Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerks: AGK (Talk) & MBK004 (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: Coren (Talk)

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Evidence presented by David.Kane

Progress on Race and Intelligence has been made as a result of mediation

I started on Wikipedia in June 2006 and first became involved with race and intelligence related controversies in the fall of 2009. A mediation started in November 2009. Over the next 6 months, significant progress was made: compare the version toward the start of mediation with one near the end. Note how the new version was less then 1/2 the length (and now consistent with WP:SIZE) and how numerous formatting problems, incorrect citations, spelling errors, poor grammar, lousy writing and so on were fixed. Of course, the new version is not perfect, but uninvolved editors thought that it was an improvement over the old one. Important issues that had been the source of much conflict over the years were resolved. For example, "Research into race and intelligence is not "fringe", some of the conclusions drawn from that research are highly contentious and need to be presented as such in the article." This was extremely helpful since it obviates the need for fruitless and repetitive debates about whether or not WP:FRINGE applies to the work of Arthur Jensen and others. I think that Ludwigs2 deserves a great deal of credit for the success of the mediation. Note, importantly, that no other editor volunteered to do the mediation after the first two mediators left the process. Critics of Ludwigs2 should recognize that the choice we faced was not between Ludwigs2 and some hypothetical perfect mediator but between Ludwigs2 and nothing. We all owe him our thanks.

Progress on Race and Intelligence continues to be possible

True progress on Race and Intelligence and related articles seems to require a different editing procedure. Consider three concrete examples of such progress: the History section (here and here), the Debate Assumptions section (here and here) and the Lead here. All these cases resulted in significant improvements to the article and featured widespread consensus among editors of very different viewpoints. Common factors: 1) Drafting was done on the Talk page, not in the article itself. Only after the section was complete was it moved into article space. 2) Drafting occurred over many days, allowing all editors time to register their opinions. 3) Comments from all were repeatedly solicited and incorporated. 4) The entire section was edited at once, thus allowing compromise over what to include, what to exclude and the relative proportions devoted to different material. Standard editing procedures have produced seemingly endless conflict and edit wars at this article for years. I think that this new procedure --- which I call multi-day section-editing --- should be required going forward.

Guidance is needed on applying WP:BLP to contentious claims made about living persons

I suspect that many complaints about my behavior will center around recent disputes about material related to Arthur Jensen. The original debate is here. Several similar debates have followed, summarized here. Throughout, my behavior has been guided by my understanding of WP:BLP: "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." The critical question, obviously, is just what "poorly sourced" means in this context. If a reliable source reports that person X says that Arthur Jensen wrote Extreme Claim A, do we just report that fact? Or should we demand to see evidence from Jensen's actual writings that he did, in fact, make Extreme Claim A? I would appreciate guidance from Arb Com on this situation. I argue that my interpretation has been made in good faith and, as evidence, cite the fact that uninvolved editors like Jimbo Wales, Off2riorob, and Rvcx were supportive of my position. (They may have changed their minds since then. See the full discussion for context.) Whether or not my deletions were right or wrong, it would be helpful if Arb Con were to provide guidance on this topic so that the policy is more clear going forward.

Evidence presented by Arthur Rubin

Ludwigs2 falsely accused editors of violating WP:NPA, redacting their comments

This is the only point I'm absolutely sure of. On March 29, I questioned the expertise of Dr. Pesta, an "expert" quoted frequently on the article talk page. Ludwigs2 responded by accusing me of attacking the editor Bpesta22, and then refactored my comment.

At that point, I decided there was little point in participating in the article as long as it was under mediation; questioning the expertise of proposed experts is required to determine whether a concept is WP:FRINGE.

I am specifically not alleging that he only redacted the comments of the "environmentalist" editors, although those would be the only ones to attack Dr. Pesta's credentials.

Ludwigs2 continued the mediation, in spite of objection from parties

In this edit, he stated I was bound by (his) rules for the mediation. This is a complete violation of WP:MEDCAB rules. If I objected, the mediation would be void. I didn't object, but I believe Mathsci did in a an edit which Ludwigs2 redacted. There were also a number of AN and ANI threads which objected to the mediation, but I don't recall any which decided the mediation was invalid, although one result suggested that the issue could be discussed after the mediation closed.

This was expressed, better, by Hipocrite, in #Mediation without all parties, below. Mathsci did object to the mediation, and Ludwigs2 stated he should have objected earlier. Any party (to the mediation) who feels the mediation is not working can withdraw from it, and it becomes void.

comments

I looked forward to David.Kane's examples of "progress", but I don't really see any.

Evidence presented by Hipocrite

Ludwigs2 repeatedly violated the spirit and intent of mediation

Mediators are not judges - they are obligated to get the parties to reach agreement, not to rule in favor of one party. Ludwigs2 failed miserably in his role as mediator - he turned himself into a judge quite early in the process, did not dispel perceptions that he had some sort of authority, and, when he realized major participants in the dispute were not participating in his flawed mediation, continued on without those participants, using his perceived (but false) power as a judge to steamroll their later objections.

Mediator as arbiter

17:40, 10 February 2010, (diff forthcoming) Ludwigs2 wrote - "I am going to decide by fiat that the page will remain exactly as it is right now for the duration of the mediation, pending some good argument for changing it."

Mediation without all parties

On the request for this case, Ludwigs2 wrote "...[Mathsci] continued with his irrational outbursts, insulting other participants, spawning one ANI thread after another, hell bent on destroying whatever progress the mediation made because (so I assume) he didn't like the consensus that was developing." How could Mathsci, a major contributor to the article, not like the consensus that was developing? If he wasn't on board, how could there be consensus?

See also Wikipedia_talk:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race_and_Intelligence/Archive_6#Concerns for more concerns about excluding an entire side from the mediation

Steamrolling objections

Multiple people opposed a one-sided rewrite of the article by David Kane in article space, proposing instead it be done in talk or mediation space and commented on (see Wikipedia_talk:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race_and_Intelligence/Archive_6#Rewriting_Article_from_March_30_to_April_1) This was dismissed out of hand (even after a member of MedCab said it was pretty much the right way to do things) by Ludwigs2 - "I think at this point the best thing to do is allow David.Kane to finish what he's doing. if there's a serious worry at the end, it is a matter of a couple of minutes' work to move the page to a subpage and reassert the old version." However, when the rewrite was objected to, the draft was protected by single purpose editors with a series of reversions to the draft, as opposed to the promised subpaging. Was Ludwigs2 not paying attention? - ([1])

Later the article was again rewritten by David.Kane, again in article space. Having been alerted to the disaster ongoing by a posting on ANI, I reverted the article to a pre-rewrite version ([2], and David.Kane reverted wholesale, stating please bring it up on the talk page before doing a massive revert like this. Where was the subpaging at this point? When this was brought to Ludwigs2's attention, as opposed to doing the promised reversion and subpaging, Ludwigs2 instead demanding that we "build a good article from this base" (Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 76). In that section you can find several other objections to the total rewrite - see sections "Lead discussion", "Neutrality", "Controversial claims treated as facts" and "Numbers do not speak for themselves." Why was the massive rewrite not undone and discussed in a subpage? Because Ludwigs2 failed as a mediator and picked a side, and just joined that side as a co-POV pusher.

It is imperative that ArbCom retract Ludwigs2 ability to mediate. For precedent, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Coolcat,_Davenbelle_and_Stereotek, specifically the sections on "Competence", and "Coolcat's status as a mediator."

Captain Occam's use of meatpuppets

Evidence to submitted privately to avoid outing. Hipocrite (talk) 13:41, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Contrary to statements made by Captain Occam, Ferrago the Assassin did not at any point admit an off-wiki knowledge of Captain Occam - in fact, questions about why Captain Occam was contacting Ferrago the Assassin about an article Ferrago the Assassin has never edited was dodged by both of them. Hipocrite (talk) 13:49, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

David Kane's inapropriate use of wikipedia

Outside of his edits to Race and Intelligence, David Kane has used wikipedia to host poorly source possibly defamatory information about living persons. In a userspace draft of his ephblog article, [3], David Kane included negative facts sourced only to Ephblog about the following living persons - naming a Williams faculty member who used a racial slur, negatively summarizing a speach by David Halberstam, naming professors turned down for tenure, naming college students and alums who hung posters of Adolph Hitler, naming a coach who was fired.

One of these incidents, the naming of a graudate, was denied by the subject, and resulted in legal action against Ephblog. [4]

David Kane has now branched out into wikistalking - having not !voted in any afds except for:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? May 2010
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/EphBlog October 2009
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Edwards paternity allegations August 2009
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Williams Record (second nomination) March 2007,

he all of a sudden shows up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hide the Decline to !vote in opposition to me. Hipocrite (talk) 13:10, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Enric Naval

Ludwigs2's battleground mentality, bad faith assumptions, unadequacy as a mediator

In ANI I made a request to topic ban several SPAs from the R&I topic, and User:Ludwigs2 adviced one of them to assume bad faith from my actions:

David, don't let this get to you. This is all bluster designed to make you feel paranoid, more than an actual threat. Standard hazing from the pseudoscientists; don't sweat it too much. (emphasis added) [5]

I told him that it was a bad faith assumption, and he replied:

Oh my heavens, that is hilarious. Look, Eric, let me point out what should be an obvious fact that you (and Mathsci, and Hipocrite, and several others I could name) seem not to get. People who indulge in name-calling and labeling in order to invoke prejudicial reactions from others - i.e. people who act like spoiled, pugnacious children - these people do not get to claim the moral high ground. Not ever. (...) this is a mater of whether one acts like an adult, or whether one doesn't. (...)[6].

and kept making the same assumptions:

"(...)the expectation here is that if enough pressure is put on you, you'll act out in some stupid way and do something that will give an admin a real reason to block you. It's pure (if nasty) emotional politics, so just relax and keep your head on straight" [7]

He also repeated in ANI that the only explanation for our actions is that were are acting in bad faith[8][9]

In this discussion in his talk page not only he refused to refactor anything, but he tried to justify his description in a comment ending with "Or are you trying to tell me that this whole ANI thing is something more than mere showmanship (drama-trauma to enrage and befuddle the masses)?"[10].

He also said "I don't believe I specifically pointed you out (...), so there's no reason for you to personalize it.", "I have nothing particular against you. If you want to personalize this, I can't stop you, (...)" even although he had posted his comment right below my comment and making a reference to my actions. And even although he had already posted in that same discussion:

I suggest that it is impossible to improve the encyclopedia when articles devolve in the manner of Lord of the Flies. Eric and Mathsci (and others) have decided to resort to playground warfare tactics to achieve their ends, and it has (unfortunately) worked well for them as a matter of practice. It doesn't fly with me, though, and I do know how to deal with it.[11]

Cue massive bad faith assumptions against Mathsci[12] and implying that editors disagreeing with him don't have any valid rational reasons [13]. Aprock points out that Ludwigs2 and the SPSa on R&I are engaging in the same behaviours, but that at least Mathsci's edits are backed by solid edits[14] and Ludwig2s's reply is that Mathsci behaved uncivilly first, and that this justifies the incivility of people who reply to him [15].

These smears, this advicing editors to assume bad faith of others, this refusal to accept that people disagreeing with him could right, and this WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, all of this is inadequate for a mediator, and Ludwigs2 should be barred from mediating anything and be admonished for assuming bad faith.(As Ken says here, this seems to be a long term problem) .

Ludwig2s's obstruction of actions

Additionally, Ludwig2 needs to be topic banned from the R&I topic, where his main contribution has been the enablement of POV-pushing editors and the obstruction of any actions against them:

"(...) my main goal here [in the topic ban requests at ANI] has been to get you guys to bluster at me for a while so he [David.Kane] has some breathing space. I think that has pretty much been a success, so please continue.".[16].

As a general note, Ludwigs2's goal in wikipedia seems to be the protection of editors of fringe viewpoints, even when those editors are POV pushing, all in order to protect them from the "hazing" of editors who hold a "mainstream" point of view.

Evidence presented by Mathsci

Please click on the bold links for diffs and/or fuller explanations (this format has been adopted to comply with the 1000 word limit)

Context, main reliable secondary sources and my very recent involvement in editing in this area

• Current academic consensus on group differences in intelligence

• There are excellent encyclopedic secondary sources by leading experts in psychometry which have not been used to edit the article. Instead editors have tried to add content from primary sources on research that has not yet been properly evaluated or digested.

• Summary of my own involvement having watched but hardly edited race-related articles prior to April 2010. My contributions were intended as an example of how to write neutrally using reliable secondary sources.

Single purpose accounts are civil POV-pushing in concert on race-related articles

For some time now a group of single purpose editors has acted in concert to add material to wikipedia articles overrepresenting the minority point of view that it is a proven scientific fact that the negroid (black) "race" has lower "general intelligence" on average than the caucasoid (white) "race" for genetic reasons connected with "race". The single purpose accounts include Captain Occam (talk · contribs), David.Kane (talk · contribs), Mikemikev (talk · contribs), Distributivejustice (talk · contribs), Varoon Arya (talk · contribs), Victor Chmara (talk · contribs) and TechnoFaye (talk · contribs). Their editing involves tag teaming, to create a false consensus by force of numbers, WP:CPUSH, endlessly to prolong discussion of fairly minor points, as well as misinterpreting editing policy and forum shopping (see below). In the past Race and intelligence and related articles have attracted largely WP:SPAs pushing the POV that as a "race" African Americans or blacks are genetically inferior to whites. Extreme WP:SPAs such as fourdee, MoritzB and Jagz have been banned and the page locked for long periods by Moonriddengirl. During the current period of editing Jagz has reappeared as Horse wiz, 120 Volt monkey and Millstoner.

• Comments on David.Kane
• Comments on Captain Occam
• Comments/diffs on Mikemikev
• Comments/diffs on Varoon Arya
• Comments/diffs on TechnoFaye
• Other problematic editors: Xxanthippe, Rvcx

The 4th stage of mediation under Ludwigs2 resulted in an editing environment favouring fringe theories

• Chronology of mediation with diffs
• Brief summary of the circumstances surrrounding mediation on "Race and intelligence"

The History article was created during attempts to restore NPOV at close of mediation

• History of the race and intelligence controversy

Prior to April 2010 I hardly edited R&I: I watched the page for about 4 years, commented on the talk page and added a few sources. I was involved at the start of mediation and made several positive suggestions for progress that were accepted by consensus (see Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race and Intelligence/Archive 0). After a teaching wikibreak, reluctantly, but with Xavexgeom's encouragement, I involved myself in the final stages of this failed mediation process. Ludwigs2 has consistently made hostile comments to me and outspoken personal attacks–often just for using the terms WP:POV, WP:CPUSH or WP:SPA–which resulted in a block fairly recently. Ludwigs2 had come into conflict with all the old time editors/watchers of Race and intelligence when he edited WP:Tag team and its talk pages in 2008. The article had been partially precipitated by editing on Race and intelligence; at that time Ludwigs2's edits blurred the distinction between mainstream and fringe viewpoints. Risker put the essay up for MfD, having written her own short version,[17] as it turns out a very useful summary of this case.

• Diffs of Ludwigs2's recent interactions

My view is that it is impossible to discuss the content of an article without actually writing that content: mediation failed because no precise content was discussed. I suggested a new neutral lede, written from scratch, to restore NPOV: after slight tweaking it became the lede. The false implication (now re-inserted) that this is a major area of academic research was removed; and it was clarified that the small amount of research is almost solely from the heriditarian viewpoint, mostly unfunded by mainstream funding agencies. I started a rewrite of the very short history section, having noted Varoon Arya's removal of all criticism from two related articles Snyderman and Rothman (study) and Mainstream Science on Intelligence. Unlike the "science" recently involved in race and intelligence, which has been heavily criticized for being methodologically flawed and based on unscientific folk notions of race and heredity, the history is extremely well documented in multiple university-level textbooks on the history of psychology.

• Background aspects of the History article

The creation of the History article was suggested by Slrubenstein when the history material for the R&I article, added period-by-period on the talk page, became too long. It is now 82,000 bytes long, fairly well illustrated and written almost exclusively using secondary sources.

SPAs have focused on Jensen in the History article

Irrespective of Jensen's own political leanings, his 1969 article has become iconic for white supremacists. A group of editors has systematically blanked content on commentaries on and criticisms of Jensen's academic publications on genetics, race and intelligence from the History articles and related articles for constantly changing reasons, including BLP violations.

April 12–May 27

• Removal of summaries of criticism taken from WP:RS
• Insertion of content by Jensen on Jensen
• Creation of POV-fork
• Chronology with diffs
• ANI report from April 26

May 28–June 2

• The diffs in the chronology below contradict Captain Occam's claims of edit warring. Material from a number of different reliable secondary sources was added in different forms, sometimes as direct quotations from the text. All these different additions were blanked by the SPAs and their supporters on the grounds that they were BLP violations. The reasoning that they used would preclude the use on WP of any material from a peer-reviewed book review of a living author.
• Objections to paraphrases taken from WP:RS
• Removal of content on Jensen's academic work in 1969-1973 as BLP violations
• Chronology with diffs
• ANI report from May 31

June 2 and later

• Blanking of images by disruptive anonymous IP editor
• Chronology with diffs
• ANI report from June 10
• ANI report by blocked IP editor

SPAs impede constructive progress and continue to write POV "essay" sections in Race and intelligence

David.Kane, Captain Occam and Mikemikev have together tendentiously inserted improperly sourced material synthesized from primary sources into the main article against consensus and tendentiously removed properly sourced content from reliable secondary sources from the history article with spurious contantly changing reasons. These disruptive editing patterns have created an impasse in these race-related articles.

This disruptive behaviour has continued during the ArbCom case and been brought onto its talk pages. David.Kane has tried to present a polite and constructive front for his edit warring and POV-pushing, but often his attempted constructive remarks have been disingenuous/superficial, as for example in this comment.[18] David.Kane has publicly stated that his intention is to transfer information from the writings of J. Philippe Rushton to wikipedia. An extreme example of POV-pushing on Rushton's work by Captain Occam can be found here [19] where he removes large quantities of mostly well-sourced criticism. Regarding black-white differences in intelligence, Rushton has publicly stated, "it's a trade off; more brains or more penis."

ImperfectlyImformed's evidence

See [20] ImperfectlyInformed should do their homework properly. Without justification or proof (diffs?) they blithely divide editors up into hereditarian or anti-hereditarian, an absurd idea. They make a claim about my involvement in endless forum-type discussions on the talk page: I have not been involved in such discussions (they provide no diffs) and unsurprisingly the passage they give as a prime example does not contain any participation by Mathsci. I've already mentioned that I do not use talk pages for faux-scientific discussions on "science", I only discuss sources. My own personal scientific statements are linked to wikipedia in the form of various sets of mathematical lecture notes bearing my RL name that other users have linked to article pages.

Recenly ImperfectlyInformed themselves, well into arbitration, moved[21] some of the most problematic material into a section called "Explanations". The passage contains completely unsourced OR, synthesis and BLP violations. The linked paragraph above is the crux of the problem: it was created entirely by wikipedians, mostly David.Kane, and makes a mockery of this encyclopedia. Is there some new wikipedia policy that encourages users to treat wikipedia as some kind of blog which they can freely edit as if they themselves were leading authorities on educational psychology or the history of psychology? Normal editors of wikipedia edit with the understanding that they must use reliable secondary sources, even when writing in areas of their own expertise.

Ludwigs2

Ludwigs2's dealings with other users

Ludwigs2 has used the word "trolling" to describe me on this ArbCom evidence page. This is a continuation of the series of personal attacks detailed here, for which Ludwigs2 has previously been warned and blocked. He was unblocked on condition that he would reform. That has not happened (here's a sample of diffs [22][23] [24] [25] [26]) These diffs and the animus behind them—which seems to bear almost no relation to reality whatsoever—raises doubts about the reliability of Ludwigs2's evidence and comments. As far as ANI reports go, here for the record are the reports I have initiated since August 2008: 2010 [27][28][29][30] [31]; 2009 [32][33] [34][35][36][37][38][39]

During this ArbCom case on June 29 Ludwigs2 stepped into another mediation case which appeared to have stalled.[40]

Evidence presented by Mikemikev

Mathsci responds to justified criticism with personal attacks and dismissal

Assuming good faith goes out of the window as Mathsci assumes the worst possible motives for his "opponents"; dismisses their points, seemingly due only to his own high opinion of himself; and edits accordingly. [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46]

Mathsci's content editing is questionable

• Arguing that secondary sources should be attributed when they praise Jensen, using this as an excuse to completely remove the content. [47]

• Unattributed use of secondary sources to libel Jensen. [48] [49] [50] [51]

This represents the typical pattern of Mathsci's editing in which he tries to use questionably applicable policy details to trump the spirit of Wikipedia policy: neutrality and fair representation. Mathsci will tend to describe sources he doesn't like as primary (for example the analyses of data in the Race and Intelligence article, clearly secondary). He seems to think that finding a secondary source stating something is an acceptable reason to violate BLP and neutrality. [52] [53] [54] [55]

Bizarrely, Mathsci often makes the argument that since he edits a wide range of articles, his opinion carries more weight, typified by his relentless and irrelevant "SPA" perjorative. However, if this [56] is an example of his work, I would be tempted to reach the opposite conclusion.

A phrase often written by Mathsci (and those who share his POV) is that "Wikipedia is not about the truth". The implication is that they are comfortable with inserting clear lies into Wikipedia if we cannot find "secondary sources" expressing the contrary. I wonder if Wikipedia is improved in this way?

There are two factions. One of them is trying to restore neutrality

• Hereditarianism is the position that genetic factors explain 50-80% of the racial IQ gap, and cultural and environmental factors the rest.
• Environmentalism is the position that cultural and environmental factors explain close to 100% of the racial IQ gap.

The 'environmentalist' faction often like to state that the 'hereditarian' hypothesis is minority. The implication is that 'environmentalism' is the mainstream position. There is simply no evidence for this. As was established here [57]:

The only academic study to be conducted on the popularity of environmental and hereditarian models for explaining the difference in IQ between races concluded that 45% of polled experts believed that the difference is a product of both genetic and environmental factors while 15% believed that the difference is due to environmental factors alone. 24% believed that there is insufficient data for coming to a conclusion, and only 1% believed it is due to genetic factors only.

The claim that environmentalism is 'mainstream', at least in academia, is pulled straight out of thin air.

I'm involved with editing this article because it has been hijacked by a group of extreme environmentalists. I freely admit to slightly favoring the hereditarian hypothesis (actually I'm agnostic, to be precise). Prior to mediation the article was an environmentalist coatrack which did a very poor job of representing the current state of the academic debate on this subject, by minimizing and ridiculing one side.

For example, Slrubenstein, who has been involved with the article for years, made this statement [58], 'genetic hypothesis' here refering to the hereditarian hypothesis [59]. Coming from somebody one would expect to be familiar with the literature, this should set alarm bells ringing.

Responses to other editors

Maunus

Re: Some Questions.

• Nobody has claimed hereditarianism is mainstream to my knowledge.
• Criticism is not the issue. The issue is misrepresentation of writing.
• I'm saddened that Maunus is still going on about the fact that I used the phrase 'fringe nitwits' [60]. It was slightly tongue in cheek, and actually intended to parody the attitude of Slrubenstein and others (how many times has Rushton been called fringe by Slrubenstein?). I agree it was a little over the mark, but nothing major. I was only referring to Nisbett's 'invalidation' of Rushton's brain size data, I think it could fairly be called fringe, but that's just my opinion. It's a rather egregious cherry pick of data (one sample). Crucially, you'll notice I didn't base any argument on this incidental personal opinion, as opposed to Slrubenstein, who often attempts to use the 'fringe' argument to influence the article. I immediately clarified that my use of the phrase 'fringe nitwits' was not the point [61]. Maunus exaggerates by claiming that I refer to anyone who criticizes Rushton as a 'fringe nitwit'. Maunus seems to be grasping at straws here in an attempt to pin some impropriety on me. The focus on and repetition of this extremely minor issue is a prime example of the diversionary tactics used. My arguments in this area went unaddressed, and remain unaddressed. I was prepared to compromise and include Rushton's data as well Nisbett's refutation, summarized as Maunus wished (this seems standard wiki practice). However, Maunus is apparently so convinced by Nisbett's refutation that we have to leave Rushton out. This seems rather high-handed.

Re: @Mikemikev: I don't think we need to re-open the content argument here. Maunus has already dismissed my attempt to discuss. The brain size data is not 'fringe', Maunus failed to demonstrate this. A few dissenting voices sure, but nothing to justify censorship.

Evidence presented by Ludwigs2

More diffs to be added if and as I see a need. However, I'm more interested in the bigger picture, and don't really want to engage any small-scale crapulence.

The proximal problem

While the difficulties on the R&I page have been ongoing, the current spate of problems begins with Mathsci's return (after what he claims was a wikibreak). Prior to his (re-)appearance, the mediation was - whatever you might think of its value - plugging along slowly, reasonably, and more-or-less appropriately. Mathsci obviously had concerns with the mediation, concerns which (I think) were perfectly reasonable points for discussion. He also had several choices for action, the two most obvious being:

1. He could have entered the ongoing debate in the mediation and started arguing for a different direction for the page, something I would have welcomed, and which I encouraged him numerous times to do.
2. He could have used the mediation page to suggest that the mediation was not progressing correctly, and therefore needed to be closed or changed to a different venue. Had he done so, I would probably have argued for closure of the mediation at that time, if only to see what effect that would have on the ongoing discussion.

(4 diffs of my requests to Mathsci to participate in the mediation; there are probably 10-12 I made in total, but this gives the idea [62], [63],[64], [65])

Instead, Mathsci [hijacked a thread] about a valid concern (TechnoFaye's tendency towards incivility, which could have used some attention from an administrator) to create an entirely fictional and overblown claim about the need for administrator action to close the mediation, and further, to suggest that I be [blocked] and later banned for mediating. His explicit and tendentious preference for political drama over civil communication continued for the remainder of the mediation and beyond, through numerous ANI threads and copious attacks on other editors, even after I manipulated him into contributing to actual content discussions on the mediation page.

Effectively, Mathsci saw the beginnings of a consensus in the mediation which he disagreed with, and rather than enter the mediation to try and change the consensus through discussion (his right as participant), he decided that he would destroy the consensus externally by applying administrative pressure. I understand the 'Darwinistic' advantage of this: political machinations of this sort can effectively dictate article content with much less time and effort than constructive discussion, and serve to rid the page of unwanted competitors. However, I find it distasteful

The real (endemic) problem, which is not a simple behavioral issue

Mathsci, as noted, is the proximal cause for the problems on R&I, but the actual cause goes beyond both him and this article. It is a system-wide and growing tendency for editors to use political drama and administrative action as the primary means of controlling page content and article semantics (article semantics -> what a page implies, which is as, if not more, important than what a page actually says; a vastly under-considered issue on wikipedia). This kind of behavior effectively neuters consensus discussions, it leaves pages stuck in squabbling quagmires that exclude any possibility of article improvement and can only be resolved when someone gives up in frustration or gets penalized administratively. Worst of all, convinces new editors that tendentious political behavior is both an effective tool and an accepted practice on wikipedia, encouraging the behavior to spread to other pages.

Note, for instance, that I (first as mediator, and later by avoiding the page) have contributed relatively little to the article or to its problems, and yet I am gathering a disproportionate share of criticism from editors on Mathsci's side of the debate. This is because I have been explicitly attacking their political machinations (criticizing them for labeling and stereotyping other editors, for focusing on blocks and topic bans and avoiding content discussions, for attacking new editors - this is clearly evident in Enric's complaints about me, above). A hostile, polarized environment gives them (as long-term editors) a home field advantage in ANI - administrators will be inclined to think that hostility stems from newer editors, and newer editors are less likely to manage the hostile situations with as much aplomb. Drama-ridden, hostile discussions favor experienced editors, and experienced editors like those involved in this debate foster hostile environements and put them to good use.

Do I need to point out what a gross distortion of Wikipedia's core principles and editing policies this is? This behavior is as unhealthy for a collaborative encyclopedia as political purges are for democratic systems, and for precisely the same reasons.

The solution

I understand the belief on Wikipedia (shared by old-school journalists, idealistic liberals, dewey-eyed Marxists, and 'intellectual' conservatives ), that "in the final analysis," calm, reasoned discussion will win out over emotionally-heated political rhetoric. In fact, there's more than a grain of truth in that ideal: almost everyone responds to reasoned discussion if they encounter it in the proper context and circumstances. Most of the pages on Wikipedia manage to fall into those conditions. The problem is that it is not the 'first-choice' approach for the vast majority of people in the world (as a rule, people begin with declarative claims and back them up initially with simple normative statements - it takes a significant effort to shift from a declarative to a communicative style of reasoning). No contentious topic will ever arrive at reasoned discussion unless efforts are made to protect the sanctity of the discourse. After Mathsci began his program to cleans the mediation and the article of editors he disagreed with, I began a strict protocol designed to defend the discussion itself - excising destructive, unproductive, and uncivil comments inline, extracting promises from participants to maintain specific standards of behavior, and etc (again, actions which Arthur and Hipocrite complain about above) - and the mediation progressed rapidly, even as the ANI furor mounted. If I had had sysop powers to back up the process, we would not be here. We would have a stable page at R&I: the problem would have been resolved through discussion, because I would have pruned off all the political drama and left discussion as the only viable means of resolving it.

When the project decides to take the concept of consensus discussion seriously, and ceases to tolerate this kind of political free-for-all, then these problems will resolve themselves. Not before.

Brief responses to other editors

re: Mathsci

Mathsci has misrepresented the closure of the mediation. I have made him aware of this mistake in talk, but (to date) he has not corrected his statement. so:

• Xavexgoem did close the mediation, but had no standing to do so, so I reopened it. As I had already said to Mathsci at several points by that time, mediation is a voluntary process which could be closed by the participants should he raise the issue on the mediation page. As mediator, I could not in good conscience allow the mediation to be closed without discussion and against the wishes of the majority of the active participants.
• I offered the two-week time frame to Xavexgoem as a reasonable period in which to finish up current discussions and solidify what progress we had made [66]. There was no 'granting of an extension' or anything like that - Xavexgoem and I merely agreed that that would be best. Mathsci has a fixation on authority that I do not share, and that (IMO) flies in the face of wikipedia norms.
• I did not create "an editing environment favouring fringe theories," I created an editing environment favoring discussion. The fact that Mathsci steadfastly refused to participate in discussion towards consensus is hardly a failure of the mediation.

--Ludwigs2 04:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

re: Enric Navel and Hipocrite

Just as an observation, there are two distinct threads in this dispute.

1. The actual R&I conflict (involving Mathsci, Occam, Mikemikev, AProck, and the other mediation participants). This involves the core content dispute, and various forms of bad behavior from different participants. I am involved in this thread, but not really a participant: I mediated, caught fire from unhappy people on both sides, and generally did my best to make what good I could out of a bad situation. My only content contributions to the article were a mild rewrite of Mathsci's lead after mediation closure and a restructuring and clarification to the "regression to the mean" concept, because it had been handled in an unscientific manner.
2. The subsidiary ANI conflict. This is the ongoing warfare in ANI, which attracted otherwise uninvolved editors like Enric Navel and Hipocrite. Hipocrite, in fact, only entered into the dispute as the mediation was closing, with the express purpose of fighting a political battle (as he shows in [this edit] he was extremely belligerent despite his own claim that he knows 'fuck all' about the content).

In my opinion, editors who decide to jump into an already dysfunctional situation purely to stir things up politically need a good bit more than a stout trouting. --Ludwigs2 04:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

re: Mathsci - lies, misrepresentations, and the wall-of-text strategy

Note this page (currently with 67 diffs) offered by Mathsci as "evidence." This page is perhaps the best example mathsci could have provided of his own political, tendentious behavior. observe, first, the following gross errors committed on that page - the information is for (for the most part) either completely inaccurate, deeply misrepresentative, or heavily biased. a handful of quick examples (first, last, and a couple chosen randomly from the center):

• First point: this link does not (as Mathsci claims) state that I have had a dispute with him before. It asks Mathsci to bring the matter up in mediation, and tells him that I will ignore further requests for mediation closure in ANI.
• Last point: this communication with User:YellowMonkey had nothing to do with me digging into Mathsci's past. in fact, I was made aware of this issue by User:Varoon Arya here, didn't find out it had anything to do with Mathsci until here, and specifically asked YellowMonkey to exercise oversight on it because I did not want it to muddy the issue here in arbitration.
• random point (7): Mathsci cites this diff as my being "Eager to be in control" and that I claim that "The mediation can go on indefinitely". In fact what this diff does is correct a mistaken impression that Mathsci had about the 2 week time limit (which I corrected him again on here in the arbitration). His continued efforts to use this point, even after I have explicitly refuted in multiple times, is telling.
• random point (25): Mathsci claims this diff shows me making an "undue comment as Arbiter", when in fact what I said was a very reasonable suggestion to another editor not to edit war
• random point (17): Matschi claims this diff is a "belligerent response to Xavegoem" - again, I defy anyone to read this response and identify anything particularly beligerent in it.

I'm sure there might be one or two reasonable claims against me buried in that mess, but since the first, last, and three random selections are all entirely specious, I don't suppose there are more than one or two.

So, the problems with this thing are as follows:

1. Mathsci is obviously counting on the fact that people will only read the commentary he's provided, and avoid digging through the mass of text in the links because of sheer volume, and therefore no one will realize that the commentary he's provided is utterly false and misleading.
2. Mathsci is putting me in the position where I am forced to
   1. Ignore him, and allow all of the false misleading claims that he has made to go unanswered
   2. Respond to him in a point by point fashion, which means that I would have to double the volume of text produced on the issue and obscure it even further
3. Even if I were to refute him on every single point, the general impression he has made with this long, slanderous list of mis-labeled diffs will stick with people, and remain as an attack on my character.

In other words, what Mathsci has done here is create a long list of lies in order to attack my character, in the hope that (a) no one will read far enough to notice that they are lies, and (b) people will remember the bad statements, even if the lies are later uncovered. This is a purely Machiavellian attempt at politics designed to make me look bad, without any actual reference to factual events; it serves no purpose for the encyclopedia, and in fact destroys the discussion process that might otherwise resolve these issues.

Mathsci engages in this same kind of behavior in ANI and on article talk pages - he begins labeling and insulting other participants, and continues with those efforts for an extended a period of time, as needed to damage the credibility of his opponents. He does not care whether the accusations are meaningful or true, only whether they can be used to bring political pressure on his opponents. Behavior like this, given the extent to which Mathsci engages in it, might actually call for a site-ban. --Ludwigs2 16:06, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

re: Mathsci - yet more trolling

Mathsci has entered User:Mathsci/AC20 as evidence against me, but please note the following:

• There is no evidence presented on this page - no diffs of my supposed behavior, no discussion of the issue - this is merely libel, with vague links to other pages and discussion.
• There is nothing on this page that relates to the R&I debate at all, even if there was any valid evidence presented.
• I offered to speak with Mathsci using anonymous forms of communication, but he refused, insisting on email. However, since Mathsci has used off-line personal information to attack at least five editors in this mediation alone, I am unwilling to provide him with my own personal information. I'm not stupid. --Ludwigs2 15:12, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Xxanthippe

It should be possible to write an article on intelligence/race that reflects the environment/heredity perspectives in a balanced way despite the controversy of the subject. My own perspective on the topic is here [67]. Unfortunately such an article has not emerged, only squabbling. I find the edits of the vociferous environment faction to be too often slanted and biased, cherry-picking sources to support a particular point of view and rejecting attempts at compromise. Their claim of team tagging looks to me like the pot calling the kettle black. Team tagging, if any, by the hereditist faction, is no worse than the team tagging by the environmentist faction.

I was disturbed that a major participant on the heredity side of the dispute Captain Occam has been blocked by administrator 2over0 right in the middle of this Arbcom case for no good reason that I could see. 2over0 was asked to explain his reasons for the block. He still has not responded. I have struck this request out following the ruling by uninvolved admin Georgewilliamherbert here[68] Xxanthippe (talk) 08:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC).

The attempt by some members of the environment faction to silence their opponents by urging that they be banned on the grounds that they are SPAs promoting views that are allegedly fringe theories/non-mainstream is contrary to Wikipedia's ethos. As has been discussed before [69] the personal conduct of prominent editor Mathsci is becoming more and more offensive. His claim [70] that a Jewish editor is a holocaust denier, for which he produced no evidence, is intolerable. In his evidence presented above [71] Mathsci claims "a group of single purpose editors has acted in concert to add material to Wikipedia articles overrepresenting the minority point of view that it is a proven scientific fact that the negroid (black) "race" has lower "general intelligence" on average than the caucasoid (white) "race" for genetic reasons connected with "race"." He includes my name at the bottom of the list. These allegations are utterly untrue. An examination of my edit record will show that I am not an SPA. I have never expressed any of the views above and I find it deeply offensive for it to be claimed that I am associated with them.

If behavior of this nature is not reined in then decent editors will disengage from Wikipedia and leave the field to those with the shriller voices. Wikipedia's reputation of objectivity will be damaged and a ban on a Wikipedia editor may come to be regarded as a badge of honor. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:34, 13 June 2010 (UTC).

I make the following recommendations for action by Arbcom:

1) An indefinite ban on editing be placed on Mathsci as being a focus of disruption on Wikipedia both here and elsewhere [72]. Although many of the previous edits by Mathsci have been useful to Wikipedia, no one is indispensable if their personal conduct causes such disturbance to the enterprise.

2) Require 2over0 to provide in full his reasons for blocking Captain Occam. If these reasons prove not to be satisfactory then the block should be lifted.

3) The present state of the article is grossly unsatisfactory, being, to my perception, full of bias and POV. It does not deserve the imprimatur of Wikipedia. Following the suggestion of Maunus below, it should be removed from mainspace on these grounds. It could be hosted on somebody's user space if they were prepared to invite others to edit it. If, after editing, the article became stable, then it could be re-released to mainspace. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:14, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Maunus

I don't know what to write

I feel that as an involved editor I should present some kind of evidence here, but i don't really have anything I feel I need to prove. It looks like most other editors are also content with posting opinions and statements instead of evidence, so I'll also just make a brief statement. I really thing this is a problematic area of editing and I can't say that I am impressed by the way most editors are handling their participation here. I am fairly sure that it is possible to write a neutral article about the general subject (I would like to believe for example that I'd be able to write such a one), but I don't see it happening at this point as the debate is completely polarized and degenerated into drama and debacle on all sides. I really don't know what to do here - maybe the best thing would be to not have an article about this topic at all? ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:06, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Some questions

• Many of the hereditarian researchers claim that they're being "silenced by the political correctness of the establishment" - several editors here claim that the hereditarian paradigm is mainstream and that the environmentalist one is fringe. Which is it then?

• Several editors here claim that it is a blp violation to quote secondary sources criticism of Jensen and others - and they try to apply WP:SYNTH to authors of reliable secondary sources in order to write articles from primary sources. Since we cannot expect authors or scholars to ever criticize their own theories or to agree with those who criticize them, then how is wikipedia supposed to describe when the work of particular scholars have been subject to extremely harsh criticism without violating blp?

@Mikemikev But who is supposed to decide what is a mischaracterisation? You and Captain Occam or the editors and reviewers of the publishing houses and journals in which the negative descriptions of Jensens research is published? The wikipedia I know has a strict policy to rely on published sources and not on editors WP:OR when deciding which claims are right or wrong about subject matter.

• Mikemikev claims to be agnostic - a wise stance since the only thing both groups of researchers seem to agree about is that we need to know more in order to determine the cause of the race iq gap. However in article talk space he has repeatedly defended Rushton and claimed that those criticising him and his antiquated theories and approaches are "fringe nitwits". Rushton's conclusions and research methods have been claimed to be invalid by multiple scholars (Richard Nisbett 2001, Leonard Lieberman 2001[73], Alexander Alland Jr.[74] 2004, Robert Sussman [75] , Jane H. Hill[76] ). And when he first published them in 1988 the dean of his own faculty Emőke Szathmáry stated that "Rushton had lost all scientific credibility".(Barry R. Gross the Case of Philippe Rushton - Academic Questions fall 1990). If these are fringe nitwits and Rushton is an example of a great scientist in mike's mind then what does agnosticism even mean to him?

@Mikemikev: the difference is that we have several reliable sources that clearly describe Rushton as working on the scientific fringe. There are none such describing Nisbett, Alland Jr., Sussman or Lieberman as "having lost all scientific credibility" or "trash" (in peer reviewed publications). And Mike is mistaken when he assumes that wikipedia works by prresenting invalid data and invalid conclusions and then mentioning en passant that most scholars working in that field find them to be invalid. Luckily, again the wikipedia I know has the policies of WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE to make sure that articles aren't written as Mike suggests.

Evidence presented by Captain Occam

Since David.Kane and Ludwigs2 have covered the topic of the mediation pretty well (I largely concur with them about this), I'm going to focus on what I view as the main sources of instability for these articles. One of the arbitration clerks has requested that I create new subpages of the evidence page for this content, in order to bring my evidence under the 1,000 word limit, so I’ve now done so. For each category of evidence I’m presenting, please click the link in order to view it.

Disruptive behavior from Mathsci

Mathsci’s disruptive behavior on these articles over the past few months has included personal attacks, edit warring, forum shopping, threats/intimidation, and possibly outing. I say “possibly” because the policy regarding outing is not completely clear about whether it covers personal information about users about that they’ve never disclosed, but which can be researched or synthesized on the basis of things they’ve disclosed. In addition to doing something about Mathsci’s behavior in general, I would like it if ArbCom could clarify this aspect of the policy regarding outing; see my proposal on the workshop page here.

For detailed explanations and diffs/links of each category of disruptive behavior from Mathsci, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence/Evidence/COpage1

Mathsci’s past involvement in arbitration

I recently discovered that there’s a past arbitration case in which Mathsci has engaged in some questionable behavior, namely edit warring on the arbitration pages with at least one uncivil edit summary. As a result of this, one decision in that case was “Mathsci is reminded not to edit war — especially not on arbitration pages — and to avoid personal attacks at all times.” In determining how to handle Mathsci’s current personal attacks and edit warring, I think ArbCom should consider the fact that they have already advised him about this previously.

Mathsci’s behavior has driven away other productive editors.

I’m aware of three editors who used to be involved in these articles, but have stated that they stopped participating because they couldn’t tolerate Mathsci’s behavior.

• DistributiveJustice mentioned this in his initial statement for this case. “I left last month because of uncivil and inexcusable behavior by Mathsci directed at me. I can't volunteer my time under those circumstances. What I find amazing is that everyone else hasn't quit also.”
• Varoon Arya has mentioned this at AN/I: “Other than that, I've decided to leave this article alone, and have done for some time now, as Mathsci's antics literally turn my stomach.”
• Ludwigs2 has also stated this at AN/I: “Mathsci, please leave me out of your mudslinging. How can I support anything through silence? Frankly, I've been avoiding the page(s) because you are being such an inveterate ass it give me a headache dealing with you.”

Whether this is Mathsci’s intended goal or not, it’s a very effective way for him to win content disputes: by causing the editors who disagree with him to quit the articles out of frustration. (Or to quit Wikipedia entirely, as in DJ’s case.) Can it be good for Wikipedia to allow content disputes to be won in this manner? If this behavior is allowed to continue unchecked, it can only be a matter of time before other editors begin to notice what an effective method it is to win content disputes, and begin making use of the same tactic themselves.

Disruptive behavior from other users

Although I agree with Ludwigs2 that most of the problems with these articles relate to Mathsci’s behavior, there are a few other users whose behavior I’d like to have ArbCom’s attention. The main examples are Muntuwandi and Slrubenstein, but there also has recently been an example of possible misuse of Sysop powers from 2over0. I have also made a proposal on the workshop page here which relates to the conduct from Muntuwandi that I think is problematic.

For a more detailed explanation of the behavior from each of these users, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence/Evidence/COpage2

Major changes made without discussion

In addition to the problems I’ve pointed out involving some of the long-time contributors to these articles, there’s one other recent cause of instability there that I’d like to see addressed. Several times recently, editors have attempted to make major changes to the article without attempting to discuss them beforehand, and they (or other editors) have edit warred to add them back when these edits have been reverted. This problem arises most often with editors who are new to the articles, but some of the “regulars” have been guilty of this also. It’s been done both by editors who take pro-environmental and pro-hereditarian perspectives, and I consider it equally disruptive in both cases.

One recent example of this is these edits from an anonymous IP: [77] [78] [79] [80] [81], repeatedly adding several (pro-hereditarian) paragraphs that virtually everyone on the talk page agreed was WP:UNDUE, while completely disregarding 3RR and making barely any attempt at discussion. Another more recent example of something similar is Arthur Rubin’s attempt to revert the entire article to a version from five months earlier without discussing it beforehand. This revert was undone by WavePart around two hours later, after which Verbal added it back, even though there was obviously no consensus for it. A third example is AnwarSadatFan’s repeated removal of this image from the article, whose inclusion is supported by consensus, without making any attempt to justify this removal on the article talk page: [82] [83] [84].

I don’t know what the solution is to this problem, but if ArbCom could come up with one it would definitely improve the stability of the article. I have made a proposal on the workshop page about one potential policy regarding this.

Responses to other editors

This page contains my responses to Muntuwandi, Ramdrake, Professor Marginalia, and Mathsci: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence/Evidence/COpage3

7/13 Update

Since the behavior that I consider problematic from some of these users (Mathsci in particular) has continued during this arbitration case, I’ve updated my evidence slightly in order to include the newer examples of it. Any arbitrators who’ve already read my evidence might want to look at it again, in order to see the new things I’ve added.

Evidence presented by "IP editor from Sheffield"

False allegations of off-wiki collaboration

Allegations of off-wiki collaboration have been made [85],[86],[87]. I would like to state that I have never knowingly communicated with "IP editor from Illinois" and support them only with respect to challenging the improperly sourced statements about the SDS. I have no view on the other images. These repeated allegations are unfounded and untrue. 94.196.155.19 (talk) 20:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Muntuwandi

A summary of some the problematic edits that have contributed to this controversy. Many are not obvious policy violations. However a long term pattern of such edits can be disruptive and unproductive.

Edit warring

Pattern of Edit warring, particularly by Captain Occam. According to this report from the 3RR noticeboard, Captain Occam made 10 reverts within about 24 hours, and continued edit warring 3 days later.

Captain Occam was also edit warring during the mediation, even though the mediation groundrules that he and everyone else signed on to specifically stated that no edits were to be made that did not have the consensus of the involved parties. This pattern of edit warring has continued until the present, [88], [89] and even as recently as 9th June 2010 A full discussion is found [[90]]. In short Captain Occam was blocked, but this block was amended to a conditional block to allow Occam to participate in the arbitration. Occam violated the arbcom only restriction by posting to Talk:Jimbo Wales. Mr Wales suggested clemency and later Occam had his restrictions vacated. But this doesn't change the fact that Occam violated his initial editing restriction. Within less than 24 hours of his unblock Occam was edit warring again per this thread.

Exaggeration and misrepresenting sources

Captain Occam has a tendency to exaggerate or misrepresent information in ways that support his preferred POV. For example, Captain Occam included this statement in the R/I article [91]

However, in 2007 the New York Times reported preliminary results suggesting that some genes which influence IQ may be distributed unequally between races [92].

The preliminary results that Occam refers to were actually from a, blog. These preliminary results were not from a peer reviewed scientific study, nor were they done by scientists. Rather they were done by bloggers. Captain Occam insisted that this material be placed in the article, edit warring to include it. There was a long drawn out discussion on the talk page and Reliable sources noticeboard. These are links to RS archive and talk page archive. Interestingly the blogger has now admitted that his analysis was flawed, stating

"I already admitted I was just over-exuberantly playing around with the HapMap project and I’m now aware that the method was flawed."[93]

This is evidence that what would otherwise be straightforward can be prolonged due to the actions of determined POV pushers.

Captain Occam and David Kane edit warred in concert on (eg [94], [95] to keep this image, in the article race and genetics.

Single purpose editing

Captain Occam's editing history is primarily restricted to a handful of race related subjects. As of today he has edited about 36 articles in mainspace [96], though he has over 2000 edits and has been a wikipedian since 2006 [97]. Captain Occam states he has no interest in editing articles other than race and intelligence or race and crime because he believes they are the only biased articles on Wikipedia [98].

A discussion of David.Kane's editing pattern is found here. David Kane created the article Between-group differences in IQ [99]. Material from the race and intelligence article was cut and pasted into Between-group differences in IQ [100]. Since the material in the article was almost exclusively from race and intelligence, it would appear that there was never any intention to discuss group differences in general, that is groupings other than race. This would make the article a POV fork. This demonstrates that some of these editors have little interest in improving the encyclopedia as a whole,if they did they might have researched other group differences in IQ when creating the article.

Exaggerating or falsifying consensus

Captain Occam has a tendency to exaggerate or falsify consensus to justify his edit warring. Examples include:

• Captain Occam: "Ramdrake and Alun’s concerns ... have been addressed at this point[101],
• Response: "I don't see that it is appropriate to assume that my concerns have been addressed without asking me"[102]

• Captain Occam: "This question has been discussed and resolved. The decision was that the article should take a “data-centric” structure"[103]
• Response: "I don't think there is any consensus that the article should be a "data driven" article"[104]

• Captain Occam:"I think it’s time for us to begin discussing the last major change to this article that we agreed on during mediation, but haven’t actually made to it yet." [105]
• Response: "This was not agreed to in mediation. "[106]

Regarding the addition of the "significance section" Captain Occam states

"I think we’ve finally come to enough agreement about what this section should contain that it’s ready to be added to the article

However Captain Occam also states

"The article’s under 1RR right now anyway, so trying to edit war over this section probably isn’t a good idea.[107]

Well if there is agreement over this section, why does Captain Occam believe that some editors would try to "edit war over this section".

Less than collegial editing

Ludwigs has already discussed this and this, so I won't go into great detail. Only a bit disappointed that some editors such as Varoon Arya seem to applaud such behavior, [108]. Whatever one's opinions on the matter, I would assume most editors would agree that such edits do not result in the best editing environment. See also this thread for more details on how a tense editing atmosphere may have emerged.

Tag teaming

Primarily involving Captain Occam, David Kane and Mikemikev. This strategy can be seen from as far back as October 2009. David Kane and Captain Occam apply the "good cop, bad cop" strategy quite well. DK gives the impression of being a reasonable cooperative editor, but wherever Captain Occam is edit warring, DK is always nearby appearing to soothe the concerns of other editors on one hand, but cleverly advancing Occam's POV with the other.

Responses to other editors

Responses to other editors

Wapondaponda (talk) 20:47, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Ramdrake

Additionl information in the interest of proper disclosure

I would first like to note that I have been intermittently absent from part of the mediation and some of the goings-on related to this case due to serious health reasons. Specifically, I was absent for the whole month of December 2009, was slightly active for most of January 2010, and ended up absent again from February to April 2010, and somewhat less active from April 2010 to this month (June 2010). Nevertheless, I would like to contribute some of my observations. Additional diffs as needed will be added as soon as I get the chance

Captain Occam's behaviour corresponds to the definition of a civil POV-pusher

As his block log will testify, Captain Occam has been blocked several times during the mediation for edit-warring against a plurality of editors. While his tone has overall remained civil throughout, he has persistently claimed that th changes he made were "supported by consensus", even when it was pointed out to him by several editors that no such consensus existed and/or that consensus can indeed change. Time and over, it has been demonstrated that the "consensus" he was referring to went back to a moment in time when Occam and a group of like-minded editors had in effect driven away several editors who disagreed with them (what they call "the opposite faction" or "the environmentalists"), leaving these editors free reign to reshape the article in their POV. While apart from edit-warring, it is hard to find definite breaches of WP policy (as is typically the case for civil POV-pushers, one example, his insistence to add a section on the policy implications of the B-W IQ gap, even after he was told of problems with it (which he claimed to fix on hos own) and reinsert it without asking if the material was any more appropriate (reasoning went: "there were objections, I addressed them so let's put the section back in"), without heeding the objections of undue weight, primary sources and misrepresentation of sourcesin general is just another example of his modus operandi.

Mikemikev's behaviour

The best and only way I can describe Mikemikev's behaviour is usually confrontational. He holds certain opinions as fact despite scientific mainstream opinion to the contrary (i.e. that "races" are meaningful biological divisions of humankind and not at best some kind of proxy for biogeographic ancestry. Also, his insistence on relying an sources which have been described in the secondary literature as flawed and dubious (e.g. Rushton and Lynn) flies in the face of Wikipedia's NPOV policy, which demands that we treat each opinion in accordance to its importance in the real world. More abut this later.

A group of editors are acting like SPAs and trying to push a POV which is not representative of the real world

Several editors, to different degrees: Captain Occam, Mikemikev, David.Kane, Distributive Justice, to name but a few, seem to hold dear the notion that the hereditarian hypothesis (i.e. that the B-W IQ gap is due in some significant part to genetic reasons having to do with the "biology of races" is a valid hypothesis that deserves comparable footing with other explanations, mostly that the differential has to do with some combination of environmental factors. A review of the available secondary sources literature demonstrates rather amply that the genetic hypothesis is the brainchild of a small but very active group of like-minded researchers. Few of those who do not subscribe to the hypothesis don't even bother to write on the subject. The few that do bother to do so usually write analyses which demonstrate that the hypothesis is based on numerous flaws. Nevertheless these editors seem intent on writing the article as if both hypotheses were basically on equal footing.

Mathsci has the best interests of Wikipedia at heart

Through his edits, it has become obvious that Mathsci has the best interests of Wikipedia at heart, especially as far as NPOV is involved. His edits are well-researched and well-sourced, and go a long way in giving a picture in the article which is more reflective of mainstream thought in that subject area. For all his trouble, he gets attacked on trivial points of his edits (such as insisting that the reliable secondary sources he uses wilfully malign an already conroversial author). While Mathsci may at times have a short fuse (nobody's perfect), the onslaught of civil POV-pushers may at times have had the better of him and he may have said things that are not in keeping with the best practices of conviviality at Wikipedia, but that's only after repeated episodes of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Let's be honest: how many instances of usch obfuscation behaviour does it take to make one lose his cool? As I've said when the case first got presented, I've been around this article for a few years now, and Mathsci's behaviour is IMHO normal for someonw who's had to suffer the onslaught of a horde of civil POV-pushers (for those who've been there awhile, I'm thinking of other pushers such as the now-banned Jagz, Fourdee, etc.) The fact that such POV-pushers are now gone buth that people such as Mathsci, Slrubenstein and myself remain should speak volumes.

I will add diffs as time permits.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:25, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Response to Rvcx's complaint

OK then, prove Slrubenstein wrong. So far, your comments seem to demonstrate that your interpretation of some widely-used sources is at odds with those of most other editors and secondary source authors. I think that, in better terms, this is what Slrubenstein is trying to convey (and he should feel free to correct me if I misinterpret his intentions). Also, please be advised that it's usually considered bad form to edit other editors' comments directly. If you objected to my responding to your comment, you should have just asked me to move my comment to my on section; I would have gladly done so.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:53, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by RegentsPark

Purpose driven accounts

I'm not really sure what I should say here. My main interest in this case is the impact and behavior of 'accounts with an agenda' on wikipedia articles and my main concern is that these accounts are beginning to dominate the point of view in the areas in which they edit (this Race and intelligence and related articles or, from the opposite end of the spectrum, United States and state terrorism and related articles). These purposeful accounts all appear to share certain characteristics:

1. Their interests are typically limited to the area they edit in and they have little interest in the broader wikipedia project
2. They tend to cluster - there are typically several such editors editing at the same time
3. They tend to divide editors into two 'us' and 'them' groups - either an editor is with them or he/she is against them - and they actively campaign for each other
4. They tend to miscount or misstate the views of others in a way that is favorable to them
5. They tend to create articles on fringe topics and repeat the same view, at length, in each of those articles
6. They are careful to provide sources for their views, and
7. They are careful not to cross any 'red flag' boundaries

It is hard, if not impossible, to directly deal with these purpose driven accounts because they conform to the letter of the rules and policies that have begun to govern every aspect of editing on wikipedia. This can be very frustrating for editors, such as mathsci, who have a long history of encyclopedia building at wikipedia. They arrive at these articles with clean-up in mind and instead find themselves kicked around both by these purpose driven editors as well as by well meaning wikipedians who, because they focus only on the rules, are unable to understand that frustration. Unless some action is taken to deal with these purpose driven accounts, once the narrowness of their interests is apparent, I fear that we will continue to present a view to the world which indicates that black people are genetically less intelligent than most other people and that it is a generally accepted view that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States was an act of state terrorism. Whether these are true or not, neither view is accepted by their respective academic communities as anything other than minor or fringe, but that is not what wikipedia presents to the world. --RegentsPark (talk) 19:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Rvcx

My first two assertions are not meant as an indictment of User:Mathsci or as the last word on any particular content dispute, but rather as evidence that reversion and discussion of a handful of controversial sentences amid Mathsci's huge rewrites are often entirely appropriate:

Mathsci's content contributions often place undue weight on ad hominem attacks

There are three specific examples I've been involved with:

• On an article about a letter signed by 52 intelligence researchers, a response from Donald Campbell is included, but instead of focusing on the bulk of Campbell's well-documented methodological critique, Mathsci edit-warred to summarize Campbell's response largely in terms of one tiny quote mentioned in neither Campbell's abstract nor conclusions...an ad hominem attack on one of the 52 signatories, and a potentially libelous mischaracterization of his work. [109]
• The fact that the journal "Mankind Quarterly" is mentioned in passing in the article text is used as sufficient excuse to add a photo of one of the editors (who is not named in the article text) with a caption pointing out that he once worked with an assistant who was a physician at Auschwitz. [110]
• Students for a Democratic Society staged protests over race and intelligence research. Mathsci illustrates this with an FBI wanted poster of the Weather Underground, a later offshoot of SDS (and, in fact, the half of the organization that did not address race research). This is the equivalent of illustrating a mention of "NFL quarterbacks" with a mug shot of OJ Simpson (who was not even a quarterback). [111]

Even when factually accurate, such unnecessary attacks seem particularly un-encyclopedic, and clarification on when matters of undue weight stray into BLP territory would be appreciated.

Mathsci's content contributions sometimes include WP:SYNTH and questionable synth performed by secondary sources

The interesting question here concerns the latter type of synth: Campbell's criticism, mentioned above, does not appear to be an accurate summary of the views held by Jensen (who has repeatedly and explicitly argued against making decisions purely on the basis of race; see [112]; full archive at [113]).

But there's also more mundane WP:SYNTH going on. The contention that Jensen advocated eugenics "particularly in the black population" is a synthesis of the fact that Jensen discussed eugenics for those with low IQs, and that he also noted statistical differences in IQ between whites and blacks. More nuanced synth happens when secondary sources discuss differences in the context of statistical distributions (that the bell curve for blacks is centered at 85, compared to 100 for the bell curve for whites) and these sources are summarized to say that blacks have lower intelligence than whites, which outside of a statistical context implies that all blacks are less intelligent than all whites. There is a big difference between those two statements, and the temptation to blur the distinction (or even using sloppy secondary sources as excuses to blur the distinction) needs to be resisted.

A typical example of (faulty) synthesis of sources to support that assertion that Jensen "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites" is found here (and expanded, in typically insulting fashion, here). Noting differential impact of policy is not the same thing as recommending different policies for different groups. Rvcx (talk) 16:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Again, the above two problems suggest only that Mathsci can sometimes lapse into writing more appropriate to an essay (using sources to make a point) than an encyclopedia (using sources to decide what point to make). That's fine—it just means that such writing can require copyediting and redaction to restore NPOV.

Mathsci, Hippocrite, Slrubenstein, and others engage in systematic personal attacks, marginalization of dissent, and disruptive editing

Beyond the concerted efforts to use AN/I to get rid of anyone with other views, even on content pages personal attacks and ad hominem have become the norm. While some are blatant, the general tendency is for these editors to offer "civil" ad hominem which ignores any questions of content. I can only imagine that there is explicit intent to goad other editors into incivility; the editors who have remained involved have superhuman self-control, and I know I wouldn't be able to to edit with Mathsci given blatantly disruptive non-sequiturs such as this. There's also a long history of personal attacks that no administrator seems to have ever acted upon. Frankly, if there's a case of WP:CPUSH it's Mathsci and cohorts.

The arguments that these editors were baited into their behavior and that they're only reacting just doesn't hold up to scrutiny: I had never been involved in this debate before I saw something on BLPN. I spent several hours looking through sources and it only took two content-focused comments before Mathsci started denigrating me as an "amateur wikipedian" commenting in a "silly way", accusing me of not reading the article and "playing wikipedia like some kind of teenage video game" [114], telling me to "get some grip on reality" and threatening me with ArbCom [115]. If David.Kane, Captain Occam, or Ludwig2 treated any newcomer in this way I hope they would receive an immediate (and long) block, but it's not them driving away new editors who voluntarily invest a lot of time trying to help and bending over backwards to try to brush off aggressive behavior. It's Mathsci doing it. Rvcx (talk) 21:26, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

This (and now this), part of the workshop discussion, is entirely typical of Mathsci's approach: name-calling, condescension, ad hominem, ididnthearthat to secondary source citations that he doesn't like, accusations of ignorance and incompetence, and a complete dismissal of contributions from anyone who disagrees. Rvcx (talk) 21:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

There's no sign of this pattern of behavior letting up: "Who is ths Rvcx who has never contributed to the article? Just another googler who thinks this is a discussion forum?" [116]; "you've had very little experience in editing serious wikipedia articles"; "Your comments...display no intellectual grasp of what is in the reliable secondary sources"; etc. [117]. This focus on ad hominem rhetoric is...unhelpful. Rvcx (talk) 23:43, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Vecrumba

The evidence is the evidence

I was hoping not to comment as I have only recently come to the article and am not particularly interested in past conflicts at R&I, but as these proceedings persist in being more a log jam than a jam-breaker where progress is concerned... there is clearly enough recrimination to go around to cover just about any long-standing participant at the R&I article. As these proceedings can't rule on content, my suggestion is to work on expanding participation at the article and to move on. The sturm und drang over R&I (and history of R&I) is not a debate which pits facts against baseless opinions as can be the case; rather, it is a reflection of having gone down the black hole of arguments over conclusions regarding intelligence (not in scope) versus focusing on portrayal of the debate over the means by which "intelligence" is measured and quantified, and what the results have been interpreted as indicating about the methods, participants/subjects, or both (in scope). The longer this is open and the more "evidence" presented, the deeper the bad blood will flow, resolving nothing. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 19:46, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I also find the attempt to guide the discussion here and elsewhere toward denouncing editorial opposition as (let's cut the WP:ACRONYM nonsense) single-purpose accounts, meat-puppets and all in an attempt to polarize the discussion as much as possible extremely discouraging. There is no impediment to representing all viewpoints appropriately at R&I. Unfortunately, my experience has been that the more I see someone invoke WP:ACRONYMS the more it looks like attempting to squelch the opposition. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:33, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I am tending to agree with Rvcx's characterization, above. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Mathcsi's "In the past Race and intelligence and related articles have attracted largely WP:SPAs pushing the POV that as a "race" African Americans or blacks are genetically inferior to whites." I see no one pushing such a POV at the article, and Mathsci denouncing all his editorial opposition as WP:SPAs creates the clear association, however syllogistic. I suggest such comments, which can be taken to mean current editors at the article may be racists, be admonished and stricken. Denouncing one's opposition as meatpuppets and WP:SPAs is a common tactic to attack opposition while not needing to provide evidence. I've been baselessly attacked as an WP:SPA myself only because I have a predominant interest in editing WP (as opposed to my larger interests).

• I see no reason editors should attend to Peas and Carrots to avoid being labeled WP:SPAs.
• There is no place in the dialog here implying guilt by association by bringing up WP:SPAs and racists in the same breath. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 00:36, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by User:Aprock

I will update this section with more detail and diffs as time permits

Because the body of evidence is so large, and because I have limited time to devote to this, I will focus on a single (yet broad) ongoing issue. I won't be able to cover all aspects, so the presentation of evidence will likely be incomplete.

At the heart of this thread of activity is the goal of promoting primary sources, and suppressing secondary sources. A clear illustration of this approach can be seen at the article Race and crime in the United States, a page primary redeveloped by User:Varoon Arya and User:Captain Occam. After a brief introduction and history, the article leaps into a 2200 word presentation of raw data, including seven tables and little discussion from secondary sources. This approach has been referred to as the "data driven" approach by several of the SPA editors.

While this "data driven" approach may (or may not) be appropriate for an article on race and crime, it's clear that the data sources for crime statistics are at least standardized, and published on a regular schedule by governmnet agencies and represent a majority of all criminal activity in the United states.

One problem with using this sort of "data driven" approach with race and intelligence is that there is no source for standardized data. Additionally, there is no source which represents more than a small sample of any given raical population group. Finally, there is the danger that data from primary sources will be misused in such a way as to misrepresent broader understanding.

Evidence presented by Ferahgo the Assassin

Personal Information and Ad Hominem

Even though I'm not directly involved in this dispute, my name has been brought up by a few users here and I feel like I should say something about it. Race & intelligence is a topic that interests me, but so far I've steered clear of it because of the tendency for editing disputes to devolve into drama-mongering. As a result, my involvement in them has been just to express my displeasure at the politics and drama that's gone on in various noticeboards about them. I don't think I've edited the articles themselves.

Captain Occam and I know each other outside of Wikipedia, and because of this I've been very careful to follow Wikpedia's policies described here. We've both been completely open about the fact that we know each other off-Wiki, and we've never attempted to revert the same article or do anything else that would be a policy violation if done by a single user. (In response to Hipocrite’s claim that we’ve been evasive about knowing each other off-Wiki: Occam disclosed this almost immediately after I first became involved in this article, and I’ve disclosed it again more recently here. The second comment was in response to Hipocrite, so he should know this.) My contributions show that my main involvement in Wikipedia is in a completely separate group of articles from what Occam is involved in, so I'm obviously not a friend who joined just to support him. The policy pages related to this make it clear that there's nothing inherently wrong with users knowing each other off-Wiki, as long as the relevant policies have been followed. Rather than anyone appreciating my adherence to policy, though, what I've gotten instead is a near-constant stream of claims that I'm a meatpuppet, as well as a few users who can't even bring this up with me without making accusations of being his girlfriend.

There are a couple of problems with this. First of all, it's completely irrelevant to any of the discussions in which it's brought up. If anyone wants to provide a reminder that we know each other outside of Wikipedia in a discussion where it matters, it's fine being mentioned, but anything about the personal details of how we know each other is just a personal attack. This has become such a problem than any of the actual arguments I make are completely ignored in favor of providing these irrelevant ad hominems. Pointing out that this is a problem usually just results in more of the same, such as the recent exchange between me, Aprock, and Hipocrite: here. Note that Hipocrite had already asked me about whether I knew Occam off-wiki only three days earlier, and I answered him honestly, so his additional question about whether he and I are in a romantic relationship serves no useful purpose whatsoever. Also note what Hipocrite regards as "proof" of me being a meatpuppet - the fact that Occam asked me twice on-Wiki if I could become more directly involved in the same articles as him, and both times I declined the request.

The second problem about this is that I simply don't want these kinds of personal details about my life being speculated about on Wikipedia, and neither does Occam. We've never disclosed them on Wikipedia or any external page we've linked to here, as Occam pointed out in his response to Aprock in the AN/I thread: Mathsci apparently reached this conclusion by piecing together information on several DeviantArt pages, none of which specifically state this is the case, and after Mathsci brought it up other users started repeating it. According to Occam, he’s tried to get oversight to remove this information, but they weren’t able to. He also removed the DeviantArt links from his userpage, and an admin deleted the past revisions of it in an effort to stop Mathsci from continuing to bring this up, but now that these links are no longer accessible on-Wiki Mathsci is re-posting them.

In addition to the current examples of this, past examples of Mathsci bringing this up are [118] [119] and [120]. Since the instructions at Wikipedia:OUTING state “Any edit that "outs" someone must be reverted promptly,” Occam attempted to remove this information, but each time Mathsci added it back, the third time threatening Occam with a block for edit warring if he tried to remove it again. The fact that Mathsci would not allow him to remove this material is probably the reason why oversight was unable to suppress it, since this caused it to be on every subsequent revision of the page, and the more versions of a page something is on the more difficult it is for oversight to remove it.

I would appreciate it if ArbCom could evaluate whether I've been treated fairly in this respect. I think it would be unreasonable for me to be prevented from being involved in a topic that interests me just because I know one of the users off-Wiki. Does the fact that I know other users off-Wiki justify my being treated this way if I'm following all of the relevant policies that address closely-related accounts? And is it reasonable for Mathsci to ensure that my comments are never replied to with anything other than irrelevant ad hominem attacks, by preventing Occam from removing this information about me so that it can’t be oversighted, and by re-posting the personal links after an admin has deleted the page revisions containing them? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:11, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Professor marginalia

Many problem"behaviors" have been re-enacted in full living color in arbitration pages so I’ll let them speak for themselves. I'll focus on one small piece-the time wasted babysitting editors who play games with policy to further a particular pov.

Gaming and Single-minded editing

Race/intelligence issues are unavoidably sensitive. The general unfamiliarity with psychometrics combined with political-ideological baggage add to the challenge. David.Kane and Captain Occam were obviously personally invested, and didn't seem to have much wp experience before coming to the articles. What they've learned since seems motivated towards one goal: to craft strategies and play policy angles to bolster the credibility of the hereditarian pov. Brief background, when Arthur Jensen claimed the black/white IQ to be substantially genetic in 1969 he was widely attacked, including by attacks from his academic/professional colleagues. Today many, including many opponents to Jensen's hereditarian pov, will say he's been widely misunderstood. In the context of this ambivalence towards Jensen personally, imo, David.Kane's and Captain Occam reflexively overreact to protect Jensen and figures associated with him, and it interferes with their ability to cover how his work was received. By bending backwards to protect Jensen, they act as censors of claims made in sources such as they are in preference to the way they think the claims made in sources should have been written. Policy and dispute resolution are gamed to accomplish this. Just a few examples:

David.Kane games with WP:BLP beginning shortly before this. The controversial "claim" about Jensen wasn't so weakly supported as he suggests. Yes, Campbell was a controversial adversary. However Campbell was the president of the APA and a notable source. During discussions about whether or not Campbell's biases were significant, David.Kane tried to piggy-back on the Campbell/bias issue to justify wholesale deletions re Jensen in other articles which weren't sourced to Campbell--but to other reliable secondary sources. The "disputed" claim sourced to Campbell wasn't cherry-picked or an atypical analysis of Jensen's work-it was a widely shared view of one of his findings. This David.Kane well knew through discussions surrounding his earlier challenges of the claim sourced elsewhere and having nothing to do with Campbell--David.Kane knew Campbell's relationship with Jensen was completely irrelevant to most of his deletions. The references were solid-it's valid to give the Campbell cite a 2nd look, but David.Kane cherry-picked Campbell for that reason, and staged it as a "precedent" decision for further deletions. David.Kane wasn't willing to budge to allow "contentious" claims to be sourced by anybody except Jensen himself. (I've explained my strike-out and give further evidence of gaming here.)

And after spending days on multiple boards vigorously championing for Jensen via WP:BLP, my edit here to fix a real blp problem triggered this response from him, revealing his disingenuous, gamed approach to the whole thing and his indifference towards legitimate blp concerns. He continued the gamed defense here.

David.Kane-more games: This comment in support of revert to remove a reference he says "I have not read" was one in a series of rationalizing edits to content censor secondarily sourced claims about Jensen's work. He gamed over whether Jensen may have said something exactly thus in 1968 instead of 1969, or in 1972 in the book Jensen wrote about what he said in 1969, etc, exaggerating the significance beyond mere "accuracy" to a "controversial claim about a blp". David.Kane first manufactured this into a supposed "controversy" over 1968/1969/1972 after convincing himself that it was his job as editor to fact check every secondary source who disparaged Jensen's work. One source erred by used an "ibid" for the quote rather than "op.cit Jensen 1968", and although Mathsci and I (not David.Kane) both quickly sorted it out, David.Kane milked the trivial mistake in a single source's footnote as justification of widespread deletions of sourced content wholesale. Jensen has written volumes of words on this topic over the last forty years, and David.Kane now requires that all secondarily sourced"contentious" claims about his work be traced to Jensen saying such-and-such on a particular date so he can "match it up" and fact check the secondary sources himself. The source Ornstein was reverted because David.Kane didn't agree with his claim about Jensen's work--it was the fifth or sixth quality source provided to appease demands for a "different" reference for the same claim. This discussion is a rundown of the "gaming" against this latest source, where David.Kane zigzags editors around in a purely rhetorical exercise: "did Ornstein say it? did Jensen say it, in 1969? Well, who cares anyway, because it's undue weight. Oh, so what you've quoted Ornstein. Not good enough- photocopy the text and share so we can see the context. Jensen doesn't say 'all blacks should be treated differently than all whites' , so we can't use Ornstein, only Loehlin". Note what the article text David.Kane was reverting at this time actually read here - nothing whatsoever there said about treating "all blacks differently than all whites", thus just another distraction.

Captain Occam's gaming npov to spindoctor sourced claims: This euphemism to disguise what's an extensive discussion given in the source about justifications of segregation and discrimination against blacks; this which misrepresents the source, and this misapplication of a primary source to contradict a secondary source (misapplication because the primary source is making a different claim-that from a key study Jensen concluded the compensatory Head Start program was ineffective-and Captain Occam infers a "novel conclusion" from it-that the Head Start study's outcomes motivated Jensen to became a hereditarian).[121]

Noting my 1000 word limit, further examples listed here.

Misdiagnosis of the problem

Articles this controversial are challenging. David.Kane and Captain Occam were relatively inexperienced dealing with the complexities of policy and conflict resolution before coming to it, and this along with their skewed eye towards sources and claims requires a lot of hand-holding and babysitting from the community at every stage. Solutions like these [122] [123] don't get at the root of the problem. Neither would using BLP to require our coverage of scientific studies be smothered with ruby-red lipstick kisses when their authors are alive. Editors who can't work in these articles without the help of "tribal alliances", guard rails and/or full-time admin supervision shouldn't edit them, period.

Response to Captain Occam

In "fairness" what you've shown is Mathsci is relenting not because he was wrong, or because it was a non-npov claim. It looks more like a case of finding a work-around rather than edit warring with you until the end of time. And you're spinning your second example as well-it wasn't "inaccuracy" of the claim in Mathsci's reason given, but "fairness" to include Jensen's comment as well. What you did was to simply alter a sourced claim to say something other than what the source said. And for the third example, you still aren't "getting it" Any documented "failure" of a two or three year old Head Start Program on its face may suggest "the compensatory efforts like Head Start won't work", and that's the essence of Jensen's own conclusion you've quoted. It doesn't imply, nor did Jensen say, "thus proving to me intelligence is genetic." You've inferred it somehow, but that's not what it says in the source.(Interjecting 2nd note about trying to shift this off now to an Eysenck claim about Jensen, not Jensen's own claim.) If you are attributing this claim now to Eysenck rather than Jensen, explain why at the time you claimed and sourced it as Jensen's? Here, here, and in the "isn’t it obvious that when he disagrees with Jensen about Jensen’s own opinion, Tucker’s assertion about this is not neutral?" you wrote here ? Furthermore, because yours was reverted as primary sourced, DistributiveJustice backed you up-because you'd identified the claim as appearing in Jensen's own work.[124]

So where you see "I was right all along", I see "endless hours of dithering with tendentious edit warriors trying to reshape perceptions of hereditarianism."

Response to Rvcx

Taking issue with the "synth" accusation. The claims did accurately represent the secondary sources cited and don't violate WP:SYNTH. Whether or not the secondary sources used questionable "synthesis" to form their opinions is not an editor's task to judge. What editors are to base the content decisions on is whether or not the sources are good ones per WP:RS, its proper weight per WP:UNDUE, and how to attribute those claims-whether to their source as opinion or to represent it as a broadly accepted "fact". This outline of the "eugenics" dispute resorts to an "interpretation" of the primary source, and an incorrect one in by my interpretation. But editors don't interpret primary sources-per WP:OR. We must use secondary sources for this-that's the only way to do it. In the eugenics discussion-no secondary authority was put forth contradicting the source cited-it was challenged only by editors substituting their own judgment of the primary source material.

Evidence presented by ImperfectlyInformed

Both sides have poor behavior

Revised for the second time by ImperfectlyInformed on July 5th, based partially on concerns raised by Mathsci above and on talk.

I'm coming late to this party, although I've been involved for a while adding small facts supporting the anti-hereditarian ("environmentalist" is too confusing) position (example adding Tizard). My edits have not led to real conflict with the "pro-hereditarian" crowd, suggesting that the assumptions of bad faith and POV pushing are overblown - collaborative work can be done. There are issues with editor behavior on both sides: incivility on the anti side, and POV-pushing on the pro-side. Although I am concerned about the impact of pro-hereditarian editors distorting the page and impact it could have on an entire ethnic group's reputation, I think the behavior by Mathsci has been inexcusable particularly considering his experience and the behavior by Slrubenstein has not been much better. I'm reluctant to advocate punishing the pro-side and not Mathsci.

Removed in this and this by David

• Anti-hereditarian group: The main anti-hereditarian editors, Mathsci and Slrubenstein, are extremely problematic because they tend to derail the talkpage into personal attacks (Mathsci) and forumish, ad-nauseum back-and-forths (Slrubenstein, see example), generally asserting that the research is fringe science without stepping up to add the view to the article backed with refs. These editors are also quick to make accusations and broad statements, typically without diffs and solid support. What's worse is that they do not seem to do a lot of bold work of reading the sources which support their beliefs and adding the arguments to the page, but have apparently willingly left a lot of work to "the SPAs". Mathsci has apparently staked out a long battle on trying to paint Jensen as a racist based on an old paper - which is really something of questionable significance in the scheme of things. The bad faith assumptions of these editors have been extremely disruptive to productive discussion. These people need to be sternly admonished. If Mathsci can't get a handle on his temper, he needs to directed to leave the room. Slrubenstein is only moderately better. Admins have also behaved poorly - notably, User:2over0 blocked Captain Occam for 3 weeks without even presenting any specific reason except for the alphabet soup. User:2over0 should be admonished to communicate when doing sanctions, and ArbCom needs to look into the practice of essentially random blocks and ignoring the minimum standards (Wikipedia:ADMIN#Administrator_conduct) of administrator conduct. I should note that Captain Occam sent me an email requesting that I comment on 2over0, but it did not influence my decision to comment.

• Pro-hereditarian group: The most active pro-hereditarian editors, Captain Occam and David.Kane, are bold, basically civil, apparently well-meaning (in presenting ethically dubious research which is readable/understandable but based on peer-reviewed research), and have not (flagrantly) added a lot of overtly unreliable sources or removed obviously reliable sources. Like the other group, they have a tendency to use the talk page as a forum. However, they have drastically overhauled the page without real consensus (they point to mediation, but the applicable thread does not indicate consensus - see "Rewriting Article from March 30 to April 1") and without transparency (see discussion Talk:Race_and_intelligence#Plugging_my_old_ground_rules_thread_and_looking_at_the_old_article, where I asked for a summary and was referred to the mediation page, where no summary exists). In a set of 211 edits without a single edit summary (diff of versions), David.Kane removed dozens of references and sections without any summary explanation as to what or why. Suspiciously, two images supporting anti-hereditarian hypotheses were removed; all content related to questioning the motives and funding of the proponents was removed; and commentary suggesting that the social impact of this research was not high was replaced by a pro-hereditarian defense of the research. While I don't think the trimming was all bad and I'm not sure that there was a malicious intent here, the process was terrible and good information may have been lost. Compare the old version David linked above with the updated version he linked and notice that the entire section entitled "Criticism of hereditarian arguments" is gone and is not replaced as far as I can see. The images removed are on the side here. David's "trimming" was followed by a substantial amount of addition by Captain Occam (comparing start and finish) in which Occam added 14k to the page, again with no real edit summaries. This came after I chimed in on the talk page urging the editors to note when refs were removed or deleted and why as a ground rule. To be fair, Captain apparently missed my thread while David.Kane expressed agreement about ground rules.

• • Transparency and ground rules My personal rule, which I think should be endorsed by the ArbCom, is that established editors should recognize and adopt a best practice in which every edit which removes a prima facie reliable source or adds a source should be noted as such in the edit summary. If many are added/removed, mention the number of refs added/removed and if necessary refer to the thread where this is discussed on the talkpage. I don't think you always need to make a talkpage post, but you should be providing documentation for people to watch out for important edits. Also, edits which remove and re-add sections should be done in a single edit - David did a lot of removing sections entirely and then re-adding them several edits later. Despite my disappointment on the transparency of the changes, I think that the lack of documentation was to a large degree due to David and Captain Occam being newbies: I also didn't use edit summaries for my first few hundred edits. The changes made, however, seem disturbingly skewed to remove dissent and support their view, and they have falsely claimed consensus many times. Captain Occam has even reverted changes by pointing to the old "mediation consensus", essentially stonewalling changes and asking that the editor solicit the support of everyone prior to changes without even raising objections of his own (diff). This is clearly wrong, but could be put down as a newbie mistake.

Treating the talkpage as a forum to discuss their opinions

As of now, the forum has 83 archives. In response to a comment made by Slrubenstein, David.Kane recently opened yet another forumish thread asking everyone to opine on whether intelligence research is "fringe science". This was not directed at any sort of change in the article, which is probably partially why is generated a lot of excited commentary. This sort of thing occurs over and over - much of the mediation discussion was hardly focused on the article - and it serves as a deterrent to participating in the page (participants get inevitably drawn into the nonsense) and does not improve the article. When I tried to close the thread, it was reopened. Both groups need to think about taking their offtopic meandering discussions to user talk. They should return when they've hashed out their petty differences and and spent their name-calling fuel. Then they can come up with specific proposals.

Content versus conduct

I do not agree with this idea that ArbCom can't rule on content, particularly as it relates to conduct. ArbCom is an intelligent group which should be able to distinguish between obvious POV-pushing content edits and legitimate disputes. Sure, ArbCom will get things wrong, but the worst they'll do is unjustly punish a user, and such injustice could more easily occur at one of those random ANI threads. Content-related misconduct can be categorized to some degree. It includes in order of significance: (1) intentionally misrepresenting sources, (2) lying about sources in discussion, and (3) removing reliable sources for significant perspectives or facts, particularly when these sources disagree with the editor's POV, (4) adding poorly-supported or unsourced content. Of course, most people commit misconduct sometimes, but the overtness and extent determines sanctions. People will try to use WP:UNDUE, WP:SIZE, WP:FRINGE, or whatever else to justify these types of changes, but I tend to think that most perspectives can be neatly summarized in a line or two. This does not mean we have to have tons of sources: most sources present duplicate arguments, rehashing the same facts over and over. It seems to me that David.Kane has committed (3) but I'm inclined to assume good faith and put it down as a rookie mistake. I'm also reluctant to expect that everyone adopt a purely neutral perspective right off the bat, since that high scholarly standard is something that even scholars have trouble reaching.

In regard to lying about sources, ArbCom should look into the dispute over Jensen's writings, discussed Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence/Evidence#Primary_sources, and see if one side is being misleading about what's being said here.

Evidence-based accusations and bad faith

Bad faith has abounded from the anti-hereditarian side "protecting" the race and intelligence article. Enric Naval (talk · contribs) above is a case in point. Rather than documenting illustrative diffs of problematic actions by editors they dislike, they throw unsupported dirt around at ANI and continually drum up drama. These people should be sternly admonished to construct a case or collect diffs prior to making accusations. Since there are several people who are concerned about Captain Occam's behavior, why doesn't one of them create a userpage where they can all contribute diffs? I realize that this may be discouraged based upon a misguided Wikipedia policy on collecting dirt on other users, but collecting diffs of misbehavior in a userpage would be far superior to the current approach. Even at ArbCom, the group has not constructed a really well-supported case.

This sort of drama-mongering should be dealt with very harshly as it is extremely disruptive and distracting.

Size of the article and moving forward

The article has struggled with size. After reviewing the comparisons to the two sections, David.Kane improved it in that respect by adopting more a summary style while retaining a lot of information. There's a tendency to treat the article as a literature bibliography rather than as an article, adding tons of unnecessary sources stacked on top of other sources. This complicates the review and verification of the article's content. Also, certain editors will have books which others don't, making it difficult for independent observers to verify content. This is particularly problematic because there are plenty of freely-accessible, high-quality sources which could be used, which cover the entire spread of evidence. Focusing on these high-quality sources and conveying all significant perspectives, as WP:NPOV guides, is the way forward, and there is no real barrier to moving forward constructively.

Evidence presented by Biophys

The problem is poor understanding of biological concepts

It seems that most people here act in a good faith, but there is a genuine misunderstanding. I just had a conversation with Slrubenstein [125], and that is what he said: "there are no human races in a meaningful sense when one is studying humans biologically. That is pretty straightforward." [126]. Not so. He was apparently misled by statements like that by Craig Venter: "Race is a social concept. It's not a scientific one.". In fact, such statements only disprove the popular misconception of race: the existence of near-uniform groups of individuals that can be identified by a few externally visible traits such as skin color.

The critics of the popular misconception of race correctly state that "all human populations derive from a common ancestral group, that there is great genetic diversity within all human populations, and that the geographic pattern of variation is complex and presents no major discontinuity." No one disputes this. But the relative proportion of variation within and among the groups has nothing to do with disproving the biological concept of race, which is perfectly applicable to humans. For example, according to creators of evolutionary genetics Theodosius Dobzhansky or Ernst W. Mayr, races are simply genetically distinct Mendelian populations, and no one ever disputed this [127].

I guess that's the main contention point on the human races. Editing race as something that does not exist "in a meaningful sense when one is studying humans biologically" is a problem.Biophys (talk) 15:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

An update. That was apparently a response to my evidence on this page [128]. Let me just say for a record that I never made a single edit in article Race and Intelligence, and I never mentioned User:Mathsci anywhere before.Biophys (talk) 19:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

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