Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology/Evidence

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Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

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Question for James Cantor

In your evidence about Jokestress, you list "[40][41][42][43] Sustained/repeated counter-consensus additions of homosexuality to List of paraphilias to use page 'to teach Cantor a lesson' in what it's like to be classified as paraphilic (Cantor is openly gay) (2008, 2010, 2012).[44][45][46]"

Did Jokestress ever explicitly say her motivations for adding homosexuality to List of paraphilias was to teach you and other non-heterosexual people a "lesson", or is that something you inferred from other things you said? I haven't looked into it too much yet; I just did a basic Control+F through the links, but that's something that jumped out at me. NW (Talk) 19:58, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

You are correct; it is rather an interpretation on my part. Each of those re-additions followed her dislike of my edits somewhere else. Nonetheless, now that you have brought my attention to it, I will delete that portion and stick to the edit content.

— James Cantor (talk) 20:23, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Request for expansion

Is this where I request additional space? I am at a disadvantage for three reasons:

1. My content complaint involves problematic Sexology issues involving James Cantor, Legitimus, WLU, Flyer22, and Herostratus, who form a voting bloc which maintains their POV. I have to describe activity by all five, but they are merely angling to bring sanctions against me.
2. My user conduct complaint also involves misuse of Wikipedia to make very serious false personal attacks against me by numerous editors.
3. The related decades-old off-wiki controversies are ABOUT sexology and academic misconduct, not simply debates WITHIN sexology/academia. It's an extremely complex and esoteric series of interrelated controversies surrounding James Cantor's employer CAMH and the academic publications his allies control. The controversies center on use of sexology as means of social control over reviled minorities. As such, academics have written extensively about the controversies to defend their industry and fields, but affected minorities generally do not have inclination or access to air their views in an academic setting, and the press has little interest in covering the complex problem. In addition, there have been many attempts by involved academics to suppress opposing views in academic settings. It's important background to the on-wiki dispute, but requires room to explain.

I'd like to have an on-wiki place either here or in my user space (preferably here) where I can reasonably expand on all this. Jokestress (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Totally a nosy non-involved opinion: Write up a short summary here with links to the most important items, and link to a full presentation done in your user space. This sort of thing has been used in the past to present long and/or complicated evidence presentations. The flip side, is that working to focus your presentation down to the word limits may help you really get at the basics of your position, which will absolutely help the comittee to make a lasting resolution of the problem. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

While I am not an arbitrator and I don't play one on TV, all parties should note that James Cantor's presentation of evidence is an example that should be followed. Without commenting on the merits of his evidence, providing clear headings with numerous and descriptive diffs provides ArbCom with the most valuable tool: a clear way to examine past behavior in order to ensure future disruption is curtailed. ArbCom is unlikely, however, to have much to say about the content questions here, which I understand are extremely pertinent to most of the parties given your professions. Spending much time trying to bring ArbCom up to speed on the conflict may prove counter-productive; parties should instead try to show meaningful, on-wiki evidence of actual disruption to the community rather than the exterior battles that the committee has no power to control.

Specifically in response to Jokestress: ArbCom has recently given leeway to users who feel they must respond to numerous accusations, but it will still behoove you to be laser-focused on the Wikipedia side of this conflict. The background to this dispute matters only inasmuch as it's the reason you're all butting heads, and while I too bemoan the marginalization of minority views in the academy, Wikipedia isn't the place for that discussion. You (and the other parties) will do best to stick to Wikipedia, especially since there seems to be no shortage of conflict on the 'pedia. My apologies if I've just been a gadfly. Archaeo (talk) 23:21, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

You can request additional space if you wish, but please attempt to fill up the space already provided first so we can get a decent accurate impression of whether such a request ought to be granted or not. NW (Talk) 07:17, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Objecting to false and misleading statements

In addition to the false statement removed by James Cantor following NulcearWarfare's closer examination, there are several other false and misleading statements about me on the Request and Evidence pages. In fact, I have been "brought to trial" here for defending myself against false and misleading statements by Legitimus, Herostratus, WLU, and Flyer22. Do I object to those misstatements here? I would rather not use up my Evidence space refuting false information. Also, as much as I appreciate comments above by uninvolved people, I am only interested in responses from Arbitration Committee members who can officially answer them.

I'd love to get answers to both questions above from whoever can officially answer them, as they significantly affect the materials I plan to submit. Jokestress (talk) 00:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

You should attempt to refute statements made by other editors if you disagree, but remember that diffs often speak louder than words. While you should attempt to be brief, please note that you can request an evidence limit increase should you desire one. NW (Talk) 07:15, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I would also like a definition of the difference between a "voting block" and WP:CONSENSUS. In my experience, a large number of experienced editors coming to a common agreement would seem to characterize the latter. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:37, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I plan to define it as a group of like-minded editors whose consensus on what to include contravenes expert medical and legal consensus. This civil battleground has ended up reifying and operationalizing concepts through over-representing a medicalized minority point of view. It's also led to personal attacks on me up to and including working together to retain actionable libel about me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jokestress (talk • contribs) 17:29, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

But editors must demonstrate using sources that an opinion is the expert medical and legal consensus and that the result is a reification, operationalization and medicalization. Again, from scholars, not editors. I will also note that James Cantor has also been called a self-promoting single purpose accounts, which is pretty close to a personal attack as well. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:44, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom people, do I really have to waste my word count refuting Cantor's demonstrably false accusations that I somehow "suppressed" the autogynephilia article? If so, he and his allies can continue making stuff up about me until I have no room to discuss their demonstrably bad behavior. Jokestress (talk) 07:03, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to note here that the content in Autogynephilia was merged into what is now Blanchard's transsexualism typology back in September 2010: 02:22, 11 September 2010‎ 70.57.222.103 (talk)‎ . . (137,762 bytes) (+2,240)‎ . . (→‎Merger complete: new section) - "As per the approach favored by all but two commenters in Talk:Autogynephilia, the articles Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory and Autogynephilia have been merged, and Homosexual transsexual is a disambig page." - bonze blayk (talk) 12:46, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I have a comment about this evidence from Jokestress: While promoting his controversial book on trans women, Bailey exploits images of gender-variant children without their consent in a "comical and vulgar performance" that provoked much laughter. When reading the associated reference, no where does it mention consent, and indeed the phrase was emphasized by Jokestress. I don't know if the arbs are going to read every attached source/diff, but I suspect deviations such as these should be noted when they appear.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  23:57, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

You might want to be aware that the cite is Joan Roughgarden. Roughgarden and Andrea James (User:Jokestress) have been coordinating their attacks on Bailey since 2003.[1] I am not aware of any independent accounts similar to Roughgarden's. — James Cantor (talk) 00:49, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any independent accounts of Bailey's speech similar to Cantor's. Cantor and Bailey have been coordinating their attacks on Roughgarden since 2003. [2] Cantor says the laughter was "affectionate recognition of the truth." Jokestress (talk) 01:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Elementary school children are incapable of giving informed consent. Consent is what all of these controversies are about:

• "Allegations include violations of ethical research conduct such as lack of informed consent and dual relationships." [3]
• "Bailey and several of his research subjects clearly do not agree about whether an appropriate standard of “informed consent” was met when he included their personal histories in his work." [4]

Children cannot consent to use of their likenesses, especially if their likenesses are then used for purposes of derision. I can unbold "without their consent" if that will resolve your concern, but consent is a very important aspect. Jokestress (talk) 01:09, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Consent, in the context you are using appears to be a legal term. Thank you for clearing that up.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  01:47, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

No prob. Due to space limitations, I can't explicate in my evidence, so some very esoteric terms of art in this complex controversy have to stand unexplained. I was going to do more wikilinks, but it was looking very messy when I did. If you have other questions, please let me know. Jokestress (talk) 01:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious why this is being discussed. Though the articles might note some of this information (perhaps, it seems rather minor, "one day J. Michael Bailey got a laugh out of his audience during a presentation" would be an odd sentence to include in a main page), it seems more like a justification. As in "yes, J. Michael Baley was harassed, but he deserved it because (he laughed at transsexuals/he used children's pictures without consent/he had a fucksaw demonstration in class/he is a big meanie)". While these events might be interpreted by editors as crass, crude or deliberately hurtful, none of them would seem particularly relevant for inclusion or justification that James Cantor should not be permitted to edit sexology pages. None of them would override WP:SOAP's prohibition against using wikipedia as a tool for promotion or WP:RGW/WP:ADVOCACY's suggestions that wikipedia not be used for advocacy. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:54, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious why you continue to characterize these serious ethical matters as a "minor academic dispute" or trivialize these incidents as you did above. This was a series of historically significant controversies that have bled onto Wikipedia. Your trivializing impulse seems similar to your assertion that I have a bias because of who I am, while implying you and Cantor do not. I presented this background and each selected controversy from an even larger group of controversies for reasons which will be evident in the fullness of time. In the meantime, the placeholder background information is there for context, because it's clear a number of editors already formed strong opinions before seeing all the evidence. Good things come to those who wait. Jokestress (talk) 12:20, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place for advocacy or soapboxing. If these are "serious ethical matters" suitable for discussion on article pages, then I would expect this to be justified by independent, reliable sources that discuss and contextualize them as part of the overall topic. If these issues are not sufficiently notable or well-referenced to appear on the main articles, I don't think their inclusion can be justified by labelling them "serious ethical matters". The very reason we have COI policies and guidelines is because various incentives exist, financial or otherwise, for editors to distort sources, include minor or non-notable information or otherwise provide a non-neutral summary of an issue. I may be trivializing these issues (I look forward to seeing reliable, independent sources that establish these as substantial items within the history of sexology that squarely and primarily portray your opinions on the matter to be the majority opinion), but there is a risk that advocates (and I include you as a transexual woman at least a potential advocate in articles regarding transexualism) may exaggerate these issues to paint the topic or page subjects in a negative light resulting in a non-neutral page. I think this strikes to the very heart of why essays like WP:RGW and WP:ADVOCACY exist, why WP:SOAP is a core content policy, and why WP:COI is a core behavioural guideline. WP:COI, by the way, specifically states "Any external relationship – personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal – can trigger a conflict of interest." As a transexual woman, it's not unquestionable that you may have a personal connection to the scholarly discourse on transexualism such that your judgement as a wikipedia may be impaired and you are in a state of conflict of interest. I hope the arbitrators recognize it.

Put another way, just because editors believe something is important does not make it important in the sense conveyed by WP:NPOV. The fact that J. Michael Bailey laughed, or got a laugh out of his audience, in one presentation, is not a reason to portray his scholarly activities and research as fundamentally wrong or paint Bailey in a negative light. I've seen a lot of assertions by you that these are vital issues that justify Cantor being topic banned or your own conduct, but I haven't seen the quality or quantity of sources that establish this issue as something beyond your opinion. Context is part of how an issue is framed, and framing can distort, either accidentally or on purpose.

I look forward to your evidence, and any dissenting evidence that may be available. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:16, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Meanwhile, User:WLU, I wonder: how do you justify the bizarre deletion of properly sourced material citing Harry Benjamin in Blanchard's transsexualism typology here, on which I have just commented in Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology#"Scientific criticism of the theory" is now "Criticisms", and has been eviscerated? Are you merely careless in editing, or is this the result of a WP:COI? Sincerely, bonze blayk (talk) 13:39, 17 February 2013 (UTC) - (updated link to Talk subsection title which now conforms better to WP:TALKNEW) - bonze blayk (talk) 03:24, 18 February 2013 (UTC))

I don't have a COI, and arbitration is not the place to debate the content of a main article. I have justified my edits there. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Some questions evidence might address

Some thoughts that have popped out from the initial case request, and from a brief look over evidence thus far. I would love it if the parties added evidence/diffs regarding areas of significant editing by parties outside of the sexology topic, and evidence of constructive or problematic editing in those areas. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 03:53, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how best to respond, but I think I'm on solid ground to say that I only rarely edit outside of sexology. A good example of constructive/stable edits of mine would be the Hypersexuality page (before vs. after). Regarding Jokestress' edits outside of sexology, she is an extremely productive editor. I have no reason to contest her edits outside of topics about which she has a strong personal or political attachment.

Is that a help?— James Cantor (talk) 15:28, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Sheesh, what a dreadful article. Looking over hypersexuality, it is an excellent example of the systemic bias in the subject area. Just to mention two, there are huge feminist and philosophy of science bodies of literature about "nymphomania" and "hypersexuality" and other psychiatric attempts to regulate sexuality through social control. One of hundreds of examples completely omitted from the article in favor of scientific reification: Nymphomania: A History. Michel Foucault observed that sex science functions as the ars erotica of the Western world, and that categories and archives created by sex scientists, like List of paraphilias where James Cantor edits heavily and hypersexuality, become a source of pleasure for the sex scientists, because the lists stimulate and titillate both them and their readers. [5]

This isn't a question of righting great wrongs, as some editors claimed in their comments. This is about including ALL reliable and verificable POVs, not just the ones that appeal to the typical Wikipedia editor. People like Cantor exacerbate the problem by promoting Sexology to the exclusion of observations ABOUT Sexology. The fact that Foucault's The History of Sexuality, one of the most important works ever written on human sexuality, isn't even mentioned at hypersexuality, only hints at the depth of the problem. It's such a huge problem I wouldn't even know where to start, as I get in brought up on charges for simply trying to point out the massive body of legal scholarship on these topics. But that's a matter for another day. Jokestress (talk) 20:52, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

User:David Fuchs, I just answered your question under Editing outside Sexology. Space allowing, I will add info about the other editors as well. Jokestress (talk) 18:28, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's a help. Thank you both. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:21, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• Honestly, I do not think this part of off-wiki evidence is at all relevant. It tells about an alleged gang of pseudo-scientists led by Dr. Bailey who "defame their critics in an academic journal they control. [6] [7]". Even if anyone believes it (I obviously do not and can explain why), this is still irrelevant. Yes, I understand that Dr. Cantor is allegedly one of them. I think the only really relevant problem off-wiki are these blacklists of people [8], [9], because they exist right now and include at least two wikipedians with whom Jokestress has/had a dispute. Looking at these lists, they are obviously not a criticism of scientific theories, but designed to intimidate people and possibly harm their employment (the allegations of "academic misconduct"). Such "enemy lists" posted at websites of political activists and organizations should be taken very seriously because no one knows what the political "followers" are going to do with people on the list. They can do anything with "science freaks" depending on the nature of organization. I do not think that anyone should do that kind of things with fellow wikipedians. Jokestress, how about removing these lists from your website right now? My very best wishes (talk) 20:27, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

"They can do anything with "science freaks" depending on the nature of organization." User:My very best wishes, are you seriously suggesting that User:Jokestress' network analyses on those pages comprise a "hit list" for an "organization"? That is a ludicrous assertion. - Sincerely, bonze blayk (talk) 23:58, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

FWIW:

Dreger, A. (2006, May). The blog I write in fear. From One foot in: Thoughts on Academia.

— James Cantor (talk) 00:15, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, After she failed to suppress a speech I was invited to give at Northwestern, Dreger harassed me for years, eventually publishing a 50,000-word attack piece in the journal Cantor helps edit. I'll have more on Dreger's and Cantor's long-running tag-team attacks on their hit list, including this gem:

Dreger, A. (2008, May). Informed Dissent. From One foot in: Thoughts on Academia.

• (Dreger quoting Cantor) "I believe that much of the current friction is from people spin-doctoring statements into half-truths to give themselves an opportunity to stand on a soapbox blog and declare the other side as evil. Although these people call themselves activists, they are of the Al Sharpton rather than the ML King sort."'[10]

Using a fake name, Cantor then adds his own attack on me from the Dreger blog to the Andrea James Wikipedia article, now attributed to the weaselly "some scholars":

• "Some scholars have likened her as 'the Al Sharpton rather than the ML King sort' of activist'". [11]

People who claim they are "scared" in this controversy are usually just very angry at me and want to right great wrongs by attacking me here and off-wiki. Off-wiki is fine, but attacks here by involved parties are going to get a close examination during this case. More soon! Jokestress (talk) 01:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

1. Yes, that tactic was indeed inappropriate of me. In my defense, I can point out only that I was on WP for less than a week then, and that my subsequent 4-1/2 years has been, of course, very different.
2. A fake name? What fake name?
3. Despite the tactic behind the edit, the actual content of my comment remains quite valid. Indeed, Jokestress has essentially adopted it in describing herself (here), although she compares herself to Malcolm X over MLK instead of Al Sharpton over MLK.

— James Cantor (talk) 16:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh. That again. Explain to me please, User:James Cantor, is Alice Dreger cringing in fear of sniper's bullet - which is what Nikolai Girenko, whom User:My very best wishes references above, got - or is it it harsh, perhaps even unreasonable, criticism from User:Jokestress? "FWIW": Nothing, given the level of offense offered in the comment User:My very best wishes' makes above: "Character Assassination" is not the same thing as "Assassination". - Sincerely, bonze blayk (talk) 02:56, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Although I try to make a habit of responding to questions addressed to me directly, I don't think it makes much sense for people to presume to know the mindsets of others. That said, Jokestress' history of involving Bailey's children, followed by Jokestress sending Dreger hostile emails referring to her child, and showing up at her office unexpectedly would probably alarm just about any parent.— James Cantor (talk) 16:23, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This is another great example of Cantor's vivid imagination (like claiming I am trying to "teach him a lesson" with my edits). This false account of events is similar to the oversighted personal attacks that sparked this ArbCom. Jokestress (talk) 17:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Why is it a false account? The sources that have been presented so far seem to tell this story, with possibly the exception of alarming "just about any parent" -- though I don't doubt for a second it would.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  21:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This has already been asked and answered but for those that missed it Jokestress was using sarcasm (I believe that's the correct term) to illustrate how Bailey's morally hazy usage of trans people's pictures (when they were children) in his for-profit efforts were seen as degrading and insulting. Bailey put words on those pictures that were also seen as degrading to the people shown as children. I believe the individuals did not consent to the use at all. Additionally Bailey's children were a part of Bailey's tour and served as spokespeople espousing the same troubling comments as Bailey. Seen in this context the actions can more be judged in fullness while omitting what prompted the photos is simply dishonest, especially since this same discussion has been repeated many times by these same people. Insomesia (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The accusation of "leaving Dreger hostile notes at her workplace" is not true and should be struck and possibly oversighted. I have pretty much had it with these false accusations at this point. I had never been in contact with Dreger until she started harassing me in 2006 prior to my invited visit to her campus for a speech which she was unable to suppress (the organizers told her to get lost). Then she spent a year trying to get me fired (again told to get lost) and trying to prove I am an enemy of academic freedom. Then she tried to stop a trans panel about her and Bailey's attacks at an academic conference (the organizers again told her to get lost). Astonishing hypocrisy.

I wouldn't believe everything Dreger said in the journal Cantor and friends control. Even people willing to participate in their little charade of "objectivity" observed that Dreger's personal involvement in attacking me and "one-sided" [12] presentation revealed "her ultimate allegiance to one side - Bailey's." [13] Jokestress (talk) 22:39, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I haven't read the Dredger paper completely, but what I did see was someone who clearly felt intimidated, to the point that she was advised to contact the police. I've no idea if she did and if so what was their reaction (which might have been "lady, we've got more important things to do"), but this is the 2nd incident that I'm aware of where alledged intimidation has occured.  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  23:59, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

As I have said many times, the claim of "intimidation" is a disingenuous ruse. If you are really intimidated by someone, you do not troll them with hostile emails and blog posts. You do not attend a speech they give. You leave them alone and hope they will go away. Her first attack compared me to "a neo-Nazi" and Fred Phelps, so she is not a particularly objective source about what happened. After failing for over a year in multiple attempts to hurt me (all of which I openly mocked), she finally wrote her screed and got her bloviation published by her buddies. She may have contacted Northwestern's campus police in her attempts to stop me, but in the end they posted an officer at the speech to protect me and stop any James Cantor-style disruptions of my presentation. The Dean of Student Affairs even came and read an opening statement, showing support for the students’ right to gather information from many points of view. That might not have been clear in Dreger's 50,000 words. You can read more about Dreger's antics here. You'll start to see why she and James Cantor logroll each other all the time. Jokestress (talk) 00:36, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I have responded on the mainpage to Jokestress' allegations of BLP violations. (Indeed, if that is my greatest inaccuracy, I believe my argument remains in good shape.) I have not, however, received any response to my evidence of Jokestress' violations of BLP, here.— James Cantor (talk) 03:57, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

James Cantor has not responded completely to the misstatements in his claims. I did not show up at Dreger's office unexpectedly. In fact, we had correspondence prior to my speech about times I was available to speak with her following the event, and that is exactly when I stopped in and had a brief chat with her colleagues, who were all eating lunch at a big table. Turns out Dreger was more interested in insulting me than in having a conversation. Since I have specified my concerns, I look forward to hearing what details of those five pieces of evidence James Cantor disputes. It seems pretty remarkable to claim multiple independent accounts of his behavior are all "untrue" or not about him. Jokestress (talk) 04:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I have no need to extricate the kernels of truth from those accounts. The statements I listed are unsupported by any RS's, making them BLP violations. When the problem is that Jokestress' source is Jokestress' own website, "what details" isn't particularly relevant, and a back-and-forth over them isn't wise.— James Cantor (talk) 20:31, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

• @Bonze blayk. Activists kill doctors for performing their duties, such as making abortions. What else proof do you possibly need? Probably nothing will happen, but something may happen. My very best wishes (talk) 04:40, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

- "Activists kill doctors for performing their duties, such as making abortions. What else proof do you possibly need?". So you generalize from a tiny minority of violent anti-abortion "activists" to the huge range of "activists" globally, incorporating "transsexual activists" also? That's certainly a remarkable claim… based on this logic, no "activist" should ever edit Wikipedia!

Your claim to being "endangered" rests on the absurd premise that (for example) this diagram delineating Academic pathologization of transgender people on Andrea James' website constitutes a "blacklist" and thus a "hitlist" for some organization of Transsexual Assassins who will deal out the bullets to "enemies" as one was dealt to Nikolai Girenko, in the obscene analogy made by User talk:My very best wishes above? That's an insane assertion; it borders on paranoia. And as a counterpoint, was this statement an invitation to violence? … "I would feel the same way were someone to be interested in, say, inviting a neo-Nazi to speak on campus." I don't see it that way myself; I see it as a rather stupid insult. Please note: that comparison between neo-Nazis and Andrea James was brought to you by Alice Dreger in The Blog I Write in Fear, which I believe I can safely characterize as "hyperbolic". So is Alice Dreger also guilty of "endangering" Andrea James? By your standards… apparently so. - bonze blayk (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

ADDING linkback to User:My very best wishes's modification of their original statement to which I responded above, in which their claim of "endangerment" appears. Perhaps you realize now this comment was ill-advised: I do believe it was, because you failed to read the paper by Andrea James, to which you linked and then mischaracterized: "In her 'scientific' publication [14] J. compare others with racists and Nazi. If Arbcom wants to tolerate contributors who intentionally endanger other contributors by declaring them 'enemies' and making internet blacklists, this is their choice. If I do not want to be in the same project with such contributors, this is my choice." Please keep in mind prudence: every entry one makes on the Internet possesses a kind of… immortality. By the way, I appreciate the realities behind your fears, but in this case, they are entirely misfounded. - bonze blayk (talk) 05:12, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I may well have missed most of this, but so far in the above and the evidence I see one authentic BLP foul against Cantor for citing [15] for the revision [16], based on the WP:BLP policy that you should "Never use self-published sources – including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets – as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject." But this is a very old edit, supported by other cited reliable publications by the same person in the same paragraph, and so I don't think this pecadillo deserves any sanction on its own. I recognize Dreger may indeed be a biased source, but Wikipedia should follow a very simple-minded policy here: if somebody gets their opinion printed in the New York Times, we should allow it in the article, right or wrong, and try to do any balancing after the fact if someone can cite a source that disagrees with it. I'm sorry, but Wikipedia is here to summarize the literature, not to judge who is right and who is wrong. (Many on this project disagree with me about that, however) Anyway, the bottom line here is that I think those looking for sanctions against Cantor will greatly help their case if they can cite more recent diffs of this type, in which self-published sources are used for biographies. Wnt (talk) 17:04, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I've removed the "s" from the http, so Popups will work. Hope that's OK.

That edit by James Cantor, like so many others, was made under his MarionTheLibrarian account, from 2008. Are there more recent edits that show this 4+ year old pattern continues? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:01, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Possible to split this into other case(s)?

ArbCom people, is there any precedent for splitting complex cases into more manageable ones? This case has three components (see above), and addressing Cantor's behavior is in many ways distinct from the voting bloc problem and the personal attacks problem. I did not know I would have to answer questions and refute Cantor's misinformation in my own space when the scope of the case was being determined. Jokestress (talk) 18:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a case split as likely, especially since irt your comments above, the third component simply isn't something ArbCom can handle; even if it were within our remit arbitration wouldn't be a particularly useful venue from which to approach it. I would focus your time and evidence on evidence of user misconduct on Wikipedia. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 17:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

BLP

WP:BLP applies to these pages too, no? I notice that the claim that "Bailey's banned from teaching Human Sexuality" in this evidence section is not supported by the source, which says that the Human Sexuality course (given by any professor) was cancelled by the university. By no means the same thing. What should be done about this? I am loath to edit somebody's evidence, but this sort of BLP problem can't really be allowed to stand. There may be more of these... this was the first one I checked. Slp1 (talk) 02:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

BLP absolutely applies, but I believe I am limited to 100 sources. Via Inside Higher Ed: "One year ago today, Northwestern psychology professor John Michael Bailey held a voluntary extracurricular event after his Human Sexuality class. ....The result was a storm of publicity that made the front pages of newspapers, outraged parents and donors and ultimately led to NU officials banning Bailey's course from being taught again." [17] (emphasis mine) I also added a Chicago Tribune source about the course they now offer instead. It's relevant because it's part of the trend in sexuality studies that examines ALL published work and not just the medical/disease models.

Does this fully address your concerns? I'd rather not add every source because I think it counts against my diff count, and it is a very complicated incident with almost no coverage here. Jokestress (talk) 06:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Without examining the sources fully, there is a massive difference between banning Bailey from teaching human sexuality and banning the teaching of Bailey's human sexuality course. Thryduulf (talk) 12:50, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Please examine the sources fully. That's Human Sexuality (capital H, capital S), the intro course that was his signature class until the fucksaw incident, which Bailey is no longer allowed to teach and has been scrubbed from Northwestern's curriculum and moved out of the Psychology department. The on-wiki evidence I plan to present regarding that incident will demonstrate Northwestern's decision represents a general academic trend among experts: looking at Sexuality from a more broadly gauged multidisciplinary approach, not just the rigid and narrow behavioral positivist approach that distorts most Wikipedia articles on Sexology topics.

It comes at a time when sexuality studies are gaining legitimacy nationally, Weismantel said. Northwestern's program has helped establish it as a leader of the field, she said. The university launched the new course with the intention of showing that sexuality classes can be taught responsibly. That doesn't mean that sexually explicit material will be censored, she stressed.

"The one thing we feel strongly about is, the controversy isn't about should you deal with very sexually explicit material or shouldn't you," Weismantel said. "It's about teaching students the ethical treatment of subjects." [18]

This is an extremely complex and historically significant trend, and imagining punishments before all evidence is available and examined fully isn't very helpful. If you suggest wording you think is clearer on any evidence, I am happy to consider revising it further. Jokestress (talk) 16:41, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Of the 21 claims made, 5 are about me, at least 4 of which violate BLP:

B2. (re [76]). Untrue. Source is a non-RS blog.

B3. Untrue. Source is a word document from Jokestress’ own website. (Other source is a word document on Lynn Conway’s website, whose evidence for the claim is Jokestress’ website.)

B12. None of these sources mentions me at all.

C2. Untrue. Source is a non-RS blog.

D3. The claims themselves are untrue, but that Franklin implied them is true. (So, I’m not certain about how the BLP policy applies.)

I provided the evidence for Franklin’s errors in the International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, available here. FWIW, that pub was published open access, so I am free to post it anywhere. Franklin’s, however, is copyrighted by the publisher, so I am not sure about it being permanently archived on WP.

— James Cantor (talk) 23:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

At least some of us will have access to paywalled journals. Feel free to post links to them. NW (Talk) 22:36, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Evidence problems

Jokestress writes above:
"Via Inside Higher Ed: "One year ago today, Northwestern psychology professor John Michael Bailey held a voluntary extracurricular event after his Human Sexuality class. ....The result was a storm of publicity that made the front pages of newspapers, outraged parents and donors and ultimately led to NU officials banning Bailey's course from being taught again." [19] (emphasis mine)"[20]

The article says no such thing. This quote is from another article by the same author which appeared in the Daily Northwestern,[21] a considerably less prestigious publication. It seems likely that this error reflects Jokestress' organization system, in which choice quotes are lined up like arrows in a quiver; she'd grabbed the wrong one, then wikilinked Inside Higher Ed to lend it authority.

Another problem:
When a user named Insomesia brought these redirects to her attention[22], Jokestress replied, "Hi there-- Redirects are cheap, as they say. I don't see any problems with those. It's a very obscure terminology which appeals to some people who used to be called "pseudotranssexuals" or "non-transsexuals" but who identify as transsexual. No one will ever search those terms, but there are very few redirects I would ever delete."[23](23:32, 8 January 2013)

These same redirects are now presented as damning evidence against Dr. Cantor.[24]
75.151.102.50 (talk) 02:49, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Redirects

The claim that James Cantor is "promoting" autogynephilia is supported with five diffs. All five diffs are of Cantor creating redirects to Blanchard's transsexualism typology (which "autogynephilia" redirects to) and four can be chunked into one really - narratives about autogynephilia. I'm not sure of the reasoning for the creation of these redirects, the page itself doesn't mention autogynephilic narratives. Perhaps this is an area of research and interest that is missing. Calling it "promotion" is debatable, what other page could or should they redirect to?

The fifth redirect is "Men trapped in men's bodies". Two sources (until this morning, I've since edited the page and now it's down to one) by Anne Lawrence use this phrase in their title. Again, what is a better page to redirect to? Perhaps that's a valuable conversation to have. A search for the term itself finds no other page on wikipedia that contains the search string [25]. Calling this self-promotion is questionable in my mind, perhaps they are poor redirects or unlikely search terms, but nearly any search for "autogynephilia" will likely end up on the typology page. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:54, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

They were created to promote autogynephilia activist Anne Lawrence's 2013 book of anecdotal evidence titled "Men Trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism," violating the spirit of his bogus "pledge." See also this autogynephilia promotion long after his "pledge": [26] [27] That book's acknowledgements include mentions of guess who... J. Michael Bailey, Kenneth Zucker, Ray Blanchard, and Archives of Sexual Behavior, the same stuff Cantor has been promoting since his first pseudonymous account. More soon on how this relates to promotion of himself and his friends, especially the hebephilia incident! Jokestress (talk) 23:19, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, all five redirects make sense now, all five relate to a book by Anne Lawrence, who uses the phrase "narratives of autogynephilic" in the title, some derivation of "autogynephilia" 44 times and "Blanchard" shows up 89 times. So Lawrence discusses autogynephilia and Blanchard's typology, apparently pretty extensively. Is there a better page those search terms could redirect to? Anne Lawrence and "Anne Lawrence" both show the typology page as the first hit to come up, and few other hits - none of which seem much better suited. Your personal webpage shows your dislike of it, as does your comment, but it is published by Springer Science+Business Media, a reliable publisher. The fact that it agrees with a viewpoint you dislike doesn't make it a bad or unreliable book.

This could be interpreted as a well-intentioned, and reasonably defensible attempt to link search terms to the most appropriate wikipedia page (If Lawrence had a wikipedia page, it would be a better choice in my opinion). The redirects contain no actual text, no statement that it is a good book, and if you actually search for the terms without the redirects, Blanchard's transsexual typology consistently shows up at the top of the list with the search term appearing in bold beneath the page name. Certainly not a blockable offence, and it seems like an extraordinarily tenuous chain of reasoning to stretch this to self-promotion. If Anne Lawrence existed, they would redirect there, but in lieu of that perhaps a deletion discussion could be started.

What is the difference between "promoting oneself" versus "editing in an area of expertise"? How can one tell?

The pseudonymous accounts were used last in 2008, and WriteMakesRight (talk · contribs) had less than 10 substantive edits. Cantor's real-life identity is now publicly disclosed and has been for nearly 5 years. Perhaps it's time to let it go. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:27, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Redirects are cheap, and I would almost never delete a redirect that has the potential to assist in navigation. Having said that, I believe these edits by Cantor are part of a pattern which, when taken as a whole, clarify what's going on here in terms of COI/self-promotion. You have touched on two of the key issues of my ArbCom argument: letting go of stale disputes from 2008/2009 and determining where expertise blurs into COI advocacy. Jokestress (talk) 01:55, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Jokestress is correct that I created those redirects in anticipation of readers of Lawrence' new book, which uses those terms. WLU is correct that my intent was to direct any such readers to the most relevant article available. My personal view, and the implication of the search results on the evidence page, is that Autogynephilia should be it's own article. In the absence of there being one, Blanchard's transsexualism typology is the closest, despite that it is essentially an attack page against the existing findings. How redirecting readers away from the term I prefer and to a page I oppose is a symptom of my POV-pushing is not clear to me.— James Cantor (talk) 05:40, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Notability of trans people

• Susan Stryker - James Cantor tagged the page when it looked like this. Of 15 sources, 10 are to her own work. Whether Stryker passed the criteria for WP:PROF or WP:N in general is questionable, much of it was unsourced (including critically the points that woudl have indicated notability). Cantor did tag the page thrice, he also removed the tag once notability was established. This seems like a criticism for tagging a page in a borderline state of notability. Editors are urged, but not required, to expand borderline notable pages with reliable sources. Failing to do so is not a censurable offence.
• Stephen Whittle - I wouldn't have tagged this as failing WP:N, but it's a judgement call whether Whittle was notable at the time.
• Angela Clayton, at the time of tagging, was similarly of questionable notability [28]. Clayton's only real claim to fame per WP:N would seem to be her Membership to the Order of the British Empire; I'm not sure if an MBE is sufficient to push someone into notability.
• The Gender Trust was entirely unsourced at the time of PRODding. It's ten current citations consist of the Trust being quoted, none really represent the unarguable, extensive secondary sources that push an entity past WP:CORP. I've always been for the argument "it's been quoted in the news" is a questionable justification to avoid deletion.

The two diffs for Cantor's "wikihounding" [29], [30], are from 2008. In both cases there is an 18-month gap between Jokestress' last edit (Feburary, 2007 for both pages) and Cantor's tagging for speedy deletion (August, 2008) of these list-only articles. Wikistalking? Perhaps. Bad-faith editing? Possibly, but considering WP:LISTN is itself quite equivocal, tagging them for speedy is hardly indefensible. I would ask whether more recent examples than 2008 are available. Certainly wikihounding is annoying and stressful. Certainly new editors engage in it. Certainly it's not a good thing if it does not result in a better wiki (and is questionable even if it does).

Also, if wikihounding is a problem, an interaction ban would address this. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:54, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. I've been supportive of James Cantor elsewhere but, given what he does for a living, I find it very hard to take credibly the idea that he could have had an honestly held belief that Stephen Whittle, for example, did not merit a WP biography. Could you comment on that, James? Formerip (talk) 21:26, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your confidence in my knowledge...I think. But I am/was quite genuinely ignorant. (I don't follow the politics or politicians of the GLBT and other alternative communities and just followed the page content.) That day, I was just kind of wandering around WP. I also prod'ed Elmer Batters, Bill Bridgeman, and Leg Show. That said, was it wise of me to prod in one sitting more than one trans- related pages? In retrospect: No, probably not. As WLU noted, I don't think anyone can say that these were slam-dunk pages, and I believe the relevant discussions[31] were, for the most part, reasonable all around; but I would indeed have to acknowledge the role of optics when a challenge comes from me.— James Cantor (talk) 05:28, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Evidence close date

Hi folks. Given that one of the folks involved says that "I expect to be away Feb 21-Mar 3" is it a good idea for Evidence to close during that time? I didn't see this discussed elsewhere, so I thought I'd ask. Hobit (talk) 15:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I would very much appreciate such an adjustment.— James Cantor (talk) 16:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe 10 or 11 March would be a better evidence close date. Jokestress (talk) 16:41, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

We can reevaluate during the last week of February. If there is a significant amount of evidence that James Cantor would likely wish to respond to, we can push things off for a bit. I don't anticipate that as entirely necessary; a party is often better served posting their own account of things and backing that up with diffs rather than continually attempting to refute statements by other parties. NW (Talk) 04:02, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm more worried about evidence that appears after he isn't around. Hobit (talk) 13:02, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Per instruction of the drafting arb I have extended all the deadlines by one week. Evidence will now close on March 7. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 18:49, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!— James Cantor (talk) 04:04, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments re MrADHD's evidence

(I am still out of the office and have only intermittent access to the Internet. While I do, however…)

Although MrADHD was involved only in one, there were actually two claims I removed from the hebephilia page due to (my belief in) their violating BLP. Together with the diff comments, they were:

• [32] Reverting OR from IP editor. [COI Disclosure: I am an author on some of these articles. Usually I would avoid edits regarding my own work, but BLP seems to apply here.]
• [33] Non-RS. BLP issues.

The BLP problem of the latter (the one from MrADHD) was the claim that “The AMA board of trustees apparently had to step in due to a small group of psychologists digging their heals in…” That ‘small group’ consisted of three people, all of whom have WP pages about them. The claim itself was untrue, and there was no RS supporting the claim. (The source appeared only on the blog of a vocal protagonist of the debate claiming to have knowledge she does not—all members of the DSM committees remain under gag orders. No one has identified any other source to support the blogger’s (or MrADHD's) claim. Moreover, the use of “apparently” also denotes the uncertain status of the claim.) It is true that the names of the three people were not given, but WP:BLPGROUP does not (to my reading) require the names to appear when the group of people is small (and each member is identifiable). Immediately following my deletion above, I asked at BLP/N for input from uninvolved editors.[34]

MrADHD also claimed that “[my] place of work receives money to research hebephilia...” That too is misleading at best: I do not and have never received any grant to study hebephilia unto itself. I have received two grants in my career, both have been to study pedophilia with hebephilia as an add on, because they are informative regarding their more extreme cousins and because there is no clear division between the two phenomena. MrADHD’s continued statement that my hospital or I receive money to “promote it as a proposed new mental health diagnosis” is untrue in its entirety (and is a BLP violation). Moreover, MrADHD’s argument asserts (if unwittingly) that experts who have received research grants to study a topic may not edit on that topic, which is not what any policy indicates.

Finally, MrADHD’s claim that “the on-wiki harassing” was started by me ignores the already posted evidence that Jokestress’ problematic edits in sexology precede me by several years and involves her attacking very many editors other than me.

— James Cantor (talk) 18:47, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Ugh, please look up the definition of what a biography is as it is not what you state it is or describe it as. I meant online harassing between you and Jokestress - I have no knowledge of any other squabbles or harassing that has gone on years ago among other people as I am new to the topic area. I do intend revising my submission of evidence, thank you for pointing out errors and perceived errors in my submission of evidence. Your request for outside opinion at the BLP noticeboard I see actually supported me that you were unfairly removing reliably sourced content.--MrADHD | T@1k? 19:20, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me like your summary is also overly harsh against Jokestress - for example, certainly the diffs you cite go nowhere near the charge of "advancing pro-paedophile viewpoints", even inadvertently. I worry that people looking in at this dispute are going to take the easy way out, cast "a pox on both their houses", and fail to recognize that Wikipedia should be able to keep two people on opposite sides of a bitter ideological issue working together in relative harmony, just as we expect universities to do. The reason why they have been brought to this case is not that they are bad people, but because Wikipedia is badly run and does much too much to encourage editors to "legitimately" tear down one anothers' work. Wnt (talk) 08:21, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I have added another couple of diffs and tweaked wording slightly per your concerns but I still maintain that Jokestress's views and arguments regarding paedophilia are fringe. I agree that how I framed this was harsh and have made some tweaks as stated. For both individuals I try to impress on Arbitrators and the community that both of these editors make productive contributions. Did you miss that when reading my evidence submission? Thank you for your comments/feedback. :-)--MrADHD | T@1k? 15:52, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to call her views "fringe" - the article as it reads now defines pedophilia as "characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest toward prepubescent children", so her statements are simply attentive to that definition. Now of course in popular usage nobody finds someone molesting her daughter and says "well, maybe he's not a pedophile" - the average person is pretty quick to make the diagnosis, and I dare say would have little trouble thinking of some effective treatment. Which matches Jokestress' first comment - that it's a social problem, a matter of law rather than medicine. Now personally I disagree somewhat; I think that far too little attention has been paid to looking for medical solutions given how many children have been victimized and how readily many abusers recognize that they have a problem they would like to fix; but she is eloquent and erudite and we should cheerfully welcome her insights. This is one of those issues like creation-versus-evolution where there's no real need for people to disagree at all if they would carefully consider what precisely their beliefs really apply to. Wnt (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

MrADHD, you continue to conflate my "views" with my citation of sources. This is a problem James Cantor and I both have to deal with here, unfortunately. The view that pedophilia is an extreme form of normal masculine sexuality is not mine; it is the view of Havelock Ellis, one of the most famous sexologists of all time. [35] Ellis is not even mentioned in the pedophilia article, despite being one of the most prominent sexologists ever to study the topic. This near-complete lack of historical context is the problem with all of these articles and is directly related to WP:OWN behavior by Flyer22 and others. My point of view on these topics is that we have one point of view overly represented: a medical model of human sexuality severely skewed to recentism and to the work and ideas of Cantor and his colleagues. I will be laying out this case shortly. In the meantime, I would ask you not to jump to conclusions about anyone's views in this dispute. My point is that the medical model is vastly over-represented, and people are so emotionally hairtrigger on this topic that anyone who even tries to bring up the problem gets branded a pedophilie or "pro-pedophile." I plan to lobby to make such accusations a type of egregious personal attack that warrants an immediate block, as it is absolutely outrageous to say or insinuate such things about a good faith editor. Jokestress (talk) 19:20, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Sigh. Everyone can refer to what I stated here and here about Jokestress's views and claims. It all comes down to WP:MEDRS, WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE and WP:CHILD PROTECT. Calling pedophilia "an extreme version of normal masculine sexuality," a view Jokestress cites to Havelock Ellis, is most assuredly WP:FRINGE. And wanting to give such views as much weight as the medical definition of pedophilia in the Pedophilia article is most assuredly WP:UNDUE, as is wanting an article that is about pedophilia to give an overwhelming amount of weight to non-pedophilic aspects. Jokestress's problem is that she does not like, respect or defer to scientific consensus at all, except for when she thinks that scientific consensus is on her side (such as in the case of hebephilia). Flyer22 (talk) 19:47, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not "fringe," it's a historical conceptualization that should be described along with others, like Freud's etc. Your ownership and fixation on narrow recent operationalized definitions are the main reasons we we not cover these topics completely. More soon! Jokestress (talk) 20:22, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

It is indeed fringe. Like I told you before, in that first link I provided above: Just to be clear on what fringe is, WP FRINGE partly states: "An idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea, and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner."

That is exactly what we've been doing with the Pedophilia article. The mainstream definition among experts on pedophilia is that it is a mental disorder characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children, which is also why they distinguish between pedophiles and child sexual abusers who sexually abuse prepubescents (as a child sexual abuser may or may not be a pedophile). They do not view pedophilia and/or an adult engaging in sexual activity with a prepubescent child as "an extreme version of normal masculine sexuality." Not to mention such a definition limits pedophilia only to men. Your claim that respecting/deferring to WP:MEDRS, WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE and WP:CHILD PROTECT is WP:OWN is ridiculous; and others, like MrADHD, have seen that. There is nothing narrow about pedophilia being seen as a mental disorder by most scientists, as even you have acknowledged; and let's not pretend that you weren't referring to the scientific community instead of laypeople when you stated, "Hebephilia is overwhelmingly rejected as a mental disorder, and pedophilia is overwhelmingly accepted as one." Like I stated, you only agree with scientific consensus when it suits you. So, yes, bring on your "evidence" that my respecting/deferring to those things is WP:OWN and is something I should be sanctioned for. But good on you for managing to usually get me to fall for the WP:BAIT and reply to you when you mention me as though I am a leader of some wolf pack.

And for the record, to everyone else, editors at the Pedophilia article take very seriously the type of "adult-child sexual relationship" views Jokestress has expressed (whether being her own views and/or someone else's views) because, for years, Wikipedia had a very serious problem with pedophiles editing the Pedophilia article and/or articles related to pedophilia to try to normalize pedophilia and child sexual abuse. By "normalize," I mean making these things appear as though they are a normal variation of human sexuality. WP:CHILD PROTECT, which is a policy, came into existence because of that. Every editor that has been blocked and/or banned from Wikipedia because of their edits to the Pedophilia article and/or its talk page were blocked and/or banned because of expressing inappropriate views about "adult-child sexual relationships" and/or for identifying as a pedophile, and not for any other reasons than those. People who have a problem with that can take it up with WP:ARBCOM, who have blocked and/or banned most such users. Recent examples of such users are User:Cataconia, an editor Jokestress supported (as shown by my and MrADHD's diff-links), and User Genstarcraftj. No one consistently expressing the type of "adult-child sexual relationship" views Jokestress has expressed (whether being her own views and/or someone else's views) have been good-faith editors. The only reason Jokestress has not been blocked and/or banned for expressing such views on Wikipedia is because she is significantly more familiar with the way that Wikipedia works and is more careful with her words. Flyer22 (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, you have put your finger on the reason why many people have been nervous about the CHILDPROTECT policy from the beginning. In this instance we know who Jokestress is, we know she's not a pedophile, and not trying to justify such behavior, we know that she represents a significant school of thought, that she's someone who can give seminars on this kind of stuff at a university, and if this policy can still be used to threaten her then it is a bad policy. MEDRS is another policy that is - hopefully - being abused here, though my recent disputes on its talk page regarding other issues have seemed to indicate more that some people deliberately intend it to suppress serious coverage of biological research outside the very narrow realm of fully mature applications to human medical treatment. I would nonetheless hold out for the position here that MEDRS applies only to statements about what medical opinion is regarding this disorder, and so well-sourced statements arguing the perspective that it or any of the other conditions she has written about are non-medical should not be subject to it. This should not be something difficult to understand - the controversy we're seeing between Jokestress' people and the CAMH people on medicalization versus non-medicalization is one that exists in the real world, and so Wikipedia needs to cover both sides. Wnt (talk) 02:18, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

What has been going on is what I stated above. Many people have been in support of the WP:CHILDPROTECT policy from the beginning due to the reasons I listed above about that. And WP:MEDRS, WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE are very clear about presenting both sides; there is no misuse of any of those things regarding what I stated above. Flyer22 (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

For various reasons I'm very, very reluctant to get involved with the topic of paedophilia, not least because any attempt to suggest that the current medicalised view of paedophilia expressed in the mainstream press is anything other than 100% correct frequently leads to accusations that one must be a paedophile, regardless of all other factors. It seems to me that at least part of what Jokestress has been attempting to do here is add historical content that shows that in the past the landscape of views was different. Just because a theory may be fringe today doesn't mean it always has been regarded ass such, and there is no reason to exclude it from discussion in the article given the appropriate context that clearly establishes it as not the present day. The way the CHILDPROTECT policy is applied and bandied about in discussions makes NPOV exceedingly hard to achieve, particularly as there is a general attitude that any theory that is not explicitly "paedophilia is a mental disorder" is automatically a fringe theory to be excluded. I don't necessarily agree with Jokestress' views, and her actions elsewhere do not necessarily help her cause, but there is a need for actual neutral evaluation of alternative theories re paedpophilia that does not happen currently. Thryduulf (talk) 09:29, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Excluding or including Havelock Ellis's view isn't the issue. What I stated here, here and above is. I never objected to including Havelock Ellis's view; the Pedophilia article does include historical views that define pedophilia in a way that it is not defined by most experts or any experts in this field these days, after all. The exclusion of Havelock Ellis's view can simply be chalked up to "No one ever got around to adding it." But it is not like every minor view regarding pedophilia should be in the Pedophilia article. Again, WP:MEDRS, WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE are very clear on that. What I have stated is that Havelock Ellis's view is fringe; I objected, and still object, to giving such a view and the other type of views Jokestress has been trying to include in the Pedophilia article for years, most of which are not about pedophilia, WP:UNDUE WEIGHT. The Pedophilia article is not the Adult sexual interest in children article, an article that Jokestress failed to sustain and has been trying to turn the Pedophilia article into (as even she has stated that she has), nor should it be. Flyer22 (talk) 10:24, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Further, we don't go by how the mainstream press defines pedophilia. Not only because such sources are generally not what we are supposed to use for this topic, but also because they usually (incorrectly) define any adult sexual attraction to someone under the age of 18 as pedophilia. Flyer22 (talk) 11:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Just from this conversation and evidence, I've been feeling a bit like Thryduulf says above, and that seems very peculiar to me. It should be apparent to all parties involved that arguing that sexual abuse of children is non-medical is not a justification - after all, usually mental illness is taken as a mitigating factor in terms of moral or legal responsibility. I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that "non-medical", "hyper-male" pedophile behavior is referring to something like Bubba looking into the next room, thinking "Hole - check. Heartbeat - check. Dutch courage .... check. It's gotta be better than a pocket pussy..." I would assume that if child sexual abuse is motivated by evil rather than disease, this makes a difference - for example, if internally exiled to the proverbial island, the pedophiles presumably would get on alright with each other in the absence of kids, but Bubba would be liable to do anything. I think it's important here for people to avoid snap moralism and to actually listen to one another when they say that they're not actually trying to throw kids to the wolves. I would worry that if the ArbCom decision involves sanctions on the topic or on people involved, that will actually make it harder rather than easier for them to do that. Wnt (talk) 15:41, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Wnt, I reiterate that what has been going on is what I stated above. But as for your latest comment, pedophilia is not usually defined by experts in this field by the sexual abuse of children; it's usually defined by the sexual attraction to them (to prepubescent children, and usually the strength of that sexual attraction to them). Child sexual abuse is the act, which is why I mentioned above that experts in this field (usually) distinguish between pedophiles and child sexual abusers (especially since what is considered child sexual abuse can even extend to sexual interaction with post-pubescents). While most pedophiles sexually abuse a child, not all of them do; some try to fight their attraction and/or urges to sexually abuse a child. James Cantor has even recently created an article about that, titled Virtuous Pedophiles. A person who sexually abuses a prepubescent child may or may not be a pedophile because a person may sexually abuse a prepubescent child for any number of reasons or because of any combination of them, which are things that the Pedophilia and Child sexual abuse articles address, and it's not usually considered to be because they are evil or something that is always necessarily because of a mental disorder (unless one defines stress or unavailability of an adult partner, for example, to be a mental disorder). You clearly respect Jokestress and defend her when someone expresses concern regarding her beliefs and/or conduct. But as I am someone who is thoroughly familiar with her (her editing on Wikipedia, that is), and not in a good way, neither your nor anyone else's comments will make me think any differently of her conduct on Wikipedia; it's safe to state that she feels vice versa about me. Flyer22 (talk) 16:39, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out my error above - it wasn't my intent to confound the two; I should recognize that pedophiles have souls and are capable of choosing good over evil, and when they do so on a lifelong basis that is an ordeal of virtue worthy of admiration. My motivation here is not partisanship on behalf of Jokestress, but a fear that if Wikipedia can't handle issues like this without either picking a winning belief system or casting a pall on consideration of the whole topic, then we lose our NPOV and turn into nothing more but a fight club with preferred viewpoint as the prize. Wnt (talk) 20:12, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Flyer22, why don't you submit evidence to the evidence page regarding Jokestress? Arguing on this talk page is not going to achieve much in the long-run. Also your comment that most paedophiles sexually abuse children is actually unknown or unknowable as the research has not been done or perhaps never can be done to determine how many people are paedophiles and how many paedophiles offend against children. It may actually be the opposite in that most paedophiles don't offend against children.--MrADHD | T@1k? 17:04, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

MrADHD, in due time (not to mention, some evidence that I would have presented, and some of which I will still present, has already been presented by others). I have only commented here to defend myself and explain matters, which is what others have obviously done. I clearly stayed off this talk page until Jokestress mentioned me above. As for stating that "While most pedophiles sexually abuse a child," I stated that because most people who have been diagnosed with pedophilia have committed child sexual abuse (according to most reliable sources on the subject). But I won't argue that "most people who are pedophiles have sexually abused a child" is assuredly knowable. Flyer22 (talk) 17:15, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

And, yes, you and I have discussed the prevalence of pedophilia, which I stated is unknown (though estimates, including one estimate you challenged, have been given) and is partly complicated by conflating pedophilia with child sexual abuse (citing the section in the Pedophilia article about that). But that's a somewhat different topic as to whether or not most pedophiles sexually abuse children, which again I don't see (at this time or possibly ever) as definitively knowable either. Flyer22 (talk) 17:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Yea, agreed but also the problem is many and perhaps most people end up being diagnosed as a paedophile because they committed an offense which led to them being assessed by a psychiatrist.--MrADHD | T@1k? 00:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

It usually takes more than just the act of child sexual abuse for experts to feel that diagnosing someone with pedophilia is appropriate, which is why experts can accurately distinguish between a pedophile and someone who has sexually abused a prepubescent child but is not a pedophile (the strength, including absence, of sexual attraction plays a role); so most are not being diagnosed as pedophiles based only on having sexually abused a prepubescent child. And it certainly is not proper for a psychologist or psychiatrist to diagnose someone as a pedophile purely on opinion. There is an extensive assessment that sexual offenders go through, or are supposed to go through, before being diagnosed as a pedophile. Flyer22 (talk) 01:01, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Cantor thinks what?

Despite that several people have made several claims about what I think, nobody has asked for or correctly guessed my actual opinion.

It is most certainly true that there exist medicalization/non-medicalization and pathologizing/depathologizing debates. It is incorrect, however, that I represent or support or benefit from either side of any of them. (Indeed, there haven’t been any diffs, comments, or publications of mine indicating that I do. Such claims have invariably been of the form of ‘Cantor thinks X’, followed by a quote about somebody else.)

I hesitate to provide my genuine opinions, as the main discussions pertain to conduct, not content. Nonetheless, for the record:

1. I do not believe that pathology or normality exist. Such distinctions can be useful in some contexts, but they are human creations, not natural classifications. Decisions about pathology/normality etc. are part science and part value judgment. As a scientist, I am always willing to suggest to the folks in charge of the value judgments (from the APA to the WHO to national governments) how to adjust their decisions to best account for the science. (Indeed, providing such suggestions is an expectation of me and other university faculty. It is an error to conclude from my providing the science what my values might be.)
2. I disliked several of the proposals that were made for the DSM5. In fact, I have an article now in-press in direct opposition to what was proposed for “hypersexual disorder” (which I do not believe exists).
3. I am not a fan of the DSM in general. (I believe that, in many ways, the DSM-III and DSM-III-R were superior to their successors; I believe that the ICD-10 is superior in many ways to all the DSM’s; and I believe that diagnosis often places an artificial dichotomy on what are continuous features of humanity.) It is an error to treat me/CAMH/APA/DSM has just one great big Big Brother of uniform will.
4. My research (and research funding) are unaffected by what the DSM includes and excludes. For example, I’ve also done research on what makes gay folks gay, despite that homosexuality was removed from the DSM.
5. Despite repeated references to Szasz, Foucault and other postmodernists, I cannot recall myself or anyone else removing or objecting to such perspectives. (Nor have there been any diffs of such alleged removals or objections.)

Working to avoid TLDR: Insinuations of a philosophical war, with me somehow representing one side, is a false dichotomy. Although there certainly exist extremist (or naïve) hold-outs, both medicine and philosophy have essentially moved beyond that debate. Indeed, even many of the original cultural/literary analysts have now evolved into “post-postmodernists” (avoiding many of the bizarre prior claims, such as gravity being a mere social construction).

I am perfectly happy to discuss any of my thoughts or words, but there’s nothing to be gained by arguing against what don’t think and never said. Indeed, that the best evidence Jokestress has offered for what I believe are statements from other people about what they think is itself a pretty good indication that I do not.

— James Cantor (talk) 18:53, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

But you pretended to be a female librarian called Marion to edit COI topic areas and POV push when you arrived on wikipedia. Presumably you chose librarian to throw people off as to why you had access to sources and again the female name to again throw people off your identity. This behaviour implies that you are something more than a disinterested honest Joe scientist and implies an agenda whether it is to do with work or emotion only you know. Although there may be some truth in what you have said above I am not convinced by your above post.--MrADHD | T@1k? 19:06, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Did Cantor really claim to be a female librarian called Marion? I had assumed he took the username from the song 'Marian the Librarian' from the musical The Music Man. — 92.2.72.72 (talk) 20:30, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

OMFG. It's a Wikipedia username. A pseudonym. Am I "pretending" to be a mast cell? Besides which, Marion is not necessarily a female name, as Marion Barry, Marion Barber, Suge Knight, or John Wayne could tell you if you dared ask them. MastCell ^Talk 20:47, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I have struck the comment, sorry, - I was not aware that Marion The Librarian was a song and I did not know that it could also be a male name. And yes you are pretending to be a MastCell, I think to scare off any would be invaders or something.--MrADHD | T@1k? 21:16, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, those harping on Cantor's anonymous use of MarionTheLibraian are really blowing this out of proportion. Can anyone honestly say they knew about RS,COI,BLP,etc when they first stated editing? Is anyone seriously challenged his good faith?  little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer  00:37, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

The last edit made by MarionTheLibrarian was on July 15th, 2008. That's 4 years, 8 months ago, roughly. Unless there is a discussion of current sockpuppeting behaviour, those old edits seem to be rather irrelevant and it might help move the arbitration forward if people stopped bringing them up. They are publicly disclosed on both James Cantor and MarionTheLibrarian's page, so the issue seems settled. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:09, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe those edits are relevant, because the patterns of behavior are the same: there, James Cantor, as MarionTheLibrarian, engaged in a crusade, deleting perspectives on issues related to transsexuality which conflicted with his POV, citing WP:RS in his deletions while deleting valid WP:SPS provided in External Links sections, and persistently seeking to yoke articles within the frame of "medical science", thus restricting them to WP:MEDRS sources. See my comment in Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology on 8 August 2010: "Links to RSN about Wyndzen -- COI, Wyndzen v. WP:RS, my POV". I don't believe User:James Cantor edits in bad faith; I do believe that his point of view is so narrow sometimes that it not only leads to bias in his edits - which is probably impossible to avoid in these controversial areas? - but the incessant conflicts he's been engaged in often cause him to be cursorily dismissive of editors who disagree with him. (LOL: contrary to what James likes to argue, I am radically not "politically correct"… this is me on guitar with the Angry Samoans? "Baby I'm one too." The very notion is… absurd. .-)

PS: "I believe that diagnosis often places an artificial dichotomy on what are continuous features of humanity." - User:James Cantor - Amen to that! - Sincerely, bonze blayk (talk) 04:31, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I see only one diff showing an edit made by James Cantor. The meat of that diff is a request for reliable sources, which is hardly unreasonable. Diffs speak louder than words. If you linked to diffs where approprate reliable sources were removed, that would be relevant. Deleting SPS in EL sections isn't really problematic, the standard for ELs are actually somewhat higher than even RS in many cases. But since I haven't seen any specific diffs of examples, I can't evaluate any specific change. More importantly, neither can the arbitrators.

This is arbitration. Personal opinions are far, far less important than diffs showing evidence of problematic behaviour. If James Cantor has a history of problematic editing that dates back to his earliest edits and continues now, please demonstrate this through diffs showing these problematic edits. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:47, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Without commenting on the actual substance of this particular disagreement, I will strongly echo WLU's comments that evidence of X, Y, or Z trumps assertions of such. There's a week and change left to add more evidence; judging by the quality of the evidence page thus far I would encourage all parties to work on strengthening their evidence with relevant diffs. Keep it succinct, and keep it clear. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:17, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Jokestress creating/using subpages to present extensively more "evidence" than others

I emailed Hersfold (who maintains the evidence page) about this, asking if the way that Jokestress is now presenting "evidence" on the evidence page allowed, noting that it seems to be a form of cheating that she is using subpages to present more information, extensively more at that, than others; this is after she asked on this talk page (see the Possible to split this into other case(s)? section above) if she could be given more room to present her case...but was not given any. Hersfold suggested that I ask the drafting arbitrators (committee as a whole) about this, and that subpages are sometimes disallowed for the reason that I mentioned...while they are allowed other times. Flyer22 (talk) 21:44, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

It is probably okay as it is not evidence per se but rather is 'background information' which arbitrators can choose whether to read or not to read for context but I am not an arbitrator so I could be wrong. Background information about years and decades old off-wiki background facts is very unlikely to be used during the process of arbitrition such as for creating and voting on sanctions or remedies.--MrADHD | T@1k? 22:23, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

She's using the subpages, which are not just about "decades old off-wiki background facts," as "evidence"; this is clear from her updated posts to the evidence page and from the subpages themselves. I see it as cheating/WP:Gaming the system, but it's up to the arbitrators to decide if it's appropriate or not. Flyer22 (talk) 22:35, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

You are cheating to by chopping off 'years and,,,' when quoting me! :-P--MrADHD | T@1k? 22:54, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Didn't even notice that I did that until now. Flyer22 (talk) 23:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Hehe. It okay, I am only teasing. =)--MrADHD | T@1k? 23:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I know; I could tell by the tone and smiley face, and there's also our positive interactions with each other. Flyer22 (talk) 23:40, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Genius! You should be a psychologist!--MrADHD | T@1k? 23:47, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious about the idea that four experienced editors (me, Cantor, Flyer22 and Legitimus) are exhibiting page ownership. When four experienced editors converge on an opinion, that's often an indication of consensus in my experience. It may simply be that people disagree on these issues; again in my experience the solution is to continue finding and adding reliable sources. Sources determine weight and page content, editors should follow them. To go the other way 'round is questionable to me. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:01, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Confused. Did you post in the wrong section?--MrADHD | T@1k? 01:04, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

MrADHD, he's referring to the subpages Jokestress created, especially this one. And, WLU, not to mention...we (me, Cantor you and Legitimus) barely edit the same articles. Then again, as seen on that subpage, Jokestress defines WP:OWN differently than how WP:OWN actually defines it. To state that I or other editors own sexual and/or psychological topics because we extensively edit these topics, more than the typical editor, is very troubling. But I'll be addressing Jokestress's claims about me on the evidence page, including her need to continue to conflate me with my brother, Halo Jerk1.

Anyway, Hersfold has stated that we can email the drafting arbitrators or arbcom-l about whether or not using subpages as evidence for this case is appropriate. He hasn't yet gotten back to me on who the drafting arbitrators are, but I take it that emailing arbcom-l is sufficient for contacting them. Flyer22 (talk) 01:19, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Hersfold pointed me to the top of the page, where it states: Drafting arbitrator: David Fuchs. I feel like an idiot because I was too lazy to look there even after thinking that how to contact a drafting arbitrator is likely on the page somewhere. But, yeah, I've contacted him about this matter. Flyer22 (talk) 02:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

There was an official decision/motion by Arbcom that linked subpage evidence is explicitly forbidden (you may ask clerks). My very best wishes (talk) 05:12, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

(outdent) On reading this page that Flyer22 linked to above, User:Jokestress/Sexology/Conduct_patterns it is clear that Jokestress is in fact using sub-pages for additional evidence or at least to back-up the evidence presented on the evidence page of this case. The arbitrators will decide whether Jokestress's sub-pages constitute evidence or not and whether to delete it or not.--MrADHD | T@1k? 15:44, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Jokestress may simply be using these subpages to organize her thoughts before submitting evidence (though currently they are linked to the evidence page). I am assuming that if this is the "final" version, the arbs will address whether it is appropriate or not. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

User:Jokestress/Sexology/Background#D:_Hebephilia_.282008-present looks mainly like an attempt to sneak into evidence a scree of smears by association. Why and how colleagues of Cantor are all bigots, lunatics and wrong about everything in RL would not be relevant to the evidence page even if it was them that had been editing Wikipedia. Formerip (talk) 23:24, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

It should also be noted that the claim on the conduct subpage that "Hfarmer was finally indef'd for outing an editor during the dispute" is a half-truth. The indefinite block on Hfarmer lasted for less than one day. Flyer22 (talk) 01:01, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Three comments here:

1. I may be biased, but this looks like Jokestress is trying to demonstrate that her efforts to right great wrongs on wikipedia were justified because all the people involved are horrible monsters. Perhaps these incidents (assuming they are accurately portrayed) justify activism off wikipedia, but here pages are expected to justify their content by reference to a neutral summary of reliable sources in proportion to their relevance and prestige. Not whether the authors are nice people.
2. The issues may themselves be questionable; for instance, the line "Cantor disrupts trans symposium and is forced by his employer CAMH to apologize" references two sources - TSroadmap, a webpage Jokestress publishes, and a paper written by a transsexual PhD candidate that mentions Cantor several times, and cites as its source when doing so...TSroadmap. Again, published by Jokestress. This looks like two separate pieces of evidence, but on the matter of facts, is really two citations to the same place (Jokestress' webpage), the only extra data added by the second citation is that a graduate student appears to agree with Jokestress.
3. "Bailey promotes obscure sexological concepts developed at CAMH" (autogynephilia). While the CAMH appears to have done significant research on the topic, I don't believe Bailey works there, and according to a recent source (Bancroft, 2009), "One recurring theme in the clinical literature is that there are basically two male types [of transsexuals; one] type has been described as 'autogynephilia' by Blanchard (1989), defined as a male's propensity to be erotically aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman" (page 290, second column, bottom paragraph of Bancroft). I don't believe Bancroft works at CAMH.

Plus (so four comments I guess) I don't know if the arbs will be interested in this much content, only at best how it impacts conduct. If this sort of information get used as part of the case's context, I would strongly suggest some independent fact checking as there are reasons to suspect that it is in fact flawed or at least heavily interpreted. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:13, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Just to notice, there is this page for analysis of evidence. Except that arbitrators may not necessarily read it. My very best wishes (talk) 16:24, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I personally have no strong feelings either way on using subpages, but I would say that arbs are under no obligation to read it; succinct points are usually more useful. After the arbitration case I intend to blank all the evidence pages, and that goes for user subpages as well. It's not sticking around. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 03:22, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Evidence on subpages has been deprecated since Abd thoroughly abused the tactic. Per Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Submission_of_evidence, "submission of evidence via sub-pages in userspace is prohibited". Is there a good reason why committee procedures are not being followed in this case? Skinwalker (talk) 18:10, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Minor point

One of Jokestress' statements in her evidence is that she has "49,000+ edits across all Wikipedia topics, rarely disputed". I would agree, these probably are rarely disputed - and that is why a limited topic ban is suggested rather than a site ban. We have distinctions in types of ban for this very reason - because sometimes edits are problematic only regarding limited topics. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Question for James Cantor (2)

In your evidence of proportionality section you have a table. How is the third column ("Hits to CAMH/Dreger/Lawrence Articles") calculated? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I used the search string (posted in the 4th column) to get the articles (sorted in order of times cited) and then just hand counted how many were from someone at CAMH or someone Jokestress alleges to be in our cabal (such as Anne Lawrence and Alice Dreger).— James Cantor (talk) 19:00, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I see - you didn't go through all 11,500 (now 11,600) results for pedophilia, just the 100 most cited in the past decade. Thanks, it's obvious in retrospect - I should have read more carefully. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:17, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Whoa, could you imagine? LOL (Imagine reading 11,500, not imagine you reading more clearly...)— James Cantor (talk) 19:45, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, hence my cartoon eyes when I clicked on the link...

Does google scholar auto-sort so the most cited are at the top? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:12, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I thought it had. At least, it sorts by "relevance," which (when I read through the results) was the same as number of citations, with a glitch here and there. I'll change the description on the evidence page to "relevance" nonetheless.— James Cantor (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

You'd need publish or perish to sort by cites.FiachraByrne (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Really, any of the metrics makes my point, which was essentially to give a quantitative response to the claims of fringe/minority viewpoint/etc.— James Cantor (talk) 21:37, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Yep. Arguably the Google Scholar ranking gives a better result anyway as it's less likely to include publications only tangentially related to the search topic. For the record, I went through the results for "pedophilia" sorted by the most cited results rather than the Google Scholar ranking. CAMH related researchers contributed 20 out of the top 100 most cited articles (which gives precisely the same result) and their papers generated 1759 out of 9777 citations (18%) for that same group. There's no revelation here, though, you and your colleagues are all highly cited. FiachraByrne (talk) 00:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually the above search was not comparable as I didn't set a time limit (I also counted Kurt Freund as CAMH related given his publication history with Blanchard and the fact you lot named a clinic or something in CAMH after him). Limiting the search to 2002-2013 returned 19 18 papers authored by CAMH-based academics out of the 100 most cited on pedophilia. Also, of the 6,390 citations which these 100 most cited papers generated, CAMH publications produced 1,759 (28%) 991 (16%). FiachraByrne (talk) 01:15, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Obviously I can't count to ten (I will stop after this). Limiting the search to the period from 2003-2012 returns 16 out of 100 most cited pedophile articles for CAMH researchers. Those 16 CAMH papers generated 929 citations or 15% of the total citations generated by the top 100 most cited articles (6167 citations).FiachraByrne (talk) 01:39, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's correct about Freund. He was at CAMH (then called the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry) from the 1960s until his death in 1996. That was just before I got there (in 1998), and I never got to meet him (one of my greatest regrets). He invented phallometry, so they named the CAMH phallometric lab after him.

To use citation data from before 2002, it would also be logical to include Ron Langevin and Paul Fedoroff. But, as you've noticed, it doesn't much how it's counted, the bottom line is pretty much the same.— James Cantor (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah to be memorialized through countless instances of male tumescence ... He had interesting history with homosexuality and conversion therapy. I also respect his pragmatic attitude towards death. FiachraByrne (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

LOL The Kurt Freund Lab tests conducts about 300 test/year. I once calculated what that sums to for our lab tech, who has been with us for many years now. If they were lined up one after another, he just got up to about three quarters of a mile of penis. (My gay friends die of envy when they hear that.) I don't know why anyone would ever want to be anything other than a sex researcher.— James Cantor (talk) 00:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

That's quite an aggregate of penis engorged with socially problematic forms of sexual desire; clinical manifestations of desire eliciting desire ...

As an aside, while I appreciate, due to alleged misrepresentation of your views, the possible necessity of the section above on you what you think, I'd like to register an objection that an editor would have to submit, or feel that they have to submit, such an account of their personal beliefs. Frankly, I don't think this, anymore than if you were a gay Nazi or the gay messiah, is relevant to this type of process. What if you did hold beliefs that did not match WP "consensus"? After all, it's not so unlikely that a field like sexology would generate perspectives that might be at variance with popular opinion. The point should be whether your edits fairly and reasonably reflect positions within the general field. Personal beliefs should only be relevant if it can be shown that an editor is unable to accurately represent the sources due to their personal beliefs. FiachraByrne (talk) 02:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree entirely. I kept my views entirely out of my evidence, and I didn't think there was any point to correcting Jokestress' claims about what I think. It was really only when my views were being discussed by other editors that I thought I should say enough just to avoid the "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." But, as I say, I agree with you entirely that's it my/editors' behaviour and not my/editors' topic views that matter here.— James Cantor (talk) 13:01, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments re Jokestress' evidence

As I noted on the evidence page, non-involved editors have repeatedly indicated that the allegations against me have been either unjustified or ancient. These also fit that description for the most part, with others being, pretty much without exception, half-truths. Thus, much of this is to add the missing halves. With a nod to TLDR, however, I don’t pretend to be making complete arguments.

The numbers on the diffs are as they appear on the evidence page as of Jokestress’ edit at 12:23 1 March 2013.

• Tampering with opponent Charles Allen Moser's biography

• 81 From 2008. Whether it remains relevant is up to others to opin.
• 82 2008
• 83 2008
• 84 2008
• Cantor is blocked A half-truth. Jokestress neglects the unanimous opinion of the multiple other admins who called it inappropriate and moved to unblock.[36][37][38]. Jokestress neglects to mention that it was she who instigated the block.[39] Finally, this was 2011, not a result of “that disruptive editing” from 2008.

• Attacks on hebephilia opponent Karen Franklin

• 85 Half-truth. My comments (published in 2012 in International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, here) were a response to Franklin’s attack (2011, here). Reading my comments shows they were a series of corrections of Franklin’s factual errors, routine for an academic like me to publish in academic journals.
• 86 No, those documents fault Franklin for claiming *I* used a definition I did not.[40]
• 88 Such a comment on a talk page for discussion is perfectly appropriate.
• 89 Talk page, and demonstrably true. The rumor being a negative statement about people Jokestress dislikes makes it no less a rumor and no more appropriate to include on a mainpage.
• 86 Half-truth. Jokestress neglects my initiating my own withdrawal from the discussion when the issue first developed,[41] despite other editors asking for my input.

• The “narrow operationalized hebephilia age range” is the range used in the majority of the data in all RS’s ever published on the topic.
• De-peacocking is perfectly appropriate.
• De-peacocking.

• Tampering with Hebephilia to promote himself and his ideas for years prior to my 2013 involvement

• 90 Calling them “published academic articles” does not make editorials into RS’s.
• 91 2008
• 93 2008
• 90 2008
• 94 95 2008. That an IP editor called it whitewashing doesn’t make it true. The criticisms added by the IP editor were very clearly OR.
• 96 I removed the entirely unsourced and incorrect OR claim that "hebephilia is not a recognized diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association."
• 97 I removed the entirely unsourced legal discussion.
• 98 I removed the entirely unsourced weasel "Some argue that hebephilia is not a distinct phenomenon".
• 99 I removed the entirely unsourced paragraph on cultural context of hebephilia.
• 100 A perfectly appropriate EL. Jokesress fails to mention my repeated disclosures each time I adding an EL.
• 101 De-peacocking.
• 102 A perfectly appropriate EL to an award-winning bioethicist on the topic.
• 103 A perfectly appropriate EL to a list of research articles on the topic, still disclosing myself on the talk page.
• 104 I removed the entirely unsourced legal section.
• 105 I removed the sourced-to-a-blog claim about what a closed committee did behind closed doors (and no one actually can know, never mind enter into WP).
• 2013 conduct

• 106 No; I reverted Jokestress' entire whoppingly one-sided edit, with other editors agreeing with my reversion[42] and no one opposing.
• 107 Not clear what the problem is.
• 108 Ditto.
• 109 De-peacocking. (Other editors, however, preferred other terms, and I did not contest any such changes.)

I will leave the allegations about the other editors (and alleged tag-teaming) to the other editors.

Two final points: I do not understand Jokestress’ referring to me and Legitimus as colleagues. I’ve never met him, and I don’t think we’ve even exchanged emails. I similarly don't understand Jokestress' description of Green or Ewing as my opponents. Green and I agree on much and get along just fine, and I've never met Ewing at all. Sides and conflicts are being projected where none exist.

Finally, I was perfectly happy to remove my single statement presuming Jokestress’ purpose in an edit, as suggested by NW. I believe Jokestress should hold herself to the same standard, removing the (very much stronger) presumptions of my motivations, which permeate her comments.

— James Cantor (talk) 03:41, 1 March 2013 (UTC) Updated the above at — James Cantor (talk). — James Cantor (talk) 15:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

"Yes. I removed the entirely unsourced legal section." LOL, exactly what I was thinking upon seeing one of the diff-links she provided showing me having removed the legal section that was conflating age of consent issues with hebephilia. And while removing a version of the legal section here, which uses a source that does not discuss hebephilia and was added by an indefinitely blocked user (whose edits can be validly reverted), I did not mean to remove the text that was sourced to Karen Franklin (which, as she acknowledged without naming me, I restored). But I'll tackle that and other things on the evidence page. Half-truths from Jokestress, as shown in the #Jokestress creating/using subpages to present extensively more "evidence" than others section above, is typical. Flyer22 (talk) 03:58, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

@Dr. Cantor. Point by point response is good. However, many arbs do not even look at this talk page. I would advice to rework your evidence on the main/project Evidence page to include only most important evidence and rebuttals. You should also provide links from main Evidence page either to this page or to your user sub-pages like Jockstress. My very best wishes (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

James, regarding what you stated in this edit summary, I was also thinking of posting a small response here on this talk page (to her Tag-team POV-pushing/"consensus" creation/OWN behavior at Hebephilia section) and then linking to it there on the evidence page.

My very best wishes, there aren't many Arbs...and I'm sure that they check on the Arbitration's talk page as well. Either way, pointing them here (from the evidence page) will ensure that they do. Flyer22 (talk) 17:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I think drafting arbitrator could help by telling what kind of evidence he does not need. I believe that anything about the number of Google hits [43] is actually irrelevant, but I may be wrong. My very best wishes (talk) 18:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

issues from outside

I'm outside the case.

It looks like the conflict-of-interest and single-purpose-account labels are being overapplied (their proper use appears to be misunderstood) and too much attention is being given to whether editors are coordinating to oppose other editors (controversial subjects expectedly bring out controverters) but aggressiveness as incivility or personal attack, if true, although not a COI violation, needs to be restrained and deterred, as that impedes editing and is a violation of policy. And I doubt that oversighting of actionable libel is clear; it's likelier that oversighting was applied because something looked to an oversighter like it could be construed as actionable libel but without making a final legal determination (the standard now includes a "very likely ... libelous post" and apparently there's no need to contact the poster for a defense as would happen in court, important as truth is a complete defense to a complaint of libel and we don't know what a poster would have said), because it is far cheaper to delete out of an abundance of caution than to await litigation, but that means the content deleted by oversighting may not have been libelous, and citing oversighting as proof of libel is probably invalid. Maybe libel happened, but since (I gather) we can't see the oversight-deleted content now and no court has ruled on it (even by settlement), we can't judge whether libel occurred. Even if ArbCom members can all see the oversighted content, the poster and the oversight requester may not be able to and may not be able to respond to whether it was libelous, so ArbCom members will not be able to judge its relevance to the case. I doubt the fact of oversighting and the alleged history leading up to it should be part of the present case in the terms in which stated.

In articles, more disciplines and more branches of study should be reported. Some specialized articles within this case's reach seem to need more fields of reporting, if sourcing exists. If a scientific discipline's membership and therefore functionally the discipline itself is biased for failing to have studied a question, that does not make reporting the state of that discipline nonneutral in Wikipedia, because Wikipedia should report the discipline as it is, not as it would be if the discipline were unbiased. Science sometimes leads and sometimes lags society and different disciplines in and out of science often disagree, and Wikipedia can report from probably all disciplines in an article. Law, theology, feminism (and, for all I know, perhaps masculism), history, anthropology, biology, psychology, psychiatry (medical and surgical), ethnology, ethology, and folklore (more or less popular culture) all likely have reportable contributions to articles in various areas of sexology.

Apart from Wikipedia's standards for neutrality and verifiability of content, while some advocates disagree with those goals, not all do; indeed, depending on context, probably most advocates don't. Even from advocates' viewpoint, accurate knowledge of the other side and everything else is necessary to successful advocacy, because of a need to know where problems are and to devise redress, including seeking other people's cooperation with redress. Accuracy of a discipline's knowledge starts with accuracy of that knowledge from the perspective of members of that discipline, complemented by outsiders' knowledge of that discipline, without blurring the distinction between them. Not all advocates agree, but belief in advocacy per se does not necessarily make for invalid editing and whether an editor is an advocate is therefore not dispositive, especially since editing depends on verifiable sourcing. Among sexual minorities, consequences to people include homicide, suicide, imprisonment, noncriminal confinement, loss of family, property deprivation, and loss of employment; whether some minorities should have civil rights and some should be imprisoned, these consequences are often major and common and will influence people in all disciplines. Given that, I favor more reporting over less, including of minority views, including of views that are and should be reviled, including accurately reporting them.

Scholarship usually arrives at temporary consensuses but also has divisions of opinion even without fringe views. Fringe views are usually wrong but occasionally can be mended into being right because some element is wrong or missing, and often constitute intellectual experimentation whether wrong or right, but overreliance on a fringe view can be deadly and otherwise dangerous, although in other cases reliance can be beneficial. Provided their being fringe is stated in the main text, some, but not all, fringe views should be reported, but I'm not sure where to place the dividing line between which should be and which should not be, and whether to move the dividing line to report more of them. Even without any fringe views, however, reporting should be more comprehensive.

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:04, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Just a few comments. I don't think the application of fringe is really relevant in this case; there's been no credible argument for the categorization of relevant concepts from CAMH-related researchers as fringe although some may be minority viewpoints and should be weighted accordingly - see discussion here Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology/Workshop#Fringe theories.

It may well be that perspectives from the human sciences are lacking in many sexology-related articles but there's been no evidence presented in this case that such perspectives have been illegitimately excluded from any relevant article. Notwithstanding the fact that sexology is a multidisciplinary field, in part this may be a question of sources as the likelihood of the sociological or anthropological literature meaningfully addressing some of the more exotic sexological concepts is limited. However, it probably also strongly reflects the biases, capacities and education of the general body of editors on Wikipedia. The humanities, generally, are poorly represented on this website. There's also the question of whether different disciplines are really dealing with the same objects of study and whether they could be meaningfully combined in the same article. Thus Pedophilia, defined as a sexual orientation, is a relatively narrow topic that probably merits restriction to the sexological and forensic literature while Child sex abuse, potentially at least, is a much broader topic of which pedophilia might be sub-component. Likewise with Homosexual and Gay. A more difficult example is presented in the contrast between the Gynandromorphophilia and Attraction to transgender people articles. See also the Talk:Attraction to transgender people#Sexual and affectional orientation. All this depends, of course, on the sources which exist and whether they actually address the same objects of study.

As regards activism and advocacy, it's a question of whether a) one can edit reasonably neutrally despite one's point of view b) whether one seeks to edit articles here as a campaign of activism and in a way that distorts the scholarly sources c) whether one's off-wiki behaviour as an activist may, or could be reasonably interpreted as, likely to have a detrimental impact on the participation of other editors. The evidence presented should address these issues. Without regard to the particulars of this case, there's certainly a general problem of activist, occasionally organised and certainly POV pushing across a range of controversial topics (Israel/Palestine; Race; Global warming; Falkland Islands/Maldives, etc) that has made for the creation of some extremely poor and unencyclopedic content. Wikipedia has imported these controversies into the actual writing and conduct dispute processes of the encyclopedia. In my opinion, and again speaking without regard to this particular case, this problem may merit fairly broad exclusions (topic bans) against a wide range of editors having duly weighted their content contributions and capacity to edit in the relevant subject areas. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:45, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that Nick is specifically talking about Cantor, but is rather being general about the concerns expressed by both sides of this Arbitration case; besides transgender and hebephilia matters, there's also WP:FRINGE ideas about pedophilia and/or adult-child sexual "relationships" regarding adults and prepubescents to take into account, which this Arbitration case partly concerns. Flyer22 (talk) 13:34, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Definitely, I'm not judging either party as to the case. I don't know enough.

We should presume most editors have biases that they use in editing articles. If we don't want that, we should assign articles contrary to their pro/con interests (requiring knowing them) or randomly, and then we'd soon lose most of them, so then we'd have to pay them, and Wikimedia's budget isn't that big. Exceptions nowadays probably include students whose teachers create an assignment to edit Wikipedia, which is what I think is the origin of some lists of schools in a place. Even editors who specialize in, say, copyediting or categorizing probably prefer to do so in articles of interest to them. We can generally tolerate not only editors who are one-sided but even individual edits that are one-sided. For example, if a member of a religion believes that all nonbelievers should be killed and edits accordingly, if what they do is add statements to that effect sourced to appropriate sources and they don't delete sourced statements that oppose the killings, there's probably no ground for objecting to their editing.

I don't count pedophilia as a sexual orientation and you might not be, but your point is unchanged by the difference; I'm not sure the fields of study should be kept narrow but it may be that other fields don't have much to add.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Point taken in regard to the general nature of the remarks.

Everyone has a perspective, this is true. But, again without regard to this case, there are clearly editors who can add content that contradicts their own personal biases - possibly because one of their biases/perspectives might be that encyclopedic articles should be neutral, fair and reflect sources - and those who edit with the intention that articles should reflect their personal perspective without regard to the totality of sources. Also, given that wikipedia should, by dint of its policy on sources, generally reflect the academic mainstream (where scholarly sources apply) it's quite likely that the biases of some editors at least will reflect such mainstream views and thus problems of bias will be less significant.

The endless additions of schools and every village on the planet seems to derive from the notability inclusion criteria. A lot of these must be added by bots.

The problem with model of different editing biases cancelling themselves out is that it can make: a) for very poor edit-warred articles that fail to take a broad overview of a topic or even correctly identify the most salient points (see Jerusalem); b) not all sides are equal, in terms of the tenacity of the editors and the relevance of their positions, in a point of view content disputes; c) not all editors are equally capable of managing dispute resolution processes on wikipedia (avoiding getting blocked). A lot of good, fairly neutral, content editors have been blocked or driven away in such disputes. Importing the editing disputes into the actual writing process - if editors cannot manage their personal biases and no adequate external system exists to do so - rarely makes for good articles and much less so to a collegial editing environment. Wikipedia has a powerful role in promoting information/misinformation and interpretative models of events/entities/historical processes etc - both individuals and groups recognise this, some edit with this in mind, and this has an impact on the encyclopedia in controversial areas.

I can't think that it's appropriate that any encyclopedia would have content advocating the killing of individuals on a sectarian basis.

Re paedophilia as a sexual orientation, interpreted as a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children, I would say yes according to that normative definition. The point of that example was to highlight that objects that might seem similar may be fundamentally different and require separate articles or sensitive treatment (awareness of such differences) within a single article. FiachraByrne (talk) 13:32, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

" there are clearly editors who can add content that contradicts their own personal biases - possibly because one of their biases/perspectives might be that encyclopedic articles should be neutral, fair and reflect sources - and those who edit with the intention that articles should reflect their personal perspective without regard to the totality of sources." See also Wikipedia:Writing for the opponent. Thryduulf (talk) 15:44, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

The point on killing should not be excluded and that's because it has a policy implication. A survey in Indonesia, possibly only of members of the majority faith there, found that over 90% believed it legitimate to kill those who leave the faith, Saudi Arabia made it illegal to leave the faith, and Egypt required that national identity cards name one's faith, and all of this happened or continued within the last few years. Nonbelievers in a specific faith are a larger category than leavers alone but it is important to know that such a view is not the view of only a rare adherent, although, even if common, their willingness to act on it may vary by place. Reporting it is not advocacy although explicitly disclaiming advocacy may be helpful. I read a biographical book about a professional murderer (The Ice Man); I still don't want to commit murder; but the book is obviously important to developing law enforcement strategy, unless other biographies have had a similar effect already and don't need reinforcement.

I haven't seen sexual orientation defined apart from lists of recognized or proposed sexual orientations, and I've raised that question, I think at Talk:Sexual orientation, in the hope it can be sourced, but, the last time I looked, no answer appeared. Sexuality does not necessarily imply a need for treatment or correction although some sexualities do; but, in literature I've seen (I have not studied it in depth), I think sexual orientation counts only a small subset of sexualities, up to four.

Nick Levinson (talk) 15:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC) (Corrected a misspelling and clarified generally: 16:03, 5 March 2013 (UTC))

Indeed, editors occasionally trying to promote paraphilias such as pedophilia or zoophilia as sexual orientations is exactly one of the things Nick, I and others have had to deal with here at Wikipedia for years. I will also be mentioning an aspect of that when I present my evidence. Pedophiles (some who identified as pedophiles) coming to Wikipedia specifically to promote pedophilia as a sexual orientation has happened because a large number of them, maybe most (I know this from studying pedophiles and dealing with pedophiles for years at this site), want society to view it as something that they were born with and is something that is therefore likely natural/normal (this is despite the fact that most scientists, while believing that sexual orientation is partly biological, state that they aren't sure what causes sexual orientation; see Biology and sexual orientation and Environment and sexual orientation). The pedophiles in question consider it discrimination that their "sexual orientation" is labeled a paraphilia and mental disorder, while "heterosexual," "homosexual," and "bisexual" aren't (despite the fact that pedophiles are also sexually attracted exclusively to one sex, both sexes, or to no sex if the they consider themselves a pedophile who experiences romantic attraction but not sexual attraction -- an asexual pedophile). Other pedophiles try to make a point by stating that the DSM once considered homosexuality a mental disorder, so the DSM is likely wrong about pedophilia being one as well. Despite their views, however, it's WP:FRINGE to call pedophilia a sexual orientation, as it is only referred to as a sexual orientation by a few researchers who use the term loosely. To mostly quote WP:FRINGE, it's a view that departs significantly from mainstream science and has little or no scientific support as a sexual orientation. Other researchers only compare it to sexual orientation, because of its development, strength and stability, but don't call it an actual sexual orientation; they define it as a paraphilia, mental disorder and something that they wish to cure (most of them doubt that it can be cured). The majority of the scientific community, as can be seen in the Sexual orientation, Biology and sexual orientation and Environment and sexual orientation articles, only define sexual orientation by the sex one is romantically and/or sexually attracted to and some things that come along with that.[44][45] They don't include paraphilias and/or mental disorders. Flyer22 (talk) 17:50, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

methods of editing

Would these help or is the relationship complained about in the case too far astray? For some, policies and guidelines would need amending.

• State authors' credentials for notable and nonnotable authors, where important in context.
• Indicate how widely a view is accepted, such as the number of citations to a source in peer-reviewed literature.
• If an issue is whether fringe views should be reported or not, if there's at least a colorable basis for reporting, perhaps we should report them in separate sections (as we do with popular culture) or separate articles (titled like "Sexuality_(fringe_views)"). If the risk of readers' misunderstanding is deemed to be still too high, perhaps we can limit mentions to lists of sources without attempting restatement of fringe views; readers can seek the hardcopy sources or visit the listed off-wiki URLs, much as with See Also and External Links sections.
• If a concern is the inadequacy of a science even when all known science in one discipline has been reported, e.g., because the known studies taken together leave a clear gap, say so, such as by saying something like "no known secondary source reports that ...."
• Increase reporting from other disciplines. For example, if anthropology says a class of people hardly ever existed or didn't exist at all but linguists say they did, report both views. In a case like that, it would be helpful to readers to explain why linguists came to such a conclusion (according to the sourcing), rather than to rely on only a link to let oft-untrained readers try to deduce an explanation.
• Increase dating of statements, near attributions, to clarify apparent conflicts in scholarship (as in "Smith in 1993 said ... but Eng in 2011 said ...."). Dating conflicting statements within a few months of each other raises a complication, because closeness may correlate with the later research being uninformed by the earlier if, say, a printed journal had not yet arrived.

Should any of this or any other editing suggestion/s be in the workshop?

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:17, 3 March 2013 (UTC) (Corrected a redlink by piping properly: 19:25, 3 March 2013 (UTC))

Thanks for the feedback, Nick. This and your comment above both contain several items I plan to bring up at the workshop. Until that opens, I hope you will continue to share your impressions of the evidence, generally and specifically. I am going to make some evidence revisions based on your feedback shortly. Jokestress (talk) 21:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

How to identify fringe

Do you want to distinguish scientific publications and fringe non-science? I am talking about natural sciences of course. Even without knowing the subject, this can be usually done based on language, style and phraseology. This is not my idea, but conclusions of people who studied Lysenkoism. Non-science usually aggressively attacks science by appealing to politics instead of referring to specific scientific theory or experiment (a typical scientific paper would tell: "we made such and such experiments, and our results disagree with something previously reported by others. There are several possible explanations ..."). Now let's see.

1. This publication by Jokestress tells: "My response to “sexology” is similar to how a person of color might respond to “raceology”" and "We mobilized all around the world as never before... This isn’t just evolution, it’s revolution. Well, this is all politics. This is all fringe, not science.
2. This publication by Karen Franklin. It tells in the Abstract words "pseudoscientific construct". Well, this is definitely a suspect for fringe. I never heard words "pseudoscientific construct" about anything in my area of science, even though there are many serious controversies. This is simply not needed. It is enough to say that a concept "was not sufficiently justified because ...". Telling "pseudoscientific" about work by your colleague implies that he is not a scientific researcher. No one does that. My very best wishes (talk) 07:07, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I didn't and don't have the time to delve into the particulars of the case and didn't try to. There's bad and good fringe and bad and good scholarly response rejecting fringe: bad rejection when it throws out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. The website of the Large Hadron Collider, when some people before it opened thought it would create black holes that might damage something (perhaps consume Earth), simultaneously claimed that it would not create black hles and that it would create only very small very short-lived harmless black holes. I believe their scientists are smart and would have studied the question adequately and I'm happy with either explanation but not both at the same time.

I'm tentatively proposing the above in case they'd help in this case or in general editing. The kind of analysis you propose for (in)validating fringe is probably beyond the means of a Wikipedia editing guideline, although perhaps it could be performed by analysts creating secondary sourcing we could then cite. For editing Wikipedia and analyzing sources directly as to being fringe and determining whether and how to use them, I think we'd need something more actionable. Suggestions?

Nick Levinson (talk) 16:07, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

There are certain controversies about black holes in Physics, but as long as physicists (as opposed to general public) discuss them in scientific publications, including even popular science, they never call each other "pseudoscientists". They never call "pseudoscientists" researchers of the past who believed in historically obsolete concepts. They call "pseudoscientists" people like Lysenko who intentionally fabricate data or ignore well established general theories like genetics. In this regard, the claim by Karen Franklin is something really unusual, apparently because she disagree with legal, rather than scientific implications of the concept. This is politics again... My very best wishes (talk) 17:23, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

While pseudoscience or, more generally, pseudoscholarship is likely to be wrong, it occasionally has developmental intellectual value in precisely the way you criticize: ignoring otherwise-excellent scholarship can actually be helpful when noticing that the scholarship is missing an element and raising a question from other known information about the missing item. This commonly happens when personal experience is not explained but is ignored in scholarship that apparently should address it. This sometimes results in a scholar agreeing that the other understanding should be explained, and, perhaps a generation later, applying a scholarly method to do so, sometimes producing an unexpected explanation, and much modern scholarship is the result of just such a process. The issue about black holes was not about an explicit disagreement between physicists at the collider but about an implicit one in which neither of the conflicting claims acknowledged the other and both were on the same website within a few minutes of each other as if simultaneoous, which suggests to me such an effort to debunk the outsiders' claim of danger as to be willing to go in the other direction to commit an opposite error (one of the conflicting claims had to be wrong unless the few minutes made a difference in research leading to them). Whether an outsider is motivated by politics, law, theology, irrationality, general ignorance, scholarship in anther field, careerist pursuit, or much of anything else does not matter to the validity of the work produced, most of psueoscholarship being wrong but occasionally some being right. I didn't try to evaluate the sources you linked to; for the sake of the argument, I can accept the conclusions you assign to them, but they don't change the principle I've brought here. We still could use something operationally helpful to editors working on Wikipedia. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

@MrADHD

I appreciate that.— James Cantor (talk) 02:20, 5 March 2013 (UTC)