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Health effects of high-fructose corn syrup

Health effects of high-fructose corn syrup (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

I have been threatened with banning and told that my post violates MEDRS, WEIGHT, and NPOV rules. I disagree vehemently, and would like to see some version of my last entry included in the opening paragraph on the page.

Several page watchers are of the opinion that: General scientific consensus regarding high-fructose corn syrup is that it is likely not significantly more detrimental to health then common sugar.

I believe this is not an accurate portrayal of the current state of affairs and desire to add lines that read:

The consensus is based on a 2008 review of available scientific research by the AMA which suggested at the time: "it appears unlikely that HFCS contributes more to obesity or other conditions than sucrose, but {we} welcome further independent research on the subject." However, since 2008 numerous additional studies including testing on rats as well as peer reviewed clinical and epidemiological studies have found: “There is experimental and clinical evidence suggesting a progressive association between HFCS consumption, obesity, and other injury processes” and “to our knowledge, this is the first study to show that HFCS is more likely to cause acute adverse effects than sucrose.”

using the following sources:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305710000614

http://www.springerlink.com/content/x916738m64212141/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22152650

It is the opinion of the moderator that I am violating the MEDRS, WEIGHT, and NPOV rules because saying that High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is unlike sucrose and causes an increase in obesity is a "tiny minority opinion" uses a primary source for reference and includes another reference not from a peer reviewed medical source. I argue that the possibility that HFCS is NOT like sucrose and MAY be harmful is NOT a "tiny minority opinion", that the primary citd source is trustworthy and the topic of such a portentous nature and the research exactly what the AMA asked for but was missing at the time that the entry meets the MEDRS guidline which says "Reliable primary sources may occasionally be used with care . . ." and therefore my entry is a more accurate and current NPOV and deserves inclusion in the opening paragraph.

For the record the latest primary research I quoted is:

Effects of high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose on the pharmacokinetics of fructose and acute metabolic and hemodynamic responses in healthy subjects. Le MT, Frye RF, Rivard CJ, Cheng J, McFann KK, Segal MS, Johnson RJ, Johnson JA. Department of Pharmacotherapy and Translational Research, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA.

and the findings were:

"In conclusion, our findings suggest that there are differences in various acute metabolic and hemodynamic responses between HFCS and sucrose." and and “to our knowledge, this is the first study to show that HFCS is more likely to cause acute adverse effects than sucrose.”

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=Health effects of high-fructose corn syrup}} --~~~~ 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?

I hope independent reviews will convince the parties involved to find wording that keeps the tenor of my entry. HFCS was believed to be the same as table sugar because of a lack of evidence, but the latest research indicates HFCS may not be the same as table sugar and may be more harmful than table sugar when used as a food sweetner.

My first entries on the page were poor and angered participants for that I apologize, but I would like honest third party evaluations of my last entry and of my logic as to why my entry does not violate Wikipedia policy even though I cite a primary source and a non-medical source. I, of course, will gladly accept the independent wisdom of the board.

Sunvox (talk) 17:11, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Health effects of high-fructose corn syrup discussion

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

Primary studies that have received little or no coverage in secondary sources should not be given extensive, if any, coverage in Wikipedia articles. TFD (talk) 17:59, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So who has the burden of proof here. Do you know how much secondary coverage the primary source has? And more to the point even if it has recieved zero secondary coverage, do the rules of Wikipedia not allow for exceptions, and does this topic and source not meet the requirements for an expception given the accumulation of data from different sources and the portentous nature of the topic? Sunvox (talk) 18:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC) Joe[reply]

Wikipedia can't be the leader or itself be the accumulator of (previously un-accumulated) primary sources, but can only follow others. That is, we have to wait for other researchers to verify/validate/etc and then publish further. Unfortunately, especially due to the controversial (maybe even politicized?) nature of the topic, we have to be especially careful not to jump the gun (there's no deadline because WP is never "done" and I don't see any urgency inherent in the content). If a new study really is groundbreaking or is the "first" to find something important, others will surely follow and report further on it. DMacks (talk) 18:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I am a regular mediator/clerk here at DRN. The problem that you are facing is that Wikipedia's policies generally define when material may be added to an article. They do not generally ever say that material which may be added to an article must be added to an article. Said in a different way, Wikipedia policy may prohibit certain material from being added to an article but rarely, if ever, requires it to be added. The arguments which are being made against you are arguments which can prohibit your material from being added to the article, but even if they prove to be inapplicable (and on a quick glance it does not appear to me to be that they are necessarily inapplicable; they are generally correct that scientific papers are in most cases not usable as reliable sources in Wikipedia, but perhaps there is a reason to make an exception in this case), then that still will not allow you to add the material to the article over those editor's objections unless there is community consensus to add it. Right now it's just you arguing against those other editors so, if anything, either consensus is against adding it or, more likely, we're in a "no consensus" situation, but per the no consensus policy the material cannot be added to the article unless there is positive consensus in favor of adding it. What you must do is either change the minds of the editors who oppose you or draw in additional editors who feel the way you do. It is improper under Wikipedia's no canvassing rule to simply invite other editors to the discussion who are likely to opine in your favor, but it is proper to generally invite all editors who might care to join the discussion to do so. You do that by making a request for comments on the article talk page. Unless you believe that it might be possible to change the minds of the editors who have objected to the introduction of your material, then that would seem to be the most practical route for you to take. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:15, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Let me also add that with the opinions of TFD and DMacks, above, it appears to me that we may well have moved from a "no consensus" situation to a consensus against the material being added to the article. That does not mean that you cannot proceed with an RFC if you should care to try that. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:39, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

O.K. so forgive me if this is overly simplistic, but as I now see it, "consensus against" is determined by those actively participating in the page, and coming here does not bring new independent votes to the consensus building, and I can not ask anyone directly to read and vote on the issue other than to bring up a dispute, and hope for the newcomers to take my side. So for the moment the issue is finished unless some other voice joins mine.

Additionally can I infer that based on your comments (TransporterMan), you believe that my material "may be" admissible and "may" not be in violation of WP rules.

Does anyone have an example of when primary source material was permitted in an article? 108.41.128.155 (talk) 19:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also like to add that the heart of my dispute hinges upon individuals taking the time to read the available research and form their own opinion as to the importance of an exception. Clearly the preference is against exceptions, and it is quite easy to argue "the rules say no so no". Sunvox (talk) 19:37, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We (WP editors) are not in a position to judge the an individual primary-research study as "important", especially one that is not obviously within mainstream/existing thinking on the subject--that's the whole point here IMO. DMacks (talk) 14:05, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sunvox, how about writing a suitable section that outlines the case of the highest quality sources in oppostion to the theory? — GabeMc (talk) 04:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW I've rewritten much of the page, which was a collection of cherry-picked primary sources and misrepresented secondary sources. The scientific consensus seems to be HFCS is as bad for you as any other sugar, though more research is needed. Way too many "in rats" and "with a sample of 30 people" studies were cited. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:34, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As someone that added and organized most of the original sources, in my opinion a good deal of the "opposition" studies do meet WP:MEDS and are being excluded and that the statement of the scientific consensus is incorrect. Of the sources that definitely pass WP:MEDS are:

Bocarsly et al. (2010)
Bray et al. (2004)

Others are questionable in that they lack secondary sources or the secondary sources are weak but I believe that there is a strong case for exceptions others are given exception. For instance, the 2009 AMA study is given exception. As such I believe it's fair to say there is no consensus with regards to the article. CartoonDiablo (talk) 01:07, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bocarsly et al. is an "in rats" primary study. Per WP:MEDRS, specifically WP:MEDREV, we use secondary sources and should ignore animal studies. There's no reason to make an exception I can see. Moeller et al 2009 is a secondary source and thus an appropriate source for the article.

Bray is the first reference in the page, as are the two interviews with the authors indicating they are concerned with how their 2004 article has been misused.

Can you explain why the secondary sources currently used do not meet MEDRS? A bare assertion is not sufficient. This discussion might be more fruitful on the talk page. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:55, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually yes Bray is cited, sorry I missed it the first time.

First of all the fact that it's an "in rats" study is irrelevant, experiments done on animal models are important with regards to science and to understand effects on people. The only objection is overemphasizing animal models per WP:MEDRS. Secondly, by that standard both Moeller et al. and Bocarsly et al. are properly cited since both have an abstract on NCBI. The problem is Bocarsly has two further secondary sources (seen here and here) while Moeller et al. only has the NCBI citation, which in my opinion alone is not a valid secondary source.

Given all this, I don't see why including Bocarsly et al provided it's not overemphasized, given that it has secondary sources, would be a problem. I'd also like to hear input on whether the NCBI abstract alone would count as a proper secondary source. CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:51, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Those articles from Daily Princetonian and the Princeton website aren't secondary sources, they are two press releases summarizing a primary source.

You don't seem to understand what a primary and secondary source is. When discussing scientific literature, primary sources are initial studies (2 groups of 30 rats were given fructose and lactose, this happened). Secondary sources summarize primary sources (examining the literature regarding the giving of fructose to rats, these general trends can be observed). For MEDRS, that means the sources must be peer-reviewed. Pubmed isn't a primary or secondary source - it's a database of scientific abstract. The pubmed link and the AJCN link are different ways to summarize the same source. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One is arguably a press release but The Daily Princetonian is clearly a valid secondary source. If Pubmed is neither and to my knowledge a study requires a secondary source per WP:MEDRS unless there's consensus, then I don't see the validity of upholding Moeller et al. or at least while excluding Bocarsly et al. when it clearly does have a secondary source.

An outside opinion as to whether the Bocarsly study is backed up by a secondary source and should be included would be helpful but even given all this, I don't see the validity of upholding Moeller et al. especially since there's no consensus do so without a secondary source. CartoonDiablo (talk) 18:24, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Daily Princetonian is a student newspaper, it's not a WP:MEDRS and within MEDRS, it's not a secondary source (it's popular press). Were it not an article and text about medical claims, it would be a valid secondary source - but since this is a MEDRS article, a student newspaper is not considered sufficient. All the citations currently used in the page are secondary sources. If you wish to gather consensus for including Bocarsly in the page, I suggest making the case on the relevant talk page; I for one will oppose it on the grounds of it being a primary source. A side note - policies and guidelines represent the overall consensus of the community at large, which clearly supports using a secondary source, without needing caveats over funding sources (caveats which are rather spurious in my opinion). The default position is that Moeller is an adequate secondary, MEDRS, a local consensus would have to be established to exclude it - again, something best done on the talk page rather than here. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:27, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wiley Protocol, T. S. Wiley

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

Dispute overview

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not yet.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

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

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

Wiley Protocol, T. S. Wiley discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Second Amendment to the United States Constitution (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

User repeatedly blocks edits of an addition that meets Wikipedia guidelines based on false characterizations of the edit. Does not respond to my explanation of how the statement is relevant, and does not respond to another proposed remedy. Addition reads smoothly and is directly related to material already present in the paragraph in question. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution&diff=489959318&oldid=489954813

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

North8000 (talk · contribs)
Inijones (talk · contribs)

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

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:North8000#Notice_of_Mediation_Request

N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Second Amendment to the United States Constitution}} --~~~~ 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. Discussed the matter on the talk page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Note_on_Precedent

How do you think we can help?

Outside opinion assessing the validity of my argument, an assessment of whether the proposed addition does in fact meet Wikipedia guidelines, and whether one of my other proposed remedies would be more appropriate.

Inijones (talk) 15:18, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Second Amendment to the United States Constitution discussion

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

I am a regular mediator/clerk here at DRN. The problem that you are facing is that Wikipedia's policies generally define when material may be added to an article. They do not generally ever say that material which may be added to an article must be added to an article. Said in a different way, Wikipedia policy may prohibit certain material from being added to an article but rarely, if ever, requires it to be added. The arguments which are being made against you are arguments which can prohibit your material from being added to the article, but even if they prove to be inapplicable then that still will not allow you to add the material to the article over those editor's objections unless there is community consensus to add it. Right now it's just you arguing against those other editors so, if anything, either consensus is against adding it or, more likely, we're in a "no consensus" situation, but per the no consensus policy the material cannot be added to the article unless there is positive consensus in favor of adding it. What you must do is either change the minds of the editors who oppose you or draw in additional editors who feel the way you do. It is improper under Wikipedia's no canvassing rule to simply invite other editors to the discussion who are likely to opine in your favor, but it is proper to generally invite all editors who might care to join the discussion to do so. You do that by making a request for comments on the article talk page. Unless you believe that it might be possible to change the minds of the editors who have objected to the introduction of your material, then that would seem to be the most practical route for you to take.

Subject to that problem, in regard to whether their objections are valid, it seems to me that the New York Times article does not support the proposition that "These 21st Century decisions represent a departure from established precedent." Part of the disagreement between the majority and minority in Heller was whether Miller was, indeed, precedent and whether the lower courts had misinterpreted Miller as being precedential. To say that Heller was a departure from precedent, much less established precedent, says in effect that Miller was precedent and that Heller overturned it, when in fact the majority and minority disagreed over that very point. As for the lower court cases themselves, the degree to which they were or were not precedential is a complex issue which can best be summed up being that if they were precedential at all they were, as lower court cases, only precedential for some purposes and not others and that they were never precedential in a way that would restrict the Supreme Court. To say that "[t]hese 21st Century decisions represent a departure from established precedent" in reference to the lower court cases, therefore, would be so overbroad as to be misleading.

While I think that the statement, "and were the first major rulings on the 2nd Amendment since the Supreme Court held that a sawed-off shotgun did not qualify as a militia weapon" is relatively accurate and harmless, I do have to say that neither the NYT article or the quoted selection from the Wills book quite says that. The NYT article does not say that the court ruled that "a sawed-off shotgun did not qualify as a militia weapon" and the Wills book (which was published in 1999 and these rulings were until 2008 and later) does not say that these were "the first major rulings on the 2nd Amendment since" Miller. It would be prohibited synthesis to combine the sources to come to that conclusion and so those sources are also inadequate and the assertion is inappropriate, even if accurate and true.

However, the foregoing analysis of the sources is mostly irrelevant since there is no consensus to include the edit in the article, adequate sources or not, for the reasons discussed above. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:15, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't want to get in too deep here because the other folks at the article (including an already-involved person, plus others who haven't even seen it yet in this very-rushed process...this whole thing just started yesterday) don't even know about this. Biggest emphasis is on the issues involved. I tend not to hang my hat on just lack of consensus, but think that the lack of consensus is based on those reasons. One is of the content itself, for the reasons analyzed by TransporterMan, plus that said opinion is stated as fact in the voice of Wikipedia. The third issue not discussed above is location; the multiple attempted insertions of that opinion were all in the lead. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since the consensus seems opposed to my inclusion of text about "precedent" I made a change that makes no such mention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution&diff=490128328&oldid=490126109

The change was reverted on the grounds that "the sentence about Miller which was added to the lead does not make sense in the lead and does not belong in the lead"

If the 21st century rulings make sense in the lead, why not also mention a significant 20th century ruling that still stands?

If the 20th century ruling does not belong in the lead, perhaps the 21st century rulings don't either.

Perhaps, since there is already a section on Heller, the text in the lead should be moved there.

Inijones (talk) 15:52, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the existing text from the lead to the appropriate sections on the same grounds for which my modified text was excluded, a proposal which I had made repeatedly, and to which nobody objected. My change was reverted unilaterally, without discussion.

If Heller can appear in the lead, why not Miller? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inijones (talk • contribs) 17:54, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By moving the text in question to the District of Columbia v. Heller heading you caused McDonald v. Chicago to appear as part of the introduction. This didn’t make sense so I reverted. I think a consensus is needed before making these changes.Grahamboat (talk) 21:06, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed that here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution&oldid=490145010#McDonald_v._Chicago BEFORE you reverted my edit.

But you're still not addressing the issue of why my compromise position was also rejected. I removed the offending material about the dissenting position. I included an unambiguous statement of fact regarding Miller. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution&oldid=490126109 The entire second paragraph is about Supreme Court Cases.

If Heller and McDonald can appear in the lead, why not Miller? Inijones (talk) 14:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "If Heller and McDonald can appear in the lead, why not Miller?", this has been asked and answered at Talk:Second Amendment to the United States Constitution three times already. I see no point in answering your question a fourth time when other editors have already answered it multiple times. The problem is that you don't accept the answers. Asking again will not change that.

So I have a question for you; after many arguments posted here and at Talk:Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, have you been able to convince a single Wikipedia editor to support the changes you want to make to this article? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:09, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This was never even started properly. Another already-involved editor was not notified, and this was rushed to this page so fast (the day after the BEGINNING of the editing which is in dispute) that the other folks active at the article never even got a chance to get involved at that point much less get notified. The situation was incorrectly (to put it nicely) described as being a dispute between two editors. The main conversation is at the talk page. Inijones is putting selected tidbits here as if they were unanswered questions but they were already answered there. This is really messed up. North8000 (talk) 10:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fortunately, the answer is the same whether this was done properly or not (and I do agree that this noticeboard entry is at least somewhat flawed). Either Inijones is able to convince other editors to support his vision for the page, or the page does not get edited the way he wants because of lack of consensus. As an uninvolved editor, I looked to see if either side of the dispute is violating policy (looks like a no to me) and then evaluated the consensus (looks like it is against Inijones to me, but he is free to run an RfC if he thinks that the consensus supports his position). Case closed, as far as I am concerned. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, the first editor to chime in called my compromise edit "relatively accurate and harmless." Why doesn't that count towards consensus? Inijones (talk) 12:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very busy in real life this week and will be traveling and unable to spend much time online until May 22, and did not intend to weigh back in on this noticeboard unless I could find some spare time to do so, but I do feel that I must take the time to say a word here. Inijones, you're placing far too much emphasis on the "accurate and harmless" part of what I said and far too little on the "relatively" part. By "relatively accurate and harmless" I only meant that it was accurate and harmless relative to the significant problems with the "precedent" edit which I had just discussed before making that remark. I did not mean to imply that I thought that it was in any other way either appropriate or inappropriate for the article in general, or its location in the article in specific and I certainly did not intend to lend support to a consensus in favor (or, for that matter, against) that edit. If I was ambiguous about what I meant, I apologize. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:55, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SUMMARY OF INCIDENT

12 thousands characters of wikitext all as one posting is nowhere reasonable for a concise explanation. WP:TLDR

Hi North8000,

I'm sorry if you see something "messed up" with my line of argumentation; please don't read sinister motives into my actions. I felt like you were not addressing the substance of my claims, so I sought assistance from a third party. I feel like the initial moderator's assistance took my concerns seriously, clarified matters for me, and I wish YOU would modify your position some TOO in response, just as I have. The outside opinion rendered by TransporterMan described by addition on Miller as "relatively accurate and harmless" and you won't tell me why you continue to block my attempts to make any edits.

I sought an outside opinion though an INFORMAL notice board because I don't know any other editors here and I didn't have any particular interest in registering a formal complaint or organizing a propaganda campaign. I don't have a group to back me up and I don't have informal agreements with anybody to interfere with attempts to edit this page. I have never previously sought assistance in a WikiPedia dispute so I may not have done every single thing 100% kosher (e.g., waited long enough), but that's a product of my inexperience, not cunning. There's nothing manipulative here, everything is publicly documented.

INITIAL INCIDENT

I sought to contribute a statement that made two basic claims about the Supreme Court cases mentioned in the lead of the 2nd Amendment article: 1) that "These 21st Century decisions represent a departure from established precedent," and that 2) these same cases "were the first major rulings on the 2nd Amendment since the Supreme Court held that a sawed-off shotgun did not qualify as a militia weapon" [in the Miller case]. Each claim was supported by a verifiable, reliable source that substantiated the claims. The statement, however, was initially rejected as "unsourced." When I re-instated my edit, pointing out that the reason for rejecting it was incorrect, and that the statement was substantiated by the "dissenting opinion in the 5-4 ruling as quoted in the new york times, and the second cite was from a book by a pulitzer-prize winning historian," the statement was rejected again because I "didn't address the actual noted issues."

At this point, I felt my position was not adequately addressed, and would benefit from the additional perspective of a third party moderator, so, after attempting to argue my edit, I sought informal assistance.

INITIAL INTERACTIONS WITH MODERATOR

TransporterMan, the editor who first stepped in to moderate the discussion focused his assessment of the situation on my text about the dissenting opinion from Heller. I removed that under his advice. His assessment struck me as reasonable and in good faith, so I modified my edit to exclude any claim pertaining to the dissenting opinion.

I then attempted, instead, to include a factual statement indicating the year of the Miller case and the content of the finding. In his first post, TransporterMan had ALREADY said that this second half my initial edit was "relatively accurate and harmless."

I did not after that point pursue any effort to include anything about the dissenting opinion, and attempted to include only that portion of my initial edit that was assessed as "relatively accurate and harmless." My behavior was not vandalism.

ONLY OPPORTUNITY TO COMPROMISE BASED ON FEEDBACK FROM MODERATOR

Based on TransponderMan's assessment of my edit, which seemed oriented towards explaining to me the resistance I encountered with North8000, I added to the page my modified edit about the year of the Miller case and the case's finding. I made this edit as a compromise approached through informal means. The citation I provided (and, additional citations provided on the talk page) supported the claim that Miller was the most significant Supreme Court ruling on the 2nd Amendment prior to Heller and McDonald. The moderator understood this claim to be essentially "accurate." The entire second paragraph of the lead is already about Supreme court cases; there are, in fact, relatively few Second Amendment cases, and Miller is a significant one, as I have shown. I've provided several sources indicating that Miller is significant, and even the TOC of the current article seems to back up this claim. It furthermore seems that Miller is already alluded to in the existing text of the lead, where several "longstanding" restrictions on firearm ownership are mentioned.

My modified compromise edit seemed like a reasonable and uncontroversial fact to insert by way of making a more well-rounded summary of Supreme Court case law already mentioned in the lead. If this factual statement is going to be excluded, perhaps no discussion of Supreme Court law whatsoever belongs in the lead, and any indication for it should be confined to the relevant sections within the body of the article.

CIRCUMSTANCES WHEREBY COMPROMISE WAS REJECTED

When I made this "accurate" compromise edit, it was STILL rejected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution&diff=490128328&oldid=490126109

The reason provided for reverting this edit didn't seem to take into account the fact that this edit was a modified compromise position. Grahamboat indicated that mentioning Miller "didn't make sense in the lead" -- without providing any explanation as to why.

This compromise statement was rejected despite the moderator's initial view that my characterization of McDonald and Heller as "the first major rulings on the 2nd Amendment since the Supreme Court held that a sawed-off shotgun did not qualify as a militia weapon" was "relatively accurate and harmless."

My contention at this point was that if Miller is excluded from the lead, the same logic can be used to ALSO exclude Heller and McDonald from the lead. If McDonald and Heller belong in the lead, there is no good reason to exclude Miller.

I therefore moved the existing text on Heller and McDonald -- unmodified -- from the second paragraph of the lead and inserted the text in the proper two subsections of the article that were already dedicated to those individual Supreme Court cases. I had mentioned this possibility several times -- as the least preferable outcome -- and it was never objected to previously.

When this next edit was also rejected, the reason given for reverting the edit was demonstrably false. In the talk page Grahamboat said that I made an error while moving the text, and suggested that this was his real reason for rejecting my edit. I caught the error within minutes and corrected it well before Grahamboat reverted the edit. Grahamboat has not offered a more descriptive reason for why he reversed my edit, nor responded to my claim about his false characterization of my edit.

Nobody stepped in with a "consensus" reason for reverting the edit (other than to suggest that "consensus" was needed to make any change). After I pointed out (twice) that the editor's note describing why the edit was reversed was false, nobody attempted to improve my "relatively accurate and harmless" contribution. This all could have ended with TransporterMan's first post. I am not the one stirring up trouble, and my actions are not "vandalism."

ADDITIONAL VIEWS EXPRESSED ON THE NOTICE BOARD LACKING MERIT

The most recent editor to chime in, Guy, lent an initial opinion without making note of the fact that I had modified my edit to represent a compromise position; to get a more useful assessment from Guy I took the initiative to re-iterate that I was now trying to understand why my "relatively accurate and harmless" (harmless to who, or WHAT... ideology?) subsequent edits were also being blocked. When I pointed this out, Guy said that the question of why Miller should be excluded from the lead while Heller and McDonald belong in the lead had already been answered. Since I had asked the question repeatedly and would obviously seem to have been missing something, it would have been helpful to hear what Guy understood the reason to be. Guy, however, declined to make a contribution that would have clarified or substantively helped resolve the terms of the disagreement as it stood at that point.

OTHER REASONS OFFERED FOR BLOCKING EDITS REPRESENT POV

North8000 had said the matter of including such a reference to Miller as I proposed or, alternately, removing the text on McDonald and Heller is a "legitimate" issue, but declined to address the merits of the issue any further than that, even though I repeatedly asked for more detail on that very point. Guy didn't address this while dismissing my concerns.

Some of the reasons Grahamboat has given for blocking my edits seem to indicate that he is exploiting the consensus policy to block ANY edits that don't conform to his POV, such as when he justified blocking my "relatively accurate and harmless" edit on the grounds that "The second paragraph is not about Supreme Court cases per say - it is about the cases that count." If the consensus is, as Grahamboat has stated it, that only Heller and McDonald "count" -- especially in such an unqualified manner -- I'd say the consensus has a POV problem. Nobody has put forth any more robust reasoning. I was cooperating and willing to split the difference under the guidance of the initial moderator TransporterMan, who offered a well-reasoned position and who was not dismissive of my concerns. The latest editor, Guy, did not address ANY of this in rendering his passing opinion, even when I pointed out to him that his initial opinion was NOT exactly relevant and indicated to him WHY.

Grahamboat has also suggested that McDonald and Heller "define" the law (or, in this case, it would seem, the Amendment), though I do not see how Miller is substantially different in that respect, nor how that doesn't entail the POV of a specific legal theory. An "Originalist," for example, might have a slightly different attitude towards what "defines" an amendment or a law or the scope of a law. Nor do I understand even why the second paragraph of the lead ought not be modified to serve as a more well-rounded summary of significant Supreme Court case law, especially since my modified edit makes no mention of the Heller controversy (although the existing text does promote this controversial material to the lead; my revised edit is "Heller controversy neutral" and, furthermore, may help improve the second paragraph by providing additional context that makes the lead look less like an endorsement of a single POV in the controversy or, by extension, an endorsement of a single legal philosophy).

PROPOSED REMEDIES

The article has now been protected due to "vandalism" it would seem because of my efforts to include a statement in the 2nd Amendment article, which "a native Texan" moderator initially characterized as "relatively accurate and harmless." I have been experiencing unreasonable resistance to a reasonable edit. I don't think there are grounds to consider my actions "vandalism" and I think, at a bare minimum, the page should be restored to the "unprotected" status it had previous to this dispute, so that other editors can contribute to the page (that is, if they are allowed to do so). I've been working this issue out through talk pages, and I am not a "vandalism" threat to this page.

The vandalism tag does seem to be in use to exclude discussion, as, since getting page protection, these editors have, instead of compromise with me, strengthened the controversial content of the lead.

Ideally, my compromise statement about the 1939 Miller case should also be included in the lea, as it is "relatively accurate and harmless." But since the editors have since strengthened the controversial character of the lead, I think the lead would be more neutral if the discussion of Supreme Court cases were removed from the lead altogether and placed under the appropriate subheadings in the body of the article. Inijones (talk) 12:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My term "messed up" was fully explained as referring to the severe process problems here. It was very clear but yet you "missed" and pretended that that was my response to your arguments with "I'm sorry if you see something "messed up" with my line of argumentation" confirms my previous concern that you are being disingenuous and manipulative.

With your :duplication of the above huge amount of material into both places you have made an even bigger mess out of this from a process standpoint, making a further organized discussion impossible. North8000 (talk) 13:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Inijones: Before you continue, please reconsider posting long messages like the one I just collapsed. As it appears to be also posed on the article's talk page, this is not helpful. Be concise. Hasteur (talk) 14:53, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Inijones has cut-and-pasted the same lengthy argument you see above to the following places so far:

Talk:Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

User talk:Lord Roem#Thank God, a Lawyer!

Upon seeing his request on the dispute resolution noticeboard, I went to the article talk page to offer an outside opinion. Other than responding to Inijones request, I have no involvment or interest in the topic.

I carefully read the arguments on the talk page and determined that the changes Inijones wishes to make are against Wikipedia's policies on consensus and that his multiple accusations against other editors are without merit. In particular, I saw no evidence of Tagteaming and no evidence of Tendentious editing or POV Pushing by anyone other than Inijones himself. All I saw was several editors making a good-faith effort to improve the article and one editor -- Inijones -- ignoring consensus.

What I have seen is a severe case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and WP:FORUMSHOPPING. All of Inijones arguments were addressed in the first two forums he cut-and-pasted his lengthy argument to, at which point he went silent on those pages and cut and pasted them to two additional locations, ignoring the arguments several editors have made that he is trying to insert material that is original research that is not found in the sources and that he is making the article a battleground.

I suggest that, rather than looking for a fifth or sixth place to cut-and-paste the exact same argument that has convinced nobody, that Inijones go back to the article talk page and seek consensus by responding to the arguments other have made opposing his proposed changes. I also suggest that other involved editors stop playing Whack-a-Mole with Inijones and instead respond with "Please see my response on the article talk page". --Guy Macon (talk) 17:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

This article starts with the following sentence. 'Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews during World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust'. The Holocaust is also used, within wikipedia, e.g. at the page The Holocaust to refer to the Nazi genocide of other groups. Therefore it is entirely approriate that any reference to the Holocaust refer to those other groups. The argument against this is that this article is about Holocaust denial, which specifically denies the genocide of Jews. Holocaust deniers don't really care about denying the genocide of other groups.

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=Holocaust denial}} --~~~~ 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 proposed two possible solutions. 1 We include a reference in the introduction of this article to the fact that there are two definitions of the Holocaust, one of which includes all victims of the Nazis, and not just Jewish victims. 2 That we reword the first sentence to be 'Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews during World War II' That would ensure that no single definition is used.

How do you think we can help?

It may be possible to get one of my suggestions above, or another suitable solution agreed. I think that there is a misunderstanding about what I am proposing. I am not trying to change the definition of Holocaust denial to include all victims, but I would like consistency about the use of the word Holocaust throughout wikipedia. It should refer to both accepted definitions wherever it is used, or to neither.

Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 18:07, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Holocaust denial discussion

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

What reliable sources can be brought that specifically apply the term "Holocaust denial" to the denial of the genocide of groups other than Jews during WWII? In all my reading on the subject I've never seen the term "Holocaust denial" applied to anything other than the denial of the extermination of Jews, not to the denial of the extermination of other groups, making the term "Holocaust denial" a specifically anti-Semitic term. Zad68 (talk) 18:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is what we've been asking for DLDD all along. He's been able to come up with examples of writers criticizing Holocaust denial themselves defining the Holocaust as including others than Jews, but not with examples of either HD being defined as denying other victims of the Holocaust or other writers saying that HD involves denying such other victims. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

neither of these comments relate to the definition of the Holocaust which is the subject of the dispute.Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 19:35, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's your problem in the first place; you fail to recognize that the article is about Holocaust denial, which deals only with Jews; readers are eminently capable of clicking on the Holocaust article if they want more details about the Holocaust and its broader interpretation (which is not the intepretation Holocaust deniers are concerned with.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:44, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

that is simply not correct. I have clearly stated that I accept the same definition of HD as you have just given. The dispute is as to why one definition of the Holocaust is used here when it would be so simple to give both, or neither. Wikipedia, having accepted that there are two definitions should be consistent throughout. It should not be left to the reader to check that for themselves. Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 20:02, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dalai lama ding dong, you are asking "why [is] one definition of the Holocaust is used here"? And here is the answer: Because that's the definition the reliable sources use. If the reliable sources don't talk about "Holocaust denial" referring to denial of the genocide of groups of people other than Jews, I can't see what Wikipedia policy-based reason there would be for putting it in the article. Holocaust mentions that there is a minority use of the term "Holocaust" as referring to groups other than Jews, and it is backed up to a source. What source can you bring that uses "Holocaust denial" in reference to other groups? If we don't have one, then until we can find one, I don't see a reason for putting it in the article. Zad68 (talk) 20:26, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is pointless. DLDD simply refuses to accept reality. I'm quite sympathetic to attempts to correct Holocaust coverage to include the Roma, who as one of two nations targeted for complete extermination suffered just as badly as the Jews but are generally ignored today. But Holocaust denial is not motivated by antiziganism (or by homophobia, or by able-ism, or whatever), but by antisemitism. This is much like arguments that "antisemitism" includes hatred of Arabs, because Arabs speak a Semitic language, when the term was explicitly coined as a synonym for "Jew hatred". He fails to understand that terms have meanings, and that "Holocaust denial", like "antisemitism", is a term with a meaning.

If DLDD can find sources for this, it could be included per WEIGHT, which would almost certainly mean we wouldn't give it more than a passing mention. But it's up to DLDD to find those sources. — kwami (talk) 20:11, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

again, this dispute is not about the definition of HD. That is not disputed. My RS for their being more than one definition of the Holocaust is the Holocaust article in wikipedia. I have made this very clear. So far no one has addressed my point. The analogy to the meaning of anti semitism completely misses the point, and is irrelevant. The motivation for HD is completely irrelevant. I do not have to find any sources, they are already in wikipedia. Can we please discuss why this article does not reflect the wikipedia article on the Holocaust, which gives two definitions of tha Holocaust?Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 20:26, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

here is the wikipeda article on the Holocaust. The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"),[2] also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "catastrophe"; Yiddish: חורבן, Churben or Hurban,[3] from the Hebrew for "destruction"), was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, throughout Nazi-occupied territory.[4] Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds perished.[5] In particular, over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men.[6][7]

Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis' genocide of millions of people in other groups, including Romani, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses and other political and religious opponents, which occurred regardless of whether they were of German or non-German ethnic origin.[8] Using this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims is between 11 million and 17 million people.[9].Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 20:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Response back to you is still here, you haven't addressed it or brought a source that talks about "Holocaust denial", despite your edit summary. Zad68 (talk) 20:42, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He simply doesn't understand how words are used. If he hasn't understood by now, I doubt he's going to get it from this discussion.

DLDD, your time would be better spent on the Holocaust article, which I see has now degenerated. (The killing of Soviet POWs was not genocide. The targeted 'final solution' of the Roma was. I don't know how we can equate the two, as we now do in the lead, without feeling ill.) — kwami (talk) 21:09, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

still no one can address the point. Why not include both accepted definitions, or neither? Only including one is POV. No one is wiling to discuss this point. No one has referred to my two suggested resolutions above.Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 21:21, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zad68. All RS..All refute that there is only definition of the Holocaust.

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/the-Holocaust http://www.holocaust-education.dk/holocaust/hvadhvemhvor.asp

http://library.thinkquest.org/12663/summary/what.html http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/the-holocaust

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holocaust

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/educational/edResource/definition.html

http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/definitions/the-holocaust-45. Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 21:35, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is disagreeing with the definition of "the Holocaust". We are disagreeing about the relevance of the extended definition of "Holocaust" to the subject of "Holocaust denial", of which there appears to be none. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:24, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dalai lama ding dong, this distinction was pointed out to you many times on the Holocaust denial talk page and you acknowledged this point several times. You explicitly stated, "Please show me where I claiming that all definitions of the Nazi holocaust apply to Holocaust denial? I certainly do not intend to claim that." Isn't this a fair description of what you are currently seeking to do? When an editor informed you that, "Holocaust Denial is not about the Holocaust, but about Jews", you responded, "agreed. I have never disputed this". Your above assertion belies your various responses on the talk page, and I request that you explain this apparent inconsistency, and the revisiting of a problem that I thought had been resolved.
Best Wishes Ankh.Morpork 23:20, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dalai, your whole complaint is based on nothing but a straw man. The phrase in question, "..the genocide of Jews during World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust" is not a "definition of the holocaust". It is stupid to say that it is. Zargulon (talk) 23:36, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please try and remain civil. If it is not a definition, then why not remove it as I suggested? Thank you for being the first person to recognise the dispute. Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 07:07, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you think that something should be removed because you think that it is "not a definition"? Zargulon (talk) 07:31, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am a regular mediator/clerk here at this noticeboard. Rather than let this discussion drag on any longer, I have to note that I'm not seeing any support for the edit (or any similar edit) proposed by Dalai lama ding dong. It appears to me that DLDD has made the argument for the edit to the best of his/her ability and is not being misunderstood. While several opponents have objected to the edit on the basis of inadequate sourcing and have indicated a willingness to consider the edit if reliable sources were to be provided for it, they have not accepted the sources which DLDD has provided to this point. It must be borne in mind that even if the proposed edit were supported by unassailable reliable sources and was indisputably relevant to the topic of this article that nothing can be included in a Wikipedia article unless there is consensus for its inclusion. Under the current circumstances it appears that there is an clear consensus against the inclusion of this edit and that, unless several of the opponents indicate that they are still on the fence on this issue, further discussion of it will be, at the very least, inappropriate and disruptive. For that reason, I will close this discussion as resolved 24 hours after the time stamp on this message unless in the meantime a substantial number of the opponents to the edit indicate that they wish for it to be continued. If this discussion is so closed, I would also suggest that DDLD should consider his only option for further pursuit of this issue to be the filing of a request for comments at the article talk page, as any further advocacy for it elsewhere might be considered disruptive editing. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:01, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is quite simply original research to say that Holocaust denial, the title of the article being discussed, applies to non-Jews, in the absence of a source. All material must be sourced. All material added must be verifiable. There is no source in support of the implication that DLDD wishes to put into the article: that "holocaust denial" encompasses denial of the tragedy of death and destruction to befall non-Jews in mid twentieth century Europe. The reason for this is that there is no "denial" of the death and destruction that befell non-Jews in mid twentieth century Europe. Holocaust denial is not just for the purpose of contradiction. Another aim of holocaust denial is the infliction of mental anguish. Holocaust denial is a present day manifestation of antisemitism. Holocaust denial is an expression of antisemitism because it requires a response. The response can be psychologically painful but such responses must be delivered in order to counter the falsehood of such claims, thus "holocaust deniers" accomplish a purpose, an antisemitic purpose, even if their arguments are effectively responded to. Antisemitism thus serves as the motivation for "holocaust denial" and of course this is a motivation confined to Jews. Thus there is a bifurcation between the scope of the term "holocaust" and the scope of the term "holocaust denial". Bus stop (talk) 17:12, 2 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First, I generally support DLDD's complaints insofar as the article on holocaust denial implies a narrow definition of the holocaust. Almost all secondary sources (e.g., historians, sociologists, etc.) almost take for granted by now that the Nazis systematically murdered many groups and that we refer to this systematic murder as the holocaust. There are many questions still about the holocaust, when exactly it began, who was targeted, and so on. The article on the holocaust is clear here but certainly does not as some people have suggested consign broader definitions of the holocaust to minority usage. DLDD is asking - and myself - to have the (implied) definition of the holocaust given in the article on holocaust denial brought in line with the broader definition given in the article on the holocaust. Second, I completely disagree with anyone who says that holocaust denial has only ever been anti-semetic. This seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of holocaust denial. Has anyone here besides DLDD actually read or heard David Irving, who is in my mind the most sophisticated holocaust denier on the planet today? Irving certainly is an anti-semite, but he is many other things too... and the crux of his message is that the Nazis did not embark in any way whatsoever on a course of killing their opponents. I suppose that, given Wikipedia's preference for secondary sources, Irving can't be considered a proper source. OK, I'll just have to find someone now who discusses Irving and points to the many places in which he does deny the holocaust broadly speaking. Cheers. Mfhiller (talk) 01:13, 3 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

The issue here is not your definition of the Holocaust, nor your understanding of David Irving's statements, but rather what reliable sources state about Holocaust denial. They define it as an activity directed against Jews, and more specifically as an antisemitic conspiracy theory. There's a reason that Holocaust denial books have names like Did Six Million Really Die?, not Did Eleven Million Really Die?. As Kenneth Stern wrote in 2006, "Holocaust Denial is not about the Holocaust, but about Jews" (Antisemitism Today, p. 79). Jayjg ^(talk) 01:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mfhiller says, the article on holocaust denial implies a narrow definition of the holocaust. Yes, it does, because our reliable sources show us that holocaust denial is about a narrow definition of the Holocaust. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 02:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll accept the points about holocaust denial being an "antisemitic conspiracy theory"/ holocaust denial about a "narrow definition of the holocaust". The article on holocaust denial, however, mentions none of this and I think this has been part of the dispute all along. Something of this sort should be included - discussion of terms. The aim after all is just to make the article better, right? Mfhiller (talk) 03:30, 3 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

I withdraw the closing notice which I gave above, as the consensus against inclusion was not quite so clear as I thought it was. However, I would again note that under this provision of the consensus policy that once an edit has been challenged that a positive consensus for its inclusion must be established or it cannot be included and there is nothing close to that here, nor any indication that this discussion might be moving in the direction of the formation of such a consensus. I would suggest to DLDD and Mfhiller that if they wish their desired edit to be included in the article, the best opportunity to obtain a consensus in their favor without improper canvassing would be to file a request for comment at the article page. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article on Holocaust denial is not "about a narrow definition of the Holocaust", it is about Holocaust denial. Phrases often don't mean what their constituent words may or may not superficially suggest, and it is not necessary to belabour this fact in the lead of the article, which currently defines "holocaust denial" accurately and concisely. Zargulon (talk) 23:05, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Zargulon, the article on holocaust denial does not define holocaust denial accurately at all in so far as the first sentence inaccurately implies an exclusionary definition of the holocaust. There is a good suggestion now on the talk page for holocaust denial, something to the effect of "Holocaust denial is the act of denying the extermination of Jews during the holocaust." What I and others have been objecting to is a statement like "Holocaust denial is the act of denying the extermination of Jews, usually referred to as the holocaust." Of course the article on holocaust denial is about holocaust denial: therefore it should not assume a controversial definition of the holocaust that implies that the term "holocaust" only refers to the extermination of Jews. It isn't just a controversial definition, it is blatantly false. Mfhiller (talk) 03:29, 5 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

No Mfhiller, the first sentence does not imply any definition of the Holocaust - you are making a wrong inference from that sentence. Please read it again carefully and try not to be influenced by what you may want it to mean. Zargulon (talk) 09:09, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

transporter man, there is an excellent suggestion for a re wording on the HD talk page. It is supported by myself and mfhiller. Can I copy it over here?Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 17:23, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

the user Rip-Saw has proposed the suggestion for re-wording that is supported also by DLDD and myself. It is a minor change that only reflects the definition of the holocaust already given in the article on the holocaust. For consistency's sake only, please, let's change this accordingly. Mfhiller (talk) 02:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

Zargulon, yes the first sentence does imply a definition of the holocaust and I am not making a wrong inference; how can I when the relative clause says exactly, by way of grammar, that the holocaust is defined by the extermination of Jews? The article is about holocaust denial, not about the holocaust, and the article about the holocaust already states quite explicitly that the holocaust involved many groups the Nazis found unacceptable. This is already conceding quite a lot actually, given that there have been many holocausts and that there isn't just one but many holocaust denials. Mfhiller (talk) 02:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

No, the relative clause really doesn't "imply a definition", "by way of grammar" or by any other "way". My dog is usually referred to as James, as it says in the lead of the "Dog of Zargulon" article. Do you really think that implies some sort of exclusive definition of the word "James"? Do you really think that "Dog of Zargulon" article needs to carefully explain in the lead that James is a name given to people and entities other than my dog? You are certainly making a wrong inference. Zargulon (talk) 00:50, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly right, Zargulon. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

About what "exactly right"? That Zargulon knows the name of his or her dog? I should hope so. I might give in if you are comfortable with this sentence: "Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews during WW2; the holocaust is usually defined as the genocide of Jews during WW2." Clearly though that's wrong unless one is going to start a whole other sort of holocaust denial. Mfhiller (talk) 04:15, 9 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

Since for some reason you have decided to start talking about a completely different sentence from the one under dispute, perhaps you could just "give in" anyway? Zargulon (talk) 09:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't decided at all "to start talking about a completely different sentence." I'm talking only about the one that is already there and how one ought to read it literally. My resentencifying (forgive the neologism) only highlights the disputed meaning. I hope your dog, James, is doing well. Mfhiller (talk) 01:19, 10 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

On the contrary, your paraphrasing (what you meant when you said "resentencifying"), completely changes the meaning. Your failure to see this, arises exactly from your failure to read the existing sentence literally, which is ironic in light of your last post. Zargulon (talk) 11:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary? One brute assertion is as good as another. How exactly have I completely changed the meaning? Given your strong objections I expect that you are able to articulate reasons for your idiosyncratic understanding of relative clauses. Mfhiller (talk) 23:34, 10 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

Brute assertion? Please review WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Zargulon (talk) 10:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever. This is harassment. Please stop it.Mfhiller (talk) 05:07, 12 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

No, it is called you losing an argument. Please get over it. Zargulon (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Copied from the talk page of HD.

Holocaust denial is about Jews, and the definition of Holocaust does not fall under the breadth of this article. From a purely grammatical standpoint, the lead should be changed to "Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust during World War II." As the lead currently reads, it is unclear as to what the Holocaust "usually refers" to. Rip-Saw (talk) 07:36, 4 May 2012 (UTC) this is an excellent suggestion. Would you like to make the change? Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 20:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC) Yes this is a good suggestion. Thanks. Mfhiller (talk) 03:11, 5 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller

There are now three supporters of this wording. Can anyone explain why this change should not be made. If the current lede really does not include a definition of the Holocaust then nothing is lost by adopting this improved wording.Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 16:03, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I support the wording "Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust during World War II." It is a precise description of the subject and does not carry any baggage regarding definitions. I don't know why it isn't obvious that this sentence is better than what is currently there. Zero^talk 11:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are four people now who support the wording "Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust during World War II." Mfhiller (talk) 23:38, 10 May 2012 (UTC)mfhiller[reply]

Make it five. I have no strong feelings either way on this topic, but the above appears to be what is in the sources. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:51, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Six. I've been following this thread quietly, but I agree that wording seems accurate and dispenses with the issues at hand. -- Despayre ^{tête-à-tête} 21:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

With this much support I shall now go ahead and make the agreed change,a s no arguments have be received against this new wording. Thanks to all who contributed.Dalai lama ding dong (talk) 18:10, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings

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

Dispute overview

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

1) The lead states that Merah wished to "avenge the deaths of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank", and is based on this opinion piece. Other sources quote Merah's exact words, "The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine" and report this aspect of his motivation differently, without ascribing the actions of "the Jews" to the "Israeli forces", or limiting the deaths of Palestinian children to specific regions. I would prefer the lead to reflect how Merah's comments were widely reported. See 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Resolved

2) Based on this source I added to Sarkozy's other thoughts on these attacks, that he noted an antisemitic motive. This was improved upon with this edit by Vice regent. Since I have been repeatedly accused of "misrepresenting the source", but no suggestions of improvement have been offered, can you advise me how to accurately present this information. Vice regent, contrary to his previous edit, is now entirely opposed to its inclusion, and I am concerned at the apparent tag-teaming, which has previously been commented on by an admin. My suggestions have twice been stymied with a "Let's wait and see what the other editor has to say".1 2

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=2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

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

Discussed on talk page

How do you think we can help?

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

2012 Midi-Pyrénées shootings discussion

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

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

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

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

My observations:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So how exactly would you phrase it? How about: Merah said he attacked the Jewish school to avenge Palestinian children source1 source2.VR _talk 06:29, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

Information from some of the sources that were posted above:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putting it in the context of the article:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I will post a version here with the refs:: French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that the killings were not motivated by Islam,[2] but rather by antisemitism.[3]

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is what we have: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated that the killings were not motivated by the Islamic faith.[4] - Possible addition - Speaking about the Jewish school shootings before the suspect had been identified, Sarkozy stated that "the anti-Semitic motivation appears obvious", but prefaced this by acknowledging that he did not know the motivations of the shooter.[5] Somedifferentstuff (talk) 13:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The full quote reads:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

War in Afghanistan (2001-Present)

War in Afghanistan (2001–present) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
List of Taliban fatality reports in Afghanistan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

One user keeps deleting the minimum Taliban casualty estimate, linking to a BBC article says no reliable estimate exists. However, the page List of Taliban fatality reports in Afghanistan lists reliably sourced reports of Taliban casualties. If we add them up, we get a reliable minimum. Multiple users have tried explaining this on the article's talk page and in the edit summaries. However, the user continues to delete it. Should it be deleted, or is it permissible to combine the reports with math to get a minimum?

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Taliban_fatality_reports_in_Afghanistan}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

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

Talk page discussion. Its going nowhere - NickD just reasserts his position.

How do you think we can help?

Tell us who is right. Should it be done away with, or can the reports be added up?

X Nilloc X (talk) 02:51, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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

This is a bad faith post. This matter is under discussion at Talk:War in Afghanistan (2001–present)#Taliban and insurgents casualty figure removed from the infobox as well as WP:RSN#Discussion about Taliban/Insurgent casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) infobox. There is little support for X Nilloc X's position (despite what they say above, multiple editors disagree with them, and not just me), yet they keep edit warring this figure back into the article. I have reported them for edit warring at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring, and this appears to be their response to that (along with further edit warring since I lodged the report). I note that X Nilloc X has only notified the single other editor who agrees with him (as expressed by edit warfare; they've never actually posted on the article's talk page despite me asking them to join the discussion twice) and not the multiple editors who take a different view. Nick-D (talk) 03:01, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't matter how many editors hold each position. A reliable source ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/01/reporting_afghanistan_casualti.html ) says:

"In our coverage of Afghanistan, we at BBC News do not generally report the numbers of Taliban or insurgent casualties and fatalities, because there are no reliable or verifiable source figures available."

Wikipedia must report what the sources say, and the sources say that there are no reliable or verifiable figures for Taliban casualties. End of subject unless someone finds a reliable source that directly contradicts the above-quoted source. Counting the numbers in another Wikipedia article is WP:SYNTHESIS and the numbers you get cannot be used to replace a direct statement by a reliable source.

How is it synthesis? That's when you report separate pieces of sourced information and manipulate them to imply a conclusion they don't. All we're doing is basic math - If source A reports "this happened 5 times here", and source B reports "this happened 5 times at this other place", then we can establish reliably that it happened a minimum of 10 times. X Nilloc X (talk) 14:12, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You aren't going to get anywhere by writing things that aren't true about Wikipedia's policies. WP:SYNTHESIS does not say not to "manipulate them to imply a conclusion they don't". What WP:SYNTHESIS does say is "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources" Is your conclusion explicitly stated by any of the sources? No. It is not.

As for your "All we're doing is basic math" argument, please read WP:CALC, which states "Basic arithmetic, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, is allowed provided there is consensus among editors that the calculation is an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources" Do you have that consensus? No. You do not. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, there is a statistical fallacy in play when you count the numbers and add them up. If we assume that the individual sources cited in List of Taliban fatality reports in Afghanistan tried to be accurate (a questionable assumption -- news agencies make money by attempting to panic the readers -- but let's accept it for the sake of argument) then some will be too high and some will be too low. The problem is that there is a limit on being too low (nobody reports a negative number of fatalities) but there is no limit on being too high. This makes the basic idea of adding them up statistically invalid. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:57, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The reports are fragmentary, and a lot don't get added to it - so the total is almost certainly higher that what's there. A lot of Taliban fatalities go unknown, given the nature of firefights there (get shot at from far off, shoot back. Repeat process for a while until the shooting stops.) So, its very unlikely the number is too high. X Nilloc X (talk) 14:40, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The very fact that we are having a discussion about this proves that the calculation is not "an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources". Also, you have not addressed my argument that adding the numbers up is statistically invalid. All you have done is to propose an unsourced theory that, if true, would cause an error of unknown magnitude in the opposite direction. You are getting farther and farther away from a routine calculation that everyone agrees is correct. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:17, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No need to get huffy. A substantial body of reliable sources have made educated guesses on casualty stats for the Taliban. In most contemporary settings, aside from bureaucratically inclined nations, war casualties are just that, guesses. Doing independent math is a violation of WP:SYNTH but there is nothing wrong with sourcing estimates as long as they are recorded as such. TomPointTwo (talk) 08:31, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please post what these reliable sources for total casualties are? I haven't been able to find any, and they'd be a very useful addition to the article. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here: [[6]] X Nilloc X (talk) 00:56, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nilloc X, what part of "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources" are you having trouble understanding? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:22, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We're not - we're just using basic math. The example the Synthesis page was something like "The UN says its goal is world peace <reference>, but there have been 180 wars since its inception <otherreference>.". In that case, you were combining two references to make it sound like the UN is a failure. That's not what's going on here. All we're doing it look at the reliably sources casualty reports, and adding them up. Its mathematically impossible for the number we get to not be the verified minimum. X Nilloc X (talk) 14:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adding together uncertain numbers from multiple sources is an obvious example of original research. As well as the statistical fallacy that Guy mentioned, some of these reports are probably references to the same incidents. Different news sources often provide slightly different dates and details that make them appear to be distinct. WP:CALC is for simple calculations that there are no grounds to dispute, not for exercises like this. Readers can add the numbers themselves if they want; we shouldn't make the totals appear more meaningful than they really are. Zero^talk 05:36, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How are they "uncertain"? All the sources say how many were killed. Show me an example on that page where different reports of the same incident have been taken as the same incident. This is a simple calculation, and there is no rational ground to dispute it.

Plus, if there's a problem like that, shouldn't we fix it instead of being like "oh, well, looks like this is broken forever and we should disregard it"? By your logic any page with an error should be disregarded forever. X Nilloc X (talk) 14:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no error to fix. Just a classic case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and WP:DEADHORSE. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not so. WP:CALC clearly allows it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by X Nilloc X (talk • contribs) 00:19, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly what part of "provided there is consensus among editors that the calculation is an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources" are you having trouble understanding? If English is a second language for you or you have some sort of learning disability, I will be happy to explain it in detail. Just tell me which part you don't understand. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is obvious, correct, and meaningful. Most people who have been to the page have left it, so they seem to agree. There's just a strange, small group of people who are (for some odd reason) obsessed with getting it removed. You're not explaining: if we take each verified report as reliable (as is Wikipedia policy), then by definition they are all reliable. So, adding them up is basic arithmetic. Your resistance to it doesn't make any sense X Nilloc X (talk) 00:42, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So your claim is that there is a consensus among editors that the calculation is an obvious, correct, and meaningful reflection of the sources? Do you have any evidence to back up that assertion? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 01:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Admin note: X Nilloc X has now been blocked twice for edit warring on this subject. Shii (tock) 03:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Citation dispute on automotive topic

Street and Racing Technology (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Dodge SRT-4 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

User RTShadow consistently reverts citations to a source with a questionable reputation and no formal expertise on the subject matter from a reputable source with many decades in automotive journalism and testing.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

RTShadow (talk · contribs)
99.144.70.71 (talk · contribs)

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

Yes.

N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Citation dispute on automotive topic}} --~~~~ 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 debated with RTShadow on the subject and provided two reputable sources while proving his source as unreliable due to lack of expert knowledge on the subject matter.

How do you think we can help?

blocking carthrottle.com as a citation or flagging it as questionable.

99.144.70.71 (talk) 02:20, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Citation dispute on automotive topic discussion

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

My observations are: 1) You have not discussed this enough at the article Talk page to bring it to the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, and 2) This appears to be a dispute over whether carthrottle.com is a reliable source. Take "carthrottle.com" to the reliable sources noticeboard. I did a search on the RSN history and carthrottle.com has not been discussed there yet. I took a quick look at the carthrottle.com "About us" page and it appears to be in the same general reliability category as caranddriver.com--they are both advertising-based industry specialist publications with editorial boards. However, caranddriver.com is much bigger and more well-established. Take this to WP:RSN. Zad68 (talk) 13:39, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct. My main dispute is with the credibility of using Car Throttle over Car and Driver. I question the credentials of the Car Throttle staff as they do not prove any expertise in their field, whereas Car and Driver staff generally have journalism degrees, mechanical engineering degrees, and many have held positions with other large media corporations. An example is the Editor-in-Chief of Car and Driver, Eddie Alterman. He has an extensive background in automotive journalism with Men's Journal and Automotive Magazine, both well-established companies. He also created Motive Magazine and MPH Magazine. The Editor-in-Chief of Car Throttle, and writer of the citation in question, has no background beyond being an enthusiast. His review is no different than if anyone else had created a blog post making a claim. I will take this over to the reliable sources noticeboard as you suggest. (99.144.70.71 (talk) 03:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Seriously? Somebody is claiming that a website founded in 2008 is a better source than a website associated with a major automotive magazine that was founded in 1955 and is available on every newsstand in the country? I don't buy it. Alas, I also don't believe that the dispute resolution noticeboard is the right place to take this. Close it and open up a ticket at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:21, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Friends episodes

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

Dispute overview

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

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

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

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

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

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

Friends episodes discussion

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

Comment by Matthewedwards

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

WP:Transclusion doesn't have much to say about article transclusion, it refers mostly to templates like infoboxes, navboxes, templates such as {{3x}}, etc, etc. What it does say about article transclusion is that in creating WP:Summary style articles, it may be preferential to conduct partial transclusions from other articles, and says, "History of pathology [7] was transcluded into Pathology,[8] which consisted of a collection of transcluded lead paragraphs from several main articles." It should be noted, however, that Pathology has not transcluded any content since July 2009, when the articles it was transcluding from were delisted from WP:GA.

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

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

For FLC, some of the main issues are

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"For many years, possibly up to about 5," - {{Episode list}} list was created 3 days under 6 years ago and has been in use for all of that time, not "up to about 5" years. This is only minor point, but it is still misleading, as it de-emphasises the extent to which the template is used. Currently the template is used in 5,105 articles.[9] When I checked the transclusion count 8 days ago, it was transcluded to 5,068 articles, an increase of approximately 6 articles per day. As season lists typically have around 18-24 episodes, this means the template is used roughly 100,000 times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"how confusing must it be to be reading a table and find something that needs changing, click the [edit] link and find {{:Supernatural (season 1)}}?" - Interestingly, just after talking about Nazis, Matthewedwards suggested "If you're worried about it, include notes to editors at the top of each editable section in hidden tags  that ask editors to make changes at the 'other' page",[10] and that's what is done in the episode article. After the transclusion code there should be a note saying something along the lines of "To edit the episodes in this section, you need to edit the article listed above", similar to this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He's said that I've been silly" - I did, because Matthewedwards compared transclusion to the Nazis sending Jews to concentration camps.[11] That's always a silly thing. I even cited Godwin's law.[12]

"queried whether we have a life outside Star Trek‽" - Ummm, no. There's been a lot of clutching at straws when it has come to finding reasons not to transclude, including page load times.[13] In response I said "Unless you're Superman, or Mr Data trying to stop a core breach on the USS Enterprise, slow page load times really don't affect most articles." Load time issues have since been debunked.[14]

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

Quite frankly, so far I haven't had any problems with the edits that The Rambling Man has made to any of the season or episode list articles. My concerns have been with the way he keeps making things up, as I've explained at Talk:List of Friends episodes. Instead of working together to make {{Episode list}} MoS-compliant, it seems that certain FLC editors are interested only in pushing their own agenda. Despite complaining about non-compliance, I could not get The Rambling Man to explain the issues at WT:TV or Template talk:Episode list, despite numerous requests. In the end, I had to do it myself,[15][16][17] and when it looked like there was going to be some action to resolve issues with the template, which would make the tables completely unnecessary, two editors rushed back to the FLC discussion to get their edits into the article before that happened. It's the sort of thing you expect in a school yard. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You don't have to take my word for anything. All you have to do is click on one of the THREE LINKS TO THE DISCUSSION that I provided. Posting the diffs is pointless, as it's not immediately obvious from the the initial diff as to what I'm referring. The whole discussion needs to be read so instead, I posted a link to the actual conversation dealing with that matter, THREE TIMES. The discussion directly addresses the issue and is a far better guide as to what was made up. Only the most incompetent of editors would be unable to determine, from the actual conversation, what the issue was and, if they can't follow a simple conversation, they certainly would not be able to understand the diffs. Similarly, if they're unable to click on one of the three links that I've provided, they'd be unable to click on the link to the diffs. The Rambling Man knows what I'm talking about, as he is directly involved in the discussion, so I don't know why he needs to see the diffs yet again. However, to placate any editors unwilling to read all of the relevant discussion, and would rather just the cliff notes, here are the directly relevant diffs.[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] or [26]. Note that this came about after I simply responded to The Rambling Man's threats to undo all the edits that he'd made fixing the articles,[27] saying "Why would you undo the edits you've made? If you've made appropriate edits leave them".[28] There's a certain level of frustration in trying to deal rationally with somebody directly when they persist in responding to you in the third person,[29][30] especially when it's clear that they're speaking in the third person deliberately, even changing posts when they've "accidentally" reponded directly.[31][32] Who does he think he is, the Queen of England? --AussieLegend (talk) 10:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

No, the lie was that you said "I'm also surprised that AussieLegend continues to think that removing information from the various sub-articles would make a list better. ".[33] I responded saying "I've said nothing about removing information making the season articles better".[34] You then posted ":I finally found it. Your confirmation that removing information, introducing WP:MOS errors," (etc),[35] linking to a post of mine that, as I pointed out,[36] did not even come close to supporting your allegation because the first part was a response to matthewedwards about quotation marks and the second was all about how restoration of the custom tables made the episode list and season articles inconsistent. Nowhere did I say that "removing information from the various sub-articles would make a list better". You then made the peculiar statement "Hm? I don't remember talking to you about "quotation marks", perhaps you can show me the diff? ",[37] despite the diff that you posted clearly being a response to matthewedwards, not you. After pointing this out to you, by saying "the very first sentence of my first post starts with, in response to Matthewedwards, "Neither the 26 April or today's version of the article by Lemonade51 included quotation marks." (Emphasis added)",[38] you then responded with yet more made up rubbish, saying "Well then, we are where we are, with AussieLegend's acceptance that removing information and introducing errors in the various seasons lists, which resulted in the main list being reverted was in error",[39] despite me never having done anything of the sort. So there we have it, two outright lies,[40][41] and one post misrepresenting what happened in the {{Episode list}} discussions.[42] --AussieLegend (talk) 00:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

Comment by Goodraise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comment by Barsoomian

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

Comment by TRM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comments by AussieLegend

Written in user talk:George Ho:

I really didn't want to confuse the issue for The Rambling Man any further so I thought I'd bring this here. At the FLC discussion, there were concerns over bolding the episode titles, so I was going to change "|Title=" in the episode lists to "|AltTitle=" until the template was fixed. This was mainly because The Rambling Man didn't seem to want to wait for the template changes and was using non-compliance with MOS:BOLD as a reason not to use the template. However, when I looked at the versions of the article using the custom tables that were acceptable to those at the FLC,[43][44] none of the episode titles were inside quotes, so I decided to use "|RTitle=" instead, naturally assuming that's what was preferred. Matthewedwards then said the titles had to be in quotes,[45] and I explained why I hadn't done so here. This is the diff that The Rambling Man provided on the episode list's talk page. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

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

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

Comments by Andrewcrawford

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

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

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

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

Any other comments?

WP:TLDR everything except I happened to see Barsoomian's section. Transclusion is excellent for TV episodes. Complaints that it is unwieldy for newbies are resolved by enfolding. You might need to learn to use the "noinclude" tag for sections using bolding and to learn to go to the right article immediately without needing to hit the transclusion page, but that's all part of learning WP. If the episode is so gigantically significant that it takes many more than the average number of grafs to describe, that is an exception where maintaining and synching two pages (detailed and WP:SUMMARY) is appropriate; but it's the exception not the rule. Now back to your regularly scheduled broadcast. JJB 17:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
- While I'm sure that's useful, I'm not sure how it helps with the current dispute. But thanks for your input. Now back to your regularly scheduled broadcast. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:14, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't read much of the discussion above. It's not unreasonably long, I'm just not that interested in the technical or non-access MOS side of things. I'll give my opinion on transclusion, and it can be discarded if people consider it to be irrelevant.
Whether content is transcluded or not, an FLC reviewer should be satisfied that the MOS and ACCESS requirements that lists need to meet will continue to be met after a list becomes featured. Therefore, transclusion in itself is not an issue, provided there is clear consensus on how the transcluded content should be formatted, and that consensus coincides with FL standards. For the record, Giants2008 did the right thing in closing the FLC while this is being sorted out. My suggestion to those involved with the articles and list is to try and find a way to make transclusion work as a first resort, as I think it will be possible to transclude whilst complying with the MOS and ACCESS. If however this proves impossible, I would urge those in favour of transclusion to consider whether we absolutely must transclude. If, and only if, we get to a situation where complying with the MOS is impossible, yet some editors are adamant that the list must continue to transclude, further dispute resolution may be necessary. —WFC— 21:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Palestine is/is not a sovereign state

List of sovereign states in the 1980s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
List of sovereign states in the 1990s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
List of sovereign states in the 2000s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
List of sovereign states in the 2010s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
List of world map changes (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

Before the edit war, Palestine was included as a sovereign state. Basically, there are constant reversions of having it included or not.

[46] is one example by 99.237.236.218

[47] is one example by Spesh531

[48] is one example by Night w

[49] is one example by Strike

[50] is one example by Chipmunkdavis

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

User:Spesh531 (me) and User:99.237.236.218 have been in this dispute since February, and we were both blocked starting May 5, at around 3:00 UTC for edit warring.

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=Palestine is/is not a sovereign state}} --~~~~ 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?

No

How do you think we can help?

Hopefully we can try and put an end to this conflict, and stop the edit warring.

–Spesh531, My talk, and External links 20:51, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Palestine is/is not a sovereign state discussion

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

I suggest you check the Oslo Accords which the so-called "Palestinians" signed. They prove that so-called "Palestine" is NOT a sovereign nation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DionysosElysees (talk • contribs) 21:03, 7 May 2012 (UTC) Blocked sockpuppet.[reply]

Ok, before we go any further, we have an important announcement from our friends at the Arbitration Committee

As a result of an arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee has acknowledged long-term and persistent problems in the editing of articles related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, broadly understood. As a result, the Committee has enacted broad editing restrictions, described here and below.

Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process.
The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.
Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines.
Discretionary sanctions imposed under the provisions of this decision may be appealed to the imposing administrator, the appropriate administrators' noticeboard (currently WP:AE), or the Committee.

These editing restrictions may be applied to any editor for cause, provided the editor has been previously informed of the case. This message is to so inform you. This message does not necessarily mean that your current editing has been deemed a problem; this is a template message crafted to make it easier to notify any user who has edited the topic of the existence of these sanctions.

Generally, the next step, if an administrator feels your conduct on pages in this topic area is disruptive, would be a warning, to be followed by the imposition of sanctions (although in cases of serious disruption, the warning may be omitted). Hopefully no such action will be necessary.

This notice is only effective if given by an uninvolved administrator and logged here.

Now we have that out of the way, let's remember to stay civil here. Having taken a look at the page history I see potentially having to call in some members of Arbitration Enforcement if people don't behave themselves. Hasteur (talk) 22:55, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The reach of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on wikipedia is truly impressive. There was a previous conversation with the IP at Talk:List of world map changes#Palestine declares independence in 1988 started by Spesh but continued by the IP and myself, which I think counts as a form of previously attempted dispute resolution, and which can be read over. I made a revert/edit to one of the decade-specific articles complying with the edit summary as I received the ARBCOM warning, so I didn't see the warning till afterwards. I think the return to the status quo was the correct edit, BRD spirit and all that, but I'm happy to self-revert if that was a mistake. CMD (talk) 23:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As long as you acknowledge the receipt of the warning, I don't think it'll be a problem. Typically those notifications are for unrepentent warriors Hasteur (talk) 00:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are easy solution if WP:RS will be presented for the assertion.Then no one could object.
The source should state someone like this "Palestine is sovereign state from ..."--Shrike (talk) 04:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- For which assertion exactly? It's included there with qualifiers, sourced about the topic abound. The desire for such a specific and tailored source is untenable, I doubt that it exists for many entries on the list (or if they do exist, they'll be hard to find). CMD (talk) 13:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Assertion that Palestine is sovereign state.It doesn't required for other entries in the list because it is not contested per WP:CHALLENGE.--Shrike (talk) 14:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - To show that a claim is not original research, one requires reliable secondary sources explicitly supporting that claim. Shrike is asking for the reliable secondary sources indicating that "Palestine is a sovereign state". For example, one could use this paper by the International Development Research Centre as a source. Well, except that the paper actually says "Palestine is not a sovereign state" - but if it said the opposite, it would help your cause. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:35, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Thank you for that Jayjg - you made me laugh out loud. It is clear that Palestine is not a sovereign state. It is not a member nation of the UN and it does not meet all of the required characteristics of a sovereign state. There are tons of sources indicating that it is NOT a sovereign state. Here is another one, about the plans of the PA to "become" recognized as sovereign at the UN, which ultimately did not occur [51]. Nobody has brought any sources to indicate that Palestine is indeed sovereign, or that the symbolic declaration of 1988 resulted in any change in the world map (which would be cause for it to be listed in the List of world map changes article). Instead, editors with a certain POV have continued to put the information into the article without references and without providing any valid reasoning. I think Palestine should be removed from these articles for those reasons. 99.237.236.218 (talk) 01:00, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      - There are plenty of sources discussing whether Palestine is a state or not. This article focuses on it, looking at the different viewpoints, and shows clearly that there are different opinions on the matter. To follow just one seems to me to be a failure of NPOV. The definition of a sovereign state is complicated, so the black and white assertion the IP is making is dubious at best. This paper analyses what it means to be a sovereign state, and is a good read for anyone interested, concluding that a sovereign state is something that the international community says is a sovereign state (the paper also mentions Palestine in passing, as an entity recognised as a sovereign state even if it does not yet have full domestic sovereignty). CMD (talk) 01:25, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        CMD, if you take a look at the discussion above you'll see that nobody is arguing whether or not Palestine is a state. We are discussing whether or not Palestine is sovereign (and whether its 1988 declaration made a change to the world map). The first source you linked works against your view that Palestine is sovereign. From page 56: "Following the Montevideo convention, the sovereignty of a state should be declarative. Therefor, a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states are required." The source goes on in more detail to show that Palestine does not meet these four criteria. Again, none of the sources you have provided have definitively declared that Palestine is sovereign. Multiple sources have been provided that definitively state that Palestine is NOT sovereign. 99.237.236.218 (talk) 01:39, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Being a state is...being sovereign. It's implicit. I don't know what your'e trying to say there. Also, if you read the whole source rather than cherry picking certain parts of it, you'd realise that both sources note it's complicated. They don't work for or against either view (and what makes either of the views my view?). CMD (talk) 02:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        You expressed your view when you reverted in order to insert the unsourced content back into the articles. I'll repeat again what you seem to have missed... several sources have been brought explicitly stating that Palestine is not sovereign. None have been brought stating that Palestine is sovereign. Meanwhile, it is listed on Wikipedia in the above articles of "lists of sovereign states". There are similarly no sources showing that the 1988 declaration caused a change to the world map. I can easily bring sources showing current world maps that do not label Palestine based on the 1988 declaration. Palestine should be removed from all these articles based on WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:RS. 99.237.236.218 (talk) 02:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        
        CMD, there are all sorts of sources that indicate that a "state" need not be sovereign. For example, Alan James, in "A response to Kurtulus," Review of International Studies, Vol. 28 (2002), p. 799 writes "the characteristic which distinguishes a sovereign from a non-sovereign state is etc." In his 1986 book Sovereign Statehood: The Basis of International Society, he notes that even full membership in international organizations (such as the U.N.) does not necessarily imply sovereignty, giving Soviet Union-era Byelorussia and Ukraine as examples. In order to avoid WP:OR, you need to find sources that explicitly state "Palestine is sovereign". Please quote either source you have brought stating that explicitly. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        Jayjg, when we reach that point you describe above the debate is about authors splitting semantic hairs rather than an actual meaning. An author arguing that something is a state and yet not a sovereign state is using their own definitions for these words. Most sources use "state" as a convenient shorthand for "sovereign state" (with the other option being a federal state, such as Texas, Queensland, or Bavaria, a difference established by the context of the writing). This is, at any rate, irrelevant to this discussion, as none of the sources shown by anyone use this sort of difference.
        
        As for bringing an explicit source, I don't think any reasonable writer worth their salt is going to be so blindingly explicit on such a complex topic, and I would be very wary of citing anyone who did. Just like the sources, we are also not being blindingly explicit in our articles; we include Palestine with a description of its caveats. Explicit statements are for politicians, like an Iranian politician saying "We support the Palestinian cause but Palestine is a sovereign state with a sovereign government and Iran should in no way interfere in their affairs." It's not OR to not directly quote from the source. Quite a number of states have granted full recognition to Palestine, the idea has even more diplomatic weight than the idea that Taiwan is a state does. CMD (talk) 15:31, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Another source that explicitly explains why Palestine is not sovereign. [52] 99.237.236.218 (talk) 01:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - - Please note that this topic is also being discussed on an admin's talk page here [53]. The admin gave his explanation there that no sources have been provided to show Palestine is sovereign, and that only WP:OR is being used to justify it so far. Also another uninvolved editor said he thinks it is not sovereign. 99.237.236.218 (talk) 15:39, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Questions: I would like to see citations to reliable sources that answer the following questions:

Does the government of the west bank portion or the government of the Gaza Strip portion of Palestine claim that Palestine is a Sovereign State? Do they claim that it isn't (probably in the context of saying that it should be)? You can use any of the definitions at Definitions of Palestine to answer this.

Do any of the nations that border Palestine (IIRC, that would be (in alphabetical order) Egypt, Israel, and Jordan), say that Palestine is or isn't a Sovereign State?

Same question for all nations. Hopefully a RS has made a list. International recognition of the State of Palestine is helpful, but a lot of those countries appear to hold that position that Palestine is an occupied state, which according to Sovereignty precludes being a sovereign state. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:01, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It was the PLO (who govern the West Bank, but not Gaza) that declared independence in 1988 and pushed for recognition in 2011. They published a copy of this declaration along with a map of countries that recognise the Palestinian state in the run up to the UN bid here, which includes Egypt and Jordan. This was published in July 2011, so won't include states that recognised after that point.

I don't know if Hamas (control of Gaza) notes Palestine as a state. They believe that Israel shouldn't exist and Palestine should include all of Israel as well, but as for whether its currently a state I bet they're rather ambivalent. This article says that Hamas "would not stand in the way of President Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah party" and "support establishing a Palestinian state on any part of Palestinian land without giving up an inch of Palestine or recognizing Israel", which was in response to the PLO's UN bid, which shows they want a different state than the one espoused by Abbas, but leaves no comment on his state (the article also gives a more detailed explanation of Hamas' views than my quick summary).

Our sovereignty article notes that "sovereignty may be recognized even when the sovereign body possesses no territory or its territory is under partial or total occupation by another power." It's unsourced, but I suppose Somalia is a case in point there. CMD (talk) 17:41, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

CMD, you continue to miss the point. Even if this unsourced statement in another Wikipedia article is true (and I dispute it), it is not up to us as Wikipedia editors to decide whether or not to recognize anything as sovereign. That is WP:OR. So even if Palestine "may be recognized" as sovereign under current circumstances, the only thing we care about is IF IT IS sovereign. Do you have any WP:RS or not? 99.237.236.218 (talk) 19:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

CMD not only missed the point, he ignored the question I asked and instead answered a completely different question that nobody asked. I didn't ask whether Palestine is a state. Nobody here disputes that. I asked whether it is a sovereign state. Please read Sovereign state. I am pretty sure that every entity that CMD lists says that Palestine is a state, but not a sovereign state. I am pretty sure that they all say that Palestine is an occupied state. If it is occupied, it isn't sovereign. If it is sovereign, it isn't occupied. ---Guy Macon (talk) 00:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I answered what I could IP, only mentioning that article because Guy Macon mentioned it, and in conflicts with what they said. As for Guy Macon, you asked multiple questions, I ignored none. Please show me the definition of state Palestine fits under, and sources saying that states once occupied for some reason must therefore cease to by sovereign states in the eyes of the international community. (If they did, Afghanistan would have ceased to be a sovereign state a decade ago.) CMD (talk) 01:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"In the study of International Relations, few concepts cause more confusion than sovereignty." Thus begins Alan James, "Sovereignty: Ground Rule or Gibberish?", Review of International Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Jan., 1984), pp. 1-18. [54]. He's not talking about confusion among ordinary folk either, but among legal experts, international organizations and the states themselves. He proves this confusion quite thoroughly, it seems. Zero^talk 04:17, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When the PNC declared the State of Palestine as a sovereign state, there became one viewpoint that it is a sovereign state. By the end of the '80s, it was recognised by almost 100 states. That's almost 100 more similar views. A few recent statements that were made in English:

"At present more than 114 countries have ... established diplomatic relations with the sovereign State of Palestine" — Prime Minister Julius Chan, 4 October 1994
"Guyana has today decided to formally recognize the State of Palestine as a free, independent, and sovereign state" — Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guyana (13 January 2011)
"Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has today decided to formally recognize the State of Palestine as a free, independent and sovereign State" — Permanent Representative of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to the United Nations (29 August 2011)
"Belize has decided to formally recognize Palestine as a sovereign and independent State" — Government of Belize (9 September 2011)
"Iceland has, as of 15 December 2011, recognized Palestine as an independent and sovereign state" Ministry for Foreign Affairs (15 December 2011)

I could go all day with those. If a state is recognised as a state by one other state then it is a state as far as one perspective is concerned.

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.

There have been dozens of lengthy discussions and mediations on disputed states and the outcome is always the same. Our long-standing criteria on the list of sovereign states is that we represent all viewpoints proportionately. A three-year mediation determined that criteria would stay, and that's why I reverted—because that is the consensus. Unless consensus chages, there is absolutely no reason to ignore those viewpoints. We don't ignore the 82% of states that recognise the State of Israel, we don't ignore the 68% of states that recognise the State of Palestine, and we don't ignore the >1% of states that recognise South Ossetia. They're significant viewpoints, but we present them all in accordance with WP:WEIGHT.

I should note that the right of legation—to establish diplomatic relations—only comes with sovereignty. A state cannot accord an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to a non-sovereign polity. What constitutes "sovereignty" is up to the government according recognition to decide, not us. Albania was recognised as a sovereign state by the international community at the London Conference of 1912-1913, at a time when it didn't have a government—there was no government until 1920.

That is what we are listing on these pages. Whether a state is occupied, is a puppet state, or just doesn't control any territory at all—as long as there is a notable viewpoint that it is a sovereign state, it is listed and remarks are made appropriately. Nightw 05:15, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I think the above is a very good answer that addresses all of my questions, and I strongly support the Wikipedia policies cited. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:29, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Without wishing to get involved in the dispute about the oPt, I would just like to make the observation that Western Sahara in the form of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is included in all 5 of the articles listed at the top of this section. This could confuse a stupid person, like me for example. It's virtually impossible to even get into Western Sahara to do anything without having to deal with the occupying power, Morocco. It strikes me as being even less of a sovereign state than the oPt, and yet there it is in the lists, for better or worse, hard to tell, but these kind of inconsistencies probably aren't helping. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:49, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a long wall down the Western Sahara, and the Sahrawi Republic controls the small arid eastern part of it. Morocco of course exerts full control over the majority of the WS, which is west of the wall. CMD (talk) 01:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but to clarify, I think the important point when it comes to assessing whether consistent inclusion criteria are being used for the Wikipedia articles is that the "Sahrawi Republic" is all of Western Sahara as far as the Polisario Front and all of the states that recognize it are concerned. It isn't just the free zone, it's Western Sahara, and it isn't possible to state as a simple fact that it is a sovereign state. I think from the article inclusion criteria perspective it's rather similar to the Palestinian territories. My concern is that the decision procedures used in articles like these are inconsistent simply because it is far easier to deal with content related to Western Sahara than content related to Palestine. I don't have an opinion about whether these articles should include or exclude states that don't qualify as sovereign states according to many and the way to decide whether something qualifies for inclusion appears to have already been made, but all of the cases obviously need to be treated consistently even when they contain the word Palestine. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One source of confusion is that the criteria for the List of sovereign states Wikipedia article (which I fully agree with based upon Nightw's comments above) appears to conflict with the definition in the Sovereign state Wikipedia article. Another source of confusion is the tendency for some individuals to hear a question like "is X a sovereign state" and to respond with citations that call X a state, an independent state, a recognized state, or some other variation other than sovereign state. This requires me to decide whether those are the same thing. The criteria for the list of sovereign states relies on reliable sources calling it a sovereign state, not some other variation. That makes the WP:V question much easier to answer. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I prefer simple policy compliance tests too. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree and I guess I am starting to sound like a broken record but the only way for Wikipedia to state that Palestine is sovereign is with WP:RS stating that Palestine is sovereign. There has been a whole lot of explaining and justifying here (and the majority of it hasn't even been about sovereignty, rather simply statehood which is irrelevant to this discussion). For the purposes of Wikipedia, that is all WP:OR at worst and WP:SYNTH at best to use as reasoning to call Palestine sovereign. What is the process here? Multiple editors have called on those supporting the claim to bring WP:RS stating that Palestine is sovereign, but none of them have done so. How long do we keep asking for them to bring the sources until we conclude that there simply are no sources and remove the claim? 99.237.236.218 (talk) 18:19, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of sovereign states#Palestine appears to have citations to reliable sources for every claim made there, and it also appears to conform to List of sovereign states#Criteria for inclusion. You are, of course welcome to go to Talk:List of sovereign states if you believe any of the claims are unsourced or if you believe that the criteria for inclusion should be changed, but it looks like a lot of thought and went into each, so your argument would have to be compelling. This is a topic where emotions run high, but it really does look like List of sovereign states is doing it right. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:26, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Douglas Murray (author)

Douglas Murray (author) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

There is a dispute between me and Jprw as to whether mention should be made of a Daily Telegraph blog post made by Murray inviting his readers to submit anti-Irish jokes in protest at a local politician being repremanded for telling such jokes in a meeting. Murray's blog posting drew considerable attention in Ireland and there was widespread newspaper and broadcast media coverage of the incident. Jprw's argument for removing the references to the incident was that the incident was minor in character and was not significant.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Donoreavenue (talk · contribs)
Jprw (talk · contribs)

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

Discussed on the article talk page and on Jprw's talk page.

How do you think we can help?

Adjudicate as to whether the reference to his promotion of anti-Irish jokes should be included in the article or not.

Donoreavenue (talk) 11:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Douglas_Murray_(author) discussion

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

Note: I am discussing this with both parties on the article talk page. I will report here if we are able to reach a consensus. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please cancel this while we discuss this further on the article talk page. I will refile later if needed. Donoreavenue (talk) 22:55, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

NGO Monitor

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

Dispute overview

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

BothHandsBlack (talk) 15:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

NGO Monitor discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and you said you would prefer the text to say:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Itsachat

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.

Itsachat (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

We have a chat room site we launched in July of 2007. We noticed our competitor chat sites have a wikipedia pages. Sites like wireclub which launched same time we did, and is of the exact same kind of site as ours. We would like to create an itsachat article like you have allowed our competitors to do.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Auxiv (talk · contribs)
Bwilkins (talk · contribs)

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

Not yet.

N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Itsachat}} --~~~~ 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?

allow us to create our page on wikipedia like you allow our competitors

Auxiv (talk) 17:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Itsachat 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.

Thomas Sowell

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

Dispute overview

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

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

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

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

(Removal of Media Matters)

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

Chris Chittleborough

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

PokeHomsar

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

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

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

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=Thomas Sowell}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

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

This was also discussed elsewhere:

How do you think we can help?

Resolving whether or not:

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

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

Thomas Sowell discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(diff)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

École nationale de l'aviation civile

École nationale de l'aviation civile (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

The directors section of the article contains their biographies. If think that having full biographies in the middle of an article about a school is completely off-topic and that the information should be moved in separate biographical articles if those people are notable or just removed if their are not. The IP disagrees and think the biographies should stay. As a side note, we have the exact same issue on the French version of this article and have reached the same impasse.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

McSly (talk · contribs)
80.13.85.217 (talk · contribs)

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

Yes

N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=École nationale de l'aviation civile}} --~~~~ 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?

After a couple of deletions/reverts, I started a discussion on the talk page explaining my rational in more details [55]. The discussion (full link here) is not getting anywhere.

How do you think we can help?

We've reached an impasse and other opinions are needed. Essentially, am I wrong in thinking that those bios don't belong in the middle of this article? And while I personally don't think that any of those people are actually notable, why is the IP so oppose with moving the info in separate articles.

McSly (talk) 14:55, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

École nationale de l'aviation civile discussion

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

Hi. I don't want to spend too much time on this discussion but I would like to inform about few things:

I am not the only one who disagree with McSly. 78.239.175.7 reverted two times by explaining that this page is translated from the French Wikipedia which is a good article and by explained that this is translated from the French Wiki.
McSly received a complete answer from the mentioned user on the French Wikipedia and on his French talk page and stop trying to remove the Biography on the French Wiki (He tries to obtain on the English Wiki what he is unable to obtain on the French Wiki).
McSly was pushing a lot on my French talk page.
McSly didn't participate on the obtention of the good article and even on the writing of the article on both French and English Wikipedia.
These are not complete Biographies. After reading the French Wikipedia, these short biographies has been add after a discussion and approved with the good article.
This is completely in accordance with the subject of the article and moreover, a dedicated part is available (called "Director History"). This explain clearly from where come the directors of the university, their background, career...very usefull.
One more user, 90.84.146.194, also reverted from the same reason and was less patient by considering that this is clearly vandalism and put a warning on the McSly talk page. McSly removed the warning.

80.13.85.217 (talk) 15:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Biographies in the body of the school article are not more relevant than having aircraft description in the middle of the description for Boeing. They are a separate unit simply linked from the main one. Incidentally, this is why Wikipedia is not one huge article containing the sum of all knowledge but a collection of 4 million articles connected through links. About "Director History", this could perfectly be merged with the "Notable Alumni" section the same way we have with Yale University for example and link whatever director is notable enough to have their own article from there.--McSly (talk) 17:53, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am a regular mediator/clerk here at this noticeboard. While my time is limited and I do not care to get into the merits of whether or not these biographies ought to be included or excluded from the article, I do want to say that what may have happened or not happened at the French Wikipedia is wholly irrelevant to what happens here. The rules, the manner in which the rules are applied, and the sense of the respective communities about what is or is not encyclopedic vary considerably between the different-language Wikipedias. What McSly is doing does not, moreover, approach vandalism in any sense at English Wikipedia and to continue to assert that it does is itself inappropriate. Moreover, the fact that McSly had not participated in writing the article is also irrelevant here at the English Wikipedia; any editor in good standing is free to edit any article at any time and, indeed, to make the claim that only the editors who wrote an article can edit may be considered an improper claim of ownership. The question of whether the biographies are or are not appropriate must, now that it has been raised by an editor, be decided by the consensus of the English Wikipedia community. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC) PS: At the same time, it would be well if McSly could provide some reference or support for his statement at the article page that, "If the person is notable, we create a separate biography article and simply link it from here. If the person is not notable, well in that case, there is no reason to include the information." I am not aware of any such policy or guideline, but I'm not even close to being an expert on biographical matters and could easily simply be that: unaware. If there is no such policy or guideline, however, the fact that that may be what's commonly done here at EN_WIKI does not mean that it has to be done uniformly that way here. TM — 18:37, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback. I think I can cite the policy on notability, and more specifically the section concerning the list of people. It says that "[..]articles about schools often include (or link to) a list of notable alumni, but such lists are not intended to contain every graduate of the school—only those with verifiable notability. Editors who would like to be identified as an alumnus/alumna should instead use the categories intended for this purpose, e.g. Category:Wikipedians by alma mater." Furthermore the policy for stand-alone list states that "If a person in a list does not have an article in Wikipedia about them, a citation (or link to another article) must be provided to establish their membership in the list's group and to establish their notability[..]" There is even a special case for the school presidents (from list of people): "on the other hand, a list within an article of past school presidents can contain all past presidents, not just those who are independently notable."

I think the intent here is clear to list the people names and link to their article when such article exists or just provide a cite to justify inclusion on the list. No additional biographical information should be included in the main article. --McSly (talk) 14:21, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are we good? No other remarks? -McSly (talk) 02:54, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We need some more information from other users. For the moment, we have only one answer from TransporterMan (thanks for your help) who says : " I do not care to get into the merits of whether or not these biographies ought to be included or excluded from the article". Unfortunately, that is not enough to take a decision. 80.13.85.217 (talk) 07:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, he also said in no uncertain terms that the rational you provided to revert my changes to the article was completely invalid. My reasons on the other end are based on policies. Therefore, and regardless of other editors' opinions, what needs to happen now is for you to clearly state your rational to reverting my edits. Once we have it, we can discuss on the merits of each. But if you cannot provide a reason for your changes, essentially, we are done.--McSly (talk) 17:15, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment, my position is clear. We have no other opinion about deleting the small biographies from the article. I have no opposition to delete and to create separe articles (only on the English WP, on the French article it is totally different) but we need some more opinions. As we don't have any other reply, for me we stay like that for the moment, which is a good compromise. 80.13.85.217 (talk) 17:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, let me get this straight. 1) you just admitted that you had no rational whatsoever to explain or justify your revert to my changes 2) your only strategy here is that you really, really hope that other editors will join and agree with you even after being incapable of providing a single reason on why your version should stay 3) As a "compromise", we should all accept that your version which is against policy and containing off-topic information should stay.

Short answer, ain't gonna happen. Long answer, I'm actually going to follow part of what you just hinted at. I'm going to remove the off-topic info from the article and create the red links from the directors' list. You are more than welcome, really, you are more than welcome to then create each individual biographical article and copy there whatever information you deem fit.--McSly (talk) 18:14, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised that you are so pushing. A discussion is still in progress, so the minimum is to wait for answers. I will think about reverting your deletion because it is really unacceptable to go so fast without waiting for reply from other contributors. What you could also do to be elegant, is you create the articles before deleting. But I am so surprised that you go so fast, not letting the time to others to answer...80.13.85.217 (talk) 18:24, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1) the change that I made was proposed by you, so not sure how you can be surprised. 2) I have no intention to create the articles because I don't think any of those people is even remotely notable 3) I suspect that also know that which is why you don't create the articles yourself whereas you have no problem creating them for other people and thus keeping the biographies in the middle of the article is a way to go around notability polices. 4) Since you have been failing to provide a single reason to keep the information while I provided specific policies on why it shouldn't continuing to stall the discussion like you've been doing for the past 2 weeks will buy you a few more days I'm sure. But it is unlikely to change the final outcome.--McSly (talk) 19:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep cool, we are a community. As I already said, if some other contributors agree to delete the small biographies, we will do that. If not, we keep like that. But it is not to you or me to decide, it is all together. For me, the small biographies are suitable with the article, for you not. We wait a little bit, and wait for other reply. As we have other opinions, we will take a decision all together. 80.13.85.217 (talk) 19:32, 13 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Propaganda model

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

Dispute overview

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

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

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

(diff)

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

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

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

Asking why the content was removed

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

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

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

Asserting evidence by the authors counts as bias

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

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

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

Random hostility

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

(diff)

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

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

Propaganda model discussion

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

The issue is whether to include some sourced criticism or not: [56]. CartoonDiablo, a self-described "fan of Noam Chomsky" [57], wants to almost completely exclude it. As reasons he has given reasons such that he personally thinks the criticisms are incorrect or "minor points" or are supposedly contradicted by the authors of the model somewhere in their books without giving any verifiable source with page numbers for these claims. Arguably none of these are valid reasons for removing sourced criticisms. The other main reason given is that the material is too long which is a strange reason when most the rest of the article contains extensive pro-model arguments. This claim becomes absurd when after only keeping a small straw-man paragraph of the original criticism he added a longer pro-model paragraph making the article bias and amount of pro-material ever greater.[58] More generally, see the talk page discussion: [59]. He has also removed a disputed template despite there being an ongoing dispute: [60]. Finally, he has not responded to my proposal to move the disputed material to The Anti-Chomsky Reader article while only keeping a small link in the Propaganda Model article.[61] Academica Orientalis (talk) 05:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Osteopathic Medicine in the United States

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

Dispute overview

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

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

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

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

Osteopathic Medicine in the United States discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next step in the dispute resolution would be an attempt by me to resolve the dispute here [62], and your (hostile) response here [63]. Bryan Hopping ^T 15:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

Seamus incident

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

Dispute overview

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

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

Seamus incident discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The problem I have with the above is that it is not consistent with NPOV to include an attack on Romney that even Romney agreed had hurt him, yet simultaneously say that the counterattack that actually succeeded in diffusing the original issue is "not notable." Additionally, I have got to say I can't agree with your claim that "nothing has changed in the last two weeks" with regard to notability in light of this: ^[1] William Jockusch (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the dinner and the date of the discussion. I accept your explanation. I will note that you said two weeks, and I was responding to that specifically. About your five factors. (1) Lasting effect. The lasting effect of the dog-eating has been to diffuse the Seamus issue for Romney. Before it was a straight attack on Romney. Now it is double-edged. Obviously the duration has not yet been as long, but then again it hasn't had the chance yet. (2) Geographic scope. I disagree with your assertion that this has not made the foreign press. ^[2]^[3]^[4] Additionally, there has been plenty of coverage on CNN, which has worldwide reach. About the interviews. Romney makes himself available to left-leaning reporters like Diane Sawyer more often than Obama does the reverse. I could be wrong, but I believe the last time Obama made himself available at a right-wing outfit was his Super Bowl 2011 interview with Bill O'Reilly. So Romney has made himself more available to hostile press than Obama has. And there are indicators of interest other than the ones you mentioned. Such as Twitter, where Obama eating dogs was all over the place. (3) Depth of coverage. Dog-eating made the national news on CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS, and even MSNBC where David Axelrod did his best to downplay it. The Daily Beast -- not exactly a conservative site -- called it "meme of the week." About the super PACs. Consider this: ^[5] That makes it clear that Dogs Against Romney is more about the "against Romney" than the "dogs". Books. Dog-eating was mentioned in "dreams from my father," which sold millions of copies. It sat there, unnoticed, until it exploded in April. One month is not enough lead time for it to make more books. Duration of coverage. Well it hasn't really had the chance yet. About expanding the subject. The anti-Romney side had no problems expanding the subject with Axelrod's tweet. It was taken out only when I brought up that it wasn't fair to include Axelrod's subject-expanding tweet but not Treacher's subject-expanding tweet. So it appears to me that the "don't expand the subject" criterion is being applied selectively. About Chewbacca. I don't care if the dog eating is covered in the same article or a different prominent article. But in light of the prior willingness (AFAIK uncontroversial) to expand the subject by including David Axelrod's tweet about how Obama treats dogs, it seems strange to object to expand the subject to Treacher's tweet about how Obama treats dogs. Expanding the subject should either be fair game or not. But if it's done selectively, as appears to be the case here, I call foul.William Jockusch (talk) 07:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

VGMaps

VGMaps (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

Myself and Deltasim appear to not be able to reach consensus on edits on VGMaps page.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

ArtimusSlayer (talk · contribs)
Deltasim (talk · contribs)

Appears unwilling to discuss and reach consensus on the talk page and continually reverts my edits. Deltasim is an active user on VGMaps.com as well.

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

Polite discussion of the edits on the talk page, Deltasim was also warned about editing wars and subsequently reported for violation of 3RR after the behavior continued.

How do you think we can help?

It would be great to cease the edit war and if my edits could be restored and discussed politely on the talk page so consensus can be reached. Additional opinions would also likely be helpful.

ArtimusSlayer (talk) 14:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

VGMaps discussion

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

Just why should "Your" edits in particular be restored? I have reason to believe that the information you edit in the article is more against VGMaps than an attempt to get the facts straight. I would suggest that a more professional editor take matters into deciding what content goes and stays. Deltasim (talk) 14:22, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My edits should be restored out of respect for a fellow editor. If you disagree with them, we should politely discuss on the articles talk page and try to reach consensus. ArtimusSlayer (talk) 14:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Saint Thomas Christians

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

Dispute overview

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

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

Not yet.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

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

Saint Thomas Christians discussion

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

Ahmad Shah Massoud

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

Dispute overview

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

Disagreement over an edit that attempted to reduce an overlong quotefarm to a brief summary [64]. In particular, the question is whether the statement at the beginning of the second paragraph involved, A 2005 report by Afghanistan Justice Project [...] describes him [i.e. Massoud] as indirectly responsible for an ethnically motivated massacre and mass rape committed by his forces on taking the suburb of Afshar in February 1993, arguing that he and his subcommanders failed to prevent atrocities that they could have foreseen is a fair summary of this source, p.82f.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

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

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

Yes.

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ahmad Shah Massoud discussion

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

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

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

I suggest to

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

What the source says about point 1 (complete list)

"The forces that launched the [Afshar operation] all formally belonged to the ministry of defense of the ISA. The minister of defense and de facto commander-in-chief of the ISA at the time of the Afshar operation was Ahmad Shah Massoud. He had overall responsibility for planning and command of military operations. He directly controlled the Jamiat-i Islami units and indirectly controlled the Ittihad-i Islami units."

"Ittihad forces played a major role in the assault [Afshar operation], working directly under Sayyaf and receiving pay from him. The Ittihad forces were not fully absorbed into the ministry of defense [of Massoud], but were operating in coordination with it."

"Although the Ittihad units had been given Afghan Army formation numbers, commanders in the field took their orders from senior Ittihad commanders and Sayyaf himself. Sayyaf acted as the de facto general commander of Ittihad forces during the operation"

"Rape by Ittihad forces"

"During the Afshar operation, Sayyaf’s Ittihad-i Islami forces used rape and other assaults on civilians to drive the civilian population from the area. The Afghanistan Justice Project interviewed many witnesses who described incidents of rape by Ittihad forces during the Afshar operation. Witness M. (see statement above) was injured in the hand and leg when Ittihad soldiers ... The Ittihad troops ... Witness Sh. stated that after capturing Afshar, Ittehad-i Islami troops ..."

"Summary executions" "Witnesses interviewed by the Afghanistan Justice Project stated that a group of Hizb-i Wahdat soldiers was taken prisoner from Wahdat headquarters at the Social Science Institute by Ittihad-i Islami forces on February 11. In addition to these, a large number of civilian men and suspected Wahdat militants were arrested from the Afshar area after Ittihad captured it. The number taken is not known. One group of Hazara prisoners held by Ittihad-i Islami was subsequently used by the Ittihad commanders to undertake burial of the dead from the Afshar operation, after one week. This group of witnesses has reported that their relatives were among the civilian and military prisoners taken by Ittihad who subsequently disappeared and are believed to have been summarily executed by Ittihad forces. The Afghanistan Justice Project has been able to obtain only a few of the names of the victims. Some other men were taken from their homes. Witness A told the Afghanistan Justice Project ... armed men – who were from Sayyaf and from Jamiat – were looting all the houses. Sayyaf’s people spoke Pushto; Jamiat spoke Dari. I sent my family to another place and I stayed at the house. At about 11:00 a.m. a commander named Izatullah (from Ittihad) came to the house ... Witness B told the Afghanistan Justice Project that Ittihad-i Islami troops had beaten her and arrested her unarmed husband ... Witness C told the Afghanistan Justice Project that the soldiers searched the houses looking for men. “I was taken to Paghman. [base of Ittihad] ... Witness M. told the Afghanistan Justice Project that at 7:.00 in the morning, when Ittihad-i Islami captured Afshar, a group of armed men entered her residential compound, and detained S., her husband. ... After he was detained, a second group of 10-15 Ittihad soldiers came to the house between ... Witness K, 75 years old, stated that troops affiliated to Sayyaf abducted him from Sar-i Jui ... The Ittihad troops then took him to Company (a Sayyaf-controlled area) on that day and held him there for two months. The commander who captured him was Ghulam Rasool, affiliated to Sayyaf. ... Witness G was briefly arrested and beaten unconscious by Ittehad troops ... Abdullah Khan, of Ghazni Province, 67 years old, was arrested from Afshar by Commander Aziz Banjar, a Sayyaf commander. The rest of the family had fled to Taimani during the main military operation. ... Witness Sh. told the Afghanistan Justice Project that when Ittihad forces entered her house ..."

What the source says about point 2 (complete list)

"Both Massoud, together with his senior commanders, and Sayyaf failed to take effective measures to prevent abuses before the operation commenced, or to stop them once the operation was underway."

"Massoud convened a meeting in the Hotel Intercontinental which, belatedly, discussed arrangements for security in the newly captured areas. ... The meeting ordered a halt to the massacre and looting ..."

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

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

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

Historical context and testimony by John Jennings (Associated Press, The Economist) who was personally present in Afshar (during the operation itself) and in Kabul (1991-1994) as an observer (John Jennings, in "Massoud" by Marcela Grad, Webster University Press, p. 179):

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

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

Walter Mignolo

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

Dispute overview

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

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

Walter Mignolo discussion

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

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

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

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

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

British Pakistanis

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

Dispute overview

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

what is disputed is the content added by User:AnkhMorpork and User:Shrike here, [65]. the content implies that pedophilia is connected with ethnic background and thus violates npov. there are several pages about racial groups on wikipedia and none of them contain such content. as another user noted; "belgium page does not feature a subsection on the innate pedophilia of belgians". many europeans are involved in the disgusting thai sex trade but there is no subsection about this on the europeans-page either. and so on and so forth.

the sources used by ankmorpork and shrike are also questionable.

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

i suspect that user shrike and ankmorpork are tag-teaming. see the discussion here, [66]

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

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

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

British Pakistanis discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have no wish to get into a dispute with individuals which involves nit-picking over individual sources. This disgusting bit of POV-pushing is clearly an attack on British people of Pakistani descent as a whole (many of whome are third or even fourth-generation British citizens, and may not self identify as 'British Pakistanis' at all - this is largely an external definition, rather than a self-assigned one), based on cherry-picking of sources. As such it can only be motivated by political point-scoring, Islmaophobia, or outright racism, and has no place in Wikipedia. That the disputed section cites the opinions of Erick Stakelbeck, an American Right-wing commentator who recently openly asserted his support for the neo-Fascist English Defence League [67] is clear enough indication to me that those supporting the inclusion of the section need to seriously consider their fitness for a project which is intended to serve the interests of all, rather than pushing agendas in support of some faction or another. This is neither Stormfront nor Conservapedia, and we don't need this sort of shit here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baisically we all know the fact is Muslim gangs are raping white girls and the government dos not want to make it public coz we dont want to hurt your feelings AnkhMorpork is correct this is a big thing for the pakis in particular we need a big section about pakistani rappers on the british paki page and people are now waiting for BNP to come on and rid us of the filthNordichammer (talk) 09: 16, 15 May 2012 (UTC) regards Bailey

Yugoslav Wars, Template:Infobox Kosovo War

Yugoslav Wars (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)Template:Infobox Kosovo War (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

On the talk page, it was concluded that Kosovo War can be considered part of the Yugoslav Wars. User 68.202.26.86 keeps deleting it from the article. There was a dispute in the infobox for the Kosovo War - victory was disputed - but that seems to be resolved, at least for now.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

68.202.26.86 (talk · contribs)
Justice and Arbitration (talk · contribs)

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

Not yet.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

How do you think we can help?

intervene to stop further edit wars and decide about the final version of the articles.

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

Yugoslav Wars, Template:Infobox Kosovo War discussion

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

Editing Association of Professional Futurists stub

Editing Association of Professional Futurists stub (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

A stub was added by a 3rd party and was not up to scratch. Members of our organisation discussed the need to greatly improve the item and began making changes to it to take it from its advertorial tone to one more independently grounded and of greater community value. Editor removed recent additions stripping it back to its stub stage. Have requested on three occasions for those edits to be reverted so that the subject matter experts might be able to enhance it. Have requested a comprise of a fortnight for that to happen; have appealed to the good faith provisions. Editor has responded with what could generously be called 'immaturity'

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Jeraphine Gryphon (talk · contribs)
Marcus Barber (talk · contribs)

See talk on the page

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

Not yet.

N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Editing Association of Professional Futurists stub}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

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

As per talk on the page, you can see I have made a number of requests to resolve the current situation

How do you think we can help?

I'm asking for someone independent to grant us the time to make changes to the age such that it would then be up to standard. I am asking for the original edits I and others had added to be reverted so that we have a structure that takes the page to something of greater value and of greater accuracy than what sits there now

MarcusBarber (talk) 02:57, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Editing Association of Professional Futurists stub discussion

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

I will assume you are referring to Talk:Association_of_Professional_Futurists#_. There, I ask "Who is the editor in question? Which 3 requests? Where was the page protected?". Looking at the article's history, a couple of low edit count editors have edited the article. Are you referring to these editors as the "3 requests (including yourself)"? And are these editors affiliated with the organization?Curb Chain (talk) 04:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The main dispute is on User talk:Jeraphine Gryphon. If User:MarcusBarber wants to add material to the page, he can, but if the dispute is about the material that User:Jeraphine Gryphon removed after you, User:MarcusBarber, added, then you have to discuss the additions. As such, it seems unnecessary to have such a dispute for something that hasn't been discussed.Curb Chain (talk) 17:48, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adam Dunn reverts

Dispute overview

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

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

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

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

How do you think we can help?

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

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

Adam Dunn reverts discussion

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

[1] ttp://www.theblaze.com/stories/president-obama-opened-correspondents-dinner-with-a-toilet-flush-really/

[2] ttp://www.smh.com.au/world/dogeatdog-world-of-us-politics-still-has-a-bone-to-pick-about-seamus-20120422-1xf7k.html

[3] ttp://www.smh.com.au/world/dogeatdog-world-of-us-politics-still-has-a-bone-to-pick-about-seamus-20120422-1xf7k.html

[4] ttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131771/Obama-mocked-eating-dog-meat-Romney-criticism-strapping-dog-car-roof.html

[5] ttp://www.mediaite.com/online/dogs-against-romney-defends-obama-over-dog-consumption-revelations/"

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

@@ Line 2,021: / Line 2,021: @@
 OK. I realise that I should have written something more. People, I don't think I've seen [[Godwin's law]] make itself felt so quickly ever before. Seriously, AnkhMorpork and Shrike, do you really, really, honestly believe that the use of crazy sources (Stakelbeck) has anything to do with Wikipedia's goals, and that the contemporary issues concerning the British Pakistani minority are 1) terrorism, 2) discrimination and 3) pedophilia? If you take special interest in the contemporary issues of the British Pakistani community, why don't you make some edits that actually explain these issues in proportion to their prevalence and/or relation to the 1.2 million people community using some real sources? I've read the article that AnkhMorpork has written about the case (or rather the perpetrators), and as it is subject of an edit war along the lines that sparked the call for this dispute resolution, I can't advice mentioning the case in the British Pakistani article at all. I'll edit my earlier comment to make that quite clear. Best regards, --[[User:benjamil|benjamil]] ([[User talk:benjamil|talk]]) 22:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
-Baisically we all know the fact is Muslim gangs are raping white girls and the government dos not want to make it public coz we dont want to hurt your feelings AnkhMorpork is correct this is a big thing for the pakis in particular we need  a big section about pakistani rappers on the british paki page and people are now waiting for BNP to come on and rid us of the filth[[User:Nordichammer|Nordichammer]] ([[User talk:Nordichammer|talk]]) 09:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC) regards Bailey
+;Baisically we all know the fact is Muslim gangs are raping white girls and the government dos not want to make it public coz we dont want to hurt your feelings AnkhMorpork is correct this is a big thing for the pakis in particular we need  a big section about pakistani rappers on the british paki page and people are now waiting for BNP to come on and rid us of the filth[[User:Nordichammer|Nordichammer]] ([[User talk:Nordichammer|talk]]) 09:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC) regards Bailey
 ==Yugoslav Wars, Template:Infobox Kosovo War==

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