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Michael Welner

– General close. See comments for reasoning.

Filed by Stewaj7 on 21:22, 2 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

Michael Welner (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

Stewaj7 (talk · contribs)
Jcally66 (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

My apologies as I was not logged in when I filed my earlier dispute - though I thought I was. Regarding Michael Welner page, this page has been the source of many bad faith edits. A contentious statement about peer review being controversial, without appropriate referencing was included. Jcally66 statments are unsupported by the source that she lists. When this was brought to Jcally66 attention, the editor noted their personal knowledge of events as a source and the court opinion which only vested parties have access to - non verifiable. In the middle of discussions about edits that violate WP:NPOV and WP:ORIGINAL see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Michael_Welner#New_Edits - Jcally66 made edits to the page - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Welner&curid=10986838&diff=515663566&oldid=515661934 - disregarding discussions.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Discussion talk pages for Michael Welner, discussion on Jcally66 talk page, providing info about wiki etiquette.

How do you think we can help?

1. ~~protect the page until discussions have been concluded.~~ (See closing statement above. Comment about user removed ~~Ebe 123~~ → report 22:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)) 2. another editors objective input would be helpful. My fear is the this will turn into another editing war if the page is left open to edits.[reply]

Opening comments by Jcally66

I made a 3 sentence addition to the BLP for Dr. Welner in the section "The Forensic Panel" where it states: "Welner is founder and Chairman of The Forensic Panel, a multi-specialty forensic practice which employs peer-review of its forensic consultation." The wiki BLP and subject's use of the term "peer review" flatly contradicts all accepted definitions of the term by scientific and medical professionals. I cited a recent, publicly-available, federal court ruling that threw out a "Panel" report that hinged on their conflation of terms 'peer review" with "co-authorship" or "consulting". I have only used Wiki references to define "peer review" and only used publicly-available sources to make statements of fact. I considered this necessary to add since the ruling was for a capital criminal sentencing and because this issue has been on-going focus of controversy since 2006 (the Andrea Yates trial, which I also referenced.) All accusations of vested interest or bad faith are unfounded.

Michael Welner discussion

Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.

Hi, I'm Ebe123, a volunteer at DRN. I will help with this dispute. I will remove all comments about conduct and users. We can start when the other party responds. ~~Ebe 123~~ → report 22:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Stewaj7 here. I have asked Jcally66 to chime in on their talk page, but have not heard back. We have been engaged in more discussion on the talk page. They were kind enough to remove their edits while discussions were ongoing.Stewaj7 (talk) 23:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jcally66 here. I'm not sure how this works - first edited 3 days ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcally66 (talk • contribs) 00:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jcally66, please use the section title "Opening Comments by Jcally66" to state your reasoning on why you feel justified for your contributions, why you may feel the other editor is incorrect or any other comments in regards to this case you feel need to be addressed. Discuss the edits not the editor and remain civil. Thank you and happy editing! Once the case begins and talk is intitiated, use this section for the main dicsussion. --Amadscientist (talk) 00:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this at DRN? Other than the filing editor, a WP:SPA, summarily reverting well-sourced text, coupled with invective and personal attacks against anyone who dares insert material to this BLP that provides anything other than a PR flackweasel's spin on a highly controversial subject, there has been no discussion whatsoever of the edits in dispute. Fladrif (talk) 18:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Fladrif's comment's on the article's talk pages. There was no serious discussion between the two editors before filing here. Removing well-sourced content while accusing other editors of bad faith and malicious activity is a bit inappropriate. If you have a specific BLP issue, I recommend taking it to WP: BLP/N. --v/r Electric Catfish (talk) 21:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, DRN only deals with content disputes, not conduct disputes. Conduct disputes should be taken to WP: AN/I. --v/r Electric Catfish (talk) 21:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you mean conduct for your last sentence. ~~Ebe 123~~ → report 00:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. --v/r Electric Catfish (talk) 00:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There has been and continues to be extensive discussion on this issues both prior to and during the initiation of this dispute (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Michael_Welner#New_Edits) (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Michael_Welner#Revisiting_New_Edits). However, the dispute resolution was initiated when Jcally subverted discussion to post content on the BPL. While initiating this resolution indirectly helped curb that behavior, the issues about the content still remains. I ask that you please take a close look at the most recent edits both by Fladrif reinstating Jcally66 misrepresentation of her sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Welner&diff=next&oldid=515706246.Stewaj7 (talk) 03:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fladrif raises a separate issue above that I agree should be addressed in a more appropriate forum. Those involved in resolution, please see additional edits by Fladrif [1] under discussion [2]. Fladrif, should this content matter be address separately as well? I am still figuring out proper forums.Stewaj7 (talk) 05:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, we at DRN will help you fix the NPOV and OR issues, but any allegation of another user's misconduct should go to WP: AN/I. --v/r Electric Catfish (talk) 13:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article appears to be free of original research and has an ample amount of citations. I tagged the page, as it uses bare URLs for citations, which are prone to link rot. This can be fixed by filling them in using {{Cite Web}} templates (using Reflinks), but this content disputes stems from OR and NPOV issues. The article is well-sourced, and I don't see original research in it. Perhaps you can link me to it? --v/r Electric Catfish (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Electriccatfish2, I am referring to 2 sections in particular. The first is "The Forensic Panel" under the Professional Career section can be found here[3]. Jcally66 wrote, “Welner's theories and practice regarding The Forensic Panel's “peer-review” are controversial, and have been criticized as for Welner using employees rather than independent experts to conduct the review. The practice has also been criticized for the level of fees it generates, for making Welner's testimony and conclusions less credible, and for generating excessive fees.” This paragraph is completely unsourced. Jcally66 goes on to write, "Prosecutors in two cases have said that they were misled by Welner as to the manner in which he marked up fees above those of the persons he hired as peer reviewers." [4]. From the source itself the DA were asked about how they felt about the fees and they replied “If we were right, and Mrs. Yates was sane, how much should Welner's testimony cost, in nontax dollars per dead child? Especially when the media poisoned the well from which prospective jurors drank?” This is in contrary to prosecutors stating they were misled. The second source Jcally66 lists does not support the statement either. [5] The issue is that any one can link a statement to an non-supporting article, because no one polices the reliability of the source. In this case, the references might as well be an add to an eye cream, because they do not contain anything about prosecutors claiming they were misled by Welner. These are just a few examples.Stewaj7 (talk) 14:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The lines "The practice has also been criticized for the level of fees it generates, for making Welner's testimony and conclusions less credible, and for generating excessive fees.” and "Prosecutors in two cases have said that they were misled by Welner as to the manner in which he marked up fees above those of the persons he hired as peer reviewers.” were written by Fladrif, not me. Your dispute is with him.--Jcally66 (talk) 15:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The second section is here[6]. Fladrif wrote "Proceedings of the U.S. military against Omar Khadr by a Guantanamo military tribunal, in which Welner's testimony has highly controversial and largely discredited."[7][8] When I brought to Fladrif's attention that he added a link to an article or site that is no longer available, he disregarded the input and subvertted the issue [9] claiming that it was "my opinion" that the sources were wrong and making false allegations. But all one has to do is read the articles cite to see that they say nothing of the sort. When asked to remove the contentious unsupported content Fladrif, blew me of plain and simple. I am asking that you take a closer look at what is being done here. I know those governing this forum are savvy enough to see through these subtle violations of Wikipedia policy.Stewaj7 (talk) 14:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This dispute has been inactive for some time. Is our assistance still required? Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 22:16, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No. Although, given the history of SPA's with a clear connection to the subject insisting on polishing this turd, it would be helpful for previously uninvolved, disinterested and neutral editors to weigh in on the talk pages.Fladrif (talk) 01:33, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Fladrif, more neutral editors are needed to weigh-in on the talk page since some SPAs continue to misinterpret referenced materials so bizarrely and one-sidedly (including academic journal articles) that I have to think some must have some direct connection to Dr. Welner or his organization.--Jcally66 (talk) 07:34, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Men's Rights

– This request has been open for some time and must be reviewed.

Filed by CSDarrow on 15:47, 3 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

Men's Rights (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

Dispute overview

An impasse has been reached at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Men's_rights_movement#Allegations_of_Rape_2

as to whether the statement,(which atm is),

"Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime".

The argument is over whether this statement is reliably sourced and/or of undue weight.

The section being

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement#Rape.

Discussion has been lengthy and has clearly reached an impasse. There is a need for some impartial eyes. If anyone could help it would be appreciated. This page is under probation and deals with a controversial topic.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Apart from very lengthy debate, nothing else. This is the first appeal for help.

How do you think we can help?

Atm I feel an experienced neural editor could aid the discussion in reaching a consensus.

Opening comments by Memotype

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.

Opening comments by Memills

Inclusion of the statement that men's right groups support marital rape is clearly WP:UNDUE.

By analogy it is as if statement by one feminist that "All men are rapists, and that is all that they are" should be included in the article on the feminist movement because it represents an important platform of the movement.

In both cases, these are outlier statements that fall under WP:Fringe and WP:UNDUE Memills (talk) 20:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Perpetualization

In my mind the issue is simple. The statement is: "Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime." WP:UNDUE gives us three scenarios:

If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;

This viewpoint is not held in the majority. CSDarrow provided us with a long list of the most prominent Mens Rights organizations, none of which have a reference to it.

If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;

"Some men's rights activists" is sentence that does not name adherents.

If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

The last option is does not belong in wikipedia.

WP:UNDUE therefore calls for us to remove the statement. If another editor wished to add the statement again, with specific "prominent adherents" named, as required by WP:UNDUE, I would not object to that. Without named adherents, the statement is certainly given undue weight.

Editing/Extending:

I will add that it appears that the statement may be true outside of the United States. Still, the use of the word "some" is necessarily prejudicial and the article is generally US focused (and reads as such). Perhaps naming countries where the viewpoint is mainstream, noting that it is not mainstream within the United States, and providing prominent adherents from the minority within the United States.

I also vigorously object to dated sources in the discussion. The Mens Rights movement in the United States is leaps and bounds from where it was 20-30 years ago. A history section noting view that were formerly mainstream would be a welcome addition to the article, but the article would be prejudicial to conflate current advocacy with advocacy of the late 80s and early 90s (as Cailil has done).

Lastly, I note that there are several variations on this viewpoint, not all of which are identical and which are easily misstated from sources:

men's rights groups oppose marital rape laws
men's rights groups feel that marital rape laws are often used for false claims as a weapon in divorce cases
men's group opposes marital rape laws because they feel that accusations of marital rape are fundamentally irrefutable (as |Slp1 found a source for).

If the sources indicate that different men's rights groups hold varied opinions on marital rape, then we can state that, and provide a brief summary of the prominent adherents and their viewpoints. It seems slanderous to cover such a wide range of viewpoints for such different rationales with "some men's rights groups oppose marital rape laws"

Perpetualization (talk) 16:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Cailil

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.

Very simply, sources state that there have been (and are) attempts by Men's Rights groups to campaign against Marital Rape legislation. I listed the academic peer-reviewed sources and the relevant text from them (with page numbers) on the talk page[10]. Kaldari listed the material about current action by groups in India[11] related to this.
The interpretation by CSDarrow & Perpetualization of NPOV makes no sense. The point about "adherents to a POV" in that policy refers to sources. The construction being placed upon it is that we should find individual Men's rights activists who hold these views to prove the sources correct - that's original research.
As it stands the point about marital rape is sourced, and accorded the weight of one sentence in an appropriate section in the article. It is not being given undue prominent in the article itself or relative to the sources. I'll also note that this area is under probation and edits removing sourced content as well as tendentious argument are sanctionable.
I've stated on the page, as has, to the best of my knowledge, Kevin that we agree with the removal of the "marriage contract" piece but the sentence about campaigns about marital rape law is appropriate WRT to this site's policies. I've already suggested alternative wording ("scholars contend") to resolve the "some" issue.--Cailil ^talk 17:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Slp1

CSDarrow and Perpetualization appear to have a fundamental misunderstanding of various V, NPOV and RS policies. The same arguments keep getting repeated, and then the goalposts moved.

First, WP's NPOV policy and Jimbo's cited comments do not support the deletion of this well-cited information. In fact WP:UNDUE says that "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint." As has been pointed out over and over again, multiple highly reliable academic sources include this information, so it actually would be undue NOT to include it. Jimbo's (cherrypicked) requirements have actually been more than achieved as for this possibly minority opinion (at least in the West), it is actually very "easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts".
Nevertheless, when these editors asked for prominent adherents, other editors provided several examples of notable men's rights organizations and their officials who have made opposed marital rape (see Kaldari's comments).
Attempts have been made to dispute what the reliable sources say by doing original research to prove them "wrong". The research was actually faulty since there are at least two of the websites listed that do oppose spousal rape laws (Kaldari mentions one, and here is another[12]). And in any case, original research by editors to "disprove" reliable sources, is simply not how we write an encyclopedia article.
But now the goalpost has changed...We now have arguments that the sources about the US are out of date (20-30 years is mentioned), when the reality is that the US-based sources were published in 2005, 2003 and 1994. Not one is even 20 years old, and most are quite recent.
We also now have arguments that the statement may refer only outside of the US. However, the key point is that's not what the sources say; and once again examples of the website of current US-based men's rights activists have been provided to show that this is false.(See Kaldari's comments)
And now we have claims that this material might be libellous and slanderous. Well, if that is the case you might want to warn the scholarly presses that published the material in the first place. Slp1 (talk) 23:40, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Binksternet

I have not been arguing this point. Binksternet (talk) 15:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Kaldari

First, I would like to respond to a misleading argument above by Perpetualization:

"CSDarrow provided us with a long list of the most prominent Mens Rights organizations, none of which have a reference to it."
- This is simply false. At least one of the pages linked to from CSDarrow's list does actually list decriminalizing marital rape as an agenda item: "Repeal all laws making men's sexuality, exposure, penetration, etc., into a criminal act unless there is demonstrable physical harm to a victim. Release and pardon all men who have been arrested for "statutory rape," "date rape," "spousal rape," "pornography," "soliciting a prostitute," and other weasel worded versions thereof. A woman's hurt feelings do not turn a man into a criminal."[13]
- Secondly, CSDarrow's list doesn't include any Indian men's rights organizations, such as SIFF which successfully campaigned against criminalizing marital rape only 2 years ago.

The statement under contention has met every criteria that has been offered. First of all, there are numerous reliable 3rd party academic sources that back up the claim (can't include quotations due to 2000 char limit):

Current Controversies on Family Violence[14]
American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia[15]
Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure[16]

Despite this, some editors have insisted that WP:UNDUE requires that prominent adherents be named. Here are some prominent adherents (in their own words):

Tom Williamson, founder of the National Coalition of Free Men: [CNN Interview] "First off, I don't think that there should be anything called marital rape laws."
Virag Dhulia, Public Relations Officer of SIFF: [Speaking to the press about a proposal to remove the marriage exemption from the Indian rape law] "This means that the government wants police to enter bedrooms now, which is a sure shot way to break a marriage as no relationship will work if these rules are enforced."[17]

I'm open to revising the wording to address concerns, but I don't think there's adequate reason to remove the statement entirely.

Opening comments by Kevin Gorman

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.

I've been, unfortunately, too busy irl lately to involve myself in this article as much as I would like. I view this as a relatively minor issue compared to those the article as a whole suffers from. I have not studied this dispute in depth; I've reviewed the posted on-wiki sources and most of people's on-wiki posts, though. From what I've seen no one has made, so far, a convincing argument as to why this information shouldn't be included. Slp and Kaldari have found a pretty significant number of RS'es that contain this information. Some of them I would describe as high quality, some of them have recently been published, and most of them have been published recently enough that their age shouldn't cast doubt on their accuracy. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:54, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Men's Rights discussion 1

Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.

Note: Please note Men's rights movement is under probation; please let me or another uninvolved admin know if there are any sanctionable actions which occur. KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:31, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I am a dispute resolution volunteer here at the Wikipedia Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. This does not imply that I have any special authority or that my opinions should carry any extra weight; it just means that I have not been previously involved in this dispute and that I have some experience helping other people to resolve their disputes.

Right now I am waiting for more of the comment sections above to be filled in. In the meantime, I would encourage everyone involved to read the "Guide for participants" at the top of this page. Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 16:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I am another DRN volunteer and will be assisting Guy Macon in resolving this dispute. The participants should also be aware of WP: BRD. After all of the users involved make opening statements, a DRN volunteer will open up this discussion. --v/r Electric Catfish (talk) 18:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While we are waiting for the opening statements, I would like to point out that This article has been placed on article probation. See Talk:Men's rights movement/Article probation for details. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:31, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you missed it, I actually pointed that out in this section[18] above before you accepted this case so that anyone considering accepting it would be prepared, and so they would know to notify me or another uninvolved admin if sanctions were indicated. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. Read right past it without it registering. Sorry about that. (Note to self: Next time, edit Wikipedia after smoking crack...) --Guy Macon (talk) 21:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Timing. It's all about the timing. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am Amadscientist and will also be assisting where needed in this DR/N but to a lesser extent as the first two volunteers.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:INFLUENCE covers editing while in a altered state of consciousness. Hasteur (talk) 15:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding waiting for opening statements, Binksternet has been actively editing other pages but has not responded here, Memills last edited Wikipedia on 30 September, and Memotype last edited Wikipedia on 14 September. How long should we wait? I want everyone involved to weigh in, but i also don't want to frustrate people with undue delays. Opinions? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As both sides of dispute are here, the discussion may be opened IMO. The others may jump in later if they become active and/or willing to participate. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 18:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. This thread is now open for discussion. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - [from uninvolved editor] I looked at the sources that are listed above to support inclusion of the material. They look satisfactory to me. The Segal source in particular, p 276, is conclusive (describing a campaign against laws which define marital rape). That source is published by the University of California. So, the essence of the sentence should be included. Can it be wordsmithed? Sure ... in situations like this it is always better if the specific advocates are named in the sentence. But WP:UNDUE does not exclude this sentence. --Noleander (talk) 19:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm open to the idea of including specific advocates or groups so that it doesn't sound like a sweeping statement about the movement in general. Kaldari (talk) 19:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to discuss for a moment the citations for the current article's statement "Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.[74][80][83][84][85]" (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Men%27s_rights_movement&oldid=515903480 in case it changes).

When examining something like this, I start with the question "does the source say what we say it says" and I look at the quality of the sources.

For Ref [74], the source supports the statement. It says that http://www.ejfi.org "demands .. to eliminate laws defining marital rape as a crime". I could not find evidence supporting that claim on the ejfi.org website. That's a typical problem when a source is more of an advocacy source that an academic source -- they don't say where to look on ejfi.org and they don't give the exact wording.

For Ref [80], Google books gave me this error: "Restricted Page: You have reached your viewing limit for this book." Does anyone have a quote of the wording that supports the claim?

For Ref [83], The section before it says "The rest of this article is only available to active members of Questia" does not support the claim. The "free one day trial" asks for a credit card number. Does anyone have a quote of the wording that supports the claim?

For Ref [84], the source supports the statement. Again, an obvious advocacy publication, not academic research or unbiased reporting, and the source only says that some unnamed men's groups campaigned against the legal recognition of marital rape in 1994. That's 18 years ago.

For Ref [85], The source supports the statement. The mens group is named; it is the Save Indian Family Foundation ( http://www.saveindianfamily.org/ and a person is qouted: Virag Dhulia. Furthermore, it appears to be from a legitimate news source rather than an obvious advocacy book and is less than 5 years old If it were me, this is the only cite I would use for this statement. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:39, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Without commenting on the issue, some of the editors seems to not be aware of WP:PAYWALL. Unfortunately, not all sources are available for free. Indeed, many high-quality sources are only available either by buying a book or article, or using an academic library. Wikipedia explicitly endorses the use of such sources. If you have trouble getting them, WP:REX can often help. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am quite familiar with WP:PAYWALL. My philosophy is this: if you recently added a citation or you are vigorously defending a citation, then I can only assume that you have access, and it seems quite reasonable to ask you to look at the source that you can presumably access and give us an exact quote that supports the statement in the article. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have access to all the sources and listed all the quotes on the talkpage of the article quite a while ago [19]. So did Cailil here. I disagree with the contention that books published by highly reliable academic sources can or should be marginalized as "advocacy" books, and I don't know of any policy or guideline that would support this. On the contrary, they are precisely the books that have the highest reputation for fact-checking etc (e.g. published by University presses) that we are supposed to privilege per the verifiability policy and Identifying reliable sources Slp1 (talk) 22:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guy you've made some rather extreme comments above. You've inferred that nobody bothered to list sources and quotes when in fact, as Slp1 said, both she and I had done so - and I linked above to it above. You've dismissed a number of sources' reliability in a way that has no basis in policy.
In relation to your readings: Re ref 80 - try this link[20]; regarding ref 74 are we looking at the same source Current Controversies on Family Violence written by 3 academics and published by Sage? Furthermore a search using google of EJFI site for "spousal rape"[21][22] and "marital rape"[23] does indeed generate a number of hits. It is this source's opinion that this site is advocating something. It's not our job to go outside policy and do original research to prove OR attempt to disprove a source.
Regarding ref84 you've claimed that Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure is NOT an academic piece. It may be a feminist text but last time I checked that doesn't disqualify a source's as academic, or make it advocacy. That is your opinion and NPOV does not requires that sources are neutral - merely that they are reliable. Your conflation of these core policy concepts and dismissal of these sources is frankly incredible and raises questions about the ability of this board to handle topics under probation (which need extreme care and precision) - I will ping KC about this--Cailil ^talk 23:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:Cailil, please refrain from making accusations against the volunteers here. I do not see Guy's comments as extreme or suggesting anything of the sort. Remember this is where you show your sources and the article talkpage is seperate. We will not be jumping back and forth so please be prepared to share all sources here. If there is a paywall and sources are unavailable someone will need to provide the text and we, of course, will trust the good faith of the editors. Please do the same with the volunteers.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:42, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amadscientist my above is not an attack on Guy - it's criticism. It's also quite fair. I'm taking the matter to the talk page. AFAIK there are no paywall issues - the relevant sources were listed and quoted from, albeit in a diff I presented in my statement - perhaps this was missed by you & guy--Cailil ^talk 16:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:Cailil. You may call your comments what you choose of course, but please do not overstate comments by myself or other volunteers. I did not say you attacked anyone.--Amadscientist (talk) 12:26, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree with Cailil that it is inappropriate both in policy and practice to seek marginalize sources based "I can't confirm it"-type statements, (most especially when we are talking about websites that may have changed a good deal), in the spirit of good faith, here is Charles Corry, the longtime president of Edfiin a 2007 ejfi article, mentioning the introduction of "the crime of marital rape in many localities" as one of the "false flags...used to insure that any action by a man can be used against him.". It can't be the original source for the book because of the date, but it shows the way the wind blows in that organization. Slp1 (talk) 23:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As a dispute resolution volunteer, I choose which cases to help with based upon the basic principle of having no opinion one way or the other about the topic of the dispute. And indeed, the actual question of what some men's group did or did not say bores me. I am just here to help you to resolve your dispute.

Attacking one of the volunteers who is working on your case accomplishes nothing (it doesn't hurt you either, BTW; we are all committed to be fair and impartial despite such behavior.) Please write about article content, not about user conduct. If you have s serious accusation concerning a volunteer's competence or impartiality, bring it up at Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard, not here in the middle of a dispute.

I have inferred nothing, and if anyone thinks that I have they need to go back and read the guide for participants at the top of this page again. All I am doing is confirming that the sources say what we say they say. I fully expect that they will, but I am still going to check. I have to start somewhere, but be assured that I will verify any claims made any party to this dispute. In the following, I may seem to be challenging one side of the dispute and not the other, but rest assured that this is just an artifact of my having to start somewhere. I will look at the claims of the other side of the dispute very soon. Also note that I have purposely avoided checking to see who wrote the text and added the citations I am examining. I don't want that to affect my evaluation.

I have not "dismissed" any sources' reliability. I have every intention of questioning every sources' reliability, which is not the same thing. In particular, in the above I am asking which of the following claims the citation to Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure supports:

"Some men's rights activists^[who?] assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.[84]"

or

"Lynne Segal, author of Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure, claims that 1n 1994 certain unnamed men's rights activists in Kansas City asserted that marital rape should not be considered a crime.[84]"

When I see a source that says

"Their [men's rights groups] agenda suggests that the origins of these middle-class men's fears in women's growing readiness to abandon marriages with men who make them miserable, once they have some means of economic independence. They may be miserable because of men's emotional illiteracy..."

I am reluctant to accept that source as being reliable on the topic of the positions of those same men's rights groups. If you want Wikipedia to report that this source made that claim, the source is reliable for that. If you want us to use Wikipedia's voice to present that claim as an established fact, you need a reliable source for that, and this simply isn't one.

I am also concerned by the overall nature of that string of citations. Normally, we want to find a reliable source and report what the source says. When I see citation to a book criticizing a 1994 event in Kansas City followed by a 2010 news report from India, it makes me suspect that the conclusion came first and then someone started looking for citations to support it.

Again, I have every intention of giving any claims made by the other parties in this dispute the same level of scrutiny. This is just where I happened to start. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize if you see my criticism above as an attack on you - it's not, it's a (very serious) note, not primarily about you Guy but, about this board. I will take that aspect of the issue to the talk page as you suggest, but for the record I do understand that you are acting in good faith and with very good intentions (but I'll remind you that the "road to hell is paved with good intentions")...
Guy perhaps you read past the part in my openning statements where I stated above that I already made a suggestion regarding the "some" issue and regarding the necessary attribution on the article's talk page. I agree sentence needs to read along the lines of:

Scholars argue/contend that men's rights groups have campaigned against "marital rape" legislation.

Scholars may need clarification etc, but that's fine, and your suggests are good - however I'm not sure that listing all the individual cases is wp:due, whereas the overall point that different actions at different times have criticized/campaigned against marital rape is definitely due. However as you see below the actual dispute is not about wording but inclusion - and as we have all outlined in our statements above this rests on CSDarrow's novel interpretations of policy--Cailil ^talk 16:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly I would argue the use of 'Scholars' here violates WP:IMPARTIAL , WP:WEASEL, in fact 'Scholars ' is prominently highlighted as a weasel word.

Secondly the opinions of scholars are of little note unless they are indulging in scholarship. I am sure some scholars also think broccoli is revolting or that basketball is boring. Scholarship involves the use of a scholarly methodology Scholarly_method. Unsubstantiated opinions, on a matter of verifiable fact, concerning those you at ideological odds with is not scholarship. There is another word for it. CSDarrow (talk) 16:01, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to wordsmith scholars but the rest of your point doesn't make sense CSDarrow. What your comments above and below do is attempt to disparage the work of academics that have opinions you seem not to like. The essence of NPOV is thus: wikipedia records all notable POVs neutrally (i.e we don't put our spin on them), according them appropriate weight as per how widely held they are in the mainstream (see WP:YESPOV). Your constructions on site policy are both tendentious and unreflective of those policies--Cailil ^talk 16:18, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am glad we are in agreement on the use of the word "Scholar". As to the rest of your response, I am at a loss what to say. CSDarrow (talk) 17:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No apology needed. There is a huge difference between claiming that a group has campaigned against marital rape legislation and claiming that a group says that marital rape should not be considered a crime. A cursory look at the websites of various men's groups shows a lot of talk about false accusations and the problem with accepting the word of the accuser without collaborating evidence, complaints about the name of the accused being revealed while the name of the accuser is kept secret, etc. I think those positions should be cited and put in the article, along with common counterarguments like the problem of requiring witnesses or physical evidence of a crime that by definition does not leave witnesses or physical evidence. That would be quite easy to document. So far, nobody has come up with a citation to a reliable source for the entirely different claim that some unnamed men's groups say that marital rape should not be considered a crime. All evidence suggests that there are no men's groups in any western country that hold that position. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:10, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes the distinction between the words crime and legislation is important and agree that "legislation" is the more sourcable one. However the "crime" construction is also sourced - did you get to read the Encyclopaedia of Masculinities entry that you couldn't access days ago, here's the link again[24] - this one uses the "crime" construction: "the status of marital rape as a crime" p.167. I can transcribe the whole paragraph if you can't get to read it--Cailil ^talk 12:19, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, I have to say that I continue to strongly disagree with several of your comments here. WP doesn't use opinions about bias as determinant in determining reliability. Let's take another example. If an academic text or journal article came out against homeopathy would you really be "reluctant to accept that source as being reliable on the topic of [homeopathy]"? Assuming no, why is this different here?

Please note that the disputed text talks about "men's rights activists" opposing the legislation, not "men's rights groups". While I strongly disagree that we should be trying to prove reliable sources "right" (or "wrong") with our own original research on websites etc, editors have already presented on this page direct, primary evidence from multiple sources that there is evidence that men's rights activists and groups in the west and elsewhere have and do opposed marital rape legislation. I linked above to a 2007 post from the president of EJFI above, an [25], Kaldari above linked to a list of men's rights objectives on the anti-misandry.com [26], and also above quoted the President of the National Coalition of Free Men who appeared on CNN stating that marital rape laws shouldn't exist. (For the record, CNN's introduction to the interview says "and we're going to meet the attorney who wrote the recent proposal to strengthen California's spousal rape law. And we'll meet the president of a men's rights group [Williamson] who believes that such laws should not exist.") (CNN transcript on Lexis-Nexis). I'm on a very slow internet connection, and can't do more at present, but it is indisputable from primary sources that (some) men's rights activists do oppose marital rape legislation and much more importantly from the point of view of inclusion, that this has been noted in reliable secondary sources, with four of them stating it in the particular format that they oppose marital rape as a crime " Other men's rights advocates have used family conflict research to justify demands [..] to eliminate marital rape as a crime (www.ejfi.org); "...some emphasized such issues as child support, the status of marital rape as a crime and....";this source has the founding of "International Men's Day by the men's rights groups, celebrated in Kansas City in 1994 as a day for campaigning against the legal recognition of 'marital rape'";"Much of [Hetherington's] support has come from men's rights organizations and conservative Christian groups, which tend to argue that a crime such as marital rape should not be on the books because consent to sex is part of the marriage covenant" --Slp1 (talk) 15:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

spl1, Concerning National Coalition of Free Men and the CNN interview, did Williamson state he opposed Marital Rape laws in a manner that suggested he felt a man should be able to rape his wife and be immune from prosecution? If so could you post the quote? I believe you have the transcript. CSDarrow (talk) 15:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Setting up a strawman argument is unhelpful. Neither I nor anyone else has ever claimed that Williamson said anything close to this. You can oppose the specific crimimalization of marital rape, while still recognizing that rape within marriage can happen. See [this 2002 commentary by yet another prominent men's rights activist who has opposed such legislation. Stuart A. Miller, the founder of the American Coalition of Fathers and Children, argues that "while there may be legitimate cases of marital rape" these are covered under existing laws and that additional marital rape legislation likely does more harm than good. (BTW this formulation seems eerily familiar, doesn't it?!)--Slp1 (talk) 13:23, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So Williamson does not support a husband's right to rape his wife, thank you for confirming that. I would argue that most people understand word marital rape as the raping of a woman by her husband. In fact the Wiki page Marital_rape in essence defines it as that; Kaldari has been a content contributor to that page and a contributor to this discussion. Also since I merely asked you a question I fail to see how I could have been attempting to strawman you. CSDarrow (talk) 17:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, because you have (and are) seeking to refute positions that nobody has ever held.

This was the original formulation of the disputed sentence "Some men's rights activists question the criminal status of marital rape....". This is what it is currently: "Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime." In my view, both are eminently sourceable from secondary sources (with confirmation from primary sources too). But if your concern is that the sentences confuses views about the legal situation regarding marital rape with attitudes towards an actual act of a violent marital rape, then let's put the emphasis more on the former (which is how it was originally, actually). How about "Some men's rights activists have opposed legislation criminalizing marital rape."? Slp1 (talk) 18:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am familiar with the legal systems of the UK, Canada and the USA. As far as I am aware there is no such crime designated "Marital Rape", and never has been apart from in 7 States of the USA; it is a legal oddity. In the West spousal rape is almost exclusively prosecuted under existing legislation for rape or sexual assault. The common definitions of the words in the phrase "decriminalize marital rape" are as follows

Marital rape:- The raping of one's wife.
Decriminalize:- To no longer make a crime.

i.e its common meaning is:- to no longer make it a crime for a man to rape his wife. It beggars belief to suggest in an encyclopedic setting, in absence of other context or clarification, that it actually means:- to remove the legal oddity "Marital Rape " from the books and to prosecute the raping of one's wife with existing legislation. Up until I you asked for clarification, the only reference you provided that explicitly defined the term was from SIFF. SIFF's definition is immunity from raping one's wife. I am smelling equivocation in the air.

"When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom" - Confucius

CSDarrow (talk) 15:38, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You've lost me, I am sorry to say. Where are you getting the idea that anybody is suggesting including stuff about "decrimimalizing" marital rape? It seems another strawman to me.

For years and years, rape laws in the US and elsewhere in the West contained a marital rape exception which meant that husbands could not be charged under rape laws. Rape of a wife was simply not a crime a man could be convicted of. Between the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s, all US states and the federal government moved towards criminalizing that act: most did it by removing the marital rape exemption from their original rape laws, some eliminated marriage as a defense to the charge of rape, while others introduced separate marital rape legislation. Depending on the method used, there remain some exemptions or increased evidence requirements in cases of alleged marital rape as compared to rape of others. [27][28][29][30]. Some men's rights activists, including prominent leaders, have opposed these changes in legislation which have had the overall effect of criminalizing marital rape, and some of which have been incremental in nature, and we have multiple high quality sources for it. I really don't know how you can continue to deny it. Even the antimisandry.com site, which you yourself described as a "significant Mens Rights Organization" on the talkpage of the article, lists as one of their objectives |List to "End the criminalization of normal men's sexual behavior. Repeal all laws making men's sexuality, exposure, penetration, etc., into a criminal act unless there is demonstrable physical harm to a victim" and advocates the freeing of all men convicted of spousal rape. Since at this point I am just saying the same things over and over again, this is going to be my final post, until we hear from Steven. Slp1 (talk) 19:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly because you edit reverted my removal of and vigorously defended the statement

"Some men's rights activists question the criminal status of Marital Rape, arguing that sex within marriage forms part of the marriage covenant."

The statement we are now discussing in DRN is the next version of the above and being 'supported' by the same references. That's why Slp1.

CSDarrow (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Men's Rights discussion 2

Comment - Firstly I would like to thank all those participating in this discussion, in particular the volunteers for the giving of their time. My arguments are based on WP:UNDUE and WP:VERIFY . Sorry if this is a bit long, I have tried to be succinct.

(1) Undue Weight

My argument that the statement

Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.

is undue-weight is based Jimbo Wales' paraphrased statement from WP:UNDUE, I see nothing overriding this statement.

If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts
If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

In essence if a minority hold the view than you should be able to easily name prominent adherents, and imo the spirit of the statement is that there is an expectation to do so. With the possible exception of someone in India, no one can find any adherents of this view let alone prominent adherents. Despite not being able to demonstrate a significant minority holds this view, Cailil & Spl1 make the argument that the first statement applies and as such the second statement is now mute, (I am trying not to Strawman here). They absolve themselves of considering the 'significant minority' case by saying it requires original research even though it is patently not satisfied. If a minority do not hold a view I fail to see how a majority can hold it. Their stance imo is not in the spirit of WP:UNDUE. The first rule of Wikipedia is that there are no rules, a statement designed precisely for this sort case and for common sense to prevail.

In short if a majority or even a significant minority supposedly hold this view and hardly anyone can be found with this view, then a common sense test has been failed.

Furthermore claiming a group or individual campaigns for the decriminalization of marital rape, ie. impunity from the law for raping one's spouse, is a significant claim. Before any group is impugned with this view on Wikipedia, the burden of proof that the claim satisfies wp:Undue, wp:Reliable and wp:Verifiability should also be significant. Wikipedia also has a moral and legal obligation not to libel any individual or group. Atm all we have supporting this statement is the unsupported opinions of some who think Men Right's groups hold this view. This is entirely inadequate.

(2) Reliability of the Sources.

The claim is made here that because a source is 'Scholarly', 'Academic' or 'Peer Reviewed' that its reliability is beyond reproach, even if it fails any common sense test. There are many media through which academics publish their work such as:-

Rigorously peer reviewed journals involving multiple anonymous reviewers. With any claims rigorously supported by citations

Reviewed conference publications which are generally checked for appropriateness of subject matter, glaring errors , format and suitable citations.

Unreviewed conference publications, the work is generally only returned if it is patently absurd.

Journals and essay collections serving an ideologically based community eg, Journal of Marxism.

Collections of papers or essays published by an Academic press, sometimes with a degree of meaningful peer review and sometimes none at all..

Books by a single 'scholarly' author published by an Academic press, which usually have no meaningful review at all.

There is nothing wrong with opinionated work and limited peer review. Diversity of opinions are essential to debate and the life blood of new ideas. With the exception of sometimes the hard sciences, academics are not automatons deterministically sifting through evidence and logically coming to conclusions like Data from Star Trek. They play with ideas; try and say seeming absurd things; sometimes have strong ideological bases and are sometimes deliberately provocactive. Fully rigorous peer review is very time consuming and requires a lot of resources, having other less rigorous outlets of publication allows work to enter the melting pot of ideas that is Academia, Ultimately it is from this melting pot that we get :-

Rigorously peer reviewed work involving multiple anonymous reviewers. With any claims rigorously supported by citations.

Which in general can be accepted as reliable without reservation. Other forms of academic publication require more scrutiny. A glaring example of scholarship gone awry being the Sokol affair.

In short just because a work is 'Scholarly', 'Academic' or 'Peer Reviewed' does not necessarily make it a reliable source. This very point is addressed in WP:SCHOLARSHIP.

Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals.

The notion that if the adjectives 'Scholarly' or 'Academic' or 'Peer Reviewed' can be attached to a piece of work then the source is reliable, is prevalent in certain parts of Wikipedia and is causing enormous damage imo. The notion is based on a lack of understanding of the way Academic publishing works. The sources cited here are not reliable and are the unsupported opinions of those the authors are at ideological odds with. Guy Macon has summarized my thoughts on these works succinctly.

Ultimately the reliability of these sources, or not, is largely an argument of opinion. If we can not reach consensus then I feel the matter should go to experts at RSN to adjudicate, the result of which I think will have a profound effect on Wikipedia. This is a serious precedent setting matter.

Thanks again CSDarrow (talk) 13:23, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"With any claims rigorously supported by citations" is not something I have ever encountered. It's an entirely unreasonable claim - the primary aim of scholarly publishing is to present new knowledge, or, in Wikipedia terms, "original research". New claims need to be supported, sure, but not only by citations, but in particular by data and argument. And claims that are widely accepted in a given community are often published without any citations - we know that

|N|=\aleph _{0}

. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:50, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is however an expectation to justify how that new knowledge was obtained with citations where appropriate. My list was a summary not an exhaustive description. CSDarrow (talk) 13:57, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Men's Rights discussion 3

It certainly seems like the pro-statement side have a number of citations with specific names on their side. Dismissing them because they come the world's largest English-speaking nation (which should have some importance to the English WP) hardly seems fair; and the whole Anti-dowry laws section is all about SIFF, so mentioning them in respect to martial rape laws doesn't seem unreasonable. Nor does it seem that the same standard is being held to other cites; Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements is 12 years old, and used it many, many times in the article. In the section "Military Conscription", it's the newest cite; the next most recent is Redeeming men: religion and masculinities from 1996.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:47, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

user:Perpetualization has addressed the issue of the Indian Men's Right movement above. From what I know it is many ways a separate movement from that in the West operating in an environment of different cultural mores and practices. Although there are intersections in the views of both movements there are also vast divides. I feel they should mostly be dealt with in a separate section, else their views could be pejoratively impugned on the Western movement and visa versa.

Also before the SIFF statement is included it should verified that the view is also held by either a majority or significant minority of the Indian Men's Rights Movement, ie that wp:undue is satisfied. I know very little about SIFF and the quote was only recently added during the discussion of this section. Atm all we have is a report of one statement and little to no contextual background. Having someone with more than a passing knowledge of the Indian Men's Rights Movement would be helpful here.CSDarrow (talk) 15:41, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From hereon in, I'll be handling this dispute. I have some more reading to do, so please bear with me. Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 23:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Re: taking over the dispute, I strongly approve. Re: SIFF, can we all agree that a citation that refers to the Indian Men's Rights Movement should not be used as a source supporting a statement that simply says "Some men's rights activists assert that..." without any mention of India? I would say the same if a reference was specific to men's rights activists in Saudi Arabia; some countries have cultural and legal frameworks that are different enough from the rest of the world that they really should not be lumped together with the rest of the world. When I read in Wikipedia that "Some men's rights activists assert X", that seems to imply that there is at least one men's rights group in the US, EU or Australia/New Zealand that asserts such a thing. Sort of like saying "some political organizations support a ban on women driving." --Guy Macon (talk) 01:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Guy I missed what you were saying here, but yes...you are correct. Just because a source says that the Men's rights group in India believes something, is not supportive of the statement unless it says the group is the India group itself. Otherwise this is original research and synthesis. Now I will comment no further...--Amadscientist (talk) 02:11, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also strongly approve of Zhang taking this DR filing and will not be making further comment on the case.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:50, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"When I read in Wikipedia that "Some men's rights activists assert X", that seems to imply that there is at least one men's rights group in the US, EU or Australia/New Zealand that asserts such a thing." Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Anglo-American_focus specifically addresses this and says it's a violation of NPOV. An Anglo-American bias is something to be avoided. There are one thousand crore people in the English speaking nation of India; that's more then in all the nations you mention combined. By all rights, the nations you list are the outliers and India should be the norm. In practice, instead of handling this in an ethnocentric way, we should take care to make it clearer which groups assert what; if there is a sufficiently clear distinction, US/Canadian groups (or whatever division) could be handled on a different page from Indian groups, otherwise an attempt should be made to make clear who's holding what positions in the single page.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but nobody is trying to suggest that only the India reference be used to support the phrase. As has been pointed out over and over again, there are multiple reliable secondary sources pointing out that MRs activists and groups from the US and elsewhere have opposed such legislation. Recent primary sources from Western based Men's rights groups, activists and their leaders have also been presented. At this point, I am not going to relist them all yet again, but they are to be found here and on the talkpage of the article. Slp1 (talk) 13:33, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If I see a Wikipedia page that says X with ten citations, and I point out that one of the citations does not support the statement, I don't care whether the others support it and neither should you. If indeed they do, that simply means that there should have been nine citations, not ten. If someone is able to knock down nine out of the ten as not being reliable sources, not supporting the statement, etc., that just means that it should be a statement with one citation. Each citation needs to stand by itself. Other nearby citations are completely irrelevant. --Guy Macon (talk)

I agree wholeheartedly with your argument. But I'm really not sure of its point, as the other references have not been "knocked down" (as you put it) by most of the independent commentators here, have they? And here, for the record, are a couple more citations, this time from the UK.

A Guardian article from January 24, 1994 available on Lexis-Nexis called "Women: who's afraid of the big bad women" notes the 1993 keynote speech by Roger Whitcomb at an International Men's rights conference, in which "he reserves particular venom for the House of Lords ruling on marital rape [which removed the spousal exemption in the UK] in 1991 ("A long-standing feminist dream")".
A second, related article, also in Guardian on the same day, entitled "Men's rights" and listing the key features of the movement. Among the listed "anti-heroes" are "the law lords (for their decision on marital rape)" Slp1 (talk) 22:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And the material about Whitcomb, who was the chairman of the UK Men's Movement[31] and his opposition the House of Lords marital rape ruling is retold in this 2000 Edinburgh University Press book. Not sure why it didn't show up on prior searches. Slp1 (talk) 02:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment To my mind the discussion is becoming exhausted and losing focus. The stance is now being taken by some that the statement, (and it variants), is not infering that men should have impunity from the law for raping their wives. I feel the statement at hand, ie

"Some men's rights activists assert that marital rape should not be considered a crime.",

in the absence of clarifying comments or context, would leave the majority of readers with the impression that the Men's Right movement supports impunity from the law for raping one's wife. This is not the case apart from possibly a very extreme fringe. Variants such as "..have campaigned against marital rape legislation" are also not sufficiently clear imo. If others feel the Mens Rights Movement has campaigned for the removal of "Marital Rape Legislation ", with marital rape covered by existing laws, it is for them to present an entirely unambiguous statement supported by reliable sources that does not violate undue-weight. The "Scholarly/Academic" sources presented here are entirely inadequate by any measure, they are shocking examples of "Scholarship" that if need be should go to RSN. My sense is that the Mens Rights Movement has had little to say on the issue. My stance is still that the statement should simply be removed.

CSDarrow (talk) 14:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies to all, I have been fairly absent from the discussion. A good comment was made about not being anglo focused, which I agree upon. However, that does not prevent two sentences

"In India, men's rights groups generally oppose marital rape. In the United States, [whatever is true in the US]"

with appropriate citations for each. I cannot say that I am in complete agreement with CSDarrow in all of his arguments though I do agree with many of them. I think the material on the British house of lords would make a great inclusion to the article written as you wrote it above rather than in a weasel worded statement (as currently). The unfortunate odor of finding cites for a claim rather than building a claim from citations lingers over this entire discussion. We don't have a word limit for articles and shouldn't shy from writing as much as a paragraph detailing the different opinions of mens rights movements in different countries (india, britain, us) and times (now, 20 years ago, 40 years ago). I would be disturbed to see sections upon sections for such a claim but there is to not have a few sentences (US, Britain, SIFF?), each somewhat more specific and sourced appropriately.

Lastly, I wanted to bring back the rationale point (as it has been absent to the discussion). If the consensus is that mens rights groups oppose marital rape laws, the claim still seems insufficient on its own. Advocacy positions are formed in reasons and unfamiliar positions (like this one) should have their reasons stated. "some mens rights groups advocate against marital rape laws because they feel [feeling]." If that task seems impossible, I suggest it is the result of weak sourcing. A strong source would always spend enough detail to explain a position rather than just simply stating it. Perpetualization (talk) 21:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm yet another DRN volunteer and I would like to probe for disputants' opinions on the following statements:

US Men's Rights group used to oppose marital rape laws, though it is not the case now.
UK Men's Rights group opposes marital rape laws.
From the worldwide perspective opposition to marital rape laws among Men's Rights groups is currently not as prominent as the acceptance of such laws.

May we assume that these statements are supported by all disputants? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 00:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics

– Discussion in progress.

Filed by Andromedean on 08:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

Users involved

Dispute overview

A few months ago I wrote an article regarding the use of technology to improve sporting performance in the cycling at the London Olympics (Technology in track cycling). Since then there has been intense editing and attempts at removal of the article. There are three main views amongst editors.

One editor (Sport and politics) who wishes the article to be removed entirely.

another editor (88.88.166.111) who wishes the article to remain in some form, with the background of the controversy to be removed or/and the entire article removed out of the 'controversies section'. (Perhaps a better title would be 'GB team introduces new bikes at the London Olympics' so it is specific to the section?)

two editors (Andromedean, Showmebeef) who wish the content, background and location in the controversy section to remain, although there are several possible versions, the latest indicated in the location contains most of the points.

There have been other editors which have been briefly involved in the early stages of editing, although the article has changed since then.

I have been asked to clarify what is under dispute. This seems to vary depending upon the editor, but to the best of my knowledge the following is the case:

According to Sport&Politics is is the excessive use of combining sentences to generate the impression that the GB team had cheated or was bad in some way. Sport&Politics also claimed that the concerns of French team was not warranted, it was simply not a controversy more of a conspiracy theory, and the incident was not widely quoted in the Anglo press.

According to 88.* it was initially the lack of evidence that the subject was controversial since the references to the French teams complaints were not included at that stage. When I did include these French comments, then 88.* said that the section could be included, but it should be moved away from controversies to the technological doping section (a term which encompasses all technology related improvements to performance not just training enhancements). 88.* claimed that the use of the 20,000 person survey was too general to justify the article in the 2012 controversy section.

To answer these criticisms I removed all references to issues not connected with the 2012 Olympics and cycling such as the LZ lasersuit and included the direct comments of the French team as reported in the press to show it was a controversy. However I still felt that the background material regarding the survey, the professional cycling body (UCI) principles, and the the recent rule changes was necessary to place the French concerns into perspective.

I hope this is a fair reflection, and explains the dispute accurately --Andromedean (talk) 06:35, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

There has been a long and protracted discussion on the talk page, and it has also been subjected to a RfC without any additional outside comments to the best of my knowledge. I have attempted a dispute resolution before but this wasn't allowed during an RfC and was rejected. The Rfc has now finished so hopefully this process can be started. I have also briefly spoke above this on the teahouse page.

How do you think we can help?

Clarify if any significant breaches of Wiki protocol such as Synthesis or No original research was used, to justify the articles inclusion, modification or removal. Clarify if the background information from cycling regulations and the public survey mentioned in the IMechE technical paper help to clarify the context, and so if this should be included. Clarify if the issues mentioned are specific enough to the London Olympics for inclusion in this section.

I need to ask again that you provide the exact section that is being disputed. I cannot seem to locate what everyone is even talking about. If no such clarification is made and the volunteer cannot locate the actual dispute in a reasonable amount of time, it is possible this case will be closed as stale.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:39, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Showmebeef

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.

I believe that this section warrants its inclusion in the article for the following reasons:

CONTROVERSY: the infusion of technology (technology doping) into the sports of cycling, in particular track cycling, has been making headlines before and especially during the London Games. In a sports whereby placement is often determined down to 1/1000th sec, the impact is rather SIGNIFICANT. To the extend that one team (or maybe more) has poured millions of dollars into the research and safeguarding of such technologies thus obtained makes it an UNFAIR advantage.
RELEVANCY: the reason that this section warrants its inclusion in this article is predicated on the fact that the team who has possession of various technologies contributing to the advantages has been safeguarding the said technologies leading up to the London Games, for obvious reasons such as the significance of the prestigious Summer Games and the attention it receives as host nation. The result is an overwhelming dominance in the sports.

The assertions I made above are backed by various sources as referenced in the section. In particular, the article Sports Engineering: An Unfair Advantage? by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers provides scientific evidence from years of research into the subject. That it was published around the time of the Games is no coincidence.

I would also like to draw the attention of the reviewers to a previous similar technology doping case (LZR Racer swim suit) where the technology employed, although LEGAL prior its banning, is so overwhelming it led to its ultimate banning years later. One notable difference is that one dominant technology is the main contributing factor, and it is available to ALL who have the financial resources to secure them. Note that the controversy is prominently covered in 2009 World Aquatics Championships, dubbed the "Plastic Games" where 43 World Records were set which were largely attributed to the use of the suits.

That the contribution due to the wide coverage and discussion of the controversy which led to its ultimate banning cannot be underestimated. It is for this reason also that I appeal that this section be included. Showmebeef (talk) 03:17, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteer comment - The swim suit controversy was the first thing that came to mind when I reviewed this case. Let us use this as a possible starting point and see how we have handled that situation. The doping issue may not be as relative as it does not have to do with a technology as much as an artificial physical enhancement and may not be of the same vein. If you disagree, is there something more you feel could be used to demonstrate thid comparison?--Amadscientist (talk) 03:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Sport and politics

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.

This section, (not article) which was written by Andromedean was subject to an Rfc and there was outside input. The problem is it was mainly opposing what ‎Andromedean had put in and called for its removal. The Rfc though was not formally closed.

This section is nothing more than trying to make out GB cycling cheated and is based up taking snipets from losing athletes, unrelated cycling events where the events and participation rules are different, such as the World Championships where more than one competitor can be entered per event compared to the Olympics where only one can be entered per event. Claiming that extra funding was a form of cheating and that using technology itself was a form of "doping" by providing an "unfair advantage". None of these claims are substantiated and the main source used is a academic industry report, where the section on technology doping is referring to athletes in hyperbaric oxygen chambers and not bicycles in anyway.

This section violates Wikipedia policies and guidelines on topic relevance, POV, undue weight, synthesis of sources, misrepresentation of sources, original research and what Wikipedia is not (not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal).

The section must be removed as it makes unsubstantiated claims based on cherry picking of information to suit the POV which Andromedean is trying to further. Further to this Andromodean has made claims of conflict of interest and that there is "an agenda of censorship" from those disagreeing with them, none of which are a demonstration of good faith editing from Andromodean.

Before the Wikkequette was closed a thread which can be found here was initiated laying out some more of the issues in this section.

This section should be removed forthwith due to the number of Wikipedia guidelines and policies violated.

Sport and politics (talk) 11:12, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteer questions: I have to ask about the above violations you claim. First, it is best if you make claims about violations to explain in detail what these vilotion are and how they relate exactly to our policy and guidelines. If you are unwilling or unable to demostrate these claims they will likely not be taken into account for this discussion. As Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance has been closed I feel it best to leave all disputes there in the archive as unresolved, unless at the time they actually were resolved. So I ask you to do two things. Please demonstrate exactly how the section violates the policy and guidelines you point out and if the Wikiquette dispute never got resolved. I ask that we leave it there and start fresh. Should you object you may certainly bring up speicifcs but only as they relate to content and not behavior or conduct issues.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:15, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please see the general discussion below which shows some of the beginnings of the answering to your questions above. Can you please set out how you would like the questions above answered and if you would like a new section started to deal wit your questions above. Sport and politics (talk) 20:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Show the exact text in question and how it relates to the policy or guideline in question using either a direct link to the policy or a copypast paste with attribution to the policy, and why you feel it is a violation. Please do so in your opening comments section here, where you made the comment and where the question is being asked.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:34, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by 88.88.167.157 alias 88.88.166.111

There may be a case for inclusion of some parts of the section, hence my final opinion in the RFC. That said, I think most of the (includable) information in the section ought to be in other articles (e.g. technology doping, WADA, doping and track cycling). I also consider the information that belongs elsewhere as the most encyclopedic (e.g. general information on WADA's stance on the use of technology) and therefore the more includable information. (In light of the description in the "Dispute overview" I must add that move =/= remove.)
The main reason for my neutrality to some inclusion of the French reactions in the discussed article is that I don't feel capable of interpreting WP:WEIGHT, specifically whether the controversy is "a viewpoint [that] is held by a significant minority", or "a viewpoint [that] is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority". If the section is included it should (for WP:NPOV) probably be included that the unfounded claims were called out as violating the Olympic Spirit.
I won't participate in this DRN beyond this comment as the previous discussion was a massive time sink. Furthermore, it was overflowing with accusations of bias etc. and therefore far from enjoyable. 88.88.167.157 (talk) 17:44, 6 October 2012 (UTC) (Yes, my IP has changed since the previous discussion. I think all IP editors (at least all 85.# and 88.#) participating in the discussion were me.)[reply]

Comments by (previously uninvolved) HiLo48

I'm confused. Did User:Andromedean write an article as he/she says, or simply a new section for the already existing article Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics?

I regard articles like Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics as disaster areas. They inevitably attract lots of crap, largely comprising the personal whinges of editors with nothing better to do and no idea of WP:UNDUE. I have been waiting for the dust to settle and for most editors to forget about it, before I started to get rid of some of the real dross. This dispute, however, has delayed the arrival of that time.

As for this dispute, it does seem to be about a very narrow, technical issue related far more to a particular sport than to the Olympics. My opinion matches that of User:Sport and politics. It should go. HiLo48 (talk) 09:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I realise now that the answer to my initial question is that User:Andromedean did not write an article, as he/she says, simply a new section for the already existing article. Having a major complaint made by someone who doesn't understand basic Wikipedia terminology somewhat confuses and weakens their case. HiLo48 (talk) 03:48, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can support the claim that Andromedean started, and has been editing, this (section) article. Showmebeef (talk) 00:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What? That is no response to my question and point at all. A Section and an Article are quite different things. Are the people I'm communicating with here truly competent editors? HiLo48 (talk) 01:35, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by DRN volunteer Hasteur

This again?!? Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 43#Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 44#Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics are previous attempts to get DRN to issue a ruling Hasteur (talk) 16:43, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Andromedean

For the record it was Sport & Politics who suggested the DRN should be opened not myself. I thought RfC --Andromedean (talk) 06:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC) only lasted a month, and I assumed it was closed when the attempted removal of the article took place.[reply]

I'm unclear why you are raising these points Hasteur, when I already stated this in the opening, are you intending to be involved in this again? Please, remember my request.--Andromedean (talk) 17:11, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by DRN volunteer czarkoff (talk · contribs)

Two previous cases mentioned above were closed without hearing due to then-ongoing RfC. Since the RfC is now archived, and at least two sides of the dispute are represented, the case will be opened 08:02, 6 October 2012 (UTC) or after all parties make their comments (whatever happens first). Parties are welcomed to summarize uninvolved editors' input at RfC if applicable. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 17:14, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Controversies at the 2012 Summer Olympics discussion

Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.

Per czarkoff, the case is now open. ~~Ebe 123~~ → report 16:09, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to ask parties whether there are any references relating the last three paragraphs of the section (as it is now) with these particular games. I only see a direct connection between the event and the statement "All bicycle and rider equipment at the games were declared legal by the UCI and passed fit for use under its sporting code". Is there any published analysis of British technology compliance with the other mentioned rules and opinions? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 19:56, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll answer this because this relates to important information placed in the wrong article, which was my main focus near the end of the discussion: No, hence this move and all my other contributions on that particular IP. 88.88.167.157 (talk) 21:07, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The statement was taken from this IMechE report which seems to be prepared with the games in mind. There is a background to British cyclings historic compliance (or lack of) at the bottom of page one and two of Britain's mysterious Bikes --Andromedean (talk) 22:02, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Andromedean, we are expected to avoid assessing others' minds; instead we are expected to interpret the written text the way we could avoid guessing the connections – this is the point of WP:SYNTH. That is: unless secondary source asserts violation of the rules, we neither state the violation, nor mention the rules. While obviously the controversy in question is verifiable (France24 is an excellent source for that), we can't go beyond the published asserted violations and published comments regarding them. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 22:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well I only mention this because there are six references to the 'London 2012 Olympics' in the report (and many more to the Olympics in general) and it was published one month before the games. However, it is unlikely that the original source of the survey has a direct connection with the games, so I see your point.

The overuse of synthesis criticism seems to be on ongoing theme in this section since it provides an excuse to remove sentences which editors simply don't like. I have raised these concerns with other Wikipedeans, who believe most articles in Wikipedia contain a degree of synthesis, it can rarely be avoided. As a consequence most of the material in this section now consists of direct quotes, but of course that doesn't prevent editors using synthesis as a blunt weapon for criticizing virtually any comparison between sentences. That's why we have rules in Wikipedia such as use common sense and make reasonable assumptions.

The reason for the background information is to place the controversy in context. Without this, we would be saying to the reader: 'your team won, my team didn't so I will accuse you of cheating.' This seems to be the agenda by one editor who also wanted the title changed to Irrational French Criticisms are something similar. The key background information includes the principles of the UCI "The spirit presupposes that cyclists will compete in competitions on an equal footing. The principle asserts the primacy of man over machine" and WADAs consultation on "Technology doping’ which is now officially recognized as a threat".

These place the French concerns into context, especially when components were being conspicuously covered up during the games (something which perhaps we should mention). In fact the removal of these contextual sentences seems to create a bias. We could claim the same for the survey since it reflects natural feelings of 'justice' but the link is admittedly more tenuous, and providing it doesn't lead to the Hemorrhaging of other text, and in the interest of compromise, I would agree this could be removed. --Andromedean (talk) 09:09, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An alternative would be to insert a summary rather than the entire text of these statements. For example in the mysterious bikes link there is this: "the IOC, and the UCI, [also] have a philosophy that the athlete should not only be paramount, but that technology should influence sports as little as possible --Andromedean (talk) 09:25, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There needs to be a remembering that this is an article on the 2012 Olympics and not Track Cycling in general or the 2012 Track Cycling season. It also needs to be remembered that this is also not an article on GB cycling. Sources have been asked for on numerous occasions for direct claims of cheating and direct sources directly stating GB cycling cheated. To my knowledge none have been provided. What has been provided instead is a mix of pieces of sources, other athletes who lost, and unrepresentative comparisons with other Track Cycling Competitions which have differing numbers of events and rules on qualification for events and the number of participants per nation. This is synthesis of sources to further a specific minority held point of view.

I would also like to illustrate this as follows: This academic industry journal is overly relied upon by those wishing to include this section. It does not claim there is "technology doping" with regards to bicycles. It does state though state the following in the article which is used in the section "technology doping which is now officially recognized as a threat". That is though not the whole quote. The whole quote is in fact

“the hypoxic chamber episode created a fundamental shift in the way that HETs are viewed.” From this point on, physical apparatus created by sports engineering would be subject to the same scrutiny as biological & chemical HETs. ‘Technology doping’ was now officially recognised as a threat.

The quote can be found on page 16 of the report. For clarity purposes HET stands for Human Enhancement Technologies.

The quote does not mention bicycles at all and is reference to the use of Oxygen Chambers and similar equipment used by athletes to alter their bodies in some way.

This illustrates the level of cherry-picking and misrepresentation in the section and the high level of unreliability of presentation in the section. Sport and politics (talk) 09:18, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

S&P The section begins with:

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), established in 1999, has the remit to “promote, coordinate and monitor the fight against doping in sport in all its forms” [17] . For a technology to be considered for prohibition from sport, WADA sets three conditions [18] : 1. Is the technology harmful to health? 2. Is it performance-enhancing? 3. Is it against the spirit of the sport?

So by suggesting this only refers to hypoxic chamber training it is you who are cherry picking. The point of the section of the IMechE report was to indicate that WADA was for the first time actually investigating technology doping, and hypoxic chambers happened to be its first technology target, it is no way suggests it will remain limited to hypoxic chambers. Incidentally Hypoxic chambers are widely used for training by professional cyclists. --Andromedean (talk) 10:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The journal extensively covers issues such as laser eye surgery for golfers and prosthetics in Athletics. The journal covers lots of hypotheticals and theories of what may be possible and what could happen. It doesn't actually say anywhere advancements by GB cycling in cycling technology is “technology doping”. It is also not an accurate representation of what the source is saying, as the line being relied upon only appears once in the whole piece referring directly to Oxygen chambers and athletes modifying their bodies through technology. It is unrelated the equipment used by athletes in the sport, such as sports rackets or sailing boats or bicycles. The quote you have heavily relied upon is Cherry-picked to back up your minority POV; it misrepresents the source and inaccurately portrays the context of the sentence.

You’ve claimed this undefined and wishy washy "spirit", can you please define this and that it has been violated through multiple reliable sources? The rules are set out in black and white on paper. It is not against the spirit of formula one to have cars covered by the same regulations having vastly differing budgets and capabilities. It is the same in this context. What is trying to be claimed is being successful through allocation of resources is against the spirit of track cycling, that is facile nonsense. If that were true cycling technology would never have advances beyond the very first bicycles produced.

Finally brining in WADA and stating their sporting code fails to demonstrate any relevance other than your inferences. There is no relevance to the 2012 Olympics, Track Cycling in general, GB Cycling or any controversy. it is just you saying these rules state this I think it violates them therefore I must be right. These selectively used sources, sore losers and my own comparisons to events which are not a fair comparison back me up so it must be right. You are wrong it simply goes to demonstrate the sheer nonsense being asserted in the section. Sport and politics (talk) 11:37, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some observations:

The controversy exists and is noticed by reliable secondary sources (eg. Guardian, Yahoo! Sports, France24 look pretty much enough to warrant section).
There is no source to report "cheating" of British team as a fact.
The attempt at providing background information after reporting the event breaks the flow and creates unwarranted implication of guilt on British account.

Does any involved party argue any of these observations? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 19:49, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wholly agree with points 2 and 3 but as for point 1 this is a controversy over what? So far it just seems to be from the sources provided that it is the French complaining about the British beating them by blaming the technology, and the UK PM commenting to wind up the French. Hardly controversial when controversies usually have more than just one side complaining and usually have prolonged and meaningful discussion. There appears to be no meaningful discussion just the French losing and saying GB Cycling had better bikes than us. also the UK PM references to the Tour de France are not relevant to this article on the Olympics. Sport and politics (talk) 22:40, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

France24's article leaves an impression that Cameron commented on Olympic games, and it appears that the whole story covers British performance throughout 2012, not just Tour de France. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 23:00, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Czarkoff It's useful to receive a fresh unbiased perspective on the article because it may read differently to those who have gradually developed and read in a hundred times! I have stressed your first two points many times in the discussion. Your third one is interesting

The attempt at providing background information after reporting the event breaks the flow and creates unwarranted implication of guilt on British account. Does any involved party argue any of these observations?

I recall earlier versions did precede with the background information. Are you saying you would be satisfied if it preceded the other statements? I am still of the view that without at least some background information, before or after, it makes the incident appear as pure 'sour grapes' rather than a deep seated grievance within the sport which has been festering for decades, but came to light most prominently at London 2012.

A further thought regarding the 20,000 survey quote. I placed that in at the end to confront claims that the issue wasn't controversial in nature and attempts to remove it on those grounds. This was before the quotes from the French were added. --Andromedean (talk) 07:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Czarkoff I notice this Dispute is requiring assistance again according to the board. Is that because you can't continue your role for some reason, or because you are asking for additional outside advice?--Andromedean (talk) 07:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I am Amadscientist, a regular volunteer on the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. I will review the case.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will add to my opening comments here, since I can't seem to edit them

This is probably the latest version, and it could be a good starting point for Mad scientist. 88.* wanted to remove the parts in bold here to a different topic, Myself and Showmebeef think they need to remain in the Controversy section, at least in some form to provide context. Whilst S&P wishes everything to be removed. Yes I think the short extract of the text on the swimming Lasersuit in the original draft could also be added to provide an example of technology which was legal that was subsequently banned. This adds weight to the argument that the topic is controversial.

The British team released new cycles for the London 2012 Olympics, opting not to use them for the world championships earlier in the year.[126] They subsequently outperformed their main rivals Australia and France by margins greater than these teams had expected.[127] In France the performance of the British was greeted with suspicions and allegations of foul play. Especially regarding the use of technology [128]

Isabelle Gautheron, director of the French Olympic cycling team, suggested Britain's gold streak may have been aided by subterfuge, and cutting edge technology to produce the quickest bike. Also France's world champion cyclist Gregory Bauge, demanded that his British rival divulge the U.K.'s secrets.[129] The French omnium specialist Bryan Coquard said that the British secret is due to the way they roll out the best equipment at the vital last moment. They have new bikes, new skinsuits and different wheels.[130] Chris Boardman the former head of research and development of the British Cycling Team was asked if the British teams high-tech warfare will put some countries at a disadvantage, he replied, "Well, I'd like to think so, we haven't done our job if they're not."[131]

British Cycling is secretive about its cycling technology. These are built at Advanced Composites Group, an English manufacturer of high-end composites that are used in Formula 1 racing, aerospace, and the America’s Cup sailboats [132][133][134]

The Union Cycliste Internationale UCI sporting code states that bikes used in competition have to be available to the public to purchase, however, it amended its interpretation to allow a nine-month period after first competition use of a product to bring a product to market, and there is no limit on delivery time.[135] The UCI code also states that Bicycles shall comply with the spirit and principle of cycling as a sport. The spirit presupposes that cyclists will compete in competitions on an equal footing. The principle asserts the primacy of man over machine. All bicycle and rider equipment at the games were declared legal by the UCI and passed fit for use under its sporting code.[131]

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) considers prohibiting technologies if they are "performance-enhancing" or "being against the spirit of the sport". In 2006 WADA initiated a consultation on ‘Technology doping’ which is now officially recognised as a threat, whilst the decision to allow or ban a new technology, specifically relating to sports equipment, is the responsibility of each sport’s own governing body.[136]:p. 15 A report released immediately before the Olympics quotes an extensive public survey that shows that people fear that sports engineering could: overshadow the triumph of human spirit and effort, make certain sports easier, create unfairness so the "best athletes" might not win, and ensure that rich athletes and countries have an advantage over the poor ones.[137] --Andromedean (talk) 08:04, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for posting this. I will take a look shortley. Hilo48, Reign it in please. If you are not aware of the bracketed numbers...we call them citations, and they are numbered on each article.--Amadscientist (talk) 08:27, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would be surprised if WADA has any authority in the area of technology. It's not a drug, is it? And Andromedean, what on earth are you posting there, with all those numbers in brackets all over the place? HiLo48 (talk) 08:19, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We have been over that ground already, it is all areas of technology, not just biochemical see P.16 in the report in the references ^ "Sports Engineering: An Unfair Advantage?".--Andromedean (talk) 08:40, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe this. Not just the claims about WADA, but the seeming incompetence of editors here, combined with an unbelievable arrogance. Of course we use fucking citations, but that's not what they should look like. It's as if some material has been copied and pasted from somewhere else, with no attempt to recreate the actual links for the citations. And I get the impression a reply to a post of mine has been placed before it. We are not having coherent conversations here. Can a skilled Admin please come here and sort this mess out ASAP? HiLo48 (talk) 10:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Syrian civil war

– General close. See comments for reasoning.

Filed by Dafranca on 18:39, 7 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

Talk:Syrian civil war#Grafit eyewitness (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

Dafranca (talk · contribs)
I7laseral (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

An eyewitness without last name is been disputed as reliable source.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Discussion on Talkpage

How do you think we can help?

Interpretation of the WP:Disputed statement regarding source.

Opening comments by I7laseral

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Syrian civil war discussion

Hello! I'm a DRN volunteer. Given that the dispute mainly boils down to reliability of a source, may be Reliable sources noticeboard is a better venue to gather input? People there are better prepared to judging on sources then we (DRN volunteers) are. Note, I don't defer this dispute, but if my suggestion makes sense to you, feel free to open a thread there (and don't forget to notify us of doing so!). — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 19:42, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to be active much this week, but I specialize in content disputes relating to reliable sources and BLPs, but WP: RSN would be a better venue. --v/r Electric Catfish (talk) 21:24, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ditto the above. RS/N is the right venue.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deism

– General close. See comments for reasoning.

Filed by Dsomeone on 19:05, 7 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

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

Users involved

Dispute overview

Deism lede is in need of updating, and we've been working on this for many days. no one seems to be willing to help constructively other than rejecting every version for one reason or another, rejecting references and giving no alternative answers. This is a religious or belief philosophy topic, with multiply references for multiple views. from modern to ancient times. we should be concerned with the current views, not the outdated historical views. since deism is an evolving belief system, based on science and observation. We need help. simple as that.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Lots of time in talk:Deism (see Talk:Deism#New Lede Description Fresh Start)

How do you think we can help?

Help verify or find new References for content of Lede description of Deism.

Opening comments by JDefauw

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I agree with Bkonrad. Dispute resolution is not yet necessary. We need to be patient. We all agree that the lead sentence of the article does not adequately answer the simple question: "What is deism?" I do not have any strong opinions about what the lead sentence should say as long as it is 1) NPOV 2) reasonably clear 3) is not misleading or inaccurate 4) tells us what sets deism apart from other religions that also believe in a creator of the world, and 5) is acceptable to all the other contributors who are knowledgeable about the topic and are acting in good faith. I believe that JimWae is knowledgeable about the topic and that he is acting in good faith. I also believe that he is trying to be helpful. I do not believe his comments were too long to read. We need to take the time to seriously consider his proposed lead sentences and his later comments. After we have done so, if we still cannot settle our disagreements, we will be ready for dispute resolution.

Opening comments by JimWae

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I do not see a specific content dispute mentioned here. Complainant is at least as responsible as anyone else for the long time it is taking to write a new 1st paragraph. Three or 4 people have expressed concerns about his wording, sometimes proposing alternative wordings. Complainant briefly responds, sometimes with fabricated reasons for objection, then begins a new section with minor changes in his own version and other contributors' suggestions mostly disappear into previous sections. Complainant's versions do not provide a definitional sentence which distinguishes deism from other religious philosophies. Complainant's versions are so unnuanced that although he claims to be a deist, he excludes himself by his own definitions -- because, as he admits, he, himself, does believe in frequent divine intervention. Complainant is a relative newbie, and it is difficult to take some of his more erratic suggestions seriously. He is a deist enthusiast who only a day or 3 ago wanted to include "truth" as part of the definition of deism. Despite repeated reminders, attention to sources and to the actual wording of sources has been minimal. To repeat: No particular content objection is identified here, the dispute is over several unnuanced/nuanced wordings.--JimWae (talk) 21:09, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Bkonrad (older ≠ wiser)

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At present, I don't see that dispute resolution is necessary. So many diverse proposals have been suggested by Dsomeone (and to a significantly lesser extent JDefauw and others) in relatively short order that it is difficult to follow any continuity in development. The various proposals seem to make wholesale changes based on interpretations of single remarks. If anything, DR might help in exercising some control over how the proposals are made and discussed. I don't have any strong preference with regards to how the lead is presented apart from expecting it to be 1) NPOV, 2) verifiable, and 3) that it reflects the entirety of what the topic Deism encompasses. older ≠ wiser 21:12, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Deism discussion

Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.

As indicated above. This will be closed shortly as being premature/unnecessary. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:31, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Frank L. VanderSloot

– Discussion in progress.

Filed by GeorgeLouis on 04:10, 10 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

Frank L. VanderSloot (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

Dispute overview

A paragraph in the Frank L. VanderSloot article stated:

In 1997, Vandersloot received a warning letter from the FDA to stop marketing Melaleuca dietary supplements ProVex, ProVex-Plus, and Replenex as drugs for the treatment of disease conditions in contravention of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.[38][39] The warning, issued subsequent to an FDA inspection of a Melaleuca manufacturing facility, noted that the products carried claims that their use resulted in "halting and possibly reversing the process of articular cartilage degeneration" and that they were "an alternative in the treatment of degenerative joint disease or common osteoarthritis." Melaleuca subsequently announced that the claims would no longer be used for marketing the products.

This paragraph was separated out into a subsection marked as WP:Undue at 23:33, 5 October 2012. The separation, subheader and Undue note were reverted at 16:10, 6 October 2012‎. A Discussion was begun on the Talk Page. The crux of the debate is: Should the paragraph be deleted or not?

One editor believes: "There is only one Source given for this item, in a trade website. (The other Source is the letter itself, which is not good enough in Wikipedia's eyes to use as a Source alone.) This factoid about Melaleuca was never the object of scrutiny in any other Reliable Source, nor reported on elsewhere. It is therefore de minimis. It is, given the thousands of products made by Melaleuca, just not worth trifling about. Nor, given the fact that this article is about a Living Person and not a company, does it warrant even a mention in the biography of this man.

A second editor has responded: "I disagree that it is unduly weighted. It has been mentioned by secondary sources and is described succinctly in the article and only in as much detail as is necessary to convey the gist. Suggesting that FDA warnings are analogous to a speeding ticket is nothing more than a personal opinion (c.f. WP:OR) and it demonstrates a lack of understating of their significance. It's especially relevant given that VS had a serious run-in with the FDA for similar issues while running Oil of Melaleuca. . . . FDA warning letters are indeed significant and highly notable."

A third editor has said: "FDA has a 21 page manual explaining what warning letters are and I stand by what I said about it being too wonky to be able to describe without either making it sound worse than it was or giving the section undue weight. As far as I can tell, FDA has never taken an administrative action against the company. Even the letter they sent 15 years ago did not apply to the company writ large. . . . I certainly agree that it should be removed."

A fourth editor has said: "The letter is just talking about wording on a product label. Doesn't seem notable."

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

We have discussed this on the Talk Page.

How do you think we can help?

One of the editors suggested taking this to Dispute Resolution before going any farther. You can suggest a next step for us to follow.

Opening comments by Rhode Island Red

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VanderSloot is the CEO and owner of a multilevel marketing company called Melaleuca. The FDA sent a warning letter to FrankVanderSloot regarding illegal marketing of his company’s nutritional products – i.e. making claims that the products can treat, prevent or cure diseases, which positions them as drugs in violation of DSHEA. Such infractions are considered a very serious matter, and warning letters are used as the FDA Office of Regulatory Affairs’ first line of defense; the next step being heavy fines and/or closure. When it comes to such warnings, the FDA has final authority (i.e. the warning letter is not a mere suggestion nor is it open to debate – it is a final opinion). The statement in the article is backed up by two WP:RS and there is ample precedence for both the importance of such warning letters and their inclusion in WP articles. The objections to inclusion of this information raised by the disputant are vague and without merit, and collusion/vote-stacking is an additional concern. I have addressed the issue in detail under the discussion section. Rhode Island Red (talk) 16:10, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by Andrewman327

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My position is that there is no way to include this letter without either using original research or giving it undue weight due to the complex nature of administrative rulemaking.

First off, warning letters are common. FDA has issued 11,224 warning letters since the letter in question (admittedly original research from here). That works out to an average of roughly 3.5 of them per business day over 15 years.

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) was passed in 1994 and applied to the company after it went into effect. In 1997, FDA sent the company a letter stating that it should change the wording used on the packaging of three of its products because they contained health claims that had not been approved by FDA. I can’t find any response, either from the company or FDA, but it appears that the company subsequently changed the wording on its packaging.

In 2001, Pearson v. Thompson found that FDA overstepped its constitutional authority in regulating health claims of dietary supplements. Although DSHEA is still in effect, the nature of FDA’s enforcement has grown less strict and it is difficult to say how the company’s claims would be treated in the modern regulatory environment. What is clear is that the company was never the target of any official action by FDA. The letter itself states that it was not a reflection of the company writ large. Even the FDA guide to sending warning letters states that they are a tool for voluntary compliance, Template:PDFlink.

Opening comments by Collect

WP:FORUMSHOPPING applies here as the overwhelming consensus of all but one editor has been clear on the article talk page. DRN is not a place to forumshop where such a clear consensus exists. The person suggesting that it be posted here is the one I refer to, not the good faith poster of this section. Collect (talk) 12:13, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the ongoing discussions on the article talk page and consensus arrived thereat render DRN usage moot. Collect (talk) 23:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Opening comments by HtownCat

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Frank L. VanderSloot discussion

Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.

Hello, I'm a DRN volunteer and I would like to ask Collect to replace his statement with his position on the dispute. Not only comments on others' conduct are discouraged on DRN, but the filing editor asserts the conflict between local and global consensus, so the case may have a potential per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. P.S.: please, disregard the template stating that the case is opened and comments may be made in this section – we are still waiting for other parties' comments and won't proceed unless anybody from another side of the dispute would indicate their readiness to participate. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 14:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In assessing the FDA warning with respect to VanderSloot, I considered various factors.

WP:RS: The statement in the article is backed up by a high-quality secondary WP:RS (i.e., The Tan Sheet). The Tan Sheet is not some insignificant trade rag as one editor implied. It is in fact a highly reputable publication, and is considered a definitive source on such matters, albeit not a publication that’s widely familiar to laypeople. The statement is also backed up by the primary source itself; i.e., the FDA letter. Thus, the statement easily passes WP:RS and WP:VER, which stands in stark contradiction to the implication by the other disputant that the source is not reliable; clearly this implication is baseless.
Relevance: The FDA warning letter has special relevance in VanderSloot’s bio because Vandersloots previous MLM company (at which he also served as CEO and co-owner) prior to forming “Melaleuca Inc” was shut down for exactly the same type of violative marketing (i.e., his previous company “Oil of Melaleuca Inc” also made curative claims about their nutritional products). This fact about Oil of Melaleuca’s demise was mentioned by VanderSloot himself and by other WP:RS; the detail is currently mentioned in the article[32] and is not being contested. Thus, the FDA warning letter, which is relevant in its own right, is especially so given the connection to the marketing practices of VanderSloots’s previous company.
Importance/notability: Two of the disputants argued that FDA warning letters are (a) insignificant, and (b) analogous to a speeding ticket, neither of which is remotely true. It was also argued that such warnings are given to thousands of products. This is also untrue. In fact, the FDA hands out only a handful of such warnings annually to nutritional supplement companies, and when they do, it is a big deal. In general, FDA warning letters, exactly like the one that VanderSloot received, are highly noteworthy as indicated by numerous high-quality sources that have reported on such events with other companies[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] FDA warning letters are also commonly included in WP articles about nutritional supplements (several of he following examples are also MLM companies)[42][43][44][45][46] There are also dozens of examples WP articles that mention FDA warning letters issued to makers of pharmaceutical products.

One of the disputants issued the claim that “"FDA has a 21 page manual explaining what warning letters are and I stand by what I said about it being too wonky”. I’m not sure of which document the editor is referring to, because he never provided the name or a link, but the claim about FDA warning letters being “wonky” is purely speculative opinion (baseless to boot) and constitutes WP:OR.

Although I don’t want to get into the matter of user conduct issues, a brief note is warranted. There has been a long history of partisan editing on the article by a couple of the disputants here, who belong to WP Project Conservatism, which is currently under fire for potential POV violations. In my experience, the group is used in a partisan manner for POV pushing and vote stacking. In practice, this has a very destructive effect on the integrity of WP and it makes neutral discussion about editorial matters next to impossible. VanderSloot is a controversial and polarizing figure, and he is a major financier of conservative political candidates; hence the WP project group’s tendency to whitewash articles that contain criticism of conservative figures seems to be at play here. Because Melaleuca is MLM, the company’s legions of thousands of distributors (along the lines of Amway) also have an interest in whitewashing article critical of MLM, and having edited several such articles in the past, I ca n safely say that this is a chronic occurrence here on WP.

Given these background factors at play, it’s next to impossible to have a reasonable balanced discussion on the talk page or achieve a legitimate consensus on even the simplest of issues. Edit warring and incivility are often the result. It is imperative that editorial issues under discussion get input from uninvolved parties that are not part of the WP project conservatism bloc, and hence DR seems like the best means to solicit reliable unbiased input from the community. I do not by any stretch believe that my opinions are the final word on this editorial issue, but it’s simply not possible at this point to have a an unbiased discussion about it given the current crop of editors who are opining, and instead it would be nice if we could get input on this from at least half a dozen or so editors for guidance. I’m open to hearing what the entire community thinks; not just the one-sided opinions of a particular COI conservative group or MLM voting bloc that marches in lockstep on every issue. Going forward, it would help things go much more smoothly if there were more impartial editors watching the page and weighing in on any editorial disputes that arise. We need more eyes. Rhode Island Red (talk) 16:10, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another uninvolved volunteer here. DRN does not deal with conduct disputes, and conducts disputes should not be brought up on this noticeboard, no matter how brief. The wider dispute between American liberals and conservatives, especially during election season, is not something that DRN can resolve.--SGCM (talk) 17:08, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, understood. My bad. Main point is just that it would be really nice to have more impartial eyes on the article so that these sort of disputes can be avoided. Rhode Island Red (talk) 19:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Sigmund Freud#Science_section

– Discussion in progress.

Filed by Esterson on 18:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

Talk:Sigmund Freud#Science section (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

Dispute overview

Two editors, namely me [Esterson] and Polisher of Cobwebs, believe the Freud page is already over-extensive [some 13,000 words, compared with, e.g., Einstein 8000 words], and PoC has proposed that the lengthy "Legacy" section (mostly posted by himself in the past) should be reduced in size (at the moment the debate has concentrated on the Science section). In contrast Almanacer argues for the article/Science section to be "improved" (begging the question of what constitutes improvement), and over recent weeks has posted or proposed some extra items, all conducive to his own strongly-held viewpoint on Freud. When I pointed out that for every item he has posted/proposed I can reference a viewpoint contrary to the one he is keen to promote (and indeed could do the same in relation to some items already on the Freud page), he has responded by saying there is no objection to my doing that. My view is that this process can only lead to an already overlong page increasing almost indefinitely, and that the increased posting of contrary views in this way only cancel each other out. This dispute has been going on for many weeks as the Science section on the Freud Talk page indicates (now separated into five subsections to keep it manageable!). The latest stage can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sigmund_Freud#Science_section - though I strongly advise any editor who wants to gen up on the dispute while remaining sane to skip entirely the first four sections, and skim over section 5 down to the last half a dozen or so postings.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

None other than weeks of exchanges on the Freud Talk page.

How do you think we can help?

By getting the views of other editors

Opening comments by Almanacer

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Opening comments by Polisher of Cobwebs

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Opening comments by Bus stop

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There is not a big issue here. It doesn't matter if Freud's work was "scientific" or not. The reader deserves to know the variety of positions on that question. This isn't primarily an NPOV issue. If the article is getting lengthy it should be trimmed back in places where editorial objection is not encountered and where your own inclinations lead you to believe that less text would not overly harm the article. I would rather see a lively and jostling exchange from prominent commentators on this question than to read a supposedly "neutral" view. I don't think there is a final answer to the question this dispute supposedly revolves around. I am not sure if there is a dominant opinion. I think it makes for more interesting reading to see the arguments put forth by those who address this question. These are not simple yes or no answers. The individuals addressing this question support their conclusions with reasoning and that is potentially of interest to the reader. Bus stop (talk) 22:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Esterson responses

(I hope it is appropriate to have a separate section to respond to the above, rather than mix such comments in with the general discussion below.)

Response to Bus stop: I am not objecting to there being a variety of positions given on the question of Freud's "scientific" credentials. In order to accommodate Almanacer's concerns I myself contributed three sentences referencing three pro-Freud authors arguing that psychoanalysis is a science. But as I have pointed out several times now, one should not expect there to be anything like equal representation for positions on this specific issue, as there have been far more anti-Freud authors writing on this than pro-Freud. On the one hand anti-Freud authors (with major exceptions, such as Grunbaum) tend to place great emphasis on arguing that psychoanalysis is not scientific, whereas this is far less of an issue with pro-Freud authors, many of whom either do not believe psychoanalysis is, in essence, a scientific discipline (and is none the worse for that) or do not regard the issue as of any great importance. Some major supporters of Freud/psychoanalysis have argued that it is wrong to regard psychoanalysis as a science. One such is Louis Breger, professor of psychoanalytic studies at CalTech and founding President of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Notable academics such as Habermas and Ricoeur have argued that psychoanalysis should be regarded as within the field of hermeneutics, i.e., it is an explanatory discourse, not a scientific discipline. The prominent psychoanalytic authors George Klein, Roy Schafer, and Donald Spence have taken an essentially similar approach, arguing that psychoanalysis seeks not "historical truth" but "narrative truth", and they urge the abandonment of claims that psychoanalysis offers objective explanations of human behaviour – rather that its goals are interpretative. Esterson (talk) 07:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Sigmund Freud#Science_section discussion

Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.

Comment in general: It seems like you're complaining that the article is too big as it currently stands and makes it unreadable/un-maintainable. It seems like this really isn't a dispute, but looking for advice. My suggestion would be to consider spliting 2 sections off the article (Ideas of Sigmund Freud, Legacy of Sigmund Freud) into their own articles so they can be elaborated upon. Obviously leaving a very high level summary paragraph with a "Main Article" that is typical of split out sections. Obviously we'll see if there are any "disputes" in this, but this way we can let each of the sections expand as appropriate. HasteurMobile (talk) 18:27, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not going to comment on the actual dispute, but to expand on what Hasteur has said, as per WP:SIZERULE, the general rule of thumb is that articles with over 50 kB of readable prose may need to be divided. These are the current statistics of the page, as of today:

Prose size (with HTML code): 111 kB
Wiki markup size: 144 kB
Prose size (text only): 79 kB

--SGCM (talk) 19:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the responses. It's a bit more than a dispute about excessive length, though I agree with PoC that the Legacy section could do with some pruning. Almanacer is in the process of adding/proposing material (always suppportive of Freud) which increases the length even more, while I have pointed out that for every one of his postings/proposals there are authors who take a different view, and these have every bit as much right to be referenced as his preferred authors. The problem with that, as I see it, is that it is a process that can only lead to more and more expansion of the Freud page virtually indefinitely. (I have also pointed out some other items favourable to Freud in regard to which I could post references to differing views but have previously refrained from doing so because of not wanting to increase the length of the Science section even more. Esterson (talk) 20:48, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is also worth pointing out, to understand why PoC and I have concerns over Alamancer's current propensity to post items forwarding his own strong views, that for weeks there was a dispute over his posting a paragraph consisting of five sentences giving details of the views of a favoured author. (No other author's views on the Science page are given more than one sentence, at most.) This was only eventually resolved after I brought it to this Dispute page and with not a single editor supporting his position he finally agreed to relinquish the five sentences for a single one (followed by three other references to authors taking a similar viewpoint that I provided). Esterson (talk) 21:04, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jobie Hughes

– Discussion in progress.

Filed by Tokyogirl79 on 05:01, 11 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

Jobie Hughes (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

Tokyogirl79 (talk · contribs)
Ohioana (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Constant edit warring as well as accusations of bias and vandalism from another user. I have backed up my editing with reliable sources and have written in a neutral manner. Despite this, Ohioana has constantly reverted the edits (which include blatant copyvio) with the justification of "this is incorrect", while never actually stating why it's incorrect or providing anything to prove that it is. We're expected to take the user's word for it rather than given any evidence. Part of what is being removed are parts of the article that aren't outright glowing praise, such as the coverage of Hughes's contract with Frey and Full Fathom Five. This is necessary to keep in since this takes up a large portion of Hughes's coverage in the news. Most of his coverage has been in relation to the contracts FFF had their authors sign, in specific the part of the contract that required that Hughes remained anonymous as the author of the Lorien Legacies series. To not include it shows a bias towards the author as well as doing the article a disservice because it makes it incomplete.

So far I've reported this on the edit warring forum as well as the admin board, to no avail. Other than someone other than myself saying "please don't", Ohioana has consistently been reverting the article for at least five times in the last 24-48 hour period... with no repercussions.

There was also some ongoing revert warring over the article At Dawn (novel), which is filled with some copyvio (although not as much now), overly promotional content, and other things that would fill WP:NOT. I was originally just redirecting it to the author's page, but Ohioana has reverted it constantly to where I'm listing it at AfD since redirecting isn't an option for them.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I've contacted Ohioana on the article page, their talk page, yet they have not actually responded except to revert my edits and the edits that any other user does back to an article that contains only glowing praise and copyvio. They have yet to explain why the information is incorrect other than "I said so" and "I don't like it".

How do you think we can help?

I hate to say "please block", but this editor is bent on having the Hughes related articles only say what they want to say, which is predominantly promotional in nature. I suspect a conflict of interest here due to the highly promotional nature of their edits and to be honest, this is getting to the level of vandalism now because this has been ongoing for so long with no intervention. They're not going to stop even after being warned multiple times.

Opening comments by Ohioana

Please limit to 2000 characters - longer statements may be deleted in their entirety or asked to be shortened. This is so a volunteer can review the dispute in a timely manner. Thanks.

Jobie Hughes discussion

Please do not use this for discussing the dispute prior to a volunteer opening the thread for comments - continue discussing the issues on the article talk page if necessary.

Hello! Thank you for submitting a DRN request. I'm an uninvolved volunteer. Extensive prior discussion has to occur before a dispute can be brought to DRN. If an editor is refusing to discuss, it's considered a conduct issue as per WP:UNRESPONSIVE.--SGCM (talk) 09:14, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 615: / Line 615: @@
 We have been over that ground already, it is all areas of technology, not just biochemical see P.16 in the report in the references ^ "Sports Engineering: An Unfair Advantage?".--[[User:Andromedean|Andromedean]] ([[User talk:Andromedean|talk]]) 08:40, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
+:I don't believe this. Not just the claims about WADA, but the seeming incompetence of editors here, combined with an unbelievable arrogance. Of course we use fucking citations, but that's not what they should look like. It's as if some material has been copied and pasted from somewhere else, with no attempt to recreate the actual links for the citations. And I get the impression a reply to a post of mine has been placed before it. We are not having coherent conversations here. Can a skilled Admin please come here and sort this mess out ASAP? [[User:HiLo48|HiLo48]] ([[User talk:HiLo48|talk]]) 10:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 == Syrian civil war ==

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