Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 9

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August 2010 West Bank shooting attack

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.


Dispute overview

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

I removed a sentence that seemed to be just a racist non-sensical quote from a random person. It was instantly returned, with a statement that my edit was based on me not liking it. I took it out again, and it was replaced, again Plot Spoiler stated I was doing it for seemingly personal reasons. I than realized that the quote mixed with the following sentence which proves the quote wrong actually makes it so that Plot Spolier is calling the man a liar, so I deleted due to wp:blp and wp:or. Plot Spoiler than re-adds again, again making attacks on me, saying I'm doing it for opinionated reasons, and again giving no insight into the value of the quote he keeps adding. I asked Fastily for help and he sent me here, so I came as it's clear if I edit the article Plot Spoiler will just make unlimited reverts. Public awareness (talk) 00:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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=August 2010 West Bank shooting attack}} --~~~~ 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 sent him a message showing which rules my edit was based on and he refused to reply, rather he threatens me for reverting even though he of course made more reverts than I.

  • How do you think we can help?

Get Plot Spolier to stop reverting and stop making personal attacks that I am removing the quote for personal reasons. Remove the worthless quote. The quote is worthless as it racist, has no truth, and comes from a unknown person. The quote is proven wrong in the very next sentence about Israelis attacking Palestinians. Thus, there is original research here; when a primary source proves a secondary source incorrect it is OR and when quoted to a person is the equivalent of calling the person a liar, thus a BLP violation.

Also try and get Plot Spolier to stop making wild claims that my edits are for opinionated reasons, it is highly offensive and difficult to tolerated such rudeness.

Public awareness (talk) 05:20, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

August 2010 West Bank shooting attack discussion

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

Public awareness really needs to review the rules of Wikipedia. He has no basis for removing that quote, which came from a New York Times article. I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about the quote being wrong or me calling the man a liar. The quote is clearly from the The New York Times piece and elucidates the settlers' reaction to the attack and it has no bearing whether some people find the quote distasteful or WP:DONTLIKEIT. And the individual being quoted isn't some complete unknown, he is the "chair of the South Mount Hebron settlers’ council." In sum, Public Awareness does not know better than The New York Times. The quote fulfills WP:V and WP:RS and if he really wanted it removed he should have went to the talk page after I requested that from him instead of just calling the quote racist and deleting it. Plot Spoiler (talk) 13:51, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I responded on the article's talk page. Vesal (talk) 23:13, 9 October 2011 (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.

Azeztulite

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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.


Dispute overview

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

This article is in violation of numerous policies including: Defamation of a trademarked brand name (soap boxing), the author is the only reference making it an original thought, Disparage of the subject, and no other editors are allowed to revise the article so it complies to NPOV. The author of the article is also the author of all the references, he owns both websites referenced, as well as being the author of the mindat.org reference (which would be a reliable second source if the article was not written by the same person who owns the websites of the other two references mindat.org is made up of registered user contributions and in this case not a reliable third party source because the author and source is one in the same) which all are a direct violation Wiki policies on original thought and third party references, verifiable references. Major revisions not promoting the authors "scam" opinion are deleted as well as any attempts to add information not sourced (referenced) from this author.

User Kevmin reverted my deletion suggestion right away with no legitimate reason. Editors are not allowing any of the violations to be fixed or any revisions to be made not supporting the scam aspect which is an opinion, there are many complaints in the discussion about this and NPOV violations.

Any attempts at including any other information or a NPOV in the article from other sources is deleted immediately see revision history and discussion. This article does not belong on Wiki, obviously it is too highly controversial because it is an opinion and not NPOV. It accusing the Trademark holder, and sellers of brand name of committing a Scam, which is defamation of reputation infringements and/or abuse and should have legal consequences if this article continues to be available on Wiki as is. It is not respectful of the subject. It should not be on Wiki, if it can not be edited to show NPOV and comply to the other Wiki policies. Without being able to edit this article it should be removed.

Deletion review tag removed by Kevim Notify author/project: == Proposed deletion of Azeztulite ==

The article Azeztulite has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

(OR),NPOV violation, Disparage the subject, no third party, references not independent of the subject,(all are written by the author including mindat.org article,), Defamation of Trademarked brand name,WP:SOAP, attempted major revisions not promoting the authors opinion of "scam" or a NPOV version article are reverted, article needs to be deleted.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Zoomedia9 (talk) 21:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC) Article should be allowed to be reviewed for policy violations ( follow the reference links) and suggestion for deletion, I am not even able to do this without suggestion for violation being removed.

I included under Vsmith just some of the the user names of those editors that attempted to make legitimate edits and were denied by Vsmith who has denied almost all revisions attempting to show NPOV.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

bottom four users are involved in the dispute in the capacity of not being able to edit this article with legitimate contributions!

  • 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=Azeztulite}} --~~~~ 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 talk page, revised article, submitted for deletion review all were futile. No one will address the fact that these violations have been going on since 2006 and no revisions with NPOV are allowed, legitimate edits are removed see history. I have proof the references are all the same person if needed.

  • How do you think we can help?

Article should be allowed to be up for deletion review and not taken off for no legitimate reason. Violations need to be addressed. Page is not appropriate on many levels for Wiki and if it remains something has to be done to allow legitimate edits to be added not blocked by certain users. There is a certain bullying going on about this article protecting the "Scam" opinion of it and it needs to be addressed. An article using a trademarked brand name and saying it is a scam doesn't belong on Wiki, that is soap boxing. Easy solution remove the page.

Zoomedia9 (talk) 21:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Azeztulite 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 simply a case of a COI editor trying to whitewash the article and being reverted. The account User:Zoomedia9 should be blocked for the obvious username violation. I don't see a need to have this discussed here.--Atlan (talk) 21:57, 11 October 2011 (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.

Star of Bethlehem

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.


Dispute overview

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

4 months ago I added references from the Book of Mormon to the Star of Bethlehem, consistent with material both inside the article ("Eastern Orthodoxy") and outside (John the Baptist; Tower of Babel). I wrote it in an admittedly awkward spot simply because I didn't know where it belonged on the page. Shortly afterward, the user Rbreen edited it out with the argument that no "serious" person would ever consider a reliable source. I undid that edit, and he rewrote the section into the bottom of the page. One month later, he came back and removed it completely.

During this time, I started a discussion on the talk page to which he replied when he completely removed the section for the last time. I replied to his reply, but the discussion has been dormant ever since.

After waiting a month, I went back and added it back under a more relevant section, but about a week later the user at 80.240.225.83 removed it. It is then that I started reviewing the resources available to dispute this. I started a discussion at the 80.240.225.83 talk page, but it has not been responded to in about two weeks, so that is why I am here now.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

I am unsure of Rbreen and 80.240.225.83 are the same person.

  • 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=Star of Bethlehem}} --~~~~ 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 discussed it on the article talk page with Rbreen and on the user talk page for 80.240.225.83.

  • How do you think we can help?

I have no idea. I'm just exploring my options. This may not be the appropriate place to discuss this.

Danielwellsfloyd (talk) 20:40, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Star of Bethlehem discussion

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

  • Judging by the robtex results, and the fact that the IP hasn't edited again since then, I don't think it's worth taking action on the IP. On the content side, I'd like to know how you think the section fits into the article. — Kudu ~I/O~ 01:10, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The section entitled "Interpretations and explanations" describes what different groups of people believe about the Star of Bethlehem. What we learn from references in the Book of Mormon is that a group of people exists that believes the Star was not a local event or an afterthought created by the author of the Book of Matthew. The Book of Mormon retains the ambiguity of Matthew's account by simply stating that it was a "star" and shows that it was visible in the Western Hemisphere as well (or, more generally, that it was a sign given to the whole world, not just those in the East). The Book of Mormon is also the only text to claim an explicit prophecy about the Star: "And behold, there shall a new star arise, such an one as ye never have beheld; and this also shall be a sign unto you" (Helaman 14:5). It may be actually be more appropriate to include it in the "Fulfillment of prophecy" subsection. Danielwellsfloyd (talk) 14:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I am a neutral mediator in this dispute (and am not, let me note, a member of the LDS Church or any similar or related church or belief). This article is about the Star of Bethlehem as both a supernatural and physical event and already includes discussions about how it is regarded in Eastern Orthodoxy and, perhaps more notably, astrology. The article is not, and should not be (at least not at this stage of development) limited to a western-orthodox-Christian view of the subject. Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view. With 14 million Mormons in the world (per the Mormons article here), the fact that their holy texts make reference to the star and do so from a historical perspective different than that in mainstream Christianity, is certainly significant enough to warrant a mention in the article. While a reference to a third party source would be preferable, a reference to those texts themselves is a sufficient primary source for the reference. I would note that in this version of the text for the article, the final sentence is inappropriate original research and must either be justified by a citation to a reliable source or be deleted. In terms of positioning and formatting of the text, my opinion is that it most logically fits in the article immediately after the "Eastern Orthodoxy" section and immediately before the "Historical fiction" section with a "3 equal sign" heading of "=== Mormonism ===". Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:59, 19 September 2011 (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.

File:OTAShirt-Front.png, File:OTAShirt-Back.png

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.


Dispute overview

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

Fastily deleted File:OTAShirt-Front.png and File:OTAShirt-Back.png after it was pointed out they contained elements that were not "suitably free for wikipedia", and the images had already been updated with Public Domain artwork. The user has disregarded requests to restore the files in question.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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 requested that the user restore the files after pointing out they had been updated, and suggest the logs be consulted to verify this. User_talk:Fastily/Archive_5#OTAShirt-Front.2FBack

  • How do you think we can help?

Please restore the original files. I could reupload them, but I do not know if the other user might mistakenly believe they are still licensed too restrictively. In addition, the file history and other metadata would be lost. Alternatively, if it were possible for MediaWiki to better render SVG with embedded rasters, the SVG themselves could be used in articles without a "duplicate" file just for thumbnails.

Belg4mit (talk) 20:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

File:OTAShirt-Front.png, File:OTAShirt-Back.png discussion

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


If the deleting administrator does not respond, you can take this issue to Deletion Review and his decision will be reviewed by other editors there. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:24, 13 October 2011 (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.

List of My Little Pony characters (Round 2)

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.


Dispute overview

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

Well I am going to open this again since I've been haunted by the fact that every time tha Tama-Fan did an edit to that page, I felt like it didn't suit the whole page. She is doing the original research, well both of us, but I am using some references that I gather from some sources including the debut of the pony and everything else. At least I'm being precise.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

She is doing some edits that doesn't make sense in my own language. Well actually I can accept edits from my other teammates since they gather information officially from reliable sources like I do. But she doesn't, and resolved on using photobucket at that time.

  • 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.

Resolving the dispute

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

Once. It always failed and we always argue more on the same subject about ponies all the time.

  • How do you think we can help?

Please do something about this, its driving me nuts thinking about the same article and all with the content disputes. It all needs to stop, everything.

Blackgaia02 (Talk if you're Worthy) (talk) 14:31, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

List of My Little Pony characters discussion

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

Hi Blackgaia02! Thanks for posting at the DRN, and sorry that it has taken a while to get back to you. I have reviewed the page history, the talk page and your user talk pages, but I can't find the specific thing that you and Tama Fan are disputing. To solve this dispute we are going to have to have a good idea of what actual content in the list is not being agreed upon, and on the sources that are being used to back it up. If there is more than one thing in the list under dispute, then that is ok, but we will need to look at them one at a time. We can start the dispute resolution process once we have all become clear on what the dispute is. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ♫ 02:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much, that would seriously help the whole issue. And seriously end this mess.Blackgaia02 (Talk if you're Worthy) (talk) 03:06, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
So, can you give me a specific thing on the page that you are disputing? We can't get started until this is clear. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 03:12, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Sorry about the delay. Well we can start by actually determining the correct colors of each pony. Actually I use the toys released as the reference, but it needs a lot more clarification on how would they look like in different media, without Tama Fan arguing on this. Also, there are toooo much G1 and G3's in that article and I only wanted to add the ones that are notable in the animated series and specials. Blackgaia02 (Talk if you're Worthy) (talk) 02:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
I have a question - when you are determining the colours from the toys, do you find a colour name on the packet or something, or do you just look for yourself? It might seem contrary to common sense, but in Wikipedia we can't just use our own judgement - the standard here is verifiability, not truth. (Although see WP:BLUE for an alternative view.) In any case, there have been enough arguments over the colours that I think it would be very useful to base the colour labels on reliable sources, rather than editors' interpretations. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 07:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
I see..that way it makes everything clearer without any conflict at all. Well I guess that could be applied.Blackgaia02 (Talk if you're Worthy) (talk) 15:24, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Ok, good. It's a lot of work, but if you can source all the colours to reliable sources then I agree that will stop most of the disputes in their tracks. (By the way, you can use the toys, books, and cartoons as reliable sources as long as you follow the restrictions at WP:PRIMARY.) As for there being too many G1 and G3 ponies, I think it would make sense to split the list - it's far too big as it is. I'm not quite sure what the best way would be to split it, though. Let me know what ideas you have. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 15:43, 13 October 2011 (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.

Top Gear (U.S. TV series)

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.


Dispute overview

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

User 293.xx.xxx.xx believes that copyright violations have been happening in the article and have tried to remedy the problem in two ways (deletion and sourcing two of the excised quotes with actual links to articles found in excised citation), while user roguegeek believes the edits are not copyright violations and that user 293.xx.xxx.xx is engaging in edit warring, pretending to be an administrator, not having good faith in other editors, and not adhering to established Wikipedia guidelines.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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=Top Gear (U.S. TV series)}} --~~~~ on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

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

User 293.xx.xxx.xx had placed a copyright removal notice on the talk page and tagged likewise, which was replied to by user roguegeek. It started off with an allegation that user 293.xx.xxx.xx was pretending to be an administrator, attempts to ban other users from Wikipedia, blocking people, other actions reserved for administrators, and then tried to explain what user 293.xx.xxx.xx did wrong. User roguegeek also tagged talk page as well. User 293.xx.xxx.xx attempted to asked for at least an apology from user roguegeek for assuming bad faith as a sign that user roguegeek at least realized what he had done before any further discussions went further. User 293.xx.xxx.xx feels that due to user roguegeek's not even apologizing for baseless accusations after a small delay in waiting means that user roguegeek might not be willing to compromise.

User 293.xx.xxx.xx had thought of going to the Wikipedia:Copyright problems incident board, but does not feel both that the editing history isn't sufficient enough for such a board in the beginning, and the situation has exploded beyond that board.

  • How do you think we can help?

User 293.xx.xxx.xx requests at least a clear consensus on whether a copyright violation has been committed and whether or not the article is balanced and neutral. A formal apology from user roguegeek for the baseless accusation and the removal of the baseless warning notice by user roguegeek himself is also requested.

293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 08:55, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Top Gear (U.S. TV series) discussion

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

Apologies for my hasty close earlier - I regretted that as soon as I saw the diffs. To me it looks like all the material that is claimed to be copyright violations are actually quotations, not material that is written in Wikipedia's voice, am I right? Normally I would say that any suspected copyright violation should go straight to Wikipedia:Copyright problems, but I'm finding it hard to see the violation in this case. It is fine to use quotes especially in "reception" sections like the one under discussion here, and if a quote is used correctly it is not a copyright violation. Have a look at Wikipedia:Quotations for more details. Is there anything here I'm missing? From what I have read it doesn't seem like the quotes are extremely long, so there aren't any problems in that regard. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 15:45, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

  • If you go to the source cited where the quotes came from, you see a list of quotations. I dunno, I see a vague copyright infringement of the page itself. Take the quotes from the page, add in some extra words to mask the copy-paste, and let it go. Also, I did miss something else when I was re-reviewing the history for my response to you; this edit by another user noted that the source link isn't allowed on Wikipedia due to it's questionable status. And I did request for more sources when deleting the copy-vio edit which I found for two of them and edited likewise. So, I have a copyright violation problem, a cited source problem, and a NPOV problem as major points at this point. Did I miss anything else? (I think getting an apology from the other party is moot at this point for the false accusations, unless thats a Wikipedia:Civility issue as well.)--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 06:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Aha, now I see what's going on. Thanks for the clarification. This looks like a subtle copyright issue, and one that I'm probably not qualified to answer. I think we should get an opinion on this from someone who knows more about copyright than I do. How about creating a new post on Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems and seeing what the editors there say? After we have sorted out the copyright issue, then we can have a look at the sourcing and neutrality. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 06:52, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
I've posted a request for help on the copyright problems talk page. Let's see if anyone comments here. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 14:14, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I saw that notice, so here is my view. These are definitely not copyright violations, but they may be overuse of quotations. Also, they need to be properly attributed. If you want to say: Hollywood Reporter wrote "It was awesome", then you need to link to the review where Hollywood Reporter said that, not to metacritic. Yoenit (talk) 14:32, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Looking at the situation a bit more, I want to applaud 293.xxx.xxx.xxx for this excellent edit, where his rewrite fixes attribution and intersperses it with prose. However, this is clearly not a copyright violation as Roguegeek pointed out on the talkpage. Putting a edit war warning on your talkpage was petty, but as you removed the material from the article 3 times over several days (so called slow-motion edit war) not entirely "baseless". Rather than demanding an apology from Roguegeek I suggest you start by apologizing yourself for the warning notice you left him, remove the warning template on your own page and wait to see if Roguegeek is willing to apologize to you. With regards to the lack of apology from Roguegeek, he hasn't edited at all since the 30 of September, so he probably isn't aware that you even want one. I will also note that if you ever left me a message like [1] I would tell you to go away, only in significantly more vulgar terms. Yoenit (talk) 15:22, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, Yoenit, it really helps. Now that we've cleared up that the edits in question aren't a copyright violation we can move on to the other points. I'd like to hear from Roguegeek at this point though, to see what he makes of the situation. Hopefully he'll come and reply here before too long, but as Yoenit says, his last edit was on 30th September, so it could be a while before this discussion gets underway. I'll leave a reminder on his talk page, I think. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 07:53, 11 October 2011 (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.

Kamala Lopez

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.


Dispute overview

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

I contributed to the article but felt a particular paragraph read like an opinion and personal attack rather than an attempt to offer a balancing view:

"In November 2008, A Single Woman author and star Jeanmarie Simpson was interviewed on the radio show Insight, hosted by Jeffrey Callison on Capitol Public Radio, Sacramento, California's NPR affiliate. During the interview, Simpson disclosed that she had retained an attorney because of issues between herself and the filmmaker of A Single Woman.[9] In February 2010, she was quoted in the Reno News and Review, saying, "Terrible movie. It’s just badly, badly conceived, badly done. The director made a mess of it. It’s really too bad because it’s a fantastic story, and it’s a wonderful, worthy subject, as you know. But it just–the film is a disaster.""

Recently, this suspicion was verified by the paragraph's author placing the following statement on the talk page after a neutral third party culled the article to meet Wikipedia standards including the removal of the above paragraph.

"I think it's significant that the director and author/star of the film are at odds. It turns out, they're cousins, though (interestingly) Lopez denies it. Simpson has said that she gave Lopez the project out of familial love and trust and that it was appropriated and exploited by Lopez."

Please comment and help me to understand how Wikipedia views this situation and the appropriate next steps.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

Webberkenny has constantly accused others of having a non-neutral POV as well as seeking to besmirch the reputation of the subject.

  • 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=Kamala Lopez}} --~~~~ 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 - I have asked webberkenny to discontinue editing the article and accept the judgment of a neutral third party.

  • How do you think we can help?

Give a quick ruling on this dispute and take swift action.

JHScribe (talk) 15:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Kamala Lopez discussion

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

I have had a look at the article, and have removed the paragraph myself. We need to be very careful when reporting on legal matters, especially when those matters are not cited properly (the link was broken) and when cases are being speculated upon or are ongoing. The relevant Wikipedia policy here is Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, which says the following: "Biographies of living persons (BLPs) must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid: it is not Wikipedia's job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives, and the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment." Also please note the advice on criticism and praise, and on gossip. I think criticism of the film could be appropriate in an article about the film, but probably not in its director's biography, and definitely not in a section which speculates about legal action and includes a quote taken (in my opinion) out of context. Sorry to be blunt about this, but Wikipedia policy is very clear that this sort of material shouldn't be included in articles about living people. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 16:39, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, the paragraph should not be posted anywhere on Wikipedia including on the Jeanmarie Simpson article (which is coincidentally edited almost entirely by webberkenny) where the paragraph is embellished even further.
"In November 2008, Simpson was interviewed on the radio show, Insight, hosted by Jeffrey Callison on Capitol Public Radio, Sacramento, California's NPR affiliate. During the interview, Simpson disclosed that she had retained an attorney because of issues between herself and Lopez. [6] In February 2010, she was quoted in the Reno News and Review saying, "Terrible movie. It’s just badly, badly conceived, badly done. The director made a mess of it. It’s really too bad because it’s a fantastic story, and it’s a wonderful, worthy subject, as you know. But it just—the film is a disaster."[7] In October of 2011, Simpson is quoted in the Huffington Post saying of the film,"That's probably the biggest disappointment of my life."[8]"
Actually, it reads well now, with just a slight edit. Anyone who watches the film will see how poor it is and when the star and author is "disappointed," that speaks for itself. Thanks for clearing this up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Webberkenny (talk • contribs) 20:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Should I submit this as a separate issue or is this an appropriate place to reveal it? JHScribe (talk) 03:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, we can talk about it here. I don't think it's quite as bad as the mention in the Kamala Lopez article, but we definitely need to remove the legal speculation there. I also think the criticism of the film is given undue weight in comparison to other aspects of her career, which is less of a pressing problem but still could make the article on her not appear neutral. I'll remove the legal stuff and tone down the criticism a bit, and we can take any further debate about what should be included to the talk page. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 04:03, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Many thanks for your patience and guidance! JHScribe (talk) 04:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I have taken Jeanmarie Simpson's page under my wing, ever since seeing the play she wrote followed by the film that has been panned by all who have seen it. It is verifiable fact that Simpson was interviewed on Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, and the quote was accurate. I will repair the link, but it is a fact. Kamala Lopez's page still reads like a fan site.Webberkenny (talk) 20:25, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Upon making a minor edit and reading the article again, I think it reads very clearly and the author/star's disappointment in the film speaks for itself. Thank you for clearing this up. Webberkenny (talk) 20:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
You're welcome. Actually, reading the Kamala Lopez article again, I agree with your assessment of it reading like a fan site. I think I might backtrack a little on my initial statement - I think it is ok to have some criticism of the film in her biography, but only from mainstream film critics, and there should not be too much weight on the criticism compared to the other coverage of the film. Criticism from Simpson should probably be limited to the article on the film itself, and legal speculation really shouldn't be on Wikipedia at all. Thanks again — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 09:12, 10 October 2011 (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.

Dan Savage

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.


Dispute overview

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

Dispute over the term used to identify the person's sexual orientation.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

The user Fæ is also going against Wikipedia guidelines by referring to edits make in good faith as vandalism.

  • 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. I gave them all notice on the article in question's talk page.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Dan Savage}} --~~~~ 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 tried to build consensus on the article's talk page, but no no avail.

  • How do you think we can help?

Come to a mutual understanding about consensus. 132.241.128.157 (talk) 18:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Dan Savage discussion

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

The same edit changing "gay" to "homosexual" has been made from IP addresses starting with "132.241" seven times over the last fortnight. These edits have been reverted by several different established editors (not by me) and the anon IP raising this DR has already been advised about edit warring (by someone other than me). My advice on the article talk was that repeated additions would be treated as a BLP violation (as the sources show that Savage self-identifies as gay, not homosexual) and consequently as vandalism. I have given some standard anon IP welcomes to the other IP addresses used, but not yet given any user warnings or advice for the IP account raising this DR. The explanation of why "homosexual" is not a correct term to use in this BLP has been provided in clear and patient terminology by several experienced contributors. In my opinion the consensus locally in this article and for BLPs in general is already established. --Fæ (talk) 02:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

IP-hopping anon editor's discussion has consisted of unsourced opinion/assertions, whereas sourced explanations and citations have been presented to justify the existing long-standing phrasing.
Anon editor's willingness to participate in discussion is quite recent, having made several unexplained reverts and received an EW warning; discussion is progressing with additional editor input, so this DR may be premature.
Anon editor neglects to mention that User:Gujamin also made an accusation of vandalism/lack of good faith.
(My WP activity will be terse and limited while I am on vacation.) Rostz (talk) 02:55, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi 132.241.128.157, and thanks for posting on this board. You should be aware that we have a strict policy on biographies of living people. Part of that policy says: "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." It also says "Biographies of living persons (BLPs) must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy." We have sources that refer to Savage as "gay", and even better, we have evidence that he self-identifies as "gay", so it seems reasonable to call him "gay" in the article.

We don't know if he self-identifies as "homosexual", and for whatever reason it may be that he prefers "gay" over "homosexual". I don't think either of these terms are particularly confusing or particularly taboo any more, so under the circumstances it would seem to make sense to go with the one we know he self-identifies with. Also, we don't have sources that use "homosexual", so the case for using it is weaker as per the policy wording above. If you can find reliable sources that show he also self-identifies as "homosexual" then that could warrant more debate, in my opinion, but otherwise I think the existing wording of "gay" is what we should use. All the best. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 04:35, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I've read over each person's reasoning, and I would like to add that my reasoning for preferring the term "homosexual" instead of "gay" is that gay has several widely recognized meanings, while homosexual has only one widely recognized one. Thus, the term gay can be more confusing. The original article says that Savage "is gay", not that he "identifies as gay". Perhaps that can be clarified? I started this DR because it didn't seem that consensus was being built on the article's talk page. In fact, there is a 50-50 even split among the users who posted on the talk page regarding this matter. Regarding my apparent "IP-hopping": IP addresses are not static on this range. 132.241.128.157 (talk) 08:43, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect; as of 08:43, 9 October 2011, your position was supported by one editor (Gujamin), but opposed by four (Wikiwind, Fæ, Rostz, Binksternet) as well as having been reverted by an additional editor (Dp76764). Note also that "Consensus is ultimately determined by the quality of the arguments given for and against an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy, not by a simple counted majority." Rostz (talk) 14:58, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
I was counting the users that posted on the talk page where we discussed the appropriate term to be used. Still, wouldn't it be more clear and less confusing to say "who identifies as gay" instead of "who is gay"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.241.246.116 (talk) 05:42, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
That seems to be mincing words a bit to me. If you have a look at this source, Savage is quoted as describing himself as gay several times, but he doesn't say that he "identifies as gay". Self-identification is just a benchmark that we use in Wikipedia to judge what labels we can use with people - it doesn't necessarily affect the actual wording used in articles. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 06:54, 11 October 2011 (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.

Sri Lanka

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.


Dispute overview

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

Sri Lanka article has been subjected to editwarring over the inclusion of Sri Lankan civil war as a separate section. I, as an involved editor, maintained that a separate section on the civil war is unnecessary (for the reasons mentioned below). Arun1paladin and HudsonBreeze have maintained that a separate section is necessary. HudsonBreeze has mentioned in the article talkpage that he would prefer DRN mediation to resolve the issue.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

 

Myself, Cossde, Obi2canibe and Blackknight12 have stated that a separate section on civil war is unnecessary. Arun1paladin and HudsonBreeze states otherwise.

  • 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=Sri Lanka}} --~~~~ 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 was involved in a lengthy discussion in the article talk page to reach a consensus to resolve the problem.

  • How do you think we can help?

By providing third party opinion on whether a separate section is necessary, given that all the necessary information is available elsewhere in the article.

Astronomyinertia (talk) 17:35, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Sri Lanka discussion

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

I have maintained that a separate section on Sri Lankan Civil War is unnecessary in the article for the following reasons. The war spanned 26 years from 1983 to 2009. Looking at the way the history section has been organized, it is evident that there is no way you can take this 26 year period separately and present it in a separate section. Any country's history is divided into a number of eras which have clear-cut differences from each other. Let's consider how this theory is applicable to the Sri Lankan history.

  • Pre-history of Sri Lanka: Pre-history of Sri Lanka refers to the era before the landing of Vijaya, a semi-legendary king in 543 BC.
  • Ancient Sri Lanka: Ancient period of Sri Lanka refers to the period between 543 BC and 993 AD, when the ancient kingdom of Anuradhapura collapsed.
  • Medieval Sri Lanka: Medieval period of the country refers to the period between 993 and 1505 AD, when Portugese arrived in Sri lanka.
  • Early modern Sri Lanka: This is the period under the influence of Portugese, Dutch and British colonists, prior to the Colebrooke-Cameron reforms in 1833.
  • Modern Sri Lanka: Historians agree that the modern period of Sri Lanka begins in 1833, with the Colebrooke-Cameron reforms (pp. 405–406, Economic policy in Sri Lanka: Issues and debates). This period can be further divided into pre and post indedependence Sri Lanka, as the country was governed under totally different policies before and after its independence in 1948.

All these info in the article are properly referenced and undisputed by historical records. The conflict between Sinhalese and (Sri Lankan) Tamil political leardership (two major nationalities in the country, representing approximately 74% and 13% of total population) first surfaced in early 1920s. That is well before the country gained independence. This was purely a political conflict until the early 1970s, with tensions developing into riots on a couple of occassions. A Tamil youth militancy emerged in 1970s with hit-and-run attacks on Police and government officials. The tensions exploded in 1983, with ethnic rioting and initiating an on-and-off civil war. War ended in 2009, resulting in the defeat of the militants. As anyone can see, the war did not give birth to an entirely new era of the country, like those changes that redefined the country's political and geographical landscape in 543 BC, 993, 1505, 1833 and 1948 AD. Moreover, on a historical perspective, civil war or the ethnic conflict cannot be separated from the modern Sri Lankan history. Any attempt to do so will result in a distortion of the timeline of Sri Lankan history. The section that Arun1paladin and HudsonBreeze are trying to bring into the article containes almost the same information available elsewhere. Therefore their accusation that editors who are agianst the addition of a separate section, are trying to conceal the civil war from the article can be considered a blatant lie. 16 of the 41 sentences in this section are obvious repititions of the sentences in the Post independence Sri Lanka section. 6 sentences are direct copy pastes from Burning of Jaffna library. 11 sentences are the same as they appear in the Black July article. But those editors who are arguing against the removal of the section are not ready to accept that these details belong to the sub-articles they originally came from. The main country article should only provide brief details about such incidents, in the mean time providing links to the respective sub pages. That is exactly what the Modern Sri Lanka section has done. What those disagreeing editors are trying to do is to give an undue weight to the civil war, and particular incidents like burning of Jaffna library and Black July. By analysing other country articles, we can establish a rule of thumb on how these sort of issues have been handled in there. In countries where wars have arised due to foreign interventions or where civil disobedience has overthrown a ruling regieme, their articles have described those issues in a separate section. Examples:

In countries where insurgencies have not resulted in such radical changes, main country article has avoided inclusion of a separate section on that. Examples:

The list is not exhaustive. However, it should be apparant by the comparison, that the way to treat an internal conflict on a country article is not by providing all miniature details in the main article itself. Astronomyinertia (talk) 17:47, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Ok, a couple of points

  1. Brevity. Right now Astronomyinertia, your statement is so long that most people are going to skip over it with the summary TL;DR
  2. WP:CONSENSUS. We work on a consensus model. If most people think that it makes sense to have a section regarding the civil war, then it might be a hint that the consensus is on their side.
  3. WP:Subarticle. At some point subsections grow enough for it to make sense that they be split into their own articles covering in depth for more interested readers.
  4. It is not necessary to refute every opposing viewpoint with what appears to be the same content over and over again.

Now if we can move forward on these basic Premises we can start trying to pull this dispute apart. Hasteur (talk) 19:24, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with all points you have mentioned. But there are a few things to add.
  1. I agree that my statement is too long. But what I wanted to do here is to summarize what I have mentioned in the lengthy and wayward talkpage discussion. If the mediators attempt to read that discussion, they would realize why a summary of this kind is necessary. Plus, an opposing editor, HudsonBreeze asked me to provide the comparison in a DRN thread, and that's why the examples are given.
  2. I'm fine with the consensus model. But it should also be mentioned that few involved editors here have a history of disruptive editing (as their talkpages indicate), and a few sockpuppets have also been blocked during the edit war that spanned months, for trying to exaggerate the number of involved editors.
  3. Almost all the necessary subarticles are already available. The question here is, what is the necessity to bring details available in those subarticles, into the main article now. Astronomyinertia (talk) 16:09, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


Note:

I have included Non-Involved Editor User:Adamrce under * Who is involved in the dispute? as he/she tried to resolve the Dispute previously and notified him. I have added back his/her involved last version of the Civil War Section to the Sri Lanka page.We can move from there.HudsonBreeze (talk) 08:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
User:Adamrce's addition was without a consensus in the talk page and as resulted in several questions and disputes. Therefore it is not the a place to start from. Cossde (talk) 12:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Only you and User:Astronomyinertia were disagree with him/her always. And User:Astronomyinertia is a "Possible" sock of yours. Please see the evidence:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cossde/Archive. Don't try to influence too much on the issue unduly.HudsonBreeze (talk) 13:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
No actually Cossde is correct in saying there was no consensus for Adamrce's additions. And it wasn't only Cossde and Astronomyinertia who disagreed but User:Snowolfd4 and I did too. Therefore I think it is safe we can not start there and those additions are not supported. By the way Snowolfd4 was involved in this dispute as well, I shall invite him here too.--Blackknight12 (talk) 15:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Sockpuppet investigations which have failed to find a direct relationship between the suspected accounts are not worth mentioning all the time as I see. Plus the editor who filed the case has also agreed that me and Cossde "really vary in some things". His sole point was the "common opinion that there should not be a civil war section in that article", among the editors. CheckUser has found both editors use same the ISP because SLT is the largest Internet Sevice Provider in Sri Lanka, and that is the ISP used by both editors. Other than that, the CheckUser has found the editors use different computers and their IP ranges do not overlap. No other behavioral evidence can support the case as well. Astronomyinertia (talk) 16:09, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


1.The insurgencies in India are not wide spread and they are insurgencies and not civil wars or ethnic conflicts.There are no allegations on the Indian state about grave warcrimes and crimes against Humanity from a body like UNHRC as in the case of Sri Lanka .Sri Lanka was a colonial administrative formed by the British by capturing and uniting 1 Tamil and 2 Sinhala kingdoms for their administrative conveniece.

2. Sri Lanka is a state that was formed in 1948.Sri Lanka is spending 60+ years in an unsolved ethnic conflict and it has spent its days in civil war since 1983 to 2009.Since ethnic conflict,civil war had occupied most of the time of history of Democratic Socialistic Republic of Sri Lanka ,I think the there need to be a separate section called 'Ethnic Conflict & Civil war'


If you look at the article of Germany,The Third Reich is not sandwiched or hidden under the tag called Modern Germany.So I think that the same has to be followed in Sri Lanka's case

Astronomyinertia.As you said SL hasn't 9 districts but 25 districts.[[Districts of Sri Lanka].Morevoer for 10 years Sri Lanka had no sovereignty over defacto state of Tamil Eelam and LTTE was running a parallel state in 90% area of the Tamil Eelam

I am not talking about the allegations of war crimes alone. Those allegations are already included in the article. My point is, that Sri Lankan civil war was not a particularly distinguishable era of Sri Lankan history, with respect to pre-historic, ancient, medieval, early modern and modern periods of Sri Lanka. Events scattered througout the modern period has contributed towards the ethnic conflict and they have already been covered in the present Modern Sri Lanka section. Fighting during the civil war was largely confined to 2 out of the 9 provinces (not districts), with occassional bombings in other areas. What is your opinon on the fact that, information contained in the section that you are tying to bring into the article is already available elsewhere in the article?
You say that the insurgencies in India are not wide spread. However their respective articles suggest that Jammu-Kashmir conflict has resulted in upto 100,000 civillian deaths, Naxalite-Maoist insurgency, 10,000+ civillians deaths and insurgency in Northeast India, 25,000+ civillian deaths. Moreover, thousands have been killed, a number of massacres have happened and millions have migrated due to religious and caste-related violence. All of these conflicts have been described in one sentence in the whole India article. It is because you cannot define an era due to existence of a conflict.
Nazi Germany or the Third Reich was an easily distinguishable era, not only in the German history, but also in the world history as well. There is no point of comapring Nazi Germany with the Sri Lankan civil war. I'm not going to waste time on that. At its peak, the LTTE, a proscribed terrorist organization controlled approximately 15% of the landmass of the country. In the ancient and medieval periods also, the country had been occupied by foreign invaders for decades. But LTTE occupation of a certain landmass did not hamper the functioning of the majority of the country. So that fact is not adequaate to define a distinguishable era of the country's history. Astronomyinertia (talk) 16:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


It all started with demand for removal of alleged war crimes section in Sri Lanka by [User:Cossde|Cossde].Finally [User:Cossde|Cossde] convinced administrator Adam and the people who wanted to have that section & got that section removed.Then he started issues about the content in the CIVIL war section then.Then Adam created a new civil war section with neutral point of view.Then Astronomyinertia landed from nowhere and removed the civil war section and merged things from that section to post -independence section of Sri Lanka page.I see a pattern of white washing things in that page.(Arun1paladin (talk) 07:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC))

Your accusation that there is an attempt to whitewash the civil war is baseless. If you properly read the article, you would find that everything you are trying to include, including war crime allegations, are already available in it. Other than brief explanations, as correctly pointed out by Obi2canibe, it is not possible to have entire sections on individual incidents/events because scope of this article and much broader than that. Sri Lankan Civil War article and its spin offs are for that purpose. Astronomyinertia (talk) 14:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


I never said that all incidents of the civil war must be listed out.What I say is that a separate section is needed for the civil war.The content that have to be included in that section is a different issue.If you want some detailed notes about what LTTE did then ,I have no problem with it.After all LTTE never claimed that it represents all the people in Sri Lanka unlike the Sri Lankan state which is predominantly Sinhalese and claims sovereignty both over Sinhalese,Tamils.I don't know if you are of the opinion that Sri Lankan state represents the Sinhalese and LTTE represents the Tamils!.Your comparison of Sri Lankan civil war with insurgencies lack logic.Sri Lanka had declared the state of emergency in the even in the 7 Sinhala provinces+ 2 Tamil provinces though you claim that the Civil war was restricted only to the 2 Tamil provinces.Sri Lanka declared victory in 2009 but the emergency was lifted only months ago.Still controversial laws like Prevention of Terrorism Act is implemented through out the island.The actions of the Sri Lankan state proves that the Civil war in Sri Lanka was not limited to any specific region of the island.In India the Kashmir issue doesn't involve any full fledged conventional military activity in Kashmir as in the case of LTTE in Tamil Eelam issue.(Arun1paladin (talk) 15:03, 14 October 2011 (UTC))

Well, you still have not established why you keep insisting that a separate section on civil war is necessary. If you believe details related to civil war have got lost, that's not the case here because a simple comparison between the present version and version before the edit war shows you that present version has got more details on the conflict than what it was there before. On the other hand, I have provide a clear rationale for the present structure of the history section, which no editor has been able to refute up to now. I don't want to add any "detailed notes about what LTTE did" because those details don't belong here, but in the Sri Lankan Civil War and the LTTE articles. Just like that, most of the details you have tried to add during the past few months belongs to the Sri Lankan Civil War, Burning of Jaffna library, Black July, Sri Lankan IDP camps and Alleged war crimes during the Sri Lankan Civil War articles. All the details from the above mentioned articles, which belongs here have been given due weight in the Modern Sri Lanka section. Emergency law and PTA are not relevant to the discussion here. Existence of such laws doesn't mean fighting happened in the other 7 provinces. You keep inquiring my views on questions you made up, like whether Sri Lankan state represents both Sinhalese or Tamils etc. I believe all this mistrust and hostility is due to the fact that I have declared Sinhala as my native language in the userpage. Please don't judge an editor based on their ethnicity, but contributions. That's a core policy in Wikipedia. You have stated that Kashmir issue doesn't involve any full fledged conventional military activity. But the number of casualties and organizations involved, like Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba etc, doesn't suggest so. No one has tried to create separate sections for each conflict that India undergoes, in India article, because existence of conflicts doesn't portary a country's profile, but a combination of social, cultural, historical and economic factors. Astronomyinertia (talk) 17:16, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
As Hasteur said this is getting out of hand and off topic, STOP arguing and diverting from the actual discussion, which is "what should be included, and how much of it is necessary in the Sri Lanka article relating to the Sri Lankan Civil War?" Arun1paladin stop blaming others and get past your hatred of Sri Lanka and start discussing logically and non biasedly. Astronomyinertia has given his reason but all you have done is state past discussions and quote history. Please give your rationale as to what you want and why. HudsonBreeze you keep saying you want an "Ethnic Conflict, Civil War & War Crime" section in the article, why when there are already huge separate articles on those topics? (Origins of the Sri Lankan civil war, Sri Lankan Civil War and Alleged war crimes during the Sri Lankan Civil War). The Sri Lanka article is a summary of the country, not every little single thing needs to be included. The civil war has been mentioned and linked in the Sri Lanka article and from there you can go to over 100 different sub articles on the topic, what more do you want?--Blackknight12 (talk) 02:23, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


Astronomyinertia,FYI all the Kashmiri militant organisation that you mentioned ,never run a defacto state in India.If you want a civil war section in India then you have to go to the India page and discuss with the editor.

Blackknight.I have no prejudice over Sri Lanka.I just want the civil war section to exist.The reasons for my stand are

1.Ethnic conflict is NOT over in SL sinceno political solution has been to given to Tamil by Sri Lanka that got formed in 1948.

2.The country's one of the most influential person Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that political solution to Tamils is irrelevant since the LTTE has been defeated.

3.All this history that you call has history of Sri Lanka is the history of that tiny island and not the Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka.The Country Sri Lanka was formed in 1948 just as India was formed in 1947.

Sri Lanka is facing ethnic conflict since 1948 and it has not ended till date.Sri Lanka has spent around 3 decades in civil war.

I wonder why some editors who even want to mention which Sinhala king had how many wives and among them who was Tamil and who was Sinhala,have problems in the EXISTENCE of a Civil war section.The contents of the section or it's neutrality has to been a different issue.

I am just talking about the CIVIL WAR section/subsection that existed until Astronomyinertia removed it for the first time and merged parts of it under modern history section .


I am not good with wiki's features.I don't think that Astronomyinertia who raised this issue in this dispute resolution board has informed user Intoronto,Obi... and others about raising this issue here.Astronomyinertia didn't post any message in my talk page about raising this issue here.I don't know if he had informed in the Sri Lanka page(Arun1paladin (talk) 04:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC))


When there is a war going on in a country, people and organizations issue statements regarding the incidents and actions of involved parties<<<

Jayewardene said in Daily Telegraph, 11th July 1983," Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy.".He was the President of Sri Lanka at that time.

Sarath Fonseka,the Commander of the Army (Sri Lanka) i.e the Head of th Sri lankan army told a Canadian newspaper that he "strongly believed that Sri Lanka belongs to the Sinhalese, but there are minority communities... they can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things".This was during the war and he was in charge of the post of Commander of the Army (Sri Lanka) during the war from 6 December 2005 – 15 July 2009.Though Sri Lanka is a multi-racial land he was NOT sacked for this kind RACIST comment [Refer]


In 2011years after the end of the war,in an interview to Headlines Today, television channel from India Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Defense Secretary of Sri Lanka & brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa trashed "the political solution talk", asserting, among other things, that it was "simply irrelevant" because 'we have ended this terrorism'in Sri Lanka.

[citation1 [citation2]


These are just examples for other to judge what is the Sri Lankan state is all about and whether the civil war section deserves to exit ot not.The people whom I mentioned are not peasants or labourers or unemploed people from Sri Lanka but people who held/hold key positions in the Sri Lankan state and had/have influence in the state's policies.I also wish to mention the fact that all these 3 persons who held/hold prominent position in the Sri Lankan state are Sinhalese and their comments are racist against the Tamils.I never heard any racist comment from any person of the INDIAN STATE against the Kashmiris or N.East Indians as A PEOPLE.Sri Lankan state speaking against the [LTTE]] is different from the act of the country's President of Sri Lanka,Commander of the Army (Sri Lanka),Defense Secretary of Sri Lanka making RACIST comments against Tamils who are distinct ethnicity from the Sinhalese .(Arun1paladin (talk) 05:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC))

Did you even bother reading what I said? In your whole reply all that was necessary were your three points you had given. The rest again does not even apply to the issue. You have to stay on topic! Sure there may have been some comments that some people with high positions made during the war, in what war are there not?? And furthermore these "quotes" are not something that do not belong on an article representing the summary of a country.
  • 1. I dont think you can say that just a political solution will end an ethnic conflict things like this would need time as well. However you have not provided any credible sources to support you claim.
  • 2. So what, he does not run the country, the government as a whole does, and we can not base information or articles on what one man says.
  • 3. The island is Sri Lanka and Democratic Republic of Sri Lanka is just the latest entity that was formed in 1948. If you look at France they are within their Fifth Republic, they have also had provisional governments, empires and kingdoms yet I urge you to read the the history section in the France article and tell me what you see?
Do these points you have stated really bring the need for a new section? I think not.
And by the way look at the last thing on your talk page!--Blackknight12 (talk) 08:11, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


You compare France,a nation state with a colonial creation like Sri Lanka or India!!.Oh I don't think there is point in discussing with you.I am writing here NOT for you but for the THIRD parties who are not involved in this edit wars.Let them read all these and provide some solution.

So what, he does not run the country, the government as a whole does, and we can not base information or articles on what one man says<<

Going by this ,the Tamils sat with the Sinhalese and decided the constitution of Sri Lanka,they together carved the state policy of discriminating Tamils,finally they decided that 40,000 Tamils must be killed by the exclusively Sinhala army of Sri Lanka under the command of Sinhala president,Sinhala defence minister and Sinhala Commander of the army.

This page is going worse than that of a chat forum.I request the Third parties to suggest their views(Arun1paladin (talk) 15:21, 15 October 2011 (UTC))

Observation

Following Countries have Sub Sections on "Civil War", "Genocide" or "War" under "History" Section;

3.3 Civil War and industrialization
3.3.4 Foreign interference and civil war
2.8.1 Al-Anfal: Kurdish genocide
2.8.2 Gulf War
2.9 2011 civil war and interim government
2.3 Kingdom of Laos and war 1954–75
Why Sri Lanka can't have a separate section on "Civil War"?HudsonBreeze (talk) 15:34, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I have discussed in my first comment, why a separate section on US, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libyan civil wars are necessary in their respective articles. Laotian Civil War is worth mentioning in the article because it resulted in the communist victory and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic or the modern Laos. Also the fighting involved number of international troops like Military Assistance Command. But non of these factors are applicable to Sri Lankan civil war. Astronomyinertia (talk) 16:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Observation
  • United States - suggestions to model the Sri Lankan civil war section on that of the United States was rejected and/or ignored by HudsonBreeze, Arun1paladin and Adamrce.
  • Iraq - Kurdish genocide as no relevance to this article. To compare the significance of 1st and 2nd Gulf Wars to the Sri Lankan civil war on a global scale... well I will let others decide that one.
  • Libya - Once again global/regional impact and media attention is beyond that of Sri Lankan civil war unfortunately.
  • Afghanistan - An invasion, occupation and multiple government changers in the entire country (at least in 90% of it) all in the spotlight of the world media. Is that similar to the Sri Lankan civil war.
  • Laos - Once again an invasion, occupation and multiple government changers in the entire country (at least in 90% of it) all in the spotlight of the world media. Is that similar to the Sri Lankan civil war.

Cossde (talk) 16:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion

I suggest for a separate section in the Sri Lanka page under "History" titled Ethnic Conflict, Civil War & War Crime.

The reasons are as below;

    • User:Astronomyinertia mentions, "Laotian Civil War is worth mentioning in the article because it resulted in the communist victory and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic or the modern Laos. Also the fighting involved number of international troops like Military Assistance Command. But non of these factors are applicable to Sri Lankan civil war."
    • It is not always the creation of the new state validates the inclusion of the "Civil War" section or not on Wikipedia. Then the inclusion of the "Civil War and industrialization" in the United States article is not worthy, because that only prompted the "Industrialization" and not a separate state for Southerners in the US and for which only the "Civil War" started originally and not for Industrialization.


  • User:Cossde's comparison with various countries also vague.
    • How I or others ignored his suggestion on United States to model the Sri Lankan civil war section is a baseless accusation. Any way we can't model one country's situation into other as it is, always it will be a combination of others or an unique one from others.
    • Kurdish genocide might be no relevance to this article, but a google search brings number of sites on Genocide in Sri Lanka.
    • More Massacres happened than the 1st and 2nd Gulf Wars in the last phase of the war in Sri Lanka where Sri Lankan Government sent out UN Agencies and International NGOs and denied world media to access the War Zone and waged a "War Without Witnesses".
    • The people killed in the last phase of the war in Sri Lanka is much higher than in Libya, Afghanistan and Laos - Again it was a "War Without Witnesses"
    • Multiple Government Changers can't be a sole or an important factor to determine a "Civil War", there are other factors too; because of the Sri Lankan Civil War, a large number of Sri Lankan Tamils left their home lane in number of other countries in the Post-1983 (The Scattering).


  • In the last phase of the "Civil War" in Sri Lanka, A recently released WikiLeaks cable revealed that when Ban Ki-Moon visited the country in 2009 he witnessed "complete destruction" when he flew over the former "no-fire zone". He described the conditions of Manik Farm refugee camp as worse than anything he had ever seen before.[2]


  • In the last phase of the "Civil War" in Sri Lanka, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, Foreign Ministers of Two Countries which have Veto Wielding Powers in the UN Security Council visited the war zone and made their comment in The New York Times (June 20, 2011) as below;
In April 2009, we travelled together as foreign ministers to Sri Lanka, as 25 years of fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers neared its end.
The remaining fighters were trapped in the northern most part of the country — along with large numbers of civilians. U.N. estimates put the numbers of civilians there in the last few months of the war at over 300,000.
We visited refugee camps that had been created to house Tamil refugees from Jaffna. Their stories were brutal and shocking. Random shelling in areas of fighting — including after the government had announced an end to fighting. Men and boys taken away from refugee camps — and now out of contact. Tamil life treated as fourth or fifth class. If foreign policy is about anything, it should be about stopping this kind of inhumanity.............Restrictions on journalism meant that there was a war without witness in Sri Lanka.............It seems to us essential that this process is taken forward. As the report says, accountability is a duty under domestic and international law, and those responsible, including Sri Lanka Army commanders and senior government officials, would bear criminal liability for international crimes.............Kofi Annan has said that the international community cannot be selective in its approach to upholding the rule of law. We therefore call on our governments to set a deadline, soon, for satisfactory response from the Sri Lankan government, and if it is not forthcoming to initiate the international arrangements recommended by the report.............Reports like the one compiled for the secretary general must not stand on the shelf. They must be the basis of action. Or the law becomes an ass."[1]


  • About the last phase of the "Civil War" in Sri Lanka, The Guardian and The Hindu made their Editorials as below;
The Guardian
In the editorial titled Sri Lanka: Evidence that won't be buried (June 15, 2011), The Guardian raised the observation:[2]
"The targeting of civilians is a war crime. If proved, these charges go right up the chain of command of Sri Lanka's military and government. If Iran stands condemned for killing hundreds in the wake of the June 2009 election, if Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic now face justice in The Hague, if Bashar al-Assad faces UN sanctions for an assault that has killed 1,300 Syrians, how it is that President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, the defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, escape all censure, after over 40,000 civilians were killed?
That the LTTE assassinated presidents and invented the suicide belt, that the Tigers used civilians as human shields, is no defence from the charge that Sri Lankan soldiers summarily executed prisoners in their custody. Sri Lanka is trying to pretend these events are history, as the economy and tourism pick up. They are not. This evidence has to be faced."
The Hindu
In the editorial titled A brother out of control (August 16, 2011), The Hindu raised the observation:[3]
"President Rajapaksa would be well advised to distance himself swiftly from his brother's stream-of-consciousness on sensitive issues that are not his business. This includes an outrageous comment that because a Tamil woman, an “LTTE cadre” who was a British national, interviewed in the Channel 4 documentary was “so attractive” but had been neither raped nor killed by Sri Lankan soldiers, the allegation of sexual assault by soldiers could not be true. For this statement alone, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa must be taken to task."



  • All above factors make for a clear cut suggestion that the world has given enough notice to the Sri Lankan "Civil War" and it is eligible for the inclusion in the "History" section as "Ethnic Conflict, Civil War & War Crime".HudsonBreeze (talk) 07:10, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Reasons for the validity of the inclusion of American civil war in the United States article, I discussed in my first comment. Laotian civil war too is worth mentioning because it resulted in the establishment of modern Laos. However, Sri Lankan civil war has none of the characteristics of those wars. And it is not different from the number of separatist conflicts in India and other conflicts in Turkey, Pakistan, Colombia, Yemen etc, which have not deserved a sepate section in their respective articles.
All those huge quotations you have inserted in the discussion are statements by individuls or organizations. When there is a war going on in a country, people and organizations issue statements regarding the incidents and actions of involved parties. Sri Lankan civil war too had been monitored by international organizations. But that's not relevant to what we are talking about, in this DRN discussion. Astronomyinertia (talk) 17:04, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Clerk Notice: Again we're getting the talking past each other and not trying to resolve this. Ceace speculation on the motives of editors and concentrate on the content. Hasteur (talk) 18:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I(Adamrce ~AdvertAdam)'ve been busy lately so I won't be as active, but I see the importance of this conflict to be resolved. I've been involved to solve multiple Sri Lankan-related edit-wars with some of the involved editors, as some discussions relied mostly on personal knowledge and COI-like arguments instead of policies.
The history of this page is becoming like a chat-line when you read the summaries. The previous discussions were all related to the content of the "civil war" section, and not its existence. Adding single-sided content to the previous section doesn't help resolving this issue. Avoiding to call it a civil war doesn't help improve the article.
The "civil war" is a notable topic and we should, IMHO, include a brief and link it to its main article: Sri Lanka civil war. I tried to make a summary, back in August, in order to focus the discussion on particular objects at-a-time, but most of what I got back is picky arguments that don't directly relate to the content. The last edit war was on a lengthy section that needs to be summarized, to avoid WP:DUE.
I encourage involved editors to goto the talkpage to discuss controversial changes. It's not the end-of-the-world if you don't get your preferred version. Cheers... ~ AdvertAdam on-mobile 19:23, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
I think AdvertAdam has correctly pointed out the key aspect editors need to concentrate on, the CONTENT! Without adding entire sections on individual events that could induce WP:DUE problems, this dispute can be resolved by sticking to reliably sourced, neutral content that should be acceptable to everyone. I believe that I have provided enough evidence and rationale on why the history section should be sub-sectioned as pre-historic, ancient, medieval, early modern and modern Sri Lanka, and why these details related to civil war should be covered in the modern Sri Lanka section. If you think there should be any additional details coming in, please go ahead and add those stuff. Ethnic conflict and civil war has received much weight in the modern Sri Lanka section, that it is not necessary to add another section covering the same details. I request you to remain in the conversation, so that it will be easy for the disagreeing parties to reach a consensus. Astronomyinertia (talk) 15:45, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
You've been doing some great contribution on the article, and I honestly don't review after you. The arguments are slightly different in each previous edit-wars, but it's all based on taking certain things personal and assuming political intentions, IMO. We need to specifically discuss whether the civil war will be mentioned in the "modern Sri Lanka" section or a section called "civil war" under the "modern Sri Lanka" section, and not the existence of civil war in particular.
I see the mistake here, as you've merged the content but others think that it needs more detail and they're repeating it in a separate section. Let's first discuss its location on the talkpage, if you'd like. If I see more edits/revert out-of the discussion, I'll try to request a temporarily WP:1RR for the article. I'll try to stick around, as I've been giving priority to this problem more that the articles I continually edit for over a year.
Btw, I never claimed consensus on my September revert, but it was a clean-up after an edit-war mess. I even kept a POV-tag, just for info. ~ AdvertAdam on-mobile 03:19, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for remaining with the discussion. It will not be possible to reach a consensus without continuous, third party input because some of the involved editors seem to have strong emotions regarding the issue, and are not ready to compromise on what would be the best for the article.
My entire argument is based on the historical perspective. I think you would appreciate the fact that almost all the necessary information that deserves to be mentioned in the article regarding civil war is already there. If anyone thinks some information is missing, there is no restraint to add it under the present structure. But the issue here is whether a separate section is necessary to deal with the info. In my above comments, I have cleary pointed out why I think the war needs to be mentioned in the Modern Sri Lanka section, based on the historical perspective. In the case of Sri Lanka, there is only one such conflict. But there are countries with multiple ethnic and other conflicts ongoing, and have prevailed in the recent past. There is no point of reserving one section or sub-section for each conflict, because that gives undue weight to those conflicts, whereas there are more areas that needs to be covered in a country article. Astronomyinertia (talk) 10:23, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi everyone, and thanks for your posts so far. To me, this question of whether or not to have a specific section about the civil war looks like a good candidate for an RfC. Has there been an RfC on this topic recently? All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:25, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the section should be included it was an important part of the history of the island. It last 30 years! However, the section that other editors keep on adding back needs to be shortened. Intoronto1125TalkContributions 13:42, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Since the causes and start of the war can be traced to the political and socioeconomic structure of the country as far back as the time of British rule, as well as two other insurregencies and an attempted coup; having a separate section would give undo wight and take the it out of context. As wikipedia only report and not editorialize having a sequence of events based on the five periods a Sri Lankan history that span over thousands of years may seem to be the best option we have. Cossde (talk) 17:00, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi again. I think people are being confused about the nature of this noticeboard - we don't have the power to set content issues in stone, especially when it is a large, complex dispute such as this one. The opinions of clerks at this noticeboard can help contribute to consensus, but that's about all we can do. If anyone in this thread is commenting in the hope that a clerk will judge that the article should be written in this way or that, then I'm afraid they are mistaken. All a clerk can do is add their opinion to the opinions of the editors already involved.

The process usually used to gauge consensus among the wider community on a particular issue is a request for comments, which is why I recommended it above. I can appreciate that editors want to get the content issues sorted out, and so I can understand the detailed comments on the issues above. As consensus cannot realistically be decided on this noticeboard, however, I think editors' time would be better spent arguing those points in an RfC on the article's talk page. In this case, I think a highly structured RfC would be best; see this one for an example of what I am talking about. Would that be acceptable to all the editors here? Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 17:23, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, which is why I was also trying to avoid giving my views on the matter. This issue was never even discussed on the article's talkpage, but only slight comments berried in other disputes. The only straight-forward comments are at the edit-summaries. I'm working on forming a neutral RfC, and hoping editors can focus on improving the article from an encyclopedic-only POV. ~ AdvertAdam on-mobile 20:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes. The separate section issue is a red herring - the dispute is really about what content should and should not be included in the article. Until this is resolved the dispute will go on in one form or another as it has been doing so for the last four months.--obi2canibetalk contr 20:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, yes. We all need to work together to stabilize the article, but I'm having a hard time gathering editors when each group wants to edit a separate part of the article. We definitely can't have two sections talking about the civil war :p. ~ AdvertAdam on-mobile 20:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, undue weight is something that has to be considered with a few points in mind, the impact it had, how long it lasted, how significant an event it was in the subjects history. Duration of time is not the only deciding factor, however. The fact that the civil war lasted only 30 years should not be the sole deciding factor. I think jn this situation either a requests for comment or a request at the mediation cabal would be the next step from here. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 07:51, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with User:Steven Zhang's comment, "The fact that the civil war lasted only 30 years should not be the sole deciding factor."

When some one refers the following;

    • A resolution was passed unanimously by the US Senate and called on the international community and the UN to establish such a mechanism to look into reports of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other human rights violations committed by both sides during and after the war in Sri Lanka.”[4]
    • Australia Senate unanimously adopts a resolution calling for investigation of war crimes by SriLanka and LTTE.[5]
    • Sri Lanka's justice ministry has received a summons issued by a US federal court for President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The summons is linked to three civil cases filed under the Hague Convention by relatives of Tamil victims of alleged extra-judicial killings. The alleged killings took place during the Sri Lankan civil war.[6]
    • The Swiss Federal Attorney General had said that there is enough evidence to open an investigation against Major General Dias if he returnes to Switzerland. The former Commander of the 57th Division, has been accused of intensive shelling of civilians, hospitals and religious sites during the final stages of the civil war in Sri Lanka.[7]

I too support for a requests for comment or a request at the mediation cabal.HudsonBreeze (talk) 12:20, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Note: I informed all involved editors (whom are listed above) about the open RfC. Cheers... ~ AdvertAdam on-mobile 06:19, 17 October 2011 (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.

Men's Rights

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.


Dispute overview

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

User Kgorman-ucb is continually harassing other users on the talk page for this article by threatening bans and citing irrelevant policies. One user has already been banned because of this.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

Unfortunately, the user seems intent on breaking Wikipedia's policy on assuming good faith. I have questioned the good faith of others, I admit that, but to be threatened with a ban by someone doing the same thing is unacceptable.

  • 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=Men's Rights}} --~~~~ 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?

Contacted the user on his talk page.

  • How do you think we can help?

Informally, I would like the user to be ask to refrain from involving himself in the general community's attempts to improve Men's Rights as an article. This article has been heavily rewritten which has caused a great deal of controversy outside of Wikipedia recently and has drawn attention to it from outside. It is my view that the user lacks understanding of the article and is applying Wikipedia policies too strictly. He has also disputed outside sources by applying standards other articles are not held up to. To simply describe this behaviour, it feels like he is applying the letter of the law in order to destroy the spirit of the law. If the user wishes to contribute more positively than by removing content he seems to not agree with then this would, of course, be welcome.

Hermiod (talk) 09:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Men's Rights 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.

Talk:Touhou_Project

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.


Dispute overview

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

Use of Touhou vs. Tōhō: Japanese romanization (subsection: “touhou/tōhō?”). I argue that while “Touhou” is generally used by the fandom everywhere, “Tōhō” is more appropriate due to Wikipedia's romanization guidelines. “Touhou” is being claimed for common name and official name, which I do not think is correct in this case. I do not see how it is possible to come to a resolution without a neutral opinion, preferably by someone not involved with the Touhou fandom, but proficient in Japanese and Wikipedia editing.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

Also involved: IP addresses, including me

While I can certainly see why “Touhou” is preferable as I am also part of its fandom, I just don't see the reasons to use “Touhou” on Wikipedia as justifiable, given the reasons discussed. The article name was also changed from “Tōhō” long ago, but I don't agree with the reasons given there either, as those were blatantly wrong as I pointed out in this new discussion. The gist of the issue is that *everyone* writes Touhou, but I am under the impression that macrons are generally not used on computers for availability reasons, but it is still part of the Wikipedia standard. In other words, the Touhou fandom and I don't agree with the Wikipedia romanization standard, but we can't just ignore it on special occasions like these unless satisfactory justified. I'd argue that everything written on the internet these days will avoid use of ō, unless ō is specifically requested in a formal context, such as Wikipedia's system.

Also, while it is said that ZUN (creator) uses Touhou, I believe this merely to mean that he condones its use. He is Japanese and not exactly a linguist, and I don't see why he should care for non-Japanese semantics. Basically, there's no reason why he should have a strong opinion about the use of ō and he has yet to release a game outside of Japan.

  • 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=Talk:Touhou_Project}} --~~~~ 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. Tried to rationalize with official Wikipedia guidelines, but still conflicting.

  • How do you think we can help?

Neutral points of view on a low traffic article/article that attracts its own fandom.

158.37.73.31 (talk) 18:30, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Touhou_Project discussion

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

Hi there! Thanks for posting this dispute. There are some clear guidelines on Japanese romanization over at WP:MOS-JA. The basic gist of them is that we should use Hepburn romanization (i.e. Tōhō) except when there is a common usage in reliable sources that is different. Now it doesn't seem that there is an official romanization from the project website - correct me if I'm wrong here. Also, the sources in the article generally use "Touhou", but I also managed to find a book mention that uses Tōhō (it looks like the only relevant book on Google Books that is not a circular reference to Wikipedia, by the way). Also, the romanization on this official-looking website uses "toho" in the url. I can't see a clear case of one romanization being widely used, and because of this I think we should stick to using Hepburn here. Let me know what your thoughts are. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 06:27, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

That is an official website. You'll find that a lot of Japanese people use simple o's in place of ō/ou in URLs and such. This is very common, and can't be an indication of what is official in my opinion. ZUN's official blog is named kourindou, but his twitter is korindo. Go ahead and take a look, but I could only find 東方 in use. Here's the official wiki (but it's not run by ZUN). The provided book seems to have no relation to the official project at all, and they just seem to stick to the same Hepburn rules as Wikipedia, thus they use Tōhō and dōjin, etc.

Regarding “common names” on Wikipedia, does this even have anything to do with ō/ou usage? They represent the same letter, or whatever linguists call it, but Wikipedia just uses ō and the general internet uses ou (speaking generally, not just about Touhou/Tōhō). Is there any merit in calling for common usage of ou over ō (since they're “not different”), as it more specifically mentions actual differences, for example “Toho”. Should ou ever be used on Wikipedia? Any examples of this aside from Touhou? If so, it should be added to the guide to help disambiguate similar future issues. As I mentioned on the Touhou Project talk page, going by common fandom usage, quite a few of the Japanese names on Wikipedia could justifiably be changed from ō to ou. 158.37.73.38 (talk) 16:04, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi 158.37, and thanks for the reply. I'm familiar with the linguistic aspects of romanizing Japanese, what with speaking it and living in Japan and everything ;) Regarding common names, WP:MOS-JA is clear that it does indeed cover ō/ou and similar romanization choices. I'll quote from it a bit more:

Japanese terms should be romanized according to common usage in English-language reliable sources as indicated by policy, including unconventional romanization of titles and names by licensees (e.g., Devil Hunter Yohko and Tenjho Tenge—see below)—words used frequently in English (such as sumo or judo), the official English name for companies and organizations (e.g., Kodansha rather than Kōdansha, Doshisha University rather than Dōshisha University), or location names (e.g., Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Kyushu, Honshu, Hokkaido, Ryukyu Islands, Bonin Islands, Iwo Jima).

The common name policy isn't just concerned with official names of products, and in fact puts most weight on the names of products as they are used in English-language reliable, third-party sources. The mention in the book I linked to seems like a reliable, English-language, third party source, and therefore I think we can use it to help us determine common usage. On the other hand, many of the sources in the article are Japanese-language or of questionable reliability, which means we shouldn't assign so much weight to them. Based on these criteria, I don't see any clear evidence of romanizing the title one way or the other, so until evidence is forthcoming at some point in the future I think we should stick with the standard Hepburn Tōhō. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 16:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't think to compare the Devil Hunter Yohko and Tenjho Tenge examples. The other examples are not about ō/ou usage though, but about using o in place of ō, which is quite different. I wouldn't call it too clear, but the first two examples are appropriate.

I agree with you. I don't see evidence of consistent official usage of “Touhou”, and while I prefer using that, I can't justify it with good sources. I'd like to see more opinions or a stagnation of the case before landing on a decision, as I can definitely see Tōhō as an unpopular name for the article. Hopefully, involved parties chime in. 158.37.73.38 (talk) 16:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

For the discussion: I just noticed that I've notified an uninvolved person in place of an involved one, and will fix it immediately. Deadkid_dk signs _dk, so I'd notified Dk (redirected from _dk). My bad. 158.37.73.38 (talk) 16:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

  • Hi, thanks for starting a discussion here. While I have some reservations about moving the discussion to a dispute resolution venue without prior warning when we were just throwing points around (we also should have waited for the other watchers of the page to chime in), I'm glad there is new input into the discussion as a result of the move. Now, on to the topic at hand, I present the cover images for the games: Cover of the 9th game, 9.5th game, 10th game, 10.5th game, 11th game, 12th game, 12.3th game, 12.5th game, 12.8th game, and lastly, the most recent 13th game. As you can see, each one of these has the descriptor "Nth Touhou Project" in them, right through to the newest game. Even taking into account the covers before the 9th game (Here are the 6th's whose English descriptor was barely readable, and the 7th and 8th's that use "Project Shrine Maiden"), I am seeing a consistent trend of the maker's use of "Touhou Project" over the alternatives, especially "Toho" or "Tōhō" which were never used for the Windows games. The arguement I'm making does not take into account the popular fandom naming, and I have witnessed and agreed with many articles being moved from the popular ou form to the standard ō form. In this case, we have official names, and I can't agree with dismissing them because of stuff like "ZUN wasn't a linguist". p.s. Thanks for that source about doujins (forgive my use of ou due to laziness), even though its mention of Touhou is brief and mostly tangential to our arguement, I'm glad there is new scholarship about the doujin scene. _dk (talk) 08:26, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Hey, no problem. I think that the game covers are quite strong evidence for "Touhou", and I'm happy to recognise "Touhou" as common usage based on that, unless anyone has more evidence to the contrary. Where we draw the line as to how much evidence is necessary is down to consensus, but if the game covers use "Touhou" I don't think it is very controversial for Wikipedia to use it too. Does anyone have any other reliable, third-party, English-language sources that mention the game? The more sources we have, the better the judgement we can make. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 11:53, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't notice it being used in the cover images (sort of hidden like that). I'll be happy to concede with that as well, which was not presented in the original discussion. By ZUN not being a linguist, I was referring to him just acknowledging “Touhou” in some official setting, but printed on the covers is a much stronger statement. Just a note: The point about “Tōhō” never being used is weak for a lot of things related to Wikipedia in my opinion, since a lot of things are, as said, transcribed to ou on the net, but Wikipedia uses ō as a standard.

The reason I put it up for discussion here was not for people to judge the one going on at the talk page, but to get a “third” neutral opinion from people who deal with this kind of issue. Looking for ways to do so, there was seemingly no other way than to file a dispute resolution notice. I did not know that I was supposed to bring it up internally before posting it.

I see no need to continue this discussion now. Unless there is actual evidence of Tōhō in a more official setting than the game covers, which I can say with pretty much confidence that there won't be, there isn't much of an argument to make against “Touhou” any more. 158.37.73.60 (talk) 19:51, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. I'm glad we came to an agreement, and I should have brought up the covers earlier. I guess this topic can be closed now. _dk (talk) 19:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Great - I'm glad we have agreement on this now. A note to the IP - there's no need to apologise for bringing things to dispute resolution. Dispute resolution is an important part of Wikipedia, in my opinion, and bringing something to DR is a lot smarter than simply edit warring over it. Many hands make light work, as it were. I'm going to close the thread now, but if there's anything else that comes up, feel free to bring it back to this noticeboard. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 12:10, 19 October 2011 (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.

Papal infallibility

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.


Dispute overview

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

Insistent deletion of reliably sourced information; insistent citation of a scholar as supporting a view that he actually disagrees with

In the article Papal infallibility, User:Montalban insistently presents as certain the view that Peter Olivi was the first person to attribute infallibility to the Pope. To do so he has repeatedly

  1. deleted reliably sourced information about the contrary opinion of several scholars on this historical question;
  2. asserted that one of those scholars who hold a contrary view supports Montalban's own view.

Montalban has done so here, here, here and here

  1. Scholars whom Montalban deletes, thus presenting as certain and undisputed the view about 13th-century Olivi that was first proposed in 1972 by Brian Tierney:
    1. Klaus Schatz says that Aquinas and Bonaventure came closer to the defined doctrine than Tierney admits and that the crucial step occurred only in the 15th century; he declares that "it is impossible to fix a single author or era as the starting point" (source).
    2. Ulrich Horst also rejected the Tierney hypothesis (source), and Schatz describes Horst's criticism of Tierney as "the most thorough reworking of the question, and most persuasive in its overall historical perspective".
    3. James Heft "disagrees with Tierney's thesis that the roots of papal infallibility extend only to Olivi" (source, p. 2).
  2. Scholar whom Montalban falsely presents as saying that 13th-century Olivi was the first person to attribute infallibility to the Pope:
    1. Mark E. Powell, who on the contrary says "the doctrine of papal infallibility defined at Vatican I had its origins in the fourteenth century and was itself part of a long development of papal claims", referring in particular to 14th-century Bishop Guido Terreni.(source, p. 34).

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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=Papal infallibility}} --~~~~ 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 tried to engage with Montalban on the article's talk page, especially but not solely in this section, and finally warned him that, if he persisted, I would bring the matter before the Wikipedia community.

  • How do you think we can help?

Montalban should be told not to present, in any part of any article of Wikipedia, one view of a subject as the only existent, when reliable sources support one or more other views. He should also be given a general warning (not on this point alone) to desist from deleting on flimsy pretexts sourced information that he dislikes.

— Preceding comment added by Esoglou (talk • contribs) 06:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Papal infallibility discussion

Not about deletion

For my part the papal infallibility article is already divided up appropriately. The majority of the argument presents what might be regarded as the 'positive' case, that is the history and development of papal infallibility largely from a Catholic perspective... including alleged examples of its demonstration through history.

Into that article is a very small section called "Opposition to the doctrine of papal infallibility". One of these examples I wrote was constantly re-edited. The example was a remonstrance by Catholics in England where they declared that they never had believed in papal infallibility. This was before such was defined as dogma. Another editor objected to my use of the word 'remonstrance' saying he did a search and found no document called that. I pointed out I never called the document the "Remonstrance of Catholics..." He then edited in a catechism written 70 years later to (what I can only regard) as an attempt to excuse the remonstrance by saying that 70 years later the English were of a different opinion. They may have changed their opinion. The catechism didn't say that. It just noted a different group at a different time came to a different opinion. In the end it appears to me that the other editor had no reason for inserting this in and it was dropped. This followed an enormous amount of Q&A over adding in information already presented, such as he wished me to say what this remonstrance was about - even though I answered and had it in the article several times (I believe three times).

Another example was a claim that a Franciscan priest Peter Olivi is regarded as being the first to cite an example of Papal Infallibility. It's the beginning of a short segment where a pope, John XXII rejected outright that claim.

Again, I feel, another editor sought to explain away this. I'd cited several historians who noted what I'd stated. This was re-edited and reduced to simply one historian's opinion - Hasler. It's been subsequently re-edited to be just another person's opinion - Tierney. Into this the other editor gave some argument that directly disagrees with Tierney. They may well believe that. However introducing such information in this section would only serve to confuse the article, and also opens the door up for others to re-edit the entire article in similar fashion (where proofs are available).

My reasoning works as this: This segment is about opposition. The whole article is mostly about positive arguments. It seems to me that the other editor is unsatisfied that even a small section of 'opposition' can go without comment that re-affirms his POV.

I have suggested that he could write this information elsewhere into the article OR have it in notes. He has chosen not to discuss this but simply re-edit his argument back in. I offered this as an option in the Talk pages and got no response

I pointed out that if he wishes to introduce this perspective into a section of 'negative' argument then I could re-edit to show 'negative' throughout the entire article.

It would ALL look clumsy following along a line of 'a statement', followed by

but 'x' says this then him adding
but 'y' says this then me adding
but 'z' says this

And would turn the article over to one of debate.

More specifically I mentioned that I could edit the statement Believers of the Catholic doctrine claim that their position is historically traceable... to Although believers of the Catholic doctrine claim that their position is historically traceable... there is no direct evidence that these verses apply to infallibility

and Pope St. Clement of Rome, c. 99, stated in a letter to the Corinthians: "Indeed you will give joy and gladness to us, if having become obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit, you will cut out the unlawful application of your zeal according to the exhortation which we have made in this epistle concerning peace and union" (Denziger §41, emphasis added). rendered as

Pope St. Clement of Rome, c. 99, stated in a letter to the Corinthians: "Indeed you will give joy and gladness to us, if having become obedient to what we have written through the Holy Spirit, you will cut out the unlawful application of your zeal according to the exhortation which we have made in this epistle concerning peace and union" (Denziger §41, emphasis added). However 'x' commentator notes that the Epistle is directed to the Corinthians only, who were a colony of Rome (not connected to historical Corinth) and therefore the church in Corinth would look to the Church in Rome

This would provide the same balance as he suggests is needed for one small section, but I'm sure he would not want that. I offered this as an option in the Talk pages and got no response

in Summary I am not about the deletion of his points but in favour of the over-all flow and cohesion of the article. I feel that there is already enough points for without every negative point being further apologized for. Montalban (talk) 07:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

What are you making the article say at the point where you are doing the deletions and the misrepresentation of Powell? Esoglou (talk) 08:53, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
I should also point out that Esoglou has the same objections elsewhere in the article. In the Middle Ages section he leads this with
In 1972 Brian Tierney published a book in which he argued that the Franciscan priestPeter Olivi was the first person to attribute infallibility to the Pope
he then gives objections to it there.
later where I have put comments about Peter Olivi in the Opposition to the doctrine of papal infallibility he wishes to again put in counter-argument to it again there. He thus seeks several bites of the cherry
Montalban (talk) 23:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi there Esoglou and Montalban, and thank you for posting at the dispute resolution noticeboard! Now, I am new to this subject, so maybe I am missing something here, but the section in question is "opposition to the doctrine of papal infallibility", but Peter Olivi seems to have been arguing for papal infallibility, so to my untrained eyes it seems like it is in the wrong section. Would you both agree with this?

Regarding what views to include in the article, the relevant policy seems to be that of avoiding undue weight. From the policy: "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." So we must judge the relative prominence of all the viewpoints involved to find out how much weight to assign to each. My first impression is that Montalban's version is giving too much weight to Tierney's interpretation without including the viewpoints of the other scholars; however, as I said, I am new to the field, so there may be a good reason to assign less weight to the other scholars that I am not aware of. Let me know what you think. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 02:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Strad breaks it down nicely; the process of building the article back up while in dispute. I have a question myself: do we have the top scholars' opinions in the article already? Who are the top scholars, past and present? I can go to Google books and find people who have written on the topic, but that does not tell me who their peers think are the top thinkers. Once we identify them, we can introduce other ideas as not mainstream. Binksternet (talk) 02:19, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Also, Britannica says that the first 'infallible' pope was Honorius I in the 7th century, but a subsequent council disputed this. Perhaps we can start from there... Binksternet (talk) 02:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
If I can put an oar in... I've been involved in this dispute even though Esoglou did not list me as one of those involved. IMO, the problem is simply this. Montalban really wants to say "Franciscan priest Peter Olivi proposed the doctrine of papal infallibility but 40 years later Pope John XXII rejected this doctrine as placing improper restrictions on the authority of a pope (i.e. current popes should not be bound by the pronouncements of his predecessors)." However, Montalban insists on asserting that Olivi was the first to propose papal infallibility whereas Esoglou insists that the question of whether Olivi was first is, in fact, the subject of dispute among scholars. IMO, it is not required that Wikipedia determine whether Olivi was first because Wikipedia is about verifiable reliable sources, not about truth. It is NOT our job to determine what the truth is. We should simply say that Tierney et al believe Olivi was first while Schatz et al believe that it's not possible to determine when and by whom papal infallibility was first proposed. In any event, the question of whether Olivi was first is not critical to the point Montalban is trying to make. Esoglou and I have made recent edits to try and separate the question of "who was first to propose papal infallibility" from the incident that Montalban is trying to relate about a pope rejecting the doctrine of papal infallibility. IMO, all that is required to resolve this dispute is for Montalban to recognize that the issue of Olivi being first is not critical to making the point he wants to make. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 06:50, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
I think Pseudo-Richard was not involved in a dispute about this particular point, but rather about others of Montalban's edits in the article. To get across his claim that Pope John XXII denied papal infallibility in condemning an idea that has been attributed to the by then dead Olivi, it would be quite enough for Montalban to say Olivi attributed infallibility to the popes, without saying that Olivi was the first or the second or the thousandth. Binksternet has added yet another source that suggests that Olivi was by no means first. If Montalban would only accept the recommendations and suggestions made to him by Stradivarius, Binksternet and Pseudo-Richard, the problem brought for consideration here would be solved. But so far he is insisting at that point of the article on presenting as undisputed fact his claim that Olivi was the first, and - more than that - he is holding to his illegitimate action of deleting at that point any mention of sources that show that the "fact" is not undisputed, and his still more illegitimate action of presenting as proof of the "fact" a source that actually denies it. Esoglou (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Since Montalban is no longer defending his actions here, am I perhaps authorized to undo them? Esoglou (talk) 16:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
That's a good point. Looking at the article and the talk page, it seems like this particular dispute has been quiet for about a week. I say yes, try undoing Montalban's edits. That seemed to be the consensus of the other uninvolved editor and I, so it is probably a reasonable step to make. If Montalban contests the edits further, then we can work out an alternative approach. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 05:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for all the help given here. In four days there has been no negative reaction to my undoing the edits. I hope I am not over-optimistic in saying that now I would have no objection to having this entry marked "Solved" and closed. Esoglou (talk) 09:47, 20 October 2011 (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.

Big Brother 2011 (UK), List of Big Brother 2011 housemates (UK)

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.


Dispute overview

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

Anon user is making aggressive edits, fails to assume good faith when dealing with other users and has consistently show facets of ownership of the articles. Problems include accusations of vandalism, orders to not edit content and a continuing disregard for discussing changes in a calm and considered manner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_Brother_2011_%28UK%29&diff=prev&oldid=455242928 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:86.176.153.183&diff=prev&oldid=455247720 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_Brother_2011_%28UK%29&diff=prev&oldid=454192041

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ABig_Brother_2011_%28UK%29&action=historysubmit&diff=454874411&oldid=454873972

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

Deterence isn't really doing anything except encouraging IP to ignore various guidelines such as WP:RS, WP:NOTNEWSPAPER ect.

  • 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=Big Brother 2011 (UK), List of Big Brother 2011 housemates (UK)}} --~~~~ 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?

Discussion has been going on the talk pages for nearly a month.

  • How do you think we can help?

Some calm external, non-interested guidance. Previous attempt at RFC resulted in IP removing content from page, accusing users of harassment and claiming copyright over the work.

Carl Sixsmith (talk) 19:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Big Brother 2011 (UK), List of Big Brother 2011 housemates (UK) discussion

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


Involved user User:Leaky caldron

IP86 has made countless edits to edit summary and article talk pages which amount to a clear pattern of WP:DISRUPTive editing. They are highly tendentious in that they continue editing in pursuit of a non-policy, fancruft style despite consensus opposition from other editors. They do not engage in consensus building and have rejected appeals for moderation, continuing to edit in pursuit of a certain direction despite an opposing consensus. Examples of assuming bad faith include incorrect accusations of vandalism, ownership, edit warring, of removing "their" content and issuing warnings not to remove "their" content and statements that "their" content is copyright to them.

No, I have since made every effort to edit within the agree guidelines, see my record.86.176.153.183 (talk) 21:40, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

At least one productive contributors has thrown the towel in as a result of IP86 failing to follow policies and guidelines. They appear to refuse to get the point.

No, they claimed to have left of their own accord, nothing to do with others' edits.86.176.153.183 (talk) 21:40, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

IP86 has been blocked [8] for WP:3RR and Admin. warned about incivility [9] but their behaviour, while somewhat modified, is still beyond acceptable community norms. They still do not get it, as this latest example today clearly shows. First they accuse a perfectly good faith editor of vandalism [10], then further accusing them of bad faith in the resulting discussion. They can, evidentally, "detect" a looming edit war from a single, non-contentious edit.

As can be seen from article talk pages and his own user page, considerable guidance has been provided relating to the relevant policies but with limited impact on IP86’s editing style.

IMO, this DR request does not need to consider User:Deterence’s actions. They appear to be acting as some sort of pseudo McKenzie friend for IP86. Det. is not an article contributor and has I think, failed to assist IP86 (a) by supporting his non-policy content inclusion and (b) in failing to direct IP86 to appropriate content & behavioural policy. Instead they have accused article editors of bullying IP86 and perhaps in doing so, emboldened IP86 into the misapprehension that they can continue unabated. This is an aside, IMO.

I would like IP86 to agree to mentoring or some other suitable action to achieve the goal, before Big Brother finishes its run in 4 week time, of working within content and behavioural policies and guidelines. Leaky Caldron 20:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I have included User:Deterence as he seems to be an interested party with an opposite view point to my own, hopefully arguments from both sides can result in a resolution Carl Sixsmith (talk) 20:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
The above had claimed to have opted out of editing the offending article but now seems intent on opening more disputes over minor edits and making other unjustified claims. I have aimed to keep to the consensus and kept edits civil and am dismayed to see a new pattern of dispute-seeking creeping in. My recent record shows a series of constructive edits, no deletions and no evidence of any of the above allegations beyond one fix to a code removed by a poster which reverted a good faith edit. I wonder why the above two are starting up this all over again when one had claimed to be stepping aside from this article? They seem determined to pounce on every minor edit, revert it and dispute it. This is not productive, I hae done all I can to cooperate.86.176.153.183 (talk) 21:40, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Clerk's note: As noted in the guidelines, this noticeboard is for the resolution of content disputes, not conduct disputes, WQA, ANI, RFC/U, and of course ArbCom are for conduct. I note that ANI has been tried without much success, so it might be time to move on to a RFC/U or ArbCom. We'd be willing to help here if you want to specify some particular content disputes, but this looks far more like a conduct dispute. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

  • Disclaimer: I'm not sure how I became involved in this, but, a note was left on my talk page, (by Carl Sixsmith), so here I am. For what it is worth, I am impartial with regards 86.176.153.183, Carl Sixsmith, Leaky caldron and Dr Marcus Hill. To my memory, I have had no contact with any of them until about a week and a half ago, in the Talk:Big Brother 2011 (UK). Although, I have noticed Leaky caldron commenting alongside myself in WP:ITN/C recently.
  • I'm not sure how I can comment on the allegations of Carl Sixsmith when no examples of the allegedly disruptive editing by 86.176.153.183 have been provided. In the talk page, various allegations have been thrown at 86.176.153.183's edits but they seldom amount to more than "not encyclopedic". At one point, they were arguing that 86.176.153.183's edits were contrary to Wikipedia:WikiProject Big Brother. It was at that point that I stepped in to show that the main thrust of 86.176.153.183 edits (the inclusion of social anecdotes) were indeed consistent with the guidelines in WikiProject Big Brother.
  • 86.176.153.183 has responded with a claim that, "They seem determined to pounce on every minor edit, revert it and dispute it." I could not agree with this claim more. Every edit that 86.176.153.183 makes is immediately challenged and wikilawyered into oblivion. At this stage, I fully expect 86.176.153.183's next edit to be immediately reverted, with some patronising remark, even if he is just correcting spelling mistake on the main page. My Assumption of Good Faith is being sorely tested as I get the distinct impression that they are trying to exhaust him with constant WP:BULLYing in an effort to persuade him to throw-up his hands and disappear in frustration. I don't agree with every edit that 86.176.153.183 makes (disagreements come with the territory in Wikipedia) but some editors are barely pausing long enough to read his edits before looking for some rationale to obstruct his every contribution. It is unreasonable to expect 86.176.153.183 to jump through an endless supply of wikilawyering hoops every time he attempts to contribute to the article.
  • I believe there is a reasonable compromise to be made between the two "sides" (for want of a better term) to this dispute regarding editorial style. Of course, compromise only works if both sides are willing to compromise... Deterence Talk 22:51, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
  • It's a shame you didn't support your claims with evidence. If I see edit summaries such as IP86's it doesn't takes long to evaluate the hostile approach of the editor and, despite advice from numerous sources, including being blocked for edit warring and warned about civility, they still persist. Why don't you take a look at the number of editors he has attacked and suggest to him that he needs to reign in his enthusiasm? Just a sample, and that's just edit summaries, much more on the talk pages. It is a disgrace that an experienced editor condones such aggressive editing. [[11]]

[[12]] [[13]] [[14]] [[15]] [[16]] [[17]] Leaky Caldron 23:21, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

  • Leaky_caldron. I responded to the all the examples of "aggressive editing" that you provided. You provided no examples of aggressive editing. Further more, you might want to change your terminology. "Aggressive editing" is not an accurate description of 86.176.153.183's posts. At worst, they could be characterised as "bold".
  • As for supporting my claims, everyone is free to see the sort of bullying and harassment I am referring to. Just look at the threads on the talk page. Deterence Talk 23:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Not sure where you responded. Until my post immediately above, I had not placed any diffs. Not for the first time I suspect you have mistaken someone else's contribution for mine - you did the same thing 3 times on the talk page. But to follow your point, you believe that calling innocent editors a vandal and threatening to report them if they change IP86's edits is "bold"? Can you highlight the policy for that - for everyone to share? Leaky Caldron 23:54, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Oh for goodness sake. I didn't respond because you failed to give any diffs for me to respond to. Yet, that hasn't stopped you from saying "It is a disgrace that an experienced editor condones such aggressive editing" despite your absense of any diffs illustrating such "aggressive editing". This discussion has already become utterly absurd. Deterence Talk 00:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
  • This latest comment is verging on WP:PN. First you say that you have responded to diffs., but at that point I had not posted any diffs. When I do post some examples of inappropriate behaviour you say you didn't respond because I had failed to give any diffs to respond to. Which is it? If you want to participate effectively please ensure that you know who's postings you are actually responding to, rather than conflating material from multiple editors. Leaky Caldron 10:43, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
You have been aware of the issues we have with IP's edits for a while. Your only response has been to claim that we are bullying the ip and that WP:RS, WP:NOTNEWSPAPER and other such guidelines should be ignored, and that the IP telling us not to edit his work is perfectly acceptable. WP:BULLY is quite a charge to throw out there, especially if you are saying you haven't even looked into the IP edits and conduct. Examples have been provided in this DR, please feel free to look at them and comment on them Carl Sixsmith (talk) 05:32, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Carl Sixsmith, that is the precisely sort of misrepresentation and exaggeration that leads me to question the allegations you are making against 86.176.153.183. I have not said that "haven't even looked into the IP edits and conduct". I have said that no evidence was put forward as evidence in this dispute resolution. I am not about to troll through the entire history of edits and comments that you have all exchanged in the hope that I stumble upon evidence of 86.176.153.183's misconduct. If you have specific example, put it before us so that we may address that example.
  • And clearly, 86.176.153.183 was not "telling us not to edit his work". He started a section in the talk page where he said:
"I propose to add an overnight figures column to the ratings table which is way out of date and needs to reflect the estimated figures published on DS which were taken down by a previous poster. I will be doing this shortly and will expect the data to not be deleted as it will take a lot of work to recover these data with refs from the material wiped by that poster."
In other words, he noted in the talk page that a section of the article was out of date and asked for some patience and understanding while he updated the material. As a result, you (and another editor) have jumped down his throat with some absurdly exaggerated accusation that he is violating WP:OWN simply because he consulted with his fellow editors.
  • As for your allegation that I claim that WP:RS and WP:NOTNEWSPAPER should be ignored, that is nonsense. I have suggested that many of the sources that 86.176.153.183 is using are consistent with WP:RS and WP:NOTNEWSPAPER. In contrast, you appear to want to ban every sources that isn't as reputable as the BBC. I found it especially bemusing that you think announcements (such as who is up for eviction) in Big Brother's Bit On the Side were not sufficiently reliable.
  • It's bad enough that you jump on 86.176.153.183 every time he says or does anything related to the Big brother article, but you have failed to provide any evidence of his misconduct and you are grossly misrepresenting what I have said in his defence. Deterence Talk 06:21, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
The diffs are a the top of this DR, there for anyone to read you are just ignoring them. And you are deliberatley misinterapting the argument over Big Brothers bit on the side, the argument wasn't WP:RS it was WP:NOTE. As was put on the talk page, Big Brother, Big Brother's Bit on the Side and OK Magazine are all part of the same franchise, therefore WP:PRIMARY applies and additional sources should be included to establish notability. Just because something happens doesn't mean it requires entry in wikipedia, WP:NOTNEWSPAPER clearly applies in this case. This was pointed out to you in the talk thread but you again decided to ignore it, claiming stating If I see WP:NOTNEWSPAPER linked one more time, my head will explode. . I also fail to see, in conjuction with the diffs provided above, how you can take I will be doing this shortly and will expect the data to not be deleted as it will take a lot of work to recover these data in good faith and yet accuse editors such as myself and Leaky Cauldron of WP:BULLY. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 07:24, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi everyone, and thanks for filing the dispute resolution request. I think this dispute is a tricky one, and that although on the surface it looks like a dispute about the conduct of the IP, if we dig a little deeper I see a dispute over content which we might be able to solve here. First of all, I agree with Carl Sixsmith that these edits ([18][19][20]) are unacceptable - we can't just go around and accuse well-meaning contributors of vandalism. I think another careful look at WP:VANDAL would be useful for the IP here. About the content - I see that you were disputing the level of detail to use in the article, but is this still a problem? And are there any other things being disputed? Once we have clearly defined the content that is disputed we can start to work towards a resolution. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 09:15, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. Mr. Stradivarius. Basically for me (others will have a differing view) the articles are over long and over detailed. The IP seems to think every occurrence in the house is worthy of mention in an encyclopaedia, including 'who kissed who' romances, minutia details of the tasks in the house and other details more befitting a fan page or blog site. Any attempt to trim this data is met with aggressive hostility and accusations of bullying and vandalism. I may be confusing the two issues here, possibly this report should be split into a content dispute and a behavioural dispute. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 09:24, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with CS regarding the content. There is no content policy for much of what IP86 wishes to include. Although the article is, by its nature, an unencyclopaedic, celebrity style subject, which link rot is likely to make useless in a few months, it cannot be allowed to exceed content policy, especially around WP:BLP where minor sexual innuendo is recorded without sourcing in a wholly unacceptable and potentially defamatory manner. I really would expect full community support for this - the policy and guidelines are unambiguous. All but 1 of a dozen or so regular or occasional contributors have commented on the article talk page about the undue level of content. In case CS, myself and others are acussed of attacking a new editor per WP:NEWBIES, that would be unfair. I have commended some of IP86s work even if I disagree with some of it and have even jokingly suggested that he might be due a barnstar for his efforts! Considerable effort has been expended in helping him, even to the extent of explaining how to find the ~ key so that they could sign. Relevant policy and guidelines have been repeatedly highlighted AND explained with examples. IP86 has improved (they have added, virtually without amendment, the weekly summary section and, as far as the article merits it, the content is not too bad). IP86's reactionary and possessive style to the removal of "his content" is however without justification. The handful of diffs. above should be sufficient to highlight this - there are many more on talk pages. Having been blocked for 3RR and received a final Admin. warning about incivility, I would not expect continued railing against fellow editors. All I want is for IP to agree to abide by content and behavioural policies and an admin. or impartial editor might be able to help with that. Regrettably User:Deterence could easily have helped with this but they have chosen instead to categorise diligent and policy-abiding editors as bullies. Until I read Mr. S. this morning I had intended to go to WP:WQA again. Leaky Caldron 10:07, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
If the incivility becomes a problem again, then I agree that taking it to WP:WQA would probably be best. I think that if we can sort some of the content issues out here, though, then that will mean a lot less friction and could avoid any further WQA trips. Normally, my suggestion would have been to have an RfC asking what level of detail should be included in the article. However, I see that you have already done that, and that unfortunately you haven't got any outside responses. Reading the RfC, it seems a little bit vague, and there is no specific voting section or discussion section. Maybe we could try a new RfC with some more specific wording? I can help you draft it here if you want. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 15:51, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
p.s. Here is an example of the kind of thing I mean. Of course the subjects are quite different so doing something like that would be no guarantee of getting more responses, but I think it's worth a try. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 15:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Given the relative stability of the article, which I believe was arrived with consensus, the onus needs to be on IP86 to justify a departure from the current, largely policy based version. The following editors have all previously expressed concern on the talk page about the extensive, non-encyclopaedic content additions prior to the major trimming exercise a couple of weeks ago carried out per WP:BOLD. Whether they can still be regarded as consensus supporters is, of course, entirely up to them. I make no presumptions. User:Carl Sixsmith, User:LadyofShalott, User: Dr Marcus Hill, User:Leaky caldron, User:Jandal3c, User:Msalmon, User:drmies. IP86 and User:Deterence take an opposing view. 7 v 2 would be a reasonable consensus but if IP brings their argument for non-notable, unsourced, trivia, blp-vio and fancruft here, I hope the consensus would be reinforced. Personally, I think the Admin. failure to follow-up this warning [21] which anon has ignored, has emboldened IP86. He accepts advice from co-editors very badly and attacks other contributors mainly via edit summaries. An Admin. with an even hand might get through to them. Advice rather than sanctions with commitment from IP, although his behaviour is really poor considering the amount of advice they have received.Leaky Caldron 17:17, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
I'll await the RfC. Please keep everyone informed when such a RfC is created. Deterence Talk 02:00, 14 October 2011 (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.

Anwar al-Awlaki

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.


Dispute overview

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

Repeated deletion of Prostitution paragraph and booking photo

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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=Anwar al-Awlaki}} --~~~~ 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?

put the article into semi-protection

Decora (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Anwar al-Awlaki discussion

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

Hi there. If you are looking to get the article semi-protected, then the right place to do that is WP:RFPP. Having a look at the article history though, it's been a few days since the multiple different IPs were editing the article, so I'm not sure a request for semi-protection would be granted. Also, not many of these edits were actually discussed on the talk page, which is a prerequisite for disputes being accepted on this board. The only discussion on the talk page is about al-Awlaki's alleged hiring of prostitutes, but this has still not been discussed all that much. (I do see, though, that the IP might not be that open to discussion.) I think that the best course of action here is to keep an eye on the article and try and engage in discussion with IPs who you don't agree with. If the IPs respond on the talk page, then you should probably file another request here, but if they don't respond, then feel free to ask for page protection at WP:RFPP. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 12:25, 19 October 2011 (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.

Questioning controversial claim designated as disruptive edit

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.


Dispute overview

  • Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?
In my strong opinion, while still respecting opinions of others, the following in-line citation: "As pointed out by creationist Bert Thompson, Truth never is determined by popular opinion or majority vote." absolutely does not support the preceding article claim: “Creationists often claim that public support of creationism is a sign of its validity as a scientific theory.” and in fact they (i.e. claims) are in blatant contradiction. I had challenged this claim, from my perspective in line with WP:BRD and WP:NPOV ("When you find a passage in an article that you find is biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can. If that is not easily possible, and you disagree with a point of view expressed in an article, don't just delete it. Rather, balance it with what you think is neutral."), by adding template [citation needed] and courtesy explanation of the reason at the talk page (see edit summary [22]). The template was removed by Hrafn and he consequently designated me as having WP:DE behaviour in his revert edit summary [23] and on the article talk page [24]. I feel threatened by such declaration and to avoid my possible block/sanction again I'd like to ask for help wrt. my further involvement in this discussion. Please, advise: Do you believe the given in-line citation supports the preceding claim? Even if yes, does it mean I have no right to challenge such, from my perspective clear contradiction if not even absurdity (I really believe this contradiction is not compliant to WP standards and potentially spreading notion about WP as poor-quality resource), by inserting template [citation needed] and if doing so, is it legitimate to label me as WP:DE? Please explain what are my further WP-compliant possibilities for this dispute resolution. Thanks in advance.
Note: To avoid confusion, my template [25] was removed previously by user Jess who however acknowledged it was not his/her intention ("I have no problem with your CN tag. That was just a part of your other edits which were reverted.""It simply got mixed in during my revert of your other content""feel free to put [CN] back") (see 1. in [26])

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

I respect opinion of others without suggestion there is anything wrong with them wrt. good faith, I just want to learn how to proceed in dispute resolution while avoiding my possible blockage.

  • 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=Questioning controversial claim designated as disruptive edit}} --~~~~ 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 discussed the issue at talk page but it was closed by my opponent due to my I believe unrelated blockage and now I do not know how to continue my point which I had no chance to developed further. I do not want to jeopardize my unblocked status by making wrong step.

  • How do you think we can help?

By clearly stating whether I have right to put template [citation needed] w/o being accused of WP:DE for given controversial claim or not, in latter case provide some reasoning why not.

Stephfo (talk) 23:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Questioning controversial claim designated as disruptive edit discussion

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

#As I pointed out on article talk (and as Stephfo has completely failed to address), adding a {{citation needed}} to a passage that already has a citation is always a misuse of that template, and thus is per se WP:Disruptive editing.

  1. Stephfo was blocked for a very wide range of WP:DE, of which the matter he has brought up for discussion here is only a very tiny footnote.
  2. Creationism falls under a wide range of Wikipedia policies and guidelines and ARBCOMM directives, including WP:DUE, WP:GEVAL, WP:MNA, WP:FRINGE, WP:PSCI, WP:FRINGE/PS, WP:NOTRELIABLE & WP:ABOUTSELF. Stephfo needs to understand that these policies severely limit the extent to which he can either advocate Creationism or question the vast weight of scientific facts (and in fact several entire scientific fields) that contradict it.

I therefore do not see what purpose 'dispute resolution' on this old, stale, uncontroversial and obscure issue serves. HrafnTalkStalk

I appreciate your reaction, however:
  1. It does not address the core point, namely that inline-citation does not support the preceding article claim and is in fact in direct contradiction with it.
  2. I strongly believe that even if you declare me to be a kind of devil on WP, the article statements should still be in line with WP:Verifiability and not declare something exactly opposite that in-line citation contains.
  3. I'm not advocating creationism but pointing out that given article claim fails WP:Verifiability and the declaration of yours that in-line citation supports this claim is demonstrably fallacious as the claims are exactly opposite. Please, do not drive discussion to distraction, I appreciate your opinion. This dispute resolution serves improving quality of WP article as mentioned earlier.--Stephfo (talk) 08:32, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

(P) 04:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


#Your "core point" is actually completely beside the point, as a {{citation needed}} tag is not meant for occasions where an "inline-citation does not support the preceding article claim". That tag is only appropriate or meaningful where the statement is not supported by any citation.

  1. I do not think you are anything as grandiloquent as "a kind of devil" -- I rather think you are a very sorry individual: obstinately and cluelessly ignorant of both how science and how Wikipedia works. This ignorance appears to render you unable to to fulfil any role other than that of ineffectual irritant towards this encyclopaedia, in the same way that most Creationists are unable to fulfil any more effectual role towards science.
  2. You have done little or nothing on this encyclopaedia except pushing the creationist viewpoint.
  3. I made no such "declaration" (any more than I gave any impression that I consider you "a kind of devil"). As you are quite clearly holding a conversation with an 'invisible-friend-called-Hrafn' rather than with me, I will leave you and said friend in peace.

As I said above, this issue is "old, stale, uncontroversial and obscure" -- if you cannot even address what I actually said about it, I see no possible point in having this conversation. Perhaps you should try resolving a dispute that was actually underlying one of the pieces of disruption that actually got you blocked -- which appear to have been on Objections to evolution, not Level of support for evolution. Either way, I am declaring WP:DEADHORSE on this issue. HrafnTalkStalk

Thanks for your opinion, pls. evaluate if your arguments might not be classified as Argumentum Ad hominem ("an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it"). Despite your strong campaign to defile my name (pls. note your reaction is possibly violating basic WP rule "Comment on the content, not on the contributor.") I still regard for kind of awkward if someone basically declares that the article can contain whatever claim as soon as an in-line citation is provided afterwards that has whatever unrelated content not supporting the given claim or directly contradicting it. My intention to open DR discussion was to learn 3rd party advices and not continue arguing in here hence I'd very much appreciate if you could stop accusing me until we learn opinions of 3rd party experienced editors. Thanks for expressing your viewpoint.--Stephfo (talk) 11:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

(P) 10:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


#The above comments are not argumentum ad hominem, as I did not base any of my arguments on my opinion of you (said opinion only being mentioned to correct your erroneous attribution of an opinion to me).

  1. There has been no "strong campaign to defile [your] name".
  2. It was you yourself who made my opinion of you a subject of this conversation ("I strongly believe that even if you declare me to be a kind of devil on WP"), so you can hardly object when I set the record straight on the matter.
  3. "I still regard for kind of awkward if someone basically declares that the article can contain whatever claim as soon as an in-line citation is provided afterwards that has whatever unrelated content not supporting the given claim or directly contradicting it." = garbled word salad, and bears little resemblance to my position.
  4. If you want me to butt out, then kindly cease and desist misrepresenting my position.

HrafnTalkStalk(P) 12:46, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Striking all my previous comments as really going nowhere (even though they were technically correct). My original point was, and remains, that {{citation needed}} should only be used where a citation is missing and that using it where there is already a citation is disruptive (and qas unlikely to give those, who you had already irritated inordinately, a good impression of you). You are welcome to engage in any discussions that you like, but please note that discussions about "questioning controversial claim" have nothing whatsoever to do with anything I actually said. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hi there Stephfo and Hrafn. Thanks for posting to the dispute resolution noticeboard. Now, if I am reading this situation correctly, this looks like a dispute about an edit that Stephfo made back on the 3rd of September, and is only just able to respond to now after they have been released from their block. I think that the fact that they have been unblocked, and that they have been assigned a trusyworthy mentor, means that we should not just dismiss Stephfo's edits as disruptive - I think there is another factor involved here. Also, I think Stephfo was absolutely right about filing a post at this noticeboard. Given their recent unblocking I think it definitely pays to err on the side of caution, even though there hasn't been much in the way of recent discussion on the talk page.

In many ways, I think this dispute is on a technicality. Stephfo added a "citation needed" template to a sentence which had a citation. On the face of it, this may look suspicious, but actually I do agree with Stephfo that the citation is not backing up the claim made in the article. The claim is about what creationists claim, but the citation is about the level of logic needed to back up claims made by mainstream scientists. The citation doesn't seem to mention creationists at all, and thus doesn't pass satisfy Wikipedia's policy of verifiability. It looks like this whole debate could have been avoided if Stephfo had used the {{not in citation given}} template instead of "citation needed", but I don't think it is reasonable for every editor to know their way around all these templates. Is there an aspect of this dispute that I'm missing? Because at the moment my recommendation is for someone to find a better citation for the claim contested with Stephfo's "citation needed" template. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

"Is there an aspect of this dispute that I'm missing?" The fact that the passage in question has been long-since removed from the article -- rendering your "recommendation" (and in fact this entire thread) entirely irrelevant. Stephfo had been making a complete nuisance of himself at the time (hence all the blocks), and my response to this particular issue at the time was coloured by that fact. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 14:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
That's a good point! I think I was looking too much at the diffs and not enough at the article. I'd be interested to hear from Stephfo now - is there still anything in the article that you object to? If not, I think we can safely close this thread. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 14:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello, please review my previous edit with my standpoint and proposition (ending up placed prior to your Q due to "saving" conflict).--Stephfo (talk) 15:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Hrafn, please keep comments civil and on topic. Comment on the dispute, not the editor involved in the dispute. It appears that Stephfo filed this report in order to err on the side of caution and use dispute resolution. It is a wise decision, considering he was originally blocked before for not using dispute resolution. I agree with Mr. Stradivarius above, there wouldn't be a dispute if {{not in citation given}} had been used. @Stephfo, in the future, you can ask me on my talk page (or on your talk page) when a dispute occurs. That way I can try and mediate it before taking it to a noticeboard. Best, Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 14:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Alpha Quadrant, please stop talking WP:Complete bollocks. If you do not want me correcting Stephfo as to my opinion of him (in comments that were stricken before you made this comment), then please ask him to refrain from speculating on them in the first place -- an action that made them explicitly on-topic. While you are at it, please tell him to stop grossly misrepresenting my comments, an activity that I don't consider to be the least bit "civil". This ridiculous WP:DEADHORSE "report" serves no purpose and should not have been filed in the first place. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 15:33, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, this isn't exactly what I'd call civil. The last sentence was completely unnecessary. I ignored the stricken comments, though I do hold the opinion that if they had to be struck, they shouldn't have necessarily been written in the first place. The dispute resolution noticeboard reports are to help resolve disputes. There is nothing problematic with opening a discussion. Based on your attitude, if Stephfo had gone to your talk page to discuss the issue, it is quite unlikely he would have gotten very far. In any case, the issue is resolved now. Stephfo understands that he used the wrong template. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello, Hrafn, I apologize if I misinterpreted any of your comments, I was under impression that following of them:
  • "Stephfo was blocked for a very wide range of WP:DE, of which the matter he has brought up for discussion here is only a very tiny footnote."
  • "Stephfo needs to understand ..."
  • "I rather think you are a very sorry individual: obstinately and cluelessly ignorant of both how science and how Wikipedia works. ..."
  • "You have done little or nothing..."
  • "Stephfo had been making a complete nuisance of himself at the time ..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stephfo (talk • contribs) 16:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
are focusing on me rather than on the topic discussed and thus could be possibly legitimately classified as "an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it", i.e. as Ad hominem (cf."if you can attribute a bad trait to your opponent, others will tend to doubt the quality of their arguments, even if the bad trait is irrelevant to the arguments."). Pls. accept my apology if that impression was wrong and if you all the time assumed my good faith.--Stephfo (talk) 15:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello Hrafn et al., as a matter of fact, the given controversial claim, from my perspective with the same unrelated in-line citation, is still present at the article page as of now, whatever passage it would be included in (currently right below "Public support" intersection) [27]. Thank you for keeping focusing on me, however pls. kindly evaluate whether it is really in line with WP polices and whether it will move our discussion forward.
Not particularly important, but pls. also note first contribution to this discussion by Hrafn have got wrong numbering of sections after they were trying to strike it through, thus it is not matching my numbered answers any more. I apologize I have not noticed there is such template as "[failed verification]" and I really deem it as more appropriate. If it is acceptable, I suggest to solve our dispute by replacing [citation needed] template (application of which in given case is regarded for act of WP:DE by Hrafn) by template [failed verification] which is exactly reflecting the reality, at least from my perspective. Thanks for your understanding.--Stephfo (talk) 14:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
As Hrafn seems to have announced "Unforced Wikibreak", I'd like to learn whether we have to wait until he returns to conclude on acceptance of my proposition. Thanks in advance for your kind advice.--Stephfo (talk) 16:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


Stephfo:

  1. Given that I never in fact disputed your right to challenge whether a citation supports a statement, only your repeated introduction of an inappropriate template, the original "dispute" would seem to be one that existed largely in your own imagination.
  2. My problem with you is therefore mainly behavioural: that you have repeatedly attributed to me straw man positions that I have never in fact stated. I find that very annoying and it makes it virtually impossible to engage in meaningful discussion (and generally results in me concentrating on disputing the attribution rather than the wider topic).
  3. A review of your wider disputes suggest to me that these sorts of disconnects with what somebody you are in dispute with actually said or meant is at the heart of many of your difficulties on Wikipedia.

HrafnTalkStalk(P) 02:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Hrafn,

  1. Thanks for expressing your opinion, I respect it, however, if you'd read more carefully the edit summaries and article discussion pages, you'd find out that my repeated introduction of an inappropriate template might well be caused by someone removing it by mistake ("1) I have no problem with your CN tag. That was just a part of your other edits which were reverted. Feel free to put that back in if you want.") [28], what is IMHO very difficult to overlook as it is glaring in the edit summary ("Public support: See: Feel free to put [CN] back in if you want. at talk page and edit 18:57, 2 September 2011") [29].
  2. If you would click on the icon "This user would like to see everyone using inline citations. " at your own user page, you could find following sentence:
  • Verifiable source citations render the information in an article credible to researchers.
  1. IMHO it should not take too much effort to understand that the edit summary "There is no source of such claim by any creationist provided, but just general explanation why argumentum ad populum is not acceptable" [30] basically points out that given in-line citation is not up to WP and your own standards, especially if further information can be found at article talk page: "1. Add. "Reverted 3 edits": One of the edit is not related to the given survey at all, but points out that the sentence ... has no sources and thus a template "citation needed" is legitimate (cf."All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation. Cite the source clearly and precisely, with page numbers where applicable." in wp:sources). The remark "No scientific issue ..." is just explanation why argumentum ad populum is not acceptable, but does not provide any prove of given alleged claim by creationists. My conclusion: There is no violation of any WP policy {in placing the {{Citation Needed}} tag}." [31]
  2. I apologize for any inconvenience, but if even after provision of these explanations someone is able to declare the placing of the {{Citation Needed}} template for WP:DE while formally declaring adherence to rule that WP:IC should render the information in an article, then there is IMHO something wrong with other party involved in dispute. If possible, please stop campaign defiling my name. I'd really appreciate if you'd try to do so.--Stephfo (talk) 12:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi everyone, this is just to say that I've added the "not in citation given" template to the article. I think we can safely close this thread now, as Hrafn says they aren't involved, and Stephfo said that they would be satisfied by a "not in citation given" template. Does this sound reasonable to both of you? And Stephfo, you should feel free to find a citation that does back up the claim in the article, or if you can't find one, then I think it would be acceptable to just remove the text from the article itself. If you do remove the text, though, then I think it would be a good idea to leave a note on Talk:Level of support for evolution explaining what you have done, and to include a link to this dispute resolution request. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 10:43, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

As for me, I'm fine with this conclusion as it is in line with my original intention. Thanx to all for your involvement. --Stephfo (talk) 12:39, 20 October 2011 (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.
  1. ^ "The Silence of Sri Lanka". The New York Times. 20 June 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2011.
  2. ^ "Sri Lanka: Evidence that won't be buried". The Guardian. 15 June 2011. Retrieved 16 June 2011.
  3. ^ "A brother out of control". The Hindu. 16 August 2011. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
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