featured lists). List of Degrassi: The Next Generation episodes also began transcluding from the season pages when those pages became Featured lists. Other editors caught on, and while creating/maintaining/editing to FL-standard they followed suit. Most, if not all FL episode lists that are parents to season pages now transclude table content, and this has been the status quo for many years. Even pages that are not FLs now transclude from the season pages.

WP:Transclusion doesn't have much to say about article transclusion, it refers mostly to templates like infoboxes, navboxes, templates such as {{3x}}, etc, etc. What it does say about article transclusion is that in creating WP:Summary style articles, it may be preferential to conduct partial transclusions from other articles, and says, "History of pathology [13] was transcluded into Pathology,[14] which consisted of a collection of transcluded lead paragraphs from several main articles." It should be noted, however, that Pathology has not transcluded any content since July 2009, when the articles it was transcluding from were delisted from WP:GA.

WP:Summary style also refers to transcluding to keep article in sync with each other, but warns that it should be done only when there is consensus to do so and the articles are "rapidly evolving", and links to a small 2010 discussion that points out that old page histories display current content as the reason transclusion should be done with care.

WP:WikiProject Television may not mind transclusion but it's hard to tell. Nobody -- not a single person -- from that project has bothered to respond to numerous recent requests to provide input on a number of matters, including this one. Nowhere within the projectspace does it advocate transcluding, although it doesn't discourage it either. Certainly, however, at WP:FLC transclusion has been discouraged. The most recently FLC promoted episode list articles were void of transclusion, see Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of The O.C. episodes, Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Supernatural episodes/archive1, and Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Prison Break episodes/archive1, and I have always been vocal about my opposition to transclusion and have tried to avoid it in articles I've been involved in getting promoted, such as Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of 24 episodes (although List of 24 episodes, List of Supernatural episodes and List of Prison Break episodes have since been edited so that they do now transclude).

For FLC, some of the main issues are

• what appears on the potential Featured list isn't actually featured content. It comes from articles that are unreviewed.
• when the child article is edited, the changes automatically appear at the parent page, be they good edits, bad edits, or otherwise
• if the edit to the child article results in incorrect information being added, or breaking the table code, we have two articles that are then wrong. If the parent article did not transclude, at least one of the articles would still be correct, but the main argument put forth by those in favour of transclusion is that having one incorrect article is worse than having two incorrect articles
• People who watch only the parent page do not notice any incorrect/bad edits because they haven't been made to the parent page.
• If someone makes a lot of good edits on a season page you're watching, you won't go checking what they've done each time they edit it, but one time accidentally removed one of the table or template code tags in the process, the parent page gets screwed because it isn't highlighted there and it wasn't going through any real changes, so no one bothers to check to make sure it appeared good on a regular basis
• Article histories with transclusion always only show the current version of the transcluded article. So if you want to look at the page history taken in 2007, you're still going to see 2012's version of it.
• As regular editors, we are supposed to try to create, write, and maintain encyclopedic articles for our readers, of whom there are a greater number than editors. However, how confusing must it be to be reading a table and find something that needs changing, click the [edit] link and find {{:Supernatural (season 1)}}? Forget being a regular editor of TV episode list articles, if you're not a regular editor of Wikipedia, would you know what to do? I doubt it. So much for bringing in new editors and editor retention. I'd give up and let someone else try to fix it.

This is why it is actively discouraged at FLC, and this is where the discussion about transclusion of the Friends seasons into List of Friends episodes originally took place.

The Rambling Man, being a FL director has tried to ensure that if promoted, it conforms to FL standards. Currently {{episdoe list}} doesnt' conform to the MoS or WP:DTT, but that is being worked on. What that template does is remove the need for thousands of lines of Wikitable markup by simply filling out the template's parameters of episode numbers, titles, directors, writers, production numbers, etc. So it was requested at the FLC that straight-forward Wikitable markup be used instead of the template, and that transclusion also be avoided. AussieLegend took issue with that, by basically stating that all episode lists do this, that it is the status quo, and there is no reason to change it (I happen to agree with him on the first two points -- they do all do this, and it is the status quo). If and when the template is fixed, there is no reason not to use that either.

However, at the time the dispute began, one of AussieLegend's first arguments for transclusion was that not doing so results in "duplication errors" where the two pages "will" have conflicting information with one page being wrong, a worry about the page increasing in size from 14,184 to 82,569 bytes, and a comment that if the non-transcluded version of the article is promoted, it will force all others to follow suit.

Both The Rambling Man and I have replied numerous times to this and subsequent posts from AussieLegend where he has basically repeated the same thing, and in doing so, so have we. Article size is a non-issue. The 83k is all table code, so it doesn't meet the idea of the article being too big. Forcing editors to have to go to another page just to edit the one they're on is not what Wikipedia was designed for. "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Sure, but only if you understand what the strange coding means and why a table shows up on a page when it's not there in the edit box. And we won't tell you what it means or how to get around it either. It would be good to get other articles to follow suit and not transclude, but that part of his argument is flawed because those that weren't transcluded at the time of promotion have since had transclusion sneaked in. This only serves to encourage and promote transclusion.

AussieLegend then called normal Wikitable markup (as outlined at WP:Tables, Help:Wikitable, Help:Table) "custom tables" and "complex" as if a table has never been constructed using class="Wikitable" before, and went on to repeat "custom tables" no less than eight more times throughout the discussion. He made claims that "most people have difficulty with tables" and took it upon himself to decide that if transclusion be eliminated then the episode tables with summaries need not appear at all on season pages because they'll appear hardcoded on the parent pages (albeit still without summaries).

He's said that I've been silly, queried whether we have a life outside Star Trek‽ (for the record I also watch Battlestar Galactica), claimed to be "disgusted" by our suggesting to the list's FLC nominator to remove transcluding and non-MOS compliant template. I gave up discussing it with him at that point. He truly cannot see where anything could or does go wrong with transcluding, even as it is happening (the Friend episode list page removed transcluding, put it back in, removed it, put it back in, all the while transcluding ill-formatted and incorrect tables).

While I've not had any other word in the discussion, it has carried on between AussieLegend and The Rambling Man. Whether or not transclusion should be allowed is the main point here, but it has been overshadowed, as George Ho has said, by continued exchange of vitriol, belittling, and denouncing each other's points so much so that it seems like nobody else wants to get voice an opinion to the subject in hand. Yes, that needs resolving and putting to bed, but at this point the matter of transclusion is what really needs addressing here. Matthewedwards (talk · contribs) 07:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

This is a complex issue, having been discussed on numerous pages, and I have no desire to see it become any more complex, but some of what Matthewedwards needs to be addressed:

"For many years, possibly up to about 5," - {{Episode list}} list was created 3 days under 6 years ago and has been in use for all of that time, not "up to about 5" years. This is only minor point, but it is still misleading, as it de-emphasises the extent to which the template is used. Currently the template is used in 5,105 articles.[15] When I checked the transclusion count 8 days ago, it was transcluded to 5,068 articles, an increase of approximately 6 articles per day. As season lists typically have around 18-24 episodes, this means the template is used roughly 100,000 times.

• I said "TRANSCLUSION" not use of the template. Minor point, but relevant. Matthewedwards (talk · contribs) 18:30, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

"when the child article is edited, the changes automatically appear at the parent page, be they good edits, bad edits, or otherwise" - I still don't see how this is a bad thing, as it avoids articles contradicting each other.

"if the edit to the child article results in incorrect information being added, or breaking the table code, we have two articles that are then wrong" - That's definitely an issue but, in my experience at least, is something that's picked up within a day or two, even on some of the more obscure pages that I visit from time to time. The reality is that Wikipedia articles, even featured articles, include errors. We're never going to stop that.

"the main argument put forth by those in favour of transclusion is that having one incorrect article is worse than having two incorrect articles" - That's not the main argument at all. The argument is that having two intimately related articles that don't contradict each other is far better than having two articles that do. As I have had to explain at length, with two articles displaying what should be the same information, when there are inconsistencies they can be a nightmare to fix. If there is only one article, it's immediately half the work.

"People who watch only the parent page do not notice any incorrect/bad edits because they haven't been made to the parent page" - This argument is specious. If people are watching the individual season articles, they aren't going to notice if somebody changes something tin the overall episode list.

"if you want to look at the page history taken in 2007, you're still going to see 2012's version of it." - No, you'll still see the 2007 version of the page. There might be 2012 data on the page, but you're still actually looking at the 2007 version. If you want to see the 2007 version of what's being transcluded, you go to the season article. It's not a difficult process.

"how confusing must it be to be reading a table and find something that needs changing, click the [edit] link and find {{:Supernatural (season 1)}}?" - Interestingly, just after talking about Nazis, Matthewedwards suggested "If you're worried about it, include notes to editors at the top of each editable section in hidden tags <!-- like these --> that ask editors to make changes at the 'other' page",[16] and that's what is done in the episode article. After the transclusion code there should be a note saying something along the lines of "To edit the episodes in this section, you need to edit the article listed above", similar to this:

=== Season 1: 1994–95 ===
{{Main|Friends (season 1)}}
{{:Friends (season 1)}}
<!-- To edit the episodes in this section, you need to edit the article listed above. -->

=== Season 2: 1995–96 ===
{{Main|Friends (season 2)}}
{{:Friends (season 2)}}
<!-- To edit the episodes in this section, you need to edit the article listed above. -->

=== Season 3: 1996–97 ===
{{Main|Friends (season 3)}}
{{:Friends (season 3)}}
<!-- To edit the episodes in this section, you need to edit the article listed above. -->

"Currently {{episdoe list}} doesnt' conform to the MoS or WP:DTT, but that is being worked on." - In fact, we're only a few hours away from that happening I've now made the request to have the edits incorporated, per Matthewedwards' request. The actual code changes will be as proposed by Matthewedwards, so that the template does comply as desired by those who frequent the FLC world.

"it was requested at the FLC that straight-forward Wikitable markup be used instead of the template, and that transclusion also be avoided. AussieLegend took issue with that" - To be fair, it wasn't only me. Another editor had started reverting changes to the article but was stopped. When I came along and found the article in the state it was in I started (there was no indication anywhere in the article that changes had been made after discussion at FLC, there was not even indication that the article had been nominated) but, before I could finish, George Ho came along and pretty much finished the job.

"Forcing editors to have to go to another page just to edit the one they're on is not what Wikipedia was designed for." - I'm pretty sure the same can be said for forcing editors to edit two different articles to change one set of information. It just makes no sense. It makes even leass sense when one considers that we have to edit a template on one page and a wikitable on another. It's one of the reasons that we transclude navboxes, rather than build individual navboxes on each page and isn't editing a navbox "forcing editors to have to go to another page just to edit the one they're on"?

"only if you understand what the strange coding means and why a table shows up on a page when it's not there in the edit box. And we won't tell you what it means or how to get around it either." - Well, that's not exactly true. The template provides full instructions and examples and the issues that matthewedwards sees are the same issues that everyone who edits an article with an infobox or a navbox is confronted with.

"AussieLegend then called normal Wikitable markup (as outlined at WP:Tables, Help:Wikitable, Help:Table) "custom tables" and "complex"" - As I've explained elsewhere (thanks for not mentioning that!), the tables are custom because they have to be built from the ground up for every article. The template just requires that you fill in a few fields. As for comples, it's a easy to fill in a template where the fields are named for you, it's far more complex for editors to build tables. Again, this is one of the reasons we use infoboxes, navboxes and other templates.

"took it upon himself to decide that if transclusion be eliminated then the episode tables with summaries need not appear at all on season pages because they'll appear hardcoded on the parent pages (albeit still without summaries)." - What? No, what I said was that content shouldn't be duplicated between articles. If it's in one article then it doesn't need to be in another article verbatim. To avoid problems with errors when duplicating content, if the episode content is in the main episode list it shouldn't be in the season list, which would mean moving the episode summaries to the episode list.

"He's said that I've been silly" - I did, because Matthewedwards compared transclusion to the Nazis sending Jews to concentration camps.[17] That's always a silly thing. I even cited Godwin's law.[18]

"queried whether we have a life outside Star Trek‽" - Ummm, no. There's been a lot of clutching at straws when it has come to finding reasons not to transclude, including page load times.[19] In response I said "Unless you're Superman, or Mr Data trying to stop a core breach on the USS Enterprise, slow page load times really don't affect most articles." Load time issues have since been debunked.[20]

"claimed to be "disgusted" by our suggesting to the list's FLC nominator to remove transcluding and non-MOS compliant template." - I was disgusted because there were discussions in progress that would lead to fixing the MoS-compliance issues with the template, but rather than wait 5 days, two editors who had been involved in the template modifications decided to encourage another editor (they wouldn't do it themselves) to remove transclusion (neither of them like transclusion). And, to top it all off, the third editor then reverted the changes to the template as vandalism, adding errors as he did so.

Quite frankly, so far I haven't had any problems with the edits that The Rambling Man has made to any of the season or episode list articles. My concerns have been with the way he keeps making things up, as I've explained at Talk:List of Friends episodes. Instead of working together to make {{Episode list}} MoS-compliant, it seems that certain FLC editors are interested only in pushing their own agenda. Despite complaining about non-compliance, I could not get The Rambling Man to explain the issues at WT:TV or Template talk:Episode list, despite numerous requests. In the end, I had to do it myself,[21][22][23] and when it looked like there was going to be some action to resolve issues with the template, which would make the tables completely unnecessary, two editors rushed back to the FLC discussion to get their edits into the article before that happened. It's the sort of thing you expect in a school yard. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Please read the instructions, this is supposed to be dispute resolution, not mud-slinging 101. To that end, could you explain precisely where "the way he keeps making things up" is actually happening? Much appreciated. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no mudslinging, I've simply addressed the points made by Matthewedwards. As for you making things up, I've had to address that ad nauseam at Talk:List of Friends episodes#Disputed changes. I see no benefit in dragging that unfortunate discussion here. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Please provide diffs where I'm "making things up". It would obviously be for the benefit of those assessing this dispute. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:11, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I've already provided a link to a discussion where you've done that and where it has been discussed ad nauseam. I only posted in this section to address what Matthewedwards said and don't see any point in discussing your actions at Talk:List of Friends episodes#Disputed changes here. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:26, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

As part of resolving this dispute, I would respectfully ask you to provide specific "diffs" to assist others to assess how I "make things up". Many thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Anyone who wants to assess how you make things up is better off following the link to Talk:List of Friends episodes#Disputed changes, which I've provided three times now, as your actions are explained ad nauseam, in the appropriate context, there. I'm quite sure that it is well within the abilities of any editor who might wish to assess your actions to click a link and read a discussion. Diffs alone are not going to help. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:38, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Please provide specific diffs (that's what helps others work out what's happened). Your reluctance to do so is noted. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Diffs alone are insufficient, partly due to the confusion that you demonstrated during the discussion. In order to adequately address this here I'd need to repost the more than 900 words from that discussion that relate to the matter, and that would not be appropriate in this section. If anyone needs clarification I'm happy to provide that but I won't be posting the diffs as there is simply no need. To avoid getting this section further off-topic I'm taking this page off my watchlist, so there's no point asking again. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem with just posting the diffs you believe constitute me lying. In fact, it's a priority for me to see the diffs that allege that I've lied so that I can refute them. It's very easy for someone to come into a dispute resolution discussion, state "he lied", then not be able to prove it. It's vital that you provide evidence that I lied. 900 words? Cheap, it's, what, 4.5k? "To avoid getting this section further off-topic ...." you accused me of deceit. That's far from "off-topic". Please post the diffs (as is commonplace) or else withdraw your accusation. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:02, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I too would like to see those diffs. Providing them is not asked too much. Goodraise 18:39, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

AussieLegend yes, please post diffs that back up your claims. If you think the diffs are somehow misleading or confusing, you can add a note to each, but we really need to look at the diffs ourselves rather than taking your word for things.

With all due respect, writing "I won't be posting the diffs as there is simply no need...I'm taking this page off my watchlist, so there's no point asking again." makes you look like you don't have your facts straight. I am going to post this request on your talk page to give you a fair chance to respond if you so choose. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

You don't have to take my word for anything. All you have to do is click on one of the THREE LINKS TO THE DISCUSSION that I provided. Posting the diffs is pointless, as it's not immediately obvious from the the initial diff as to what I'm referring. The whole discussion needs to be read so instead, I posted a link to the actual conversation dealing with that matter, THREE TIMES. The discussion directly addresses the issue and is a far better guide as to what was made up. Only the most incompetent of editors would be unable to determine, from the actual conversation, what the issue was and, if they can't follow a simple conversation, they certainly would not be able to understand the diffs. Similarly, if they're unable to click on one of the three links that I've provided, they'd be unable to click on the link to the diffs. The Rambling Man knows what I'm talking about, as he is directly involved in the discussion, so I don't know why he needs to see the diffs yet again. However, to placate any editors unwilling to read all of the relevant discussion, and would rather just the cliff notes, here are the directly relevant diffs.[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] or [32]. Note that this came about after I simply responded to The Rambling Man's threats to undo all the edits that he'd made fixing the articles,[33] saying "Why would you undo the edits you've made? If you've made appropriate edits leave them".[34] There's a certain level of frustration in trying to deal rationally with somebody directly when they persist in responding to you in the third person,[35][36] especially when it's clear that they're speaking in the third person deliberately, even changing posts when they've "accidentally" reponded directly.[37][38] Who does he think he is, the Queen of England? --AussieLegend (talk) 10:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

No, not the Queen of England, more like the King of Funk. All this fuss about "responding in the third person" is too much for me to take seriously. If a wandering discussion going nowhere becomes unclear then it's useful to reassert who holds what opinion. Anyhow, I can't see the purpose of this page anymore, the list failed, we got a couple of improvements to {{Episode list}} despite hostile opposition, and there's nothing more to discuss. Clearly there's a difference of opinion, but much like AussieLegend claimed he would do by removing this page from his watch list, there's little more to be gained here by further bad tempered bold underlined shouting at one another. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

"we got a couple of improvements to {{Episode list}} despite hostile opposition" - Please don't misrepresent what happened. ONE editor opposed vehemently, another intially opposed not in a hostile manner, but came over to the "yes, let's fix the template" side and there was no real opposition from anyone else. Generally (with one exception) the discussion was fairly amicable. --AussieLegend (talk) 13:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you watching this or not watching this? I'm confused. In any case, there's nothing left to dispute, the list in question was failed; you and the TV project got what they wanted. Simple. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

By the way, in a nutshell, the nub of this "lie" is in that Aussielegend claims here that an edit to the table " was incorrectly restored by the custom table" (i.e. was restored to the simple wikitable that Aussielegend keeps insisting on calling a "custom" table, just for clarification). In actual fact, (and if Aussielegend could just double-check), the data he/she claimed to be "incorrectly restored" was data that was actually lost in that edit. Namely, in the diff in question, here, a production code is removed. And this wasn't the only error that was "overlooked" because of the detachment of the simple table from transclusion. Writers and producers names were preserved, compliance with MOS was preserved, yet Aussielegend maintained that the standalone simple list was presenting data that was "incorrectly restored". So who's lying? I wanted to make sure the data was maintained. Aussielegend claimed our simple list approach "incorrectly restored" perfectly valid and useful information that was missing. Not sure why this is so complex for Aussielegend to understand. The edits Aussielegend passively sanctioned deleted information, introduced errors and MOS failures. Not what I would consider an improvement to Wikipedia, although perhaps it's different in Oz. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

No, the lie was that you said "I'm also surprised that AussieLegend continues to think that removing information from the various sub-articles would make a list better. ".[39] I responded saying "I've said nothing about removing information making the season articles better".[40] You then posted ":I finally found it. Your confirmation that removing information, introducing WP:MOS errors," (etc),[41] linking to a post of mine that, as I pointed out,[42] did not even come close to supporting your allegation because the first part was a response to matthewedwards about quotation marks and the second was all about how restoration of the custom tables made the episode list and season articles inconsistent. Nowhere did I say that "removing information from the various sub-articles would make a list better". You then made the peculiar statement "Hm? I don't remember talking to you about "quotation marks", perhaps you can show me the diff? ",[43] despite the diff that you posted clearly being a response to matthewedwards, not you. After pointing this out to you, by saying "the very first sentence of my first post starts with, in response to Matthewedwards, "Neither the 26 April or today's version of the article by Lemonade51 included quotation marks." (Emphasis added)",[44] you then responded with yet more made up rubbish, saying "Well then, we are where we are, with AussieLegend's acceptance that removing information and introducing errors in the various seasons lists, which resulted in the main list being reverted was in error",[45] despite me never having done anything of the sort. So there we have it, two outright lies,[46][47] and one post misrepresenting what happened in the {{Episode list}} discussions.[48] --AussieLegend (talk) 00:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I'm not sure if this discussion is about Friends episodes or the "liar" game, but, if either of you (including Aussie or Rambling) want to discuss each other's "lies" or something like that, take this in Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance when only this discussion is resolved. I want this discussion to be about transclusions of and editing lists of Friends seasons. I don't want this discussion to become about one editor or another or "lies" or "truths". As said, "This page is not the place to flame other users.". I can see flaming either in a calm or irrational way. --George Ho (talk) 05:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Quite right George. There's nothing left to resolve here. Aussielegend and the TV project got what they wanted, the list failed to make FL status and a lot of work was wasted. Let's pack this up and move on. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:55, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hey! Rambling Man, you two were asked nicely to stop flaming each other and you responded with a flame. Knock it off. ---Guy Macon (talk) 11:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hey. I responded with what I considered to be a reasonable conclusion to the dispute, i.e. that those who demanded transclusion of templates got their way, while others who spent a great deal of time and effort otherwise effectively had their time wasted. I will not knock it off when all I'm doing is reporting the truth. Perhaps you're not geared up for this kind of debate, but I just summarised the outcome of the dispute. This "resolution" noticeboard has added nothing but yet one more place for people to get upset. That's why I said what I said. Let's pack this up and move on. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

"I want this discussion to be about transclusions of and editing lists of Friends seasons. I don't want this discussion to become about one editor or another or "lies" or "truths"." George that's why, way back here, I baulked at the idea of providing diffs. I knew what this discussion would degenerate into. Unfortunately, others kept pushing, with one calling me a liar no less than 3 times.[49][50][51] He did change his mind a few hours later on the first two occasions, and later toned down the language, but the third remains. I don't see this discussion coming to any useful conclusion. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:29, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Goodraise

First off, a big thanks to Matthewedwards for this (presumably) comprehensive outline of what has happened. I would have commented on the issue sooner (following TRM's invitation at WT:FLC#Discussion over transcluding from other articles into featured lists), but was discouraged from doing so by the fractured nature of the discussion (spread out over various pages) and the "continued exchange of vitriol" as Matthewedwards put it.

In my view, based mostly on Matthewedwards' summary above, neither side has made a strong case. For starters, it is unclear to me why I should prefer either of the two situations regarding the "duplication errors" issue in which either A) both articles can be correct, both articles can be incorrect, and one article can be correct while the other is incorrect or B) both articles can only be either correct or incorrect. Why should I favor either of these?

The other pro-transclusion points are also weak. Templates need to internally do what a manually entered table (or "custom table") does in the article source. Differences in page load times (which can be read as "article size" in this context) will not be significant either way. Lastly, while the argument that a newly promoted FL "will force all others to follow suit" is not quite correct, it isn't completely without merit either. But I'll get to that further down.

No killer argument on the con-transclusion side either. Tackling Matthewedwards' bullet points in order:

• So what if that content is unreviewed? That's why it's at FLC, isn't it? As a reviewer, nothing is keeping me from reviewing the transcluded part.
• Again, I don't see the problem. Without transclusion, edits to the "parent" article could still be good, bad or otherwise. How is this better?
• (See second paragraph of this post.)
• I would surmise that most editors interested in watching the content won't mind watchlisting the child pages also. I doubt editors who would only watchlist the parent articles (one such group I can think of is FLC regulars watching all featured lists) are numerous enough to be significant.
• (See second bullet point above (three lines up).)
• Fair point, but I wouldn't count it as a problem – as the original look can be reconstructed using the child pages' histories –, only as an inconvenience (to be weighed against the convenience provided by using transclusion).
• Again, this is no insurmountable obstacle. I'd contend that any editor who would not have been discouraged from fixing an error by a wall of wikitable or template code would not be put off by finding something like <!--The table displayed in this section is actually stored at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural_(season_1). Please edit it there.-->{{:Supernatural (season 1)}} either.

One pro-transclusion argument that has not yet been mentioned is the convenience. Having to maintain some content in only one place means less work. This is especially true for series that are still expanding.

Now there's a side-issue I'm seeing. Should featured lists be treated differently? My personal answer is a clear no. In my view, the featured list process is a means to improve the entire encyclopedia, not merely to highlight a select few articles. Allowing transclusion onto featured lists only from featured lists to protect them from "unreviewed" content would set an example. Non-featured lists would not be compelled to follow suit, but if I believed that featured lists did not influence other lists more than they were influenced by them, I wouldn't waste my time there anymore. Featured lists should be the end product. If that means pages transcluded onto them need to be (at least partially) brought up to featured level quality, I'd like to think that would be of benefit to the encyclopedia. Goodraise 10:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Barsoomian

I'm not a "member" in any sense of either faction involved. But I do spend time editing various TV articles, have overhauled several, and used transclusion quite often. I see the two factions as having quite different priorities. Those who are focused on making a beautiful page, scoring a "featured" whatever, and then protecting the page forever after from Philistines who might sully it; and editors who want to update, correct or expand an article, who know that articles are a work in progress, and thus value structure that makes editing easier and reduces the chance of error. The process of transclusion was devised to serve the latter purposes.
Probably every TV show that has been running in the last 5 years or so has seen its article evolve: 1) one article, containing everything. 2) If the show lasts to a second season, a "List of ... episodes" article is hived off. Usually a summary table at the top of the list article (number of episodes per season, start and end dates) is transcluded back to the main article. 3) After a another year or two, the "List of ... episodes" article itself becomes unwieldy, and is split to seasons. Now the episode lists are transcluded back to the "List of ..." article. This is where the conflict comes. The text and formatting, by design, are the same as in the season table, and can only be edited by editing each season table. I see this as a wonderful convenience, automatically keeping related pages in sync.
The FL crew see each article as as separate entity that can and should be polished to a high sheen. I see this foolish, as the "List of..." article's whole raison d'etre is to act as an index to and overview of the season pages. To break the automatic updates that translcuding creates and expect every editor to conscientiously edit two different articles in exactly the same way is completely unrealistic. It does not and will never happen.
I think its perverse to look at these "list of" articles as if they were stand alone articles, complaining that they are subject to edits in other articles, when that is exactly the reason they were created. To make them into stand alone articles would be a step backwards in usability and make errors more likely and editing at least twice as much work, and require patient editors to continuously check every edit in all the related articles to make sure that they are all consistent. If the transcluded formatting isn't optimal, my response is -- no one cared about that till a week ago, so it's clearly not an urgent issue of accessibility or whatever as claimed; just a preference for one style over another. If the problems can be clearly stated, they can probably be accommodated by adjusting the templates, without churning up hundreds of articles, all because bold text is an an abomination that must be extirpated with fire. Barsoomian (talk) 11:13, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment by TRM

Standards change. FLC implement a strict adherence to WP:MOS, not some kind of "preference-based" scheme. The original dispute originated from the {{Episode list}} template being incompatible with WP:MOS, in particular WP:ACCESS and WP:MOSBOLD. The various attempts to hold onto a preference rather than follow a project-wide guideline led to the initial dispute over the use of bold text. This has now, seemingly, been resolved. Next up was adherence to MOS:DTT to enable screen readers to correctly parse the template when embedded in a table. This also, it seems, has been resolved. The MOS fails will hopefully be remedied in due course by an uninvolved admin in accordance with the recommendations at Template talk:Episode list. This is all good and I'm glad that the FLC regulars have played another part in making Wikipedia a little bit better for the whole audience, not just for those who have a preference for their style.

The "to transclude or not to transclude" debate has become intertwined with the original issue. And indeed, it seems to have become rather unpleasant, and I recognise my part in that unfortunate situation. I also recognise that in an ideal world, all articles would be of good or featured standards, and therefore transcluding them in total or in part would be no problem. With the MOS issues out of the way now, my issue with transcluding these episode lists is rather simple, and that is that people editing them will, most likely, have little or no interest on the effect the edits they make will have on the list where these are transcluded. For instance, a set of recent edits to those season articles merged a number of episodes (along with the loss of several items of data). The resulting transcluded list contained MOS fails and was formatted incorrectly (odd width columns, incorrect on/off background shading etc). Of course, the person editing the season articles has no obligation to ensure that their edits are compliant with WP:WIAFL, in particular the MOS, moreover the person editing the season articles may well have no idea that edits he or she makes will be immediately transcluded into potentially featured material, causing that material to subsequently fail to meet its featured criteria. It's not the concept of transclusion I have an issue with, it's the practical application which, as has been shown during this little saga, to be lacking. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

You DO have a problem with the concept of transclusion, if you can't understand that edits to the transcluded articles will, and should affect the parent article. That's not a "problem", that's how it's supposed to work. If you're afraid that an transcluded article will sully your "featured" masterwork", well, you'll just have to watch all the articles that are transcluded.

Being "featured" was supposed to recognise high quality articles. It wasn't meant to encourage ripping the connections out of an article to make it less likely to be contaminated by the hoi polloi. Barsoomian (talk) 13:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Please try to stay calm and use your own section for your commentary. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Please don't make provocative diagnoses of my mental state. I doubt you're qualified. Try just addressing the topic. If no one responds to anyone else, this isn't going to get anywhere, is it? Barsoomian (talk) 14:41, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not the one shouting or being overly emotional. Just read the instructions here before commenting further. Your hyperbolic style of writing is precisely the opposite to that required to resolve disputes. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

"Shouting"? one word, two letters, in caps? what a sensitive soul. i'll forebear from using any if that helps. sorry you don't like my style. just ignore the metaphors if they annoy you. they are meant merely to illustrate the point. your style of making repeated disparaging provocative remarks isn't likely to resolve any disputes. you could put me in my place by simply demolishing my arguments. but just telling me to butt out won't. your proposal would cause me a great amount of hassle, i'm not going to let it happen unopposed.Barsoomian (talk) 16:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Why are you so aggressive and hyperbolic in tone? This is supposed to be dispute resolution. Please read the instructions. By the way, the facetious manner of removing all capital letters is noted as I asked you not to shout. You are well aware of what I was referring to. Are you here to help resolve a dispute or something else entirely? The Rambling Man (talk) 16:33, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

"concise and on topic". is the topic "barsoomian's writing style and mental state"? fascinating for some, i'm sure, but i'm here to talk about transclusion, not personal sniping. no, i don't have a clue as to what you were referring to by shouting if it isn't caps. must be one of those metaphors. Barsoomian (talk) 16:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Noted. Thank you for advancing your position to attempt to "resolve" this situation. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

there isn't a single word in any response you've made about transclusion. just your remarks about me, your insistence that i'm "shouting" in some way you won't explain, and now smarmy bureaucratic "Noted" as if you are standing in judgement on me for unstated, kafkaesque crimes. well, I guess its a tactic. Barsoomian (talk) 17:02, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Also noted. For what it's worth, you had a rogue "I" in your response. Thank you, once again, for attempting to resolve this dispute with your posts. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Comments by AussieLegend

Written in user talk:George Ho:

I really didn't want to confuse the issue for The Rambling Man any further so I thought I'd bring this here. At the FLC discussion, there were concerns over bolding the episode titles, so I was going to change "|Title=" in the episode lists to "|AltTitle=" until the template was fixed. This was mainly because The Rambling Man didn't seem to want to wait for the template changes and was using non-compliance with MOS:BOLD as a reason not to use the template. However, when I looked at the versions of the article using the custom tables that were acceptable to those at the FLC,[52][53] none of the episode titles were inside quotes, so I decided to use "|RTitle=" instead, naturally assuming that's what was preferred. Matthewedwards then said the titles had to be in quotes,[54] and I explained why I hadn't done so here. This is the diff that The Rambling Man provided on the episode list's talk page. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe further explanation from AussieLegend is needed. --George Ho (talk) 14:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I've responded to Matthewedwards comments above. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:43, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Comments by Andrewcrawford

Can i ask is tranclusion main problem that because when teh seaosn article is edited it is istnaely available on list article and since editing involves editing the seaosn article?

If editing on the season article is a problem i cant remmeber how i did it but on a non tv list that had exceed 300kb i split the article out into serperate one and transcluded it, one problem that arose was peopel had to edit those aritlces for it to be on the main list, sokehow i done something that allowed pressing the edit button of the section and it took you directly to the invidual articles only include section, i forgot how i did it but it is possible. As for the translcusion becoming effective straight away even the main list if left there can be eidted and seen straightaway so i dnt see hwo that is a problem, i dnt think semi proection articles indefintely because they becaome featured list or features article is correct either, recent changes which might be coming back is the way forward for that

Personal i transclusion teh aritcles because they look better because the LIST is then LIST of the episodes and not summaries and season information etc, not really want to get invlolved in this just posting my views on it--Andrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 11:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

You're right. Making the [edit] links go directly to the sub pages is possible. You can see it in action at WP:FLC. Goodraise 19:38, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Any other comments?

• WP:TLDR everything except I happened to see Barsoomian's section. Transclusion is excellent for TV episodes. Complaints that it is unwieldy for newbies are resolved by enfolding. You might need to learn to use the "noinclude" tag for sections using bolding and to learn to go to the right article immediately without needing to hit the transclusion page, but that's all part of learning WP. If the episode is so gigantically significant that it takes many more than the average number of grafs to describe, that is an exception where maintaining and synching two pages (detailed and WP:SUMMARY) is appropriate; but it's the exception not the rule. Now back to your regularly scheduled broadcast. JJB 17:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
  • While I'm sure that's useful, I'm not sure how it helps with the current dispute. But thanks for your input. Now back to your regularly scheduled broadcast. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
• I haven't read much of the discussion above. It's not unreasonably long, I'm just not that interested in the technical or non-access MOS side of things. I'll give my opinion on transclusion, and it can be discarded if people consider it to be irrelevant.

  Whether content is transcluded or not, an FLC reviewer should be satisfied that the MOS and ACCESS requirements that lists need to meet will continue to be met after a list becomes featured. Therefore, transclusion in itself is not an issue, provided there is clear consensus on how the transcluded content should be formatted, and that consensus coincides with FL standards. For the record, Giants2008 did the right thing in closing the FLC while this is being sorted out. My suggestion to those involved with the articles and list is to try and find a way to make transclusion work as a first resort, as I think it will be possible to transclude whilst complying with the MOS and ACCESS. If however this proves impossible, I would urge those in favour of transclusion to consider whether we absolutely must transclude. If, and only if, we get to a situation where complying with the MOS is impossible, yet some editors are adamant that the list must continue to transclude, further dispute resolution may be necessary. —WFC— 21:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Douglas Murray (author)

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Douglas Murray (author) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? There is a dispute between me and Jprw as to whether mention should be made of a Daily Telegraph blog post made by Murray inviting his readers to submit anti-Irish jokes in protest at a local politician being repremanded for telling such jokes in a meeting. Murray's blog posting drew considerable attention in Ireland and there was widespread newspaper and broadcast media coverage of the incident. Jprw's argument for removing the references to the incident was that the incident was minor in character and was not significant. Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? Donoreavenue (talk · contribs) Jprw (talk · contribs) Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Yes. N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Douglas_Murray_(author)}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? Discussed on the article talk page and on Jprw's talk page. How do you think we can help? Adjudicate as to whether the reference to his promotion of anti-Irish jokes should be included in the article or not. Donoreavenue (talk) 11:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC) Douglas_Murray_(author) discussion Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. Note: I am discussing this with both parties on the article talk page. I will report here if we are able to reach a consensus. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC) Please cancel this while we discuss this further on the article talk page. I will refile later if needed. Donoreavenue (talk) 22:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

NGO Monitor

• NGO Monitor (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is and that is what I would like some help with in the first instance. I have been in an ongoing dispute with an editor for nearly three weeks now over an edit I want to make to the NGO Monitor page. He doesn't like this edit and wants to reach a compromise solution. I cannot, for the life of me, understand what his objection is. If anyone could read through the talkpage discussion (tediously long, I'm afraid) and identify the grounds for the objection I would be greatly obliged. The discussion starts here:http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ANGO_Monitor&diff=488354194&oldid=488349680 and moves to a new phase (I thought!) here:http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ANGO_Monitor&diff=491225729&oldid=491205070 after I took what I thought was the issue to the RS noticeboard and reworked my edit using new sources (RS discussion is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#.2B972_Magazine.2F_Noam_Sheizaf). Hopefully, if we can actually identify the issue we can resolve it but the pair of us do not seem to be having much luck following what each other is saying at the moment.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Soosim (talk · contribs)
• BothHandsBlack (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=NGO Monitor}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Extensive talkpage discussion. I then took what I thought was unacceptable behaviour to AER but they felt that it was actually a content dispute, although none of the admins there were able to point out to me what the disputed issue actually was. More recently I sought to resolve the issue by taking the source in question to RS/N but I am now being told that the source was never actually the issue.

• How do you think we can help?

Identify and explain the problem to me or if there is no real problem explain that to the other editor.

BothHandsBlack (talk) 15:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

NGO Monitor discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

• Soosim here: BHB would like to include item 'a' in the article. i have not objected. he says he is not sure of what the dispute is, so i will try again: it is where 'a' is being put into the article. he wants it in 'x', i said that i thought it would be better elsewhere, giving three (3) other suggestions. but alas, he didn't want any of them, and rather than even trying, simply keeps doing 'a' into place 'x'. so, and help/advice/suggestions anyone has would indeed be welcome. thanks! Soosim (talk) 15:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

That much I understand. What I don't understand are your reasons for rejecting my placement of the comment. Displacing it to any of the locations you have suggested renders it meaningless because it is a statement that derives its significance from following the previous sentence. The current structure is 'A says B about C. X says Y about C.' Moving 'X says Y about C' to another location removes it from the only place in the article where C is under discussion. That aside, what I can't understand are your policy grounds for objecting to the placement if you really don't have a problem with the content. BothHandsBlack (talk) 15:33, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Just to add, from what I did understand, I thought you had a problem with the content but were willing to overlook that in search of a compromise position (is this wrong?), whilst my view is that there is no problem with the content and thus no need to find a compromise on placing. BothHandsBlack (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

BHB, I saw this dispute when it was brought to WP:Arbitration enforcement. Since that time, you have got an opinion from RSN which says that it's OK to cite Noam Sheizaf's piece on his own web site (+972 Magazine), since he already has journalist credentials due to his articles in mainstream media. My personal editorial opinion is to avoid the SYNTHESIS issue by just quoting what Sheizaf's opinion is, directly. You seem to be going to all this trouble to show the irony of NGO Monitor criticizing lack of transparency in the funding of other NGOs while at the same time obscuring the sources of its own income. My suggestion would be, find something appropriate in Sheizaf's article and just quote that, assuming that other editors think it's relevant and not WP:UNDUE. Then you won't face any issue with trying to combine multiple sources of information. It is probably a mistake for you to be too persistent on this because even if you win support for the material, it won't make any substantial difference to the article, which includes plenty of published criticism of NGO Monitor already. Though you haven't violated any policies that I can see, you may eventually wear out the patience of people who are asked to review this. If you still want to pursue this matter, I suggest opening an RfC at Talk:NGO Monitor. EdJohnston (talk) 16:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Ed - thanks for your comment but you seem to be suggesting that ongoing refusal to provide reasons for blocking an edit is a legit tactic to stop something you don't want going in an article. Given the problems in the IP area that seems rather dangerous. As to the RS/N result, if you go all the way to the bottom the suggestion from Despayre was to avoid the Shezaif source as the claim of SYNTH was a misreading of the policy since no additional conclusion beyond what appears in the sources is reached (so, kind of the opposite of what you are suggesting here). What you are suggesting is exactly what I did before (http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=NGO_Monitor&diff=489470952&oldid=488638215) and was exactly what got reverted without discussion, leading me to come to ARE. As to why I want this in the article, it's because I think it is factually significant and not because I think it is ironic. There is an irony issue re: the obscuring of donors but that is another point (the one dealt with in the Haaretz article). As a reader, if I read 'X says they receive no funding from government' (a statement added by Soosim in January, originally in Wikipedia's own voice as 'X receives no funding from government'), that leads me to think, and is meant to lead me to think, that X is financially independent from government. If someone else tells me that 'X's second largest donor is a quasi-governmental body', that puts the previous statement in an entirely different light. The only reason I am asking for another review is because after doing precisely what was advised by RS/N I was again reverted. Just to be clear - I was reverted when I did what you now suggest I do and I was reverted when I did what RS/N suggested I do. I still don't know what the grounds were for either of these reversions. Care to share? BothHandsBlack (talk) 16:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

The juxtaposition is a clear violation of WP:SYNTH; the material is included as a means of countering a statement made by NGO monitor. The use of the word "However" to introduce it makes this all the more obvious. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

The policy reads: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources." What is the conclusion C that is not mentioned in either source in this case? Regardless, this is not really what is at issue with this request. The current formulation (without 'however') is just what I was told to do at RS/N. Previously I used a single source that combined the two points in the context of describing NGOM's funding. The question at issue here is what is Soosim's objection; I switched to the current version of the edit thinking I was responding to his concerns but apparently I am not.BothHandsBlack (talk) 08:54, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Jayjg, I am having trouble with understanding your suggestion that this is a violation of WP:SYNTH. If you have a source that says one thing, and a source that says another thing, and a source that says a completely contradictory thing, the correct resolution is, as per WP:NPOV, present all views. Here are two examples, the first one is not a violation of wp:synth, the second one is a violation of wp:synth:

According to Source A "no he didn't", however, according to source B and C, "yes he did".

According to Source A "no he didn't", however, according to source B and C, "yes he did", therefore, because more sources say he did, he did.

Can you explain where you see the synth policy differently? Examples may be helpful, just saying it's a clear violation doesn't help, as I can't see why it's a violation, so at the very least, it's not clear to me. I'm not saying you're wrong, I would just like to understand your position. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 17:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

It is also worth bearing in mind these sensible comments from WP:NOTOR: "Comparing and contrasting conflicting facts and opinion is not original research, as long as any characterization of the conflict is sourced to reliable sources. If reliable references cannot be found to explain the apparent discrepancy, editors should resist the temptation to add their own explanation. Present the material within the context contained in reliable sources, but avoid presenting the information in a way that "begs the question". An unpublished synthesis or analysis should not be presented for the readers' "benefit". Let the readers draw their own conclusions after seeing related facts in juxtaposition." — Preceding unsigned comment added by BothHandsBlack (talk • contribs) 10:18, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

BHB - since i am having trouble articulating for you what you want to hear in a way you want to hear it, let's try this: please articulate for me what is wrong with my 3 suggestions for your edit? the best would be to explain each one separately so we can really understand. thanks! Soosim (talk) 12:25, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in getting back on this. Sure - I take it that the three suggestions are 1) move it to the criticism section; 2) move it to the second paragraph of the funding section; and 3) move the whole second paragraph of the funding section into the first paragraph and embed the statement in the material that was previously in the second paragraph? Ok - my problems with these are

1) (moving to criticism section) the information I want to include is not a criticism, it is simply data about how NGOM's funding is related to government. As such, it belongs in the funding section.

2) (Moving to second paragraph of the funding section) The second paragraph deals with a specific controversy arising from the Haaretz article and concerning the anonymity of some donors. JAFI's status as a quasi-governmental body has no particular relevance to this controversy. It is not entirely irrelevant and could arguably provide very general background information but it is not significant in that location. There is only one place in the funding section in which the relationship of funding to government is at issue and that is the place at which NGOM's own account of that relationship is given. I want to add this information in specifically to provide additional context for the reader who is interested in that relationship so that the reader can read two related complementary and non-contradictory pieces of information next to each other. So, there is a positive and a negative reason to objecting to this change. On the negative side, the info just doesn't belong in the second paragraph and adds very little when placed there. On the positive side the information adds a considerable amount when placed in the only place in the article concerned with the same topic (i.e. next to the sentence about NGOM's own statement on that topic) and moving it away from there (to anywhere else) significantly detracts from the value of that information to the reader.

3) (embedding it in the second paragraph and then moving the whole second paragraph into the first paragraph) This one seems superficially more attractive as it doesn't move the comment quite so far away from its natural home and I appreciate that your intention was probably to provide a bit of a concession to me by making this move. However, a) the statement is still moved away from its natural context and embedded within some unrelated material (which would admittedly now be a little closer to its natural position), and b) making this change unbalances the funding section as a whole. Putting the recent minor controversy about NGOM's funding first and then dealing with the actual details of NGOM's funding later just to mollify me does not seem to be a good way of solving the problem as it upsets a structure that is currently quite balanced and treats the funding controversy as a relatively minor item that should certainly not upstage the basic facts about the funding.

So, in each case the main problem for me is that the 'compromises' involve complete contextual disassociation of two related bits of information that belong together. I think the information belongs in the article at a certain point, not just that it should go in the article somewhere/anywhere. The significance of the information comes partly from its context.

Here's an analogy: say we have a wikipedia page for a notable American businessman of the 1930s and we report that he says in his autobiography that he never visited Europe. However, elsewhere in his autobiography he writes of the many pleasant summers he spent in England. Now, if one puts these two bits of information next to each other they offer some mutual illumination - they are not contradictory but the second bit of information helps the reader understand that when the writer speaks of Europe he understands 'Mainland Europe'; his way of speaking is perfectly legitimate but his use of the term may not correspond to what every reader would understand and, so, is worth qualifying with a further true and well sourced statement. If we were to put the two pieces of information in separate places, however, it would make it much harder for the reader to see that there may be some nuances that should be grasped in understanding the statement that he has never been to Europe. Whilst the analogy is not perfect (what analogy is?), the point is that some pieces of data belong together because they are mutually enlightening.

So, there is my reasoning for not being keen on any of your compromise suggestions. However, I must add a caveat. If I knew what your objection to my suggested placement was I might well be persuaded that those issues need to be weighed against the issues I have noted. But I am still at a loss as to what your objection is, so perhaps you could now spell it out for me. Thanks. BothHandsBlack (talk) 14:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

fascinating. i love your use of the words "natural place". anyway, you say it is not criticism, but it looks like you are using it as criticism. also, let's not forget that jafi is 'quasi' and not really the government. Soosim (talk) 14:45, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I say 'natural place' because I sought to introduce the information in this place for the reasons I give. Now, do you have any problems with the reasoning I have provided and can you please explain why you object to this placing? You've posted three times in this discussion and the pattern is precisely the same as on the talkpage. I ask you to clarify your objection. You don't. I try to clarify my position in the hope you will engage with it. You don't. I ask you to clarify your position again. You don't. For three weeks now we have been having exactly this conversation ... BothHandsBlack (talk) 15:10, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Soosim, it might be equally helpful if you explained your reasoning behind each of your 3 suggestions for the edit placement as well. Seeing your reasoning may well help get a better understanding of where the differences in your two opinions lay. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:32, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

BHB and D - i have given reasons, and will try to explain again: a) you say it is not criticism, but it looks like you are using it as criticism, so it could easily fit into the criticism section. b & c) it's natural place is where jafi is mentioned, as the second largest donor to ngom, since it is descriptive of jafi. and then, you have two choices as to where to put it in that section. but, all three of mine just pale, apparently, to your 'natural place'. that really isn't nice. Soosim (talk) 15:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

a) It is not a criticism as a criticism involves claiming that someone has done something wrong (we also don't have any source that criticises NGOM on these grounds so to turn it into a criticism would be OR). i) There is nothing inherently wrong with an organisation accepting funds from a quasi-governmental source; ii) the fact that NGOM received funds from a quasi-governmental source does not contradict their own statement that they receive no funds from government. It does, however, provide information that allows the reader to understand their statement in a broader context. Moving it from that context means that the statement adds nothing to the article. In any case, even if you do see it as critical you haven't disputed its truth and nor do you think that all criticism should go in a separate section as we already have a whole paragraph of criticism in relation to funding in the funding section. So, what are the policy grounds for rejecting the placement I have suggested?

b) and c) The fact that JAFI is mentioned somewhere else is neither here nor there. The article is not about JAFI and the reader gains nothing by us grouping together all references to JAFI in one place that ignores the context of those references. JAFI is mentioned as and when mentioning them is illuminating for a reader wanting to find out something about NGOM. JAFI is mentioned on the list of donors because it is a donor. JAFI is mentioned in the context of the Haaretz article because it was one of the organisations cited in that article. And JAFI's quasi-governmental status should be mentioned in the context of NGOM's relationship to government because that is where it is relevant to NGOM. It is not that this info is just some random background information on JAFI and if it was it would have no place in the article at all. It is information that has a natural place because it is directly relevant to one of the topics already dealt with (a topic, I should note, that you introduced into the article in the first place). If you really think all the JAFI info should be pooled into one place for purely organisational reasons then why aren't you suggesting that JAFI be pulled off the list of donors or that the Haaretz material be inserted into the list of donors? The answer is because these are clearly two different contexts and no objective is served by pulling material out of their contexts just to arbitrarily group 'everything about JAFI' in one place. The same is true with this third point - it refers to JAFI but it is about NGOM's funding in relation to government and it belongs in the place where that relation is the topic. BothHandsBlack (talk) 16:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

BHB, you write: "There is nothing inherently wrong with an organisation accepting funds from a quasi-governmental source; ii) the fact that NGOM received funds from a quasi-governmental source does not contradict their own statement that they receive no funds from government." and yet, you want to put the information in right after ngom says that they don't get gov't funding. this makes it look a lot like 'something is wrong' and/or 'contradiction' (especially when you use "however"). and since the few sentences right after that from haaretz there, talk about funding issues and specifically mentions jafi, then this fits right in. in fact, this seems to be its "most natural place" (a higher level of placement than your "natural place" :-) -- of course, i know, you will find the "supreme natural place" and then i will find the "ultimate royal natural place" and then you the "utmost acme pinnacle of a natural place if ever there was one", etc.....) Soosim (talk) 05:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

First off, I took the 'however' out a few minutes after I made the initial edit precisely because it might be thought to imply a contradiction, although 'however' can perfectly well introduce a clarification, a qualification, or the addition of pretty much any other non-confirmatory material. Regardless, it is gone so as not to imply anything too strong. The current version of the edit reads less well because the two sentences are not directly linked but it avoids a potential problem and simply juxtaposes the two pieces of information. No conclusion is drawn from the juxtaposition and it is left entirely up to the reader what they will think when the two bits of true information are viewed side by side. It is not my fault if the juxtaposition of a piece of true and verifiable information might lead some readers to think that NGOM's relationship to government is less clear cut than their own statement implies. That it is possible to form a conclusion on the basis of the data is not a reason for moving it; it is there precisely so that the reader can arrive at their own view. If you think the data is wrong or that it could be worded slightly differently, then that's a different matter but if you don't dispute the information then it is not really a problem that a reader might draw their own conclusions. Indeed, that's kind of the point and it is not our job to write the article in such a way as to ensure that NGOM's own statements are protected from independent readers forming views that might differ from those that NGOM would prefer them to form.

Now, the Haaretz piece certainly does mention JAFI but the context is not at all the same. The issue there is not relationship to government but obscurity of the chain of donors. The fact that JAFI is a quasi-governmental body is not relevant to that discussion and nor is it mentioned in the Haaretz article (as far as I can see with my appaling machine translation of the Hebrew). It just doesn't add anything to the understanding of the Haaretz stuff to introduce this non-related data. Or, if you think it does add something indispensable, please tell me what it is and we can then balance that against the value I think the statement adds in the place I have suggested. BothHandsBlack (talk) 17:03, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Thinking a little further about this, is your concern that a reader will read the two sentences and think that the implication is 'NGOM says they receive no funding from government but they do receive funding from a body that is not officially governmental but, when all is said and done, actually is'? If so, how about we add in a little more info to clarify what 'quasi-governmental' means in this context? We could, if you want, emphasise that JAFI has a board of trustees that are not members of the government (although the government has some expectations of being able to decide the members), or that the government currently has concerns that JAFI is too independent and doesn't do enough of what the government wants (as the government minister argues in the JPost article I use as a source). I would be more than happy to add something like that to make it clear that the point is not that JAFI is actually, secretly a full-on government body, so long as we can do it in a way that doesn't involve turning the sentence into a lengthy paragraph on JAFI's internal structure. BothHandsBlack (talk) 17:32, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

How about something along the lines of: 'NGO Monitor says it receives no governmental support and is currently funded by private donors and foundations. In 2010 NGO Monitor's second largest donor was the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), a private organisation (run by an independently elected Board of Governors) that has a special status in Israeli law and is widely described as a 'quasi-governmental body'.' That should alleviate any concerns that the description as 'quasi-governmental' implies 'crypto-governmental', as its private and independent status will be emphasised along with its special and quasi-governmental status. Thoughts? BothHandsBlack (talk) 18:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

What is the relevance of the second sentence to the first? Why is it placed there? What is the rationale? Jayjg ^(talk) 02:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The first sentence contains information about the relation of NGOM's funding to government. The second sentence contains information about the relation of NGOM's funding to government. The first sentence is the only place in the article where this relation is at issue, so the second sentence belongs there too as it is concerned with a related topic. BothHandsBlack (talk) 07:38, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

BHB - the haaretz piece is certainly about funding issues. and there can be no other reason other than it being an 'issue' to want to include jafi's quasi status (which again, is only quasi...). and then you write about what the reader will infer and you suggest that we give an entire explanation of what quasi is, who determines the board, etc but don't want to turn it into a jafi-focused paragraph. seems like a lot of hoops to jump through just to get your point across. and then you have your suggested text, which seems to be forcing a square peg into a round hole. not sure why you just can't say, "oh soosim, you are right. let's include it somewhere more logical rather than trying to use OR and SYNTH and whatever else we can to put it in a place where it just doesn't make sense." but alas.... Soosim (talk) 05:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

So now the issue is 'OR and SYNTH and whatever else'? Previously you said you didn't have a problem with the content. Please, just make up your mind. We are never going to resolve this unless you can show a little consistency on this front. As to my proposed solution, yes it is a lot of hoops to jump through but I only offered to jump through them in order to allay what you said your problem was, i.e. that it looked like a contradiction or criticism. If that is not now your problem, and you have no interest in avoiding that issue, then ignore that suggestion of mine and we can concentrate on whatever the real issue is. So, are you now saying that the issue is SYNTH? If so, please read up and address the comments above where SYNTH is already discussed. As to your other comments, yes the Haaretz piece is about funding issues but everything in the funding section is about funding issues. What you seem unable or unwilling to realise is that there are a range of different funding issues. One issue, that you introduced into the section, is how NGOM's funding is related to government. The Haaretz piece is not about that issue but a completely different funding issue (the obscurity of the donor chain). The sentence I'm trying to introduce re: JAFI is about the government issue. It is logical to place the two sentences that treat that same issue together. It is not logical to include it in the discussion of the Haaretz piece when the quasi-governmental status of JAFI is not mentioned in that article and is not at issue in that discussion. BothHandsBlack (talk) 07:38, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

no, you misunderstood, BHB. it is not 'now' this or that. it has always been all of them. you've admitted to what you are doing and why you are doing it. you are the one trying to create an impression of OR and SYN - not me. i have never objected to the content - there is nothing to object to. but, just the same, there is not a single RS that says what you want to say, in full. in part, yes. in full, no. you keep saying, sort of, that you want the reader to read 'ngom is x' and then 'jafi is x' and let the reader put 1+1 together. that's SYN without writing it. again, if jafi was a governmental agency, and ngom lied, then fine - let's "prove" it. but you can't prove it, so you are, by your own admission, jumping through hoops to try to prove it. just doesn't seem right. Soosim (talk) 13:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

That is not synthesis. Readers are allowed to form whatever conclusions they want. To deliberately avoid including true and verifiable information so as to prevent a reader from coming to a conclusion that you don't want them to arrive at is clearly a breach of NPOV. There is no such thing as 'Synth without writing it'. SYNTH is explicitly something that is written - it is the providing of a conclusion not supported in any source. That is not happening here. I am not claiming that JAFI is a governmental agency nor that NGOM have lied about anything so please don't ask me to provide sources for any such thing. Frankly, it is difficult to see your objections as coherent. There is no problem with the content but at the same time it is OR and SYNTH! If the content is fine then the content is fine. If you have an objection to the content then object. You can't have it both ways.BothHandsBlack (talk) 14:08, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

tl;dr You can't keep verifiable information out of wikipedia just because you don't want readers to form their own conclusions about it.BothHandsBlack (talk) 14:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

SYNTH policy can be breached by implication, but that does not mean that material from reliable sources cannot be used, even if they contradict each other. However, I don't think these things contradict each other. If I understand correctly, one claim is that they recieve no govt funding, and the other sources combine to say that they recieve funding from a quasi-governmental source, is that correct? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 16:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

That's correct. I stand corrected on synth by implication but presumably that involves phrasing things in such a way that the reader is somehow led to a particular conclusion rather than just having various possible conclusions available to him when the information is presented neutrally? 16:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BothHandsBlack (talk • contribs)

Yes, but it's a fine line. You may want to combine the two sentences if possible, maybe something like:

"They recieve no direct govt funding^[cite], although they do receive some funds from JAFI, a quasi-governmental agency.^[cite][cite]

-- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 17:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I would be fine with that. If we drop the element of the current first sentence that makes it a claim by NGOM and turn it into a statement in Wikipedia's own voice then we also remove the possibility that the second part sounds like it is challenging something that is merely a claim. Putting both parts in the same voice would seem to remove any implication of conflict between the two facts and make it clear that they are complementary. Soosim? BothHandsBlack (talk) 18:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

based on what is described as follows later in the article (based on the haaretz article) "The donations from the Jewish Agency for Israel and Matan originated with unnamed donors from outside Israel," the only way to write this accurately would be: "They receive no govt funding although they do receive some funds via JAFI, a quasi-governmental agency." but, it still seems irrelevant since it is not funding that originated with the gov't. (the ol' inferred synth, etc. again?) Soosim (talk) 06:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you agreeing with or objecting to Despayre's proposal? BothHandsBlack (talk) 08:47, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

If changing 'from' to 'via' would make you happy I could live with that but it sounds like you still think something is being inferred that is not in any of the sources. If so, what is it?BothHandsBlack (talk) 08:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

what i said was that this sentence "They receive no govt funding although they do receive some funds via JAFI, a quasi-governmental agency." is accurate but irrelevant since the haaretz article (two sentences onward in the ngom article) discusses jafi funding. Soosim (talk) 09:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

So ... you're still objecting to its inclusion? Just a yes or no will do for the moment.BothHandsBlack (talk) 12:31, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

it is not a yes or no question (and you know that). the answer is no, i don't object to its inclusion, the question was where....remember? Soosim (talk) 13:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Obviously I meant do you object to it in the form suggested by Despayre? It is a simple yes or no question. Do we have more to discuss or are we done?BothHandsBlack (talk) 13:44, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

sorry - it was not obvious to me. i apologize. if that is the question, then no. you saw i gave you an amended text after that, no? and then you saw that i said it was irrelevant since the information better fits in the upcoming paragraph, no? if i wasn't clear, i apologize again. sorry. Soosim (talk) 14:50, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I said your amended text was fine. So, your objection is just that you think it fits better elsewhere? Just for clarity, have you dropped the OR and SYNTH objections or do we need to talk further about those? Quite a bit has now been said to explain why this wouldn't be SYNTH so if you do want to still pursue that line could you respond to what has been said please?BothHandsBlack (talk) 15:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, Soosim has said he has no objection to my suggested text (if he had OR or SYNTH problems with it still, I don't think he would say he had no objection), so the only thing left to discuss is the placement of the sentence. I unfortunately, I think that's sort of where it started here. Are there no other editors on your talk page to take that issue back to, or is it mainly a collaboration between you two? I don't particularly want to get involved in your article, but if no one else is there, I will read it and give you my opinion on where I think it should go, if you both think that would be helpful. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 03:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Hopefully that is correct. However, previously when Soosim has objected to 'location' rather than 'content' he has meant that the material that is currently the second half of your proposed sentence is not relevant to the first half and should be located somewhere else with it being the location rather than the content that makes it SYNTH (and he brings up SYNTH in relation to your proposal here: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ADispute_resolution_noticeboard&diff=492322679&oldid=492316108). If he is now fine with the two parts of the sentence as a whole being kept together then I'm not too fussed about where that sentence goes - it is how the elements in the sentence stand to each other that is important to me. I think it would be a bit odd to put the whole sentence (or either of its parts) in the middle of the Haaretz material, given that the Haaretz article doesn't discuss those particular points, but if that is really all that is holding us up now then I could live with it.BothHandsBlack (talk) 08:48, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

i do object to the text and showed you what i thought would be a better version of it. why are you twisting my words around and using them as answers to other questions. this is way too complicated. i gave what i thought was an acceptable sentence AND said that it is irrelevant. i also said, several and many times, that the other sentence, if used, needs to be somewhere else. period. i hope this is clear. Soosim (talk) 09:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to leave this to Despayre to unpick.BothHandsBlack (talk) 10:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Soosim, I thought when you said above that "the answer is no, i don't object to its inclusion, the question was where....remember?", that you meant you were ok with the text, and were just concerned over its placement. I think I understand now with your latest comment that I misread your meaning originally. If we can leave the relevance issue alone for a moment, because, really, that's a completely different discussion, and will probably need to take place, but solving two things at once is seldom easier than 1 at a time, we can come back to relevance, once we've settled on text (which may, in its final version, remove the relevance problem). Soosim, if I'm reading this right, I suggested

"They recieve no direct govt funding[cite], although they do receive some funds from JAFI, a quasi-governmental agency.[cite][cite]"

and you said you would prefer the text to say:

"They receive no govt funding although they do receive some funds via JAFI, a quasi-governmental agency"

because of other text already in the article, is that correct? (again, leaving aside the relevance problem for now only)

And I'll throw this out for both of you just as a possible alternate option as well, Soosim says it has to go elsewhere because of other text in the article, is it a possibility to alter that other text to avoid this problem of location? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 16:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

working backwards - the other text was brought in to try to show a funding issue with ngom. it includes the fact that jafi was used as a passthrough (from private donor to jafi to ngom). fact not denied by ngom or anyone else. and since it is exactly two sentences ahead of the place of ngom's statement that they receive no gov't funding, it makes sense to include it there. as for wording - if talking in the wiki voice, then maybe: "They receive no govt funding although they did receive some funds, in 2010, via JAFI, a quasi-governmental agency". and then, before we put it in, we have to decide where. and then, once in, we have to decide on its relevance. i love wikipedia! Soosim (talk) 16:42, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm honored to have been unintentionally conflated into this discussion. My first take is that the current structure, two sentences, "NGO Monitor says" and "Second largest donor was", does not strike me as forcing any synthetic implication. I would answer Despayre yes, the other text can be altered, because it only says "Current donors include ... The Jewish Agency for Israel" and thus is wholly redundant with the sentence that gives more detail about this. So I would simply delete "The Jewish Agency for Israel; " and use Soosim's wording ("the only way to write this accurately") to derive the rest as, "NGO Monitor receives no government funding and is currently funded by private donors and foundations, although in 2010 they received their second-largest funding via the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI),[13] a quasi-governmental agency.[14]" It would also be acceptable to keep it two sentences, "foundations. In 2010". This is a longish graf in an article with longish sections and there is no preferred "natural place", but there is a preference to eliminate clearly redundant clauses. It seems that after making an origin statement and a generic statement, a statement about the second-largest funder one year would be linked to the other specific funder statements, not the generic statement. JJB 17:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess it could be possible to alter the other text although at the moment it is a self-contained paragraph dealing solely with the controversies raised in a recent Haaretz article and those controversies don't have anything to do with the issue of how funding is related to, or independent of, government. The other reason I am wary about messing around with that paragraph too much is because the primary source is in Hebrew only and I have not had sight of a decent English translation, so it would be difficult to accurately balance the content of that article with the content of other sources. In any case, I would, in principle, be happy to go along with something like that with your proposed sentence as revised by Soosim. My issue is with relative rather than absolute placing in that I don't really mind where the two statements that we have combined go as long as they go together. It is only when they are split up that placing is really an issue for me as I think the second should go wherever the first is.

Here is the current content for the whole of the 'Funding' section:

"NGO Monitor states that it was originally funded by the Wechsler Family Foundation when it was part of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA).[12] NGO Monitor says it receives no governmental support and is currently funded by private donors and foundations. In 2010 NGO Monitor's second largest donor was the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI),[13] which is a quasi-governmental body.[14] NGO Monitor receives significant financial support from Research + Evaluation = Promoting Organizational Responsibility and Transparency (REPORT) (formerly American Friends of NGO Monitor (AFNGOM)), which provided a grant of $500,000 in 2010. Current donors include Peter Simpson, Jerusalem; Jewish Federations of North America and United Jewish Appeal; Orion Foundation; The Jewish Agency for Israel; Matan; and The Center for Jewish Community Studies (part of JCPA).[15][16] Financial reports for 2009 and 2010 are available on their website.[17]

According to a February 2012 article in Haaretz (Hebrew), an examination (of NGO Monitor's finances) reveals that "the organization sought to block the publication of one contributor and to get hundreds of thousands of Shekels from anonymous sources." The donations from the Jewish Agency for Israel and Matan originated with unnamed donors from outside Israel. Jason Edelstein, NGO Monitor's communications director, told Haaretz that "all of our financial information is fully disclosed with the Registrar for Non-Profits as required by law."[18]"

BothHandsBlack (talk) 17:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I didn't look closely at the second graf before, but it clearly describes both the criticism and the self-reflection in an individual well-balanced case. Further, it presumes knowledge both of JAFI being a large sponsor and of Matan. Thus it is fitting to keep as a separate graf after both are mentioned in the prior graf, and it would not do to move JAFI to later in the first graf (because of the structure of that source being a list) or to the second graf (because it would give undue weight to JAFI as opposed to Matan). Generically on this article, of course, there should not be praise and criticism sections but they should both be enfolded to other (perhaps new) sections. JJB 17:19, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Apologies to JJB, I meant to type "BHB" in my edit summary, guess my fingers were on auto-pilot. However, I have no objection at all to your input anyway. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 22:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Soosim, I read your answer, but I'm not sure you answered my question. I understand that you have several issues with the text, I am trying to deal with them one at a time, and you are throwing up multiple issues. If you could limit yourself to just the one issue at a time, I don't mind going through every issue with you, just not all at once. Are you now saying you think the text should/could read:

"They receive no govt funding although they did receive some funds, in 2010, via JAFI, a quasi-governmental agency."

? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 22:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Note to BHB, having a source in Hebrew is no problem, the source does not need to be in english. We have many Wikipedians on standby just waiting to verify sources in other languages. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 22:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

ok, thought it over. ok, let's try it, BUT, i then want to discuss the other pieces i mentioned above. ok? Soosim (talk) 06:26, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that the wording I proposed above is ok, and we can start looking at your other concerns about it now? The two concerns I see, are placement and relevance? Do you still have a SYNTH objection as well? Can we start on just placement next? And if so, assuming we get through all of everyone's objections, what is your #1 choice for this sentence, as in, where do you think it fits best, and why? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 06:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

so, if this sentence is used, as is, i would think it be best in paragraph 2 of the funding section. that paragraph discusses issues/criticism, etc. since (unless you disagree) this sentence is clearly trying to show (that is the synth part) that there is an issue with ngom's statement that they receive no gov't funding. keep neutral facts in paragraph 1, issues/concerns/criticisms in paragraph 2. Soosim (talk) 06:06, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so I just went and read the article, and when I read it, this is how I see it. The first paragraph is about who gave them money, that's all. The second paragraph is about a magazine article from Haaretz that says there was something odd. The quasi-funding sentence is neither odd, nor in the Haaretz article as far as I know, so it should not go in that paragraph. The first paragraph is about who supplied funds. That does seem like the right place for this sentence.

Having said that, I thought we might be able to give the article a little bit better flow, the text seemed a little choppy, so I dusted off my copyeditor's hat, and re-wrote both paragraphs with some very minor tweaking. I have no interest in messing with your article, so I created a section in my sandbox, you can see it here. The only thing I'm not 100% happy with is that there is a lot of information in that first paragraph, and if something is supposed to be standing out, because of the density of info in that paragraph, nothing does. But I think that problem is smaller than trying to apply that quasi-funding sentence into a paragraph that is otherwise completely about coverage from an unrelated magazine article. Thoughts, opinions? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 11:04, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Good call on the flow of those paragraphs - readability has taken a bit of a back seat to the addition of lots of extra info. Your suggestions look great to me with one reservation - the first clause of the second sentence should not, I think, connect the statement about not receiving any government funding to the separation from JCPA. As far as I'm aware, that statement on their website is presented in a way that is not contextually dependent. As for the placing issue, I'm in full agreement with both yourself and JJB so we need to chew through Soosim's objections, whatever those may be. This conversation started 29 days ago now, so a few more shouldn't hurt. BothHandsBlack (talk) 11:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

wow - desp - thanks. a few comments (of course). a) as i understand their website and the website of REPORT, they still receive funding from wechsler. b) they did more than separate - they became their own financially and administratively distinct organization in 2007, c) you have JAFI twice in the first paragraph - no need, i think, d) maybe i missed it, but where did the "which includes information about all donations above NIS 20,000 (approximately US$5,200)" come from?. so, can you edit in these? and then let's look at it. Soosim (talk) 12:07, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

d) is correct. They only have to record donations above a certain size. Re: c) there is absolutely nothing wrong with mentioning the same organisation twice in one paragraph. Doing so breaches no known rules of presentation or organisation. Re: b) that is what 'separated' means. BothHandsBlack (talk) 12:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I"ll take those comments to mean you're both generally ok with my sandbox version (with all the exceptions noted above) (of course, I could be wrong, "wow" could also have meant, "what the hell do you think you're doing?!) . So lets see if we can tweak a little more and keep the readability.

BHB - Did they receive funding from govt when they were part of JCPA, does JCPA recieve government funding?

Soosim - a) so we should add Weschler as as funding source as well? (do we have a source for that?) Also, CJCS is listed as an other donor, with a notation that it's part of JCPA, does that cover that, or do we need to add Weschler again specifically? (I've added it for now either way)

b) I think separation means the same thing as administratively distinct organization, but I'll see if I can come up with something clearer (and thanks for the year)

c) Oops, that's what I get for editing late at night. It makes sense to remove the second JAFI, since the sentence starts with "Other donors include...".

d) I read it in the financial report from the website, and then, as per WP:MOSNUM, gave a rough conversion rate with "what is 20000 NIS in USD?" pasted into google( it's great for stuff like that, it will actually go find the conversion rate and do the math for you if you know how to ask it!)

How does that look to the both of you now? (sandbox is still here) -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 16:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Additionally, looking at it, I don't know who "Peter Simpson of Jerusalem" is, but unless he's a well known figure for some relevant reason, I don't know that we have to include a private citizen in our wikipedia article just because we have the information to do it. Any objection to removing him from the list of donors? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 19:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Looking again at the draft, I'm a little concerned that we will end up adding in connections to improve the flow that will actually confuse the 'time signatures', as it were, of the various things being reported. As I see it, the first paragraph falls into two parts and we should be wary about trying to elide those parts, even when there is some overlap in content. The first few sentences convey information that is generally significant to NGOM's funding and that does not have its significance bound to particular times even if the events being reported are. The second part of the paragraph, however, is entirely dependent on the specific set of accounts for 2010 and simply lists all the major donors given in the document. When the 2011 accounts come out we will want to simply replace this list with the more up to date one whilst retaining the general comments with which the paragraph begins. So, we can think of the paragraph as broken down into general issues (funding history and affiliations; relationship of funding to government) and current issues (most recent published list of donors). The easiest thing to do is, I think, to treat the two parts as modular and not try to run them into one another or be overly concerned if there is some minimal information redundancy.

Now, within the first section, I think we need to separate out the JCPA stuff from the government funding stuff. I can't quite remember whether JCPA receive any government funds but NGOM's own statement about not receiving such is not tied in any way to the separation from JCPA; it is presented in absolute terms and is most naturally read as applying across the whole history of NGOM, so I think we want to avoid linking it to any particular events. Another connection I think we want to avoid making is the move from the JAFI information to 'other significant donors include ...'. This certainly does read better but by trying to bring the sentences together we confuse the temporal issues. The government funding sentence should be broadly atemporal, in that the contents of the sentence will remain relevant whoever the current donors are, but it contains two different elements: 1) NGOM's own open-ended statement about government funding, and 2) the time-specific statement about JAFI (which will continue to be relevant in the future but refers to a specific time). Reconciling these two elements in a single sentence is not too problematic but if we link it directly to the next sentence 'Other ...' then we are bringing the info about REPORT into the same framework when it does not really belong there. The info about REPORT is information about an ongoing funding programme but in the context of a list of current donors, so it already has its own slightly different reconciliation going on. The link into the following sentence 'more recent donors include ...' is also a bit problematic as those donors are contemporaneous with REPORT's donation but are confined to a discrete single year, so they are not 'more recent' than REPORT (unless what is meant is 'more' in a quantitative sense 'more of the recent donors', rather than 'donors that are more recent'). Basically, what I'm suggesting is that smooth links between the various elements in the paragraph are not necessarily helpful if they force connections on us that do not accurately represent the connections between the different bits of data. The current version avoids this problem by not really connecting the sentences together, which is not a great approach, but if we are going to make connections then they need to be precise and only connect the right pieces of material.

My suggestion, then, would be to keep the two parts of the paragraph seperate and not try to connect the two. Treat the first part as a set of general framing sentences, which can be connected together but probably should not be associated with temporal connections due to the lack of a linear timeline running across the various statements. Treat the material from REPORT onwards just as a reflection of the donors listed in NGOM's own report (including Peter Simpson - whilst he may not be notable it would be odd to exclude him if we are listing every other donor that appears in their accounts). If the two are kept separate then there can be a little temporal variation in each part (such as adding the general info about REPORT in the second part) without there being any need to reconcile the variations across the two parts. It doesn't matter whether JAFI is mentioned once or twice but my preference is to keep it in the list as distinct from the earlier reference. If it turns out that JAFI was also a donor in 2011, we will have to mention it twice as the first mention, in the context of 2010, won't be able to stand in for the current 2011 donor list mention, so, as I see it, it is only coincidental that there happens to be a correspondance at the moment.

Apologies for taking so long to make what is really a trivial point. I don't actually think this stuff matters terribly one way or the other and certainly don't want to hold up the editing on any of these grounds. BothHandsBlack (talk) 10:13, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

desp - "wow" was a good one. thanks for understanding it that way. ngo monitor is only independent since 2007 so prior funding of their then-parent body might not be relevant (and i don't know if the jcpa received gov't funding or not. but it is really picayune, i think, and we might as well say then that dore gold, founder of jcpa, is a former israeli gov't employee - ambassador to the US, etc.)

wechsler - on second thought, it might also be a reach and OR since wechsler now gives to REPORT and REPORT gives to ngom. does that mean that wechsler gives to ngom? hmmmm..... and yes, who is peter simpson? clearly not important in wikiland. (unless he is one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Simpson )

and not sure why we need to mention what amount is required by israeli law to report. just seems to complicate it, no?

and lastly, BHB - sorry, but i got lost reading your comments. maybe just write the 3-4 sentences as you think they can/should be, and then we can see it, rather than trying to guess what you really mean from the paragraphs above? thanks. Soosim (talk) 06:56, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it was probably not very clear :-). The tl;dr is a) try to be careful with words that signify time sequences, but b) I'm not too fussed really and am happy to go along with whatever on the copy editing front, although I do think we should leave Peter Simpson on the list as it would be odd if he was the only person they mention in their accounts that we don't provide details for. BothHandsBlack (talk) 07:41, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

It makes no difference to me, the only reason I suggested removing Peter Simpson was that he is the only individual on the list, all others are companies. Seems like a little bit more of a privacy concern, but I'm not worried about him either way, was only a suggestion.

BHB - Did they receive funding from govt when they were part of JCPA, does JCPA recieve government funding?

-- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 17:32, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Must have got lost in my long ramble above but quoting from there: '[w]ithin the first section, I think we need to separate out the JCPA stuff from the government funding stuff. I can't quite remember whether JCPA receive any government funds but NGOM's own statement about not receiving such is not tied in any way to the separation from JCPA; it is presented in absolute terms and is most naturally read as applying across the whole history of NGOM, so I think we want to avoid linking it to any particular events.' BothHandsBlack (talk) 07:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

As to whether NGOM received any funding from quasi-governmental sources when part of the JCPA, we can't know. In fact, I'm not sure we can know anything about their funding with particular precision, other than from their own general statements, before 2009 as this was when they started making their accounts public. BothHandsBlack (talk) 10:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

BHB - just fyi, if i understand it correctly, ngom became an independent non-profit in 2007. their first official filing financial data, as required by law, would've been for tax year 2008 (and the partial year of 2007). the 2008 information would only be filed in 2009, so yes, that is when they started to make it public since that was the first one. Soosim (talk) 11:45, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, and contrary to what I thought, the 2009 accounts cover two calendar years, both 2008-2009 (see the auditor's statement at the start of the report) and must have been submitted in 2010 as they run to the 31st of December 2009. However, whilst the balance sheets and the total value of donations in 2008 is recorded, the 2008 donors are not. In any case, the only donor for 2009 was the Centre for Jewish Community Studies, which is a part of the JCPA, so I don't think we can really say that NGOM was financially independent until 2010 (in the lead we just say 'financially distinct', which is still fine as administrative distinctness does not imply financial independence). It might, of course, be the case that CJCS was used to obscure the real donors and are just a channel here but this isn't something we can know. One other point worth noting is that they do appear to have filed accounts for 2008 but that these were faulty (on technical grounds rather than anything serious). The 2009 report talks about restating and correcting the 2008 figures so they must have been published before and there may be a donor list on that document if it can be found (I suspect they don't provide it on their site because of the error that was made). However, a wild guess would be that the donor list there would be about as informative as the donor list for the 2009 accounts, although it is possible that they broadened their funding base in 2008 and then reverted in 2009 to being funded entirely by JCPA again. BothHandsBlack (talk) 12:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Looking again at the 2010 report, they also continued to receive funding from CJCS/JCPA in that year as well. I have a feeling this is why we settled on 'financially distinct' in the lead.BothHandsBlack (talk) 12:37, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

BHB, just going back to the one issue of govt funding here for a moment. You just said the same thing I thought, which was "whether NGOM received any funding from quasi-governmental sources when part of the JCPA, we can't know". Therefore, we can only know about *since* they separated. Which makes the temporal flow correct doesn't it? We should not make *any* assumptions about the time we don't know anything, but we *can* say they haven't recieved funding since they separated because we have a source for that. Am I missing something here? Did they make that statement before they left JCPA? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 16:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

So, the suggested sentence is: 'Since its separation from JCPA, and formation as an independent organization in 2007, NGO Monitor has said it receives no governmental support and is currently funded by private donors and foundations, although they did receive some funds, in 2010, via The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), a quasi-governmental agency.' Taking your last comment into account, we can read this as saying that 'Since its separation ... NGOM has said ...' which I guess is right, taking the temporal sequence to apply to what has been said, although I don't know what they said before. However, the meaning I got from the sentence previously was 'Since its separation ... it receives no governmental support ...', taking the temporal sequence to refer to the funding that they received with 'since' being used to contrast two time periods with respect to funding (in the way we would use it if we wanted to say 'NGOM received government funding when they were part of JCPA but since they separated they do not'). My point is that we get into tricky ground by implying any contrast between before and after, as we don't know the situation before the separation. Whilst I understand the desire to combine bits of information to improve the flow of the writing, in this case it looks to me as though we are combining two bits of information that do not illuminate each other, yet we are doing so in a way that suggests an unnecessary relation between the two pieces of info. As we have no reason to believe the situation was any different before the split I would prefer to keep the JCPA bit distinct from the funding comments. How about this:

NGO Monitor has stated that originally, when it was part of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), it was funded by the Wechsler Family Foundation.[12] Since its separation from JCPA, and formation as an independent organization in 2007, NGO Monitor has drawn on a wider range of funding sources. NGO Monitor has said it receives no governmental support and is currently funded by private donors and foundations, although they did receive some funds, in 2010, via The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), a quasi-governmental agency.

This is a bit less elegant but the material on the separation from JCPA really, I think, goes with the first sentence rather than the material on government funding. Unfortunately, I can't work out a way of getting it into the first sentence without making that sentence ungainly but an additional intermediate sentence seems preferable to bringing it together with the unrelated material that follows. In any case, feel free to move on from this point as I'm not so concerned about this issue as to wish to hold up progress. BothHandsBlack (talk) 17:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

when ngom was part of jcpa,i assume that all their funding was from the jcpa pot. hard to know - even if jcpa rec'd gov't funding, whether ngom did or not. they were a "wholly owned subsidiary" of jcpa, for better or worse. my guess is that they split (or at least one of the reasons) is so that they could indeed be financially independent of jcpa. i just checked the wayback machine, and it seems clear that ngom was just a piece of jcpa, with dore gold listed as an executive staff member. Soosim (talk) 16:44, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I think your assumptions about their early funding are very plausible and this is why I want to avoid any hint of a contrast between their current relationship to government funding (i.e. none) and an earlier relationship, as we have no reason to think that things were different before.BothHandsBlack (talk) 17:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thomas Sowell

• Thomas Sowell (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The main argument is whether sources by Media Matters should be included as criticism and to some extent the conduct of certain users. For reference, this was the final version before being reverted:

Sowell has been criticized for various remarks such as a comparison he made between President Barack Obama and Adolf Hitler in an editorial for Investor's Business Daily after the creation of a relief fund for the BP oil spill. This has been criticized by liberal groups such as Media Mattersand the Democratic National Committee. However, Republicans such as Sarah Palin and Representative Louie Gohmert have endorsed Sowell's comparison.

Sowell was also criticized for an editorial in which he stated that the Democratic Party played the Race card, instigating ethnic divisions and separatism, and argued that a similar situation occurred between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Rwanda.

(Removal of Media Matters)

The editors' justifications for why it shouldn't be included are based on a violation of WP:POV or are just soapboxing as can be seen in their defenses:

• Chris Chittleborough

(Diff: 1, 2 and recently again: 3 and 4 (scroll down))

• PokeHomsar

(Diffs: 1 See also other examples of soapboxing: 2 and 3)

The POV defenses taken together are claimed to amount to a consensus. The issues are whether or not:

1. These defenses for excluding Media Matters have any validity
2. These (in my opinion) non-valid defenses can amount to a consensus
3. Media Matters is a valid source given it's context and criticism.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• CartoonDiablo (talk · contribs)
• Chris Chittleborough (talk · contribs)
• CWenger (talk · contribs)
• PokeHomsar (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Thomas Sowell}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

This was also discussed elsewhere:

• NPOV noticeboard attempt
• Declined Arbitration attempt

• How do you think we can help?

Resolving whether or not:

1. These defenses for excluding Media Matters have any validity
2. These (in my opinion) non-valid defenses can amount to a consensus
3. Media Matters is a valid source given it's context and criticism.

CartoonDiablo (talk) 23:13, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thomas Sowell discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

• Why is this here instead of at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard? The only dispute I see here is whether Media Matters is a reliable source for the purpose adding cited material to the critical reception section of the Thomas Sowell article. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:11, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I figured there were other problems such as consensus and user behavior (ie soapboxing) which warrants a wider discussion than reliable sources. CartoonDiablo (talk) 00:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, makes sense. Here is my first impression from looking at the diffs you provided:

First, I really don't see any soapboxing, just a spirited debate about Media Matters.

The consensus issue is far more interesting to me. Let's assume for the sake of argument that a group of editors "takes over" a page and enforces their POV through consensus. (not saying that this is or isn't the case here; I am talking about the larger issue). Certainly we have seen a lot of accusations of this on various pages. As I understand it, the proper way to deal with this starts with asking for outside opinions through RfCs noticeboards, and in extreme cases ArbCom. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Well I'd consider calling Media Matters a propaganda hate site comparable to a KKK newsletter as the reason for excluding it be more than just spirited debate but I suppose that can explored later.

Regarding consensus, that's exactly what I tried to do with the NPOV noticeboard. The result of which was all the users ignored the outside opinion and reinforced claims of census (their opinion evidently outnumbered the outside opinion). This is also why I wanted to make this about user behavior as well. From what I can tell, it's not so much a group of editors "taking over" so much as almost all the editors hold the same beliefs and use those to justify POV exclusions of criticism. For instance, I don't think the reasoning that Media Matters is comparable to a KKK newsletter is anything other than POV exclusion but it's justified on account of most people allowing it.

I think it's also worth noting that since Media Matters was noteworthy criticism of a noteworthy event, as an arbitrator pointed out, "when a notable entity criticizes another notable entity, and that is widely reported in RS'es, to NOT include it would be an NPOV issue" even excluding the blatant POV reasoning.

CartoonDiablo (talk) 05:58, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Note: I am still undecided about this specific question; I am still talking about generally applicable principles. OK, let's assume for the sake of argument that that this is notable entity criticizing another notable entity. Is that enough? I don't think it is. It is clear from reading Media Matters for America that they strive to criticize all conservative talk shows, newspaper columns, etc. Even if Media Matters is notable, that does not mean that all of those hundreds and hundreds of criticisms are notable. That, I believe, is why the arbitrator added "and that is widely reported in RS'es". Has anyone showed any citations that show multiple reliable sources reporting on Media Matters criticizing Thomas Sowell? I haven't read the entire page history, but none of the diffs above establish this. If there are cites to RS's establishing that Media Matters criticizing Thomas Sowell was widely reported, then it should be retained. If not, it should not be retained. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, criticisms that appear in multiple RS's are prima facie acceptable in a BLP, whether MMfA is involved or not. For instance, I retained a report about the Democratic National Committee criticizing Sowell.

BTW, my comparison of MMfA to the KKK was not "the reason for excluding" MMfA; I argue for that on the basis of core Wikipedia policies.

I started a discussion at "Talk:Thomas Sowell#Media Matters, again", which now has more information and links to related discussions. CartoonDiablo, I'm disappointed that you have not made any comments on this talk page for nearly a year, especially when adding a {{neutrality}} tag. Cheers, CWC 08:00, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point but my general sentiment is that even in cases without a second party RS, the noteworthyness of the event would allow us to use it, after all, what's the difference between citing the DNC and Media Matters? With regard to RSs being removed, my edits citing the Washington Monthly were also removed for similar reasons as the Media Matters removal

• (diff)

that's why I think almost all of this is just POV exclusion which is justified under consensus.

And CWC, me not making comments is somewhat disingenuous considering the only person that's party to this conflict that has made any comments within the past year is yourself and I don't think anyone disagrees there is a neutrality dispute. I think it's obvious the fact that we're in dispute resolution shows that a year of discussion on the page didn't accomplish much. CartoonDiablo (talk) 12:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Please hold that thought about the Washington Monthly. I do want to examine it, but I want to figure out the Media Matters situation first. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:11, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I do not think Media Matters is a reliable source. Their sole mission is to advance the progressive viewpoint by discrediting the conservative one (this is a paraphrase of their own mission statement.) PokeHomsar (talk) 17:43, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Also again this is a slight digression but even if the Media Matters source is ruled to be valid, how would that be "enforced" for lack of a better word. All the editors can just claim consensus and ignore the advice here as they did previously. CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:35, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

One thing at a time. Consensus does not trump policy. If editors are not following policy -- even if they have a consensus to do so - bring that up on the appropriate noticeboard as a separate issue after the question we are discussing has been resolved. --Guy Macon (talk)

The mission of Media Matters would only indicate a bias, all sources have some kind of bias. What's relevant is if they have a signficant viewpoint that should be in the article or not. That doesn't mean that anything they say should be taken as gospel either, but having a bias is not a reason to rule them out. Otherwise, how could we have articles about extreme viewpoint organisations at all (any opposing views to the KKK could be stricken as biased for example)? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 14:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not complaining that they're biased, I'm complaining that they are maliciously deceptive, based on the fact that every MMfA item I've read was malicious and deceptive, if not outright dishonest. A proper cite to a MMfA about a conservative will almost always introduce a lie into the article via their headline. Examples available on request ... so many examples. (You also have to be careful about their antisemitism.) CWC 16:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

My comment was in reference to Pokehomsar's, just above. I have not reviewed MMfA, but if it's a reliable source question, you should take it to RSN I would think. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 17:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I think this dispute will end up at RSN and BLPN, but I prefer to limit discussion to one board at a time, so lets see what happens here first. Cheers, CWC 14:54, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

After looking at a number of examples, in my opinion Media Matters should be rejected as a reliable source. There are too many things that they claim that appear to be blatantly untrue (no citation or unreliable source, other reliable sources tell a completely different story) We should look at any claims made by MM, find them in other, more reliable sources, and use those sources. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC) Struck out because I find Debbie W's argument below compelling. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:47, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Rejected Arbcom request is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case&oldid=491822760#Thomas_Sowell --Guy Macon (talk) 19:27, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

• Acceptible Use MMfA is clearly an organization with a political slant. However, that does not mean that their opinion cannot be quoted in a Wikipedia article. Political-based articles routinely cite sources which have a political stance (e.g., NRA, PETA, NAACP). There have been at least 25 reliable source discussions about MMfA, and the general conclusion of the RS forums is that the organization cannot be used as a source of news, but that their opinion can be cited. The text cited above makes it clear that MMfA is a liberal organization, and that the comment in question is their opinion. The actual article comparing Obama's actions to Hitler's is referenced in Investor's Business Daily, which is a reliable source of news, and the paragraph also gives the opinion of two people supporting Sowell's publication of the article, thus ensuring the commentary is NPOV. Based on this, inclusion of MMfA is acceptible. Debbie W. 03:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comments about consensus Based on the article's talk page, the biggest problem that I see is a misunderstanding of consensus by both sides of the debate. I saw a number of comments on the talk page about consensus that were wrong. A few things about Wikipedia and consensus: (1) Consensus cannot trump Wikipedia policy; (2) Consensus regarding a particular topic cannot be determined by one of the participants of the discussion -- a neutral third party is needed; (3) Consensus can change over time -- a consensus from a year ago can be changed; (4) Wikipedia's "Don't revert solely due to non-consensus" disallows the use of "no consensus" as grounds for preventing change to an article. Debbie W. 03:38, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Propaganda model

• Propaganda model (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

This is mainly regarding user Acadēmica Orientālis for possible derailment and violations of user conduct which are related to a content dispute.

In creating a criticism section for the article this was his result:

(diff)

For obvious reasons, this is a violation of WP:Weight and uses blatantly WP:NPOV language like "force-feed right-wing views."

Acadēmica has since wanted to restore the section and has been completely unwilling to acknowledge editors' explanations, if not being disruptive, and continues to ask or assert the same points despite me and another editor pointing out why it's not the case.

I'm actually not too sure if this would belong here or in Incidents but I chose here because there is no overt vandalism and it relates to content.

Asking why the content was removed

One of the key methods is repeatedly asking why the content was removed despite me and ThePowerofX answering multiple times (sometimes mixed with other questions). Here are diffs for each time ThePowerofX and I answered:

• diff - "it amounts to massive undue weight...The underling points are used, not every single point of criticism made."
• diff - "as I've said over and over" (per WP:Weight)
• diff - "I hope it's clear the material was deleted based on only using the main points" (per WP:Weight)
• diff - (ThePowerofX) "The Eli Lehrer section is lengthy for one individual." (per WP:Weight)
• diff - "that's why we use general bullets." (per WP:Weight)
• diff - "for reasons of WP:Weight we only use the main points"

Also notice in the last diff, Acadēmica contradictorily asserts that he is not asking the same question but that I am answering it differently each time and then proceeds to cover it up (diff). Even after I point this out, Acadēmica is unwilling to address it (diff).

Asserting evidence by the authors counts as bias

Another odd feature has been Acadēmica repeatedly asserting that evidence provided by the authors for the model counts as POV bias despite continual explanations by me and another editor.

Here are the diffs, some of them mine, some of them by ThePowerofX and some of them mixed with questions in the previous diffs.

• diff - "I wouldn't exactly call listing the claims...to be "supporting" it"
• diff - "Those examples are the main ones given by the authors"
• diff - "the fact that criticism section is smaller than the non-criticism sections does not mean the article is "supporting" it"
• diff - (ThePowerofX) "What you erroneously describe as "pro-model material" is neutral, descriptive content."
• diff - "WP:NPOV doesn't say anything about non-criticism sections as being NPOV "support" for the article"
• diff - "The book provides various case examples."
• diff - "There is no wikipedia policy whereby cases are "support" for the article"
• diff - (ThePowerofX) "No, the book Manufacturing Consent provides these examples"

Random hostility

As well there is random unwarranted hostility for seemingly neutral topics:

• (diff)

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• CartoonDiablo (talk · contribs)
• ThePowerofX (talk · contribs)
• Acadēmica Orientālis (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Propaganda model}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Discussed it on the talk page as well as the user's talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

1. Saying whether or the edit was a violation of WP:Weight and WP:NPOV
2. By telling Acadēmica Orientālis to stop disrupting the talk page and if necessary to take on sanctions.

CartoonDiablo (talk) 23:09, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Propaganda model discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

The issue is whether to include some sourced criticism or not: [55]. CartoonDiablo, a self-described "fan of Noam Chomsky" [56], wants to almost completely exclude it. As reasons he has given reasons such that he personally thinks the criticisms are incorrect or "minor points" or are supposedly contradicted by the authors of the model somewhere in their books without giving any verifiable source with page numbers for these claims. Arguably none of these are valid reasons for removing sourced criticisms. The other main reason given is that the material is too long which is a strange reason when most the rest of the article contains extensive pro-model arguments. This claim becomes absurd when after only keeping a small straw-man paragraph of the original criticism he added a longer pro-model paragraph making the article bias and amount of pro-material ever greater.[57] More generally, see the talk page discussion: [58]. He has also removed a disputed template despite there being an ongoing dispute: [59]. Finally, he has not responded to my proposal to move the disputed material to The Anti-Chomsky Reader article while only keeping a small link in the Propaganda Model article.[60] Academica Orientalis (talk) 05:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

This response is another perfect example of the issues that I'm talking about (ignoring the six counts of us explaining why it's a violation of WP:Weight and eight counts of us explaining why the author's arguments do not constitute bias or "pro-model" material). If another user could comment on the matter it would be appreciated.

With regard to the proposal, I did not reply because neither I nor most of the editors of the Propaganda Model article have either the knowledge nor interest in editing the Anti-Chomsky Reader article. That is up to their editors as the Propaganda Model is scarcely related. CartoonDiablo (talk) 22:05, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

My reccomendation is to keep the criticism section, but be careful and use a neutral description to avoid WP:POV language in the future. The criticism section right now seems OK.--Justice and Arbitration (talk) 11:31, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Osteopathic Medicine in the United States

• Osteopathic Medicine in the United States (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

User Hopping (I have informed him that I am notifying DRN) has been attempting to engage me in an edit war on this page by reverting my edits for inadequate reasons and continues to do so. He has stated that his reason for the reversion of my edits originally for "style" and "clarity" with no explanation how his edits added to clarity and then cited an old, unresolved discussion that only partially relates to my edits as the basis for his reversions. I sought out help on the live wikipedia help site and was informed by volunteers there more familiar with wikipedia policy that his reversions were not based on sound reasoning and should be, as I suggested to him numerous times, done after the discussion over nomenclature has been made public to the talk page and a consensus reached. However, he continued to make these revisions immediately after moving our conversation on his talk page to the talk page (there was miscommunication) obviously not leaving time for outside comments on the nomenclature issues and continues to make these revisions despite my calls for allowing for the discussion to occur first. I have already assured him that should the majority opinion, once a wide variety of opinions are obtained to ensure a representative opinion of the community, that I would not object to his reversions. However, since the discussion he refers to took place on a DRN that was not binding and is only partially relevant to my edits, and new opinions have since weighed in on the issue since the old discussion adding support for the opinion that had less support.TylerDurden8823 (talk) 00:59, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Hopping (talk · contribs)
• TylerDurden8823 (talk · contribs)

I have seen that this user has a history of conflict of interest and often does not directly respond to the content of what I say to him but evades instead. Furthermore, I have seen other users bring up the very issue that Hopping argued against in the previously mentioned old discussion (and he is still arguing against it) in terms of nomenclature and I have seen comments from users talking to him on his own page that confirm what he views as "clarity", may in fact confuse users based on what he favors. I can provide evidence of these events if necessary.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Osteopathic Medicine in the United States}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

I have spoken to this user numerous times on his talk page and the article's talk page attempting to engage in discussion and have him allow for other users to participate in the discussion before taking an immediate course of action when none is warranted but he persists in making these reversions and evading the content of what I say to him.

• How do you think we can help?

Please inform this user of the importance of allowing for a full discussion to take place on the talk page before taking any decisive action and reverting my comments and to actually engage in a constructive conversation with me when I openly communicate with him that I wish to avoid an edit war, to address the content of my arguments, and to make sure his reversions or edits are accurate (the reversion of my edits are inaccurate since some of my edits do not pertain to what he is claiming should be corrected).

TylerDurden8823 (talk) 00:59, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Osteopathic Medicine in the United States discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

There's an open sock puppetry case that's relevant: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DoctorK88. Bryan Hopping^T 03:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Exactly which page is in dispute and where have you discussed the dispute?Curb Chain (talk) 04:12, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

An erroneous claim with malicious intent. I have explained at length on administrator AGK's page. Also, if you go to the help desk you will see him attempting to "poke the bear" a behavior I did not realize had a name on wikipedia. Also, irrelevant to the validity of the claims I have made from a logical standpoint. The fact remains that Hopping's reversions were misguided, he evaded what I said, and his reversions were based on an old, unresolved dispute and a still open Rfc that only partially pertains to my edits and not others. He refuses to allow the discussion on the talk page to pan out before making the final decision of reverting my edits (which are not incorrect but just in his opinion "unnecessary and unclear" though users on his own talk page have expressed to him the exact opposite, that his way is unclear. I made it completely clear that if the talk page discussion decided that my edits were not good ones then I would not object to their reversion. He has been most uncooperative and I view his sockpuppetry actions as that of a personal attack. He has also been following my discussions where I talk on other pages as well for no good reason when I seek outside help. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 04:54, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Hopping was also advised to read WP:Hounding implying that his behavior was wikihounding. This can be seen here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#Contact_if_someone_purposely_and_erroneously_accuses_you_of_sockpuppetry.3F TylerDurden8823 (talk) 05:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

CurbChain, the article with the dispute is the talk page of this article. It has been discussed a bit here, initially on on Hopping's talk page and my own: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathic_medicine_in_the_United_States TylerDurden8823 (talk) 15:23, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

So, the sockpuppetry case that Hopping brought against me is now closed to update you Curbchain. What is the next step from here?TylerDurden8823 (talk) 05:38, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The next step in the dispute resolution would be an attempt by me to resolve the dispute here [61], and your (hostile) response here [62]. Bryan Hopping ^T 15:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Just because I refuse to work with you on the talk page of that article any longer does not make me hostile, Hopping, though you do seem to enjoy throwing that word around. I refuse to work with you any longer on that page because of your unacceptable behavior which I have already said. You insisted on conducting yourself in a harassing manner and instead of holding a discussion with me tried to ask the other parent The actual issue is whether or not you should be making the reversions before the community weighs in on this still open discussion. You have been inconsistent in your willingness to work with me. Half the time you ignore the issues I bring up entirely or evade my responses, or simply talk about something else and hurl accusations and personal attacks my way and the other half of the time you seem like you're almost willing to hold a meaningful, constructive conversation but this inconsistency is not okay. Regardless, I am here to discuss with Curbchain the concept of not making reversions to edits that are not "factually wrong" but just your own opinion while this discussion remains open via the open Rfc and a previous DRN discussion which was not binding and only partially pertained to my edits.TylerDurden8823 (talk) 05:18, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Seamus incident

• Seamus incident (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

There is a severe edit war regarding the inclusion of a quote by Jim Treacher that defends Mitt Romney's treatment of his dog Seamus by noting the Barack Obama once ate dogmeat: "Say what you want about Romney, but at least he only put a dog on the roof of his car, not the roof of his mouth." I have stayed out of this debate, but it has resulted in daily edit war which have made any editting of this article difficult. From May 3rd to May 7th, this article was under full protection because of edit warring largely revolving around similiar material that discussed Obama's consumption of dogmeat. The supporters of the quote have stated it is relevant to the Seamus incident article because Treacher is defending Romney against allegations of animal cruelty by comparing it to Obama's past behavior, and that the non-inclusion of the quote is an NPOV violation. Some supporters also note that some news stories treat the Seamus story and the dogmeat story together. Opponents of the quote state that Obama's consumption of dogmeat as a child is not relevant to the Seamus incident, and it creates a BLP violation or coatrack that attacks Obama in an article that's not about him. Several opponents also have stated that a recent AfD (WP:Articles for deletion/Obama Eats Dogs) deleted an article about Obama eating dogs, and that inclusion of this material would violate the AfD's decision, which was to delete the article, and not merge it with the Seamus article.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs)
• Arzel (talk · contribs)
• William Jockusch (talk · contribs)
• Dwainwr123 (talk · contribs)
• Saedon (talk · contribs)
• BDD (talk · contribs) 

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Seamus incident}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

There have been at least 8 discussion threads at Talk:Seamus incident about Obama's consumption of dogmeat. None have come close to a obtaining any consensus.

• How do you think we can help?

(1) Evaluate editors' interpretation of Wikipedia policies regarding this material to see their claims are valid; (2) Reference a past article which had a similiar dispute with similiar policy issues being cited; and/or (3) Come to some form of resolution which will satisfy most of the editors.

HHIAdm (talk) 04:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Seamus incident discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Hmm. I just answered a straw poll on the talk page of the article in question; I've never edited the article itself. Better safe than sorry, I suppose. I have my opinion, and I'll answer any questions. --BDD (talk) 04:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

NPOV depends on context. As I've said on that article at length, much of the material that people are adding or removing is because it isn't included PROPERLY. Since the article has gone through 2 AfD's now, it is fairly safe, but it is still for the most part a crappily written article. Rather than just debating over including or excluding this quote, figure out how you might give a better balance of views on this Seamus story. I still haven't seen the enormous volumes of people who essentially give a "so what?" attitude to this story. It is written as a political attack piece at the moment. It has gotten better due to constant bleating from people trying to get editors to focus on improving it, but it still is pretty much stuck in the mire. Find sources, do research, balance the article, include those people who essentially say 'I could care less', which includes the PETA lady who was formerly quoted in the article as saying it was "torture". In short, don't edit war, get consensus, and don't expect that coming to the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard will change editor behavior. If someone is edit warring, politely explain why they shouldn't, and you could even ask a admin to lock the article again. The article isn't likely to go away, and most Americans don't care about the issue anyway. Just focus on getting it improved. -- Avanu (talk) 05:18, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

As a participant who strongly believes the Treacher quote should be included -- part of my concern is that the Obama Eats Dogs meme article was deleted. If the Seamus incident is fair fodder for Wikipedia, the Romney camp's side should be as well. Otherwise, you're just feeding claims of left-wing bias here. One resolution I could support would be to move this article to "2012 Presidential campaign dog wars" or something along those lines. Then include both sides. But if it's going to be "We should include the negative Romney dog story, but suppress any mention of Obama dog-eating, which is not related at all", I'm going to have a big problem with that. William Jockusch (talk) 16:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

And I want to add, the way the debate is going, consensus is never going to happen. People won't even agree that the Seamus story and the Obama dog-eating story are related, even though one reached the media because of the other, and tons of stories all over the place have treated them jointly. If we can't even reach consensus on a simple proposition like that, it is hopeless. William Jockusch (talk) 16:12, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I am opposed to the inclusion of the Jim Treacher comment for several reasons. First, I believe that it's not relevant to the Seamus incident. I think it is violates WP:coatrack to put a sentence attacking Barack Obama in an article about an incident about Mitt Romney and his dog. Wikipedia has a number of articles about political controversies (e.g., Lewinsky scandal, John McCain lobbyist controversy, Chappaquiddick incident), and none of them criticize another person's behavior as some sort of defense. For example, it would be inappropriate for the Lewinsky scandal article to have a sentence saying that Newt Gingrich also had a sex scandal during the same time period.

The other issue is the Obama Eats Dogs AfD decided that Jim Treacher's comments about Obama eating dogs was not notable, and that the article should be deleted. Many editors took part in the AfD discussion and there was extensive debate about merging the Obama Eats Dogs article into the Seamus incident article. That argument was rejected, and the AfD's decision was to delete the article, and not to merge it with another article. In the two weeks since the AfD was concluded, there has been extensive edit warring regarding attempts to include Treacher's quote into the Seamus incident article. If the Obama Eats Dogs story becomes a more prominent controversy in the future, a discussion about adding it to a Wikipedia article would be warranted. However, nothing has changed in the last two weeks regarding this issue's notability, and I believe that the AfD's decision should stand. Debbie W. 17:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem I have with the above is that it is not consistent with NPOV to include an attack on Romney that even Romney agreed had hurt him, yet simultaneously say that the counterattack that actually succeeded in diffusing the original issue is "not notable." Additionally, I have got to say I can't agree with your claim that "nothing has changed in the last two weeks" with regard to notability in light of this: William Jockusch (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

As I stated on the article talk page, I've pretty much ducked out of this article but I will comment here briefly. William's post is an example of why. We have a few editors who don't look at this as Wikipedia article but as an attack on Mitt Romney, and thus we must counter this attack on Mitt Romney by attacking Obama. I've explained on the talk page that this article is not about Obama eating dog meat as a 6 year old in Indonesia, but about Mitt Romney transporting a dog in 1983 in such a way that it attracted controversy and thus reliable sources for the topic. Yes, the article is negative because most coverage is negative, the incident itself is negative, and thus and this is to be expected, but in no way is the article an attack on Mitt Romney.

Some conservative commentators have decided that the best way to diffuse the situation is to use the Chewbacca defense, wherein rather than comment on the Seamus incident they attempt to distract gullible people into focusing on Obama instead. I can't blame them, it's obviously a good strategy as people not educated in formal logic will be unlikely to notice that it's a logical fallacy (I do doubt that said commentators are aware that they are committing a logical fallacy, and so I explain it via ignorance and not malice). However, WP as an encyclopedia should not be repeating logical fallacies simply because someone printed them. The use of an article about an incident involving Romney and a dog to discuss something Obama did as a child is a WP:COATRACK plain and simple; we need to use logic and WP:COMMONSENSE here.

Lastly, editors on this page seem to grossly misunderstand WP:NPOV to mean something akin to attaining a false balance, wherein if something negative is said about someone we must also point out negative things about their political opponents. I'm guessing I don't have to explain why this wrong or how it misrepresents NPOV. I'm not planning on continuing this discussion as I have a wall at home that doesn't have quite enough marks from my head, and so I need to spend my time fixing this, at least until the drywall cracks. SÆdon^talk 20:23, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I've just stumbled upon a perfect example to illustrate my point. Today the Washington Post ran this story about Mitt Romney bullying some kid 50 years ago. The Dailycaller, which is one of the sources involved in this dispute published this retort that rightly points out inconsistencies in the Washpost story. Notice how this article doesn't go on to talk about some Obama stepping on some kid's foot as a child or some other story from Obama's past, but rather focuses on the actual topic at hand, which is an alleged bullying incident. Why is this the case in this article? Because there's obviously something to say about the topic and so there's no need to try and deflect the attention elsewhere. In the Seamus incident case, there was nothing to say about Romney's actions; people either don't care or they think it's messed up. Those who don't care aren't going to convince those who do care that it's not a big deal, so it's easier to just attempt to level the playing field with a red herring.

If we had an article about this story and if the only response from the right was to point to Obama bullying a kid rather than deal with the topic of Romney doing so, it would be asinine and downright ridiculous to say "In response to allegations that Romney bullied a homosexual teenager, conservatives pointed out that Obama bullied someone too, so there na nee na nee boo boo." SÆdon^talk 21:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

The previous post illustrates the biggest problem I have with this debate. Let's just look at what happened here. In her post, Debbie asserted that in the last two weeks, nothing has changed about the notability of the dog-eating claim. I posted a reference to dispute that. But no one from the other side agreed with or disagreed with my point. You have the President of the United States discussing an issue. The most powerful person in the world. Does that make it more notable or not? It would appear to be a simple question. Are you interested in reaching consensus or not? If not, then do you agree with my assertion is correct or not? If you agree, then saying so, and supporting me on that question, would be a step towards civil debate. It would cause me to believe that you are genuinely interested in achieving consensus.

Now, on to specific issues raised by your post. Just as I requested above that people on the other side agree or disagree with my assertions, rather than ignoring them, I will do you the courtesy of agreeing or disagreeing with the assertions you make in your post. I will give you that respect. I believe it is part of being civil. However, I am not going to go into the non-dog-related part of it, as that would be too much of a diversion.

About the Chewbacca defense. If the Obama Eats Dogs meme were in a different notable location on Wikipedia, I would agree with you 100%. I would absolutely agree that you are correct. I will further agree with you that the Seamus story is notable criticism of Romney. Therefore, it belongs on Wikipedia.

I disagree with your assertion that including an article about Seamus and an article about dog-eating would be "false" balance. I believe this would be a true balance. This balance could be achieved either within one article, or by having two articles. Either way, I would have no problem with it. I also disagree with your assertion that my view of this mischaracterizes NPOV. The reason I disagree is that if my opponents' views hold sway, there will be no high-visibility forum for my side of it. The Seamus thing is mentioned both here and in the Romney article. So to be balanced, we should mention dog eating both in its own article, and in the Obama article itself. That would be a true balance. Nothing false about it.

Now, about your assertion that by broadening the subject, I am committing a logical fallacy. If it were handed down from on high that the subject shall be thus and such, I would agree with you. But it's not. God has not revealed a new Commandment that this article must be about Romney/Seamus, as opposed to being about how Presidential candidates interact with dogs. I would further note that the anti-Romney side has had no problem broadening the subject of the article when it suited them. For example, until recently, the Axelrod tweet was in the article. So at that point, it was about both Romney/Seamus and Obama/Bo. The Axelrod tweet was removed shortly after I asserted that its inclusion was evidence that the Treacher tweet should also be included.

Lastly, your note that you are not going to see the debate out. I have got to say that I find that disappointing. If my opponents make assertions about this and that, but do not stick around when they are challenged, and do not agree or disagree with the points I make, achieving consensus will remain impossible. William Jockusch (talk) 01:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

William, I am going to address three issues that you brought up.

(1) White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD) comments -- the WHCD took place on April 28, 2012, whereas the Obama Eats Dogs AfD concluded on May 2, 2012. If you search through the AfD, you will notice that the WHCD comments are mentioned three times. The issue of Obama's comments were addressed during the AfD discussion, and the decision was still to delete. Since the WHCD, I have not heard of any additional news about the dog eating episode that would make it notable. Wikipedia's policy on the notability of events gives 5 factors in evaluating an event's notability -- (1) lasting effect, (2) geographic scope, (3) depth of coverage, (4) duration of coverage, and (5) diversity of sources. Even with the WHCD comments, I believe that the dog eating story only meets requirement 5. Everything in the news is not entitled to coverage by Wikipedia, and please note that there is no Wikipedia article about Romney's $10,000 wager that he proposed to Rick Perry, nor Romney criticism about cookies from a bakery in Pittsburgh (i.e., Cookiegate), nor his "I like to fire people" comments.

(2) Chewbacca defense -- the Obama Eats Dogs meme is mentioned in the Jim Treacher article. I know of no another Wikipedia article about a political controversy that includes a discussion about another politician behavior as a defense, mitigation, or justification of the original controversy. If you have an example to the contrary, please correct me.

(3) False balance and NPOV -- Wikipedia's policy on a neutral point of view (NPOV) does not require that all opinions get an equal amount of coverage: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. For example, the article on the Earth does not directly mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority; to do so would give undue weight to the Flat Earth belief." If the Seamus incident and the Obama Eats Dogs meme had equal media coverage and cultural influence, then both should get equal coverage in Wikipedia. However, that's not the case. The Seamus incident has been in the news repeatedly since 2007, it has been covered by foreign newspapers, it has been mentioned in books, it has been cited in cultural analyses about Americans' treatment of their pets, two super PACs have been formed just around this issue, national polls have been taken on this issue, and when Diane Sawyer interviewed the Romneys, this was the issue that the most viewers inquired about. Conversely, the Obama Eats Dogs meme has existed for a month, has not been covered by the foreign press, has not been mentioned in any books, has not been part of any cultural analyses, has not resulted in formation of any super PACs, has not been the subject of any polls, and has not been the main topic in any interview of Barack or Michelle Obama. Debbie W. 02:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Debbie, thank you for responding directly. I will answer in depth later. But I just want to thank you for that. William Jockusch (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

About the dinner and the date of the discussion. I accept your explanation. I will note that you said two weeks, and I was responding to that specifically. About your five factors. (1) Lasting effect. The lasting effect of the dog-eating has been to diffuse the Seamus issue for Romney. Before it was a straight attack on Romney. Now it is double-edged. Obviously the duration has not yet been as long, but then again it hasn't had the chance yet. (2) Geographic scope. I disagree with your assertion that this has not made the foreign press. Additionally, there has been plenty of coverage on CNN, which has worldwide reach. About the interviews. Romney makes himself available to left-leaning reporters like Diane Sawyer more often than Obama does the reverse. I could be wrong, but I believe the last time Obama made himself available at a right-wing outfit was his Super Bowl 2011 interview with Bill O'Reilly. So Romney has made himself more available to hostile press than Obama has. And there are indicators of interest other than the ones you mentioned. Such as Twitter, where Obama eating dogs was all over the place. (3) Depth of coverage. Dog-eating made the national news on CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS, and even MSNBC where David Axelrod did his best to downplay it. The Daily Beast -- not exactly a conservative site -- called it "meme of the week." About the super PACs. Consider this: That makes it clear that Dogs Against Romney is more about the "against Romney" than the "dogs". Books. Dog-eating was mentioned in "dreams from my father," which sold millions of copies. It sat there, unnoticed, until it exploded in April. One month is not enough lead time for it to make more books. Duration of coverage. Well it hasn't really had the chance yet. About expanding the subject. The anti-Romney side had no problems expanding the subject with Axelrod's tweet. It was taken out only when I brought up that it wasn't fair to include Axelrod's subject-expanding tweet but not Treacher's subject-expanding tweet. So it appears to me that the "don't expand the subject" criterion is being applied selectively. About Chewbacca. I don't care if the dog eating is covered in the same article or a different prominent article. But in light of the prior willingness (AFAIK uncontroversial) to expand the subject by including David Axelrod's tweet about how Obama treats dogs, it seems strange to object to expand the subject to Treacher's tweet about how Obama treats dogs. Expanding the subject should either be fair game or not. But if it's done selectively, as appears to be the case here, I call foul.William Jockusch (talk) 07:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

William, You bring up some good points that I previously missed, but there are a few areas where I disagree with your logic. Let's start with notability of events.

(1) Lasting effect -- I'm not convinced that this requirement has been meet, since Wikipedia says the following: "Events are often considered to be notable if they act as a precedent or catalyst for something else. This may include effects on the views and behaviors of society and legislation. For example, the murder of Adam Walsh ultimately led to the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, among other notable subjects." Even though it has led to the formation of 2 super PACs and been the subject of national polls, I am even not sure if the Seamus incident article fulfills the lasting effect requirement, and I acknowledged this during the AfD for Seamus. So, I'm pretty certain that the dog-eating story, which has had even less influence than the Seamus incident does not have a lasting effect, as defined by Wikipedia.

(2) (Geographic scope -- This is the first time that I saw any foreign articles about Obama's dog-eating, so it definitely meets the requirement.

(3) Depth of coverage -- This requirement is not met by coverage on cable news. Cable news is considered routine coverage, and this requirement is looking for more scholarly or analytic discussion. For example, if there were some news articles that discussed how people in countries that eat dog relate to the Obama dog-eating story, then the depth of coverage requirement might be met. I find the depth of coverage requirement the most subjective of the five, but unless you can show me an article about Obama's dog-eating that includes cultural or news analysis, then I don't think that the requirement is fulfilled.

(4) Duration of coverage -- I think we are in agreement that this requirement has NOT been met.

(5) Diversity of sources -- I think we are in agreement that this requirement has been meet.

Axelrod's tweet should not be part of the article. It is a political attack with no real intellectual context. Unlike the other quotes in the article, it doesn't explain a person view of the 1983 road trip, but is just an attack on Mitt Romney. I did not add this sentence to the article, but I admit that I should have removed it. However, you cannot justify the inclusion of Obama's dog-eating by the former inclusion of the Axelrod tweet. One bad precedent does not allow another. The "inclusion is not an indicator of notability" essay states: "A common argument used against the deletion of certain articles is that other articles similar to the one in question exist. Because of the openness of Wikipedia it is nearly impossible to manage the flow of articles. The presence of similar articles does not necessarily validate the existence of other articles, and may instead point to the possibility that those articles also ought to be deleted. Inclusion is not an indicator of validity, notability, or quality because any individual may edit a page. For example, if there are 20 garage bands that have articles on Wikipedia, it is not a valid indicator that any other garage band deserves an article. Examining Wikipedia policy is more persuasive and practical than citing existing articles." Debbie W. 01:56, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

You seem to only now think it does not belong because it is quite obvious that it makes it clear that this is a political issue and the corresponding response is therefore required. I might be willing to believe your change of heart if you were not so insistant on making a big deal out of the Seamus incident in general. Sometimes you have to deal with the consequences of your previous actions....much like you and the left is trying to do with Romney and Seamus. Arzel (talk) 04:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

No, you and others are trying to make it political so you can include the Obama meme. You failed to persuade others at the AfDs/merger discussions, so you're still pushing at the talkpage. You may not think Romney's character issue (highlighted by this incident) is worthy of coverage, or that it is somehow equivalent to what Obama did as a boy, but you are in the fringe minority. And as an aside, you posturizing about "making a big deal" and other polticial comments are hypocritical and dishonest. 64.134.183.120 (talk) 16:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

What an absurd argument to make since the majority of the article is regarding the political commentary of the event. Gail Collins, who kept this in the news by obsessing over the issue made sure to make political connection. It would not even be an issue in the least if not for the political season. It was a political story in 2008 and again in 2012. The only hypocrites are people like you who claim out of one side of their mouth that this is a character issue that we should care about while at the same time say it is not a political issue. Let me ask you something. If it is not a political issue, then just why the hell does Romney's character matter? Your transparent attempt to cloud the issue are just that transparent. Don't get upset because so many people can see right through it. Arzel (talk) 18:11, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Who's upset here? You're the one bending over backwards to try squeezing anti-Obama crap into an unrelated indicent about his political opponent. What's transparent here is your desperate attempt to reframe disagreement as 'illogical' or 'absurd' because you can't argue on the merits. And yes normal folks can separate character issues from the political bickering which you seem to relish. Real editors don't pick and choose what is political as it suits your POV-pushing. 76.17.120.94 (talk) 22:46, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Saedon has it completely right. And I'll reiterate, its about context. Obama joked at the correspondents' dinner about his dog problem also, and that is a perfect moment in the article to very briefly describe what he's referring to. It is in context there. But as Saedon says above, you can't simply say "BALANCED" by having a tit-for-tat. Every parent has heard the refrain "well, Billy's parents let him stay up until 10pm!" and the parent explains that just because someone else does it, doesn't mean it applies to their kid. It is sort of a parental WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Ultimately since this is a politically motivated story, that aspect of it should have the most coverage and honestly it should receive the most scrutiny as well. Currently the article text doesn't do that. It is very haphazard and simply tosses a quote or two in from various people without including any critical commentary, and by critical I don't mean necessarily that it disagrees, I simply mean that someone provided an analysis of the other person's motivations and whatnot. There is a huge contingent of "who cares" people, but those quotes are conveniently excluded in favor of quotes that play up the outrage. Neutral tone and balance mean that you provide a well researched article, not simply the scandalous side. -- Avanu (talk) 04:02, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Claims that anybody is "making this political" by adding the Obama side don't correspond with reality. It has been political since day one. Unless someone wants to make the argument that the Romney/Seamus story is motivated by something other than politics. As my exchange with Debbie shows, there can be a genuine debate over notability, and progress can be made on that issue once we get past the mudslinging. I also continue to believe that taking "the subject of the article" as a given is itself a questionable assumption. For example, I see there is a "War on Women" article with the charming intro: The "War on Women" is a politically-charged, perjorative term used to describe Republican initiatives in federal and state legislatures that the Left argues are harmful to women.[1] Clearly someone has defined the topic in a way that excludes the actions of certain Democrats that could also be construed as a war on women. The point is that you can define "the topic of an article" in ways that favor one side or another. Although it's less clear-cut than the one I just quoted, I think we have some element of that here. William Jockusch (talk) 16:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

References

VGMaps

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. VGMaps (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? Myself and Deltasim appear to not be able to reach consensus on edits on VGMaps page. Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? ArtimusSlayer (talk · contribs) Deltasim (talk · contribs) Appears unwilling to discuss and reach consensus on the talk page and continually reverts my edits. Deltasim is an active user on VGMaps.com as well. Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Yes. N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=VGMaps}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? Polite discussion of the edits on the talk page, Deltasim was also warned about editing wars and subsequently reported for violation of 3RR after the behavior continued. How do you think we can help? It would be great to cease the edit war and if my edits could be restored and discussed politely on the talk page so consensus can be reached. Additional opinions would also likely be helpful. ArtimusSlayer (talk) 14:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC) VGMaps discussion Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. Just why should "Your" edits in particular be restored? I have reason to believe that the information you edit in the article is more against VGMaps than an attempt to get the facts straight. I would suggest that a more professional editor take matters into deciding what content goes and stays. Deltasim (talk) 14:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC) My edits should be restored out of respect for a fellow editor. If you disagree with them, we should politely discuss on the articles talk page and try to reach consensus. ArtimusSlayer (talk) 14:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Saint Thomas Christians

• Saint Thomas Christians (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

There is a concerted deletion of mention of claims to Jewish origin by a community of ancient christians from Kerala, India. The said community is called as Malabar Nasrani a.k.a Nasrani Mappila. Nasrani is the Hebrew word for Jewish Christianity. It was the Portuguese invaders of Kerala who started calling the Nasranis as Saint Thomas Christians because they hated any Jewish reference to the a supposed christian community. Anyway The naming is a minor dispute within the larger dispute of the deletion of any cited mention of claims to Jewish descent of the Nasranis a.k.a Malabala Mappila a.k.a Saint Thomas Christians. I had put up quotes from Scholars from Hebrew University Jerusalem and also cited from research work from scholar from University of Texas. Prof Shalva Weil from Hebrew University Jerusalem mentions in her papers that the Northists ( a sub group of the Nasranis) have claims of Jewish origins. She also quotes in her paper about the claim that Saint Thomas the apostle converted members of the Jewish diaspora settled in the Malabar Coast (Kerala). I have given all these quotes with page numbers from the peer reviewed academic papers at the talk page of the article. Now editors are constantly deleting text that mentions the claim of the community to Jewish descent. Why or how would you justify deletion of text when I have given citation or page numbers from the academic research papers. The editors state that I do not know english and that I am misinterpreting the quote. To this I told the editor that since he/she knows better english than me then please help the collaborative wikipedia editing by rewording the text so that the misinterpretation is removed. But the requested rewording did not happen. I have given references and quotes. Why would the editor keep on deleting the text and not allow rewording. Clearly the research authors have mentioned about the claims of jewish origins of the Nasranis Christians (a.k.a Nasrani Mappila a.k.a. Malabar Nasranis a.k.a Saint Thomas Christians). With proper citations given, it is definitely legitimate to mention about the claims of jewish descent of the Nasrani people. How could the editors keep on deleting mention of the claim of jewish origin of the people when proper citation with page numbers have been provided. Does that mean that no mention of claims of Jewish origin should be made even though scholars have stated so, just because the editors have an agenda. The editors who are reverting have administrative powers. I think they are misusing their administrative powers. I wonder whether a fair dispute resolution would happen given that the editors who are reverting are elites of the wikipedia. Even though wikipedia claims to treat all editors equally it does not seem so with the constant deletion of the cited passages and the degrading way in which the editor ridicules me by stating that I do not know to interpret english. Anyway I am following the procedure of the wikipedia by stating it on dispute resolution. A lot of discussion regarding the deltion has already happened on the talk page of the article Saint Thomas Christians under the sub heading Jewish descent. Please help, if you would be fair to all editors equally. thanks Robin klein (talk) 13:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Robin klein (talk · contribs)
• Sitush (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Saint Thomas Christians}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Tried to have talk regarding the constant deletion of referenced passages. But editors with administrative powers keep on deleting without any discussions. There seems to be concerted grouping of editors with an agenda.

• How do you think we can help?

Since I have mentioned peer reviewed academic journal papers. It is most legitimate to mention the information form the journal papers on wikipedia. If rewording is needed then so be it. The Dispute resolution could either let the information be mentioned as I put it up WITH ACADEMIC CITATIONS or help put the information on wikipedia with rewording if that is indeed the problem But completely deleting materials that are backed with legitimate citations from Peer reviewed academic journals is not justified. thanks Robin klein (talk) 13:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Robin klein (talk) 13:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Saint Thomas Christians discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Procedural comment - Despite the initiator's declaration above, it seems that I have only just been notified of this discussion. This is nearly a week after it was initiated. Furthermore, there are others who were involved in the discussion at Talk:Saint Thomas Christians and they appear neither to have been named nor notified. I am away from Friday 18 May while Sunday 20 May, and perhaps until the 21st. Right now, all I can say is that consensus at the talk page was against inclusion, for a variety of reasons. - Sitush (talk) 21:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Addendum - oh, and that the initiator has continued to reinstate the disputed material at Saint Thomas Christians despite starting this discussion. Examples are here, here and (almost certainly) the one referred to in the removal here. If there are new sources etc then the discussion needs to go back to the talk page. - Sitush (talk) 21:06, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I have only just now notified the editor. Yes there are others involved. But they seem to work in tandem. So I listed and informed the editor who messaged me on my talk page. thanks Robin klein (talk) 21:06, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes I did make two edits but the edit here was added by a new editor (it seems) User:JacobYohannan on 11th May 2012, could be a sock puppet, but then its not me or mine. Initially the above editor Sitush had agreed to reword the matter in contention but then when there was lot of sock puppetry going on the editor said that rewording would not be done. It was as though the editor was blaming me for the sock puppetry. No the sock puppets are not mine. I dont need to use them. I have voiced out my views as I am doing so now. thanks Robin klein (talk) 21:19, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I think now it's time to discuss the subject based on sources. Robin klein tries to add this(diff:[63]) view, supported with Ref:Weil, S. (1982)"Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: The Cananite Christians and Cochin Jews in Kerala. in Contributions to Indian Sociology,16 p175-196. However, as far I know, the claim of the author that "The Northists also have a tradition that claims to be descendants of Jewish people converted by Thomas the Apostle in the Malabar Coast" is arbitrary and also not supported by any other WP:RSs. The author further proceeds with a few assumptions which also has not yet found a place in any other WP:RSs. The tradition of Northist faction of Saint Thomas Christians is that they are the high-caste converts from indigenous people, and of course, this tradition has not yet found any documentary evidences. (Robert Eric Frykenberg (2006). World Christianities, C.1815-1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 476. ISBN 9780521814560.) --AshLey ^Msg 07:08, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I've only just learned of this; I suppose I'm one of the editors Robin accuses of working "in tandem" and "misusing their administrative powers". Unfortunately, for the last 6 months or so Robin has developed a habit of inserting and re-inserting problematic material into the article, and then flying off the handle when others disagree with them, slinging baseless accusations of sock puppetry, vandalism, bigotry, and abuse. See, for example:[64][65][66][67] This is not the behavior of someone who genuinely wants to work together to resolve a content issue.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:01, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Support Cúchullain comment I've only had the occasional eye/drop in on the article over the last 6 months, but on almost every time I see a pattern, unfortunately similar to what Cúchullain is describing. No matter how sincerely some Saint Thomas Christians believe they have Jewish ethnicity, it needs to be established from WP:RS that (i) such a legend/belief exists, (ii) let alone that there's any factual basis. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:28, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

There is WP:RS for the claims of Kerala Syrian Christian community that the first people to be converted by Saint Thomas the apostle were of Jewish heritage. This is cited in Menachery and also in several peer reviewed research journals. I have already presented some of the sources with citations. They are stated on the talk page of the article Saint Thomas Christians and are also stated below in the discussion section. The traditional song of the said people that is the 'Saint Thomas Christians' a.k.a. Nasranis a.k.a. 'syrian christians' called as "RAMBAN song" states that according to traditional beliefs the first people converted by Apostle Thomas in the Malabar coast were Jewish people in the Malabar. Here is the reference (The Song of Thomas Ramban" in Menachery G (ed); (1998) "The Indian Church History Classics", Vol. I, The Nazranies, Ollur, 1998. [ISBN 81-87133-05-8]). It needs to be stated here that User:In ictu oculi is not a neutral on looker of this entire conflict as he claims to be. He has taken part in discussion before in previous conflict on the talk page over the past 7 months or so. You could please check the talk page history of the article Saint Thomas Christians and also the talk page history of the article Syrian Malabar Nasrani which was renamed to Saint Thomas Christians following discussion by the editors. He cannot claim to be neutral onlooker and claim to give neutral view on the dispute. To repeat some of the sources cited further below in this discussion section. The peer reviewed research paper by Prof Shalva Weil (1982) states in page 181 to quote: "..it should be pointed out that the tradition of Jewish origin or Jewish connections in Kerala is preserved not only by the Cnanite or Southist group but also by the wider group of Syrian Christians, or Northists" (from Weil, S. (1982)"Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: The Cananite Christians and Cochin Jews in Kerala. in Contributions to Indian Sociology,16. pages 175-196. She further goes on to state the content of the claim of the community in page no 182 in the quote "St. Thomas retired to the Jewish quarter in Cranganore, where he took up residence. Apparently, St. Thomas regularly attended synagogue where he preached about Jesus, the Messiah. He explained to the Jews the meaning of the Scripture and he spoke to them of Jesus, his miracles, of his death, of his resurrection. And many believed. Rabbi Paul demanded baptism ... and other families followed his example. And the Jews who remained obdurate gave the numerous Christians the name Nazarins." (from Weil, S. (1982)"Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: The Cananite Christians and Cochin Jews in Kerala. in Contributions to Indian Sociology,16. pages 175-196). There are more WP:RS sources that have been cited further below in this discussion section, that states evidence for the existence of claims by the Saint Thomas Christians a.k.a. Malabar Nasranis to Jewish Heritage. Thanks Robin klein (talk) 02:35, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The above editor (User:Ashley thomas80) states that HE finds the statement by Shalva Weil as "arbitrary". Yes I am sure he does. But then that is his personal opinion. While Shalva Weil has published her assertions in a Peer Reviewed Academic Journal. WP:RSs are Peer reviewed research papers in international research journals. Peer reviewed scholarship on Malabar Nasranis indicate to jewish heritage of the Nasranis It is no wonder User:Ashley thomas80 keeps on mentioning and refering profusely to self published sources or sources that are over 100 years old. Obviously his reliance on self publications and sources over 100 years old betrays his agenda. Self published works in India do not mention peer reviewed international papers or sources as they are interested in casteist agenda of claiming a Brahmin descent. Peer reviewed research papers by international scholars on Malabar Nasranis either do not mention brahmin myth at all or even if it is mentioned, it is stated with the additional comment that modern research shows that brahmins arrived in kerala in CE 7th-8th century while Jewish Nasrani tradition in malabar coast exists from the earliest days of christianity. Peer reviewed research papers by international scholars indicate a Jewish heritage of Nasranis. These include:

• Shalva Weil’s paper in a highly referenced and cited peer reviewed research Journal ‘Contribuions to Indian Sociology”. quote from Shalva Weil "St. Thomas retired to the Jewish quarter in Cranganore, where he took up residence. Apparently, St. Thomas regularly attended synagogue where he preached about Jesus, the Messiah. He explained to the Jews the meaning of the Scripture and he spoke to them of Jesus, his miracles, of his death, of his resurrection. And many believed. Rabbi Paul demanded baptism ... and other families followed his example. And the Jews who remained obdurate gave the numerous Christians the name Nazarins." (from Weil, S. (1982)"Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: The Cananite Christians and Cochin Jews in Kerala. in Contributions to Indian Sociology,16. pages 175-196).

• Research work on Thomas christians by Kerstin Neumann from Marburg University Germany; (1998) In her work Kerstin Neumann (1998) "Mond, Gott Siva und heiliger Thomas: Die religiöse Gemeinschaft der Knanaya in Kerala" Universität Marburg in page 78-79 she states "Der Apostel Thomas habe nach seiner Ankunft in Kerala aus der Gemeinschaft der Juden seine ersten Konversionserfolge erzielt. Tatsächlich sind die Orte christlicher Siedlungen zum großen Teil mit denen der jüdischen Gemeinschaften identisch oder liegen ganz in der Nähe." (after his arrival in the Malabar Coast Apostle Thomas first converted the Jewish people in the Malabar Coast. All the major sites of early nasrani centres in Malabar coast were in the same places as Jewish settlements.)

• Weil, Shalva(2009)'THE PLACE OF ALWAYE IN MODERN COCHIN JEWISH HISTORY',Journal of Modern JewishStudies,8:3,319 — 335

• Prof Nathan Katz from Florida International University (in several of his publication on Cochin Jews including the peer reviewed research paper Katz N (2005) The Historical Traditions of the Jews of Kochi.” Studies in History 21, 127 147)

• In the paper Katz N & Goldberg E. S. (1989) 'Asceticism and Caste in the Passover Observances of the Cochin Jews', Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Spring, 1989), pp. 53-82 Published by: Oxford University Press the authors Katz N & Goldberg from Florida International University states to quote "The earliest external evidence of their home on the Malabar coast is found in the writings of Eusebius, the third century bishop of Caeseria, who related the story of the Alexandrian, Pantaenus, who reported seeing a copy of the Gospel of Matthew "in the language of the Hebrews" in India around 181 CE (hebraio-n grammosi ttn tou Matthaiou kataleipsai graphin), which Pantaenus attributed to the first-century mission of St. Bartholomew (Eusebius, 1959:1, 462-463). If Eusebius was right, then we have evidence for the existence of Aramaic- (or Hebrew-) speaking people, who could only be Jews or Jewish Christians, in India in the first century. This would roughly corroborate the indigenous histories of both the Cochin Jews, who claim to have arrived in India at the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the ancient Syrian Christian community , who hold they were founded by St. Thomas in 55 CE. Their folklore indicates that St. Thomas came to India with the specific purpose of preaching to the Jews there."

• Ross, I. J. (1979) "Ritual and Music in South India: Syrian Christian Liturgical Music in Kerala." Asian Music. 11 (1): 80-98) quote from the paper "Ritual and music form a close relationship in the life of the Syrian-Christian community. Similarities between the rites and customs of the Syrian Christians and the Jews of Kerala reflect a possible common origin in the ancient Middle East, and serve as heuristic evidence in support of the historical claims of both communities."

• There was a consensus on the statement regarding Nasranis as descendants of locals and jewish converts, which remained so for months. It was removed by Cuchullain after months when there was lots of wikification being done by Sitush. Why was it removed after months. You accuse me of disruptive behavior over the past 6 months. That is your point of view. In my point of view I feel that you have been disruptive for the past 6 months. Of course your opinion holds more weight which is apparent and clear. The editors are preventing the addition of any information regarding Jewish tradition and heritage of the Nasranis on the pretext of "no consensus". In this way people with agenda could remove all valid information from peer reviewed sources just because they do not like what is being stated. "no consensus" cannot be used as a pretext to stop editors from including information that is backed by valid peer reviewed journal papers. The papers cited above including the one by Shalva Weil - Weil, S. (1982)"Symmetry between Christians and Jews in India: The Cananite Christians and Cochin Jews in Kerala. in Contributions to Indian Sociology,16 p175-196. are research papers published in peer reviewed research journals. It is as much a WP:RS as can get. thanks Robin klein (talk) 20:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

From the above citations, Robin klein has not yet established this claim: "The Northists also have a tradition that claims to be descendants of Jewish people converted by Thomas the Apostle in the Malabar Coast". As Nathan Katz clarifies

...If Eusebius was right, then we have evidence for the existence of Aramaic- (or Hebrew-) speaking people, who could only be Jews or Jewish Christians, in India in the first century. This would roughly corroborate the indigenous histories of both the Cochin Jews, who claim to have arrived in India at the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the ancient Syrian Christian community , who hold they were founded by St. Thomas in 55 CE. Their folklore indicates that St. Thomas came to India with the specific purpose of preaching to the Jews there.

I think, it's a balanced statement compared to others. Here the author points to the possibility of the existence of Jews "or" Jewish Christians in Malabar coast in 1st century CE. The author also notes that it corroborates a folklore of Syrian Christians indicating the arrival St. Thomas to India with the specific purpose of preaching to the Jews there. Unfortunately we can't use this information to support the "Jewish lineage" of Northists. Above, I have cited this one: Robert Eric Frykenberg (2006). World Christianities, C.1815-1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 476. ISBN 9780521814560. - to state the tradition of Northists, not any "100 years old self published one". I could cite 10 or more WP:RSs to support "the tradition of Northists" which claims "the conversion of Hindu upper-castes". It is the legend of Northists and we need not have to analyse it's veracity now. Arrival of brahmins to Kerala is also a controversial subject like this and if you are interested, we could discuss it in Talk:Nambudiri. Robin, I have already told you that in my personal opinion, some Jewish admixture with indigenous people can't be ruled out. But it's not the tradition of Northists, only a subject of advanced research. You have cited some research papers, but it seems, they have taken some assumptions without giving much stress on evidences --AshLey ^Msg 09:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks User:Ashley thomas80 for the response. What do these statements mean from Katz & Goldberg (1989)"....we have evidence for the existence of Aramaic- (or Hebrew-) speaking people, who could only be Jews or Jewish Christians, in India in the first century." "......Syrian Christian community .... Their folklore indicates that St. Thomas came to India with the specific purpose of preaching to the Jews there" please explain. thanks Robin klein (talk) 13:05, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Jews or Jewish Christians - We have enough WP:RSs to support the claim that there were Jews in Malabar coast in the 1st century. So the author has to clarify the meaning of "or" in the above statement.

The folklore: Here the author may be mentioning "Ramban Songs". Please see here, this folklore suggests the presence of 40 Jewish Christians among the 1st converts in the Malabar coast, along with thousands of Hindu upper-caste people including Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Nairs, and Chettiars. You have already blocked me from mentioning the name of Hindu-castes, but at the same time so adamantly attempts to mention the case of "Jewish converts". Do you feel it's a neutral view? Moreover, it's just a folklore which in itself doesn't form the tradition of Northists because none of the Northist family is claiming Jewish lineage. Each and every Northist family claims Brahmin, Kshatriya* or Nair lineage only.(See Fuller, 1986) Robin klein activities in many articles have made me to conclude that he belongs to the Southist division who claim Jewish lineage, and here he is adamantly trying to prove that Northists are also Jews. From the Ramban songs, only Jewish case has been cherry picked. At the same time, Robin klein has blocked me from mentioning the case of Brahmins or any other caste. I've also deliberately avoided mentioning the Hindu-caste names in Saint Thomas Christians to avoid an edit-war. Cúchullain also once guided me to avoid inserting un-reliable information like this, and I obliged in order to keep the quality of the article. So, we can't allow the things to move out of equilibrium here. If Jews are there, other castes also will be mentioned. Many WP:RS are there to support. Better, we have to concentrate in facts, not in folklores ! --AshLey ^Msg 16:24, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Dear User:Ashley thomas80, please do not blame me for everything. It has become fashionable here to blame me for everything. I am afraid that you are forgetting that I did not block you from mentioning hindu caste. I was the one who wrote about the hindu caste along with the disclaimer as is ALWAYS done in research papers that modern research shows that Brahmins arrived in the 7th-8th century CE. You agreed to this as well. We never had a problem with this. It was User:Cuchullain who removed the entire passage of Hindu caste as he did not want the reference of Prof Dr. Veluthat (1978) from Mysore University, India. It was removed with the consensus between the three of us that the NPOV statement would be that the Syrian christians claim descent from locals and converted Jews. After months this statement that was agreed upon with consensus was deleted. If I had removed a statement after months I would have been banned or blocked. But it seems on the wikipedia there are different rules for different people. So Please stop blaming me for things I have not done. And yes I am not talking about folklore. I am presenting research papers citations from researchers who have corroborated heuristic evidence for the jewish heritage of the Syrian Malabar Nasranis. Thanks Robin klein (talk) 17:28, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to spend any more time rehashing the content issue here. It seems there is general accord among everyone else who has been active at the article recently besides Robin. The fact that Robin continues to engage in these baseless and unproductive recriminations even in comments asserting their own innocence says much about their general attitude at this article.Cúchullain ^t/c 04:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Robin, We both have an insider's view in this regard, hence not free from bias. However, I trust, you also can't deny the improvement in the quality of the article due to the active involvement of many experienced Wikipedians and many of them are blamed here irrespective of their significant contributions. OK, now you have a single issue, the article needs to mention that "The Northists also have a tradition that claims to be descendants of Jewish people converted by Thomas the Apostle in the Malabar Coast". But all the sources you cited suggests only this much: "A traditional song of STCs suggests that Jewish presence in Malabar coast paved the way for St. Thomas to there and he evangelized a few Jews along with others." But here too, we are cherry picking the Jewish case from "Ramban Songs" while the ethnicity of the majority is just ignored. So it's better to avoid according to the consensus. --AshLey ^Msg 08:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Ahmad Shah Massoud

• Ahmad Shah Massoud (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

Disagreement over an edit that attempted to reduce an overlong quotefarm to a brief summary [68]. In particular, the question is whether the statement at the beginning of the second paragraph involved, A 2005 report by Afghanistan Justice Project [...] describes him [i.e. Massoud] as indirectly responsible for an ethnically motivated massacre and mass rape committed by his forces on taking the suburb of Afshar in February 1993, arguing that he and his subcommanders failed to prevent atrocities that they could have foreseen is a fair summary of this source, p.82f.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs)
• JCAla (talk · contribs)

Article is currently protected because of JCAla's vehement opposition to this edit.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute?

Yes.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Debate can be seen at Talk:Ahmad Shah Massoud#Removal of 13,000 bytes of content by Fut.Perf.

• How do you think we can help?

Check the source and tell us if it was fairly summarized.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Ahmad Shah Massoud discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

The two points of contention with Fut.Perf. version are

1. Ittihad-i Islami were not "Massoud's forces" but the forces of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. Ittihad-i Islami was created by Abdul Rasul Sayyaf in the 1980s and still exists today. It is purely Sayyaf's party/militia which back then was allied to the Islamic State. Massoud's forces were (and it is generally understood that Massoud's forces are) Shura-e Nazar/Jamiat-e Islami. Shura-e Nazar according to the source did not commit "mass rape" and "massacre". Thus it would be a falsification of the source to say so.
2. Responsibility needs to be more explicitly elaborated on as failing to take effective measures to prevent or stop abuses although ordering a halt which didn't prove effective.

I suggest to

1. replace "his [Massoud's] forces" with "Ittihad-i Islami forces" (exactly as mentioned in the source), the source under the section "Rape by Ittihad forces" (and there is no other section on rape in Afshar) explicitly calls them "Sayyaf’s Ittihad-i Islami forces" (and NOT "Massoud's forces") and it repeatedly says "commanders affiliated to Sayyaf" or "Sayyaf's commanders" or "troops affiliated to Sayyaf", and
2. to clarify what responsibility means in this case namely, "failing to take effective measures to prevent or stop atrocities although ordering a halt (without success)".

What the source says about point 1 (complete list)

"The forces that launched the [Afshar operation] all formally belonged to the ministry of defense of the ISA. The minister of defense and de facto commander-in-chief of the ISA at the time of the Afshar operation was Ahmad Shah Massoud. He had overall responsibility for planning and command of military operations. He directly controlled the Jamiat-i Islami units and indirectly controlled the Ittihad-i Islami units." "Ittihad forces played a major role in the assault [Afshar operation], working directly under Sayyaf and receiving pay from him. The Ittihad forces were not fully absorbed into the ministry of defense [of Massoud], but were operating in coordination with it." "Although the Ittihad units had been given Afghan Army formation numbers, commanders in the field took their orders from senior Ittihad commanders and Sayyaf himself. Sayyaf acted as the de facto general commander of Ittihad forces during the operation" "Rape by Ittihad forces" "During the Afshar operation, Sayyaf’s Ittihad-i Islami forces used rape and other assaults on civilians to drive the civilian population from the area. The Afghanistan Justice Project interviewed many witnesses who described incidents of rape by Ittihad forces during the Afshar operation. Witness M. (see statement above) was injured in the hand and leg when Ittihad soldiers ... The Ittihad troops ... Witness Sh. stated that after capturing Afshar, Ittehad-i Islami troops ..." "Summary executions" "Witnesses interviewed by the Afghanistan Justice Project stated that a group of Hizb-i Wahdat soldiers was taken prisoner from Wahdat headquarters at the Social Science Institute by Ittihad-i Islami forces on February 11. In addition to these, a large number of civilian men and suspected Wahdat militants were arrested from the Afshar area after Ittihad captured it. The number taken is not known. One group of Hazara prisoners held by Ittihad-i Islami was subsequently used by the Ittihad commanders to undertake burial of the dead from the Afshar operation, after one week. This group of witnesses has reported that their relatives were among the civilian and military prisoners taken by Ittihad who subsequently disappeared and are believed to have been summarily executed by Ittihad forces. The Afghanistan Justice Project has been able to obtain only a few of the names of the victims. Some other men were taken from their homes. Witness A told the Afghanistan Justice Project ... armed men – who were from Sayyaf and from Jamiat – were looting all the houses. Sayyaf’s people spoke Pushto; Jamiat spoke Dari. I sent my family to another place and I stayed at the house. At about 11:00 a.m. a commander named Izatullah (from Ittihad) came to the house ... Witness B told the Afghanistan Justice Project that Ittihad-i Islami troops had beaten her and arrested her unarmed husband ... Witness C told the Afghanistan Justice Project that the soldiers searched the houses looking for men. “I was taken to Paghman. [base of Ittihad] ... Witness M. told the Afghanistan Justice Project that at 7:.00 in the morning, when Ittihad-i Islami captured Afshar, a group of armed men entered her residential compound, and detained S., her husband. ... After he was detained, a second group of 10-15 Ittihad soldiers came to the house between ... Witness K, 75 years old, stated that troops affiliated to Sayyaf abducted him from Sar-i Jui ... The Ittihad troops then took him to Company (a Sayyaf-controlled area) on that day and held him there for two months. The commander who captured him was Ghulam Rasool, affiliated to Sayyaf. ... Witness G was briefly arrested and beaten unconscious by Ittehad troops ... Abdullah Khan, of Ghazni Province, 67 years old, was arrested from Afshar by Commander Aziz Banjar, a Sayyaf commander. The rest of the family had fled to Taimani during the main military operation. ... Witness Sh. told the Afghanistan Justice Project that when Ittihad forces entered her house ..."

What the source says about point 2 (complete list)

"Both Massoud, together with his senior commanders, and Sayyaf failed to take effective measures to prevent abuses before the operation commenced, or to stop them once the operation was underway." "Massoud convened a meeting in the Hotel Intercontinental which, belatedly, discussed arrangements for security in the newly captured areas. ... The meeting ordered a halt to the massacre and looting ..."

Note that Pulitzer Price winner and expert on war crimes Roy Gutman summarizes this very same source (Afghanistan Justice Project) and this very issue the following way:

"But according to witnesses located by the Afghanistan Justice Project, the force that entered Afshar and committed summary executions, disappearances and rape was Sayyaf's Ittihad, which was not under Massoud's command. Massoud ordered a halt to the massacres and looting on February 12, but they continued." (Roy Gutman, How we missed the story, p. 222)

Context: It should be noted that the Afshar operation was a legitimate military operation, which escalated when mostly Ittihad-i Islami troops of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf involved in the operation started to commit abuses. For the historical context which might be needed to understand the discussion please see here.

Historical context and testimony by John Jennings (Associated Press, The Economist) who was personally present in Afshar (during the operation itself) and in Kabul (1991-1994) as an observer (John Jennings, in "Massoud" by Marcela Grad, Webster University Press, p. 179): "The Iran-backed Shiite Hazara militia wasn't supposed to be in town either: They were able to seize southern and western Kabul precisely because of the collapse of the army perimeter engineered by Pakistan's proxy militias and their communist allies. Massoud did everything within his power to restrain the Hazara "ethnic cleansing" campaign in southwest Kabul, which began barely a month after the communist regime collapsed. ... Massoud's hands were tied to some extent, because except for short periods he was unable to keep his enemies out of artillery range - just as better-equipped communist troops before them and NATO troops afterward have proven unable to stop terrorist attacks in Kabul. The enemy used munitions from Pakistani army depots to shell marketplaces and intersections at peak traffic hours. They deliberately killed tens of thousands of civilians. Despite the ongoing disinformation, there is no doubt and no question, in the minds of objective observers who were actually present, that it was Massoud who struggled to uphold human rights and his enemies who abused them. That led to trade-offs - the stuff of every political and military decision, west or east. When Iran-backed [Wahdat] Hazara militiamen who had also been involved in ethnic cleansing and were allied to Hekmatyar began shelling Kabul's northwestern neighborhoods, Massoud worried aloud to his aides that driving them from their positions [in Afshar] would risk allowing some of his allies' camp followers [notably those of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf] to commit atrocities against Hazara captives. On the other hand, he noted, the alternative was to allow Hazara militiamen to continue shelling much more heavily populated areas, and killing many more noncombatants, on the other side of the town. Understandably, he chose the former. In the resulting Afshar operation abuses [by Massoud’s troops] were minimal, as I saw for myself - nothing compared to the savagery I had witnessed the Hazara [Wahdat] militia inflict on noncombatants. Of course that has never stopped political opportunists (often masquerading as human rights activists) from inventing a “massacre”, that never, in fact, occurred. During the battle, I watched Panjshiris [Massoud's troops] rescue a wounded Hazara woman caught in a cross fire and carry her to safety. Next day I stumbled across one of Wahdat’s impromptu jails in the basement of an abandoned house, complete with three non-Hazara corpses, tied up with baling wire, and shot as the gunmen fled. ... Any popular movement, if it is truly popular, is going to harbor a criminal element, just because any large population harbors a criminal element. It is unrealistic to expect zero crimes. Yet Afghans, even Massoud's enemies, know that abuses by his troops were rare and punished as often as they were caught. ... His enemies on the other hand undertook mass murder, looting , and ethnic cleansing as a matter of policy. It also bears noting, that from late 1992 through early 1995, Massoud's enemies enjoyed direct military backing from all of Afghanistan's militarily significant neighbors - Pakistan, Iran and Uzbekistan. ... Had Massoud not fought to hold on to Kabul, the human rights situation in Afghanistan and throughout the region would have been vastly worse than it was."

JCAla (talk) 19:02, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Walter Mignolo

• Walter Mignolo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

I have added content saying that Walter Mignolo was part of the Group of 88, a group of professors who signed the open letter during the Duke lacrosse case. (He would later sign the clarifying letter as well.) The argument is over this being included. His signature is an endorsement of this, and the letter received massive amounts of media attention. A signature on something means that the person backs what it is saying. I argued that it is a sign of action (not like declining to sign something -- the other professors who weren't part of the 88 Duke faculty). Someone being part of the minority like this is mentioned on other pages (like the pages of minority views against their party with the Taxpayer Protection Pledge - Ben Nelson, Ben Chandler, Robert Andrews). Mignolo was part of the minority and this open letter received as much if not more press than the pledge (which is just one example). The issue is including the piece of information, and there was discussion about the significance of an endorsement. My suggestion was mentioning that he was a signer in a non-prominent way on the page.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Qwyrxian (talk · contribs)
• Maunus (talk · contribs)
• DietFoodstamp (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Walter Mignolo}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

We have discussed this on the talk page. Discussion is available here. There has been significant discussion that has taken part over the course of a few days.

• How do you think we can help?

Provide us with an outside view on the matter of including that he signed these and there was a huge amount of media coverage involved. Please review the talk page discussion and we will try to keep focused on the matter at hand.

DietFoodstamp (talk) 23:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Walter Mignolo discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

DietFoodstamp makes one key mistake above, which is what Maunus and I keep telling him. The Group of 88 letter got a reasonable amount of media coverage (not huge in my opinion, but enough for WP's standards); all three of us agree on this. However, DietFoodstamp has not been able to substantiate that 'Mignolo's being a signatory on the letter received any coverage. Yes, we can verify he signed it. But, as the name itself indicates, so did 87 others. There is no indication anywhere that this signing is particularly relevant to Mignolo's life, because no reliable sources have discussed his involvement specifically. I'm really trying to AGF, but looking at the wider pattern of DietFoodstamp's editing, he appears to be very interested in including negative comment on signatories of this letter. In any event, including this info in Mignolo's article is a clear violation of WP:UNDUE (part of WP:NPOV), and the way it was phrased also violates WP:OR, and, arguably, since the whole point appears to be to make Mignolo look bad, a violation of WP:BLP. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Qwyrxian has unfortunately not acknowledged that someone signing a document is an endorsement to them believing in what it says, which seems to be accepted throughout the rest of Wikipedia. I don't want to put any of my personal views into this and I repeat that we are just discussing including this in general because it is a significant event. I am not trying to add certain content, and would love to discuss that -- after this is resolved, of course. The point is that he was involved in this, which I think is very clear. Yes there were 88 signatories -- which is a small minority when compared to Duke University faculty as a whole (I think around 750 total faculty, so definitely the minority). There is no 'negative agenda' against Mignolo, I am simply moving to contribute and keep with Wikipedia's quest for information and knowledge freedom and accessibility--and this event was covered by nearly every major news outlet in the US.

It is your own prerogative if you feel that signing the open letter makes Walter Mignolo--and the other 87--'look bad' (you could also read it that he took action when he saw social injustice, regardless of what happened later), but I am simply trying to keep this encyclopedic in nature. I don't understand why this should be actively suppressed -- I would argue that a simple, factual, non-biased and non-prominent entry is justified. DietFoodstamp (talk) 00:54, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

• I maintain that in order to include it it is not enough to have information that6 he signed - but also information that explicitly mentions his signature as having some kind of significance in relation to his person. We are not in the business of making a list of who signed which petitions. Walter Mignolo is a scholar with a long and sometimnes controversial career - this one signature has no relevance to his biography untill someone actually publishes a source about Mignolo (not about the letter) explaining what makes it relevant.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:09, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax was a big deal. If someone was a part of the guilt-presuming pack, that's a big deal, and worthy of mention. William Jockusch (talk) 04:02, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

It would be if there was a source saying that it was a big deal to have signed the letter yes.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 04:21, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

British Pakistanis

• British Pakistanis (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

what is disputed is the content added by User:AnkhMorpork and User:Shrike here, [69]. the content implies that pedophilia is connected with ethnic background and thus violates npov. there are several pages about racial groups on wikipedia and none of them contain such content. as another user noted; "belgium page does not feature a subsection on the innate pedophilia of belgians". many europeans are involved in the disgusting thai sex trade but there is no subsection about this on the europeans-page either. and so on and so forth.

the sources used by ankmorpork and shrike are also questionable.

erick stakelbeck, for example, is described as "anti-muslim". an opinion piece with the very contentious title "most-uk-girl-child-abusers-are-british-pakistanis" is also used. however, most child abusers in britain are whites. the times article used as a source in this opinion piece is also an opinion piece. in addition, most of the content added by ankmorpork is about the "rochdale grooming trial". totally undue.

another thing: this sort of information belongs to pages like Human trafficking in the United Kingdom or Slavery in Britain and Ireland but not the page about british pakistanis. ankmorpork's additions violate wp:npov, wp:undue and are totally un-encyclopedic. ankmorpork and shrike also violated wp:brd. wp:brd implies being bold, yes, but when you are reverted, a discussion and consensus is obliged before another set of additions are made. instead, ankmorpork and shrike have forced the material back into the article.-- altetendekrabbe  05:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Altetendekrabbe (talk · contribs)
• Henrik.karlstrom (talk · contribs)
• AndyTheGrump (talk · contribs)
• Nyttend (talk · contribs)
• Shrike (talk · contribs)
• AnkhMorpork (talk · contribs)
• Darkness Shines (talk · contribs)

i suspect that user shrike and ankmorpork are tag-teaming. see the discussion here, [70]

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.-- altetendekrabbe  05:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=British Pakistanis}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

there was a discussion on the talk page but with no result. consensus was thus not reached. however, ankmorpork and shrike have forced the material back into the article.-- altetendekrabbe  05:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• How do you think we can help?

the content has to be moved to a more appropriate page with the unreliable sources weeded out. the content is undue and violates npov. it is also supported by an opinion piece and erik stakelbeck. most of the content is about the "rochdale grooming trial". totally undue.-- altetendekrabbe  18:30, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

British Pakistanis discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

The dispute started with accusation by Altetendekrabbe not a good start you also forgot to notify User:Darkness Shines.Anyhow it was already explained to this user that the sources tell about the community so its relevant to the article.--Shrike (talk) 18:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:NPOV:"discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and NPOV, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news." The issue is in the news at the moment because a gang of British Pakistanis have recently been convicted of child abuse. This does not necessarily mean it is proportionate or appropriate to discuss in the British Pakistanis article. Dlv999 (talk) 19:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

You would be correct if your premise was correct. However this is not an isolated event but an ongoing issue which prompted a BBC documentary examining the on-street grooming of young girls for sex by Pakistani men in the UK, and comment from across the media. Bernardo's children charity and the Ramadan Foundation have both discussed this worrying trend and not just in relation to this single episode. See other notable cases, the British Pakistani Telford sex ring, and government reaction. Channel 4 made a documentary on Pakistani sex grooming in 2004; its quite a stretch to describe this issue as 'recentism'.Ankh.Morpork 20:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The BBC reports you cite of so called "other notable cases" do not mention the Pakistani community, so it seems that is your own synth. The news report you cite for the "government response" is actually a single MP giving his personal opinion, which is not shared by other politicians or Banardos quoted in the article. e.g. " But Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, said it was not a cultural problem and it was wrong to stereotype a whole community. And Barnados chief executive Martin Narey said the case was more about vulnerable children of all races who were at risk from abuse." Dlv999 (talk) 21:38, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Since you state that "The BBC reports you cite of so called "other notable cases" do not mention the Pakistani community", have a look at the first sentence of the BBC documentary article which states: Rochdale has featured in a BBC documentary on the subject of on-street grooming of young girls for sex by Pakistani men in the UK. Can you confirm that your concern is that sources do not mention the Pakistani community in conjunction with other cases, because this can be easily rectified?Ankh.Morpork 21:56, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The issue, as I think was clear, is that the two cited sources you gave (other, Telford sex ring) to claim other notable cases (i.e other than the Rochdale case currently in the news) do not discuss the Pakistani community. Therefore they are not relevant to the discussion. Dlv999 (talk) 23:04, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I understood what you were saying and I therefore will repeat what I asked you previously: If I establish that these cases were discussed in relation to the Pakistani community, would you withdraw your cited objections and agree with this material's inclusion?Ankh.Morpork 23:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I'm missing the subtle nuances in the differentiation between recent events and ongoing issues, but let's start somewhere else: As the article currently reads, it would probably be more informative to the reader if the "Contemporary issues" was renamed "Badges of shame". There's no balance at all. Couldn't we add similar badges of shame on many articles on national/ethnic groups? Austrians, it seems, have a unique proclivity for private incarcerations with pedophilic/incestuous motives. Belgians are known for pedophilia and Norwegians are mass consumers of sex workers abroad, to the point that the goverment needs to regulate it. Would the Fritzl case mean that Natascha Kampusch's experiences were transformed from a single, horrendous case to an ongoing issue of unknown proportions?

When it comes to this specific case, it seems to me that the sources used for verification all deal with one specific case, the Rochdale one, while the two references that generalise the problem are opinion pieces by a raving representative of the American Christian Right's least jovial segments and in an Indian (no hard feelings towards Pakistanis at all) bloggish newspaper. The Rochdale case is notable enough for its own article. I would say that even in a large section on contemporary issues among British Pakistanis, that article should be referenced by at most one sentence, per is WP:UNDUE , considering that the amount of British Pakistanis involved is small compared to the entire populace. Best regards, --benjamil (talk) 21:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC) comment later edited --benjamil (talk) 22:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

For balance, let me point out that Shrike, AnkhMorpork, No More Mr Nice Guy, Luke 19 Verse 27 ‎and a couple of others are blatently 'pro'-Israel. It's no secret that 'pro'-Israel and Muslim-baiting are now two sides of the same coin. The more nauseating aspect here is the introduction of an ethnic element. I actually found it pretty shocking: I come across plenty of 'pro'-Israeli posters, but they're not usually racist. These two seem to have no limits. Can you imagine the reaction if someone posted something about Jews having a propensity to paedophilia, citing some right-wing Saudi website? The fact that the posts by Shrike and the other user do not elicit the same reaction, sadly, speaks volumes about other users.

There seems to be a little cluster of these people that go around together editing articles. I posted simple advice on a user's talk page to not get dragged into discussion with one of the above-mentioned users, only for one of the other above-mentioned users to show up and post something. They harass and tag-team like crazy, it's ridiculous. I can't believe it's so blatant yet they have got away with it, and doubtless will continue to do so. Ban these racists from editing. ~ Iloveandrea (talk) 01:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The content is acceptable provided that WP:BALANCE is applied. At the moment it is not. Leaky Caldron 09:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

no, it's not acceptable. the very nature of the content is highly contentious, violating npov. you'll never get balance. the sources are dubious. besides, user ankhmorpork and user shrike don't have any consensus. they *forced* the content into the article, violating wp:brd.-- altetendekrabbe  10:59, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Then I suggest you focus on the content and balance it rather than considering the actions of the editors with whom you disagree. It isn't as black and white as either side here wish to make it out. That's no good reason for not including the factual elements representing all aspects of the matter. Leaky Caldron 11:42, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

you don't see such content on any other racial group, as pointed out by several editors. and rules are rules: content with absolutely no consensus has been forced into the text. it will be removed.-- altetendekrabbe  12:08, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Feel free. But a word of advice first. This is a DR case that you brought. Please don't speak aggressively to editors like me who attempt to represent a view that you don't share. Leaky Caldron 12:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I have no wish to get into a dispute with individuals which involves nit-picking over individual sources. This disgusting bit of POV-pushing is clearly an attack on British people of Pakistani descent as a whole (many of whome are third or even fourth-generation British citizens, and may not self identify as 'British Pakistanis' at all - this is largely an external definition, rather than a self-assigned one), based on cherry-picking of sources. As such it can only be motivated by political point-scoring, Islmaophobia, or outright racism, and has no place in Wikipedia. That the disputed section cites the opinions of Erick Stakelbeck, an American Right-wing commentator who recently openly asserted his support for the neo-Fascist English Defence League [71] is clear enough indication to me that those supporting the inclusion of the section need to seriously consider their fitness for a project which is intended to serve the interests of all, rather than pushing agendas in support of some faction or another. This is neither Stormfront nor Conservapedia, and we don't need this sort of shit here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

precisely!-- altetendekrabbe  15:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

And would you compare the BBC to Der Stürmer and Jack Straw to Mr. Goebbels, as they refer to "British Pakistanis" and ol' Beebs even commissioned a documentary about child sex grooming by Pakistani men. This issue is cited by numerous sources with regards to the Pakistani community, and we report what the sources say. If you feel that there has been cherry picking (an unfortunate turn of phrase), then please suggest how to balance the paragraph and more accurately sum up this issue.Ankh.Morpork 15:34, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

You can't 'balance' bigotry. Any inclusion of controversial material almost entirely sourced around a recent single case has no business going into an article about an ethnic minority at all, per WP:UNDUE. And no, I wouldn't compare Jack Straw to Mr. Goebbels. I will however be willing to provide comparisons between those promoting this POV-pushing crap and Goebbels on request... AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

you're being disruptive, please read Wikipedia:IDIDNTHEARTHAT.-- altetendekrabbe  15:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Its you who should read it there at least 4 editors that said it could be mentioned in the article in some way.--Shrike (talk) 15:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I truly hope your not counting my viewpoints as support for your position. --benjamil (talk) 18:14, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

OK. I realise that I should have written something more. People, I don't think I've seen Godwin's law make itself felt so quickly ever before. Seriously, AnkhMorpork and Shrike, do you really, really, honestly believe that the use of crazy sources (Stakelbeck) has anything to do with Wikipedia's goals, and that the contemporary issues concerning the British Pakistani minority are 1) terrorism, 2) discrimination and 3) pedophilia? If you take special interest in the contemporary issues of the British Pakistani community, why don't you make some edits that actually explain these issues in proportion to their prevalence and/or relation to the 1.2 million people community using some real sources? I've read the article that AnkhMorpork has written about the case (or rather the perpetrators), and as it is subject of an edit war along the lines that sparked the call for this dispute resolution, I can't advice mentioning the case in the British Pakistani article at all. I'll edit my earlier comment to make that quite clear. Best regards, --benjamil (talk) 22:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

here is a racist who is supporting ankhmorpork [72][73]. i wonder why? the discussion on british pakistani page and on the dispute resolution page makes it clear that ankhmorpork is a disruptive editor. he uses dubious sources, adds badges of shame, and is disengenuous about what is written in the sources. all of this is clearly demonstrated in the discussion. the fact that he is getting the support of racists means that ankhmorpork edits confirm their bigotry. other users are fully aware of his behavior as well [74]-- altetendekrabbe  09:36, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to reflect the behavior of one racist troll on AnkhMorpork.--Atlan (talk) 09:43, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I've recently found out that User:Altetendekrabbe has for the second time experienced to be subjected to a sockpuppet investigation related to this same matter, and has been blocked for expressing his dismay with this (in admittedly a rather aggressive way, but I would probably have becom aggressive too). To me it seems that calls for sockpuppet investigations are not found to be as disruptive as they should be. That's my personal opinion. I'm not feeling confident that equal standards are being applied. Also, I want to make it clear that in my opinion this is not a matter of sources, but a matter of balance and due weight. It is fairly apparent that none of the involved are faint of heart, and that the focus on incivility does not aid in resolving the dispute. For any latecomers, it will be useful to know that the issue has also been discussed on the administrator's noticeboard/incidents. Sadly, this dispute is making me spend all of my Wikitime reading WP and pondering the phrasing of responses. I'll make a proposal for resolution. It might be poor, but hey, then you can propose your own. If I think it's better, I'll be happy to strike out my half hearted attempts at legalese (benjamil (talk) 23:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)):

1. British Pakistanis shall not contain mention of the Rochdale abuse case until the main article on that case is completed and stable, and not before June 1.
2. When such mention is made, the entire section on contemporary issues shall be rewritten in a balanced manner that doesn't give the case undue weight.
3. The section should be proposed in the talk page of British Pakistanis three days before it is edited into the article. The editor proposing it shall notify all parties to the current dispute and there shall be a vote (open to all editors, obviously, regardless of whether they've been involved in the dispute or not). A 3/4 majority shall be required to make the edit.
4. All the involved editors shall refrain from making other edits to the contemporary issues section until consensus has been reached that it should be excluded, or the vote has passed.

• Approve --benjamil (talk) 23:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I have noted your comments about the use of unreliable sources so I shall list the sources that I consider pertinent to this issue. Please point out which ones that are entirely undesirable.

• The Sunday Guardian
• Rochdale News
• The Telegraph
• The Times(available here)
• The Telegraph
• BBC
• The National
• BBC
• AIM

Both a BBC documentary and a Channel 4 documentary have been made on this topic. Ankh.Morpork 23:41, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

For a start, we can do without the bigoted drivel from www.sunday-guardian.com - though like most of the other sources, it is only repeating the story from The Times, with added spin. Citing the same material from multiple sources doesn't make it more reliable. Sourcing is irrelevant though, unless you can establish that this issue deserves mention in an article about an ethnic group. Are you suggesting that similar 'ethnic profiling' should be done with other such articles? I'm sure that it would be possible to cherry-pick enough similarly (un)reliable material to do it in them to, if that is what the project wants. Fortunately, I see no reason to think that it does. So tell us, why do you think this issue is so significant to this ethnic group? The Times article pointed out that elsewhere, other ethnic minorities have also been alleged to have been involved in some aspects of child sexual abuse (along of course with the 'white' ethnic 'majority'). Are you proposing to add such material to all articles on UK ethnicities? And if not, please explain why you consider this one so important? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

One of the source related issues is presented very clearly on the administrator's noticeboard. Although the responsibility for letting them remain by adamantly reverting their deletes are shared by AnkhMorpork, Shrike and Darknesshines, I now see that it is the latter who is responsible for actually inserting the poorest sources (Stakelbeck diff and Sunday Guardian diff).--benjamil (talk) 21:41, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I think benjamil's proposal makes sense, and will just make it clear that the discussion so far has not convinced me that this issue needs mention on the main page about British Pakistanis.Henrik.karlstrom (talk) 14:02, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not involved in this content dispute. I see no reason to jump through benjamil's well-intentioned but ever so slightly controlling & censorious hoops, other than that the matter should be discussed on the article talk page, not at this conspicuous waste of space board. Leaky Caldron 14:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

It wouldn't be discussed here if it weren't for the breakdown of normal talk on the page, it seems. At least one editor apparently felt the need to make the issue known to a wider audience. As far as I can see, that need hasn't diminished. As a rather inexperienced editor, I would appreciate your comment on when it is reasonable to move on back to the talk page. I've suggested one way to get to that point. Do you consider it likely that the issue would de-escalate without getting help from a wider community to put up a framework for further work? --benjamil (talk) 21:17, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, but the chief protagonists seem to be more interested in mud slinging over at ANI [75]. I'm all for wider community input, but the majority of the input here is from the original editors to the dispute, hence my disparaging remark about this board. It just doesn't seem to be effective and a better controlled, wider participated discussion on the article TP seems likely to service the purpose better because it will have more article-specific watchers. My 2p anyway. Leaky Caldron 12:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

My view

I think, on balance, it doesn't belong on the British Pakistani article, yet - for the obvious reason that it's just such a tiny number of British Pakistanis that it's totally irrelevant (let's say there's a thousand offenders, which I hope is a huge over-estimate. They're not exactly going to be bragging about it - so at most ten thousand would even know. That's a TINY proportion of British Pakistanis). But ironically, despite not fitting into this article, it may merit its own article, something like British Asian Sex Ring controversy or something. Why? Because it has indisputably received a heck of a lot of media coverage over the last couple of months. It's had journalists, collumnists, politicians, reporters, socioilogists and so on discussing it. Indeed, to not have an article would be curious. Especially since more trials are coming. Perhaps we (collective we, not sure I want to get involved although I may have a go) should concentrate on getting the "Public debate and analysis" section of Rochdale sex trafficking gang sorted and it can be split into an article later. Egg Centric 00:14, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Yugoslav Wars-Kosovo War

• Yugoslav Wars (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

On the talk page, there is a debate on whether Kosovo War can be considered part of the Yugoslav Wars. User Direktor keeps denying the notion, despite dozens of sources from myself and user:Joy. We are in a deadlock.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• DIREKTOR (talk · contribs)
• Joy (talk · contribs)
• Justice and Arbitration (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Yugoslav Wars, Template:Infobox Kosovo War}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

There was a discussion on the talk page - [76] - but with no result. User:Joy and myself think we have proven with enough sources that Kosovo War is used in the same context with wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, while user:DIRECTOR does not agree.

An overview of the sources that support including the Kosovo conflict:

1. One of these challenges, launched following the Dayton Accord in the Serbian province of Kosovo, would culminate, after several years of escalating tension, in a fourth Balkan war, Craig Nation, page 223
2. The Yugoslav Wars: The Kosovo Conflict, Nigel Thomas, p. 47
3. BBC: The Croatian war claimed some 20,000 lives, the Bosnian war 100,000 and the Kosovo war some 10,000... Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and to a lesser extent other parts of the former Yugoslavia, are all still struggling with the legacies of the Yugoslav wars.
4. These four struggles have been called the wars of Yugoslav succession because they determined what countries succeeded the SFRY. The first war occurred in Slovenia and lasted ten days in June and July 1991, producing few casualties. The second war was fought in Croatia from July to December 1991 and in the summer of 1995. The third war took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. The second and third wars resulted in hundreds of thousands of mostly civilian casualties, massive property damage, and more than 2.5 million refugees. The fourth war, sometimes known as the Kosovo war, lasted from March to June 1999
5. These four struggles have been called the wars of Yugoslav succession because they determined what countries succeeded the SFRY (Rusinow, Dennison, 2008)
6. US Intervention Policy And Army Innovation: From Vietnam To Iraq, by Richard Lock-Pullan, p. 173
7. The Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical Documentation 1974-1999, by Heike Krieger, p. 470
8. University of Edinburgh, Igor Štiks, p. 20, "The Wars of Yugoslav secession ended with Serbia's withdrawal from Kosovo in 1999."

• How do you think we can help?

A neutral, third opinion from other users should bring a verdict if Kosovo War can be considered part of the 1990s wars in the former Yugoslavia or not.

Justice and Arbitration (talk) 20:55, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yugoslav Wars-Kosovo War

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

First of all, User:Justice and Arbitration's summary of the situation is appallingly biased. Since the man has posted nothing but obvious OR (and personal attacks), I strongly suspect all his dozens upon dozens of sources are misquoted. Throughout the thread, all I have been doing is explaining to the user what original research is, and why its unacceptable. He has condescendingly "dismissed" all objections. I keep asking for a single source that actually directly supports his claim, to no avail. All I would like to see is a source that in some way states the Kosovo War is one of the "Yugoslav Wars". -- Director (talk) 04:48, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Let me just give a source that is already in the article as an opening statement. It is published by the International Center for Transitional Justice - it gives a total sum of people killed in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, i.e. 140,000 people, and it also lists - Kosovo. Let now third users discuss it and then we will take it from here.--Justice and Arbitration (talk) 08:01, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes of course! Because its the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia - and Kosovo is part of former Yugoslavia. What does that have to do with the Kosovo War being listed among the three Yugoslav Wars? For the tenth time, it is OR for you to conclude from this that the Kosovo War is one the Yugoslav Wars. The source does not say that - you do. The court has nothing whatsoever to say on whether the Kosovo War is or isn't one of the Yugoslav Wars. You are being incredibly WP:DISRUPTIVE. Please read and understand what WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH is when it is pointed out to you twenty times: "to demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented."

Please present direct support for your claim or it should be removed as it is supported by misquoted sources "liberally" interpreted by yourself. -- Director (talk) 09:33, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I somehow start to doubt you even fully understand what WP:DISRUPTIVE even means, because we are not on the talk page of the Yugoslav Wars anymore, but on the dispute resoluton noticeboard where now the debate is in the hands of other users. And by the way, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) are not one and the same thing. Calm down, if you are so confident that you are right, and that all my sources are wrong, then you have nothing to worry about. Now relax and let other users give their opinion on the matter.--Justice and Arbitration (talk) 11:25, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. You have a link to a document entitled Transitional Justice in the Former Yugoslavia, issued by the ICTJ, that lists deaths in Kosovo alongside deaths in the rest of former Yugoslavia, and you claim this document provides direct evidence that the Kosovo War is one of the Yugoslav Wars. What a perfect example of the sources you've listed thus far. That is not only original research, its rather bad original research. And forgive me for starting to lose my temper, but I don't like it when I have to repeat the same thing over and over again (amid personal attacks and condescending remarks [77]). -- Director (talk) 12:23, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Having looked at some of the cites, and the manner in which they are used, I think there is a strong case for WP:SYN here. There are many articles like this on wikipedia: a bunch of cites are knitted together and a synthetic conclusion is arrived at, but none of the individual sources can be shown to have reached the same conclusion. If there are sources that explicitly state what the editors here wish to assert it should be possible to offer specific page numbers from reliable secondary sources. Semitransgenic _talk. 12:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Finally someone else has joined the discussion. It is obvious that when ICTJ writes about the wars in the former Yugoslavia, that it lists all the territories encompassed in it. But if that source does not convince you, there are many more:

• One of these challenges, launched following the Dayton Accord in the Serbian province of Kosovo, would culminate, after several years of escalating tension, in a fourth Balkan war, Craig Nation, page 223
• The Yugoslav Wars: The Kosovo Conflict, Nigel Thomas, p. 47.--Justice and Arbitration (talk) 13:37, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I saw your request for a page number and was puzzled by it. Did you notice that the book is called "The Collapse of Yugoslavia 1991–1999"? In other words, the author feels the collapse of Yugoslavia ended in 1999. Not 1995, 1999. There is no synthesis here - the author themselves promotes the position that the topic spans the period past to 1999.

Tim Judah's text, referenced in the article, says The story of those conflicts in Slovenia, in Croatia, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and finally NATO's war in Yugoslavia, has been told many times. I see absolutely no doubt there that the author literally thinks the group of wars does not exclude the Kosovo war.

The third listed source says The four wars of Milošević—against Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and finally against Kosov—came to an end only with the bombing of Serbia, the removal of Milošević from power, and the development of a Serbian reform-oriented regime.. Likewise, I fail to see how we can claim that this author would agree with the Yugoslav wars including only the first three wars, but not the fourth. There's nothing ambiguous about it.

Overall, I have called upon DIREKTOR to produce a modicum of evidence for his position - for example a book or an article that discusses the Yugoslav wars and lists only the first three of them in the group, while at the same time mentioning the Kosovo war, outside the group. Surely this shouldn't be particularly hard to produce. So far, however, he has refused to do this, and instead persists in the flamewar. I think that's pointless. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 13:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• @Joy. The WP:BURDEN is on you, Joy, call as much as you like. I have always listed sources where I believed they are necessary, but the validity of one's argument is not in how much effort he expends in googling and posting irrelevant links. This is WP:SYNTHESIS of the most obvious variety. "The four wars of Milosevich"? Of course! Milosevich has been involved in all four. If you believe the "Yugoslav Wars" are defined as synonymous with "all wars Milosevich had a part in", then provide sources in support. If you cannot do so, the contested claim has to be removed.

Obviously Serbia, and the President of Serbia (Milošević), has been involved in four wars - but while three of them took place simultaneously, directly caused by the breakup of Yugoslavia, one of them took place four years after the breakup and the other three were over and done with. Granted, it might be debatable whether the "breakup of Yugoslavia" can be considered to have been over in 1992, 1995, 1999, 2006 (secession of Montenegro), etc. some even claim its still going on - but that is not the issue here. The issue is: do you fellas, or do you not, have a source that directly states the Kosovo War (1998-99) is one of the Yugoslav Wars (the rest of them taking place 1991-95)? Its a perfectly valid request. -- Director (talk) 14:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• @Justice and Arbitration. Your first clue should have been the very fact that you have to "convince" someone your sources state what you say they state. Your first source characterizes Kosovo as the "fourth Balkan war". I suspect the author is referring to the conflict in Kosovo being "fourth" after the First Balkan War, the Second Balkan War - and the "Third Balkan War", I assume, are the Yugoslav Wars, the three conflicts between 1991-95. Either that, or the historian is forgetting his history, and I doubt that. In any case, it is irrelevant, as the question is not whether the Kosovo War is a the "Fourth Balkan War", but whether it is one of the Yugoslav Wars.

As for your second source, I already pointed out that its (a 50-page booklet) merely entitled "Yugoslav Wars", and you yourself have extrapolated that this means the Kosovo War, just for being covered in the book, belongs in the Yugoslav Wars. If you had a real source that clearly and directly supports said claim, then (imo) this might help to support it as something other than WP:FRINGE - but as things are now, it is nothing more than another attempt at OR. You're concocting support for complex, specific claims - from a book's contents. The book makes no claim in your support - you're concluding that it does. -- Director (talk) 15:18, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

can I ask someone to provide a reliable source that offers an explicit definition of the "Yugoslav Wars"? preferably one that lists exactly what territories/conflicts are covered by this umbrella term? Semitransgenic _talk. 15:41, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I think Craig Nation gives a good definition: [http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/00117.pdf From the prelude in Slovenia in 1991, through the more destructive conflicts in Croatia, BosniaHerzegovina, and Kosovo between 1992 and 1999, to the epilogue in Macedonia in 2000-2001, what I prefer to call the War of Yugoslav Succession has been about efforts to assert sovereignty over territory in the absence of any kind of agreement concerning how the collapsing federation might have been reorganized, or disassembled, short of a resort to force. Slobodan Milošević has been singled out for special censure for his blatant manipulation of Serbian nationalism in order to secure a hold on power, and willingness to resort to blood and iron in order to carve a greater Serbia from the body of former Yugoslavia]--Justice and Arbitration (talk) 16:57, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

that source appears to be WP:SPS. Is that the best we've got? Additionally, even if it were usable, it's still only one person's view. Can we demonstrate what the academic consensus on this matter is somehow? Are there no published scholarly sources that offer the required definition? Semitransgenic _talk. 17:06, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I think you hit the nail on the head there, Semitransgenic. The Yugoslav Wars article was just a sort of summary article with a barely-sourced title. The problematic and unsourced conception/title of the article is central to the problem here. -- Director (talk) 18:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

The concept is indeed problematic since it seems there are different titles to it, but it was still enough to warrant hundred books written on the topic, among them one published by BBC itself in 1996, "Yugoslavia: death of a nation", which mentions the term "Yugoslav Wars" on page 334. http://books.google.hr/books?hl=hr&id=ZxwOAQAAMAAJ&dq=fall+of+yugoslavia&q=yugoslav+wars The problem is, I can only browse a little into some books on google, so I cannot get a clear overview on every page to find a good definition. Most sources just mention the timeline (the 1990s) and territories in conflict. Still, the International Crisis Group (ICG) http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain?page=search&docid=3ae6a6ce1c&skip=0&query=yugoslav has a good definition in the background of the conflict: "Today's political geography of the Balkans is the result of four separate wars -- in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo -- and a series of partially-implemented, internationally-brokered peace agreements. It reflects the failure, on the one hand, of the former Yugoslavia to come to terms with the transition from one-party, Marxist rule to democracy, and, on the other hand, of the international community to manage the disintegration of the country. The international community, led by the European Community (EC) as the European Union (EU) was then called, became involved in the wars of Yugoslav dissolution " whereas the CIA https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ri.html says this in the history of Serbia: "In 1989, Slobodan MILOSEVIC became president of the Republic of Serbia and his ultranationalist calls for Serbian domination led to the violent breakup of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines. In 1991, Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia declared independence, followed by Bosnia in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in April 1992 and under MILOSEVIC's leadership, Serbia led various military campaigns to unite ethnic Serbs in neighboring republics into a "Greater Serbia". The international community, led by the European Community (EC) as the European Union (EU) was then called, became involved in the wars of Yugoslav dissolution "--Justice and Arbitration (talk) 20:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

if you don't have access to the required sources, then you really need expert input here. Have you posted on the relevant notice boards to seek expert attention on the matter?

The bottom line is that an article entitled "Yuogslav Wars" should reflect how reliable academic sources deal with the subject matter. If said sources do not view the Kosovo War as a member of the set "Yugoslav Wars" then neither should we, but if they do, then there is absolutely no problem including it. Semitransgenic _talk. 20:36, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Exactly my point. J&A's "impressions" side, its really starting to look like there isn't a single source that claims anything of the sort. -- Director (talk) 22:52, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

DIRECTOR, this is not for you to decide anymore, nor me or Joy. This is now in the hands of others who will bring a decision based on the sources. With regards to the lack of available definitions at our current disposal, you can either request that the whole article Yugoslav Wars be deleted (which will be difficult, since there are books written on the topic) or ask help from an expert for a definition. Either way, this is not the topic of this noticeboard – if you want one, make another, separate request for *that* issue on the WP:DRN. In the meantime, I want *this* dispute to be resolved, namely if Kosovo can be considered part of the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Me and Joy posted sources of authors who put the end of Yugoslav Wars in 1999 so user:Semitransgenic is on the move now. --Justice and Arbitration (talk) 06:42, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Ugh..

• 1. This is not WP:ARBCOM, J&A, nobody will "render judgement upon us". This is a place for discussion.
• 2. Your false dichotomies are irrelevant, the addition of the Kosovo War (being disputed and unsourced) should simply be reverted.
• 3. This is not a noticeboard, its a thread on a noticeboard.
• 4. You do not WP:OWN this thread, and you're not called-upon to determine what is and is not relevant to the subject. What we're discussing is clearly related and relevant.
• 5. You posted a lot of sources. Unfortunately they do not support your claim, but serve instead merely as the basis for your own synthesis.

-- Director (talk) 08:05, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

@J&A this is just an informal dispute resolution process that is open to anyone who want to offer an opinion. I tagged the article for expert input, best you try and get the attention of someone involved in WP:MILHIST. But for what's it's worth, the main problem here is the article title. We have a Breakup of Yugoslavia article already, perhaps some of the content could be moved there and a redirect offered for the search term "Yugoslav wars"? Looking at some of the usable sources, undoubtedly the Kosovo war was a result of the breakup of Yugoslavia, so, by inference, I can see that it could be viewed as an element of the set "Yugoslav wars", but we still need a source that states this in the required context. I think it's really down to whether or not there is enough consensus to accept the Osprey book title (The Yugoslav Wars) as a valid source. For that you need to go WP:RSN. Semitransgenic _talk. 11:28, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Editing Association of Professional Futurists stub

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Editing Association of Professional Futurists stub (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? A stub was added by a 3rd party and was not up to scratch. Members of our organisation discussed the need to greatly improve the item and began making changes to it to take it from its advertorial tone to one more independently grounded and of greater community value. Editor removed recent additions stripping it back to its stub stage. Have requested on three occasions for those edits to be reverted so that the subject matter experts might be able to enhance it. Have requested a comprise of a fortnight for that to happen; have appealed to the good faith provisions. Editor has responded with what could generously be called 'immaturity' Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? Jeraphine Gryphon (talk · contribs) Marcus Barber (talk · contribs) See talk on the page Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Not yet. N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Editing Association of Professional Futurists stub}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? As per talk on the page, you can see I have made a number of requests to resolve the current situation How do you think we can help? I'm asking for someone independent to grant us the time to make changes to the age such that it would then be up to standard. I am asking for the original edits I and others had added to be reverted so that we have a structure that takes the page to something of greater value and of greater accuracy than what sits there now MarcusBarber (talk) 02:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC) Editing Association of Professional Futurists stub discussion Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. I will assume you are referring to Talk:Association_of_Professional_Futurists#_. There, I ask "Who is the editor in question? Which 3 requests? Where was the page protected?". Looking at the article's history, a couple of low edit count editors have edited the article. Are you referring to these editors as the "3 requests (including yourself)"? And are these editors affiliated with the organization?Curb Chain (talk) 04:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC) The main dispute is on User talk:Jeraphine Gryphon. If User:MarcusBarber wants to add material to the page, he can, but if the dispute is about the material that User:Jeraphine Gryphon removed after you, User:MarcusBarber, added, then you have to discuss the additions. As such, it seems unnecessary to have such a dispute for something that hasn't been discussed.Curb Chain (talk) 17:48, 14 May 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Adam Dunn reverts

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The user Carthage 44 has been reverting statistical updates to Adam Dunn's page, among others. He has claimed in a few of his edit summaries that there is "No need to update so often."

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• AutomaticStrikeout (talk · contribs)
• Carthage44 (talk · contribs)
• Zepppep (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Adam Dunn reverts}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Both I and Zepppep have attempted to discuss this with Carthage 44 on his talk page, but he has only removed our posts. Zepppep also discussed it with Carthage44 on the Adam Dunn talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

You can explain to Carthage 44 that there is no harm in regularly updating a page and that he needs to be willing to discuss the issue with the other editors involved.

AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 21:36, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Adam Dunn reverts discussion

I saw that Carthage44 had again reverted a stats edit, I reverted his edit, and left a (what I thought) clear note on the talk page, to go with my edit summary pointing him there. He made a minor edit to my reversion, which while technically correct, appears to violate S.O.P. for stats keeping. The fact that he didn't immediately revert my edit seems like a good sign to me that he doesn't want to edit war over it, I notice that he has several blocks for that already, so it's possible that it's getting through to him now, call me an optimist . -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:28, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Mikis Theodorakis

• Mikis Theodorakis (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

have been trying to add RS content (from LA Times, Guardian and Jerusalem Post) to article, but keep getting rebuffed by two particular editors. Diffs:

• guardian removal: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mikis_Theodorakis&diff=next&oldid=449850779
• LA Times removal: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mikis_Theodorakis&diff=next&oldid=453021387
• jpost removal: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mikis_Theodorakis&diff=next&oldid=456851663
• jpost removal again: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mikis_Theodorakis&diff=next&oldid=465663232
• again: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mikis_Theodorakis&diff=next&oldid=475798673
• again: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mikis_Theodorakis&diff=next&oldid=476810068
• again: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mikis_Theodorakis&diff=next&oldid=480054218

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Soosim (talk · contribs)
• Dr.K. (talk · contribs)
• Athenean (talk · contribs)

in my opinion, neither DrK nor Athenean want anything to do with this material since it portrays the subject in a bad light.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Mikis Theodorakis}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

yes, on the talk page several times.

• How do you think we can help?

should the material be allowed to stand, and if so, with what verbiage?

Soosim (talk) 10:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Mikis Theodorakis discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Soosim has been trying for months, if not years now, to smear Mikis Theodorakis as an anti-semite. However, as of last fall, a clear consensus formed in the article's talkpage that these accusations were given undue weight and as such were a BLP violation that had no place in the article. This discussion can be seen here [78]. Four editors, of diverse backgrounds, have agreed on this point. One of them User:Off2riorob (now User:Youreallycan) is an expert with lots of experience on BLP articles. The lone dissenting voice was Soosim, a single-purpose account that does pretty much nothing besides smear on this encyclopedia those critical of Israel and its policies, as his contribs log clearly shows [79]. At first he tried to have his way via edit-warring [80] [81] [82]. That didn't work, so here he is. He just keeps repeating like a broken record that his sources are reliable, his sources are reliable, but without taking into accounts the details of what happened during the interview, and the subleties of WP:DUE and WP:BLP. I note that Soosim has omitted from notifying Youreallycan of this discussion, as he has also omitted another dissenting user, User:Nojamus, for reasons known only to him. Athenean (talk) 18:05, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Athenean's comments and I also add that there was a discussion at BLPN in October 2011 where Soosim participated and which clearly decided in favour of not including this minor incident in the career of this uniquely prosemitic composer. He after all composed the Mauthausen Cantata to commemorate the tragic lives and deep humanity of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Please see: On 7 May 1995 the Mauthausen Cantata was performed at the Mauthausen Memorial under the direction of the composer and conductor Mikis Theodorakis and associated Google search. How many anti-semites does one know who have composed cantatas for Holocaust victims? But this editor will not let multi-forum consensus stand in his way of trying to include this WP:UNDUE material in the BLP article of Mikis Theodorakis. This is getting disruptive and is close to diachronic forum shopping. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 02:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

athenean - how do you know they are "diverse" editors? very interesting comment. and i now went to the other two editors' pages to invite them, but i see dr k also has done that. thank you. the basic issue is that neither drk nor athenean want to see anything negative on that page, even though the material exists, in RS. jumping through wiki hoops to keep it out. interesting, as well. Soosim (talk) 06:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

and one more thing....since drk and athenean said it has been discussed and decided, and if i understand, the "i am an anti-semite" was a misquote based on a mistranslation (though the LA Times journalist in athens is greek...), i just tried to add theodorakis' views, in his own words, from his own website, in response to hullabaloo, about israel and zionism. and now, it gets removed as 'desparate'. anyone care to comment? here's the diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Mikis_Theodorakis&curid=155035&diff=492827189&oldid=492825592 Soosim (talk) 08:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Selectively quoting and cherry-picking as usual. You seem to desperately want to portray Mikis in as negative a light as possible, by whatever means necessary. You have been obsessed with the guy for years now. What is the reason for this obsession? Care to explain? Athenean (talk) 22:58, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

the lady doth protest too much, methinks. Soosim (talk) 05:58, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

To troll or not to troll; That is the question. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 20:06, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about this discussion! I agree with others here that Soosim's case is a very weak one. Speaking for myself alone, I have never argued against newspapers or magazines being used as sources. Rather, I believe that CONTEXT has to be considered whenever controversial sources are to be used. The sources Soosim keeps mentioning were shown by other sources (in the Talk page) to be utterly misinformed. In a nutshell the problem is this: an elderly Theodorakis said something toward the end of a 2-hour interview that was picked up by some media outlets and published without a summary of the rest of the interview. Theodorakis comes off as a racist, whereas in fact he said in the very next sentence after the "controversial" comment that he loves the people of Israel. I can't think of a single good reason why someone would want to create a whole section on Theodorakis's supposed "anti-Semitism" (a laughable idea, for a man who wrote a symphonic piece to commemorate the Holocaust).Nojamus (talk) 17:20, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Nojamus for your great points. Here is more: In a 2004 interview with Haaretz, Mikis is described as follows:

Since he is a romantic Greek, he says, he has a romantic weakness for the romantic dimension of Zionism. In his eyes, the fact that the Children of Israel returned to the historical womb from which they emerged is very beautiful.

Also:

Learning from the Greeks: From the point of view of the Israeli peace camp, Mikis Theodorakis' practical political views are at least reasonable. He recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. He believes in a two-state solution. He also thinks that the Palestinians should learn from the experience of the Greeks, and understand that return is impossible.

Does that sound to you like an antisemite? Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 19:08, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

also:

"Zionists control 99% of Global musical life," and he continues discussing Israel and the Jewish-American lobby in the USA, "I have therefore repeatedly accused Israel and accuse it again today for crimes against humanity. I equally condemn some important factors of the Jewish-American lobby both for their leading role in the crimes of the USA war machine in Iraq and for their plan to eliminate Nation-States, ultimately aiming to establish the global predominance of Bank-financial colossuses entirely controlled by it."

does this sound to you like an antisemite? of course not. but does it sound like something a lover of the jews and israel would say? oh my. Soosim (talk) 05:09, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Don't be or play naive. Mikis is not criticising your people or Israel as an idea. He criticises the conduct of your government and your elites. Don't confuse the issues. One can criticise your elites and/or government and still be a friend of your people and the idea of your country. Or can you not tell the difference? Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 11:47, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

naive? no. confused. you admit that he has said the words above. but you don't want them in the article. why not? is the article supposed to be pure, without any issue, problem, criticsm? what's wrong with what he said? he feels that way, it is a fact. why not include it and be done with it? Soosim (talk) 12:01, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Because it would be undue weight to do so. We cannot include every political utterance of Mikis in his biography. That would be undue weight. He has criticised countless dictatorships, governments, people in power etc. We cannot make his biography an encyclopedia of political condemnations. And in the case of Israel, we have to put all the paragraphs of his support for Israel before we include this minor episode, which was not even covered widely or in any depth by the media, where he criticised your government and your elites. But that would make his article not a biography but a controversy centred around Israel, clearly a case of undue weight. I know that I will not persuade you, given your exclusive focus on Israel-centred nationalist issues, so with this comment I will try to stop replying to your comments awaiting input from others. I think I have made my point to you clearly and in good faith but I can see that I am talking to someone who will never agree with me. This is a community noticeboard after all. Let's wait for others to chime in. I am done with you here. Thank you. Δρ.Κ. ^{λόγοςπράξις} 13:05, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Undue weight indeed. Incidentally, it is already mentioned that he accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza, so I think that is already more than sufficient. Athenean (talk) 18:27, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

well, i hope some others will weigh in. and what is undue to you by including itis undue by another for not including it. Soosim (talk) 06:59, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Media Section, I'd like to know why my media section was not added or allowed? The facts are all true and not spun in any way.

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Media Section (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) I'd like to know why my media section was not added or allowed? The facts are all true and not spun in any way. (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? Not sure who did the editing. Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? Monkeyboy70 (talk · contribs) Monkeyboy70 (talk · contribs) Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Not yet. N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Media Section, I'd like to know why my media section was not added or allowed? The facts are all true and not spun in any way.}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? How do you think we can help? This is the first time I've done this so I hope I'm doing it right. Thanks! Monkeyboy70 (talk) 05:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC) Media Section, I'd like to know why my media section was not added or allowed? The facts are all true and not spun in any way. discussion Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. According to User:Wtshymanski, the "list of advertising spots [is] not notable": [83]Curb Chain (talk) 07:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rob Ford

• Rob Ford (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

Several editors, including myself, are at an impasse over the content at the Rob Ford article. Most recent consensus is for keeping a link to a BBC article, but it is consistently removed by the user Claimsfour. Claimsfour claims that the article is a "hitpiece" on said Rob Ford, who is a prominent politician, and that is a serious charge in and of itself. An examination of the article and recent editing is in order.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Claimsfour (talk · contribs)
• Alaney2k (talk · contribs)
• EncyclopediaUpdaticus (talk · contribs)
• Rostz (talk · contribs)

Claimsfour has not edited any other articles but this one, and we cannot vouch for his NPOV or distance on the material.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Rob Ford}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

This has been discussed on the talk page of the article, and another editor has placed a warning on Claimsfour's talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

An impartial examination of the situation. Is it edit warring? Is it biased, as it stands now? This may take some knowledge of the subject material. There was a previous complaint about this article in 2010 during Rob Ford's election campaign. This is mentioned in the article. I have not asked for dispute resolution before, sorry if this is inappropriate.

ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 23:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Rob Ford discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

The user has been reported also to the Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Rob Ford's wiki page needs serious editing

I've been a contributor to for close to six years. I only bothered to register after seeing the Rob Ford article, and I realized that registering would enable me to dispute the rampant level of biased/attacks.

My issues with the Rob Ford Wiki article are as follows:

- The level of 'weasel words' is virtually biblical

Example: "In June 2011, Ford yet again stirred up controversy when he refused to attend Toronto's annual Pride Parade or any Pride festivities in the week leading up to the Pride Parade breaking a more than decade long tradition of Toronto Mayors supporting the city's LBGQT community.[51] The city was divided between those that thought it was his prerogative not to go to Pride and those who thought it confirmed perceptions of his homophobia. link

"Yet again"? Total idiocy.

This one is rich: RE: "Political views": In 2002, Ford strenuously objected to the possibility that a homeless shelter would open in his suburban Etobicoke ward.[55][56] Later in the same year, he was quoted while berating an anti-poverty activist, "Do you have a job, sir? I'll give you a newspaper to find a job, like everyone else has to do between 9 and 5."[57] In 2005, Ford told a homeless protestor, "I'm working. Why don't you get a job?"[58]

What does this have to do with a man's "Political Views"?

- The use of a comedy skit to pass off as objective news is ridiculous (This Hour Has 22 Minutes: Mary Walsh). CBC has not posted the raw footage (All other news organizations do this when there's questions as to the editing which went on). Or is Wikipedia now claiming that there was a 'laugh track' actually there when Ford was being accosted by Mary Walsh?

- The 'quote' of Ford claiming "I'm Rob Fucking Ford" when there was no evidence, no recording and all the chief of police came out saying that Ford did not say that. This garbage was on Wiki's Ford page for ages and went uncontested.

- In politics, there are no 'parties' at the municipal level. We can only 'guess' what Ford's affiliations are, but that does not mean it can be used as 'valid' info for a Wiki entry. Citing travel arrangements, where Ford and his family visited Stephen Harper's residence as an attempt to place a stamp on Ford's "Political affiliation" is idiocy.

John Tory held a fundraiser for Ford, Sarah Thomson and George Smitherman (all different political stripes) does that suddenly mean all of them are of the same party?

- Ford at the hockey game. We only have a complaint report (which there is no link) to make the claim that Ford shouted out: You right wing Communist bastards”, "Are you a fucking teacher? What the fuck is it that you do?" and “Do you want your little wife to go over to Iran and get raped and shot?” POST THE EVIDENCE.

- "At a CP24 Mayoral debate, Councillor Ford referred to his political affiliations as a "Red Tory". - No link.

- This "Guilt by association" crap is stupid, Ford's wiki page is basically fueled by rumors and lurid speculation (with few links if none to back them up...only links to other pages with more rumors!)

I personally met a bunch of politicians in my life/shook their hand, talked/whatever. Does that suddenly makes me 'loyal' to any of them?

This Ford page brings out the worst of Ford's critics, it really needs a serious weed whacking.

Claimsfour (talk) 23:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

It's normal to discuss a person's affiliation in politics. Ford has worked for Harper and the Conservatives, and they have worked for him. It's no secret. All you are doing is being destructive. The cyclists do have an opinion of Ford. There is no conspiracy to bring Ford down. He has friends in media. But he is controversial, and says and does controversial things. Content that addresses that should be allowed, not simply ripped out because you disagree with it. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 00:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

"The cyclists do have an opinion of Ford. "

That BBC (not even BBC) article which was an activist who made a video only interviewing a few select bicyclists is far from reliable. Where's the poll numbers? Where's the hard data where Bicyclists are genuinely upset over Ford?

I can go out right now and find a few dozen people all 'cyclists' who will say Ford is the most amazing human being on the face of the earth...does that make it so?

Oh right: Assumption is good enough for Wiki...

"But he is controversial, and says and does controversial things."

Says WHO?

I strangely you don't see 'controversial' statements made by other Toronto politicians

(like Adam Vaughan) end up on a Wiki page?

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/12/vaughan-apologizes-for-blackshirts-remark

" Content that addresses that should be allowed, not simply ripped out because you disagree with it. "

Content that has no links/sources and are based on comedy sketches/hearsay.

So It's now "Wikirumours" right?

Claimsfour (talk) 01:23, 17 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Claimsfour (talk • contribs) 01:18, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

You obviously have an axe to grind. I believe there is no doubt that Ford says and does controversial things, like calling fellow councillor Mammolitti a "gino-boy" back in the early 2000s. That would be controversial in any article. I cannot speak about the other articles. I was trying to improve the Rob Ford article. I've added lots of information about the actual mayoralty. You seem to just think it is a hachet piece to your favourite man. But nevertheless, the article cannot progress without consensus. If you feel you can raise consensus, then you raise Requests for Comments or other things, not simply rant and rave about how bad Wikipedia is, etc... ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk)

See this article by the Globe and Mail: [84] Ford is well known for this stuff. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 14:39, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Raising a flag over the Reichstag

• Raising a flag over the Reichstag (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

Content has been disputed in the past. Current deletions made without explanation.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• 217.132.12.62 (talk · contribs)
• 217.132.12.236 (talk · contribs)
• 71.241.200.94 (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Raising a flag over the Reichstag}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Have discussed issue at user's talk page, to no avail.

• How do you think we can help?

Further eyes to help determine validity of recent deletions.

71.241.200.94 (talk) 01:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Raising a flag over the Reichstag discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

• I've blocked the most recent disturber for 5RR (I didn't scroll down more). No doubt this is IP hopping. It's really "just" vandalism. I left a note on that IP's talk page but I don't think they have more to say than "bullshit", and I will semi-protect the page. If this continues, AIV and RFP is the ticket. Happy vacation to all and sundry, Drmies (talk) 04:11, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Serama

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. Serama (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? There is one main group, the SCNA and user Chipmunk Dais belongs. He edits out all other peoples work from the article, even when properly sourced, making all kinds of claims to keep it out. If you readd it, he has page protected. One person or group should not control content and force all source and verified information they do not like to be removed. Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) 204.11.133.214 (talk · contribs) Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Yes. N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Serama}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? I have learned all etiquette to properly post information, I have noted its accuracy and provided accurate sourcing. How do you think we can help? Make sure that accurate information can be posted, even if it goes against what the biased group would like hidden from history. 204.11.133.214 (talk) 03:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC) Serama discussion Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Riot Games

• Riot Games (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

Vladcole, employee of Riot Games removing 'Action RTS' as a description for League of Legends on Riot Games' page due to calling it 'Valve's term'. Consensus was established as per Talk:Action_real-time_strategy. I am arguing that his reversion is heavily COI-influenced and ignores consensus.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Overmage (talk · contribs)
• Vladcole (talk · contribs)

User is employee of Riot Games: WP:COI

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Riot Games}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

tried posting on talk page, but he doesn't read it. Gave him consensus, he ignored it ("there's nothing there that would indicate that the term ARTS belongs in this entry.", misunderstanding how consensus works and why his entry constitutes a conflict of interest)

• How do you think we can help?

Explain to him about COI and violating policy and to avoid COI and ignoring consensus.

θvξrmagξ ^contribs 05:03, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Riot Games discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Comment Overmage doesn't mention that I very clearly state the potential COI on my editor profile and that there is no intent to hide the potential COI. Failing to share this information feels like a selective disclosure in the dispute process. Overmage correctly states that I did make an edit without adequate commentary. That was my fault and careless, and I have apologized. However, Overmage has mischaracterized the dispute here. The dispute in my opinion involves Overmage's overzealous reversion which had the effect of inserting the term "ARTS" as a prefix to the game name "League of Legends." Overmage appears to have made this edit merely as a way to get me to notice. In this edit [[85]] Overmage wrote, "this is the only way to get you to notice." Reverting editorial work (without intent to improve the entry) is an aggressive way to grab another editor's attention and seems to be a violation of Wikipedia editorial philosophies. Note that the League of Legends page on Wikipedia already contains the "genre" information and Overmage's uncommented reversion has the effect of making the entry less legible, and less usable. I have read the COI guidelines and believe that my suggested edit (the removal of the term ARTS from the page) is appropriate and rationally justified. Nowhere on Wikipedia is there a requirement that game names be preceded by their genre, and this entry does not require such a prefix for clarity or quality. Vladcole (talk) 06:37, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment The original edit did not remove the prefix, but changed it from 'Action RTS' to 'MOBA'. The edit reason given was "Action RTS is a term used by Valve". Given the editor's background, this appears to me to be treading on COI ground. The fact that later on this was amended to "remove the prefix altogether" does not remove the fact that it seems like the desire was to remove a term another corporation is using.

Also, my second edit, while a way to get him to look at this thread (as he had previous ignored three posts I made on his talk page while reverting the changes I made, in addition to failing to post on the talk page before making edits), is also a genuine revert (which I had initially made before). I would like to point out that the change to remove the prefix was only made after I had once reverted it by pointing out that his initial change (Action RTS -> MOBA; 'Action RTS is a term used by Valve') was not COI-safe. The debate did not start out as 'remove prefix' vs 'keep prefix', contrary to Vladcole's claim.

As per COI it is often suggested that users with potential COI should first use talk pages to discuss before making changes; this was not what happened. Talk pages were not used before reverts were applied and changes made, neither the user talk pages nor the article's talk page. Attempts at establishing communication on talk pages were ignored for some time. Thus I assumed good faith that he did not read his talk page (rather than that he chose to ignore the talk page comments or the request for comments on the talk page before reverting). There exists content on the talk pages now but that is after the fact rather than during or before.

Faced with the prospect of an edit war with a user who did not check his talk page nor use article talk pages and communicated purely through edit summaries, I was not left with very much choice, and so I made that edit. You will see in the edit summary a link to this page, precisely made to point him to this page to let him know of an avenue for discussion before editing, so that we can resolve this conflict. Otherwise I feared that there would be continued misunderstandings due to the editor in question editing without checking for consensus or talk pages or any other avenue really, making it impossible to avoid an edit war. The entire point of that edit was to point him to this page and let him know it existed so we could actually talk about it. I have (as of right now) undone that edit as its purpose is served, and will wait for others to comment here before putting it back.θvξrmagξ ^contribs 06:22, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Vladcole response: I want to offer one more rebuttal here, because I still don't think Overmage is characterizing the situation correctly. In just under three hours, Overmage made 14 edits to my talk page . The three largest additions of content occurred in under 2 hours. Rather than wait for me to respond, and rather than try to deescalate the situation, Overmage nearly immediately used threatening language, including this threat: "If I escalate this to an administrator, this discussion will go in my favor." . This quote is in conflict with Overmage's stated intentions, and felt heavy handed to me, especially given Overmage's far-superior grasp on Wiki markup and how rapidly my talk page was growing under his constant barrage of edits (which, by the way, had the effect of causing me to lose my work several times thanks to page edit conflicts). The insertion of the threat of administrative force into my talk page occurred a little over 2 hours after Overmage's first post on my talk page. Then, just 9 minutes after making this threat, Overmage had created this dispute here.. While it is true that I should have done a better job of reading and reacting to Overmage's edits on my talk page, it doesn't feel like he gave me enough time to respond. Furthermore, it seems that Overmage did not assume good faith on my part, and instead escalated the situation within minutes of threatening escalation. Perhaps Overmage feared -- given his initial emphasis on COI rules -- that I would go on to further tamper with the page in question, but a review of my edits would indicate that I have been fairly careful and methodical with the changes that I've made thus far and that my use of my real name and profile information are indicative of my desire to be entirely above-board with all edits, and therefore his concern and rapid and aggressive escalation of the situation wasn't warranted.Vladcole (talk) 04:46, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

The COI possibility isn't an issue, it's what has been sourced. Are either adjectives sourced? If not I recommend not categorizing the game at all.Curb Chain (talk) 08:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Both have reputable sources ( http://www.rtsguru.com/article/1736/Is-the-MOBA-Genre-in-Danger-of-Oversaturation.html, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/121695/InDepth_ActionRTS_Developers_See_Dota_2_As_ProfileRaiser_For_Genre.php for example) of their own. This was why there was a big debate on the Talk:Action real-time strategy thread, and if you will see there the consensus was established to call it Action RTS on Wikipedia. The problem here is that reputable sources for both can be found, so in such scenarios I would rather rely on community-established consensus. Currently there is no firmly established genre name outside of Wikipedia. But, we need to have a name for the page, and Action RTS was chosen as consensus (after a very long debate). If we cannot even use the names of genres reached via consensus on Wikipedia then why have the genre pages (or bother trying to name them, or make a consensus on naming them)? θvξrmagξ ^contribs 08:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Greenbrier Ghost

• Greenbrier Ghost (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

story is not consistent. in the burial header, Zona is cremated. in the exhumation header, Zona is exhumed?

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• 168.137.100.28 (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Not yet.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=User:168.137.100.28}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

• How do you think we can help?

Greenbrier Ghost discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Maybe adding {{contradict}} would be better than posting a dispute here.Curb Chain (talk) 20:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Carrier Strike Group One, Carrier Strike Group Seven

• Carrier Strike Group One (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Carrier Strike Group Seven (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

For over eighteen months, I've been struggling to convey to User:Marcd30319 that he is required to allow other users to edit and change the series of Carrier Strike Group articles which he has created. Marcd30319 has trouble with having other users make or suggest changes to his articles, for some time - see for example comments at the FA for USS Triton [86] and [87]. He's even sometimes removed maintenance tags without making required changes, as he's not happy with them [88]. He will not allow other users to make changes to his articles, and instead of participating in discussions, he unilaterally reverts, or announces that he has himself made changes to all the articles in the series, and all other users' change suggestions should be posted on a section of the talk page, which he will consider. This is a problem because he imports enormous amount of U.S. Navy public-domain text which is difficult for non-experts to follow easily and has inherent POV problems, but he demands that it be presented his way, no other version.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Buckshot06 (talk · contribs)
• Marcd30319 (talk · contribs)

Administrators User:Nick-D and less recently User:The ed17 have attempted to intercede.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Carrier Strike Group One, Carrier Strike Group Seven}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

I have raised this repeatedly on Marcd30319's talk page, been insulted for my pains, with little effect, there's been some discussion over a year or two on User talk:The ed17, I tried to trial a revised format at Carrier Strike Group Two which got reverted, I've tried to trial a new approach through Wikipedia:Peer review/Carrier Strike Group Seven/archive1, which first resulted in being told by Marcd30319 that I shouldn't edit the articles, and should only suggest changes on the talk pages [89], and then a demand that the Peer Review be suspended [90] and a request that no-body else edit the articles. Thereafter he unilaterally completely changed the Carrier Strike Group Seven article whose revised format I was seeking comments on. He then made minor rewrites of the whole article series with other editors' changes reverted. I posted seeking advice on WT:MHCOORD, but was then directed here after a talkpage discussion at User talk:Nick-D.

• How do you think we can help?

Independent reasonably senior editors need to examine Marcd30319's conduct, judge whether he is, as User:Nick-D and I believe [91], [92] in flagrant breach of WP:OWN, and to recommend a path forward.

Buckshot06 (talk) 06:57, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Carrier Strike Group One, Carrier Strike Group Seven discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

For what it is worth, I have had past experiences with Nick-D and have found him to be reasonable, unbiased, and someone who follows both the letter and the spirit of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:23, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

This does not sound like an issue with content, maybe rather the behaviour of User:Marcd30319.Curb Chain (talk) 20:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's my perspective as well. Marcd is a productive editor, and the series of articles he's created on the US Navy are generally quite worthwhile. However, he appears to regard himself as the chief editor of these articles, and frequently insists on approving significant changes to them. I agree with Buckshot's comments above, and I suggested that he raise the matter here (rather than, say, ANI) in the hope that comments from a wider range of editors would help influence Marcd to take a more collaborative approach. Nick-D (talk) 00:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely a behavioural thing. I see he's been informed about Citzendium before (I was gonna steam in and recommend it myself but saw it) but it was over a year ago. Perhaps he could be encouraged to keep "his" version in userspace? I'm not sure what would happen going forward with edits if the versions began to diverge, but presumably the articles could be merged in mainspace farily successfully if that does happen. Certainly, we don't want to lose the likes of him if at all possible. Equally certainly, if it's him or WP:OWN there can only be one winner Egg Centric 01:00, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing we can do here if there is no solid dispute between one version or another. My impression is that there are concerns that the user is owning a few articles, but I don't see any proposal or complaints about specific wording.Curb Chain (talk) 02:08, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I can quote litanies of disputes between one version and another, going back to protests by Marcd30319 about changes after the insertion of blocks of U.S. Navy-drafted text (Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships) [93]. Most recently, would editors like to examine User_talk:Nick-D#Carrier_Strike_Group_articles_-_Assigned_unit_section_-_serial_text_format_v._bullet_text_format? Nick-D suggested at the Carrier Strike Group Seven peer review that in order to simply and clearly state for non-experts what a carrier strike group was, a listing should be included. I started placing a list of ships in the article intros, and had Marcd30319 mass revert them... Buckshot06 (talk) 02:18, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Also @Egg Centric, he has all his old versions in his userspace. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:20, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

You are stating what happened. Is this a concern, or do you disagree with the revision and why? Have you discussed why he shouldn't mass revert them, and why your version is better?Curb Chain (talk) 06:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I disagree with the reverts. I have tried to implement a suggestion from the PR, discussed the issue - see the linked discussion - and got no response except the mass reverts. Please take a moment to look at User talk:Marcd30319 and see how many times I tried to discuss this, including the notes I left asking him to discuss these issues, since I only got - repeatedly - reverts without discussion. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:37, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I've had a look through a number of the links above and I'd agree, it does look like a case of "owning", and I suspect it would be very tiring to deal with this form of behaviour over any period of time. How to resolve the problem without discouraging Marcd30319 from editing is less clear though. (NB: disclaimer, I'm sure I've commented on a peer review or review or something similar for one of these articles, but I can't work out which one.) Hchc2009 (talk) 19:15, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

2012 in film

• 2012 in film (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The issue is whether the article should take a world view or focus on Hollywood films, Anglophone films, or films successful in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Dman41689 (talk · contribs)
• JoseCamachoJr (talk · contribs)
• Redsky89 (talk · contribs)
• Wavehunter (talk · contribs)

JoseCamachoJr has not been involved in the discussion on the talk page, but at least one of his recent edits has been reverted.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

I initiated the discussion on the talk page and responded to Dman41689. Following the intervention of Redsky89 I felt the need for neutral input to avoid escalation.

• How do you think we can help?

Comments on the talk page under 'World view' would be welcome. As would any positive edits or reversions to the article page. The issue is whether the article should have a world view; if it should, how this can be achieved; if not, whether the introduction needs rewording or the page needs renaming. The flashpoints are (1) the inclusion (or not) of the film The Intouchables on the list of top ten highest grossing movies; and (2) the inclusion (or not) of the world view tag at the top of the page.

Wavehunter (talk) 15:03, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

2012 in film discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Of course include films without a geographic distinction.Curb Chain (talk) 05:49, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Oslo Freedom Forum

• Oslo Freedom Forum (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

User:No parking here keeps reverting changes that appear to violate a few Wikipedia policies (see talk page) after a consensus was reached on the talk page through civil discussion between myself and User:Meco to wait until we had a second verifiable source before adding a whole section. The updates also break with the norm and look to have an agenda (the 2012 participation list in particular). No parking here makes unverified claims on a BLP as well and passes them as fact. I do not want to revert his changes any longer and risk edit warring myself, so I am looking for some help.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Wrathofjames (talk · contribs)
• No parking here (talk · contribs)
• Meco (talk · contribs)

I added Meco only because he was in on the original discussion and made a talk page comment on No parking here under the Oslo Freedom Forum heading about edit warring. The edits have been going on between myself and No parking here.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Oslo Freedom Forum}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Yes, the issue has been discussed on the article's talk page as well as notifying user No parking here about it on their talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

Looking for some help coming to a consensus with the edits and an outside party's assessment of the edits, especially given the nature of them.

Wrathofjames (talk) 17:32, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Oslo Freedom Forum discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.