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1 Spore (2008 video game) (Example case)

– Discussion in progress.

Filed by Example on 13:20, 22 August 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, we have discussed this issue on a talk page, and we reached stalemate in our discussion.

Location of dispute

Spore (2008 video game) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

Example (talk · contribs)
Example2 (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Me and Example2 (talk · contribs) are having a bit of a dispute about Spore (2008 video game). Some of the references in the article support the genre being a god game, others support the genre being a life simulation or a simulation game. I think we need to come with a way to have both listed in the article, as all references seem reliable.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I have tried talking about the issue with Example on the article talk page, but I need some extra input on what I can do here to move forward with resolving this dispute, as there are numerous sources supporting the different genres.

How do you think we can help?

Direct me to ways to resolve this dispute, or where I can get assistance in resolving the dispute. We need to come up with a compromise as how to move forward with the article.

--Example (talk)

1.1.1 Opening comments by Example2

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.

Statements that this game's genre is simulation are simply untrue. No policy, guideline or essay on Wikipedia demand that we spread lies in article just because the misled reliable sources stated so. --Example2 (talk)

1.1.2 Spore (2008 video game) 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.

The dispute at hand seems to be to me that there are multiple possible genres to the article, and many sources backing up the different genres, however the issue of which genre best fits is still an issue. A mediation cabal case might be useful here, the assistance of a third party editor could assist in working out a compromise that works well. Example3 (talk)

Augmentative_and_alternative_communication

Augmentative and alternative communication (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

Two related issues

Two editors might suit some outside opinions with resolving two related issues. Firstly, there is a difference of opinion on the answer to the question of "Are the peer reviewed proceedings from academic conferences considered acceptable sources for wikipedia?" (Two pertinent facts may well be that a: both editors would like the article to go to FAC and have the required high-standard of sourcing and b: the conferences in question are often computer science ones that may be treated differently by some editors).

Secondly, there is a difference of opinion about a paragraph being included in a section of the article, when the content is surmised in the History section of the article. The paragraph in question is [1]

The full conversation on both matters is at: Talk:Augmentative_and_alternative_communication#Rate_enhancement_strategies

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Failedwizard (talk · contribs)
Poule (talk · contribs)

There is a great deal of mutual respect between both editors, the conversation has been measured, sedate and reasonable on both sides thoughtout; however it certainly appears (to me anyway) that this is caused by deep differences in philosophy and I think both of us would welcome editors who might be able to offer some opinions.

This step was proposed in advance on the talk page, will post back to talk page now.

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

Not yet.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

The full conversation on both matters is at: Talk:Augmentative_and_alternative_communication#Rate_enhancement_strategies

How do you think we can help?

It is my believe that the dispute is relatively technical in nature and if editors who felt experienced in that particular field where to give us their interpretation of wikipedia's policy on either or both of the issues then I think either or both of us would happily accept the consensus and return to working productively together.

Failedwizard (talk) 17:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Augmentative_and_alternative_communication discussion

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

Hi Failedwizard, and thanks for posting here. Sorry that this dispute has been sitting here for so long with no reply - it looks like it slipped through the cracks. Are you still having problems here? Let us know if you are and I'll have a look into it. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 10:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any opinions would certainly be welcome - work on the article has been at a standstill since this was posted. :( Failedwizard (talk) 12:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've had a brief read through the discussion, and I have some suggestions for you. Now, if I am reading this rightly, then the sources that are being disputed are the same ones that are used in the disputed paragraph. (Please let me know if I have got this wrong or missed something important.) In this case, it seems a good idea to check the sources first, as the writing obviously depends on whether they are of acceptable quality. I wouldn't feel confident commenting on the acceptability of the sources in this case, as it's not really my field of expertise. I recommend making a post at the reliable sources noticeboard asking for their opinion on each of the sources in question, along with their context in the article. We have editors there who know a lot about academic sourcing, so it seems the obvious place to start. You could also leave a note linking to the discussion on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science if you want the opinion who specifically knows about computer science. We can save discussion of the paragraph itself after we have come to a consensus on the sources. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 12:48, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, I've made a request at wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Academic_Conferences, and hope to hear from some of the editors there shortly. Failedwizard (talk) 07:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Atheism

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

Dispute overview

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

There is a disagreement on how to best capture and present the weight of RS specifically in the context of a definition in plain English. In my opinion our article is currently not reflecting the weight of the sources, and is employing language which seems open to a wider range of interpretation than seems justified by available sources. My position is that we need to move closer to:

Critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or divine beings. Unlike agnosticism, which leaves open the question of whether there is a God, atheism is a positive denial. It is rooted in an array of philosophical systems.

— "Atheism". Encyclopædia Britannica Concise. Merriam Webster. Retrieved 15 December 2011.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

Lots of discussion on the talk-page spanning multiple sections:

How do you think we can help?

We need a mediator who is familiar with philosophy who can help us keep on track and help resolve potential confusion regarding terms of art.

u n☯mi 02:47, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Atheism discussion

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

I am not sure if sources from Talk:Atheism#Sources_re_agnosticism_delineation should be copied here wholesale or whether we should consider them one at a time? u n☯mi 03:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm replying here because I have been listed as an involved party, and I have been a long-time editor of the page, but I actually have not been involved at all in the discussion that this request is about. As a long-time editor of the page, I'm very well familiar with the reasons for the brightly lit notice at the top of Talk:Atheism. The talk page perennially gets walls of text about, well, how many atheists can dance on the head of a pin. Editors chronically agree that the definitions of atheism, and of how atheism resembles and differs from related topics such as agnosticism, just don't quite capture the perfect précis that individual editors desire, but editors seem never to arrive at consensus for anything better than what the page says now. Largely at Unomi's impetus, we have recently made some helpful brief additions to the article about the relationship with agnosticism. I think those additions have been good. I'm aware of, but have pretty much stayed away from, the wall of talk page text about whether or not to include something or other from EB. I don't much care, and I have come to find such conversations to be lengthy and unproductive time sinks. From a distance, it looks to me like Unomi is taking one position about the EB material, and several other editors say that they are not convinced by Unomi's arguments, and that's how we got here. I think one good solution might be for a few more brave souls to wade into the source material and provide some third+ opinions. Another might be for Unomi to accept that their arguments have not gained consensus, and move on. Whichever way that goes, I wish those involved good luck and happy editing. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is made sufficiently clear what the dispute is about. I think the first para of the article is unclear. Why are there broad, narrow and inclusive definitions? What is the difference between "broad" and "inclusive"? Please don't answer these questions - I am just pointing out that they are likely to go through the mind of the poor, confused reader.

The problem with appealing to definitions in tertiary sources is that, although they might be authoritative (not necessarily definitive, but authoritative) as to current usage, they may not capture subtle shifts in meaning that have occurred over time. The EB definition above, for example, seems to me to be correct now, but it might not be adequate in describing things as they were a century ago. --FormerIP (talk) 21:25, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just so you know, that thing about broad, narrow, etc., has been very much at the center of all that perennial talk. I understand how the poor, confused reader may feel, and I hope editors new to the issue will understand how the poor, confused editors feel. Gazillions of digital pixels have been spilled trying to find a better lead paragraph, to no avail. You'd be amazed to see how many even-worse versions can be generated. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, the article could be said to be confusing because the myriad contradictory ways atheism is idiosyncratically constructed in the literature are also confusing. Wikipedia cannot resolve what is a problem in scholarship as well. I put that forward only partly in jest; there's a serious point there too. --Dannyno (talk) 23:36, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely. We cannot do better than what the source material permits us to do. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:32, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've watched that page for years and have entered into the discussion on rewriting the lead in some of the seemingly monthly debates about it. The lead is in disagreement with all the other non-theist articles like agnostic and ignostic and the sources they use to define the terms contrasted with atheism. The one source that I consider the root cause of the lead's problem is the religioustolerance.org's essay on atheism. Their lead contradicts the lower section of the essay where agnostic is clearly defined. They openly admit that they capitalize Atheism because they consider it a religion.

Capitalization: The terms "Atheism" and "Atheist" are normally not capitalized -- except when they begin a sentence -- because they are not proper nouns. On this web site, they are capitalized. This is not ignorance or carelessness on our part. We have intentionally decided to deviate from the usual practice.
There are countless definitions of the term "religion." The one that we use is unusually inclusive:

"Religion is any specific system of belief about deity, often involving rituals, a code of ethics, a philosophy of life, and a worldview."

(A worldview is a set of basic, foundational beliefs concerning deity, humanity and the rest of the universe.) We include Agnosticism, Atheism, Humanism, Ethical Culture etc. as belief systems similar to religions, because:

They all contain a "belief about deity." Their belief is that they do not know whether a deity exists, or they have no knowledge of a deity, or they sincerely believe that no deity exist.

The authors of the essay are not noted scholars on religion and some of the sources they use are not WP:RS and they have an agenda to change the meaning of the word. For these three reasons I will, as I have before, suggest it be excluded as a reliable source and the lead written from better sources. Alatari (talk) 07:04, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I agree with Tryptofish that this debate is endless and I have little hope of seeing this settled. --Alatari (talk) 07:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I also have watched the article for a long time but have seldom participated due to the absurd debates over definitions, and resolution would be appreciated. I agree that religioustolerance.org is not a suitable source for any kind of definition because that site has an agenda (possibly a very noble agenda, but nevertheless they are promoting something and are not claiming any scholarly expertise in the field). If reliable secondary sources cover the points made at religioustolerance, keep the points with new references; otherwise, remove them. A word like "atheism" is always going to attract controversy (where some regard it as a deadly insult, and others as a badge of honor), but it should be fairly easy to define the term providing only scholarly sources are used (and it may be necessary to note differences of opinion about the term's meaning, but only if covered in scholarly sources). Johnuniq (talk) 07:37, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I opened a discussion on religioustolerance.org at RSN here.

I included editors that I felt were long-time contributors to the article because I wanted to ensure that any outcome of this discussion could be held to have had wider input.

Much of the discussion seems to have been prolonged unnecessarily due to interpretation issues with "reject", "positive denial", "extralinguistic referents" and other terms of art which I hope can be refereed more successfully here. I don't think that 3o would have helped build lasting agreement. u n☯mi 09:01, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I have always (since starting out as a contributor in 2005 I think)held that it is important to reflect the diversity of meanings "atheism" has. I would support a more in-depth, RS-supported, NPOV discussion of why this diversity exists. Comments above such as "it should be fairly easy to define the term" rather overlook the ink spilled in the literature by individual scholars arguing for their own understanding. Fact is, it isn't an easy term to define. Also, the discussion on the talk page is very fragmented. It can be hard to follow a line of argument. I would welcome Unomi giving a clear, concise, explanation of exactly what it is they are trying to do, and why. This is rather lacking at the moment, in my opinion, and I suspect it may be possible to agree on at least some of the problems even if we cannot agree how they could be fixed. --Dannyno (talk) 00:08, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I am happy to see that we have more editors involved now.

As I stated when I initially opened this request, I would like to see a better usage of plain English in especially our opening definition.

From my reading of sources, a contemporary 'plain english' definition could be:

"Atheism is the position that the god of the Judeo-Christian tradition does not exist, it can also refer to a general position that no gods exist."

From there we can go into more detail regarding arguments and the position of the innocents ( newborns etc. )

Quality tertiary sources such as Encyclopedia Britannica support this plain English reading, imo. There seems to be widespread confusion regarding the definition due to statements made by popular writers such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins - but they seem to be giving a novel reading to the word which has not seen much in the way of support in scholarly works. u n☯mi 13:14, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Disbelief...", "Critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs..." and "rejection of belief..." are similar constructs that can be more broadly interpreted than "the position that the god... does not exist". Some authors (and editors) such as Eller dispute that there is a difference between "not believe" (to be without belief) and "believe not" and argue for a strict conception such as the unambiguous position that deities do not exist. But, anyone can verify that there are in fact broader dictionary definitions for rejection, disbelief, denial and atheism; and the term "rejection" or any of these terms are by no means terms of art and each can be broadly or narrowly construed in accordance with their usage. Thus, to interpret the Britannica in such a narrow way only, is not only unverifiable, it would be the equivalent of stating "Atheism is the denial of gods or God" when a particular source says "Atheism is the disbelief in or denial of gods or God", thus leaving out the disbelief part. Dictionaries often give more than one definition too, precisely because they are not the same, and of course, the difference between "not believe" and "believe not" is essential to a nontheistic agnostic (or agnostic nontheist). Thus, its the rare argument that there is really no difference between these assertions, although it seems somewhat uncommon for agnostics to assert they "are without belief", but all self-identifying atheists certainly will. In addition, the most inclusive definition, which essentially identifies every nontheist as being an atheist, encompassed by the terms "absence" or "lack" is included in Martin's Encarta Encyclopedia piece[2],"Atheism, the denial of or lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods."; the BBC website[3] (as merely an example of its prominence at the very least) "Atheism is the absence of belief in any Gods or spiritual beings."; and the Princeton University's WordNet database as can be seen on Onelook[4] "a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." Sure, the broadest definition is not a primary meaning as Martin is quick to point out, yet it is a minority position per wp:NPOV included in our article that should not be removed from the first paragraph, which defines the article scope, as proposed, nor does the Britannica text directly support the proposed text. --Modocc (talk) 20:03, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - To my eyes, there seems to be a rather fundamental question regarding how to differentiate the content of Atheism and New Atheism, the latter article specifically relating to the opinions of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al. There are some sources, like Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ, which seem to rather clearly indicate that the latter are a group with shared beliefs regarding unknowable questions, or however one wants to define it - basically, an atheistic religion. However, the atheism of the New Atheists is not identical to atheism as a whole, which according to some sources even includes major religions like Buddhism, which do not believe in any sort of personal creator god per se. So I guess, maybe, the question is perhaps how the content should be divided between the two articles I first mentioned? John Carter (talk) 01:13, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I find the first two sentences of the lead (Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.) a little user-unfriendly – it is not immediately apparent to the reader (or this reader, at any rate) how one is narrow and the other is broad. But on the whole, the lead does not do a bad job. The contrast to agnosticism is important and is prominently mentioned, as it should be. --JN466 06:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a clerk at this noticeboard, and I haven't been involved with this article at all before. I'm in two minds about this dispute. On the one hand, the definition in the article seems to me, as someone unfamiliar with the literature on the subject, to be covering all the angles. Also, the note at the top of the talk page was put there for exactly the reason that this particular thing has been debated many times before. On the other hand, it could be that we really can improve the definition in some way, and that it would reflect the literature better if we did. I think this depends on what the other editors of the article think. If people do think this is worth pursuing, it seems like the kind of issue that could benefit from a more structured discussion, either mediation or a structured series of drafts on the talk page. However, if a good percentage of editors think it isn't worth pursuing, then mediation isn't likely to help the situation. I've had a brief look at MedCab and MedCom but I didn't turn anything up - does anyone know if this dispute has been through mediation before? Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 21:53, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

This is about the Occupy Wall Street criticism section (first paragraph only). I wanted to write a paragraph about how OWS had been characterized by opponents. I wanted to use reliable, secondary sources which directly summarized such criticism. I began looking around, and I found some. They all said the same thing, in much the same words- whether they were conservative or liberal-leaning sources. I took those words and wrote a couple of sentences about how conservatives et al had characterized the Occupy protesters. Unfortunately for my ability to get it into the article, not only did all the sources say about the same thing, they said it in words which sounded hyperbolic and extreme. It would have been impossible to summarize accurately and faithfully what the sources said, without sounding the same way. However, this certainly didn't sound like normal encyclopedic language, and it certainly didn't make everyone look good. The entry was reverted, and heavily criticized. Most of the criticisms fell flat in the face of the sources, and the dispute culminated in a call for me to do all the work of re-arranging the sources so that each word of the summary would point directly to text from which it was taken. I considered it obvious what the sources were saying and that I had given a faithful or near-faithful summary (one can always improve). I had also included extensive quotations in the references. I feel that editors who criticize my summary should at least read the quotations provided. I also feel that Wikipedia editors have the leeway to summarize sources in their own words, so that not every word of the paragraph needs to be sourced as taken directly from the sources (though most of the controversial words did come directly from the sources). I offered to compromise by summarizing in a different way, by using attribution, or by using quotes. No one would take me up on this. In the end, I agreed to take out the most controversial word "ingrates," and asked for further objections. There were none after weeks. I inserted the paragraph, minus the offending word. It was reverted by Somedifferentstuff.

See this section of the talk page for full details, and this section for the paragraph we're working on and this for the paragraph as I most recently inserted it. There is current discussion on the talk page here.

See this section for quotations from the sources.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Jacksoncw (talk · contribs)
Somedifferentstuff (talk · contribs)
Becritical (talk · contribs)
98.92.184.135 (talk · contribs)
Gandydancer (talk · contribs)
완젬스 (talk · contribs)
Binksternet (talk · contribs)
David Shankbone (talk · contribs)
Factchecker atyourservice (talk · contribs)

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

How do you think we can help?

Just give it a quick gander, and if you feel you can give some enlightenment do so. Otherwise give us a recommendation to go up the line of DR.

B^e——C_ritical 04:35, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Occupy Wall Street discussion

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

Outside view I'm going to admit conservative bias from the start. I lean slightly to the right. That said, this revision seems to address the issues on the talk page and be acceptable in my opinion. WP:NPOV does not mean that there can be no negative information nor that criticism sections cannot be harsh. It means that the article has to be balanced and in the large view it has to be neutral. The article cannot give support nor opposition to the subject. I see nothing "unencyclopedic" with how these two paragraphs are written.--v/r - T P 18:54, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What 2 paragraphs are you referring to? The dispute is concerning the first paragraph only. The second sentence of the first paragraph states, "Conservatives have portrayed the OWS protesters as fearful of responsibility and envious of the rich, saying that OWS protesters want big government to make it unnecessary for them to work." This is attributed to one source, The Chronicle of Higher Education. How does this not violate Wikipedia's policy on weight? Somedifferentstuff (talk) 10:54, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you start by explaining how it does violate WP:Weight?--v/r - T P 20:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should make it clear that the first two sentences are sourced at the end of the second sentence, but one source comes first at the end of the first sentence. Perhaps the first source referred to above was moved in an attempt to source individual words instead of to source the summary (don't remember). But all the sources after the second sentence of the first paragraph should be taken as the general support for both those sentences. I want to get away from any idea that I have to source individual words. B^e——C_ritical 18:57, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So this, "OWS protesters want big government to make it unnecessary for them to work", is only backed by one source. Is that correct? Somedifferentstuff (talk) 08:01, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My solution? Scrap the Criticism section. Criticism sections are only ever wanted in articles by those with negative attitudes to the subject. That means they are inherently and unavoidably non-neutral POV. This breaches fundamental Wikipedia rules. Another problem is that as soon as we allow some criticism, the argument of "How much?" inevitably arises. So, no Criticism section. Then this dispute disappears. I don't mean this post as a joke. Criticism sections are the bane of Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 10:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First I want to say that I believe both BeCritical and Somedifferentstull are excellent editors. I have found that Sds is exceptional when it comes to careful of checking of the article to be certain that it remains clear of POV edits. BeCritical is exceptional when it comes to patience and fairness on the talk page and is mindful of avoiding POV in his edits, as well. I would have preferred using the words "Some conservatives... (etc.)" and I would also have preferred inserting the references after each critical word or phrase rather than expect the reader to hunt through the refs to be sure they were there. I believe that this matter could have been settled on the talk page if Sds were more willing to spend more time in discussion than is his/her habit. His/her reluctance to bother using the talk page has been a problem before. I'm sure that none of us enjoy the sometimes endless discussions, but it's the un-fun part of being an editor and we all need to do it. Gandydancer (talk) 22:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Gandydancer. You're right, this could have been, and could yet be, resolved by various changes to the text (quotes or whatever). But I don't feel I need to source every word, because I don't have to pick every word from a source, I can use my own words. People should say where I got the meaning wrong, and they should be willing to read the quotes I provided. HiLo48, I don't have a negative attitude to the subject, but I think criticism sections are good sometimes. Somedifferentstuff, no that general theme is supported by other sources as well if you look, but one good source is sufficient. Also it's supported not only by the source but by the Tea Party statement the source quotes: "As a widely distributed statement by one Tea Party group put it, demonstrators want "a bigger more powerful government to come in and take care of them so they don't have to work like the rest of us who pay our bills." Anyway, I'm sure we could work something out if you choose to engage. More: [5] [6]. Really, honestly, the section is well sourced. I'm sure it could use improvement, but seriously... B^e——C_ritical 06:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone, I'm a clerk here at this noticeboard, and I'm not involved in this dispute. First of all, let me say that I think that material describing the reaction of conservatives and Tea Party absolutely does belong in the article. However, I think there are two issues with using BeCritical's material as it stands. The first is that the quoting, attribution and neutrality could be improved. For example, take the text "Conservatives and Tea Party activists say OWS is a shiftless, indolent, messy, anti-Semitic and drug-addled mob of unemployed left-wing zealots engaged in class warfare". While qualified with "Conservatives and Tea Party activists", the description "shiftless, indolent, messy, anti-Semitic and drug-addled mob of unemployed left-wing zealots" is presented in Wikipedia's voice, which I don't think is very desirable. In my opinion, this could be better done either by using more neutral language or by using quotations. I would favour something like 'Conservatives and Tea Party activists have criticised the movement, and have described members as variously "shiftless", "indolent", "messy", and "anti-Semitic". Some critics have used stronger language still; Author X referred to them as a "drug-addled mob of unemployed left-wing zealots"'. To BeCritical - I'm sure that this wording can also be improved, and of course any wording will depend on what the individual sources say (which I have not checked), but this could be a direction that you might want to consider.

The second issue that I saw was the larger structure of the article. On skimming through it, it struck me immediately that while there is a "criticism" section, there is no "support" section. Instead, there is a large "reaction" section detailing reaction from various sectors of society. In the interests of balancing the article to be structurally neutral, I think this should be changed. It would be hard to have a large "support" section and a large "criticism" section, as many views are somewhere in between - for example, from the first sentence we have "National polls from October to December 2011 were mixed", and I'm not sure which one we would put this in. I think it would be a better idea to weave the material in the criticism section into the other existing "reaction" subsections. You could maybe put the material about Conservatives and Tea Party activists in the "media reaction" section or a new "reaction from political activists" subsection, and material from politicians in the "political response" section. I'm sure it can all go somewhere, at any rate. On a slightly related note, the "reaction" section has become very large, and is taking up a sizeable chunk of the article. Have you considered splitting it? We could make a new article called something like Reaction to the Occupy Wall Street protest, which I think would benefit both the parent article and this dispute. What would everyone say to this? Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 10:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Mr. Stradivarius, I'm working on it and may need a few days. Your suggestions for the text are good. I'm not sure exactly how they will work, because we're not using primary sources but secondary ones who are describing the reaction rather than quoting from it... so IOW, I'm not saying what the tea party says but rather how the source describes what the tea party says. But I'll work with it and see what I can come up with that will present the sources more directly, which I think is the gist of what you're saying. B^e——C_ritical 02:44, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, good suggestions. It seems that at one time we did have these extremely critical reactions in the media section, but for the first few weeks many editors were making fairly drastic edits and shifting information around - it was hard to keep up with all the changes! It has been my experience that editing criticism into this article has been difficult - and we've had plenty of complaints that we've painted too rosy a picture of the movement because of that. But actually, criticisms have just not been available for us to use. Most notable personalities that made statements were very positive about the movement. Most of the media personalities were as well. Politicians, other than the Republican presidential candidates, have remained silent, perhaps because they know darn well that their constituents are mad as hell about the very things that the movement is protesting. About the only thing we've had to work with are the Fox News (type) comments, which have all been of the "lazy, dirty, hippies" sort. We were using direct quotes at one time - I don't remember what objections there were to that... I do remember that we have been damned if we did include them, and damned if we didn't. I've always supported their inclusion and would have included Hannity's and Coulter's as well.

As for splitting of the reactions, I agree that that would be a good plan. Gandydancer (talk) 21:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where are Hannity's and Coulter's reactions? I've had a hard time actually finding RS which repeat them. Doesn't seem to get through the editorial discretion of RS. B^e——C_ritical 21:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see if I can find them - they would be in the early weeks of the movement, perhaps before you started editing the article. They were so outrageous that there was argument from both "sides" and were in and out several times before they finally disappeared. In the very early days several of the major news sources, the NYT's for instance, sent very low-level reporters to the encampment that made no end of fun of the protesters. It took several weeks for them to begin to take the movement seriously and begin to treat it with some degree of respect. Gandydancer (talk) 14:46, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Honor killing naming discussion

Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Honor killing of Arash Ghorbani-Zarin (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Honor killing of Hatun Sürücü (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Honor killing of Fadime Sahindal (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Honor killing of Samaira Nazir (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Honor killing of Ghazala Khan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

User:Plot Spoiler moved these six articles from "Killing of" to "Honor killing of". User:Kevin McE moved them back and User:Plot Spoiler reverted his move. He then requested article be listed as a DYK. User:Kevin McE evidently saw this and thought it improper, reverted it and did a move request after Plot Spoiler reverted it. I saw his move request regarding moving Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh back to Killing of Sadia Sheikh appeared at Wikipedia:WikiProject Feminism/Article alerts‎. I went to the talk page and expressed my ambivalence about doing this for the one article at the page. I was concerned because other women/feminism articles had been used as defacto Muslim bashing articles and I had gotten death threats from a sock puppet on one of them for disputing this behavior. Another editor discusses this at my talk page. Given this history, it seemed natural for me to leave a message at Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam. User:Plotspoiler complained I was canvassing and administrator User:Jayjg reverted my announcement calling it "blatant" and later mocked my explanations for its relevance here and here; in the latter case he mocked my saying we might have to bring the dispute to this noticeboard. Later I discovered that six articles had been changed from killing to honor killing by User:Plotspoiler and that four of them explicitly mentioned this involved Muslims. I proposed here that given the controversy of these six moves, proper Move Request policy be followed and said again that I though posting to Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam would be proper. Both User:PlotSpoiler and User:Jayjg ignored my proposal to follow proper procedure. And User:Jayjg replied here: "Hard to believe these retroactive and absurdly weak excuses still continue. Carol, you got off easy; please accept your good fortune and move on." I believe he was inferring I was lucky he didn't sanction me for canvassing!

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

per the above, much discussion at Talk:Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh (only discussion on the page)

How do you think we can help?

First, given these are controversial moves, should User:PlotSpoiler revert his changes and go to Wikipedia:Requested_moves and do a multiple listing of all six articles so the wider community can comment on each article's talk page? (Note: some are more notable than others in general; some have more refs than others labeling them "honor killings.") Second, since I believe bias colors both editors labeling of "canvassing" - especially after it was discovered this involved six articles, four explicitly about Muslims - I'd like a neutral opinion on whether mentioning this Move Request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam is canvassing. WP:Canvass explicitly says appropriate notification can be made on: The talk page of one or more WikiProjects (or other Wikipedia collaborations) directly related to the topic under discussion. I think this is just as relevant to this wikiproject as to Wikiproject Feminism where I first saw the notice and did finally put a posting.

CarolMooreDC 20:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Honor killing naming discussion

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

First of all, many of the points addressed have little or nothing to do with the topic at hand. Her accusations of "Muslim bashing" are unfounded and a severe lack of WP:AGF. Secondly, the article, Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh, has not one mention of Islam so it was clearly inappropriate for her to canvas for comment at WP:Islam, regardless of the content of the other honor killing articles (which she only checked retroactively).

At the time when I originally renamed these articles, over a week ago, there was no dispute and these articles had been mostly dormant. I renamed the articles as such, with the honor killing title, because that it was what makes all of these articles notable. The individuals aren't themselves notable but as recognized honor killings they are. In some articles "Murder of..." is used and in others "Killing of..." At the same time though, sometimes more specific terminology is used if that's what makes the event notable, such the Lynching of Jesse Washington. In this case, the determination that it was an honor killing is what makes this event notable, rather than it simply being a murder or killing. Honor killing has become the accepted term for the homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members due to the belief of the perpetrators that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family or community. It need not be viewed as a euphemism -- in fact, the term is not even mentioned once in the honor killing article.

Ultimately, I am prepared for a fair discussion of how these articles should be titled but carolmoore shouldn't be slandering me as being part of some Muslim-bashing campaign. A lot of this just seems like WP:IDONTLIKEIT, especially given that Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh passed all DYK criteria. Plot Spoiler (talk) 20:52, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If all the articles are about Muslims, and the editor makes multiple possibly controversial changes without community discussion, and the editor edits regularly in aspects related to the topic, one can't help but wonder. Additionally your claiming the six articles were not notable until you make them so by adding "honor" to killing sounds like a strangely WP:POV/WP:OR argument. Perhaps some of these articles should in fact be AfD'd. Also, I don't think that whoever did the DYK review knew you'd changed the names of all six articles. And it was the speedy DYK after the name change that brought that one change to the attention of other editors in the first place, followed by the other five. In any case, all I'm asking for is a proper Request Move review of all six articles which would no long make the name changes open to suspicions of a quiet POV campaign. And the right of members of Wikiproject Islam to know that the Request for Move discussion is happening. CarolMooreDC 21:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, not all the articles are necessarily about Muslims and the Sadia Sheikh article does not once speak of Muslims or Islam so it has nothing to do with WP:Islam unless youare saying that only Muslims are responsible for honor killings, which isn't the case (Sikhs, Hindus, etc.). Therefore, it is not the right of WP:Islam members to be canvassed for participation in the article by you. And the DYK had nothing to do with those other articles -- just Sadia Sheikh. Stop obfuscating the issue and watch your borderline personal attacks by insinuating this is some secret anti-Muslim campaign. The only question at hand is whether "honor killing" should be retained in the title or not. Drop all your other nonsense. Plot Spoiler (talk) 22:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have little or no interest in the issue of whether the RM was mentioned at WP:Islam or not (I would not see neutral mention of a matter of interest as canvassing, but anyway), but am disappointed that Plot Spoiler repeats his/her POV that the description "need not be viewed as a euphemism" when clear evidence that many RSs consider it to be such has been presented and not replied to. Which dispute do people actually have an interest in resolving here? Kevin McE (talk) 00:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully a neutral editor can opine on whether articles that don't mention Muslims (though WP:RS might) can not be mentioned at Wikiproject Islam.

Re Kevin's discussion of the actual addition of "honor," I don't have a problem with issues about appropriateness of word being brought in. Just believe it needs to be done on six different unique articles with different WP:RS and different levels of notability. User:Plot Spoiler wrote he wants whatever is decided at Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh to rule the other articles. If he has changed his mind and is willing to revert back to the original names and then do a proper multiple name change request, then people can get into a variety of such issues on the talk page of each article. Then we would be done here. CarolMooreDC 01:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Outside editor opinion) CarolMooreDC admits that she went to WikiProject Islam to solicit opinions to stop a move (Sadia Sheikh) that she thought could be "used as defacto Muslim bashing". She presented no reliable sources at the time connecting the portrayals of that death to "Muslim bashing" that would justify contacting WikiProject Islam as part of normal move procedure. Therefore, this was a case of malicious canvassing. If the Sadia Sheikh move was formally a multiple move request that involved honor killings of/by Muslims, then it might have been appropriate to contact WikiProject Islam. Shrigley (talk) 02:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I completely disagree. CarolMooreDC was correct in taking the issue to WikiProject Islam. The honor killing of Sadia Sheikh has Islamic ramifications even if those ramifications are not now in the article. The multiple article naming issue is something the WikiProject Islam people would want to know about. Carol is not guilty of malicious canvassing. Binksternet (talk) 18:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It strikes me that the dispute is over a cultural issue and subjective judgement over whether these killings were 'proper' or not. Naming articles in such a fashion are, IMHO, in breach of WP:NPOV and WP:EDITORIAL. By prefacing the article title with "Honor", we are acceding to a bias to the "orthodoxy" of the killings in the eyes of the muslim code and against the general moralistc code, such as "Murder of". Wording in favour of one or other would be wrong. Instead of "Honor killing of" or "Killing of", we could adopt a more standard and neutral wording used in numerous WP articles. I would propose that we simply and objectively use "Death of" – no value judgement is thereby stated or implied. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:55, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- If the only reason that the killing is notable is because it is an "honor killing", and if the WP:RS use that terminology - as they seem to do on the articles concerned - then it might be more editorial for Wikipedia to use some other word for it. However, the dispute is really about the propriety of contacting WikiProject Islam to influence a move discussion on an article that doesn't involve Islam or Muslims (as Sadia Sheikh doesn't), as part of some grand noble scheme to improve Muslim public relations. Wikipedia:Canvassing makes it clear that such messages are an abuse of Wikipedia. Shrigley (talk) 03:12, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"if the WP:RS use that terminology - as they seem to do on the articles concerned" but they only use the term in inverted commas, that is, in a manner whereby they are effectively saying "this is claimed to be a matter of honour but there seems nothing inherently honourable about it". We cannot show such nuances in an article title, so we should use what is unequivocably true: they were killings. Kevin McE (talk) 18:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- - OK, so would you say that the canvassing is a primary issue or secondary one? I thought all assembled wanted a resolution on what title would be most appropriate? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - That's just Carol's ex post facto excuse for canvassing the WP:ISLAM board. She had no idea that the articles had been renamed when she first canvassed the board, and insisted she wanted dispute resolution for the canvassing issue. Later she discovered the article renamings, and then pretended that was what it had been about all along. As you can see, though, her story doesn't quite hang together, which is why you were confused as to what it's really about. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:21, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - The initiator of this discussion (Carol) asks two things: One, "Should User:PlotSpoiler revert his changes and go to Wikipedia:Requested_moves and do a multiple listing of all six articles"? and two, for "a neutral opinion on whether mentioning this Move Request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Islam is canvassing." As Jayjg says, #1 seems to be less an actual request for dispute resolution than a rhetorical flourish connecting disparate Muslim and non-Muslim killings in order to retroactively justify her improper canvassing of Muslims. The actual discussion about the title is still happening at Talk:Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh#Requested move. Shrigley (talk) 03:31, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've cross-posted this case to WP:NPOVN and WT:AT asking for more comments. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I see two related disputes here: the content dispute about the naming of the articles, and the conduct dispute about Carol's alleged canvassing. I think we should keep the content dispute to the requested move discussion - as it says at the top of this page, this noticeboard is not a place to take disputes already being discussed at another venue, and I don't think much will be gained by discussing the actual article naming here. I echo Kevin McE's sentiment that there has been evidence brought up there that hasn't been replied to, and I encourage editors to comment on the content issue there without getting distracted by the allegations of canvassing - we can deal with those here instead.

So, let me see if I can tease apart the different issues related to these allegations. In the original article, currently titled Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh, there is no mention of Islam, and honour killings themselves are not inherently connected to religion, per our article Honor killing. So there is no direct connection of the article to Islam. However, honour killings are often discussed in connection with Islam - note the mentions of the Qu'ran in the previous link - and as Sadia Sheikh's family were from Pakistan, it seems reasonable to deduce that they were Muslim. (Although, per the honor killing article, Sadia Sheikh's case may have had more to do with Pakistani culture and little or nothing to do with Islam.) So, I think it is fair to say that the article is indirectly related to Islam.

Now, in WP:CANVASS it says notifying WikiProjects that are directly relevant is acceptable, but it doesn't say anything about WikiProjects that are indirectly relevant. It says that vote-stacking is definitely unacceptable, but what exactly constitutes vote-stacking is open to interpretation. My view is that the notifying of WikiProject Islam fell in a grey area, and that different editors will see it in different lights. Because of this, it was probably a mistake on Carol's part to post the initial notification without asking other participants in the requested move first. However, I see the action as having been made in good faith, and I don't agree with Shrigley's view above that it was "malicious canvassing", or with Jayjg saying that Carol was "caught", etc. although I think Jayjg was probably right to remove the notification. However, now that the focus of the discussion has broadened to other articles that use "honor killing of" in the title, and because honor killings are often discussed in relation to Islam, I think that now the discussion is relevant to WikiProject Islam, so I would support another notification being made there on these grounds. I can see that this dispute has been quite bitter for all involved, but I don't think that any further action is really appropriate here, so I encourage everyone to leave this incident behind and to get on with improving the encylopaedia. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 03:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The multiple name changes withoutpassing it by the community is the bigger and more important issue to me. That is what this should focus on and has not as of yet What the actual name should be is the third issue and I'm sorry I didn't list it. However, it still can be discussed and possibly settled here Talk:Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh.

Mr. Stradivarius did a good summary of the canvassing issue. I did not notice whether the article explicitly mentioned Muslims. If I had had a more polite response from a more neutral editor, I might have seen the error of my ways. (Or else I might have looked at existing sources for the article to see if several made a big deal of the fact they were Muslims in a way that might be relevant to the article.) Once I noticed the multiple article name changes, and that all of individuals evidently were Muslim, it became clear it was a relevant place to post a notice. CarolMooreDC 15:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the page moves, Plot Spoiler's move at Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh wasn't a problem, as he was simply reverting Kevin McE's move. However, at the other 5 articles he reverted Kevin McE's revert, when the proper course of action would have been to simply list those articles at the requested move discussion at Talk:Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh. I also think this was done in good faith, though, and I see what they were getting at with their rationale of "Moving back to previous title until parallel discussion at Talk:Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh is resolved". I think next time it would be better for Plot Spoiler to list the discussion at requested moves rather than reverting someone's page move revert, but again, I don't think there's anything that requires further action here. Let's see if the current requested discussion reaches a consensus and take things from there. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 08:23, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Kevin McE did not revert any of the titles here. They started at title A; Plot Spoiler moved them to title B; Kevin McE moved them to title C. (See the histories, as [7].) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:54, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, you're right. My apologies to everyone - I totally misread this, and I really should have checked more thoroughly before making my post. So actually there was no problem at all. I was confused because I was looking at Honor killing of Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, which moved from "Murder of" to "Honor killing of" to "Killing of" to "Honor killing of" - but looking at it again, that's not a problem either. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 20:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We should only have "Killing of" or "Death of" in our article titles. Honor killing should not be given an air of acceptance in Wikipedia's voice. Reliable sources often put the honor of honor killing in scare quotes to signify its unacceptable quality in Western culture. Binksternet (talk) 18:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is definitely the other side of the coin which only occurred to me earlier today. That's why we need community input! CarolMooreDC 19:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So is it "safe" for me to post the updated/clarified notice below to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam or will I get "in trouble" with an Admin??

Requested move on Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh: This is the only topic on Talk:Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh. Proposal is to change the title back to to Killing of Sadia Sheikh. Note the following articles also were changed recently to "honor" killing: Honor killing of Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, Honor killing of Hatun Sürücü, Honor killing of Fadime Sahindal, Honor killing of Samaira Nazir, Honor killing of Ghazala Khan. (signed)

I have gotten support for doing so from several editors, here and elsewhere. CarolMooreDC 00:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So is it "safe" for me to post...Whilst it is not ordinarily problematic to notify on relevant noticeboards, I'm not sure in this particular case. It seems obvious that certain cultures subscribe strongly to the concept of "honour killing", but it is not a concept generally accepted in the Western world, posting any such notification there could be construed as vote-stacking in that message is posted "to users selected based on their known opinions". I would suggest perhaps posting to WP:VP or {{cent}} as a better option. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... while I would support it, I can't speak for other editors, so it is probably safer not to. Instead I suggest notifying the WikiProjects who have tagged the articles, as no-one can reasonably contest the fact that they are directly relevant. It should already show up on their article alerts, but you may get a better response by leaving a message on the projects' talk pages. Ultimately, it's up to you how safe you want to play it. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 08:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for advice. Though as discussed on the article talk page, Wikiproject Islam might have BOTH strong supporters and opposers of the proposal. So actually some excellent insights might be generated. FYI, after 5 years it hadn't occurred to me that the listing of Wikiprojects on an article talk page was an indication of best place to post a notice. So much to learn, so little time. Anyway... Put it on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography. If no response at all, perhaps will try Wikiproject Pakistan which is currently also listed in the article. CarolMooreDC 17:00, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Back to the WP:Consensus violation issue

Ok, now that I've admitted to my stupidity on canvassing, can we get back to my other main issue? The abuse of WP:Consensus by User:Plot Spoiler reverting without discussion User:Kevin McE's reverts of name changes to six articles? There is now an even split among various users brought in from the community about moving names BACK to the original. But that debate should be about changing it to a NEW title - and there's clearly no consensus to do that. So it is more important than ever that we deal with this original violation. Discussion at: Talk:Honor_killing_of_Sadia_Sheikh#Consensus_policy_and_BRD_demand_reverts_to_originals. CarolMooreDC 16:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just for clarity, Kevin McE didn't revert. As I've pointed out at that discussion, he actually imposed new names on them. Five of the articles were originally at entirely different titles; User:Plot Spoiler reverted to his own, but not to the original. User:Plot Spoiler's reversion of the 6th restored the original title. The dispute overview above is mistaken as to what's happened. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct on this one article. I got confused because User:Plot Spoiler wanted to apply the decision made at Sadia Sheikh to Honor killing of Arash Ghorbani-Zarin, Honor killing of Hatun Sürücü, Honor killing of Fadime Sahindal, Honor killing of Samaira Nazir, Honor killing of Ghazala Khan. I guess I should just raise the issue of moving them back each of those talk pages. Sigh... CarolMooreDC 17:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am correct in all of the articles. Kevin McE did not "revert" Plot Spoiler. He moved every article to an entirely new title. I don't particularly care which title these articles wind up at, but I am concerned that you are mischaracterizing Plot Spoiler's actions here -- he did not revert a revert. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, after checking the edit histories again, I can see that Moonriddengirl is right about all the articles. My original comment on them above was based on a sloppy misreading. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 21:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The principle remains the same. User:Plot Spoiler still should have reverted to the original name - whatever it was - since User:Kevin McE had a problem with his change to "honor killing." This is a good example of why when people start changing titles, it should revert to the original while discussions are going on. Especially when they do five or six at a time, which makes things very confusing. The onus remains on User:Plot Spoiler to do the right thing. CarolMooreDC 04:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, always reverting to some alleged prior consensus version isn't good for Wikipedia or supported by any of the policies. The best practice here is to remember that WP:There is no deadline, not even for identifying the best article title. It doesn't cost us (or the database) anything to have a page sits at a new title for a couple of days during discussions. Going back to the original title is the last resort and should happen only if the discussions fail to produce any sort of consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So in that case I guess there should be a Requested move to "Killing of" for the other five articles and then each page would explain the reasons (which may differ) why that name not appropriate for that article? And then people can decide on a case by case basis and hopefully there would be a good community airing of the issue. CarolMooreDC 20:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the RfC suggestion given by Mike Cline in his closing comment - it seems like a good next step, whereas another requested move seems like it would just be more of the same. I'm not sure what the proper venue would be for such an RfC, though, so how about having it on Talk:Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh seeing as that's where all the prior discussion is? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 23:26, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, forgot about RfCs. Probably because one would have to research the articles themselves first because a) it's not clear if all have sufficient WP:RS even supporting using the phrase on those killings and b) not sure of true notability of all of them (except that claimed by User:Plot Spoiler because he changed the name to "Honor killing"!). Anyway, if that mostly checked out, the best place probably would be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography. I know Kevin McE expressed elsewhere his continuing unhappiness with the use of "honor" in the title for reasons I believe he gives above. CarolMooreDC 22:14, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Carol, why do you still continue to insist that "User:Plot Spoiler still should have reverted to the original name" or "he changed the name to "Honor killing""? The original name of the article was Honor killing of Sadia Sheikh - Plot Spoiler created the article, and that's the name he first used. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Respell used for foreign names

Patryk Małecki (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Kazimierz Moskal (footballer) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

User:84.10.140.247 is adding unreferenced approximately spelling of Polish names using Template:Respell which is designed to be used to show the pronunciation of English words or names. We can read in tempalte documentation that "The respelling key covers only English pronunciation, and should not be used for foreign names or words which have not been assimilated into English".

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

84.10.140.247 (talk · contribs)
Oleola (talk · contribs)

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

Yes

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

Resolving the dispute

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

I informed User:84.10.140.247 that his edits are unreferenced and Template:Respell is designed to be used to show the pronunciation of English words or names.

How do you think we can help?

Should this pronunciation be kept or not?

Oleola (talk) 17:34, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Respell used for foreign names discussion

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

Hi Oleola, and thanks for posting here. I agree with you about {{respell}} - we should only use that for English names. I can see why the IP editor would like help with pronunciation using something other than the IPA, but it appears that we don't have any provision for doing this. I assume that this is because the result would not be an accurate reflection of the Polish sounds. I think the best way to solve this problem would be to find a Polish speaker to record some audio files for us, but I can appreciate that would take effort to organize. Whether we can get audio files or not, the {{respell}} template shouldn't go in the articles here as it would go against the manual of style. I'll leave a note on the talk page of both articles, and remove the respell template. If the IP reverts again, then we can take it to WP:AN3. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 11:50, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tikun Olam (blog)

Tikun Olam (blog) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

I am trying to make an edit regarding the reliability of Richard Silverstein, who is often cited in the mainstream media, as a journalist. The blogger Aussie Dave from Israellycool initiated a sting operation to reveal Silverstein as someone who will take any anti-Israel information he receives and publish it, no matter the reliability, by "outing" himself with a fake Facebook account. Silverstein took the bait and never vetted the source. For someone who has acclaimed himself as the "WikiLeaks" of Israel, this is a huge misstep and worthy of mentioning on his page regarding his own veracity. User:Malik Shabazz reverted the edit, saying that a primary source is not acceptable. So I found a secondary source from a blog that cites the original, but to User:Malik Shabazz this is also not acceptable. I understand that a news article is preferable, but things like this will never be reported by the mainstream media, as it would be deemed "not important enough". I don't think the 3O understood this. Thus, I am asking for guidance and dispute resolution. The link to the relevant article is http://www.israellycool.com/2011/12/29/richard-silverstein-exposed/.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs)
DevilInPgh (talk · contribs)

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

Yes.

Resolving the dispute

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

I have tried discussing on the talk page, but User:Malik Shabazz will not accept investigative blog posts. I have also tried 3O.

How do you think we can help?

Guidance for finding a reliable source that is acceptable to all parties, as the edit is important, or ruling on the veracity of Israellycool's reliability.

DevilInPgh (talk) 17:28, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tikun Olam (blog) discussion

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

Hi DevilInPgh, and thanks for posting here. I'm afraid that Wikipedia has high standards for its sourcing, and that both Malik Shabazz and Dmitrij D. Czarkoff are correct in saying that in general, blogs cannot be used as references for Wikipedia articles. I very much doubt that you will receive a different answer than this from any experienced editor. If content cannot be sourced to a reliable source, then it should not be in Wikipedia. Sorry, but the policies and guidelines are quite clear on this. For futher reading you might want to take a look at WP:BLOGS and WP:USERGENERATED. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 17:58, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, what you're saying is that something with documentary evidence must have the holy stamp of the mainstream media? Then maybe I should start editing Tikun Olam (blog) and removing any links originating from that blog or any other blog, considering I don't consider Tikun Olam (blog) to be a reliable source. Thanks for the suggestion. DevilInPgh (talk) 17:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DevilInOgh, I suggest you read our policy on reliable sourcing, which explains the high standards for sourcing we hold. Blogs are only accepted as reliable if they are written by a professional journalist or writer and the blog is under editorial control of the newspaper the writer works for, as explained here. In any other case, a blog cannot be used as a reliable source. If you have a concern with another article's sourcing, take it up on the article's talk page - that should have no bearing on this discussion. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 18:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For articles about a blog, or for articles which mention blogs, then there is an exception - a blog can be used to verify simple factual material about itself. (Note that this doesn't extend to verifying opinions - have a look at the policy on primary sources for details.) So, yes, if you find articles that use blogs as sources, and the blogs are not written by experts or being used as primary sources, then by all means remove the sources and the content that it was supposed to be verifying. Or even better, replace the blog source with a reliable source. By doing these things, you would be increasing the reliability of Wikipedia. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 18:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

p.s. for the content area you are editing in, books and articles in academic journals may be better sources than the mainstream media. Of course, it depends on the individual sources - this is one of those areas in which editor judgement is required. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 18:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan Doyle

Ryan Doyle (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

A (reputable) user user who does not share my opinions about what constitutes reliable sources in the article in question has completely and absolutely refused to discuss any particulars of her concerns, not only quoting no policy clauses nor any mention of the context of the subject matter, but refusing to even discuss the matter on the discussion page in any form. I have spent tedious hours examining the many policies she's referred me to, revising my work, and addressing her points with increasing civility and clarity. This has been met with all but name-calling insult on top of nothing productive. She responds to structural patterns that absolutely raise questions, but have no base in light of excessive addressing of those potential issues. She shows all but no sign she has, nor has any intention of, becoming familiar with the subject matter.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Squish7 (talk · contribs)
Cindamuse (talk · contribs)

She acts habitually with actions that I'm sure benefit the encyclopedia more often than not; e.g. she aids me in becoming a better editor by directing me to policy files that do/may apply. Her skill and attention to detail are meticulous, but she has shown no ability to process particular exceptions to intrinsic structural patterns that flag, but do not confirm, problem areas.

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

I've spent exhaustive time studying her concerns and addressing her points with precise attention to policy clauses, responding from an elite understanding and weighing of the context of the article and the sources she questions. She's addressed none of these particulars on the discussion page, and on her talk page, has collapsed to stating broad, insulting, surreal claims such as that I haven't even examined her references. She increasingly attacks my honesty and integrity, with less and less reference to anything relevant to the issue. I realize the totality of my claim here seems astoundingly unlikely, especially in light of her experience, but if you take into account all the information over the past month, it speaks for itself.

How do you think we can help?

I would appreciate your suggestion on the most direct and efficient path to resolution. It may be difficult for me to go through a long series of intermediate steps, as I've done absolutely everything to resolve the issue peacefully. I can't imagine how anything but a ruling would solve the situation, but I am open to suggestions.

Squish7 (talk) 19:45, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan Doyle discussion

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

Note: the linkrot issue has been addressed. All refs now use {{cite}} templates. Cheers, benzband (talk) 19:52, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Unfortunately, the link rot remains. For further information, see Wikipedia:Link rot. We work to address linkrot by providing the exact title, author, publisher, and date of the source. If the link goes bad, this added information can help a future Wikipedian, either editor or reader, locate a new source for the original text, either online or a print copy. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 20:19, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - I took the time to learn proper citing via your example when I first wrote the article. There are good reasons I wasn't thorough with my latest revision. 1. The way I'm utilizing sources is tricky, and I wanted the issue of whether or not they should even exist be solved before I went polishing. 2. I'm fatigued. I've spent hours, and hours, and hours adhering to your wishes, tediously reading files, revising, rewording, to no avail. I'm just plain tired. I didn't think it was an issue that needed immediate attention. Squish7 (talk) 20:38, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    - Hum, i'd better post up here. (or you'll get lost ;) I have fixed the capitalization issue. On the linkrot issue, I have provided the author, title and dates on all citations that :

Hadn't been already done by Squish7
Provided such information on the linked page.

Thank you for correcting my note; i was only trying to help. The tag-bombing to which the article was subjected, whether justified or not, is enough to discourage any editor. This seemed to particularly spark Squish as he had been writing lengthly comments on the talk page about referencing and so on; which appeared to go unnoticed. Cheers, and hoping some solution can be found soon, benzband (talk) 19:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would it help if I reinforced my new paragraphs with references to all the more objective sources? I could have done that, but I thought it completely redundant, as Cindy has pruned down my references when I put too much initially. I thought his notability was enough where I didn't have to put 2 or 3 references at the end of every single sentence. I was following her example, and figured she'd help me tweak it. I chose his own videos for the new sections because it's more useful to explore his full tutorials than go to a newspaper than says "Ryan Doyle has expert tutorials". The latter is implied by the slew of support in the main summaries, and verifiable if the collective set of sources is examined. I was specifically told there was no need for speedy deletion, and figured extensions which a spectrum of the sources support, would not need infinite backing. Squish7 (talk) 20:46, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again Squish - from your comment here it looks like you might be confusing notability and verifiability. An article doesn't have to have any references for its subject to be notable. To illustrate this, take a look at this page, the very first draft of the Wikipedia article on Michael Jackson back in 2001. This draft contains a grand total of one reference to ananova.com, which probably wasn't a reliable source (hard to tell now because the link is dead). So the article doesn't show that Michael Jackson is notable at all, as there are no reliable sources to back up its claims. However, I don't think anyone was about to doubt that Michael Jackson was notable. He was notable because many newspaper articles, books, documentaries, etc. existed covering him. So sources don't need to be in a Wikipedia article for someone to be notable - they do, however, have to exist somewhere. Verifiability, on the other hand, means proving that everything we say in an article is accurate. We do this by citing every claim that could be contested to a reliable source. So even though notability and verifiability both involve sources, they are not really the same thing. Hope this makes sense. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 22:13, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the difference. I stress notability so much as a side effect of Cindy's stressing of the converse (that reliability is irrelevant if the subject matter isn't "encyclopedic"). Particularly, she said that "personal philosophies" aren't notable in any scenario. This didn't make sense to me, i.e. because it was so vague. She wouldn't follow up with clarification, no matter how civil or exhaustive I was able to address her points. I wrote a blurb addressing his teaching style, therefore, avoiding what she'd cautioned against. She tore that down with neither particular explanation nor any suggestion for revision. My latest revision had to take more wild guesses at what she and the encyclopedia thought was appropriate, trying to learn from the bare removal and not make the same mistake. I improved my adherence to policy, making my blurb less vlogesque and other sins, but she simply tagged the article with four tags. Not a word of suggestion on what to do, what she wanted, what was appropriate. My main "dispute" has been with her hypocrisy of completely refusing to communicate no matter how much I attempt to adhere to induced policy, doing the exact opposite of giving the praise I would expect of being so diligent and attentive. That is, calling me effectively stubborn, disrespectful, and dishonest. It doesn't matter that she says she doesn't intend so, it is the direct implication of her actions and statements. I don't have a dispute with policy, I have a dispute with her actions regarding it. Squish7 (talk) 23:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone, I'm a clerk at this noticeboard, and I haven't been involved with this dispute before. First off, I found the way this request was worded a little vague, so allow me to ask a question. Am I right in saying that this dispute has occurred because the article uses mostly primary sources, whereas Cindamuse would like to see it written with mostly secondary sources? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 21:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've utilized a wide, even spectrum of sources, everything down to Doyle's official webpage to completely independent news sources. Many of the sources re-inforce huge portions of the article, so much that I would have to have a dozen references at the end of each sentence to display how thoroughly Doyle's notability is. I gave tedious attention to laying down an exhaustive foundation, because I knew these issues (reliability of sources) would be raised. Doyle studied Media at Hope University, and professionally utilizes video publication as his main output to the world. Because he utilizes YouTube for the main bulk of his videos (a technicality, as they are linked to and embedded on a variety of other publishers), this flags the possibility I'm just throwing some random Joe's vlog videos up on Wikipedia. It's so absurd a possibility that I've probably spent a full-time work week into proving the reliability of his videos factually. Also note that many of these videos are produced by other parties. He just seems to accumulate a lot of them. He shot a 30-second Red Bull commercial, for instance, that is only on YouTube through his personal page. (Please note that identical videos on YouTube aren't permitted; if a video applies or involves multiple parties, only one copy can be featured.)

Cindy has accepted the infinitely minimal foundation (about ten sentences covering basic facts), yet objects as I move outward with treating Doyle's videos as strict self-publications. I've spent half of last month digesting the files she's referred me to, and can now back up my opinions with particulars. She refuses to address any specific clauses, or provide any references to the sources I've used. I am open to that the article may need revising, but no one has even attempted to attack the red tape I've laid out.

Please see "DISPUTE: Start Here" for more reference on the Doyle discussion page. Squish7 (talk) 22:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) You can find more information on the article's talk page, as well as my own and that of Squish7. Essentially, I came across the article as initially created, cleaned it up, and offered the creator a barnstar for encouragement, along with some guidance. User:Chzz and User:Peridon additionally offered assistance. Squish7 essentially disregarded the information, asserting notability through primary sources. There have been basic issues with cleanup and compliance with the MOS. We don't require that all sources are secondary, however, notability cannot be established through primary sources. Squish7 disagrees, asserting that the subject is an authority and as such, self-published sources, including personal videos, blogs, and his own website are sufficient as citations. I have encouraged him to make an inquiry at the reliable sources noticeboard, to no avail. Squish7 simply lacks a thorough understanding of the reliable sources guidelines, rationalizing that qualifiers used in various guidelines, such as "generally" essentially allow for loopholes (my term), while additionally claiming allowances to ignore all rules. WP:SPS states that, "Anyone can create a personal web page or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs, Internet forum postings, and tweets, are largely not acceptable as sources." The inclusion of the term "largely" offers another qualifier to which Squish7 uses to disregard the guideline altogether. In WP:SELFPUB, Squish7, interprets the content to allow self-published sources. The guidelines state, "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field..." Squish7 interprets this to allow for the use of self-published sources, believing that the passage does not refer to the sources being allowed about the sources themselves, but rather the subject of the article, whatever or whoever that subject may be. Essentially, Squish7 has been misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions. He continued reverting cleanup and making threats of reports and whatnot. I've continually suggested that he simply contact the WP:RSN for further assistance, but he has failed to do so. I have continued to explain the various guidelines, while providing direct links for further information. He has insisted in proof and justification in legal terms that he is wrong. I can only point him to the policies and guidelines. Essentially, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. In my opinion, there is a clear competence issue. I have no dispute with this user. Squish7 has a dispute with the guidelines and has transferred his frustration onto me. I have suggested that he may benefit from seeking out a mentor through the adopt-a-user program. Hopefully, he'll consider it. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 22:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Doyle is a definitive "reliable source" per the condition that an expert constitutes one. The expertise I have given exhaustive proof of. Major statements from strongly objective sources (e.g. "Ryan Doyle is a world-renowed parkour athlete") give Doyle credibility for stating things that an expert would state, via more subjective publications (his website, etc.) If an established expert publishes a work, that work has serious weight as reliable, verifiable material. When I refer to passages governing questionable use, I'm usually attempting to reinforce what's already established. It's a secondary backing (i.e. that a lot of my use would strongly be covered under this rule; his philosophy largely constitutes information about himself, supporting the obvious that an expert in a subject should be able to speak of their own ideas of their area of expertise.)

My opinion of the source of Cindy's objection is her experience as a professional writer. She can't parse the idea of "publishing" via video networking. It's a completely new, non-textual medium, superior in many ways to thousands of years of text-only publications. Youths most utilize this medium, so it's rarely used for professional works. Doyle's college-level study of media give him even more weight to being able to utilize video networking professionally. Even further, Doyle deals with a discipline that is almost entirely youth-based (i.e. teens, 20s, etc.) He has infinite motive to utilize video networking the way he does. This is unorthodox to Cindy, so she alludes to passages that govern the issue, considering words like "largely" to blacklist the entire planetary medium of video networking from being utilized in any way in the largest online encyclopedia in the world. I believe this particular case to be the way she would argue for any reputable expert utilizing video networking as a professional means of output. Squish7 (talk) 00:45, 3 January 2012 (UTC) (revised)[reply]

Squish7, I appreciate what you're saying, but you need to understand that on Wikipedia we really like articles to be sourced to secondary sources, as they are generally better than primary sources in terms of neutrality and in proving that things are notable. You are welcome to use primary sources for citing simple facts, but an entire article constructed from primary sources is a problem. Looking through Google News and Google Books, I can't see many references that mention Doyle more than in passing. It may be that there is simply not enough secondary source material out there to create more than a very short article. I'm thinking that maybe the best solution here would be to create a new List of parkour athletes and redirect the article to Doyle's entry in it. Let me know what you both think of this suggestion. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 09:43, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, this is the first time anybody has even graced explaining policy in context with the topic. That Ryan Doyle doesn't appear in Google News & Books, and other articles do, gives me a direct, useful measuring tool. I requested a particular review of the article the moment I created it, inquiring how well I did balancing sources. I've been redirected infinitely to the very guideilnes I carefully observed while writing it, inducing how I did from what has and hasn't been removed.

Off the bat, I was given negativity about the sources I've used (i.e. "we don't trust organizers like Red Bull"), and yet the stub article heavily referencing Red Bull remained completely intact. Combined with Cindy's praise, my only conclusion is that the context, the whole picture, is a very special and important factor that I utilized correctly. From there, she gave me more vague negatives, failing to address context, removing my work, referring to guidelines I digested so thoroughly I gave exhaustive explanations of my reasoning. All went unanswered. There answer isn't in all those specific clauses, because they don't solidly address the balance and whole picture, and they certainly don't comment on Ryan Doyle particularly.

I still disagree that I have too few secondary sources to warrant the length article that exists, or at least, I'm open to input. Still, nobody has addressed the balance of my sources. I reference five objective sources: American Parkour, parkour.com, Marvel comics, UWIRE / San Diego State University interview, and the Cayman Compass (a printed newspaper). Semi-objective sources (big organizations which have featured him or in which he's involved) include MTV, Red Bull, and the WFPF.

These eight sources lap over eachother significantly, such that his notability is referenced almost as much as more in-depth things, like his opinions/philosophies about parkour. If eight sources are enough to establish his basic ability, then 5 or 6 sources plus his personal sites which may especially be used for information about himself, such as his ideas, should be enough, I feel, to warrant the length of the article that's currently up. Please note Cindy has pruned down my references. I originally used 26 particulars for a mere 10 sentences. I understand the need for brevity, but the point is, I established an extra thorough foundation by heavily supporting those 10 sentences. I think that's enough to put forth that the videos I reference would be supported by those sources if they were to analyze them. His self-publication videos will not appear as "books" (in Google Books) because they are video-based. The freely open internet is such a good publication means, that his self-published works should have the same weight as, for instance, a published short story more easily referenced. You might even consider that parkour/freerunning internet sites are very similar to magazines that would officially publish his works. Squish7 (talk) 18:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've given your suggestion thought and came up with a comparison. The list of parkour athletes you suggest sounds of akin length to the list of Harry Potter characters in Dumbledore's Army, the school in the Harry Potter series. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) It seems to me that the real-life athletic discplines of parkour, freerunning, and tricking should constitute much more notability than this fictional academy. If minor Harry Potter characters have 2-4 paragraphs of description, then I think a major real-life parkour/freeruning/tricking athlete should warrant a very full article.

I chose this instance because these descriptions are based on one general primary source, the Harry Potter saga. They're notable because the saga is notable. In this manner, I think thoroughly establishing Doyle's notability should allow latitude for several paragraphs of description on that foundation, without needing every third sentence to be linked to a fully secondary source. (This type of discussion that could have happened weeks ago. I'm your sure your response will be productive, as long as it addresses the relationship between these two examples.) Thank you in advance for any response. Squish7 (talk) 19:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't read this last reply until after writing my post below. Hopefully my post will still be of use though. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 20:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Before we talk about balance, let me dissect the sources you have used. First the ones you listed as being objective: I see Cayman Compass as being a reliable source that we can use, but I think that it is of limited use in determining notability because it is a local paper. (I've been in my local paper, and I wouldn't say I deserve a Wikipedia article.) Marvel Comics doesn't look like a reliable source, I'm afraid - they are obviously trying to promote their products, i.e. Daredevil, and I can't imagine that they have much independent fact-checking going on. I would maybe say we could use it to cite simple facts, but there are probably better sources for the few simple facts it contains anyway.

I would say that parkour.com and American Parkour are reliable sources, but beware of using them when drawing comparisons between parkour and other sports, as they will obviously treat parkour in a favourable light. The UWIRE interview is obviously a primary source, as it is Doyle himself providing most of the content - it does, however, show that someone considered him notable enough to interview him. I presume UWIRE is a student newspaper or something like that, though, which means they can only count towards notability so much. The argument for that is similar to the one for the Cayman Compass above. However, we must be careful to check who actually published it - in this case I see that the UWIRE interview was uploaded to YouTube by a user named RyanDoylePKTV, which makes me doubt that it has actually been published by someone independent of Doyle.

The sources you classified as "semi-objective" I would class as primary sources - they are obviously involved with Doyle and we shouldn't expect them to be impartial in their views on him. I think we should treat them the same as we would his personal sites. So at my count of secondary sources, we have three: two specialist parkour sources and one local newspaper. This is not the best evidence of notability, but I think that this, plus the other mentions in Google News, plus the fact that he won at least one major parkour competition would be enough to see the article kept were it nominated for deletion. Still, it doesn't look like enough to write a good-length article to me, so as I see it the article will have to be made shorter. You don't have to take my word for all of this though - that is what we have the reliable sources noticeboard for. Let me know what your thoughts are after reading this. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 20:21, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the input and participation in this discussion. Much of what has been said is a repeat of my previous advice to Squish7. I understand the rationale behind creating a list of parkour athletes and would support creating the list article, believing it would be beneficial to the project overall. I also think it would be great if Squish7 would consider creating the list. That said, at the same time, I support retaining the Ryan Doyle article. An entry could be made in the list for Doyle, with a link to his article. I don't see the viability of a lengthy article, due to a lack of secondary sources, but believe the competitions won indicate notability to forgo deletion. As a side note, there have been comments about my professional background. While I do work as a professional writer, I have also worked in film. As far as videos themselves, I began working on a web series (available on YouTube), from which a documentary has been produced by a British film crew and is now circulating US film festivals, including Miami, Los Angeles, and last week in San Diego. The doc has been honored as Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Concept at the Los Angeles International Underground Film Festival. Just an FYI. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 22:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for making definitive assumptions. I retain, though, that any significant background in professional writing will likely affect one's evaluation of my idea that the nullification of need for publication should drastically reduce otherwise more-strict sourcing requirements. You have made many more grotesque inductions about me, however. You're repeated phrase that I have "dispute with policy" is nominated by my actions, but not actually true, especially in light of me telling you I do not. You say that I'm not lying, but that my actions speak more loudly. This translates to "your actions have dispute with policy, though you don't consciously realize it". This would be cause for communication, then, not silence.

Further off the chart is/was my claim that I was already well familiar with the policies you've referred me to well before I created a discussion page. Putting faith in that claim in an innocent-before-guilty manner would have saved both of us all this frustration. Your very first words to me were, "Honestly, it's doesn't sound like...". Please spit me the precise percentage of situations, in toneless text on the internet sans a world of context like who I am and how I think, that turn out not to be the way the "sound". You can't even graze the idea that you could have behaved differently. Half my frustration is that I've taken extra personal time to explain how to avoid such situations in the future to help improve your skills, while you say I've just tried your patience (vs. "thanks" or "maybe I made a mistake here").

Bottom line, Mr. Stradivarius's four paragraphs have been the only feedback so far directly attentive to the only main thing I ever asked, stated clear as crystal at the start of my first post: for a close particular review of the article/sourcing; how well I applied policy. To direct me to policy continuously never even addressed the main question I had. If you can't see that not addressing the main question I had would cause frustration/confusion/etc, there has to be something major you can improve about your online communication skills. Squish7 (talk) 01:44, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the apology. Understand that all editors work within established parameters. While you may have ideas and suggestions to revise reliable sources guidelines to support a specific genre, there is not one set of "rules" for one individual or group and another for the rest of society. And while some days I wish I were... I am not the person with whom to share your suggestions and concerns. Establishing guideline exemptions for one group would involve a community-wide proposal, discussion, and successful consensus, which would more than likely fail with a trout. Over a week ago, after you presented your unique perspective of what constitutes a reliable source, I recommended that you present your concerns and suggestions to the reliable sources noticeboard for discussion. You chose not to do that, while continually telling me that "you read that link". If you read it, why did you not decide to make an entry there? I think it's great that you have eventually chosen to interact with others there. Please be patient and keep in mind that we are all volunteers. I would recommend that you be a bit more detailed in your questions there, so that others may know and understand to what type of sources you are referring. The entry was rather vague, which may lead to a lack of response from others unwilling or unable to discern your intent, motive, or desire. Forgo the abstract and be as specific (and brief) as possible. Another note regarding disputes. You have stated on the article talk page that you "have a dispute with [an] editor challenging Doyle's reliability as an author for information about himself and of parkour technique." I have merely provided information and links for further reading. I'm not sure how this turned into a dispute with me. Essentially, you disagree with (or misinterpret) the guidelines and policies and have a desire to change them, believing that they should not apply to parkour or its participants. Rather than offer personal opinions and convictions, I have engaged with you in an effort to offer assistance. And yet, I have continually been met with arguments and threats. The information and guidance that I have provided has been based on established policies and guidelines. If you have difficulty understanding or comprehending the guidelines, your dispute is not with me, but with the policies and guidelines. In my opinion, you have transferred your frustration on to me. I sincerely apologize that I have not been better able to help you come to a greater understanding of the community's expectations. I hope that Mr. Stradivarius and others at the RSN will be able to share things to a mutually successful conclusion. Through this, you have stated that I have failed to respond to you, which has left me puzzled. It has now become apparent that your walls of text on the article talk page were targeted toward me. Honestly, unless an editor lets me know that they are attempting to communicate directly with me on an article talk page, I have no idea they are looking specifically for "my" response. Communication on an article talk page is intended for any editor interested in the article. I'm a volunteer in the community, just like everybody else. Growing tired of our earlier attempts at communication, I chose to forgo reading your comments, leaving an opportunity for others to engage and respond. Sometimes, when others fail to "get it", it's best to figuratively walk away, hoping others can fill in the gaps where I have failed. And clearly, I am not infallible. I sincerely apologize for this entire mess. I still think it would be awesome if you would consider creating a list article of various notable parkour participants. This could be created using individuals within the parkour and traceur categories. If you have further desire to communicate with me, please use this forum or my talk page, rather than attempting to communicate in various other locations. Thanks. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 04:39, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your thoroughness, and it's unfortunate this took up so much of your time. I will address just one major point, though. It was never my intention to change or revise policy. You came up with that. The point, spirit, heart, and soul of WP:YT is stated directly and definitively, not inferred: i.e. that "anybody can throw up videos and claim to be an expert, hence..." That Doyle is an expert nullifies the premise, the "if" of the "if..then", explicitly voiding the general ban. It's not a loophole, exception, bending, manipulation, or suggestion. If such-and-such can only be used in X case, and X case is fulfilled, such-and-such can be used, by clear, plain default of that clause, and in addition, all the general policies that apply to what types of information should and shouldn't be in Wikipedia. Aside, the general taboo is also apparent to someone who's surfed here an hour, and excruciatingly obvious to someone who's edited for years. Whatever precise wording the guidelines use is 99% irrelevant sans a clause governing budding media-educated video-networking professional traceurs. Lacking that, the only thing left is the definitive general policies, part of which dictate that all factors including content be carefully weighed and addressed.

I "targeted" a very precise core base: basic notability. Having that core (only) slightly altered in a way I already knew might be a touchy point, showed excellent sense of what should and should not be included. Hence, I either read the relevant files, or induced them from long-term experience. Even if that base could not be expanded by the sources I had, then obsessively reinforcing it necessarily, mathematically invites justification for extension. Like I said, if a minor Harry Potter character has 2-4 paragraphs with no references at all outside the pre-establishing of the notability of the series, then it's extremely reasonable to suppose that an ubersolid establishment of a real-life international pro athlete and educator, would allow paragraphs of extra information with minimal or no sourcing. Hence, I figured his personal videos could be at the absolute least, allowed frosting. Once more, I can reinforce those paragraphs with secondary information, but you pruned down my sources when did that so heavily to the root sentences, I thought it redundant. I'd still like to know if that would fulfill your/the requirements. I still barely have a sense of what precisely and particularly may be allowed or not.

Examples like these are things that as a collective set, cast tacit policy on what Wikipedia allows and does not allow. You are more versed with the greater set of precedents (all the articles you've ever read or edited), granting you expertise to apply to the issue. I'm the one who could factor in the content analysis, however, as that's an integral factor for how to achieve special, unique precision to this case. Posting 1-2 paragraphs specifically avoiding the philosophy issue I didn't understand your point on (in my first addition anyway), I thought, would just meet light revision. This is the very first and founding thing I sought: a close critique. Elite attentiveness to that question and the information at hand would have revealed all this. I'll try to let this be the last time I lodge the suggestion for improving in this area. I've made my point about as crystal as it's going to get. Squish7 (talk) 08:54, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly this discussion is going nowhere. Your "content analysis" does not correlate to the Wikipedia community. There has simply been a misinterpretation and misapplication of the policies and guidelines. Your point is crystal, but conflicts with that of the project. I wish you well, but due to a lack of fruit in the discussion, I'll remain hopeful that Mr. Stradivarius and others at the RSN will be able to share things to a mutually successful conclusion. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 13:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't have started a dispute thread if I thought more discussion with you would be fruitful, per se. We've simply refined wording, respect, and civility. You simply have an inability to sift out experience factors and respect that someone may disagree with your interpretation of policy. A thinking person should be able to teach what they know, respect opinion, defend views, and yield to superior experience base, at the same time. That is the mark of an elite teacher.

It's the sheer vehemency of which you demonstrate bias and inability to uphold NPOV to which I object. You've taken actions so intrinsically ridiculous that they reveal bias taints your decisions in regards to Ryan Doyle. Saying my disclaimer that I have exhaustively analyzed policy essentially admits wrongdoing, shows an inability to weigh all sorts of other options. Perhaps I: A) didn't understand policy; B) had an opinion based on information I could prove if given latitude; C) miscommunicated with you; D) concluded things from my superior source-analysis that you would agree with... All these call for explanation, suggestion, analysis, conversing, etc. We live in an innocent-before-guilty and a polite-before-mean world. You've taken the most hostile, cruel, and easy options available to you, for this allows you to retain final say about the content. Telling Ben just yesterday that I removed your tags when I removed only one out of four, leaving out that I explicitly told I would respect and study the other three, to bend that I'm a completely unreasonable person, is just one of many other examples. That's not a light bend, it's a completely cruel twisting of facts to support things that are entirely not there. I have put incredible work into learning from you, studying what you want me to study, revising my writing, tediously doing all the things that with a more objective person would have resulted by now in an article much more balanced, productive and at harmony with all relevant sides.

Another thing that proves you biased intrinsically is that you really can't even have an opinion not prone to fault given that I've done work you haven't. If I claim vastly superior weighing of X or Y policy factor, you can be of the opinion "you probably didn't do it right", but it's not an argument for a total stance, nor a reason for not speaking your opinion in a way that addresses that content, even if the only purpose is to help me learn. Even if you are 100% in the right and do indeed speak for everybody, just removing my work without giving any suggestion how to improve it is just plain destructive, if not explicitly forbidden, and I feel you'll continue to do that at this point. That my new paragraphs contain 100% trash given all my study of the policy and topic matter is absurd. You could suggest "try condensing to X length" or "this would be fine if you could back all this heavily with the more objective sources". You just shouldn't be monitoring an article while considering yourself immune to explanation, suggestion, discussion, and respect. Telling me to explore and inquire ad nauseum until I agree with you or give up just won't cut it. Squish7 (talk) 03:48, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Squish, this post of yours contains multiple personal attacks on Cindamuse, which is really not acceptable. If you read our policy on making no personal attacks it says that you should "comment on the content, not on the contributor". I can understand that you are upset about the content of the article, but this doesn't excuse your making negative accusations about other editors. As for the article itself, I have been thinking about the best way to proceed here, and I have come to the conclusion that showing you how the rules apply will be more effective than telling you. So I think it's about time I gave the article a Copy Edit. Note the capital letters. This may be some tough medicine, but I hope that we will still be on speaking terms afterwards. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 08:35, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

9/11 conspiracy theories

9/11 conspiracy theories (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

Wholesale deletions of relevant, reliably-sourced material from the article.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

A Quest For Knowledge (talk · contribs)
Ghostofnemo (talk · contribs)

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

Yes

N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=9/11 conspiracy theories}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

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

In the past we have had long, long discussions on the article talk page: [8] including Rfcs: [9] and here: [10] and at the NPOV noticeboard here: [11]. Generally I give up, his deletions stand, and I stop editing as it seems to go nowhere and the deletions just continue. This editor has apparently been sanctioned in the past for deleting other editors contributions to this article: [12]

How do you think we can help?

Convince this editor to change his editing style. He doesn't seem to understand that if the title of the article is "9/11 conspiracy theories", the purpose of the article is to explain that topic in a neutral and factual way, not debunk it, or balance it (there is already a "9/11 attacks" article that gives the official version of events), or try to keep out information that he or she finds objectionable. Here are diffs of this editor's questionable deletions on January 3, 2012: [13] [14] [15] [16] (editor's comment on this last one seems to clearly illustrate the editor's mindset)

Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:51, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

9/11 conspiracy theories discussion

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

Does Wikipedian "neutrality" indirectly provide mainstream legitimacy? I stumbled upon this dispute and have never been involved in the particular article writing, nor do I really intend to start. My question though is does allowing a supposedly "fair and balanced", non-neutral write-up on the subject actually give the subject more validity than it actually has in reality. By allowing this article to write the "facts" about the conspiracy without allowing the debunking of these facts could lead the casual reader [or researching child] to believe that the debunking isn't in the article because the "facts" haven't been debunked. For example, just me doing a quick read of the "Suspected insider trading" section, I finished thinking: HOLY SHIT, how do you explain that away?. Then I started to think about it and thought, ok, maybe the buyers of Puts were actually al-Qaeda members or funders. Most of the big brokerage firms have clients all over the world, including in the countries where the hijackers came from, so it's not at all hard to see how terrorists or terrorist funders might open an account and then trade on an event they know to be coming.

The point is if this article tries to explain 9/11 conspiracy theories in a "neutral way" without the debunking included, is it truly neutral? Or does the absence of the debunking actually give it a bias towards suggesting the conspiracy is real? A self perpetuating loop can then exist where people researching the topic for whatever reason are actually swayed by the style of write-up, and the seed of doubt is planted, whether valid or not. (This was my exact experience reading the insider trading section of the conspiracy - had I not seen the other explanation on my own, the only one I'd be left with is the seed planted by the article - that in turn can allow an individual to give undue weight to the whole conspiracy in general).

I would also relate the above to other widely pushed conspiracy theories. Such as the moon landing being faked or Holocaust hoax theories. Just jumping to Wikipedia's entries on both subjects, they are not written in the supposedly "neutral" way espoused here. They actually have the debunking included, so people can make their own call which is real, and not be persuaded by the absence of material to balance the article otherwise. Norbytherobot (talk) 18:00, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since the "conspiracy theory" material has been excluded from the main "9/11 attacks" article, one could argue that that article is no longer NPOV, since some points of view are excluded as being "conspiracy theories". So the material is actually split into two articles, a main article, which is not allowed to be "debunked", and the "conspiracy theory" article which is systematically debunked. The debunking is not what this is about however, that's another issue. My concern is that certain facts are being excluded from the article, like the fact that the 9/11 attacks have been compared to the Reichstag fire, or that a group claims to have collected the signatures of more than 1,000 architects and engineers calling for a new investigation. Facts about the collapse of WTC 7 have also been deleted from the "9/11 conspiracy" article (first time in world history that fire caused the total collapse of a modern skyscraper http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-21-wtc-nist_N.htm ). It's these deletions of relevant, reliably sourced facts that is the issue. BTW, I don't really know what happened, I'm not a believer in any particular theory, but readers should have access to factual information this issue, not just the official version of events. Ghostofnemo (talk) 13:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an article about the "conspiracy theories" being kept out of the main article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/business/media/on-wikipedia-911-dissent-is-kept-on-the-fringe.html?_r=1 Ghostofnemo (talk) 13:24, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by A Quest for Knowledge

WP:NPOV applies to all articles, even articles about fringe theories. Yes, we should explain the fringe viewpoint, but we also need to explain the majority viewpoint. As Norbytherobot correctly points out, if we only explain the viewpoint of the conspiracy theorist, we are presenting a biased, one-sided version of the events. There are several problems with Ghostofnemo's edits, but biggest one is that their edits only present the fringe viewpoint. I've never seen them ever explain both sides of the issue. That's one reason why his edits are reversed. Me and several other editors have tried explaining how WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, and WP:FRINGE work but Ghostofnemo also suffers from a severe case of WP:ICANTHEARYOU.

In fact, this has been going on for two years now. I previously reported Ghostofnemo ANI.[17] For everyone's convenience, here's a full transcript:

ANI discussion

Ghostofnemo

Ghostofnemo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has a long history of disruptive editing regarding 9/11 conspiracy theories. For the past year or so, he's been tenditiously pushing for two changes to the article:

Inclusion of a petition by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
Inclusion of a section on Building 7.

Regardless of the merits of these changes, both have been discussed numerous times and have never gained consensus. Regarding the first change, Ghostofnemo forum shopped at the Fringe theories noticeboard, Neutral point of view noticeboard, the Neutral point of view noticeboard talk page and also tried to change our policy on WP:OR and then WP:Disruptive editing to make it easier to implement his changes. During these discussions, Ghostofnemo exhibited an extreme case of WP:ICANTHEARYOU:

9/11 conspiracy theories 10 March 2010
9/11 conspiracy theories 2 December 2010
Original Research June 16th, 2010
Fringe theories noticeboard 7 December 2010
Disruptive editing 2 January 2011
Neutral point of view noticeboard 1 January 2011
Neutral point of view noticeboard talk page 7 March 2011

Regarding the second change (inclusion of a section on Building 7), three times he's tried to add it to the article:

[18] January 1, 2011
[19] January 2, 2011
[20] May 23, 2011

Here's the thing that gets me. Yesterday, he asks on the article talk page why his change was reverted.[21] He should know full well why. He was an active participant in the last discussion about it[22][23][24][25][26][27] yet again demonstrating a severe case of WP:ICANTHEARYOU. Here's a link to the full archived discussion.[28] Ghostofnemo has been warned regarding the 9/11 discretionary sanctions.[29] He stopped editing the article for a while, but he's back and exhibiting the same problematic behavior as before. I note that Ghostofnemu has been reported to ANI twice before.[30][31] To cut to the chase, he contributes virtually nothing to our 9/11 conspiracy theories topic space so at the very minimum, I'd like a topic ban on Ghostofnemo regarding 9/11 conspiracy theories. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ghostofnemu has been notified of this discussion.[32] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:13, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural note: You say he participated in the discussions and has been warned. Each statement has a cite, but the cite is the same in each case, pointing to the warning. Can you provide the cite of the participation in the discussion?--SPhilbrick T 20:16, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sphilbrick: Sorry about that. I posted the wrong link. It should now be fixed. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:28, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to attempt a discussion with the editor on their talk page. We'll see how it goes.--SPhilbrick T 22:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to suggest WP:AE as a better location than here if Sphilbrick isn't successful. NW (Talk) 23:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I could actually duplicate this report in a topic area that is not under an arbitration decision. GoN has habitually NOTHEARDIT, used OR to make a point, and forum shopped. From experience, other editors have tried to take him in and improve his editing. They stop being nice when their efforts were met with the behavior being repeated. GoN was made aware of the topic area being under a decision a long time ago and has some how gotten away with it. And I believe he will do it again in any other topic area. I would love to see him respond positively to criticism from a neutral mentor. He has had his chances so hopefully Sphilbrick's approach will actually work. Best of luck to GoN but his hardheadedness needs to come to an end. But this comment is not needed because I bet it will happen again. Hope I am wrong.Cptnono (talk) 01:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Care to provide us with some examples, Cptnono? You know, where I posted something completely inappropriate into an article and someone removed it because it was clearly either POV, poorly sourced or irrelevant to the article, and I stubbornly kept reinserting it as an act of vandalism. Be sure NOT to include any examples where NPOV, well sourced, highly relevant material I contributed was deleted for dubious reasons or for no reason at all. Ghostofnemo (talk) 13:34, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An admin attempted to discuss the situation with him on his talk page. Again, here's a full transcript:

Discussion on Ghostofnemo's talkpage

My preliminary observation on the 911 conspiracy issue

GhostofNemo, I'm working my way through the material at the ANI notice. There's a lot, so I apologize in advance if I miss something critical.

I'll start by saying I'm not a big fan of topic bans, and would like to make sure they are only used as a last resort. I understand why some are frustrated by your edits, and I think I understand why you might think some editors are trying to keep relevant material out of an article. I'll share with you how I see it, and you can correct me if I'm missing major points.

On more than one occasions, you've attempted to add material to 9/11 conspiracy theories. Some of the points you've attempted to add are:

A BBC report of the collapse of WTC 7 before the building actually collapsed
A report noting that total collapse of a skyscraper due to fire is unprecedented

Am I correct that these are some of the points you've attempted to add to 9/11 conspiracy theories?

I understand why you might be concerned if you see editors reverting your additions, especially when you add sources. Do you understand why your edits were deleted?

I think the answer is exceedingly boring, so I wonder if you don't understand the reason, or perhaps just don't believe it is the real reason?

The boring answer is that sometimes Wikipedia article become too long, and there's a process for breaking out large articles into multiple articles. When that happens, it is common to have a top level article that summarizes (without all the detail) the key points of some of the other articles. For example, have you read World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories? It mentions both of the points I listed above.

If your goal is to make sure those points are adequately covered in a Wikipedia article about WTC conspiracy theories, then you should be happy to learn that they are. On the other hand, if you don't care that the points are in one article, and you insist that they belong in a different article, let's have a proper discussion about the proper location. Is that fair?--SPhilbrick T 22:41, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, I just realized I have to be out of town for the next two days, I will have some access to the internet, but my responsiveness may not always be prompt.--SPhilbrick T 00:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm back. Let me know if you want to discuss, as I think I see some place where I can help. --SPhilbrick T 20:40, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, first of all, this issue of the material not being appropriate in this article is highly questionable. Until I reinserted Building 7 information (which had previously been deleted) there was little or nothing about Building 7, but according to the deleted material: "The collapse of Tower 7, which was not hit by a plane, has been cited by hundreds of websites and books as perhaps the most compelling evidence of a cover-up or an inside job. It was home to branch offices of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service and the New York City emergency operations center. (New York Times (both sentences)) [33] A report issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that fire had caused the collapse of the building, making it the first case in world history of the total collapse of a skyscraper due to fire. (Sydney Morning Herald) [34] The speedy removal of debris after the collapse left forensic investigators with little evidence to examine. (same New York Times article as above)." All these points seem highly relevant to the article and will not be mentioned if the deletion stands. How can this material be omitted from the article and not violate WP:NPOV which says that all the relevant key points on a topic should be included in an article?

Second point, if you'll check the article discussion page, you'll see that I opened a discussion topic on this issue here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:9/11_conspiracy_theories#Deletion_of_entire_Building_7_subsection. I don't understand why I am at fault and not the deleter, who did not give any justification for the deletion besides "this has been discussed before". If you'll look over the discussions, his assertion that I'm inserting this material "against consensus" is dubious to say the least.Ghostofnemo (talk) 23:54, 1 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see you are around. I appreciate your point, but I'm trying to have a discussion in a particular way, because it has been successful in the past. I will attempt to answer your questions to me, but I'd like you to answer my questions to you. Is that fair?

For example, I asked if you were trying to add a point about WTC 7 to 9/11 conspiracy theories. You didn't answer the question, although your response mentioned building 7. In ordinary conversation, it may seem silly to ask you to answer the question again, but some editors feel you aren't hearing their concerns, so I'm trying to figure out what you have heard, and what you haven't. In the spirit of evenness, I'll try to identify some points important to you that are not fully appreciated by other editors. I'll assume that you agree that you have been trying to add info about WTC 7 to 9/11 conspiracy theories. Let me know if I'm mistaken.

I would like to hear an answer to an important, relevant question:

Are you aware that World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories has extensive coverage of many of the issues involving WTC 7?

If your answer is no, then we can discuss whether that article has the main points you feel are important. Then the discussion will be a content discussion. However, if the answer is yes, you do know it is extensively covered in World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories, but think it also belongs in 9/11 conspiracy theories at the same level of detail, then we can have a process content about how Wikipedia articles and sub articles are structured.

I'll await your response before commenting further.--SPhilbrick T 00:49, 2 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As you'll see in my response above, yes, I was trying to add information about WTC 7. The reason was because WTC 7 is not just MENTIONED in 9/11 conspiracy theories, as a minor subject briefly mentioned in passing, but according to the New York Times (and this was quoted in my response above) "The collapse of Tower 7, which was not hit by a plane, has been cited by hundreds of websites and books as perhaps the most compelling evidence of a cover-up or an inside job." I provided a link to that article above also. While I am aware that a sub article World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories does mention WTC 7, as I explained above it would be a violation of WP:NPOV to delete any mention of conspiracy theories involving WTC 7 from the article 9/11 conspiracy theories, because, as the New York Times points out, this is "perhaps the most compelling evidence of a cover up" according to conspiracy theorists. It would appear that editors who have a personal bias against 9/11 conspiracy theories are trying to exclude "perhaps the most compelling evidence" in support of these theories from the article, which is clearly not NPOV and is, to put it bluntly, censorship. Ghostofnemo (talk) 14:07, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you noticed World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories. It is an article addressing many of the points you feel are important. It gets a fair amount of traffic, over 11,000 hits in the last 30 days, so it isn't exactly marginalized. And while you say it "does mention WTC 7", it contains nine full paragraphs, comprising a substantial portion of the entire article.

Let's summarize where we are so far. You agree that Wikipedia has coverage of the controlled demolition conspiracy theory relating to 7 WTC in World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories. However, you view that as a "subarticle" and believe that 9/11 conspiracy theories should have more prominent mention of the aspects of 7 WTC. Is that a fair summary?

(Sorry this is slow, but it is valuable. I wasn't sure whether you had seen World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories, and if you had not, it might have been a short discussion. Now that I know you are aware of it, and you want coverage of 7 WTC in both articles, we can focus on what is appropriate.)--SPhilbrick T 12:38, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry if I'm not explaining my position clearly enough. The collapse of WTC 7 is a key piece of evidence, perhaps THE key piece of evidence, in the minds of many conspiracy theorists, that something "funny" was going on on 9/11/2001. A reliable source (The New York Times) makes this point. According to the Wikipedia policy on neutral point of view, "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." Therefore, this material belongs in the 9/11 conspiracy theories article. It may also belong in other articles too, but it definitely belongs in this article, and removing this material repeatedly is the real problem, not the editors who rightfully add it. Ghostofnemo (talk) 13:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think we are making progress, although I have some mild concerns. I tried to summarize your position, so that you could see if I was understanding you. I said "[you] believe that [the specific article]9/11 conspiracy theories should have more prominent mention of the aspects of 7 WTC". You responded with "sorry if I'm not explaining my position clearly enough". Does that mean my summary as not accurate, or are you just being nice and saying it's too bad it is taking so long to get to this point? I'm going to assume the latter, unless you tell me otherwise.

So, as I now understand it, you feel the collapse of WTC 7 is not just important, it is the most important piece of evidence, so deserves a mention in 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Can we agree that it is mentioned, so your goal isn't to make sure it is simply mentioned, but instead, you feel that it is so important that it deserves more prominence in 9/11 conspiracy theories?--SPhilbrick T 13:40, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but is this some kind of a hoax? Or are you not a native speaker of English? Are you really having trouble understanding why I'm upset about this deletion? I meant by "sorry if I'm not explaining my position clearly enough" that you apparently don't understand what I'm saying, because you keep asking me questions that I appear to have answered. "I" don't feel this is key information for the article, the New York Times says it's key information (according to conspiracy theorists). It seems open and shut to me that this belongs in the article, and that "A Quest for Knowledge" is in the wrong for repeatedly deleting it (once when another editor posted it and once after I posted a more tightly edited version), and for not justifying his deletion on the article's talk page and for filing a frivolous complaint on the Administrators' Noticeboard. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a diff of the previous deletion: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=9/11_conspiracy_theories&diff=405599346&oldid=405576439 Ghostofnemo (talk) 13:34, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, not a hoax. You haven't been able to persuade others, so I thought I would try to make absolutely sure I understand your point. Unfortunately, I'm in an all day meeting, but might have to time to respond more fully this evening.--SPhilbrick T 12:07, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere. So, here we are, 6 months later, and we're still dealing with the same basic problems as before. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:44, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by The Devil's Advocate

Seems to me that, while Nemo's specific insertions are clearly meant to favor a POV, the content of the changes he has suggested are a subject of legitimate discussion. The various exchanges on the noticeboards provided above show several uninvolved editors who, as far as I know, do not have a bias towards the conspiracy theories supporting the inclusion of much of the material AQFK is removing. Yet AQFK is using that lack of consensus as a basis for reverting by saying Nemo did not get consensus in those discussions, AQFK ignoring that he didn't get it either.

I suggest AQFK that you pursue alternatives to reverting. Several of the reverts noted above show your only objection as lack of appropriate citation, even though I am sure you are aware that these are commonly cited claims of conspiracy theorists and would probably have little trouble finding appropriate citations. In one case, comparisons to the Reichstag fire, someone even noted a citation already included in the article that supported the material. WP:V should not be taken as a license to remove poorly-cited material if you know there are sources that could be used for proper citation. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is comprehensive and thus if a claim is prominently-related to the subject of the article it should be included in the article. While mentioning a subject elsewhere may violate WP:FRINGE, an article on the subject naturally has fewer limitations in that respect. Given that the article mentions the no-planes theory it seems a little excessive to suggest it should exclude or greatly minimize some of the most prominent arguments given by conspiracy theorists.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:38, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of the Reichstag fire, what I actually said was:

The content you added has several problems:

The Reichstag fire is rarely (if ever) mentioned in secondary reliable sources in connection to this topic. When we give prominence to minor aspects of a topic, it's against undue weight. This might belong in the body, but not the lede. (More about this below.)
The lede should summarize the article. If you want to add new content to the article, start at the body and work your way up to the lede.

But even still, we already have a representative example of historical precedents (Operation Northwoods). Do you want to replace Operation Northwoods with the Reichstag fire? I'd rather stick with Operation Northwoods. It seems to be cited more frequently in the literature than the Reichstag fire.[35]

Ghostofnemo then admitted (albeit inadvertently) that it was undue: "We rarely see this topic discussed AT ALL in the mainstream press"[36] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:46, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not take his comments out of context and misrepresent them. He was saying the conspiracy theories themselves are rarely discussed at all in the mainstream media and therefore having just one or two major mainstream media outlets mentioning the comparison was significant. Comparisons were prominently made to Northwoods, but there have also been prominent references to the Reichstag fire. I see no argument for excluding either as both would have significance to conspiracy theorists and their claims about motive.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:30, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The context was undue weight. It seems that you're the one taking it out of context, and if you don't see an argument then obviously you didn't read the discussion. Can you please read discussions before commenting on them? Thanks! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:16, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Black Swan (film), Talk:Black Swan (film)

Black Swan (film) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Talk:Black Swan (film) (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

The film was the subject of controversy when one of the dance doubles who appeared in the movie alleged that the film makers were "completely lying" about the amount of dancing Natalie Portman did. I made an edit quoting her and reliably sourcing the information from the ABC News website. Other editors have reverted this edit saying she is a "disgruntled ballerina", it is a "spiteful" allegation, etc. I have argued that regardless of whether she is spiteful or not nice, Wikipedia should report the facts as they occurred. The facts in this case are that she made the claims, and these claims were widely reported in the media.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

Talk page.

How do you think we can help?

Provide input on whether the reverts were necessary as per WP:ROWN.

Saint91 (talk) 16:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Black Swan (film), Talk:Black Swan (film) discussion

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

The section currently reads (without wikilinks or cites):

ABT dancer Sarah Lane served as a "dance double" for Portman in the film. In a March 3 blog entry for Dance Magazine, editor-in-chief Wendy Perron asked: "Do people really believe that it takes only one year to make a ballerina? We know that Natalie Portman studied ballet as a kid and had a year of intensive training for the film, but that doesn't add up to being a ballerina. However, it seems that many people believe that Portman did her own dancing in Black Swan." This led to responses from Benjamin Millepied and Aronofsky, who both defended Portman as well as a response from Lane on the subject.

Saint wants to add the following sentence to the end of the section:

Lane praised Portman as an actress, but said the film-makers were "completely lying about the amount of dancing Natalie did in the movie" in order "to create this image, this facade, really, that Natalie had done something extraordinary. Something that is pretty much impossible... to become a professional ballerina in a year and half."

The source is ABC News ([37]). The problem with the ABC article is it reads like a diatribe by the accuser (Lane) and clearly is a BLP violation with respect to the filmmakers if not supportable. As the article says, Lane signed a contract that did not "guarantee" her screen credit. The article also says: "Lane said her feelings about being credited changed late last year after Portman received an Oscar nomination for best actress and the movie's backers began an aggressive campaign on the actress's behalf."

The Wikipedia article already has sufficient information about the "controversy". The additional material is unnecessary and WP:UNDUE. It also picks the most inflammatory material from the ABC article yet omits the defenses of the filmmakers. Even if we were to balance the information, it would require significantly more detail than an article about the film deserves.

Last comment is User:Nymf also reverted Saint's addition with the edit summary comment "No need for that". Nymf has not participated in the discussion of the material on the article Talk page.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1. Regardless of whether we view her remarks as a diatribe, diatribes are not automatically BLP violations. If all critical remarks by notable figures about the actions of other notable figures could be censored on the grounds that some see them as unpleasant, then 'Criticism' sections on Wikipedia would not exist.

2. I have no problem with Lane's crediting issues being added to the article. However, they are essentially nongermane to this discussion, as the edit I made didn't even mention it. The discussion revolves around whether the reverts were justified.

3. In no way does the article contain sufficient information. As it stands now, someone who reads the section has no idea what Lane's views are - whether positiive or negative. That can hardly be described as WP:UNDUE.

4. Nymf provided no rationale for the revert and has not contributed on the Talk page since, so I didn't see them as part of the dispute. Of course, their input is just as welcome as anyone else's.

Frankly, I'm surprised the inclusion of a few critical quotes from someone who worked on the movie has caused such problems. This particular criticism by Lane garnered widespread attention in entertainment media - a simple Google search for 'Sarah Lane Black Swan' proves that. Inclusion in the article is warranted. Saint91 (talk) 07:38, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The statement by Lane about what the film makers were trying to do is, from all appearances, her own opinion and speculative at best. I am not sure exactly which Wiki policy would disallow this type of statement, whether WP:OR OR WP:RS or some other, but the comment does not appear to be encyclopedic in nature.Coaster92 (talk) 04:44, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Those policies are not relevant here as there is no original research - we're talking about a couple of quotes from a reliable source here. Reporting opinions is perfectly valid as long as they are relevant to the article, and in this case, they enhance the section by explaining the controversy fully. Look up the "Critical Reception" section of any movie on Wikipedia and you will see opinions listed. Look up any controversial movie and you will see opinions, even highly critical ones, listed too. Here are a few examples (2 of them are featured articles):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_%28film%29#Controversy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_the_Christ#Allegations_of_anti-Semitism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_Thunder#Controversy Saint91 (talk) 15:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first and third examples above criticize the films, not people. They don't call filmmakers "liars". The second example is more on point, but it's a very extended discussion of the issue because the film and Gibson received so much press. The issue in Black Swan doesn't rise to that level of controversy, which is why, as I explained above, to be more balanced in our presentation (if we included Lane's accusations and the filmmakers' responses) would give the issue more attention than it deserves.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:49, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They do not criticise the films - they report other people's criticisms. That is a distinction that seems to be continually missed. The articles report that various individuals have described the films as "racist", "fascist", "ableist" and "hate speech". However, if you want examples of people being harshly criticised by other people, the following examples from other featured articles may be instructive:

a) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mayer#Controversies_and_allegations_of_racism

The article recounts the opinions of others where they describe John Mayer as a "racist", "misogynist", "womanizer", and even a "douchebag". These are far harsher accusations than simply lying yet make their way into the article.

b) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica#Kill_.27Em_All_and_Ride_the_Lightning_.281983.E2.80.931984.29

The article quotes a former member of Metallica, Dave Mustaine, on his opinions of Kirk Hammett, his replacement. He complains that Hammett is being given credit for work he did, which bears a fairly strong parallel with the dispute here - "it's real funny how Kirk Hammett ripped off every lead break I'd played on that No Life 'til Leather tape and got voted No. 1 guitarist in your magazine." Mustaine even says Hammett "stole my job".

These are much more hostile opinions of individuals which have ended up in featured articles. As featured articles are considered the best of Wikipedia and worthy of emulation, it stands to reason that my edit quoting Sarah Lane can also be included.

As for the claim that her criticisms did not generate enough controversy, feel free to google "Sarah Lane Black Swan". The number of articles is huge. Here are a number of different reliable sources in addition to the ABC News link which suffices in itself - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1377453/Natalie-Portmans-dance-double-Sarah-Lane-hits-Black-Swan-producers.html http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1660763/black-swan-natalie-portman-dancing-controversy.jhtml http://www.eonline.com/news/the_awful_truth/natalie_portman_versus_sarah_lane/233073 http://www.salon.com/2011/03/28/natalie_portman_sarah_lane_black_swan/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/27/natalie-portmans-black-swan-ballet-dancing-war_n_841112.html

If you want to make edits including Aronofsky's rejoinder to the claims, feel free to do so. That however, does not justify reverting edits which are reliably sourced and relevant to the article. See WP:ROWN once again.

So, to sum up - much harsher opinions of individuals end up in featured articles, and Sarah Lane's opinions are worthy of report. Saint91 (talk) 13:08, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have time to respond to everything Saint says, but, for example, the analogy to the Mayer article, like many of Saint's examples, is flawed. Mayer himself opened up the issue by his own comments, which were reported in our article and then justifiably the response was also reported. Also, again, the level of controversy is much greater, and it is an article about Mayer. Not the same as the Black Swan article, which is about a movie, not a bio, and this stuff that Saint wants to go into detail on is remarkably tangential.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Haredi Judaism

Haredi Judaism (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

As a background, the term ultra-Orthodox is the English translation for the Hebrew term Haredi (see Oxford English Dictionary - under Haredi; section B). There is ongoing dispute between myself and another user regarding the terminology section on this page Haredi Judaism regarding this matter. The user provides a detailed description on why the term ultra-Orthodox is controversial, and quotes a few sources in quite some relative length. Whilst I fully agree that the section needs to reflect that some find the term pejorative, it gives this significantly undue length. The term ultra-orthodox is widely accepted across academia, the media, international institutions, Israel governmental bodies and NGOs; such as the IMF ^[1], OECD ^[2], Bank of Israel^[3] and the BBC ^[4] to name just a few; as well as the OED as mentioned above. It is true that much like any term which describes a group, there will be some who dislike it, but the Wiki page should not give disproportionate notice to those sources and create the false impression that there is a significant controversy over this issue.

Currently there is a simple line "The term "ultra-Orthodox" is often used instead of the term Haredi." and then devotes some length quoting those who dislike the term. For example, a New-Jersey based newspaper (which carries low importance on this topic, certainly compared to practically all (English) media organisations and Israeli based newspapers). It may be cited, but set in a wider context (i.e. one newspaper - who barely ever writes about the ultra-orthodox, compared to all other sources who write regularly, such as Israeli-based Haaretz).

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Jayjg (talk · contribs)
Halma10 (talk · contribs)

I have attempted to discuss this with the relevant user, but has not been resolved.

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

Yes

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

Resolving the dispute

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

I have attempted to make suggestions for modifications, but the user has not accepted.

How do you think we can help?

I propose that this section makes it clear that the term ultra-orthodox is the typical/usual translation for the term "Haredi" among international and national bodies, as well media sources and academia. The section can then go on to explain that some (such as ...) regard the term as pejorative for reasons x, y etc. The "controversial" section may remain there in full, if it seen to be valid by the dispute resolution participants. However, the initial sentence needs to give some weight to the fact that ultra-Orthodox is the generally accepted term.

Halma10 (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Haredi Judaism discussion

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

Halma10, we've only had one relatively brief discussion about this topic, at Talk:Haredi Judaism#Terminology section cleanup, in which I stated that you could add whatever you liked to the section so long as it was not original research, and was supported by reliable secondary sources. Your response was to insist you didn't need sources for your material, and to attack me personally. I can't change Wikipedia policy; have you found any reliable secondary sources that support your position? Jayjg ^(talk) 14:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have written quite at length piece on this in the discussion. I would encourage to read and address what I have written, both here and in the discussion. I am not necessarily critical of a given sentence, but of the entire section and its editorial style. Particularly, that it gives a misleading impression of a signification controversy - and it is not set in any relative context. Wikipedia should be informative of a controversy, not incite it. There won't be a source which states that the term "ultra-Orthodox" is relatively uncontentious, precisely because it is not a particularly contentious issue. As I stated, the Oxford English Dictionary use "ultra-Orthodox" as the translation for Haredi - and makes no mention of it being contentious.

Furthermore, the statement that this issue is controversial, with no citation that it is controversial, also constitute original research. This is precisely the same as stating that the term is widely used, and then citing established sources who use the term.--Halma10 (talk) 20:47, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your specific claim that "the statement that this issue is controversial, with no citation that it is controversial, also constitute original research": There is, in fact, a footnote in the article immediately following the statement "Its use can also be controversial", which leads to a citation which includes the following quote: "The term Ultra-Orthodox, though controversial, often refers to Haredi Judaism or Hasidic Judaism...". It could therefore hardly be considered to be "original research".

Regarding the rest, I don't know what to say, except to repeat that I can't change Wikipedia policy, and you need reliable secondary sources for claims. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would encourage you to read my comments (although you have addressed one of the issues). This is an editorial dispute, not a citation of a given statement. --Halma10 (talk) 14:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a difference between providing a general overview of a topic (as much of wikipedia is and is uncited), and making a specific claim which does need a source. For example, on the page Black people it gives a general overview "The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups." There is no citation there, and any use of examples in this would classify as original research according to your description? Would you go through the whole page on Haredi Judaism and delete 70% of the wording? since they do not fulfill your interpretation of wiki's policy. --Halma10 (talk) 14:47, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have reviewed some of my past comments on this issue and can understand why there is some confusion. There are two issues: 1) that of the editorial style and 2) that of addressing some specific statements. I note from our previous discussions that you have focused on the latter. I am happy to discuss issues as and when they come along and I have agreed with you where relevant. However, my main source of concern on this entire article - is that of the editorial style of the terminology section (some of which I describe above), and also of the article as a whole. A reader would find themselves to be quite confused and will also find some inconsistencies. The article is very poorly structured (and unnecessarily long in parts). There is also a significant amount of essay-style writing in some parts of the article. I am, therefore, happy to close this dispute here - as we seem to be debating two broadly different matters. It's a shame that there aren't any expert editors on this article who can focus on its layout and structure. --Halma10 (talk) 16:20, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Climate of Northern Ireland, Climate of northern ireland

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.

Climate of Northern Ireland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Climate of northern ireland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

User keeps redirecting to Climate of Ireland when this is not wanted

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

Tried reverting changes then to speak with administrators. Tried to raise a dispute resolution but not sure if this had any effect.

How do you think we can help?

Protect the Climate of Northern Ireland page by blocking redirects being applied to it

Seamus48 (talk) 16:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Climate of Northern Ireland, Climate of northern ireland discussion

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

The article should not be overridden because the Met Office serves the United Kingdom and its constituent countries. Readers, such as myself, are interested in comparing climates by political boundaries. For example, to find out which country in the UK is warmer, cooler, windier, etc. Climate by geography is not useful for this purpose. There are many countries on the mainland of Europe that are separated by land borders and equally it would not make sense to discard useful data on a country by country basis, whether or not each country has similar climates. There is perhaps merit in having an additional page with overall averages by geographical region.

User(s) repeatedly forced the redirect and made offensive comments like "Northern Ireland is too tiny to have a climate" and "the climate doesn't change as you cross the border" and "why does this page need to exist?" and "this page is political commentary" and repeatedly stating "there is no consensus" for a Climate of Northern Ireland page, which is untrue because Northern Ireland is a constituent country of the United Kingdom and is served by the UK Met Office along with Scotland, Wales and England.

William M. Connolley deleted UK Met Office weather data for Northern Ireland from the Climate of the United Kingdom page without explanation or any discussion on the talk page.

I tried to compromise by providing an 'about' template with a link to the Climate of Ireland page from the Climate of Northern Ireland page, but this was deleted by Asarlai.

The Climate of Northern Ireland article should be restored and a redirect block put in place.Seamus48 (talk) 16:43, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

deleted UK Met Office weather data for Northern Ireland from the Climate of the United Kingdom page - no I didn't. I removed a redlink chart: [38]; without explanation - no I didn't; the edit comment clearly says "m redlink chart" William M. Connolley (talk) 16:49, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk's closing note: While I find, to the listing editor's credit, a number of attempts to discuss this matter, including this current one at Editor assistance (which is, I believe, the attempt at dispute resolution mentioned by him, above), I find no actual discussion of it, which disqualifies it for this noticeboard. The EA listing should also be finished before coming back here. — TransporterMan (TALK) 17:35, 5 January 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.

Aviators who became ace in a day

Aviators who became ace in a day (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

We have three sources for the section on Muhammad Mahmood Alam. Two sources say he claims to have shot down five in a day.^[5]^[6] The third ^[7] appears to be a recounting by Alam of the dogfight in question, and as such is a primary source. The article needs to be amended to [39] this version as it is still unknown if Alam is an "ace in a day" It is just a claim.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

Darkness Shines (talk · contribs)
TopGun (talk · contribs)

AS we have two sources saying Alam claims five kills in a day then this is what the article should reflect.

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

Not yet.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

Have used the talk page. [40] But as there are only two users I do not see how the impasse can be broken.

How do you think we can help?

By resolving the issue at hand.

Darkness Shines (talk) 17:36, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aviators who became ace in a day discussion

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

The source is not a primary source, it is an international publication and a reliable source by an independent writer. The quote by Alam is not the only quote the source mentions. The source has also mentioned quotes from formation members and others. There's no indication that the source conflicts with the other sources cited (infact it is backed up by them). A previous neutral editor already discussed this on two different talk pages who said that the kills are awarded by ace's airforce intelligence and as such those confirmed by the formation member in my view are taken as confirmed. Also, the source is presenting this as a fact as well. --lTopGunl (talk) 17:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Even this source [41] you just added to his BLP says "shot down two enemy Hunter aircraft and damaged three others." Darkness Shines (talk) 18:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I did not "just add" it, it was a previous addition, just adjusted its place and the current sources are more reliable than that. There are differences in some less reliable sources but all reliable ones say 5 kills. And here we are considering a different source which you have claimed to be primary and it is not. --lTopGunl (talk) 18:10, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is but one truly reliable source here, the one I added from Naval Institute Press which says he claims 5 kills, it does not say he had 5 kills. Darkness Shines (talk) 18:54, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Even Pakistani sites do not say 5. Muhammad Mahmood Alam in his F-86 Sabre claiming as many as four IAF Hunters There is no choice but to say he claims 5 kills. It can not be stated as a fact that he got them. Darkness Shines (talk) 19:03, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

KOffice

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

Dispute overview

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

Editor KAMiKAZOW has been writing about events that the product dropped support for mobile devices. When asked to back up those statements he stated that instead I should provide proof that these events did not happen. (which sounds impossible to me). He did point to an email from one of the authors that might be a reason for his confusion; but the writer talks about one (1) mobile device, and an outdated at that. I would like to get someone to mediate and avoid a ping-pong of edits and make KAMiKAZOW provide a quotation instead of writing overly broad statements.

See the history, all the edits made in 2012 are the ones this is about. Reading the diffs should make the point clear.

As far as I can tell, editor KAMiKAZOW makes the conclusion that since one outdated mobile (maemo/meego) is not explicitly supported, absolutely no mobile platforms are supported. This does not follow since it ignores the support available in the platform. That this support is available can be proven because many applications that are based on KDE and Qt run on a big set of mobile platforms, without those apps needing added support.

Users involved

Who is involved in the dispute?

KAMiKAZOW (talk · contribs)
89.253.119.50 (talk · contribs)

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

How do you think we can help?

89.253.119.50 (talk) 18:00, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

KOffice discussion

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

^ http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2011/cr1123.pdf
^ http://www.oecd.org/document/53/0,3746,en_2649_34111_44384757_1_1_1_1,00.html
^ http://www.bankisrael.gov.il/press/eng/110327/110327d.htm
^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16335603
^ Air Cdre M Kaiser Tufail. "Alam's Speed-shooting Classic". Defencejournal.com. Retrieved 2011-11-15.
^ Polmar, Norman (2003). One hundred years of world military aircraft. Naval Institute Press. p. 354. ISBN 978-1591146865. Mohammed Mahmood Alam claimed five victories against Indian Air Force Hawker Hunters, four of them in less than one minute! Alam, who ended the conflict with 1 1 kills, became history's only jet "ace-in-a-day." {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^ Fricker, John. Battle for Pakistan: the air war of 1965. p. 15-17. before we had completed more than of about 270 degree of the turn, at around 12 degree per second, all four hunters had been shot down." -- "My fifth victim of this sortie started spewing smoke and then rolled on to his back at about 1000 feet.

[1] ttp://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2011/cr1123.pdf

[2] ttp://www.oecd.org/document/53/0,3746,en_2649_34111_44384757_1_1_1_1,00.html

[3] ttp://www.bankisrael.gov.il/press/eng/110327/110327d.htm

[4] ttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16335603

[defencejournal2001-5] Air Cdre M Kaiser Tufail. "Alam's Speed-shooting Classic". Defencejournal.com. Retrieved 2011-11-15.

[Polmar-6] Polmar, Norman (2003). One hundred years of world military aircraft. Naval Institute Press. p. 354. ISBN 978-1591146865. Mohammed Mahmood Alam claimed five victories against Indian Air Force Hawker Hunters, four of them in less than one minute! Alam, who ended the conflict with 1 1 kills, became history's only jet "ace-in-a-day." {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

[7] Fricker, John. Battle for Pakistan: the air war of 1965. p. 15-17. before we had completed more than of about 270 degree of the turn, at around 12 degree per second, all four hunters had been shot down." -- "My fifth victim of this sortie started spewing smoke and then rolled on to his back at about 1000 feet.

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