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:::June, 2009 and an irrelevant diff? How about something just a *little* more current and relevant? Are you aware of a single instance of Nijdam referring to a reliable source without demeaning it? And how many times did you admonish him for this violation? How about the times when he wrote that he dismisses the views of certain other editors (woonpton provided that diff, and he says it right in this arbitration), clearly violating AGF? I know for a fact you mentioned that Nijdam refuses to respond to my comments, at least once, in an attempt to belittle me. I'll have to search for that diff. You never warned Nijdam [about the AGF expectation from all editors], as you so eagerly did me, anytime I challenged your dominion over all things MHP on Wikipedia. [[User:Glkanter|Glkanter]] ([[User talk:Glkanter|talk]]) 21:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
:::June, 2009 and an irrelevant diff? How about something just a *little* more current and relevant? Are you aware of a single instance of Nijdam referring to a reliable source without demeaning it? And how many times did you admonish him for this violation? How about the times when he wrote that he dismisses the views of certain other editors (woonpton provided that diff, and he says it right in this arbitration), clearly violating AGF? I know for a fact you mentioned that Nijdam refuses to respond to my comments, at least once, in an attempt to belittle me. I'll have to search for that diff. You never warned Nijdam [about the AGF expectation from all editors], as you so eagerly did me, anytime I challenged your dominion over all things MHP on Wikipedia. [[User:Glkanter|Glkanter]] ([[User talk:Glkanter|talk]]) 21:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm late to this conversation, but I would like to say that you will have a very hard time getting an admin sanctioned for not acting. Admins have the discretion to not use their tools and all their actions are still the actions of a volunteer. Its difficult to sanction someone for not volunteering. Its MISUSE of their tools which is what they can be sanctioned for. [[Special:Contributions/198.161.174.222|198.161.174.222]] ([[User talk:198.161.174.222|talk]]) 19:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


== Comment by Arbitrator ==
== Comment by Arbitrator ==

Revision as of 19:06, 18 February 2011

Main case page (Talk)Evidence (Talk)Workshop (Talk)Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerks: Dougweller (Talk) & x! (Talk)Drafting arbitrator: Elen of the Roads (Talk)

Response to Martin

Martin's comment directed at me seems to merit a response, but it doesn't seem to belong in the evidence section, since it's not evidence or a specific comment/question about evidence. So I've put it here; if it's in the wrong place a clerk can move it, I'm sure.

@Martin: I'm equally puzzled why you think my evidence constitutes a "fierce attack." There is no attack. The diffs (which are his own words, after all) speak for themselves, I think; otherwise I wouldn't have taken the trouble to collect them. But ultimately the committee will decide how compelling the diffs are to them and will vote accordingly. My only "agenda" here is violations of WP:RS, which seems to me an important component in the problem. Unfortunately, ArbCom approaches content issues only indirectly, through specific editor conduct, so my general concern about rampant OR needed to be framed in terms of specific editor conduct in order to have a chance of being heard, and Richard Gill offers the most salient current example of OR. But if arbitration were set up in such a way that a person could register a request to "Do Something About OR!" without singling out anyone individually, I'd do that. This isn't personal; I'd be happy with any remedy that put some teeth into NOR and RS for all editors working in the area, that would be reliably enforced against violators going forward.

Obviously everyone sees this dispute a bit differently, but it's not helpful to disparage those who see it differently than you do.

The fact that I chose not to become involved in the ongoing dispute is immaterial to my presenting evidence. I have watched the dispute over several months, and there is no rule that a person has to be actively involved in a dispute in order to present evidence in a case; in fact I often prefer outside views to party's views when reading cases, myself, because they often have a fresher, more objective perspective than those who are closer to the dispute. Woonpton (talk) 02:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Woonnpton, I was genuinely surprised to see your comments about Richard Gill, out of the blue so to speak. It is hard to see how a commentary with sections entitled, 'Richard Gill belittles other editors', 'Richard Gill engages in original research','Richard Gill promotes his own research on Wikipedia', and 'Richard Gill and COI' would not be construed as an attack. If this was not your intention then perhaps you should make this clear.
I do not believe that WP policy needs to be reliably enforced, in my opinion this is contrary to the spirit of WP. I think Richard adhered to the principles of avoiding a COI if not the letter. He was openly adding and discussing his own material in full view of the editors of a very active article. I consider this more akin to offering his views up for approval rather than promoting his own work. It is very different from adding your own work to a relatively quiet article in the hope that nobody will notice until it become established.
I was not complaining that you had commented, outside views are always welcome, more noting that you had decided not to join in the discussion despite appearing to have strong views on the subject. In the end it appears that we agree on many things, especially the benefit of having experts present. Martin Hogbin (talk)
Never before on an arbitration have I had to spend so much time (or any time for that matter) explaining that presenting evidence is not a personal attack. I've already tried to explain it three or four times, one directly above in this very thread, and I am getting tired of it. Presenting evidence about a particular editor does not constitute a personal attack; this is how arbitration works. If someone has concerns about the editing behavior of a party to an arbitration, this is how they are supposed to be framed: x does y, followed by diffs to support the assertion. I am tired of accusations along the lines of "You're attacking me" or "You're attacking my friend!" No, I'm simply presenting evidence in an arbitration case. The arbitrators will consider the evidence and use it or not use it in the final decision; it's fine with me either way. But this is how evidence is formatted (see top of the evidence page). Woonpton (talk) 22:36, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess not everyone is that experienced in arbitration cases. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In light of such inexperience, mayhaps you should re-read the arbitration guide. Your evidence section is heavy on content and low on evidence. Content is used to frame the dispute and should be background at best. I highly suggest following the templates. Its hard to find a better way to give the arb's evidence than the way they explicitly ask for it (and woopton's evidence IS following that method). 198.161.174.222 (talk) 16:27, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where are the Clerks?

This arbitration is already spinning out of control, with the content dispute that has been raging for three years moving to the "evidence" page in the form of dueling content positions back and forth. There are now seven "evidence" sections, but only two of them actually contain evidence; the rest are just statements of opinions, opinions that have been expressed hundreds of times on the article and talk pages (and one of these op-ed pieces is already going on 2000 words). One finds oneself having to respond to opinions instead of evidence, just as on the talk pages of the dispute where people's own opinions are argued instead of sources. The evidence page should be a place where evidence is presented and discussed, not a replay of the content war that has been going on forever. I think part of the problem is that parties are unfamiliar with the arbitration format/process, but that could be remedied with a little advice from the clerks. Where are the clerks? Send in the clerks.... Woonpton (talk) 15:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I half agree with you. This, I suspect, is a very unusual arbitration and maybe a slightly unusual approach is required. On the other hand I do think that the arbitrators in general should maybe propose a halt to addition of more opinion on the evidence page by editors who have already commented, or at least give some guidance. Maybe they plan to simply ignore opinion and look only at diffs but this would leave very little to arbitrate on and that is the problem, if this is just a conduct issue then it is far too trivial, in my opinion for arbcom.
I think the arbitrators will need to arbitrate on the editing process. Civility, no OR, and NPOV will not resolve this dispute. As the evidence draws to a close, I will propose my simple-first concept as a way to resolve it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take my chances with topic bans for every MHP editor that is shown to practice Gamesmanship, Wikilawyering, Ownership, Insist that only their OR POV is correct or that fail to AGF of other editors (even 'laymen'). The discussions and editing would be pretty straightforward then, as Wikipedia provided for, all along. Glkanter (talk) 22:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have to disagree about the uniqueness of this arbitration. Since I've edited mostly in fringe science areas I've seen a fair number of arbitrations (never been a party, but have sat through several as an observer and commenter) and I would say that rather than being unique, this is a fairly typical arbitration case: a situation where there is an intractable, longstanding content dispute, with incidentally one editor who is sometimes uncivil or rude in interacting with other editors. The case will be filed to deal with that one editor's conduct, and in most cases that I've seen, the case will end with that one editor being sanctioned and the underlying content dispute left to rage on unresolved, indeed unaddressed and unacknowledged. The Wikipedia dispute resolution system just simply isn't set up to deal with deeply entrenched content disputes; the assumption seems to be that once you eliminate the troublemaker, then the rest of the editors will be able to work out the content dispute easily and peacefully. This of course fails to recognize the nature of most content disputes. But ArbCom's remit does not permit them to address content disputes directly, so there we are. Woonpton (talk) 22:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Woonpton, I hope you are wrong and that the arbitrators find a way of resolving this dispute. I do not expect them to get involved in arguments about probability but there is a way that I believe this dispute can be resolved and which might be a useful principle in future disputes. How do you think this dispute would best be resolved? Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lemme get a little philosophical here. So the only likely outcome of all this is that I get sanctioned? And we pretty much knew that once the arbitration was accepted? In that case, I'm glad I didn't go for the 'here are my diffs' defense, and rather have tried to present my viewpoint using logic, common sense, the other involved editors' behaviour in the arbitration, and aggregated comments from other editors, all peppered with some meaningful diffs. Glkanter (talk) 22:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't misunderstand me; I was describing some prior experience from observing arbitration cases, but while this arbitration isn't unique in type, it's also not exactly like any other arbitrations in specifics; my careless comment above shouldn't be taken as a reliable prediction of how this arbitration will turn out, nor do I think the committee has decided on remedies before the evidence is in. In the other arbitrations I've watched where an uncivil editor was sanctioned, there wasn't much question about the incivility, the evidence was irrefutable. I personally think that an editor's content contributions should be considered during "sentencing" for such violations of civility, but I suspect I'm in the minority among Wikipedia editors on that issue. Anyway, my point is, please don't let that offhand comment keep you from presenting evidence if you have evidence to present, because the decision will be based on whatever evidence the arbitrators have in front of them to consider. Woonpton (talk) 23:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

response to Glkanter

Since there seem to be no arbitration clerks or arbitrators monitoring the case to respond to arbitration-related questions, I'll field this one:

Glkanter asks whether the arbitrators will consider the conduct of Rick Block as part of the arbitration, or whether Glkanter needs to "make countercharges against Rick Block." If Glkanter wants the conduct of Rick Block to be considered in the arbitration, he needs to present evidence, in the form of diffs, to support any assertions of misconduct. However, I will say, having just recently combed through all the interminable discussion pages, that in all that stuff I didn't see evidence of misconduct on Rick Block's part. However, maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough. But counter-charges aren't enough, you really have to back up those charges with diffs. The committee won't (or shouldn't, anyway) consider unsubstantiated charges; they need diffs. Woonpton (talk) 18:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the response. I guess 'evidence' has a very strict definition in the world of Wikipedia. It seems you're suggesting, as you did previously on my talk page, that 'diffs' are the only acceptable form of evidence.
And you're probably right. But how do I show show the *absence* of diffs? Each time Nijdam (or Richard) over the course of 2+ years monopolized a talk page, including the mediation and this arbitration, with OR, and Rick Block, the admin, failed to respond? Or when Dicklyon mugged me on the MHP talk page, and only Martin would address Dicklyon's gross, unprovoked transgressions? Then Rick Block had the gall to turn that single incident into an RfC on me? I've provided the diffs for that.
Nijdam himself provided the proof that he ignores the AGF of other editors right in this arbitration, and I believe you provided a diff to a talk page example of the same. Never a peep out of admin Rick Block. But when Glkanter is perceived by Rick Block to have violated a policy, well, those diffs are everywhere. In fact, that's apparently the only issue of this arbitration. Kinda weird, no?
So far, 3 or 4 other editors have mentioned either directly, or described, Rick Block's ownership of the MHP. Doesn't that count for something? There's been much more posted on this arbitration indicating that the barrier to progress on the MHP article is Rick Block, and not Glkanter.
And I provided some diffs for the perverse ways Rick's favored POV have been used in the article to subvert the will of the other editors.
And, of course, when Rick Block attacked me personally in the mediation, well, for reasons still unclear to me, all those diffs have been deleted.
But, in the unexplained absence of official Wikipedia representatives in this arbitration, thank you very much for your thoughtful response. Glkanter (talk) 19:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just a comment: I would urge you to be less angry at Rick Block for not taking action against people in the incidents you relate; the fact is that administrators are not allowed to use their administrative tools in content areas and/or disputes in which they have been involved as an editor or a disputant, and if he had done so, he could have been desysopped by the arbitration committee. It's too bad that there weren't other administrators watching, if administrative action needed to be taken, but it's unfair to blame RB for not acting, since as an involved administrator he really couldn't. It's unfortunate that no one has explained that to you before. Woonpton (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
[written before edit conflict]
In addition, Martin Hogbin's evidence shows, I believe at least 6 diffs where named editors have been directly foiled by Rick Block in their attempts to make edits to the article that Rick Block just couldn't support. Because all of those otherwise highly regarded, long time Wikipedia editors were suddenly struck dumb in regards to NPOV. At least as Rick Block sees it, anyways. Honestly, and this is *not* directed at you woonpton, isn't enough, enough? I mentioned this stuff in the now-disappeared mediation, and I was told to stop, my edits were reverted, and I was threatened with removal from the mediation unless I could follow the ground rules I had agreed to. It was more important, apparently, to have good ground rules following in the mediation than good faith editing. And people can't understand why the MHP mediation, just like the MHP talk pages, couldn't accomplish anything? Oh, brother. Glkanter (talk) 19:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
[written after edit conflict]
I'm only pointing out that Rick Block took many, many measures against me, countless warnings on my talk page, filing an RfC, filing this arbitration, whining to mediators about my posts, that he *never* once, not a single time did with Nijdam. Probably not Richard, either. Not because I was violating rules, but because no matter how many times he repeated his baseless arguments, I would respond in a manner that did not support his NPOV violating arguments and edits to *his* article.
I don't think I've displayed anger. Righteous indignation, perhaps. It's about time Rick Block was held accountable for his actions, and inactions. Glkanter (talk) 19:50, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Filing an RfC, filing an arbitration, having an opinion in mediation, warning other editors about infractions of policy, are not administrative actions; any editor can do the same. I feel your sense of injustice, but in order to demonstrate the injustice, you'd have to show that the behavior on the part of other editors in each case was as "bad" as the things you were warned for, and while that may be the case, it's a harder case to make. Everyone has their own opinions about whose behavior is disruptive and whose is not, and people aren't required to agree about this. And of course anything that happened in mediation cannot be an issue here. Sorry I can't be more helpful. Woonpton (talk) 20:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's the beauty of Gamesmanship & Wikilawyering isn't it? At first, you don't realize it's happening to you. Then, to make other people recognize it, you have to say something about it. *But*, until you're proven 'right', you're prima facie guilty of personal attacks. Plus, everything in dispute resolution makes it clear that the complainer will *probably* be seen as the real offender. The ultimate Catch-22. Of course, why that rule of thumb (j'excuse/j'accuse) doesn't blatantly apply to Rick Block's filing of this frivolous arbitration against me escapes me. And why, unlike everything else on Wikipedia, are the mediation diffs unavailable? That makes zero sense to me.
But thank you for addressing these issues, and giving me the opportunity to express my concerns in a structured, (non-pontificating) manner. Glkanter (talk) 20:20, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note for anyone reading this: Glkanter's claim that I've never said anything about policy to Nijdam or Richard is not in the least accurate. Two examples that took all of 5 minutes to find: [1] [2] -- Rick Block (talk) 20:53, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
June, 2009 and an irrelevant diff? How about something just a *little* more current and relevant? Are you aware of a single instance of Nijdam referring to a reliable source without demeaning it? And how many times did you admonish him for this violation? How about the times when he wrote that he dismisses the views of certain other editors (woonpton provided that diff, and he says it right in this arbitration), clearly violating AGF? I know for a fact you mentioned that Nijdam refuses to respond to my comments, at least once, in an attempt to belittle me. I'll have to search for that diff. You never warned Nijdam [about the AGF expectation from all editors], as you so eagerly did me, anytime I challenged your dominion over all things MHP on Wikipedia. Glkanter (talk) 21:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm late to this conversation, but I would like to say that you will have a very hard time getting an admin sanctioned for not acting. Admins have the discretion to not use their tools and all their actions are still the actions of a volunteer. Its difficult to sanction someone for not volunteering. Its MISUSE of their tools which is what they can be sanctioned for. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 19:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Arbitrator

In response to some of the above, please note the following

  1. Glkanter - your evidence is nearly 1500 words and needs to be reduced to 1000 or I'll have the clerks just chop it off at the 1000 word mark. Same goes for anyone else, so please check your word counts now and adjust accordingly.
  2. Please post evidence. If you accuse someone of edit warring and post diffs it is evidence. If you just rant at them without diffs of specific breaches of policy, it is a personal attack and I will have the section collapsed or removed to the talkpage. Glkanter, I have done you the courtesy of asking about one section of your 'evidence' here, but it is up to all of you to make coherent statements. I'm not going to work it out for you.
  3. Arbitration is not for content disputes, however the Arbitrators can examine whether what you put in an article is in keeping with the aims of the project. This means that it is possible that in some situations the question of whether the way the article is written is appropriate for the target audience of the project, may be relevant; particularly if it is linked to problematic behaviour to keep the article in an unsuitable format. The committee has not made a decision yet on whether this is the case here - I mention it because it has been raised by one of the parties.--Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:14, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the notification.
It seems if more than one editor can go up to 1,000 words to present the case that I'm problematic, like Rick Block and Dicklyon have the ability to do, then I might need more than 1,000 words to defend myself. But, you have your rules, which I abide by.
I have a strict policy of not self-censoring myself in terms of factual statements.
As far as the appropriateness of my 'defense', I understand your expectations, and have done my best to meet them.
Accordingly, I will not be reducing the size of, or otherwise revising, my Evidence section, and will (regretfully) accept the results of my decision. Glkanter (talk) 23:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Quick question: my understanding in the past has been that the evidence limit refers just to the evidence itself, and the responses can go beyond the limit, as long as they don't get out of hand. I don't see any rules about limits on responses, but since I've had to respond to some rather serious accusations about evidence, that weren't directly related to evidence but more to questioning my motives in presenting evidence at all, my responses have gone longer than I like. Last I checked, my evidence was well under 1000 words, but if that limit has to include responses, I'd be happy to move the responses to the talk page if that's acceptable. Thanks, Woonpton (talk) 23:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another quick question - is the limit per major section ("Evidence presented by xxx")? I ask because with the combination of my two sections ("Some background" and the evidence I've presented concerning Glkanter) I'm over 1000 words. My question is does the "Some background" section count toward this limit? The background section is not exactly evidence, but I thought it would be useful. If someone could comment on this I'd appreciate it. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 07:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As the defendant in this arbitration, I'm curious why Rick Block thinks the rules of Wikipedia Arbitration should be applied differently to him than to anybody else. It doesn't surprise me, of course. That he would posit/suggest that his "Some background" section is *neutral*, and therefore 'exempt' from the rule is pretty funny. Well, it would be funny, except he's serious. This arbitration is probably (finally) the right venue for him to explain why he continues to expect such special treatment, and edits accordingly. Glkanter (talk) 12:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Followup from the other drafting Arbitrator

Keeping an eye on the evidence. I have to agree with Elen above that things have not gone quite the way we want so far, so in an effort to assist the parties, Here's three each do's and don'ts, that I've come up with. Call it "SirFozzie's rambling guide to being a party to an Arbitration Case".

DO's:

Brevity, wit. I must be still on the Shakespeare kick after the last case I worked on, but I feel compelled to bring up the Bard's famous quote from Hamlet: Brevity is the soul of wit. There's no need for rhetorical flourishes and long, meandering sentences filled with asides (trust me, it's something I struggle(d) with on both sides of the Arb fence). Be a word miser. There's no need for long paragraphs. Give us the facts. Keep it dry, factual and succinct. If you want to create an evidence subpage off your user page for background or additional thoughts, go right ahead and link it to your evidence statement, but keep actual evidence succinct. (Just note that more and more, we require folks to delete their evidence subpage or move it to the arb-page at the case's conclusion.)

ArbCom is ConDUCT, not ConTENT I said this about a year ago, and it only needs a minor tweak today. Here's why I don't think that ArbCom will ever willingly get dragged into deciding content. Usually in such heated disputes, there are experts on one or both sides. They have done the legwork, provided references that support their wording. They know just about everything there is to know about the area. And then you're asking 16 (note: now 18) men and women, to decide content that in some esoteric areas, they know NOTHING about. To mangle a quote from Donald Rumsfeld, we don't even know what we don't know! I'd much rather see if by identifying the bad actors in a topic area, the community can decide the content themselves Let's look at this another way: If ArbCom was going to willingly decide on Content, in the last ten months to a year, we'd have to collaboratively become near world-class experts (better than those who already post here) in the following categories: Transcendental Meditation, Climate Change, Race and Intelligence, World War II, Shakespeare, etcetera. Needless to say, that would be.. rather difficult. Save your words for things that ArbCom WILL consider(remember, you're on a 1,000 word budget here)

Maintain Composure. An Arbitration case can be viewed as a prism of the area in conflict. The drafting arbitrators look over this page constantly as we look toward writing our proposed decision, and our fellow arbitrators also keep an eye on ongoing cases, and review the whole area before voting on any proposed decision. If the Committee sees you at your worst during a time frame that requires your best behavior, how can they trust you to act to Wikipedia's norms and policies when the glare of the magnifying glass is NOT on you? I've been on the other side of the Arb-fence for several high-visibility cases, and I know how hard it can be (especially several weeks into a case). But it is necessary. See also: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide_to_arbitration#Don't_moon_the_jury

DONT'S

No Did Not/Did Too's Again, you're limited to 1,000 words. Don't get caught up in using too much of it getting into arguments with other editors. Again: "Dry. Factual. Succinct.". If someone is making wild accusations, you don't need to counter that (unless asked to, of course). This generally falls under the Maintain Composure DO above and the old saw "Give a man enough rope, and he'll hang himself."

Do not wait till the last minute. Yes, all the evidence is reviewed before we write a decision. However, as we are monitoring the case frequently, you want to get your evidence in as quickly as possible. Why? Because it's quite possible that if an evidence page degenerates into further arguing, your evidence may be lost in the general chaos. We try our hardest to get the signal from the noise, or put another way, we try our hardest to separate the wheat from the chaff, but we're human. ((There's no truth to the rumor that Jimmy is looking to replace us with IBM's AI named Watson.)

Don't Make it Personal. This really details with Maintain Composure above, but.. sometimes parties need to be reminded that behind those words you see on the screen, is another human being. I've seen times where someone writes themselves INTO a ban (be it an interaction ban, a topic ban or even in extreme cases, a site ban) , just because they made it personal. Collaboration is one of the pillars of Wikipedia. We may sanction some people in a topic area, but I don't think we've ever banned EVERYONE in a topic area, (although the Climate Change case probably was the furthest the Committee has gone down that path). So, even if we apply sanctions in an area, you will still need to work with at least some of the editors in the topic area. This goes double for cases where the Committee enacts discretionary sanctions. So, don't make it personal, keep it cordial or at least collaborative.

Anyway, hope this helps the parties, and I'll stop here, before NYB comes after me for threatening his title as the "Longest-winded Arb" ;) SirFozzie (talk) 12:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given the history of the MHP in and outside WP, the chances are good that this turns into (one of) the "longest winding arbitration" anyhow completely inpedent of your contribution :-)--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Formulation conducive to misunderstanding

In his evidence section, Nijdam wrote:

This whole dispute mainly concerns the refusal of in particular Martin Hogbin and Glkanter as active participants to understand or accept that what is called the simple solution, does not solve one important, not to say the most important, version of the MHP, what is called in this discussion "the conditional problem". Being a mathematical fact, Gill agrees, (User_talk:Gill110951#Why the unconditional solution is wrong), but for some reason wants to promote this simple solution by changing the description of the MHP.

This might give rise to the misunderstanding that it is claimed here that Gill agreed that "the conditional problem" may be considered to be "the most important version" of the MHP. From Gill's contributions (including the one referenced here), it is clear that that is not his point of view at all.

More in general, I feel that this statement misrepresents the issue. The disagreement is not whether the simple solution solves "the conditional problem" (unless also a symmetry argument is invoked, in which case it clearly does), but whether "the conditional problem" is such a particularly important version that the prominence Rick Block and Nijdam insist on giving it is appropriate.  --Lambiam 12:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no support for Nijdam's POV in the reliable sources literature. Certainly not from Selvin, who created the puzzle and first named it the 'Monty Hall problem', or from vos Savant. In fact, they each offer the simplest solutions of all, an unconditional table of all possible outcomes, to derive their 2/3 & 1/3 solutions. The editor/admin who requested this arbitration will disagree with me, and point to 5 specific 'critical' sources (he will also explain how I fail to properly understand Selvin's paper). During the formal mediation, using nothing more than the English language, I debunked 3 of those sources as 'critics' of the so-called simple solutions. I expect I would have debunked the other 2, but the mediation pages got disappeared. That same editor on many occasions has offered the unique interpretation that *every* source that gives a formal conditional solution was, by his definition, also a critic of the simple solutions. Even if they made no such criticism, or made no mention whatsoever of simple solutions in their paper. That's a doozy, no? Glkanter (talk) 13:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While We're All Here...

I am still reeling over the disappearing of all evidence of the MHP formal mediation.

As we went through mediator after mediator after mediator team after mediator team, we always started with The Ground Rules. One could only participate if one expressly agreed to abide by these Ground Rules. That would probably be the right point at which to inform the participants that unlike every other diff they ever post on Wikipedia, these most important diffs will be deleted without any notice or cause, save for the (probably unknown to the participant) 'privileged nature of formal mediation'. Glkanter (talk) 13:20, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Richard's Veiled Reference to Rosenthal's Paper & Glkanter's Interpretation In His 'OR Rampage' Section

Come on, Richard, that's not your style. Please provide the sentence(s) in question, a link, and anything else to put it in context (like his comment about how he 'callously ignored' some aspects of the traditional problem with his proprietary problem statement). What's the topic and purpose of his paper, anyways? Please, address these on this talk page, at least. Thank you. Glkanter (talk) 13:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]