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About the proposed decision

This was surprisingly hard. I spent dozens of hours reading diffs to support specific behavior findings about the parties, and the same problem came up repeatedly: this is, in the end, a content dispute where behavior plays a relatively minor role. In fact, much of the delay in my posting this decision came from having to try to rewrite it several times to help solve the problem while shying away from a content ruling.

In the end, it's futile to try to frame a content problem as a behavior problem. While none of the parties' behavior has been ideal during the dispute, there is little there that raise to the level of an arbitration remedy or finding. But the problem remains that the articles are a battleground of points of views and there is no sign that the dispute will abate or resolve itself with time or gentle prompting.

Hence, this relatively novel approach. Focusing on our content pillars (NOR in particular, which has been badly bruised and battered by the dispute), by enforcing a very strict application of our policies on sources; and a remedy designed to prevent the parties from focusing exclusively on this controversial area to their (and the project's) detriment. — Coren  13:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Coren, about the remedy, a bit of guidance may be needed here: short of manually counting all edits and keeping a running tally of "R&I" vs "other" edits, what would be a good way to ensure not to run afoul of the remedy? I don't see a simple process to achieve a proper check; while it is possible to do, it sounds rather time-consuming.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, this may sound a little trite, but the best way I expect would be to stay well away from the line. I think everyone involved in this would do well to focus their efforts on other areas for a while — there is no lack of articles that need work — and not worry overmuch. The point isn't the exact count of edits but rather to dissuade focusing exclusively on one contentious area; and "one half" really is an upper bound it would be better to shy well away from. — Coren  14:41, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

(ecx2)Congratulations, an excellent proposal that addresses the problem in an intelligent way and may actually improve the situation. Thanks for restoring my lost faith that the committee really does "get" it that the encyclopedia is ultimately about content and that behavior that disrupts the creation of neutral content is a conduct problem that needs to be dealt with in order to restore a productive editing environment on articles where advocates of fringe views are continually working to bias the content. Woonpton (talk) 15:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Woonpton, you clearly have more faith than I do in both ArbCom as an institution and the present membership to be keen for them to get more involved in resolving content disputes. There are good reasons why there has never been much support for a panel charged with deciding content issues, starting with no panel having expertise in even most areas, the developing nature of knowledge at the 'cutting edge', and the damage done to the encyclopedia when such a panel gets a decision wrong (as would inevitably occur eventually). Do you really not only want such a panel, but also want it to be ArbCom? Surely if ArbCom wanted to recognise that behavior that disrupts the creation of neutral content is a conduct problem that needs to be dealt with in order to restore a productive editing environment then it would say so directly and construct a decision that explicitly sanctions those disruptive editors? To me, a conduct decision like that would be more in keeping with typical ArbCom action than this de facto content decision which leaves no individual editors sanctioned. EdChem (talk) 06:37, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you're not understanding me. As I've said below, my observations have convinced me that almost every decision ArbCom makes is a de facto content decision, so whether I "want" ArbCom to be a panel that decides content is irrelevant; it already is. Until now, the effect of ArbCom decisions on the quality of content has been almost invariably negative, with some few exceptions (Speed of Light, for example). Since the quality of content in Misplaced Pages is my main concern, for ArbCom to even propose a decision that could enable a positive effect on content, I can only see as an improvement. And no, I don't really see this as a de facto content decision in the way you see it, as a big change and an ominous one; I simply see it as a de facto content decision in the same way that ArbCom decisions have always been de facto content decisions, only this time with a positive potential outcome for the quality of content. The proposed decision isn't really a content decision; it just makes clear, for once, that content is important and that content policies should be followed, and no, I can't see that as something to be dismayed about.Woonpton (talk) 15:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Not even a gentle slap on the wrist for Mathsci, and a proposed resolution clearly designed to punish everyone but him. The proposed decision enshrines as policy the notion that entrenched editors have free reign to play by different rules. Ironic that the case endorsing the right to drive away occasional editing by real experts is based on defense of an uncivil full-time editor who happens to hold an academic position. Very disappointing. Rvcx (talk) 14:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm uncertain what you refer to, given that the only two remedies (the reminder is exactly just that) apply to everyone equally. If you are referring to the source requirement, that was already the case but simply misapplied. If you are referring to the "half time" remedy, then you're missing the point: editors who contribute strictly to one topic for a particular purpose may very well not be interested in working on the rest of the project, but then they are here for the wrong reason. — Coren  14:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Your proposed decision is entirely consistent with your contention that those who only wish to contribute to one subject aren't valued members of the community. The statistics, of course, demonstrate that most of the Misplaced Pages's content was originally contributed by such editors. I don't intend to get into a fight here—you have all the bullets—but I think this proposed decision would be detrimental to the long-term health of the project. Rvcx (talk) 15:40, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

"Not even a gentle slap on the wrist for " is itself the kind of comment that I hope will vanish from our midst now that all the editors have been reminded to be civil. From my point of view as a new Wikipedian putting myself in the place of university-educated, English-speaking adults who may want to begin editing Misplaced Pages, the previous atmosphere for editing the article looked toxic and very off-putting. There are a lot of civil, thoughtful places online for factual, calm discussion of contentious issues, and Misplaced Pages should be one of those places if it hopes to attract and keep capable volunteer editors. For the good of the whole project, I hope everyone here tones down the personal invective and agrees to work cooperatively to edit a high-quality encyclopedia. Once the ArbCom decision is decided by vote of the arbitrators, I intend to let bygones be bygones and to assume good faith on the part of all the editors. Anyone who is willing to seek out quality sources and to follow all Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines while editing the article is someone I will be happy to work with. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, apparently I'm having my own wrist slapped just as hard as an editor who has been previously reminded to adhere to civility by ArbCom, but whose conduct—even when interacting with editors he has never before encountered—has remained beyond any reasonable standards of civility. The refusal to condemn a member of the favorite few for such blatant violations of policy (whether on the right or wrong side of a content dispute) is a great reminder that trying to collaborate on Misplaced Pages is just not worth it. Obviously the project can survive without me...and without however many other editors don't have the patience for inveterate trolls like Mathsci. Rvcx (talk) 16:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem I have with this aspect of the decision isn’t specifically that Mathsci isn’t being sanctioned, but that I don’t think any of the proposed decisions will result in a change in his behavior. The question of whether we can use primary sources is only one of several elements in the disputes over these articles (although it’s the one that Mathsci has been focusing on most recently), and he’s been equally uncivil in disputes with other users over anything else, including disputes about articles about topics as unrelated as Bach’s music. (As pointed out in Varoon Arya’s original statement for this case.) If arbitrators are under the impression that resolving the question of primary sources will resolve all of Mathsci’s conflicts with other users, that’s a rather naïve assumption.

And as for why changing Mathsci’s behavior should matter, the main reason is because it’s driven away at least three other editors: Varoon Arya, DJ, and Ludwigs2 have all stated that they stopped participating in the article because they couldn’t tolerate how Mathsci was treating them. These three editors also happen to have been among the most helpful editors in writing a neutral and reliably sourced article, and many of the article’s current content issues probably wouldn’t exist if these editors hadn’t been driven off. Generally speaking, I think the editors who are most neutral also tend to be the most easily driven away, because people who have less emotional investment in a topic are less likely to think their involvement in it is important enough to endure repeated personal attacks. For that reason, if this problem is allowed to continue, I would imagine that the article’s content issues are likely to persist, because most of the editors who are willing to stick around will be those who are especially strongly entrenched in their positions.

Leaving aside the question of whether this problem is something ArbCom should tolerate from a behavior perspective, shouldn’t they at least be concerned about it because of how it exacerbates the article’s content issues? If ArbCom doesn’t address this issue at all, I imagine that very little of the conflict over these articles is likely to change, and we may end up needing another arbitration case about it within a year. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

de facto content ruling?

I am a complete outsider to this dispute, but have been following along. I am curious as to whether I am the only one who sees the proposed decision as the content ruling you have when you are not having a content ruling. I can sympathise with the difficulty Coren had in crafting a suitable decision, and I accept that he has endeavoured to avoiding making definitive content findings - but I think that a de facto content ruling follows from the decision.

For example, the question was raised about if the wording used by an author in relation to a topic differ from the description of the author's view in secondary sources. This regularly occurs in a variety of areas - misrepresentation of Charles Darwin's writings in creationist sources being one obvious example. Now, in an area like evolution there are many sources available and plenty of secondary sources available that document such misrepresentations. In a narrow and minor area where there are few writers, the availability of secondary sources to correct any such misrepresentations that might occur seems less certain. In reading the evidence, this seemed to me to be a contentious question. In the proposed decision, there is no direct answer to the question but in emphasising the importance of secondary sources and criticising original research (both of which in isolation are reasonable policy-based statements for the proposed decision to include), it seems to me that the question is effectively being answered... and the answer is, a secondary source statement of an author's view of topic X outweighs the author's own words on topic X. Similarly, the finding relating to the mediation effectively rules against all the content conclusions that flowed from it, though without an explicit statement to that effect. Correct me if I am wrong, but the cumulative content implications of this decision appear to me to be an endorsement of the content position advocated by MathSci.

I do not have any view of what the content should be - I don't know enough about the specifics of the area - and thus take no view of whether a content ruling should reflect what this proposed decision seems to me to conclude. However, I do think that a content decision should be explicit. If ArbCom is making a content decision, then please be open is saying so... if you are not making any content decision, then I suggest you redraft this decision so it doesn't read as a de facto content ruling. EdChem (talk) 15:16, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

It is, I suppose, as little of a content ruling as possible. Strictly speaking, the Committee has no rule against content rulings — though we've always been very clear we try to avoid them as far as possible. This is a case where the content is indeed the problem, and the solution will pretty much inevitably flow from that.

So yes, in effect, it's a content decision because it directly affects what the content of the article will end up being, although the decision imposes a stringent application of existing rules rather than select the content itself. — Coren  15:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

What I think the committee has failed to recognize, but that has been very obvious to this outside observer, is that almost every ArbCom decision "affects what the content of the article will end up being," like it or not. So it's better IMO to knowingly make a decision that directly affects content in a good direction, than to blindly make a decision that inadvertently affects content in a bad direction, which is what seems to happen more often than not. Woonpton (talk) 15:43, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Of course it does, but the idea is that — in an ideal world — once you remove the disruptive influences the content will shift towards the "baseline" our policies and guidelines imply. So the intent is to remove influences on content rather than impose new ones.

This case is different, IMO, in that this was a case where the content had shifted too much towards original research and a shove back was needed. — Coren  15:54, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of published sources on topics related to the article topic, and many of those are reliable sources even by the strictest Misplaced Pages source standards for editing the article going forward. Any editor of any current opinion about the underlying facts is welcome to use good-quality sources to edit the article. That decision simply upholds Misplaced Pages core policies and even-handedly invites many hands to make light work. The proposed decision, about which ArbCom as a whole will have the final say, both allows and prompts the article content to develop in a better direction. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of published references. We do not need to resort to establishing some definitive wikipedian interpretation of Darwin as a primary source to handle creationist sourced misinterpretations. For dealing with Darwin as well as race/intelligence articles, policy has determined we use secondary sources as our guide. Professor marginalia (talk) 17:18, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Something I’m disappointed by about the proposed ruling regarding primary sources is that it does not address the question of BLP policy. This has been brought up a few times on the workshop and evidence page—what should we do when several reliable secondary sources claim that a living person advocates a certain idea in their writings, yet there is no actual example of this person advocating such an idea in their writings, and in some of their writings they actually deny favoring the idea? This has primarily been an issue with regard to Arthur Jensen, and Jimbo Wales offered his opinion about it on the BLP noticeboard: that in order to claim something like this about a living person, “we need it from his own words, not the synthesis and conclusion-drawing of his critics.”

Should BLP policy simply be ignored in situations like this, contrary to the advice that Jimbo Wales offered about it? That’s what this ruling appears to suggest, but since it does not mention BLP policy or how this policy can be reconciled with the ruling, that isn’t entirely clear. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

BLP policy has always allowed and will continue to allow sourced statements that make clear who said what. So if the source by Professor Smith says, "I think Arthur Jensen wants black and white students to have separate educations," then it's okay in the article--if the source can be verified--to say "Professor Smith wrote that he views Arthur Jensen's proposals as advocating separate education for black and white students." It would not be according to Misplaced Pages policy, in such a case, to write in article text "Arthur Jensen has proposed separate education for black and white students" if the only reference is to Professor Smith's writing.

In general, it should be possible to write the entire article without making any biographical statement about any of the main writers on the issue. Referring simply to the facts and citing sources for the undisputed facts and which facts are still in dispute should be enough, no matter who said what. In the biographical article Arthur Jensen, there has to be broad scope for sourced statements about his life and work, because that's what a biographical article with neutral point of view will have in any encyclopedia. But the article we are most discussing here is not a biography, but perhaps an article that will have wikilinks out to other biographical articles, if it is not to be of excessive length. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Informal mediation finding of fact

While this is not a major issue, since I actually agree with the thrust of the comment, I am confused by the presentation. Please note:

1. No evidence was presented (to my knowledge) that the mediation purported to create a binding decision
2. There is some evidence (I believe) that a few participants held that opinion, but that was the result of unfamiliarity with the process - they were corrected by myself and others
3. There are multiple instances in evidence where editors were reminded that they may leave the mediation, ask to have the mediation closed, or in other ways terminate the mediation or their involvement with it.

In short, I have no idea whatsoever where you got this "purported to create a binding decision" language.

The crux of this issue is not that the mediation was 'purported as binding', but that a single editor refused to leave the mediation, refused to seek consensus on closure, and dedicated himself to disrupting the discussion. Mathsci had it in his power to end the mediation at any point simply by raising the issue in the mediation, and I explained this point to him several times. He chose not to (for reasons only he can explain) - an editor cannot be said to be 'bound' simply because he refuses to open the door in front of him.

In other words, we are not talking about a 'binding decision', we are talking about whether editors can ignore or subvert the process they themselves agreed to when they sign onto informal mediation (because the top of every mediation page begins with statements of principles that editors agree to when signing on). And yes, in fact, no editor is required to keep his word and participate in the mediation with good faith, but the fact that an editor chooses to violate good faith is not an indication that other editors are trying to impose a binding decision.

As I said, I don't disagree with the principle, and it's no skin off my nose either way. I am concerned, however, that this particular wording will create an incentive towards disruptive behavior in future mediations - e.g. editors signing onto mediations for the single purpose of poleaxing the mediation at a future date, if that becomes necessary for some reason of advocacy. That would effectively render mediation useless in any contentious case.

Since this finding of fact is:

1. (So far as I can tell) unsupported by evidence
2. Seems to misinterpret the actual conditions of the mediation
3. Has potentially broad ranging and damaging consequences

I suggest a rewording. --Ludwigs2 17:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Is there a problem?

Coren has proposed that behavior issues have played only a minor role in this dispute. I have also previously argued that based on our current policies, there have been no obvious policy violations from any editors involved in this dispute , . So it is not a surprise that Coren hasn't come up with any either. I had previously stated "Overall, we have a problem that doesn't fit nicely into any category." Since the dispute is somewhat unique, either no action would be taken (meaning there is no problem at all) or whatever action would set a new precedent. I think the current proposal is between these two extremes.

We cannot determine the nature of this problem by examining existing policies, but by looking at the symptoms. It is like an undocumented illness. We have a prolonged and energy sapping dispute that is in its tenth month. Without any major changes, the dispute can potentially continue indefinitely. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Topic restrictions

The current proposal suggests a topic restrictions for all involved parties. I understand this is meant to be impartial. There are a number of issues with the 50% race and intelligence editing restriction. Firstly some editors already have editing records that are consistent with this restriction. So some editors don't need the restriction to achieve the same effect, whereas others do. I personally would like to spend 0% of my time editing race and intelligence as I find the subject, in its current state, quite distasteful. I had previously stated that "the fact that some editors have taken interest in only one controversial topic and nothing else for about 7 months is intellectually unhealthy and quite depressing" . In short why should topic restrictions be placed on editors who are already more than happy to volunteer there efforts elsewhere. Secondly, I agree with Cool Hand's concerns about gaming the 50% editing restriction. This is summed up in the humorous essay Misplaced Pages:Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you, which states

Start a single-purpose account to push your particular point-of-view, while carefully adhering to all Misplaced Pages policies and making a few token edits to other articles to muddy the issue.

Wapondaponda (talk) 18:07, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

We'll learn to deal with this set of remedies as they are adopted by ArbCom vote. There is always plenty to edit on Misplaced Pages. By the way, thanks for the link to the humor essay Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you, which I had not seen before. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Alas, I do believe there are times and places appropriate to the exercise of the (rhetorical) "nuclear option." After reading the essay, I can only hope that this predilection is not symptomatic of compensation for some personal deficit. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

• Heh. Cool Hand Luke 03:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

On Using Only Secondary Sources

Does anyone else but me think that this aspect of the proposed solution is potentially a huge deal? Consider the discussion here and note that, according to this footnote: "The Ithaca College Library compares research articles (primary sources) to review articles (secondary sources)." In other words, no more citations to peer-reviewed scientific publications (unless they are review articles). I am not for or against this change, I just want to point out that only 10% (?) of the article is currently cited to secondary sources. Comments? David.Kane (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

You're confusing perspectives. From the Library's point of view, papers are primary sources. From ours, one step removed, they are secondary sources. — Coren  22:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, wait, I see what you mean. Yes, a research paper itself is a primary source even from our perspective. Those would normally be acceptable, but in this topic area they have been used to draw conclusions (hence the new stringent application). There is no argument that this needs or should be extended to other topics. — Coren  22:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Coren, your last comment just ate a comment of mine in an edit conflict in which I thanked David for bringing up this question. I think I get what you mean, but I will ask follow-up questions by way of making sure we are all on the same page as we work amicably together in the future to edit the article. By what is said in your comment immediately above, this secondary-sources preference especially applies to the article under arbitration to avoid original research by the Wikipedians, especially synthesis of primary sources not attested in secondary sources. There are numerous secondary sources on this topic--by any reasonable definition, including review articles published in journals--but what is to be avoided is use of a first research report by a direct researcher on some topic based on bench or field research, right? I'm happy to keep discussing this until I am sure I am doing the right thing, so please correct me if I am incorrectly understanding what you wrote. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a concrete example will help. Consider this sentence from the article: "According to a paper by Hala Elhoweris, Kagendo Mutua, Negmeldin Alsheikh and Pauline Holloway, teachers' referral decisions for students to participate in gifted and talented educational programs was influenced in part by the students’ ethnicity." I have not checked this citation myself, but let us assume it is correct. Should this sentence, and the accompanying citation, be removed from the article if this proposal passes? This article certainly meets WP:RS but, as best I can understand things, it is a primary source. David.Kane (talk) 22:48, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

David, I appreciate concrete examples whenever people are discussing boundary conditions of policies. Let's see what the arbitrators say, but it seems to me that if the assertion "teachers' referral decisions for students to participate in gifted and talented educational programs was influenced in part by the students’ ethnicity" is sourced solely to the article by Alsheikh, Elhoweris, Holloway, and Mutua (who appear to be the researchers who gathered the data in the field), then for this article the assertion is unsourced, and has to go. But if some Wikipedian finds a similar assertion in a handbook about psychology for psychology graduate students (I am reading such a book today) or in some other reliable, secondary source, the assertion could stay in the article, sourced to the source that fits the proposed decision in this case. You recall that I disagreed with you when you floated the idea of having a defined, limited source list, but I can actually see this sourcing rule doing a lot to help the article be an encyclopedic treatment of the subject (rather than a he-said, she said dialog among quoted experts) and especially to be of reasonable length, as only assertions that meet that sourcing requirement will get into the article. There will still be plenty to discuss among the editors, but this looks like a way to go forward collegially with good verifiability of the article content. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, the point of my example was not that Alsheikh et al gathered the data themselves. I just picked this sentence at random as one which illustrated a source to a peer-reviewed academic article. As I understand the rule, this article (and any similar article) would need to go. (Of course, the same information in a secondary source like a review article or handbook would be fine.) David.Kane (talk) 23:46, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

If it's a data study, it's a primary source. Doesn't matter if they gathered the data, or used raw data somebody else gathered. Based on its ERIC record it appears to be a primary source. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not being clear. My concern is not with this specific study. My question is: What research articles that the article currently cites would still be allowed if this proposal passes? As best I can tell, almost none of them. Am I missing something? David.Kane (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

David.Kane, that is not the right question to ask, It's the articles you haven't used, possibly because they don't represent the point of view you want to convey. There's the article of Loehlin in Handbook on Intelligence. There is an article by Mike Anderson on "Intelligence and biology - the Race/IQ controversy" in a recent OUP book (Tall tales ...) as well as his forthcoming book Myths of intelligence: mind, race and genes. Most of the "science" part of the article is not properly written and I believe you assembled most of it. You should have used secondary sources and you didn't. At one point you expressed great enthusiam for Mackintosh's book IQ and Human Intelligence but failed to report its main conclusion on "ethnic groups". In this particular area where very little research is done (by current standards), some editors have acted as if there is some new truth that has to be represented on wikipedia, a sort of paradigm shift. Nothing very much seems to have changed since 1998 or 2000. Am I missing something? Mathsci (talk) 06:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the statements in the decision about primary and secondary sources show confusion confusion. Consider the following 4 possibilities: 1. Someone (say, to make it concrete, Jensen) writing a scientific paper in a research journal giving his analysis of his own observational data. 2. The same person writing a scientific paper in a research journal giving his own analysis of some else's published observational data. 3. The same person writing in a review journal a summary of his published articles and observational data. 4. The same person writing in a review journal a general summary of the published work by others. Which of these is a primary source? Which a secondary? Is there any actual difference between them? And consider also the variation of a person writing a summary of his own data in which he apparently or explicitly contradicts views he has previously published. Do we accept a bare quotation from earlier or later work as the authority, or do we analyze them? Is that analysis OR? In reality, all scientific papers contain a presentation of one's findings, as well as an interpretation of others' findings to show how one's own works supports of differs from them. Is part of the paper a primary source and part a secondary source? Worded differently, and applying to the arts as well as the sciences, is an author the authority of what he meant to say in a book? or are subsequent critics the authority of what he meant to say in a book? Or is only the reader the authority? In any situation, do we trust what someone says about his own motivations and the ultimate meaning of what he has written or said? Do we ignore it entirely?

Personally, I do not see how anyone can actually write an intelligible encyclopedia article on any subject without doing their own analysis or their own synthesis. At a minimum, they must select the sources they want to use and the parts they want to quote, and this requires both understanding and analysis. In fact, any summary inherently involves interpretation; even the most objective writing involves judgement.

I agree with some of the criticism above that Coren's proposals, which I accept are intended as totally fair and objective, will nonetheless work as if they were specifically crafted to express his own view of the subject. DGG ( talk ) 01:26, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Attempting to stick things into "primary" sources so that one can contend that what scholars state in studies cannot be put in an article, only what a 3rd party says about a study, is one of the major impediments to writing inclusive, thorough, and thus not "balanced" but "representative" content accurately reflecting the current state of scholarship on R&I. I regret that under the covers this is at best a big fat huge red herring, at worst, misdirection standing in the way of good content. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Including primary source arbitrarily is unworkable. There are literally thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of primary sources. Selecting a subset based on a personal editors POV, as is the wont of some, is clearly not in the best interest of the project. aprock (talk) 02:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

About subsets, that is why I argue for a more inclusive view of sources to enable better narrative. At the risk of not understanding distinctions... I accept considering an initial study published in a peer-reviewed journal as a "primary" source. However, because such a study is at the head of an ensuing chain of discussion, it is inappropriate not to include it because it is not a secondary source. What is inappropriate is to include the findings of the study as anything other than that. Following closely on are (peer-reviewed) initial reviews (secondary) of the study. We should look for ones which represent the study accurately (for example, in-context quotations with appropriate context around them by the commentator). There are also reviews which pillory same-said primary sources—we can and should include such reviews as well, but not exclusively, otherwise we create he-said/she-said content which communicates little more than random facts. Then come texts, etc. in which the aforementioned primary and secondary are part of a much larger milieu being described, analyzed, and conclusions drawn.

   To the "thousands" of primary sources, there are not thousands which become the progenitors of long-lasting scholarly dialog. It's a simple barometer—if a study hasn't generated much scholarly interest or subsequent discussion, it's not significant enough for inclusion. An exception would be something recent by a recognized expert in the field which has yet to make it deep into secondary sources—this would need to be represented under a "Latest developments" or similar section to make it clear that any conclusions have not withstood the test of time. Hope this helps. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Peters (and David, who opened this section), the thing about the guideline to rely on secondary rather than primary sources is that it effectuates long-standing Misplaced Pages policy. I do not expect ArbCom to decide this case contrary to Misplaced Pages policy. We are editing an encyclopedia here, not contributing to a blog. The Misplaced Pages No original research policy says, "Misplaced Pages does not publish original research." It also says, "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on an article topic, Misplaced Pages should not have an article about it." The Misplaced Pages Identifying reliable sources guideline says, "Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. When relying on primary sources, extreme caution is advised: Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves." It also says, "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves." We all have to sign off on this if we want to edit Misplaced Pages. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 15:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The issue is, ultimately, not with what the source "is" but rather how it is used. We distinguish between different kinds of sources largely because they lend themselves to different kinds of uses. But it is the use that is the issue. DGG is right that no one can do research without doing some degree of generalization or synthesis. But I do not think this is the issue Misplaced Pages cannot prohibit editors from thinking! What Misplaced Pages can do is provide policies on how one edits. So anyone can come up with their own synthesis or generalization, the policy is, they cannot put their own synthesis or generalization into an article. This is where primary and secondary can be a useful distinction (but only if one understands the larger issue). Take primary sources that just present data. They make no synthetic claims. No policy prohibits any editor from quoting it in order to represent the data. The problem is, many editors will cite a primary source and then use that data to support an argument. That is their synthesis and it doesn't belong in Misplaced Pages. During the mediation MathSci pointed out many times where other editors were doing just this. Secondary sources generally go beyond presenting or referring to data, and provide thei own arguments, and it is perfectly acceptable to include these in WP. MathSci'e preference for secondary sources, which I share, needs to be understood as using secondary sources as sources of arguments, generalizations, synthetic statements and the like. Now I can imagine some documents that seem to defy classification - unpublished research papers for example, are they primary or secondary sources? What if they present arguments, can we use them? here I think there is a risk of refering to NOR as a distraction. My real concern would be notability - if it is unpublished (if it has not gotten through peer review for example) we have no means of judging how reliable the source is, how significant the viws expressed in it are. My sense is, not very, and it would be on those grounds that I ould object to them.

The objective here is to create an encyclopedia whose articles provide accurate accounts of established research on a topic, that provide all significant views correctly identifying majority and minority views. When looking at any source, the question is: how confident can we be that it will help us fulfill our mission? What is the risk of it subverting our mission? I think this is the spirit motivating most of our many policies and guidelines and I do not see why it is so hard to apply them, knowing what our goal is. Whatever the sources is, we have to know how to use it in a way that is not tied to our own viewpoint. I think Rawl's "veil of ignorance" could be helpful here. If you can imagine that someone who holds views opposed to your own could, on the basis of what the source says and what our policies say, make the edit you are about to make, you are probably on firm ground. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Single Issue Editors

I agree with this statement but oppose listing it as a "principle":

"While there is no prohibition against editors focusing exclusively, or almost exclusively, on a single article or topic area, the community has historically been wary of editors who do so: in many cases, editors who contribute to a single narrow topic area do so in order to advance a specific point of view rather than to improve the encyclopaedia."

I oppose the inclusion of this statement because it is not a principle. Rather, it is merely an observation of a mild form of bigotry historically existing within the community. An editor who focuses "exclusively, or almost exclusively, on a single article or topic area" could be a advocate (a slightly frustrating thing), or someone with specialised area of interest and knowledge (a good thing), they could be an expert (a very good thing). Some one who does not focus "exclusively, or almost exclusively, on a single article or topic area" could be a wikignome (very good thing), or an administrator (a good thing), or a vandal (a slightly frustrating thing). Neither group is inherently better or worse than the other, and both are important to the Misplaced Pages community. Misplaced Pages also needs more experts, and experts are also going to happen to be Single Issue Editors. The inclusion of the above statement as a "principle" reenforces this mild form of bigotry based on an unsubstantiated generalisation historically made by the community. Gregcaletta (talk) 03:26, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

“The inclusion of the above statement as a "principle" reenforces this mild form of bigotry based on an unsubstantiated generalisation historically made by the community.”

Not only do I agree with this, but I think it’s been a major problem on these articles. When I first became involved in the race and intelligence article, it was tagged as needing attention from an expert, so around the beginning of this year I found a professional cognitive psychologist (Bryan Pesta, aka Bpesta22) who was willing to participate in the discussion here in order to satisfy this requirement. He was the author of several peer-reviewed papers about IQ, including one that discussed race and IQ, but since IQ was his area of expertise he did not participate in any non-IQ-related articles. And as a result, all of the same accusations regarding “single-purpose advocacy accounts” were made against him also, and in May Mathsci tried to get him topic-banned. The topic ban proposal did not succeed, but he specifically commented on the fact that there was a good chance of “the treatment one gets here” dissuading most published experts in these topics from wanting to contribute to articles about them. Bpesta22 quit participating in the articles shortly after this, so it seems as though this may have now happened to him also. Is this hostility towards expert contributors something that Misplaced Pages should encourage? --Captain Occam (talk) 04:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Most of us know how to use google. And when "experts" are recruited from the blogosphere, most savvy users will be able to trace the telltale footprints--often a several years long complete package with the extensive history of dissent the "experts" may have (or maybe not) routinely encountered there. So 1) it's a hard sell to pretend this is a wikipedia weirdity if sometimes these "experts" weren't automatically given the red-carpet welcome here and 2) a hard sell to pretend that sometimes "experts" aren't invited here because the internet is a great place to shop for the opinions people want to find. Professor marginalia (talk) 06:19, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you may have missed the point here, Professor. The point is that an editor who focuses "exclusively, or almost exclusively, on a single article or topic area" is not inherently more or less valuable than an editor who edits a larger number of articles but with less focus. The inclusion of the above statement reenforces the unsubstantiated generalisation historically made by this institution that more focused editors are somehow inherently less valuable that Wikipedians who edit more broadly with less focus on any particular subject. This belief is a mild form of bigotry which is potentially reenforced by statements such as the one above. Gregcaletta (talk) 06:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I have. The most valuable wikpedian's are unlikely to be those recruited to come here from a blog somewhere to push a pov. When wikipedia is more about what editors want to say than what readers deserve to read, somebody please let me alert me asap because as an editor I'm here as a reader trying to give back to the community. Professor marginalia (talk) 06:36, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"When wikipedia is more about what editors want to say than what readers deserve to read, somebody please let me alert me asap because as an editor I'm here as a reader trying to give back to the community." Well said, Professor marginalia; you express my reason for being here. I only stepped into the minefield known as Misplaced Pages editing after being assured by John Broughton and Phoebe Ayers et al. that Misplaced Pages is really intended to be a neutral point of view encyclopedia based on reliable sources. Online forums for advocacy are a dime a dozen--and the content found on most of those forums is worth no more than what readers pay to visit them. An online encyclopedia with multiple editors all bound by Misplaced Pages's core principles can be something much better for learning and for sharing information, but it is especially vital, according to the authors I read before I started editing here, for the principles of NPOV and V to be upheld here if that learning is to occur. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Gregcaletta, I would recommend reading the discussion that Mathsci linked to, including both my and Bpesta22’s explanation there of how we came into contact with one another. As has been stated several times, I did not know what his opinion was about race and intelligence until after inviting him to become involved in Misplaced Pages, because he was not discussing this in any of his blog comments—the blog debate he was involved in was over whether IQ tests could measure mental ability at all, and the only opinion Bpesta22 was expressing there was that they could. (Which is enough of a mainstream position that I don’t think I can be faulted for inviting an expert who held this opinion.) Since Professor Marginalia was involved in the AN/I thread that this discussion was part of, I would assume he’s aware of that this was the only one of Bpesta22’s opinions I knew about when I invited him here. So his claim that Bpesta22 was “recruited to come here from a blog somewhere to push a pov” is a perfect example of the form of bigotry you were talking about. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:57, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. The statement in question does not define "Single Issue Editors" as "those recruited to come here from a blog somewhere to push a pov". Instead, it defines them as editors who specialise in a particular area, which is much more broad, and includes many constructive editors, including experts in general. Gregcaletta (talk) 06:59, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I was involved in an AN/I discussion about bpesta22? Uh, no. As far as I know, we hadn't so much as crossed paths in edit disputes. Professor marginalia (talk) 07:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I said that you were involved in the AN/I thread that the discussion about Bpesta22 was part of, not that you were involved in the discussion about him specifically. Look for yourself. You were one of the main participants in the portion of the thread that was about David.Kane: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents/Race_and_intelligence#Request_to_topic_ban_David.Kane_from_Race_and_Intelligence_topics --Captain Occam (talk) 08:11, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, you and other mediation participants had been locking horns for months. You'd invited bpesta off-wiki to come here at the very moment you'd been rigid against any of the parties attempting a rewrite except those editors sharing your POV, such as David.Kane and Distributivejustice. In the link you supplied in this thread, bpesta22 described where he and you first came together. As anyone following his road map will immediately discover, you and he met on a blog where his views on race and IQ differences were a very hot topic, for months, including many threads centered on a published paper of his that he'd urged the bloggers to read--a paper he authored about black and white IQ differences. It's unlikely that anyone reading there could have overlooked all the flames. You say, "I did not know what his opinion was about race and intelligence until after inviting him," but before he'd shown up you announced that it was it was exactly because of his opinions about race/IQ differences he shared with you that you thought he'd be a help here. "I think someone with this type of opinion is exactly who we need in order to edit the article neutrally." Did you invite any of the environmentalist leaning scientists participating in that blog to come here? Or just this one, the single, much besieged hereditarian? So get real. Professor marginalia (talk) 17:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

So basically, you think Bpesta22 and I have been lying about the circumstances under which we met. This is a pretty blatant assumption of bad faith. As reluctant as I am to link to external sites here, because of the way Mathsci tends to take this as permission to use anything he can find there as ammunition for personal attacks, at this point it looks like I don’t have much other choice if I want to demonstrate how wrong you are, both to you and to the arbitrators.

This is where I met Bryan Pesta. P. Z. Myers was claiming that IQ tests can’t reliably measure mental ability, and Bpesta22 (under the same name he uses at Misplaced Pages) was arguing that they could. I’d never encountered him before this, and it had been my only interaction with him as of when I invited him to Misplaced Pages. He did not tell me about his paper about race and IQ until after I invited him to Misplaced Pages—in fact, it was in response to my invitation that he told me about this paper—so naturally, when I brought up on the article talk page that I’d invited him here, I thought this paper was worth mentioning.

Now tell me: where in the linked thread were Bpesta22’s views on race and intelligence discussed? Where in this thread was the paper he published about this even mentioned? And if you can’t find any evidence on that page to support what you’re claiming about us, I would like you to apologize to me for not only assuming bad faith about both of us, but assuming that both Bpesta22 and I have been lying every time we described this. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, I'm not going to help you continue pretending that it's your fellow editors' responsibility to read your innermost and most unbiased intentions rather than what you yourself have made evident in your posts and edit history. Did bpesta say he met you on PZ Myers blog? No. He said he met you on Greg Laden's blog. Bpesta said to google the blog and read it there, recommending we start with the earlier entries. You're the one who brought bpesta into this thread, you provided the link where he said he met you. And the edit history shows that even before he's arrived here, it's you who introduced him here to your fellow mediators as the author a paper on Race and IQ. It's you who explained what his opinions were before he'd joined wikipedia, and you who proposed how those opinions made him "exactly who we need". So man up and accept responsibility for what you say in your own posts because I will not be responsible for expressing "bad faith" for taking what you say to mean what it says. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, now might be a good time to stop misrepresenting me. You were already cautioned on the workshop discussion page for making childish remarks about a typing error. There is a search facility on WP:ANI which allows users to place "Bpesta22" as a search term. This is what comes out: User:Enric Naval suggested a topic ban on Bpesta22 and I did not participate in the discussion. Please refactor your statement. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 06:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I’ll refactor it when you refactor the comments that you’ve been asked to refactor, including by the arbitrators themselves, and that you’ve refused to. When you’re unwilling to refactor anything you’ve written even at the request of arbitrators, you have no business requesting this from other editors. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think Misplaced Pages needs to distinguish single purpose editing from agenda editing. Focusing on one's area of expertise is not usually a problem, especially if the material being worked on is non-controversial. If an editor focused only on say myrmecology related articles, I don't see that as being a problem. This type of expert single issue editing is probably beneficial to wikipedia as such editors are simply trying to share their knowledge with the rest of the world, and such editors usually work on lesser known subjects. The difference is that these expert single issue editors use Misplaced Pages as a vehicle to inform whereas agenda editors try to use wikipedia as a vehicle to persuade.

While the core race and intelligence content on wikipedia isn't perfect, it is somewhat "mature" in that much of the material has been debated several times over. There was a time a few years ago when the race and intelligence article was split into several daughter articles, each was quite informative. So there is not much new information available on the subject. What is pretty much taking place in this dispute is the recycling of old arguments. In short what is taking place is more like attempts to persuade rather than attempts to inform.

Wapondaponda (talk) 10:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, agenda editing is really the issue. Misplaced Pages probably needs more good articles from myrmecologists. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 13:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I would agree to this if I didn’t have the suspicion that “agenda editing” is going to become an umbrella term that’s used for any editor who has a somewhat narrow range of interests and holds a particular viewpoint. Remember that everybody has a point of view, and that having and expressing one isn’t POV-pushing if you’re still able to edit articles in a neutral fashion. POV-pushing also is equally a problem whether it comes from editors whose contributions have a wide or narrow focus.

If agenda accounts are going to be defined in the manner that they’ve been defined up to this point, such as in the scientology arbitration case—that is, as someone whose involvement in Misplaced Pages is solely for the purpose of promoting a particular viewpoint—then very few of the editors who’ve recently been involved in these articles fit the definition of agenda accounts. The only recent contributors to these articles who I think fit this definition are TechnoFaye and T34CH, neither of whom have been consistently active in the past few months. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be recognizable enough that some editors on this issue skew their own definition of a "neutral fashion" of editing heavily in direction of undue weight on a minority point of view, to the degree of deleting sourced content from articles based on secondary sources that meet the highest reliability standards. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Single purpose editing by itself would generally not be a problem. However the combination of SPA editing with advocacy and article ownership can be quite potent and problematic for obvious reasons. Single purpose accounts are able to concentrate all their efforts on a small number of articles, if article ownership is involved, it will be very difficult for other editors to add material that the article owner does not agree with. Likewise the combination of SPA editing and advocacy will also result in articles that represent the views of the advocate more than the views of the broader community. This is because the typical wikipedian, especially the productive ones, tend not to be SPAs. The main problem that arises from problematic SPA editing is the disproportionate representation of the SPA's views relative to the views of the broader community. If one disagrees with an SPA, the only way to counter an SPA is to become one. So SPA editing has a snowball effect. A few SPA seeds can result in several more.

The race and intelligence dispute has been affected by all three problematic editing types. I wouldn't be surprised if this dispute has not had a single day's rest since the beginning of the year. There were only a couple of days during the Christmas holiday period of 2009 that nobody edited anything to do with Race and intelligence. Apart from that period, it has pretty much been non-stop action 7 days a week. This is highly unproductive, unhealthy and clearly illustrates article ownership problems. It is almost as if some editors are keeping a 24 hour vigil on race and intelligence issues. Imagine what this time could have been used for. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:08, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

You’ve just explained what’s causing me to be an SPA. What you don’t seem to realize is that an editor doesn’t have to be a literal SPA in order to have a level of devotion to an article that other editors aren’t able to keep up with except by becoming SPAs themselves. The best example of this is probably Mathsci’s involved in the History of the race and intelligence controversy article in April and May, when his position about the article was being opposed by me, DJ, Varoon Arya, Mikemikev, and David.Kane. Despite not being classified as a literal SPA, Mathsci was at least as active on this article as all five of the rest of us combined, and this can be seen by looking at the article’s edit history during that time. I don’t know how in the world Mathsci managed this, but it required all of the time I’m capable of devoting to Misplaced Pages in order to keep up with him on this article, even when there were four other users attempting to do the same thing.

I agree that advocacy and (especially) article ownership are big problems here, but I think this problem exists among a lot more editors than the group of them against whom you most often make this accusation. If you can agree to that, then I guess we’re on the same page about this. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Not quite. Almost everyone involved in this dispute has devoted a lot of time and energy to it, so we do have a snowball of highly vested editors. My suggestion is to determine the seeds of this snowball, and this might help deescalate the situation. Having observed this article for a couple of years, I know that this article goes through long periods of low activity. For example the July 2009 revision history shows that it took over a month for 50 edits to accumulate. May 2009 revision history shows that it took over 2 months for 50 edits to accumulate. Currently it just takes 5 days for 50 edits. At some stage last year the seeds got involved in this dispute and the rest is history. Wapondaponda (talk) 02:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the article’s relatively inactivity in early to mid 2009 was the result of user:Legalleft having been driven away from it with incivility and stonewalling—in other words, pretty much the same behavior that’s had the same effect on a few other editors more recently. This seems to be what inevitably happens whenever a new editor or group of editors shows up in the article who disagrees with the dominant group of editors who’ve been involved in it for several years. When they do successfully drive away a newbie, it results in a deceptively calm period for the next few months, but this doesn’t mean the problem has actually been solved; all it means is just that the next flare-up will inevitably happen whenever the next time is that another new editor shows up who opposes them.

If we’re going to try and trace this problem back to its root cause, the root cause is long-term article ownership from Mathsci and a few other editors. Even if everyone whose involvement in the article resulted in the most recent flare-up were topic-banned, this would only delay the next manifestation of the problem until the next time another new editor or group of editors attempts to oppose the dominant group, which generally happens at least once per year.

Perhaps I should have mentioned this in my arbitration evidence. It hasn’t occurred to me that ArbCom would be looking into what the underlying problem is that’s caused the conflict over this article for the past several years, but I guess I should have realized that they might want to. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:28, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

If the "root cause" of conflict in the Race and intelligence article can be traced to the fact that the subject attracts SPA to wikipedia driven to Right great wrongs over the supposed silencing of "politically incorrect" but "scientifically validated" links between race and genetically inherited intelligence, well....is that what it is? Or do you find SPAs in the "politically correct" camp too? Because if this is just "newbie abuse", we should find newbies on either side abused in roughly equal measure. So do we find this? Professor marginalia (talk) 05:27, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with “righting great wrongs”, and I have no idea why you’re claiming that I think it does. If you can ask me a simple question that doesn’t involve putting words in my mouth, then I’ll answer it, but I have no interest in trying to force my explanation of how this gone on into the mold of whatever you’re trying to make me say. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. Then let me put it this way: Why do you think user:Legalleft was "driven away"? Given his edit history suggesting very strong emphasis on pushing opinions advancing one given pov, and very little editing besides advancing that overarching pov, what is it about the Race and intelligence article that attracts this long-running conflict? Is it that it's a lure trapping newbies for abuse? Or a lure attracting SPAs? If SPAs are merely unwitting newbies caught in a trap, do we find newbies/SPA attracted disproportionately, newbies disproportionately advocating one POV over another? If we find them attracted more on one side than the other, why? WP:RGW would be my first guess, but I'm asking. What would you think? Professor marginalia (talk) 06:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) PM, I'm not sure that logic follows. why would newbies who support the controlling cadre get driven away?

Regardless, I think it's important to distinguish between the two different problems facing articles like this:

• Contentious topics draw in ideologically-driven editors from minor perspectives. This creates a distinct problems in achieving NPOV, since these editors will want to exaggerate or aggrandize their favored perspective out of proportion to prominence. (note, incidentally, that I consider scientism to be one of those minor perspectives, which causes me no end of grief)
• Contentious topics will draw in editors already steeped in hostile political confrontations, either from the greater internet or other articles on wikipedia. This creates problems for civility and consensus, since these editors will want to dominate the conversation, without regard for any opinion other than their own and with a marked degree of venom for people who disagree with them.

Both of these are significant problems, and both need to be addressed. There are two main differences between them, though:

• the first problem can (with considerable difficulty, but it is possible) be countered by careful reasoning and careful attention to sourcing, while the second problem is completely immune to reason and unrelated to sourcing.
• The first problem is more prominent in new users and (generally speaking) diminishes over time as the new users become more experienced and start to understand wikipedia policy. the second problem magnifies over time, as editors inclined that way become more experienced and knowledgeable about what techniques work to destroy other editors.

You can talk all you want about SPAs, but even you have to admit that that there's nothing inherently wrong with being an SPA - it's just an indicator of a potential problem of a different sort. on the other hand, NPA and CIV tell us that personal attacks are never tolerated on wikipedia, period. so why do a lot of editors seem to think that it's ok to play fast and loose with an inviolable policies on civility and personal attacks but are intolerant of problems of ideological biases that are by their nature relative? Maybe Misplaced Pages's own peculiar manifestation of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory? (i.e. that given anonymity, an audience, and community standing, an otherwise regular wikipedia editor can become a very disagreeable person indeed). --Ludwigs2 06:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

PM: I think Ludwigs2 has already mostly answered your question, but I’ll answer it anyway.

I think Legalleft might have been an actual POV-pusher, but I’ve read enough of the discussions he was part of to know that not every complaint he made about the article was baseless. During the period of time while he was involved in the article, the primary thing about it that he was trying to change was not that he thought the hereditarian hypothesis was inadequately covered in the article; it was that the article did not acknowledge the debate between hereditarians and environmentalists at all. No data relevant to this debate was presented, or anyone’s interpretation of it. And when Legalleft tried to add an explanation of this debate, he would immediately be reverted by any of several editors in the dominant group, often without any explanation other than a pithy remark in the edit summary. They apparently didn’t feel any need to justify their reverts, because there were several of them and only one of him.

In a situation like this, it’s difficult to tell whether someone is actually POV-pushing or not. All of Legalleft’s edits to the article appear to have been in favor of the same viewpoint, but that may have been because there was a legitimate problem with the article that he was trying to fix, and the whole time he was trying to do this he made exactly zero progress.

As Ludwigs2 said, the dominant group of editors are only going to tend to drive away newbies who disagree with them. There have been about equal numbers of newbies who support both hereditarian and environmental perspectives, but since the dominant group of editors take an almost exclusively pro-environmental perspective, the newbies who want the article to provide more coverage of the hereditarian perspective (or even to just acknowledge that a debate exists over it, as in Legalleft’s case) are far more likely to be driven off. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, though, so the issue shouldn’t be reduced to a hereditarians vs. environmentalists dichotomy—if an editor who favors a 100%-environmental explanation for the IQ gap opposes the dominant group, they’ll tend to be treated the exact same way. Ludwigs2, who favors an environmental explanation for the IQ gap but has been given this same treatment, is probably the best recent example of this. There are also plenty of proponents of the environmental perspective who don’t have this domineering attitude towards opposition and therefore don’t have much trouble collaborating with the “pro-hereditarian” editors; in addition to Ludwigs2, Maunus and ImperfectlyInformed are both examples of this. The only division here that matters isn’t between environmental and hereditarian editors, it’s between editors who have civility and ownership issues and those who don’t. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) Presumably after the case is over, wikipedians will not be subject to more disruptive stunts like this recent one on WP:AN, planned jointly by Mikemikev and Captain Occam. Mathsci (talk) 11:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Folks on both sides of this dispute - though some more than others - might benefit from looking into the phenomenon known as psychological projection. It's sadly surprising how prevalent this kind of behaviour is around here. --Aryaman (talk) 11:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Not too sure about Ludwigs. What's it with editors being "driven away". Editors are free to come and go as they please. Misplaced Pages depends on volunteers, but nobody is indispensable. Taking a break from editing is considered a good idea. One editor's "driven away" is another editor's "good riddance". Wapondaponda (talk) 12:58, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Editors are driven away by how they are treated. Whether the offending party edits in one or a hundred topic areas doesn't change the nature of the offense driving an editor away; nor does editing in a hundred topic areas lend the offending party additional leeway as opposed to an offending editor who only edits in one topic area. It's time to bury the memes that (a) we should indulge bad behavior from "prolific" editors but not "SPAs" and that (b) "SPAs" are intrinsically out to destroy WP while "prolific" editors are out to save it. This is just editorial bigotry that gets in the way of objectively evaluating the value of an editor's actual contributions to both collegiality and content. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Have you read the entire thread? I stated above

Misplaced Pages needs to distinguish single purpose editing from agenda editing. Focusing on one's area of expertise is not usually a problem, especially if the material being worked on is non-controversial.

That said, call it editorial bigotry or whatever you like, but the Misplaced Pages community does value editorial experience. Try going for a request for adminship while being an SPA. Last time I checked that was a dead end. All this should be straightforward non-controversial stuff. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I have. My point was that anti-SPA bigotry, as you call it, is not justification for institutionalized pro-prolific editor bigotry condoning poor conduct as a mere pittance to pay for content creation. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Secondary sources include extensive discussion of the hereditarian position

Coren writes: "In particular, the claim that it is not possible to find many secondary sources is caused by political suppression is often offered as justification to rely on primary sources." I find this confusing:

First, I have read every word of evidence submitted and not a single editor has offered "political suppression" as a "justification to rely on primary sources." Not only has not a word along those lines been mentioned, but I can't recall a single editor claiming that in any of our discussions about the article. Certainly, none of the main participants have ever alleged anything like that.

Second, this isn't even true! Every secondary source that I have consulted (Loehlin, Flynn, Nisbett, Mackintosh, et cetera) discusses the hereditarian position. As a rule, they don't agree with it, but they treat it as a serious scientific position, worthy of pages of discussion. They never "dismiss" it. (They do dismiss the notion that IQ differences are 100% based on genetics.)

Now, I realize that Coren's explanation for why he supports this finding does not have the same standing as the finding itself. But the his explanation makes me concerned about the meaning of the actual finding. The finding claims that:

At its core, the dispute centers on the inclusion of a number of primary sources that advances the hypothesis that differences in a number of social phenomena (primarily intelligence as tested) is explained mostly or in part by genetics and ethnic background while the secondary sources generally dismiss those claims. Editors advancing those sources claim that their use is required to make the articles neutral . . .

I think that this is a fairly complete misunderstanding of the dispute. I (and, I think, most others on the pro-include-hereditarian-position) would be happy if the article just matched secondary sources in their description of the hereditarian position, which is why I made my proposal. I think it would be a good idea to focus the article more on secondary sources, but this is precisely because secondary sources provide extensive discussion of the hereditarian position.

I just wanted to point this out in case there was any confusion. David.Kane (talk) 03:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"secondary sources provide extensive discussion of the hereditarian position" ??? Only if you're focused like a laser beam looking for it. Professor marginalia (talk) 05:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Have you consulted the best secondary sources? IQ and Human Intelligence by Mackintosh is a good place to start. (See MathSci's recommendation above.) All of chapter 5 is devoted to group differences, more than 50 pages of excellent discussion. In fact, "Group differences" is the chapter title! (Not all of it related to race, of course.) Check out the author index. Arthur Jensen is the single most cited author. David.Kane (talk) 11:31, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

It's probably more correct to say that Mackintosh, Jencks, Nisbett, Flynn, Loehlin, et al spend a while presenting the evidence put forward in favour of the hereditarian case and then, after evaluating various aspects of it, conclude that it is insufficient to make any conclusion along the lines of Jensen, Rushton, et al. Contrary to what David.Kane writes, in the 34 page section on "ethnic groups" in Mackintosh's book (pages 148-182) I see Jensen's 1969 paper inevitably mentioned, but lots of other studies are discussed and many other contributors. The point is that the whole section is a long and careful line of reasoning aimed at reaching the conclusion. Flynn and Loehlin also write in this way. The secondary sources so far don't go into huge detail; Mackintosh also carefully explains why it is not meaningful to apply the IQ tests to certain sub-Saharan population groups or to other pre-industrial communities. None of Mackintosh's discussion or his conclusions seem to have made their way into the article. Elsewhere in the book Mackintosh discusses in a different context Jensen's "theory" (later called "empirical observation") of level I/level II abilities. It's all very well saying how excellent the material of Mackintosh and others is, but these are hollow words if this material is then not used in any serious way: none of the content was either summarised or paraphrased in the WP article. It's not particularly difficult to do. Similarly for Loehlin's 34 page article on "group differences in intelligence". I gave a preliminary summary of Mackintosh's section and a very short summary of Loehlin's on the evidence talk page. Mathsci (talk) 17:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"It's all very well saying how excellent the material of Mackintosh and others is, but these are hollow words if this material is then not used in any serious way." Well said. I have owned (Mackintosh 1998) for more than a decade, and after all this while it is still the best first introduction to IQ testing for any English-speaking reader. There ought to be a lot more statements similar to Mackintosh's nuanced statements in the article, and there ought to be many fewer citations to superseded primary sources that he discusses well in his book. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 18:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. I didn't mean to leave this hanging (forgot it!) I wasn't clear enough, David.Kane. I apologize--too much in a hurry to make my own point rather than follow the point you were making to Coren. Focusing on the secondary sources is the most important thing, and that hasn't been happening. Not having edited the Race and intelligence article myself, I'm not in-step with much of the earlier history of there. However, often in disputes in the History of the race and intelligence controversy secondary sources were trivialized, or rather, at most relegated to a supporting role to primary, not the main role. (Somewhere in one of the innumerable WP noticeboard disputes wasn't it Mackintosh that was demoted because it was used as a "textbook", thus a "tertiary source"?) The "we rely on secondary sources here" was repeated like a mantra by myself and others, while all kinds of odd justifications based on some wikipedian's reading of primary sources were given to filter out all secondary sources that some editor himself judged "inaccurate" or "biased". The focus wasn't notability or reputability of the secondary sources--they were seen as the "supporting cast" to primary sources in most of the disputes there. So for the "History" article Coren's analysis doesn't fit so well, true. A better fit would be "reliance on primary sources was justified because they were deemed more 'accurate' and 'less biased' than secondary sources". So yes, there are plenty of secondary sources. But no, they were not being treated as abundant, superior and largely consistent in the content disputes. They were routinely rejected in content disputes in favor of primary sources, or in the alternative, secondary sources who simply mirrored the primaries. Professor marginalia (talk) 04:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:RSN

The proposal on secondary sources has inspired a discussion at WP:RSN#Is a "typical" article published in a peer-reviewed academic journal a primary source or a secondary source? It appears that there are sharply differing views.   Will Beback  talk  06:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice. That the primary/secondary boundary is not obvious for a common type of source in these articles does not bode well for the remedy. Cool Hand Luke 11:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I would rephrase "not obvious" as "completely disputed by uninvolved editors." In other words, the proposal as currently written is completely unworkable because editors at WP:RSN do not agree at all about the definition of a primary source. Some think it includes an academic article if the author is describing her own work. Some think it does not. But, I still think that the proposal we are considering here is potentially useful. I would just rephrase it so that the meaning is clear. Instead of "must be independent, secondary sources that meets the guidelines of reliable sources" perhaps "must be peer-reviewed literature surveys or books". Of course, I don't think that this is perfect, but it is at least workable. David.Kane (talk) 11:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the remedy should be reworded as any source, of any type, where there is any disagreement about reliability, must be taken for review. That it far simpler, takes out any ambiguity, prevents gaming ("Well, does this count as peer-review or not?" "This survey was reviewed by some obscure, very involved body, but hey, it was reviewed so doesn't need checking!"), and forces review by uninvolved editors who are experienced with sources. It also removes any reference to distinctions of whether certain types of source are reliable, which comes a bit too close to unilateraly changing one of our pillars (which states that primary soruces can be used, and can be used well) for my liking. Ale_Jrb 11:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I have read the discussion at WP:RSN and the threads at WT:NOR, and I am convinced of three things:

1. Cool Hand Luke is correct that the proposed remedy is likely to shift the battle to RSN - if reasonable uninvolved editors can disagree as much as they do on primary v secondary sources as an abstract idea, I shudder to imagine the debate when placed in the context of contentious content.
2. I am amazed that the disparate views expressed in the WP:RSN and WT:NOR discussions have coexisted without clashing in a way that necessitated a resolution. Perhaps a policy RfC would be helpful because a clear answer is needed relating to the status of peer-reviewed academic sources?
3. Speaking as an editor with an academic background, who has authored papers and review articles, acted as a reviewer for conference and journal publications, and been an examiner of theses, I like to believe I have a reasonably thorough understanding of sourcing and referencing... and looking at the content of WP:PSTS and the recent discussions, I have no idea what standards are meant to apply.

EdChem (talk) 08:38, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Field of inquiry of Race and intelligence

I have read the discussion at RSN but not had time to contribute. I have, like EdChem and other contributors too, been involved in a number of academic peer-reviewing activities. It is hard to know where to start to unravel this. There appears to be quite a different approach in the social and natural sciences, and that happens to be particularly unhelpful in a topic like this that straddles the two. I first came across the idea that "academic papers are primary" in relation to the contentious Cold fusion article. I was taken aback by it, but on reading further I became convinced that in disciplines where it is common to make reviews of the literature, then these are our reliable secondary sources, and it is those who engage in POV-pushing who are likely to want to go back to the original papers. More useful, I think, than trying to rely on a rigid primary-secondary source distinction, is to define what field of enquiry this article belongs to. Only then can we ensure that it reflects the state of knowledge in that field, and that the sources are the best that they can be within that field. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

"define what field of enquiry this article belongs to" -- A nice idea in theory, but largely impossible in practice. My proof? Try it! You will find zero consensus. Some editors insist that "intelligence" means psychometrics or psychology more broadly. Some insist that "race" means anthropology. Other insist that genetics is key. Others point out that various social sciences (economics, sociology) are critical for understanding the environmentalists view. All have a point! David.Kane (talk) 12:24, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was in the history of science? Itsmejudith (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

And some editors would agree with you! And some other editors feel that the whole article should not exist or that it belongs in the "field" of Scientific racism. My point is that defining the field is essentially impossible. history of science is especially wrong, in my view. Consider this key list of key sources. None of them would be classified as history of science in any library or book store. David.Kane (talk) 12:37, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I suppose some topics are intrinsically interdisciplinary. Actually, I'm not sure that this is one of them, and that debate around which field it belongs to could help to move the article forward. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

See the Talk page archives for extensive debates on just this topic. Zero progress was made. Feel free to start a new debate. David.Kane (talk) 12:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Itsmejudith, but it seems that our policies do not currently capture these distinctions, and I don't think ArbCom is well-situated to impose them (assuming, for the sake of argument, that ArbCom would even be competent to draft new sourcing policy). Cool Hand Luke 14:08, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this case does seem to have highlighted a largeish policy issue that the community needs to get sorted out. Perhaps the decision might include a call for the discussion at WP:RSN that spilled over to WT:NOR to be noted and addressed in a considered and centralised community-wide discussion? EdChem (talk) 14:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Let me use this as an excuse to point out my Workshop proposal to require a single, limited set of consensus sources. This was almost universally opposed but a) It would get directly to the issue that Coren is trying to address with his proposal and b) the fact that editors from both sides disagreed with it may sugggest (?) that it is just the sort of solution that has a hope of "breaking the back" of the dispute. Any such solution is almost guaranteed to anger editors on all sides. David.Kane (talk) 12:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I seem to recall that I also asked for a list of appropriate sources and that one was posted (perhaps by Mathsci?). ArbCom won't want to impose a list of sources, but anything that forces editors to seek consensus about a source before going on to extract info from that source does seem like a workable way forward. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, I don't want ArbCom "to impose a list of sources" on us. I want ArbCom to force us to come up with a list of sources (which, again, is easy for us to do) and then to empower us to prevent other sources from being used on the article. Consider the current debate on the article about brain size data. Back and forth is goes with no end in sight and the (final) result being that the page is now locked. If, however, we had an agree set of secondary sources, this whole debate could have been avoided. Either the brain size data is in those secondary sources (in which case it can go in the article) or it isn't. David.Kane (talk) 13:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they are going to allow anyone to be stopped from using sources in the article. It's an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and we should all be encouraging new people to come to the article, who may perhaps bring good sources that existing editors weren't aware of. But I completely agree that it can save a lot of time if new sources are vetted on the talk page, and if timely recourse is made to RSN. I also think that we should ask in relation to all potential sub-topics: is this mentioned by the main secondary sources, and if not, then do we have an overriding reason to mention it? Itsmejudith (talk) 14:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Another reason ArbCom would be unwise to mandate that only certain sources be used (irrespective of how the list was prepared) is there would be a high risk of appeals to modify the list (X is new, can we add it to the list? / Y is too POVvy, it shouldn't have been included in the first place, can it be removed? / Z is allowed but chapter 3 is being misused, can we remove that part of Z from "allowed"? / ...). ArbCom get enough appeals as it is, leaving a hole in a decision that invites more appeals would be unwise. EdChem (talk) 14:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

EdChem: First, I disagree that such complaints are likely. It would not be had to come to agreement on a list of sources. I have already done so! And, although many editors don't like this idea in the first place, no one has argued that my list is meaningfully different from what their own list of the 10 most important sources would be. Second, I do not propose that such complaints go to Arb Com. Instead, Arb Com should make a ruling like: "The Race and Intelligence article will only use a limited set of the highest quality, secondary sources available. The sources to be used will be agreed upon by all involved editors at the Talk page and revised once per year in July, or more often, if dictated by consensus." Arb Com would not be involved in these discussions at all.

Judith, you wrote, "More useful, I think, than trying to rely on a rigid primary-secondary source distinction, is to define what field of enquiry this article belongs to." As my favorite mathematical author once wrote, "Permit me to not completely agree with this opinion." It would be helpful to declare forthrightly that the article relates to the entire subject of psychology (that is, social psychology and cognitive psychology as well as psychometrics), to most aspects of sociology and anthropology, and to most aspects of genetics and neurology. (Right now, the article is poorly sourced to any discipline other than the psychometric subdiscipline of psychology, and it is not even sourced to the best literature in that subdiscipline.) But in general for most Misplaced Pages articles on most subjects, it would be helpful for editors to be much more aware of the distinction between primary sources (one single investigator's or group of investigators' reports on a finding in the lab or in the wild) and secondary sources (review articles in peer-reviewed publications, symposium articles, textbooks, practitioners' handbooks, and the like). In 100 percent of the disciplines and subdisciplines that relate to the topic of race and intelligence, the secondary sources are better sources than are the primary sources. That statement generalizes across hundreds of disciplines related to tens of thousands of articles on Misplaced Pages. An astute researcher will always read some of the most noteworthy primary sources (which for this topic would include Flynn 1987) to get a reality check on how the secondary sources interpret seminal papers, but a responsible editor on this contentious topic will mostly cite and rely on secondary sources, sources that are indisputably not part of the primary literature.

1. Effect of Children's Ethnicity on Teachers' Referral and Recommendation Decisions in Gifted and Talented Programs Journal article by Negmeldin Alsheikh, Hala Elhoweris, Pauline Holloway, Kagendo Mutua; Remedial and Special Education, Vol. 26, 2005
2. Flynn, James R. (1987). "Massive IQ Gains in 14 Nations: What IQ Tests Really Measure". Psychological Bulletin. 101: 171–191.

-- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:49, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring

The article race and intelligence has just been fully protected with the summary "edit warring never ceases on this article". . The most recent report is here.

A number of editors are unclear about the status of the 1RR, discussions are here and

All this is rather disappointing since it is taking place right in the midst of the Arbcom proceedings. My general impression is that many editors are not taking these proceedings seriously. I get the sense that users entrusted with higher responsibilities are passing the buck on this problem, hoping that it will disappear on its own. I don't think this is the type of dispute that will disappear by itself. Wapondaponda (talk) 14:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll also add that the proposed remedy may be seen as toothless, and not be taken seriously . aprock (talk) 17:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the current edit war visible in the article's diffs and on the article talk page suggests that the proposed remedies need to be reconsidered. (The edit war among parties to the arbitration follows semi-protection of the article removing from the fray I.P. editors.) I note that quite a few arbitrators have yet to vote. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 18:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with everyone else who’s commented here that these proposed decisions are unlikely to resolve the disputes over this article. In fact, the likely ineffectiveness of these remedies is the first thing I’ve seen favored by this strong of a consensus in the past several months, including almost everyone on both “sides” of the dispute.

Is it possible for arbitrators to alter the proposed remedies after they’ve been posted? My understanding of how arbitration works is that since Coren is the drafting arbitrator, he has the singular authority to determine what remedies are proposed, and the other arbitrators can only vote yes or no on them. I don’t have a lot of familiarity with the arbitration process, though, so perhaps I’m overestimating how inflexible it is. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for raising that question. I have no idea about that, although I suppose that it is documented in the general documentation on ArbCom procedures and that the arbitrators can let all the parties know the answer to that question. I am a (not currently actively practicing) lawyer in real life, but I have no particular intention of learning Wikilawyering, so I was just guessing that the items in the proposed decision are still subject to modification. That guess may be mistaken. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess someone probably ought to ask the arbitrators about this, since otherwise they might just vote on Coren’s proposed remedies without paying attention to the discussion here. I’m not sure of what the right place to ask is, though. There are several arbitration-related noticeboards; does anyone know which (if any) of them would be an appropriate place to bring this up? --Captain Occam (talk) 20:54, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I trust all the arbitrators to vote very carefully, although there is already no hope of them voting unanimously on the proposed decision before us now, and I commend them for their patience in slogging through the tedious case file here. Whether or not they tell us about standard operating procedure for ArbCom, we can look it up on the ArbCom main page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 21:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, your understanding of ArbCom and its processes is in error. Any Arbitrator may propose alternatives to any part of the proposed decision (like a principle 1(A) as an alternative to principle 1), or any additional measures s/he may think are appropriate. The other Arbitrators will vote on these proposals just like any other. Further, until the decision is finalised Arbitrators can and do strike their existing votes and change their minds. I would say that Cool Hand Luke's comments will raise concerns for other Committee members. The drafting arbitrator has no special status beyond writing the initial draft of the proposed decision. It would be inefficient and unreasonable to expect every ArbCom member to craft their own decision, so it makes sense to designate someone to write an initial draft to serve as a basis for the Committee to use to reach a consensus. One piece of advice based on an observation from past cases... when the Committee goes quiet after a decision is posted, it usually means they are either distracted by some other issue or are discussing / debating / negotiating on the private ArbCom mailing list. I won't be surprised if there is a protracted silence about this case in the near future. EdChem (talk) 04:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out; it’s good to know.

When involved parties in an arbitration case think that certain proposed remedies are unlikely to be effective, as is the case here, is this talk page the best place to bring that up? Or is there somewhere else we should be mentioning this in order to make sure it has the arbitrators’ attention? --Captain Occam (talk) 07:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

"Best" place? I don't know. The talk page seems appropriate to me. Since it is almost inevitable that some parties will be concerned about at least some proposed remedies in every case, I think that Arbitrators expect to have their attention sought... it is not clear to me as to what is effective for catching their attention. To be honest, if I were an Arbitrator, I'm not sure I'd want to broadcast what was the best way to get my attention for what would be (in most cases) complaining from sanctioned editors. Of course that is part of an Arbitrator's job, but I suspect a better question for you to be asking is not where to raise concerns but rather how to raise concerns. I advise comments which are heavy on signal and light on noise. EdChem (talk) 08:53, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I dislike the current proposed remedies, and I will probably propose alternatives if no other arbitrators do.

The PD talk page (this place) is generally the best place to bring up potential problems with anything that's been proposed for voting. I was also very interested in the note posted on RSN—since RSN was supposed to control the application of the proposed remedy, the views on that board were helpful (and I'm glad Will Beback brought it to our attention here). Cool Hand Luke 14:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

3 Strike Rule (Civility)

As an alternative (or perhaps supplement) to the "50% rule", I'd suggest that ArbCom institute a "3 strike rule" for incivility on all race-related topics. The current arbitrators could serve as a panel of neutral, on-call referees for a period of 1 year. The exact criteria as to what constitutes incivility would be best decided here beforehand - and they'd need to be as detailed and as strict as possible*. Those found in violation of the agreed-upon rules 3 times within a 1-year period should receive a permanent topic-ban. That, I think, would go a long way towards weeding out some of the more problematic editors and helping to restore a constructive, collaborative editing environment. --Aryaman (talk) 20:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

*How strict should the rules be? Damned strict, in my opinion. WP:CIVIL needs teeth - might as well make them sharp. To point to a random example from this page, this comment should qualify as a clear case of incivility. Prefacing an insult with "no offence, but...", "it seems to be...", "it would appear...", or "possibly..." does not magically remove the insulting nature of the comment and certainly does not make it civil. Derogatory comments of any kind, be they directed at an editor or at his/her edits, need to be eliminated from this discussion, along with the editors who cannot keep themselves from making them, regardless of their other merits.

This sort of civility parole/probation has an abysmally poor track record on Misplaced Pages. In previous instances, this approach has failed to improve the editing atmosphere and has often actually worsened it, as each borderline brusque comment is rushed to the "referees" by combatants on the other side. It's impossible to be rigidly consistent with something as subjective as civility, so inevitably people start to complain that the enforcement is uneven. Civility cannot be "enforced" like a speeding limit. MastCell  21:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

It certainly does not address any problems connected with this set of articles. The problem is not with civility after all, since one of the central issues in this case has been WP:CPUSH. As I've described in my evidence, Varoon Arya himself sanitized the backwater articles Mainstream Science on Intelligence and Snyderman and Rothman (study), removing all criticisms (from what I remember, he claimed that those were for other users to add later). Likewise users have expressed enthusiasm for secondary sources like the book of Nicholas Mackintosh, but have then proceeded to use none of their content when editing. Captain Occam made similar sanitizing edits to Varoon Arya on Race, Evolution and Behavior. This is not a civility problem. It is a problem of civil editing in a highly controversial backwater of wikipedia with edits that contravene wikipedia editing policies. Varoon Arya appears to have decided that criticisms of the content edits of other users constitute personal attacks (cf the diff of my editing he produced above from an edit on this page which he inaccurately summarises). In this case, is what Varoon Arya is suggesting not in fact a thinly disguised proposal to silence valid criticisms of POV-pushing? Mathsci (talk) 22:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

This is a bad idea... firstly, those who "violate" civility rules are not necessarily those who violate editorial policies. Secondly, encyclopedic content is supposed to be of principal importance - it being the purpose of wikipedia and all - so ArbCom further and formally elevating behavioural policy over editorial policy would be a dreadful act on their part. Thirdly, ArbCom are not appointed to play referee on eery petty civility squabble, and frankly they would be justified in each gnawing one of their own legs off as the fun alternative to taking on that task. Fourthly, enforcing superficial and artificial politeness need not lead to genuine consensus; I would predict it spawning new and creatively polite insults. These are just some of the reasons that Mastcell is correct in noting the ineffectiveness of approaches like civility paroles in the past. EdChem (talk) 05:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Without expressing an opinion about this “three strikes” proposal specifically, I think I should mention that civility is of much more than superficial importance in this case. Mathsci’s incivility over the past few months has in itself amounted to a form of POV-pushing, because intentionally or not, it has had the effect of ridding the articles of perspectives that he disagrees with. In this section of my evidence I’ve quoted three editors who stated that they were driven away from the articles because of Mathsci’s behavior towards them, and Bpesta22 might be a fourth. (Bpesta22 quit the articles at around the same time as the other three editors, but hasn’t explained the reason for his own disappearance.) It’s important for ArbCom to recognize that if they allow the creation of this hostile an editing environment, it is inevitable that it will end up affecting content also. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

This seems to be a rather good example of what Ed Chem calls "new and creatively polite insults": here I am invested with new diabolical powers. It would be fair to say that it is "single issue" editors like Captain Occam, Mikemikev and David.Kane that are the source of the problem. These editors do not adhere to wikipedia editing policies, use article talk pages as forums and write WP:SYNTH and WP:OR on wikipedia as if it were their blog. Captain Occam has for example wasted large amounts of volunteer time by endlessly arguing that he could use a blog as a WP:RS. He has also been blocked 3 times for edit warring, even during mediation. No, the problem here is with WP:CPUSH and WP:SPA, not with regular editors. In general they do not come out with improbable conspiracy theories like the one above. Why is so much time being spent attacking regular editors without just cause and so little time spent adding any kind of useful or properly sourced content to this encyclopedia? Mathsci (talk) 08:39, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Sigh… more of the same. I know you’re aware this is false, because we’ve been over it so many times before, both in your numerous AN/I threads (both the ones that you’ve started yourself and the ones started by other editors that you’ve hijacked) and in the evidence for this case. Go ahead and see if you can find a diff of where I spent a lot of time trying to cite something to a blog, which is something you’ve been challenged to provide several times before, and have never actually provided. Muntuwandi has provided what he claims to be a diff showing this, but as I pointed out in my response to him, the actual citation in the diff he posted from me is to a New York Times article, which is what I was trying to cite in the discussion you’re referring to.

I don’t see how I can be expected to assume good faith about the fact that whenever the falsehood of one of these claims is pointed out to you, you completely ignore this and continue to repeat the exact same claim unaltered. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m a little worried about you influencing the arbitrators with this, I would not think comments like these warrant a response at all. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL is one of the five pillars of Misplaced Pages, yet the idea of attempting to enforce a hightened standard of civility on race-related topics is openly ridiculed. Not only that, it's being suggested in all earnest that by requesting users be held accountable for uncivil behaviour, I'm "disguising" my "true intent" of pushing a POV. Ask for civility and get blasted for POV pushing. How exasperatingly Kafkaesque. Carry on. --Aryaman (talk) 08:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Varoon Arya, since civility is so important to you and since Kafka was appreciative of irony, perhaps you might not accuse all the responses you received as openly ridiculing you or blasting you for POV pushing. I, for one, consider that characterisation of my comments intemperate, impolite, and inaccurate. EdChem (talk) 09:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I apologize if I gave the impression that I took offence at all of the comments. In response to your comments, EdChem: (1) Those who violate civility rules, regardless of whether or not they violate other editorial policies (which is, of course, troublesome behaviour to be dealt with in its own way), need to know that the community will not tolerate such behaviour. The conspicuous absence of WP:CIVIL in the proposed ArbCom decision is a slap in the face to everyone who has been subjected to the offensive behaviour of some of the participants in these discussions and a tacit pat on the back to those who use incivility as a calculated tactic. (2) Misplaced Pages is indeed an encyclopaedia. It is also a collaborative project which requires civility from all of its contributors. Thus, while encyclopaedic content is the goal, civil collaboration is the means, and thus should rank just as high on the priority scale. (3) If ArbCom cannot issue concrete requirements for editor civility - and enforce them - who can? If the answer is "no one", then what's the point of having civility as a pillar at all? (4) I'm not suggesting artificial politeness, and this isn't meant to force consensus. I'm suggesting users be required to focus on content rather than editors. It takes less than a minute to change "Editor X's last edit appears to be utter crap" into "I do not think revision Y improves the article for the following reasons...". That's not asking much from editors, is it? Or are we prepared to tolerate incivility - even condone it in some cases - provided it results in "good content"? I'd hope not. No one should have a problem with requiring editors to remain civil. As for whether or not civility can be enforced, I'm disappointed at the lack of creativity here. But that's not directed at you, EdChem. Cheers, --Aryaman (talk) 10:15, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you for your apology. As regards WP:CIVIL being a pillar, I suspect we disagree fundamentally in that I have seen far too much of the tactic of using the policy as a weapon. A vast amount of effort is wasted in trying to avoid discussion of editorial and content issues by feigning offence and seeking sanctions; worse, in some areas of Misplaced Pages where fringe content is found, WP:CIVIL becomes the altar before which all other policies are prostrated. Another major problem with WP:CIVIL is that there is nothing close to global consensus on what constitutes appropriate standards of civility. Please don't misunderstand, I'm all for civil behaviour and collegial editing, but the sanction-enforced policy is far from an unambiguous good for the encyclopedia. Your initial post in this thread suggests that improving the collaboration and content would follow from eliminating editors from the area for WP:CIVILity violations. In my opinion, that is a classic example of the thinking that leads to the WP:CPUSH problem because it is one step from the tactic of baiting opponents into civility violations to eliminate them. EdChem (talk) 11:17, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. And thanks for the even-handed response. While I can imagine the potential misuse of such a policy, particularly as a tactic to eliminate certain editors (though, no more so than other extant policies, really), as well as ArbCom or anyone entrusted with the duty of overseeing its application quickly throwing up their hands in the face of the inevitable squabbles over whether a comment is "actually" offensive or not, I think that a clear list of criteria - determined under the oversight of ArbCom as part of the official decision and specific to this case - would eliminate a great deal of the potential headache. The criteria should be objective and concrete, and should extend into baiting and false reporting. We have some bright folks here, and I'm sure they could identify a fair list of things they have found to be disruptively uncivil during the discussions which have taken place over the last few months.

Though it is an ideal which even I occasionally falter upon when pressed, I think it's possible to diffuse tense editing situations by requiring that people stop directing their critical comments at particular editors and instead focus upon content. Statements such as "Editor X apparently has a racialist agenda" or "Editor Y is apparently quite confused as to the correct interpretation of this passage" or "Editor Z appears to be a POV-pushing SPA fringe-lover who needs to be topic banned" have no place in collegial discourse. They are simple ad hominem attacks designed to provoke, and we would do well to spend some effort in an attempt to reduce them as much as possible.

Is my suggestion designed to give free reign to "trolls" and "aggressive SPA's" to WP:CPUSH their way around as they please? Would we be overrun by POV-hordes if we were not allowed to smack them down with the occasional dash of incivility? No and no. So-called "trolls" and "aggressive SPA's" need to be dealt with in a courteous manner the same as everyone else. Their arguments - provided they have any - need to be evaluated and refuted on their merits (or lack thereof), not on the grounds that "you're a POV-pushing SPA, so we don't need to pay attention to anything you say". If one can't deal with a "troublesome" editor without becoming uncivil towards him or her, the best course of action would be to request the assistance of more editors, and possibly to take a short break from editing the article altogether. The common tactic seen on the R&I pages is to become entrenched to the point of WP:OWN and scour your target's contributions - possibly baiting him or her in the process - until something resembling a policy violation emerges and a complaint can be filed.

Every policy is capable of being misused. Yet, I've seen simple civility go a long way towards solving (not to mention preventing) editor conflicts, and I know it works. Granted, this is a highly controversial and contentious topic. However, I see that as sufficient grounds for raising our standards of behaviour accordingly, not for lowering them so as to excuse certain editors while punishing others.

While I take your concerns seriously, and think they need to be worked into the solution, I think they can be satisfactorily dealt with by the judicious application of common sense in designing the criteria. With that being said, I don't see much support for the idea, so I won't bother the other participants by extending this discussion needlessly. Thanks for the exchange of ideas, EdChem. Cheers, --Aryaman (talk) 13:35, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

@CO, you keep mentioning that Mathsci has driven away "productive editors". Well Misplaced Pages is quite large, with over 3 million articles, so one can easily find other articles to work on if indeed they have been driven away from r&i articles. That is unless, of course, they were SPA agenda accounts. While you may think of them as being productive editors, others may disagree. Some of these editors may in fact have been contributing to the current problems rather than helping to deescalate the dispute. In short, not everyone thinks that the editors you mentioned were "productive", rather that is your own subjective opinion. Wapondaponda (talk) 09:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

“While you may think of them as being productive editors, others may disagree. Some of these editors may in fact have been contributing to the current problems rather than helping to deescalate the dispute.”

So that makes this acceptable? Reading between the lines, what you’re saying here seems to be that if someone like Mathsci decides that another editor such as Varoon Arya or Ludwigs2 is a “problem editor”, it’s reasonable for them to deal with this by making personal attacks against the editor in question until the editor quits the article out of frustration. Is that your opinion about this tactic? If so, it would be helpful if you could clarify that this is your opinion, and perhaps ArbCom will agree with you, although I hope they won’t. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

We need to make a clear distinction between everyday incivility on the one hand and personal attacks on the other. The internet is a difficult medium. Jokes can be misunderstood, we can reply irritably without thinking etc. etc. The normal response to everyday incivility is to ignore it or to ask the author to refactor. If you think someone has really gone beyond the limit of what is acceptable then you should make a wikiquette alert or user RFC. I know that these things can sometimes seem like escalating, but it is worth taking such issues up in the appropriate places and not allowing disputes about behaviour to run on and on in talk pages. The talk pages are there to discuss content. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Most of what you’re suggesting has already been tried. The fact that it didn’t lead to any improvement in Mathsci’s behavior is what resulted in Rvcx requesting this Arbitration case. Here’s one example of a failed attempt to resolve this issue at WQA: Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette_alerts/archive86#User:Mathsci. Mathsci’s personal attacks and battleground attitude were also discussed in this WQA thread and this one, both also without changing anything about his behavior.

I think this issue is pretty clearly beyond what venues like WQA can be expected to solve. Since at this point arbitration appears to be the only remaining option for addressing it, I think the people who have been offended by Mathsci’s personal attacks (of which there are quite a few, as can be seen from this case’s evidence page) will be very disappointed if ArbCom can’t do anything about it either. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean that it shouldn't be taken to ArbCom or that WQA had dealt with it satisfactorily. I just think that these things should be dealt with promptly, through the channels (and WQA-ANI-ArbCom is a recognised channel) and not allowed to fester in the talk pages. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

@Captain Occam, I think you are putting words in my mouth. I have at no point supported personal attacks against anyone. However, these are some of my observations.

• Have you ever stopped to think, that the most offensive issue in this controversy is the POV you and your comrades have been pushing for the last 9 months. It is more offensive than any of the petty grievances that you and friends have been complaining about. Had you and your comrades considered this in your editing, there would be far less animosity. If you disturb a hornet's nest, don't be surprised if you get stung.
• We use the term "civil POV pushing". But in reality it should be termed superficially civil POV pushing, because civil POV pushing usually involves controversial or emotionally charged edits which are likely to provoke uncivil reactions, even though these edits are made in a superficially civil manner. Civil POV pushing isn't really civil after all.
• I find it ironic that the very person who started this thread, Aryaman, is advocating civility, because I tend to find many of his comments rather unpleasant. Furthermore Captain Occam is complaining that some editors, including Aryaman, have been driven away. Well if he is posting here, has he been driven away? I recall Aryaman had "topic banned himself". One of the beauties of topic banning oneself is that one can unban oneself at will. I guess this means he is now a fully involved party.

In short, I agree that there has been less than ideal behavior from all sides, but I believe that the agenda accounts are tacitly causing this incivility. This is a clear example of the unhealthy effects of single issue agenda editing. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm done. I've been accused of being a "nationalist", a "racist", a "racialist", a "POV-warrior", an "SPA", a "troll", an "email conspirator", a "sockpuppet", and a "meatpuppet", among other things, while editing a handful of race-related articles on Misplaced Pages. The fact that one editor can accuse another editor of racism - which is what Muntuwandi a.k.a. Wapondaponda is doing here - under the nose of ArbCom and not a damned thing is done about it is just more icing on the cake. I'm utterly disappointed in the lack of support for anything resembling an enforcement of WP:CIVIL in this ArbCom decision. I've put a lot of time and energy into improving this encyclopaedia, as my editing history of ca. 3 years demonstrates. And now I'm embarrassed of that fact. My apologies to Occam, Ludwigs and the few sensible others. Consider my account retired. --Aryaman (talk) 15:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Man, this comment is probably the most discouraging thing I’ve seen (online or off) in the past week.

VA, I think you know that I’ve always admired both your level-headedness and your researching and writing ability. So I was disappointed by your decision to topic-ban yourself from the article because of Mathsci’s behavior, and I’m even more disappointed by this decision, although I also understand it. I’ve been very tempted to follow the same route as you and DJ; the thing that’s keeping me here is the awareness that if I allow myself to be the newest example of this trend, it’s only going to further contribute the same creeping problem that’s existed for several years. Misplaced Pages is only as good as the people who participate in it, so the more uncivil editors are empowered to rid the encyclopedia of those who are civil, the more it will suffer in general as a result.

I guess I still have some hope that this trend can eventually be reversed, either by ArbCom or some other means. If it can’t, I guess it’s likely that there will eventually come a point when my continued devotion to Misplaced Pages will be embarrassing to me also. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

“Have you ever stopped to think, that the most offensive issue in this controversy is the POV you and your comrades have been pushing for the last 9 months. It is more offensive than any of the petty grievances that you and friends have been complaining about. Had you and your comrades considered this in your editing, there would be far less animosity.”

Well, this is interesting to know. I wasn’t aware that you were an example of one of the people here who consider certain viewpoints to be “inherently offensive”, and that anyone who wants to include them in Misplaced Pages is at fault for whatever abuse gets heaped on them as a result. (I obviously object to your characterization of us “pushing” this point of view, but we do want the article to include it, which it did not at all a year ago.) Do you feel the same way about people who want to include images of Muhammad in the article about him? That’s probably a lot more offensive to some Muslims than the hereditarian hypothesis is to you, and I would imagine that people who want the article to include them are often subjected to personal attacks for the same reason. By your logic, that would also be their own fault for trying to include offensive material.

I’m reminded once again of the distinction between content and behavior that’s been made throughout this arbitration case. My and other’s involvement in the article may or may not have skewed it in a direction that’s inconstant with NPOV—I don’t think this has been sufficiently demonstrated, at any rate—but either way, it’s a very strange interpretation of Misplaced Pages policy to equate this with incivility because you think the content is “inherently offensive”. The definition of a personal attack is a comment that’s directed at other editors rather than article content; that is, the difference between saying “I think this part of the article is biased” (followed by an explanation of why) and saying “You’re a POV-pushing holocaust denier SPA”. When NPOV problems exist, they’re supposed to be discussed with the first type of comment. How can that be taken as a justification for the second type? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

If you can dish it out, you should be able to take it. My point is that if you make controversial edits in controversial articles, don't be surprised if the atmosphere turns uncivil. I think Coren has made a similar observation when he writes

"Editor behavior on all sides of the issue have often been less than optimal, and the tone of discussion has occasionally strayed into incivility. Given the emotional and controversial nature of the underlying dispute, this is undesirable but understandable".

I would liken the situation to disturbing a hornet's nest, then getting stung, and trying to argue that you were unfairly stung by the hornets.

At this stage, I make no judgment about specific content issues, whether it is the inclusion of Muhammad's pictures, or a discussion of the hereditarian hypothesis. However if someone were gratuitously including an excessive number of Muhammad images, not for the purposes of informing, but rather simply to "shove it" in the face of those who would be offended, then that would be trolling.

As for the holocaust denier claim, why do you keep going down that route. That is problem of your own making. Why don't you take Ludwig's advice by growing a pair and defending what you wrote instead of playing the victim card.

We have had many discussions, and we almost never reach an agreement on the nature of the dispute, so this is probably another thread to nowhere. I guess this is why the dispute is now in arbitration, so that independent parties may make an independent assessment of the situation. Wapondaponda (talk) 02:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Do I need to defend something I wrote before I became a Wikipedian that I’ve never linked to on-Wiki, and that Mathsci brought up just to try and disparage me in a content dispute? According to Cool Hand Luke’s comment here, this probably qualifies as outing: “I think that gratuitously referencing another's blog posts during content debates on talk pages, for example, would be the sort of harassment that falls under OUT.” In terms of Mathsci’s behavior towards me, this is probably the worst single example of his tendency to make personal attacks and bring up irrelevant information to try and disparage editors with whom he disagrees. Therefore, when Mathsci’s personal attacks are being discussed, it’s perfectly relevant to bring this up, just as it’s relevant for you and Mathsci to bring up the fact that I used to have a problem with edit warring when you’re trying to prove that I’m a disruptive editor. (Although my problem with edit warring was a lot longer ago than what we’re discussing in Mathsci’s case.)

If this was outing, which it appears to be based on Cool Hand Luke’s comment, the policy regarding WP:OUTING sates that I should not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information. What’s bizarre is that both you and Mathsci feel the need to keep both defending this claim and attempting to confirm its accuracy, even after three separate administrators (Maunus, FT2, and DragonflySixtyseven) have already pointed out that Mathsci’s claim about this was not acceptable. An example of Mathsci trying to defend this claim about me is here, which misrepresents his own comment in an effort to whitewash what he said. In your own case, you’ve gone so far as quoting excerpts from the blog post in an effort to confirm the accuracy of Mathsci’s claim about me. It doesn’t matter how many excuses you make for this: per Cool Hand Luke’s comments, this was outing, it’s as relevant to this arbitration case as any other user conduct issue, and the more you attempt to defend it or confirm its accuracy, the worse it will look on your part. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:37, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Users who leave clickable links to blogs and cartoons on their user talk pages can hardly accuse others users of outing them. Contrary to his current protestations, there seems no evidence that Captain Occam is concerned with his anonymity on the web. At the moment he seems to be trying to deflect attention away from his own problematic editing patterns. Captain Occam is not the hapless victim of other users: edits to his user page are a his responsibility alone as are his editing patterns on race-related articles.

Anonymity has been an issue with me, because some time back, when I was editing the now deleted article Myron Evans (an AfD suggested by me), a mistaken identification resulted in letters being sent to the President of UC Berkeley. Danko Georgiev (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) also got blocked for a week for a similar misidentification. Fortunately the person he identified, then the departmental chair in Berkeley, now retired, was a friend of mine and was mildly amused. As far as recent outing is concerned, Jagz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) posted a link to a photo of me on the mediation pages taken by Charles Matthews. The sockpuppet was blocked, along with 2 others active during these events. There might be others around. Mathsci (talk) 12:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

When you bring up blog posts that I (or David.Kane, or anyone else) have never linked to in discussions where they’re completely irrelevant, I call it outing because according to Cool Hand Luke it’s outing. I’ve linked to and quoted the comment in which he explained this. Are you unwilling to accept the definition of outing that’s being provided by arbitrators? --Captain Occam (talk) 13:10, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Please excuse my butting in, but is this discussion somehow useful to improving the proposed decision? It seems to me that the evidence and workshop pages and their talk pages cover these issues, in which case rehashing them is essentially all noise and no signal. It seems clear that CHL (at least) is looking for new proposals for an improved decision, and I suspect other arbitrators will have concerns about the present proposals. Consequently, might I suggest that more useful contributions could be made than those presently being made? In my opinion, as time goes by the discussions on this page are drifting further and further from relevance and usefulness. (Obviously you are free to disagree with my view, I simply offer it in the hope it might be useful.) EdChem (talk) 13:27, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with EdChem, there is way too much wikidrama. Unfortunately this has been going on for nine months. Walls and Walls of text on talk pages and not much to show for it in terms of encyclopedic content. Below are my suggestions, Arbcom members can consider them or completely ignore them. Wapondaponda (talk) 14:37, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

In contrast to some of the people who have taken part on this debate I have no strong views on the issue of race and intelligence and little desire to edit articles on the subject: what views I do have are here . I found, in contrast to Arbcom, the primary issue in the debate to be not content but behavior of editors. I found (as a broad brush picture) two factions, one (the environmentists who were in possession of the field) wanted to silence their opposition (the hereditists) by having them banned through administrative means. Of course, there are honorable exceptions to this such as Ludwigs2. I found this manoeuvre to be an unacceptable tactic by the standards of Misplaced Pages. On expressing this view I was met with claims that I was associated with promoting the "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"." . This abuse was taken up by an editor in a totally different topic at the bottom of this page . That editor's action was rebuked by others . This R&I debate is replete with attacks on other editors besides myself.

Although I sympathise with Arbcom's having to sift through this bucket of worms I fear that its recommendations to date will not be helpful. In addition to failing to address the issue of behavior, the suggestion about sources is unworkable because even experts (which Arbcom does not pretend to be) cannot agree upon whether sources are primary or secondary, and the proposal for topic restrictions is just an invitation to game the system. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:12, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

Proposal to deescalate the dispute

• Identify single issue agenda accounts
• Topic ban single issue agenda accounts for medium to long term (at least 6 months). Enforce violations of topic bans with software blocks, say for 1 month. Topic bans are far from the end of the world, one can still edit Misplaced Pages's other 3 million articles.
• Place all other involved parties who are not single issue agenda accounts on probation with regards to race and intelligence issues. If a disruptive pattern of editing emerges from any of these involved parties, topic ban them as well.
• The article race and intelligence should itself be placed on probation which would involve a low tolerance threshold for disruptive editing, edit warring, trolling, incivility, walls of text and general Wikidrama.

The basic rationale behind this is that while wikidrama is coming from all sides, there may be in fact just a few problem editors who are causing a disproportionate amount of drama. If they take a break from editing, either voluntarily or by force, the level of tension will significantly come down. I believe these actions would immediately deescalate the dispute Wapondaponda (talk) 14:37, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Are we interested in fixing this problem, or not?

Truth be told, this is one of the things I find most frustrating (but also most interesting, in a professional capacity) about wikipedia: The entire project - through some bizarre misunderstandings of some very good philosophical ideals - has turned itself into a near-perfect replica of your average American high school. Just like a high school, the ostensible purpose of wikipedia is to present and expound upon knowledge structures for the betterment of all. And just like a high school, a huge quantity of Wikipedians' time is spent in more or less hormonal attempts to dominate the social milieu. You have cliques of editors whose main activity is to try to turn other editors into social outcasts. You have rebels who cling to half-baked ideological stances in that typical adolescent style. You have vandals running around making trouble for the sheer fun of it, squealers who run to admins at the first sign of anything they don't like, student council stumpers who love political drama and don't care one whit about (or even understand) political improvement, bullies who try to dominate through intimidation while keeping under the radar, and a vast majority of wall-flower editors who just try to keep out of the way. Granting that there are (just like high school) numerous corners to which people can retreat and behave like adults - having small, quiet, productive discussions amongst themselves - such places are not the norm.

In short, the talk-page side of wikipedia has dumbed itself down to the level of 14 year olds. Why else would someone like Mathsci - by all accounts a rational, reasonable, highly educated academic - think that the best approach to deciding content on an article like this is to scream and shout, to call people names, and to whine to adults admins to self-righteously demand they punish the 'bad people'? I can't read the majority of his posts without picturing him teary-eyed and stamping his feet in frustration, and no adult should feel the need to present himself that way.

Mind you, I'm not at all surprised at how easy it is to reduce an adult to adolescent behavior; I'm not that naïve. I am surprised, however, by how seriously and thoroughly that adolescent behavior is defended on the project. Do you people actually like this kind of crap?

So look, we can use all of the cute policy code-words that we've developed (CIV, CONSENSUS, AGF, and etc.), but as far as I can tell only a distinct minority of the people who use those those terms have any idea (much less care) about what they actually mean. So let's just cut to the chase: Either the project as a whole decides that it's going to grow up and start insisting that editors interact with each other in an adult fashion, or the project as a whole decides that it's going to continue to hide its head in the sand and let things work themselves out. The first case will mean, yes, that we sharply curtail editors' freedoms to express themselves however they like (because that's what adults do), and will involve an extreme amount of short-term drama as an assortment of editors explode with indignation that anyone would deign to tell them to stop behaving like children. However, the second case means we'll all be dealing with this crap until we die of old age or leave the project. I'd prefer the first scenario.

I already know the arguments that are going to be made against this perspective; Make them if you want, I love a philosophical discussion. Just be aware that I'm going to refute such arguments to the extent that they represent or support adolescent thinking (both kinds of arguments will be made, I'm sure). This is not an easy conversation to have, but it's one that we clearly do need to have if we want to put an end to this crapulence. --Ludwigs2 16:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

• Comment by Mathsci

Ludwigs2 writes above:

Why else would someone like Mathsci - by all accounts a rational, reasonable, highly educated academic - think that the best approach to deciding content on an article like this is to scream and shout, to call people names, and to whine to adults admins to self-righteously demand they punish the 'bad people'? I can't read the majority of his posts without picturing him teary-eyed and stamping his feet in frustration, and no adult should feel the need to present himself that way. Mind you, I'm not at all surprised at how easy it is to reduce an adult to adolescent behavior; I'm not that naïve. I am surprised, however, by how seriously and thoroughly that adolescent behavior is defended on the project. Do you people actually like this kind of crap?

This seems to be yet another of his personal attacks: it seems to have no basis in fact, just a flow of vitriolic invective. Probably Ludwigs2 should be instructed by a clerk to refactor the above statement. It's also not a bad idea to remember that the primary purpose of this encyclopedia is to add properly sourced content of high quality: only 12% of Ludwigs2's edits have been in name space, but nevertheless he has recently left a note on the talk page of the arbitration clerk User:AGK stating that he intends to edit Race and intelligence in the future. Ludwigs2 might be better advised to try to edit some kind of normal article—something uncontroversial and lying within his own expertise, whatever that might be. He should try to avoid getting into disputes with other users, as he has with Gun Powder Ma (on Yin and Yang), BullRangifer (on Ghost) and others (on altmed articles). He should avoid using the above type of exaggerated language or phrases like

an inveterate troll who uses intimidation, harassment, political gamesmanship, and other emotional tactics to try to dictate wikipedia content. He is simply not worth the trouble he causes. It's truculent ciphers like Mathsci that make editing wikipedia an excruciating experience.

Statements like that have resulted in his being blocked recently. There is no reason why, if continued, they would not result in future blocks. They are not dissimilar to what CoM, OR or other ArbCom-banned users have written about me: to be fair, those users were a little more polite. Mathsci (talk) 00:35, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment I regret that your conduct with me at these proceedings, a newcomer at the article (but not the subject), has been derisive, derogatory, and you felt it necessary to bring up garbage to denounce me regarding matters having nothing to do with R&I. Not to mention deriding editors not even involved at R&I but from your prior conflicts elsewhere for no good reason. Thou dost protest and postulate on the merits of your opponents being blocked too much. You haven't even stopped to find out if I might editorially agree with you on something. That's simply sad. Not everyone is a member of a conspiracy arrayed against you. I understand completely why editors have left the article given your treatment of anyone you consider an editorial or other manner of adversary.PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

@ Mathci: I'm not interested in squabbling with you anymore. I've made whatever points I care to make about your behavior, and now that everyone is quite aware of the problem as I see it, you are free to either (a) fix your behavior and go on to be a better editor, or (b) not. It doesn't matter to me. From now on I will give you nothing except polite, civil, reasonable treatment. That's not to say I won't point out bad behavior if you indulge in it in my presence, but I've gotten all the milage I care to out of riding you on the issue, so I'll restrict myself to clinical analysis without personalizing it. Note that even here I have made it clear that you are not 'that kind of a person' but rather that it's something 'that happened to you, despite your obvious good qualities.' It would be nice if you responded in kind, but it's not a requirement. You should be aware by now (because that was my main reason for bothering with this mess) that you are not going to get what you want from me by using these tactics. If you're not aware of that, or not aware that you are using a tactic, you can keep on with it - I'm patient about these things, and I trust you will learn it eventually. but as it stands I've made my point, and I have no further desire to be unpleasant about it.

A bientôt, mon frere! --Ludwigs2 02:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Instead of producing edits like this, it would be nice if Ludwigs2 for a change could apply his mind to adding interesting encyclopedic content to wikipedia. Equally well for Vecrumba. It is after all the primary aim of this encyclopedia, which neither of them seem to have taken on board. I don't quite know why, but Race and intelligence has recently attracted more than one editor under an EE topic ban. Vecrumba joined R&I and HR&IC well after the ArbCom case had started and most of his interactions with me have been on these case pages (as a result of statements he's made). That seems very odd to me. Similarly Biophys has very recently submitted material on the evidence page; like Vecrumba's or Ludwigs2's comments on content, his general remarks about "race" as a biological attribute were giving off the top of his head. None of these editors bother finding relevant reliable sources treating the problem at length in its correct context (in Biophys's case, a relevant source is the 2002 book edited by Jefferson Fish on Race and Intelligence). The most relevant available WP:RS do not support any of their statements, which have so far read like WP:OR. If this is the kind of unsourced and unsolicited "expertise" on offer, I'm not sure that wikipedia is quite ready for it. Mathsci (talk) 12:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Matschi, are you talking about my edits in articles Race (biology) and Race (classification of humans)? If so, I did not see any your objections to my edits at the talk pages of these articles. Note that I never made a single edit in article Race and Intelligence, and I never talked with you or mentioned you anywhere before.Biophys (talk) 19:49, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I suggest a 1 week ban every time someone brings up edits by an editor outside of R&I as somehow being relevant. That will cut down on 99.99% of the endless and tiresome accusations, innuendo, and inevitable rebuttals and escalation. I've tried like hell not to discuss editors but there are some who make it impossible not to, especially when Mathsci complains about being an EEML victim. Oh, maybe some EEML folk are scientifically and mathematically inclined? Perhaps as I've explained the subject has been a life-long interest? Perhaps I'd interact more with Mathsci at article talk instead of here if he had spent some time there lately instead of dredging for ways to accuse other editors. This is a personal attack under the guise of being WP's protector. I've asked politely for Mathsci to retract disparaging comments, he has refused. I'm sorry, this sort of crap ends here. The next time Mathsci attacks me like this I am requesting an AE action. Oh, Mathsci, I've read and bought (and read) reliable sources on the topic, including ones you specifically disparage as worthless—ones that, upon careful reading, paint R&I as a complex issue and point to numerous additional valuable sources. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

P.S. @Mathsci, regarding "Equally well for Vecrumba." My mother was dying and I/we are still recovering. I'd call you names but they would all fall short of expressing my utter disgust. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 14:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

@ Mathsci: you seem to be mistaken - I am not under an EE topic ban (in fact, I don't know what such a thing is), so I'm not sure why you're suggesting that I am. also, I would suggest to you that you stop trying to evaluate other editors' contributions, and start examining your own behavior. There is nothing wrong with my contribution history, but you spend an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to make people look bad. That's your business, of course, but you could be a more productive editor if you focused more on polite discussion of content and less on broad-scale muckraking. just a friendly suggestion... --Ludwigs2 15:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

EE did not refer to you. EE = Eastern Europe and in particular Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list. Most of my time has been spent editing Clavier-Übung III and creating image and audio files using archives or encoding in lilypond to create new midi files. Mathsci (talk) 15:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

@Ludwigs2, Mathsci was casting aspersions on Biophys, to whom I had mentioned on my talk some time ago that I had decided to contribute to a subject outside Eastern European geopolitics that's been a life-long interest.

@Mathsci, as I indicated, regarding my WP contributions this year or the last month, I've spent most of that visiting my mom in nursing, in the hospital multiple times, watching her deteriorate and die. I do not want to see a diff from you of my paucity of editing activity, etc. again. Nor do I want to see you mention again, for the upteenth time, your parading of your self-described masterful Clavier-Übung III. Neither has anything to do with content or conduct regarding R&I. If you can't stick to the conversation at hand and contribute constructively here, please take a break. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:40, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Peters - just as a point of interest, you shouldn't help Mathsci out by explaining his mistakes. He's not a child, and he ought to be able to correct his mistakes on his own. In the future, I suggest that you simply point out the error, ask him to explain it, and leave him to work out the details in his own head. Don't do the work of cleaning up his sillinesses for him. --Ludwigs2 19:58, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

A bit late, but a suggestion anyway.

This might not be very popular, but its a shot.

Lets say we take at face value that:

There was no problematic behavior that reached the level of arbitration. The mediation was flawed somehow (no need for fingerpointing). Arbcom should not be making content decisions. The current policies on sources needs to be more nuanced for this decision.

Then I think it basically means this arbcom was a wash, and with apologies to peoples time and pride, it may be best if people looked past their previous differences and agreed to a new mediation. At the same time there needs to be a discussion on the policy pages about this issue.

That would basically be giving two sets of people an oppertunity to settle this. Either the current parties can manage to make progress in a new mediation or the community can make progress on updating policy. There is the possibility everyone may find themselves right back here for a new round teethgnashing (and yes that would suck), but just about the only thing people can agree on here is that the current decision isn't gonna help and/or shouldn't be implemented. From my point of view, either this situation gets better on its own or it has to get worse before arbcom can make it better. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 17:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The mediation was flawed somehow (no need for fingerpointing).

But there is a need to explain how. mikemikev (talk) 18:38, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe that. Consensus, parties, attitudes and mediation methods are all dynamic. Just because this particular method didn't work this time doesn't mean that it was bad, just that things were flawed. Perhaps under different circumstances it may have made a breakthrough that another method would not have. It is possible to accept that it failed and move on without getting bogged down by why it failed or whose fault it was. Right now, you guys are getting nowhere trying to pin the fault on someone. Let go of the baggage, take a deep breath and try to start again with a clean slate. Easier said than done, I admit, but I don't see the value in looking backwards about this. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 19:00, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the mediation was very successful and that the article is now mostly stable. Who are you BTW? mikemikev (talk) 19:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

To the contrary, I think the article needs a huge amount of work to be up to minimal Misplaced Pages standards. I was not a Wikipedian when the mediation was going on, so I can't be entirely sure how much the mediation process kept the article in its current bad state, but the aftermath of the mediation that I have seen day-by-day suggests that a resumption of mediation as it was before would not be the best way forward for improving the article. One way to test whether the article is mostly stable now would be to submit it for good article review at any of the WikiProjects that have shown an interest in the article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The mediation went as well as it could given the limitations of the process and the refusal of some parties to work within the defined structure. The outcome is imperfect (and yeah, it needs a lot of work), but it's better than what was on the page prior to it. If people were actually interested in working on the article directly (rather than focusing on trying to prevent other people from working on the article), then the article would be in very good shape by now, but alas, 'tis not so...

@ the IP: did you think this Arb was actually going to decide anything? I was aware this was going to be a wash from the day it began - my only concern in this entire process was to (a) make sure that the ArbCom members didn't get hoodwinked into a biased decision by virtue of a mountain of purple prose, and (b) make sure that the decision doesn't adversely affect the mediation process on wikipedia more broadly. Whether or not I had any influence in that regard, it seems those were mostly the results, at least as far as this proposal goes - I'm still a little concerned with some wording that I think is going to screw with future mediations, and I think that sanctions (such as they are) are going to weigh a little more heavily on one side of the dispute than the other (though that's mostly because editors that side really do need to diversify their interests a bit more). It would be nice if ArbCom were to go out on a limb a bit and make some statements about the importance of civility and consensus - I could use that to drum up support for some changes to policy that would make editing on wikipedia a far more pleasant and productive experience - but if they don't, it's not the end of the world.

The fact is that there are no solutions to the editing problem on R&I, except solutions that mandate civility on the page. so long as participants are allowed to attack each other, some of them will attack and the discussion will turn ugly, endlessly. That's just the fundamental attribution error in action. But ArbCom might not feel as though they have the right or ability to ask for those kinds of changes, so... --Ludwigs2 21:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

@mikemikev: I'm me. It should come as little suprise you don't know me, since I don't know you either.

@Ludwigs2: I believe at the start of this arbcom there were serious accusations about improper behaviour sprinkled from and at most participants. The fact that an independant 3rd party (arbcom) carefully reviewed the accusations and mostly rejected them as non-issues is them 'deciding something'. What I mean by it being a wash is that at the beginning they thought they saw some behaviour issues they could decide on, and ended up coming short. No 'remedies' are really going to be of help here, but the lack of remedies should tell the parties that the horribly grevious offenses of the other party is not so bad as they thought and a little forgive and move on might be reasonable.

On the topic of the mediation in general. The fact that we are here says the mediation failed. Quibble of definitions if you must, but if it succeeded we wouldn't be here. Did it fail because it was a bad system? Did it fail because one party subverted it? Did it fail because of the price of rice in China? Why does that matter? Start another one and hammer the kinks out. Bad system... don't do things exactly the same. Party subversion... If he does it again it will be easier to show it was done maliciously. Price of rice changed... side-dishes for everyone! 198.161.174.222 (talk) 21:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

If the words failed/flawed are too distractingly negative to overcome, please replace them with some variation of 'improved the article but left several points of dispute unresolved and/or was not endorsed by all parties which has led to further unfinished dispute resolution'. That may sound pedantic and/or sarcastic but that really is what I mean in fullest and plainest english. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 21:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem with the "it's me" answer you gave Mike is that you're an IP with less than 200 edits, where over 80% of your edits (including the first one) are made to arbitration cases. That's pretty clear evidence that you are an experienced editor who (for one reason or another) wants to obscure your identity from others. I'm not complaining, because I don't really care about that, but please don't insult our intelligence with silly "I don't know about that" games. just be honest about the fact that you want to remain anonymous, and leave it at that.

With respect to your other point: obviously the mediation failed - who said it didn't? But there was nothing flawed about the mediation, it just failed. The only reason that there's any confusion about this fact is that Mathsci decided that he was going to destroy the mediation from the outside, rather than ending it from the inside (which he could have easily done). I suspect he did that because ending it civilly and internally would not have given him the opportunity to try and get people blocked, which obviously was his main goal in all of this, but... whatever. it was my business as mediator to make sure that the mediation ended from within by its own internal procedures and that whatever valuable material it had produced was a least partially and temporarily salvaged, rather than letting the whole thing get skunked by Mathsci's antics in ANI.

no offense to anyone, but I find this inability to distinguish between results and procedures (which seems to be a very common failing among wikipedia editors) disconcerting. Even in the best of cases good procedures do not always produce desired results, and this is not the best of cases. --Ludwigs2 23:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, as an active participant in the mediation, I personally did view it as flawed. However, I also viewed it as better than nothing. aprock (talk) 23:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I understand the feeling, AProck, but you'd have a hard time making an analytical case out of that view. I am aware of all the problems that were there in the mediation when I took it up; there were no problems there that could not have been handled procedurally over time, if in fact people were willing to work within the process. Mediation can handle just about anything you throw at it except a lack of good faith; That'll kill it every time. --Ludwigs2 23:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

@Aprock, I believe the mediation was hampered by attempting to navigate between opposing views and not necessarily having everyone fully committed to meeting in a manner acceptable to all parties— "meeting" doesn't necessarily mean "in the middle." Given what I consider guarded progress at article talk and the arrival of some fresh participants and perspectives who I believe can remedy some of the current polarization, I'm quite hopeful. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I think one of the problems is also viewing this as a conflict between two groups. That's what it may have been reduced to as others have left; certainly there are editors who have arrived who I would put in neither alleged "camp." That the community arriving at arbitration closely correlates to two groups does not mean the conflict is one between two opposing groups. An inclusive community and an inclusive use of sources (per my comments elsewhere) in good narrative is the key to moving forward. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

@Ludwig, how many people have to say its flawed before you believe it? If four more arbs vote for it and it actually becomes published as a Finding of Fact will you believe it or do the Arbs just not have the nuanced understanding of mediation that you do? Oh, and specifically it was mikemikev that said it didn't fail. Well, technically he said it was a success and I made the leap that 'didn't fail' means the same as success.

As for me being an 'established editor', I'm curious as to who exactly. I mean, what with you having nothing more than a wild guess and no evidence I'm sure a checkuser would grant that request in no time. Of course, the idea that maybe I lurked and read and actually got an idea of how things worked around here before posting is completely implausable. You'd have to have good faith to believe that.

Also, I hate edit conflicts. Especially ones that outdent in completely reasonable places that end up putting my post in a really awkward place with respect to the person I'm replying to. grr. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 02:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Have it your way about your identity - as I said, I don't really care. I'm just pointing out the obvious. I dislike silly identity games.

With respect to the mediation being flawed, it's not a question of people telling me it's flawed (people tell me all sorts of things that are ill-informed and dubious). it's a question of people showing me how it's flawed. I've read all of the reasons that people have suggested are 'mediation flaws': some have no foundation in fact, and others are issues that needed to be considered and addressed but don't measure up to actual flaws. a quick list.

1. imbalance of POVs among the participants. A good bit of truth to this, at least by the time I took over the mediation (due to attrition among participants from one side). that's an issue that needed to be dealt with, which could have been dealt with in at least three ways within the context of the mediation itself:
   • raising the point in mediation and asking to have the mediation closed (which didn't happen, at least not until after the mediation had a deadline and was well into salvage mode).
   • gathering new (or retrieving missing) participants to add balance from the missing side. That almost worked - AProck, slrubenstein, and a couple of others were showing some renewed signs of interest - except once the ANI kerfluffle began, editors became more hesitant to (re)enter the mediation discussion.
   • Achieving a limited consensus among the active participants and editing that consensus into the article, in the understanding that new (or missing) editors would work on the article to add balance and improve it after the mediation was done. forward motion rather than an actual solution, but better than nothing.
2. claims that I unfairly restricted discussants from one side of the debate - pure nonsense, with no evidentiary basis. I asked people to redact uncivil comments in the mediation a total of maybe 12 times (or participants on all sides), and I redacted statements myself where people refused, possibly 6 times. you can go look at all of them if you like - they are all in the last week-ten days of editing on the mediation page (look for {{nono}} and {{hat}}, as well as the places where I request editors to self-redact). you won't find a single case where I redacted anything other than an incivility, and you'll notice that I took great care not to change the substantive meanings of the posts. I realize that some participants didn't appreciate having their incivilities redacted; I just don't care.
3. claims that the mediation some how 'purported to be a binding resolution' - again, pure nonsense with no evidentiary basis. I never made that claim, and I explicitly reminded people regularly that the intention was in the line of the third method in the first point above - to salvage what limited consensus had been reached before the mediation closed, so that the next efforts on the page wouldn't start from square one.

Have I missed anything? In point of fact, no one has actually pointed to any meaningful 'flaw' in the mediation process, nowhere in the evidence: you see a lot of people worrying that they think that there might have been something wrong, somewhere, which I mostly put down to the fact that I wasn't making a lot of friends on any side in this debacle. But something doesn't gain truth value by having more people mumble and wring their hands over it. Trust me, if there were any actual flaws with the mediation process there would be diffs on it practically bleeding out of the evidence page - I've had people ranging far and wide over my contributions looking for something to bitch-slap me with. the fact that there aren't any diffs to support these claims, despite some fairly zealous efforts, is all you really need to know about the issue. --Ludwigs2 03:58, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's anyone's responsibility to demonstrate that it's flawed to you. From my perspective it was flawed. You don't have to agree with that. I'm certainly not interested in going around and around with you about that. aprock (talk) 04:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

aprock: I wouldn't mind someone pointing out a mistake that I personally made in the mediation. Lord knows I'm not perfect, and I'm usually pretty good about owning up to my errors. I'm just (frankly) annoyed by the wikipedian tradition of making broad, unfounded, unfocused expressions of distaste. Tons of people do it, but it's merely emotional reasoning. You feel that it's flawed - I acknowledge that, and respect it, but... personally I feel all sorts of things about other people and other events in this arbitration, and most of the things I feel are not worth repeating because there's nothing productive to be done with the feeling.

This is a very small example of the more general problem I've been talking about all along. Most editors on wikipedia (and on the internet as a whole) lack emotional continence. It's a function of the medium: because there is no apperception of body language or facial expression (which is how we express emotions in face-to-face communication), there's a tremendous urge to explicitly present our emotions in text, and this rapidly turns into a kind of emotional solipsism where what we feel becomes overly-real and what other people express as their feelings starts looking shallow and manipulative. You can trace pretty much any talk-page fight to this effect, where person A says "I feel this about X" and person B says "I feel that about X", and each thinks the other person's feeling is a criticism but neither can back up their feelings with anything substantial enough to make for a resolvable debate. So it goes round and round and gets progressively more uncivil. At some point we all have to be able to say "Well, yes, I feel this, but there's nothing I can point to or do with that feeling that's productive", and then we have to let it drop. And we ned a civility policy that's strong enough to make people drop it when they can't do it on their own. So, if you have something that's more than a feeling (and not in the sense of the old Boston song) I'm happy to discuss it to see if there's a real problem there. Otherwise you're just rumor-mongering, and that's always destructive. --Ludwigs2 15:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Outside Note - As an editor slightly interested in SPI, I'm wanting to address mikemikev's question here. I've gone against Mikemikev in the the past - but I feel that he's correct on his assumption of this being a sock (I'm focusing now on two or three editors, some possibly being "related" to each other). Anyone care to comment? "Socking" (and, hence, "stacking") cannot fly. I'm looking into it: it's so cool that all the history is there to analyze! Happy editing! :> Doc9871 (talk) 07:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

OK. I was wrong. I thought there was interest in moving on from a arbitration that was going nowhere, but it seems people would rather scream 'NO IT WASN'T' 'YES IT WAS' for a few more months. Doc, I would be interested in your conclusions so by all means, analyze away. When it fails, you might consider an apology but I won't hold my breath. Ludwigs2, your pride is blinding you. Your rebuttal consists entirely of 'I don't see it that way' and 'I don't accept that as proof'. Other people do and other people are. If anyone wants to discuss my original proposal without rehashing pointless arguments over the exact definition of the word 'flawed' or accusing me of sockpuppetry, I will respond. Otherwise, all I can say is you are reaping what you've sown and you deserve it. 198.161.174.222 (talk) 14:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2, you might disagree but it seems to me that a lot of the discussion relating to mediation on this page is either rehashing old debates or arguing semantics. By semantics I mean that you seem concerned to defend the generic mediation process as valid / useful / whatever whilst others are criticising this specific mediation as flawed / ineffective / whatever. Further, the arguments about the specific mediation are about whether the deprecated outcome results from structural flaws in mediation in general, structural deficiencies in the specific mediation that occurred (such as breadth of participation or alleged lack of good faith), or other factors (alleged outside interference, inappropriate goals such as imposing a consensus, or whatever). None of this is really useful to the goal of an improved proposed decision. I recognise you wish to protect mediation as a process, and I hope you recognise that attributing 'blame' here isn't helpful. So, I ask: are you able to offer some concrete proposals such as alternative wordings to the proposed principles and/or proposed findings of fact, or new principles or findings, that would both address the concerns you have about the present drafts and recognise the concerns others have expressed? I believe that concrete suggestions which can then be discussed are much more likely to be useful for the arbitrators than more debates about issues where it is already clear that there is substantial disagreement. Other editors are welcome to make concrete suggestions too, of course; Ludwigs2 just seemed to be a logical person to ask as he clearly has concerns about the present proposals. EdChem (talk) 15:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

@ Ed and the IP: I think you both misunderstand me. I don't take this statement as a personal criticism - If there was something to criticize me personally about, the criticism would have been made in a properly substantiated way, and I'm egoistic enough not to give a darn about what people say in the rumor mill. I take this as a misstatement of fact, nothing more. My contention all along is that there was nothing wrong with this mediation: the mediation failed because one participant began participating in bad faith. There is no criticism implied in that - it happens sometimes, particularly where emotions run high, and in more normal circumstances it would have led to a discussion in which (a) the bad faith participant decided to begin participating in good faith or (b) the mediation closed. The problem here was that the bad-fath participant (for political reasons, I assume) went straight to ANI and never allowed normal procedures for closing the mediation. I'm not sure we need the fact-finding on the informal mediation at all, but if we want a finding of fact that would be useful to the community, it would have to be something like this:

During the dispute, some (but not all) of the participants in this arbitration case engaged in informal mediation with the Mediation Cabal. While originally well-intended, that attempt at mediation failed and the dispute escalated because major participants abandoned normal mediation processes and attempted to resolve the dispute administratively at ANI.

That statement has two advantages over the current phrasing: it is unambiguous and factually true (except possibly for the word 'abandoned', which might be overly strong), and it tends to imply that using ANI to subvert mediation processes is not a desirable behavior (which I think we can all agree to). The current wording is neither unambiguous nor factually true, and tends to imply that running to ANI to get other mediation participants blocked is an acceptable part of the mediation process. Now maybe that's what ArbCom means to imply - please let them say so if true - but I'm having a hard time imagining it.

In short, I don't really care what people say about the mediation or about me personally, so long as what they say conforms to the observable situation. But I don't make compromises on obvious facts. --Ludwigs2 16:17, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

For "abandoned" perhaps "forsook". The contention and whole argument over if someone leaves a mediation then anything decided by the remaining editors is invalid—even though it would still represent consensus of everyone else except that one editor, that is, any single editor has veto power over mediation consensus, empirically confirms that yours is both an accurate and adequate description of what occurred. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 18:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Reply to EdChem The particular problem with this mediation case was that it lasted too long (mid-Nov until mid-April). 5 months is simply too long and within a lengthy period like that things can change too radically from what happened at the start of mediation. Editors initially signed up can leave, have other commitments or become indisposed. In this particular case Mikemikev–according to Maunus the most disruptive editor so far on the article–was not involved in November. Ludwigs2 also gravitated to the article in mid-December as an editor (I'm not quite sure why). TechnoFaye is another user, arguably even more disruptive than Mikemikev, who started editing the article and involving themselves in mediation after mediation had been agreed to. I don't think I would have agreed to meditation without knowing the other people involved. Mediation is a process that occurs with mutual consent between a group of editors; it is not an abstract way of discussing the future of an article. In this case all participants made careful statements at the beginning, which in late January became redundant after Ludwigs2 took over. I think an agreed fixed term should be set at the beginning of mediation (not more than two months). I'm not sure I agree at all with new editors joining the mediation once it's been started. It seems to conflict with any kind of agreement at the beginning of mediation. In the case of a controversial article, mediation should be abandoned if sufficiently many parties stop participating within the set time period. While not specifying the qualities of a mediator, they should not at any stage be proactive in mediation nor should they become emotionally involved. Their presence is simply to facilitate interactions between parties signed up for mediation. Mathsci (talk) 21:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

So just think of it as a new mediation which didn't involve you. mikemikev (talk) 23:13, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

It's an informal dispute resolution process, not the UN. mikemikev (talk) 23:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs, I am honestly really disappointed in your proposal. It reads to me like a thinly disguised version of "it was all MathSci's fault". If ArbCom believed there was evidence that supported everything being that clear-cut, they would have written a decision to that effect. I was hoping you might be able to offer something balanced that addressed the concerns expressed on this party pagecorrecting typo EdChem (talk) 07:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC); instead, you basically threw mud and painted yourself as a partisan. All the ongoing contributions to this page are convincing me that ArbCom needs a decision that is markedly harsher to most if not all of the parties.

MathSci, thank you for one of the more dispassionate comments made to date - while not free of criticisms of opponents, you did raise some legitimate issues for discussion. Certainly the idea that sufficiently many parties leaving a mediation in a pre-set time triggering automatic termination seems a reasonable idea (though not one ArbCom could really mandate in a decision). A fixed time period for any mediation also strikes me as a sensible suggestion, and I doubt anyone would disagree on the need for the mediator to be emotionally detacted (without commenting whether that was an issue in the present case). To be honest, one of the issues that piqued my interest in this case was your posts at ANI, MathSci - they seemd out of character to me, rabid in a way that lent a good deal of credence to the claims made at ANI about you. Perhaps you been somewhat burned out of late? EdChem (talk) 05:18, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I honestly hadn't meant it explicitly as a criticism of Mathsci. He wasn't, after all, the one who first went to ANI, nor was he the only editor who participated there (though he was by far the loudest voice there once things got rolling). I meant exactly what I said: the mediation issues should have been addressed inside the mediation (at very least they should have been raised inside the mediation) before turning it into an ANI circus. That is explicitly what mediation is for. If they had been so raised, then the mediation would have taken a different course, and none of this would have happened. No ANI threads, no Arbitration; months of dispute and tens of thousands of useless, unpleasant words avoided (along with all the bad feelings attached to them), simply by working within the established procedures of the mediation. Do you disagree with that assessment, or object to it?

I'm sorry you misunderstood, and it's too bad you're disappointed - perhaps you have a better way of phrasing it than the one I gave? I still say my phrasing is clearer and more factually correct than what's currently proposed, and nothing in what you've said above refutes that, but I am open to suggestions for improvement.

Please keep in mind that there is a distinct line between casting blame and describing behavior. Blaming is something I avoid, because everyone involved is to some extent culpable in the outcome. But a proper, honest description of behavior is important, however unpleasant it might be, because no one can avoid repeating their mistakes until they can clearly see their mistakes. That goes for me, and you, and Mathsci, and the members of the arbitration committee, and everyone else as well. Mathsci made a mistake in trying to push the problem into ANI, Coren made a mistake in reading the evidence and drafting the proposal, you've evidently made the mistake of misinterpreting my intentions here, and let's not even get started on the mistakes I've made. Let's just fix the mistakes and get on with our lives. --Ludwigs2 06:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

• Reply to EdChem I initially posted the following on ANI in a thread about TechnoFaye:

Criticism of mediation on Race and intelligence

• Misplaced Pages talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race and Intelligence
• Race and intelligence

I looked at the main page to which TechnoFaye contributes and there seems to be a much deeper problem. Mediation started in November on this topic, initially under the supervision of Reubzz (talk · contribs), who shortly afterwards disappeared and had no prior experience at all as a mediator. The mediator was changed to Xavexgoem (talk · contribs) and then Wordsmith (talk · contribs). At present mediation is unsupervised - a completely chaotic free-for-all. At the very beginning of mediation last year, there were sensible statements and discussions. That does not seem to be the case now. Various users involved in the mediation are no longer present (eg myself, on wikibreak in Cambridge, and Ramdrake (talk · contribs), who hasn't edited wikipedia for 2 months). Currently the page does not seem to be serving any useful purpose. It seems to be frequented largely by WP:SPAs and a coterie of highly problematic users, with some exceptions (eg Slrubenstein (talk · contribs)). TechnoFaye's contributions and directing of the mediation page do not seem to be particularly helpful, nor her choice of language. The page is in no way a mediation page any more. Please could administrators or mediators explain what is going on and attempt to restore some order? There is no record on the page as to who is moderating at present (surely not Ludwigs2 (talk · contribs)?). Mathsci (talk) 05:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

As I described in my evidence, there were two major problems in the the fourth stage of mediation under Ludwigs2:

1. the imbalance of participants at the end (November 16: Ramdrake, TCH43, Fences and Windows, Slrubenstein, Mathsci, Muntuwandi, Captain Occam, David.Kane, Distributivejustice, Varoon Arya; March 25: Mikemikev, David.Kane, Captain Occam, Varoon Arya, Distributivejustice, TechnoFaye, Dr.TM Roberts (RL friend of TechnoFaye), Bpesta22 (recruited by Captain Occam), Slrubenstein, Aprock, Muntuwandi)
2. with a majority supporting the minority "hereditarian" point of view, the decision had been made that the article should be rewritten so that it was "data centred" using mainly primary sources.

Since I don't quite understand your question, were you perhaps thinking of the April 26 ANI report when Captain Occam, David.Kane, Varoon Arya. Mikemikev, Distributivejustice and Bpesta22 (with 120 Volt monkey (talk · contribs), a sockpuppet of banned user Jagz) descended en masse on the new article History of the race and intelligence controversy? Were you perhaps thinking of this April 19 report by Captain Occam on Slrubenstein? Mathsci (talk) 07:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci, it wasn't so much any specific post or even thread that made me wonder about burn-out, it was more just a general impression that developed as follows: In the ANI threads I read as they developed or went back to following links, I recognised that there was a lot of bad behaviour. There were attacks on you, claims and counter-claims, and I just remember thinking that you were losing your cool and reacting in a way that made me wonder if you really were being a partisan in the R&I area. The impression I was getting seemed out of character, I suppose because I've usually agreed with your perspectives. Does this make sense? I don't recall thinking "burnt out" at that time, but seeing the response above which seemed so much more in line with my prior impressions of you as a rational scientist with whom I am generally in agreement, and thinking of Risker's recent WT:ACN post, it suddenly made me wonder if some of my impressions from ANI had originated in you being a bit burned out. Sorry, I hope I haven't offended you - it was a thought that I perhaps shouldn't have expressed. EdChem (talk) 07:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't burnt out just frustrated by a tag-team of WP:SPAs targeting a new neutral article, History of the race and intelligence controversy, written on the suggestion of Slrubenstein as a sort of experiment: is it possible to write a neutral article in this area? I wrote the article in the same way I would write any article on which I am totally ignorant—locate good secondary sources, then write summary, iterate process, etc, etc. I don't know the answer to the original question. But the experiment shows that it's not a function of the subject (it's very well documented in WP:RS) but other editors on wikipedia. It might be an idea to look at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Evidence to find out what actually happened on the "experimental article" History of the race and intelligence controversy. I would also like you to produce an example of a "rabid" report that I initiated on WP:ANI or elsewhere. If not, then you should probably refactor that particular statement. My impression so far is that you are unaware of the problems on History of the race and intelligence controversy. It was a lot of effort on my part, but was easier than Clavier-Übung III, my current project (not an experiment and apparently appreciated by members of WikiProject Music). Mathsci (talk) 19:11, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs, I was not attempting to characterise your intentions but rather to describe the appearance of your actions from my perspective. I think star-gazing about what might have happened if ANI discussions had never occurred is unproductive. I am strongly in favour of movement towards an improved decision, however, so will offer some alternatives that seem to me to take into account the various concerns raised on this page.

Alternative Principle 5: Mediation — whether formal or informal — is a voluntary process to help editors who are having a dispute. When undertaken with good faith and wide participation, it serves the valuable function of facilitating agreement and developing meaningful consensus. The role of mediator is difficult and requires a high degree of skill so as to accommodate differing views and curb unhelpful behaviours whilst maintaining calm and neutrality and allowing the participants to negotiate and cooperate on reaching their own resolution of their dispute. Mediation is generally most effective when free of outside influences and interferences, but broader site goals and guidelines may make intervention necessary at times.

Alternative Finding of Fact 4: During the dispute, some (but not all) of the participants have engaged in a well-intentioned informal mediation with the Mediation Cabal. Unfortunately, during the mediation several editors withdrew from participation significantly altering the balance of views expressed, disputes were taken to outside venues for intervention, serious concerns of inappriate goals (such as creating a binding decision or sanctioning users, rather than negotiating a genuine consensus) were expressed, and concerns were raised over the neutrality and skill of some the mediators involved. Collectively (and unsurprisingly) these rendered the mediation ineffective and the disputes escalated to the point of requiring formal arbitration.

It seems to me (as an outsider looking in) that these proposals provide enough detail to show that mediation itself is worthwhile, that this specific mediation failed under the weight of numerous issues, and neutrally document the facts without pointing fingers. Perhaps my summary is inaccurate - I wasn't a participant, after all - so I invite comment on my suggestions. EdChem (talk) 07:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I doubt either of these would work, for the following reasons:

• your AP5 suffers 2 problems.
  1. informal mediation is an entirely voluntary process for both the participants and the mediators. This is true even of formal mediation (WIkipedia doesn't hire professional mediators to resolve disputes, but relies on experienced amateurs), but informal mediation simply requires good faith participation. trying to establish rules about what constitutes a 'high degree of skill' is merely instruction creep that encourages bad faith among participants. problems with mediators - again - should be (and usually are) dealt with by discussion among participants in the mediation, who ask a mediator they don't trust to step down.
  2. this principle implies that there were issues in the mediation involving skill, calmness or neutrality that required oversight. No evidence has been presented on any of those points, so it seems unlikely we need to establish a principle on the matter. unless you're seeing something in the evidence I'm not, that is.
• your AFoF, further, strays a good bit from the actual facts of the case:
  1. No participants formally withdrew (by declaring they were leaving on the mediation page and removing their names from the participants list, or by asking to have the mediation closed). The problem was that several participants had backed off from participation (mostly because of burnout), but most of those seemed at least partially willing to continue the process if the level of tendentiousness could be reduced.
  2. Concerns of the sort you mention are a normal part of mediation - you will never see a mediation that doesn't have some or all of those kinds of issues raised. They do not 'render a mediation ineffective', but rather are normal, healthy, and valid concerns that ought to get raised in discussion, and then addressed to everyone's satisfaction (or if they can't be, the mediation ends).
  3. Arbitration began well after mediation ended, and was started by someone uninvolved with the mediation, so the phrase 'rendered the mediation ineffective and the disputes escalated' makes an inappropriate association.

In short, both of your points rely heavily on facts not in evidence.

• it's a matter of observable evidence (pure description) to say that there were issues of balance (and other concerns) in the mediation.
• it's a matter of observable evidence (pure description) to say that the mediation degenerated into warfare after editors took up mediation problems in ANI.
• it's a matter of observable evidence (pure description) to say that editors on all sides were insulting each other, and had strong civility problems
• There is no observable evidence that anything was wrong with the mediation itself, except for the fact that the mediation degenerated into squabbling and failed.

I know that various editors have made claims about my handling of the mediation - those are in evidence - but they are unsubstantiated claims from editors who don't much like me in the first place. You seem to want to generalize those claims to more abstract concerns (which I approve of as a rule - it's a good thing to depersonalize these issues), but the problem is that the concerns are without foundation to begin with. there are no grounds to believe they are true, and if that were the situation would have been easily remediable by asking me to step down as mediator inside the mediation. In either case, the mediation itself is not responsible for the mess made by its various participants. There is no sense in generalizing a falsehood to a matter of principle. --Ludwigs2 15:13, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Whether formal or not, a large group of participants withdrew from the mediation. It's clear that for whatever reason, the mediation was ineffective. The idea that the mediation and this arbitration are independent and unrelated is perplexing to say the least. Your characterizations here are very much unaligned with what's actually transpired. aprock (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Whatever the path, the discussion has moved to arbitration. Ultimately the mediation was not a fix. I don't think the nuance matters whether the mediation contributed to why the discussion has arrived here (causative) or it's just another symptom of why (not causative). Everything is "related" so that's not the crispest choice of word here. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK

(e/c) Aprock, Mathsci was absent from the mediation for months, and still claimed to be a mediation participant (which was his grounds for starting his complaints in ANI). Editors are often absent from discussions for periods of time because of burnout, real life, acceptance of the debate, and etc. The only way to measure withdrawal is by actual statements to the effect "I am withdrawing from this mediation". I know that you personally were sick of the debate; what I didn't know (as mediator) was whether that meant that you wanted to close the mediation or were simply taking some rest time to come back at it later, because no statements were made to either effect. This isn't brain surgery: it's your mediation, you are a participant in it until you say otherwise, the mediation should continue until participants decide it should stop, single editors should not be allowed to dictate its continuance or outcome over the objections of everyone else. Do you disagree with any of those points? --Ludwigs2 16:27, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

@Ludwigs2, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You have to realize how non-sensical it sounds for you to say "No participants formally withdrew" in one comment, and then follow that up with "Mathsci was absent from the mediation for months". I submit that this special form of pedantry has less to do with what actually happened, and more to do with how you feel. aprock (talk) 16:32, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

please read what I wrote again, particularly the sentence beginning "Editors are often absent from discussions for periods of time..." If Mathsci had come back after two month's absence and entered the mediation to discuss content, we all would have welcomed him as a valid participant in the mediation. Had Mathsci withdrawn from the mediation he had no right whatsoever to dispute it in ANI; if he hadn't withdrawn from the mediation then he had a right to dispute it, but it was nonsensical for him to dispute it in ANI rather than in the mediation.

I mean, this is a no win situation for the mediator. if I had tried to claim that Mathsci wasn't a valid participant you all would have gone through the roof. If I claim that he is a valid participant you all go through the roof about how he 'withdrew'. You seem to have this special Schrodinger's category of participation, where it's impossible to tell whether someone is or is not a participant unless you you take some action (in which case they will establish their status by immediately contradicting whatever it was you did). don't be silly. He was signed on as a participant, he acted like a participant, he asserted his rights to dispute the mediation as only a participant can: by all external measures he was a participant, and until he made it clear in the mediation that he wasn't I was obligated to treat him as though he was. You apparently have better mind-reading skills than I do (since you apparently know what Mathsci was thinking and apparently know what I'm feeling). Me, I'm just stuck dealing with the reality of the situation. --Ludwigs2 18:22, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I had no problem understanding what you wrote. You might retry understanding what I wrote. When someone is absent for months, they have withdrawn. That you suggest otherwise indicates that you are not being neutral here. aprock (talk) 19:41, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) As far as mediaiton is concerned, my personal case is irrelevant. The post I reproduced above makes that crystal clear. Several people appeared and disappeared during mediation. Common sense might have prompted Ludwigs2 to find out why long-term contributors to Race and intelligence had disappeared from mediation. Excluding me, three of these were TCH34, Wobble and most importantly Ramdrake. Ramdrake in fact was seriosuly ill. Common sense should have prompted Ludwigs2 to have tried to work out why Ramdrake, the person who initiated the mediation process was absent. This is one of the first things that struck me. Ludwigs2 preferred to concentrate his attentions on TechnoFaye who had never edited the article or its talk page prior to mediation. That speaks volumes about Ludwigs2's priorities. Misplaced Pages is not a social experiment, it is an encyclopedia. Not everyone has the human qualities required to be a mediator—neutrality, self-effaciveness, emotional self-control and awareness of their own limitations. On a highly problematic article like Race and intelligence I would expect the mediator to be an experienced administrator. Ludwigs2 is very far from that. Mathsci (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

The process of the mediation is entirely irrelevant here. A red herring? mikemikev (talk) 19:22, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Again, as I said, it was not my position as mediator to make judgements about people's absences from the discussion. Without some indication to the contrary, I could only assume that they are paying attention to the conversation but choosing not to participate. TechnoFaye, by contrast, posed a distinct and immediate problem for the discussion in the mediation. And frankly, if you had particular expectations about who you would have preferred as a mediator, you only needed to express them in mediation and I would have stepped down.

Cut to the chase, Mathsci - you can talk all you want, but until you actually specify something that went wrong with the mediation process you're just blowing smoke. You went off half-cocked because you were anxious to get people blocked: I'm sorry you did that, and I bet you're sorry you did that now, too, but that's all water under the bridge. Don't fuck up the entire MedCab process just to save face. --Ludwigs2 19:32, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you have some of the qualities I listed to be a mediator; I couldn't possibly say. But most importantly you were not uninvolved (that great wiki word). During the summer of 2008 you were in disagreement with most of the long-term editors on Race and intelligence, like me, Ramdrake, Wobble and Slrubenstein. That disagreement involved Jagz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who has been hovering around in this case through various socks, and the problems he had created (as Elonka and Rlevse will remember). That alone should have given you pause for thought. You came to mediation with that emotional baggage. If you were only interested in honing your skills as a mediator, there were plenty of other cases on which to learn the ropes. Mathsci (talk) 20:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

• Ludwigs2, I understand you must feel very put on here, but the nasty comments aren't helping. Perhaps the way to de-escalate the situation would be to acknowledge that since so many people have concerns about your mediation in this case, you'll consider their comments and take them on board. If you continue to make statements to the effect that everyone but yourself is wrong, this discussion will likely go on forever.

  Everyone else, you've said your piece - Ludwigs2 clearly doesn't agree and it's highly doubtful you're going to force him to agree with your position. Let it go. Shell 20:11, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was actually trying to be helpful and to encourage constructive discussion of how the proposed decision might be improved. EdChem (talk) 20:32, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey Ed - I was specifically referring to the "your mediation was flawed" repetition - your comments have been quite thoughtful. I'm sorry my earlier comment came out wrong. Shell 20:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Shell - I appreciate the clarification. EdChem (talk) 20:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Actually, Shell, I don't feel put on at all, and I'm not sure what you mean by 'nasty comments'. Are you referring to the 'going off half-cocked' thing? that strikes me as a factual assessment of what happened (though perhaps the language lacks elegance - I am sometimes a bit direct). at least, I said it without prejudice - lord knows I go off half-cocked every now and then. As I have mentioned before, I have no concerns about the mediation, I knew precisely what I was doing, and if anyone wants to discuss the details of it I'm game. no one has yet taken me up on that offer, interestingly... However, I'm perplexed (and slightly annoyed) by the constant 'intimations' about the mediation that are never substantiated by evidence. If something went wrong with the mediation I'd like to know specifically what, so the matter can be discussed and I can do better in the future. If there is nothing specific to point to, then I'd like people to stop waffling and moaning about it.

I mean, I had assumed that the purpose of giving evidence was so that we could get a clear, objective perspective on the dispute. If the proposed decisions are going to based on what amounts to rumor-mongering regardless, I'm not sure why we were asked to bother.

But whatever... I'll drop it if that's what you want - as I said, it's really no skin off my nose.

And Mathsci - puhlease! I barely remember what happened 2 years ago, I don't remember Jagz at all, and I have no idea who you are pointing to as lurking socks. Moreover, I don't care. I can't speak to what baggage you carry, but wikipedia is not a sufficiently important part of my life for me to hold on to silly crap over that kind of time frame (I am assuming that whatever it was that happened back then was silly crap as a matter of course). You apparently lack AProck's skills at mind-reading - maybe you should consult with him first in the future (just kidding, just kidding... ) --Ludwigs2 21:26, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

“If you continue to make statements to the effect that everyone but yourself is wrong, this discussion will likely go on forever.”

I don’t think Ludwigs2 has claimed this; and if he has, it wouldn’t be an accurate description of the situation, even if his perspective about the mediation is the correct one. There are several other people who share his perspective that it isn’t useful to claim that the mediation was inherently flawed without providing any evidence to support that assertion. I certainly agree with him about this, and a few other people (particularly David.Kane) have expressed similar views on the evidence and workshop page.

The reason I haven’t been expressing my view about the mediation in this discussion is just because since Ludwigs2 is the main person whose actions are being attacked here, I feel like he’s probably able to defend them better than I could. There are also plenty of attacks against my own conduct to occupy my attention, and I don’t have an unlimited amount of time to devote to this case. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, Ludwigs is engaged in a little bit of "mediation revisionism" as a means of protecting his legacy as a mediator. Since the dispute has been escalated from mediation to arbitration, most outsiders would assume that that mediation failed. However a failed mediation doesn't necessarily imply a failed mediator. The primary burden of making a mediation successful rests on the shoulders of the disputing parties, not on the shoulders of the mediator. I think neutrals would have been willing to give Ludwigs the benefit of the doubt, but since in the post mediation era, he has been involved in a feud with one of the mediation participants, that seems less likely. They would wonder, how is it possible that someone who was supposed to help calm down a shouting match between two disputing parties, is himself involved in a shouting match. Can the blind lead the blind? I have also previously mentioned, that it is not a good sign if the mediator becomes the subject of a dispute resolution. Nobody is discussing Xavexgoem or Wordsmith, the mediators before Ludwigs.

I had some concerns about the mediation. Ludwigs in his evidence stated,

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.

I don't think the mediator is the appropriate person to declare that mediation was "plugging along appropriately" without the considering the opinions of the participants. I did not think the mediation was proceeding appropriately and I expressed my concerns here, . I wondered why the mediator was passing judgments and imposing decisions, when it is not the mediator's role to do so. Further I wondered why the mediator frequently sided with one side of the dispute. Because of these concerns I stated "I object to the current direction the mediation is taking."

Predictably Ludwigs will vociferously defend his actions during the mediation. So I concur with Shell Kinney, we should just agree to disagree about the mediation, and move on. Wapondaponda (talk) 23:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Legacies - lol, that's rich. why the f%ck should I care what future people think about this username? I take the anonymity of this account as an opportunity to speak my mind freely and do the right thing to the best of my abilities and understanding, damn the torpedos, and if I ever become worried about my wikipedia 'legacy' I will retire this account and start a new one. Unlike many editors on the project, the only thing I care about here is making a better encyclopedia - I am not looking to make a name for my username.

That being said, the rest of your statement is fairly sensible. in fact, I don't disagree with you that the mediation failed - I think it's obvious to everyone that it did. That does make me a bit sad, truth be told, but such is life. The mistake you're making is in assuming that I have any personal/emotional investment in this situation. Granting that I have a mild aversion to several participants in this debate (of the desiderata variety - i.e. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit), I have no particular problem with anyone here that would keep me from functioning as a mediator. Not even Mathesci: inside the mediation I treated him with a cool, detached and reasonable attitude; outside the mediation I echoed his aggressive energy right back at him in the manner of feedback cancelation; now that everything's more-or-less done I see no reason to squabble with him further. Mathsci's a fine guy in his own way; I imagine if you got him a bit tipsy he'd be one of those people that spews out great stories and buys drinks for all his friends. who can object to that?

Nor do I have any problem with the diffs you presented - sometimes as mediator what you need to do is simply assert a point or reject a claim just to break an unproductive deadlock. Participants will always and invariably come back to reexamine it later after they've done some other stuff, and forward progress is worth the momentary rebuff. Nothing important is ever forgotten in a mediation, and dismissing a point is sometimes the best way to get people to come back at it with a fresh perspective.

I'll be honest and point out that one of my weaknesses as a mediator here is that I'm not used to mediation environments where people can play mommy-daddy games. Normally when I mediate it's in a situation where people know that they cannot make political appeals to higher authorities (because if they try their bosses will send them right back down the hall to me, with bells on). That allows me to build an atmosphere tailored to proper discussion. That's not binding mediation, mind you - any side can declare that they want to end the process at any time - but it's remarkably focusing to know that one has committed oneself to the mediation, and that no higher authority than consensus and cooperation is going to resolve the issues. That's part of the reason why I was so interested in defusing the ANI kerfluffle: it was a very odd and unpleasant move from my perspective. I was hoping that the arbiters would see fit to stop up that particular loophole through some statement that mediation issues should stay in mediation, but (currently) no joy on that. If I am worried about anything right now it's the semi-philosophical question of how effective mediation can be done in this environment - I obviously need to develop an auxiliary set of mediation tools. Sysop status might be needed as well, though if I wanted to go that route I suspect I'd have to retire this account and start fresh - I doubt I could convince people like you and Mathsci to support me in an RfA no matter what guarantees I was willing to give.

But now I'm rambling - third beer this evening, sorry.

can you point to someplace where I sided with one side (assumedly not your side) of the dispute? Because seriously dude, as a person I'm in your camp (I accept the genetic perspective as an analytical possibility, but I don't think it has come anywhere close to meeting its burden of proof), and I'm not at all sure why I keep getting put in the other camp. Possibly I overcompensated for my own preferences - that happens sometimes - but I'd like to see what you're seeing, otherwise I can't really assess it. As Wittgenstein (one of my two Ludwigs) once said: "Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself". If I'm doing that, help me not. --Ludwigs2 05:19, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

For the record I am not in any camp. I am simply a casual observer whose main interest is to have a responsible race and intelligence article that represents all points of view but that gives the appropriate weight to the mainstream line of thinking. In the future, scientists will discover what causes people to vary in intelligence, they may discover environmental, genetic or other unknown factors. I am not in a position to dictate what they discover, so I take no position on this. This R/I controversy is a highly sensitive subject because it has a eugenics undercurrent. It should be no secret that I think that editors who irresponsibly try to give undue weight to a controversial,minority and unproven theory should be topic banned. I think experienced editors such as Slrubenstein or Ramdrake are perfectly able to represent hereditarian theories in a non-controversial manner.

I digress. I stated in the diffs, that the major decisions during the mediation, the fringe debate, the datacentric article and the outline were all favorable to Occam and friends. Which probably explains why they are pleased about the mediation, and others are not. I also was concerned that you were more interested in churning out a new article, which is what Occam and friends wanted, than in resolving the underlying dispute. I did feel the mediation was one-way traffic and that I was being manipulated to somehow give legitimacy to the outcome. Though I have concerns about biases during and after the mediation, I still consider you a moderate in this fiasco and I don't have problems with moderates regardless of their views about the subject. Wapondaponda (talk) 11:06, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Added a new workshop finding and proposed remedy

As someone who has been tangentally involved as an uninvolved administrator, but attempting to stay enough at arms length to retain reasonable perspective, I believe that the involved parties and the initial proposed Arbcom decision are inadequate.

The parties are quite evidently at this point not going to cooperate, and there are insufficiently sharp teeth in the existing proposed decision.

I am proposing a new finding of fact - that the two sides are not getting along - and a new remedy - that both sides are topic banned from the main Race and intelligence article, but that the uninvolved community should decide if splitting the article into a neutrally maintained parent with two child articles for the two main opposing viewpoints is a good idea. If that happens, then the parties may freely edit their own viewpoints' child article, and the criticisms of section in the opposing viewpoint, but not the other article's other sections.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:21, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

While I think topic banning all involved parties is a not unreasonable and workable short term solution, it would be better to have a medium to long term solution in place. I'll add that suggesting the creation of POV forks seems unworkable at best. aprock (talk) 23:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

They're not precisely POV forks. We have a field in which there are two competing explanations. In many fields the editors can play nice and a single page can contain all significant competing theories without edit chaos breaking out. This one is manifestly not one of those. The two theories are sufficiently widely enough published to be covered in separate articles, and an overview maintained by anyone other than the current combatants can direct people to the two specific theory pages.

One can label this a POV fork, but it's more than that. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:04, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Topic banning everyone is tougher solution and would bring about an immediate de-escalation. However, this might be throwing the baby with the bathwater. I am an involved party, but I think it is fair to say that the controversial theories regarding race and intelligence are the source of much of the hostility, and therefore agenda accounts advocating these controversial theories are also the source of much of the hostility. The general public is never outraged when people denounce racism or racialism. Recently there has not been a period in which there were no SPA agenda accounts. So I do believe that if agenda editing is dealt with, the atmosphere can be calmed and all content issues can be addressed. There is a perception that if the known problematic editors are dealt with, the "other side" will revise all content in a non-neutral manner. I don't believe this is the case. We are all aware that this debate takes place on other websites, blogs, forums etc, so it is not in Misplaced Pages's best interest if it doesn't give adequate but appropriate representation to the various sides of the controversy.

The problem with banning everyone, is that not every editor is almost singularly obsessed with race and intelligence. Personally, I find any long term obsession with a single article to be extremely unproductive. I am looking for a resolution to this debate so that I can cease my involvement in it. IOW a topic ban isn't necessary for me because I actually want to move on to other things. I have edited over 1300 unique pages, so my life on wikipedia isn't about race and intelligence, but rather, I would like to think, about the broader encyclopedia.

This is why I had suggested a tiered approach. The first tier of sanctions would be applied to SPA agenda accounts. If this doesn't solve the problem, then other involved parties can also be sanctioned. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't support any solution that only penalized one side of the debate, which seems to be what you're suggesting waponda. If you're going to use a tiered approach, then the first tier ought to include the most problematic editors from both sides of the fight. --Ludwigs2 00:44, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, you haven’t responded to my comment above (at the end of this section) in which I explained that the article’s period of relative calm in early to mid 2009 was only the result of the dominant group of editors uncivilly driving away anyone who tried to oppose their ownership of the article; except to suggest a “good riddance” attitude for any long-term contributors who’ve lost faith in the project entirely because of this. (Including because of your own behavior, as in the most recent case.) I’ve also pointed out on the workshop page that more than half of the editors against whom Mathsci has his battleground attitude are not by any means focused on a single topic—this is the case for Varoon Arya, Ludwigs2, Xxanthippe, Rvcx, Victor Chmara, and Vecrumba. (Mathsci still uses the term “SPA” for some of these editors, but in their case it’s just an epithet that has no actual relationship to their editing patterns). If you’re going to continue repeating this claim that the root cause of conflict which needs to be addressed is just the presence of a group of SPA editors who want the article to include the “wrong” viewpoint, while offering no substantive response to my explanation of why that’s incorrect and what the actual problem is, the only thing it demonstrates is that you aren’t able to support your own viewpoint about this.

Also, if anyone’s going to count your edits, they need to include not just edits from your current account but also from all of your sockpuppets. The list of accounts whose contributions would need to be included is here: . I’ve looked through the contributions of some of your socks, although there are far too many for me to check all of them, and from the ones that I looked at it appears that other than articles about the origin of religion, articles related to race (and more specifically, Afrocentrism) are what you’ve edited the most. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:41, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

After counting, it looks like Wapondaponda has used 76 sockpuppets. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:48, 24 July 2010 (UTC).

Muntuwandi has edited a large number of unique pages. But I notice a common theme. mikemikev (talk) 03:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually if you include those accounts, then yes you are right I would have edited a lot more unique pages. My alternate account has edited about 340 unique pages. I regret using socks in the past and it is not something I have since done, nor intend to do in the future. I won't whine or complain if editors dig into my editing history. As I have stated before, it is fair game for editors to bring this up. If somehow my editing is a problem please advise. So far only one editors has complained about my involvement, that is Captain Occam in his "Muntuwandi's assumption of bad faith" section of his evidence. We can debate whether I acted inappropriately or not, but we can all agree those are fairly minor incidents. If my involvement in this dispute is somehow problematic, then please advise, I am always willing to listen.

I agree that I have edited a lot of articles on race, though I have started to wean myself of such articles. In recent years, I have edited much less on race. Though I have edited many race related articles, I would like to think that many of my edits are not particularly controversial, this is because a lot of material I have contributed over the years still remains in many of the articles.

Enough about my editing and back to the solution. Ludwigs has stated

I wouldn't support any solution that only penalized one side of the debate

I don't support sanctions based on which side an editor supports, but rather based on the status of being a single purpose agenda account. The problem is that most single purpose agenda accounts tend to support a more racialist hereditarian hypothesis. At least three editors have been banned because of their involvement in the race and intelligence controversy. They are Fourdee, MoritzB and Jagz. All three were SPA agenda type editors, and all three were supporters of a racialist/hereditarian hypothesis. So it shouldn't be hard to see what the profile of a problematic editor in this controversy is. No editor has yet been banned who didn't fit this profile. However if there was a single purpose agenda account who was tendentiously trying to give undue weight to non-hereditarian theories, then a topic ban should apply to them as well. Wapondaponda (talk) 09:15, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

76 sockpuppets? You've got to be kidding. Seriously... Doc9871 (talk) 10:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

But an editor who edits a wide range of articles trying to give undue weight to non-hereditarian theories is OK? mikemikev (talk) 10:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Seeing as the non-hereditarian hypotheseis for explaining the Black-White IQ gap is the mainstream hypothesis, please explain how it could be given undue weight to start with, or alternatively, could you come up with a reliable source which takes this position?--Ramdrake (talk) 18:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, putting 'is' in bold makes it true. Nice. Kind of ironic this, but you are the only one who just asserted the relative weight of the positions, so can you support yourself with a reliable source? I'm only aware of Snyderman and Rothman, where hereditarianism is minority, and non-hereditarianism is a smaller minority. mikemikev (talk) 19:34, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Ramdrake may have overstated things a touch. You'll find no reliable secondary source which discusses direct evidence for a genetic variability of IQ. You will find such source which discuss direct evidence for environmental variability of IQ. aprock (talk) 20:34, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, can you clarify what you mean by direct evidence for a genetic variability of IQ, and what relevance this has to the discussion. mikemikev (talk) 20:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

The question of whether IQ variation has a direct genetic component has not been answered in any meaningful sense. So far, research has not uncovered any relationship between IQ and genes. This is true for individuals and groups. aprock (talk) 21:19, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Mendel didn't run a genome analysis on his pea plants, but he still came to his hereditary conclusions. mikemikev (talk) 21:26, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that is what is called indirect evidence. Heritability != genetics. aprock (talk) 21:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Aprock, heritability is the portion of variance attributable to genetics. It doesn't prove a genetic cause, but it's reasonable to think so. Little in science is ever proven. Is this your point? Why are you making it? Are you getting around to demonstrating that non-hereditarianism is anything other than a small minority? mikemikev (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, heritability is the portion of variance attributable to genetics. That's not the same thing as genetics. And estimates of heritability are not the same thing as heritability. And yes, indirect evidence is evidence. But it is not direct evidence. There is direct evidence for environmental factors affecting IQ. There is no direct evidence for genetic factors affecting IQ. aprock (talk) 23:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

“Seeing as the non-hereditarian hypotheseis for explaining the Black-White IQ gap is the mainstream hypothesis, please explain how it could be given undue weight to start with, or alternatively, could you come up with a reliable source which takes this position?”

Do you really need to ask this? Jensen, Rushton, Gottfredson, Eysenck and Lynn have all published peer-reviewed papers which argue in favor of the hereditarian hypothesis, in reputable peer-reviewed journals such as Intelligence and Personality and Individual differences. Peer-reviewed papers in reputable academic journals clearly satisfy WP:RS, and I could provide several dozen of these if you need them. Most of these researchers have also written books on this topic which have been published by academic publishers, which also satisfies RS. The question is how much coverage material from these sources should be given in the article compared to material from other sources.

I agree that the hereditarian explanation for the racial IQ gap is not mainstream, but neither is the 100% environmental explanation for it. The mainstream viewpoint—that is, the one stated by the APA in their report Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns—is that the cause of the IQ gap cannot be identified. If you believe that the article should present the 100% environmental explanation for the IQ gap as the only valid explanation, and intend to try and completely exclude all other potential explanations for it from the article, then that’s POV-pushing just as severe as what you’ve accused anyone else of doing. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:13, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the APA statement says the cause cannot be identified. It also says that there is no direct evidence for the genetic hypothesis, while there is direct evidence for environmental explanations. aprock (talk) 04:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, although they also say there’s not much of it. I don’t see how this is relevant. Ramdrake was commenting on what the “mainstream” position is, and the APA is pretty unequivocal that their overall position about the cause of the IQ gap is one of agnosticism: “At present, no one knows what causes this differential.” --Captain Occam (talk) 04:32, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we should focus on specific solutions and specific content issues should be taken to Talk:Race and intelligence. This particular thread concerns topic banning all involved parties. The alternative option is to only topic ban some editors. If this were so, then the question becomes which editors. There is also the default option, which is to do nothing at all.

I have suggested that single issue editing is one of the unhealthy aspects of this dispute. My reasons are

• Single issue editors demonstrate a lack of experience when it comes to navigating Misplaced Pages's policies, guidelines and even Misplaced Pages's social norms. This is because their editing experience is only limited to a small number of articles. Examples of inexperience include David Kane's suggestions in the workshop, the extensive use of primary rather than secondary sources, Captain Occam referencing results from blogs or Mikemikev's inappropriate sockpuppetry accusations
• Single issue editors are likely to get too attached to their preferred subject and this may develop into article ownership. Some editors have not yet demonstrated the ability to detach themselves from the affected articles and have not taken any breaks from editing. OTOH I recall Mathsci was not involved in the dispute for a couple of months.
• Single issue editors are able to concentrate all their efforts on a handful of topics. This disproportionate influence is likely to affect the neutrality of the affected articles if advocacy is involved

If single issue editors are unable to voluntarily address their article ownership issues, then maybe they need some external motivation, such as edit restrictions, to assist them. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:16, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you going to never address any of what other people have said in response to these claims any of the times you’ve made them in the past, including in this arbitration case? The falsehood of some of them, such as me trying to cite article content to blogs, has been pointed out to you so many times that it’s difficult for me to imagine you aren’t aware of it by now. When this has been pointed out to you, you’ve sometimes even replied to the comment in which it was pointed out (as you did here), acknowledging everything that’s been said to you except the falsehood of your claim. And then a few weeks later, you repeat the exact same claim again as though nobody had ever brought this up with you at all.

Your continued claim that I’ve been trying to cite article content to blogs is probably the worst current example of this from you. Even the link that you included in the word “blog” demonstrates that it’s false; in your own comments there you refer to the fact that I was citing something to a New York Times article. And every time you post a diff that you claim shows me citing something to a blog, anyone who actually look at the diff can see that the source is a NYT article archived at Pulitzer.org. Are you really that forgetful about what you yourself have described in the past, and are neglecting to look at the content of the diffs you post, or is this a case of hoping that the arbitrators will believe what you’re claiming about me without examining whether or not there’s any evidence for it?

If you want it to be possible for me to assume good faith about you with regard to this, you need to strike out or remove this part of your comment. If you aren’t willing to, even after I’ve pointed out to you what’s false about this for at least the third time, then you are knowingly and deliberately making false accusations against other editors, which is an act of bad faith by any standard. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:51, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Let the readers go through the noticeboard link and decide for themselves whether your actions were appropriate or the result of editorial inexperience combined with advocacy. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Whether my actions were appropriate or not isn’t the question here. In October of last year I’d only been actively involved in Misplaced Pages for a few months, so lack of experience was probably an issue for me at that point, although my lack of experience when I was a newbie last year isn’t especially applicable to the current situation. The relevant question is whether you’re going to keep repeating a claim about me that you know perfectly well is false. I’ve asked you to strike out that part of your comment, and you haven’t done so; should I infer from this that have no intention to let reality interfere with what you want to claim about me? --Captain Occam (talk) 06:40, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Disruption by Mikemikev

Mikemikev made this request Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/Adhan24/Archive today. The request was refused. ArbCom members who are checkusers can easily determine that Muntuwandi, Mathsci, Slrubenstein and Ramdrake are all separate users, each with their own long and separate histories. This kind of deliberate and unprecendented disruption during an ArbCom case should normally carry a fairly heavy penalty. Mathsci (talk) 21:53, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I too ask ArbCom to give serious consideration to this attempt to abuse WP mechanisms in what is really just part of Mikemikev's smear campaign against editors who are clearly clearly not sock-puppets, who are well-known for many years' of hard work on very different articles. Matschi, Ramdrake and I have worked together on one or two articles - and each of us has edited countless other aqrticles. I do not need to produce any evidence on one point: anyone who looks at edits I have made to a host of other articles including Jesus, Cultural relativism and Judaism know that I do not make a substantive edit unless I have done a considerable amount of serious research. The same gos for Mathsci and Ramdrake, but on other articles. Mikemikev on the other hand has contributed nothing to WP. When he sees three very serious researchers doing precisely what we are supposed to do i.e. collaborative editing, he first accuses us of tag-teaming and now accuses us of sock-puppetry. ArbCom, please do something about this. I am not asking for myself - let people accuse me of being a sockpuppet, let them try to prove it. I am asking for the sake of the encyclopedia. WP's success depends on the hard work of serious editors. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Wikipedian This is a further demonstration that a broad, lengthy topic ban of Mikemikev, which I agreed with on the workshop page, would be helpful to the project and to the quality of articles on Misplaced Pages. When individual editors are accused of being socks merely because they are conscientiously following the sources, it is time for ArbCom to act to protect the project. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci and Ramdrake tag teaming to insert poorly written synth violating material into Race (classification of humans)

The material has been shown in detail to be badly flawed in several ways.

Talk page points unaddressed. False and ultra-hypocritical accusation of misrepresentation in lieu of reasonable response. Clear case of stonewalling.

I very much doubt these guys understand the material. I studied evolutionary genetics with John Maynard Smith. They seem to be trying to own the article in order to promote their worldview. The material they are adding is extremely poor.

They should address my points so we can work out a solution. mikemikev (talk) 06:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Well this involves a different though somewhat related article. So I am not sure whether the content issue is relevant to these proceedings. However I would like to point out that Mikemikev's reverting of content within this article means that he has violated or is close to violating the 3RR for the second time within a week. Wapondaponda (talk) 08:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I made one edit to revert a major change to the lede by Mikemikev which misrepresents two sources in a blatant way. Mikemikev has edited very little on wikipedia but almost all his edits, whether to articles, talk pages or on noticeboards, have been disruptive. Arbitrators can judge for themselves how he misrepresented two sources in the lede of the article in this section on the talk page of the Race article.. Mikemikev has not been discussing either of the secondary sources, pages, etc, which he claims to have used. The quote from Dawkins was in fact part of a quote from Lewontin stating the opposite of what Mikemikev wished to include. Mikemikev has caused disruption already by breaking the 1RR rule on Race and intelligence on July 17. Details of that are mentioned in the WP:AN thread that he initiated later in a complaint against RegentsPark. Mikemikev's behaviour (a) on Race and intelligence (b) on the WP:SPI noticeboard (c) Race (classification of humans) (d) on WP:AN and (e) here seems to be becoming excessively disruptive. He has been misrepresenting multiple users and has been adding improperly sourced material to two race-related articles. Multiple users have disagreed with his edits (why does he not mention Aprock?) and he has not responded in a reasonable or coherent way to the discussion of the source material. This is his latest response which doesn't in any way explain his edits "I'm astonished that Mathsci has the audacity to expect a response to his ill-informed query. Perhaps Mathsci could address the more pressing issue of the huge logical holes in his train-wreck of an insertion above, before we discuss my use of the word 'therefore' (which I can justify) and the page number of the quote (which I can provide, are we looking at different editions Mathsci?)." Again he misrepresents the source of Cavalli-Sforza and then uses WP:SYNTH to infer a statement that cannot be found directly stated in the second source of Dawkins. I think Captain Occam made a similar jump between two sources, again contradicitng chronology. Certainly Dawkins' views, if properly attributed and accurately reported, can be mentioned in the main body of the article but not in the lede since that would be WP:UNDUE. A detailed discussion has no place here, but Mikemikev should justify his changes; the present material in the lede satisfies WP:V, unlike his changes. Mathsci (talk) 10:22, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The quote from Dawkins, Ancestor's tale, page 338:

But that doesn’t mean that race is of ‘virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance’. This is Edward’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of the total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.

This is a refutation of Lewontin's fallacy, completely accepted by the genetics community. It can be sourced to a peer reviewed paper. How did I misrepresent it? I didn't. Mathsci's lying. His reaction to criticism is often to immediately accuse his critic of the same offence, whether or not it makes sense.

The lead Mathsci prefers is based on Lewontin's fallacy.

If you want WP to be a laughing stock of obsolete information which no-one can edit, Mathsci's your man. mikemikev (talk) 17:51, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Using references like that of Cavalli-Sforza et al in the lede of an article to state the exact opposite of what the reference states seems extremely ill-advised. Presumably, when Mikemikev has calmed down, he will be able to offer some kind of explanation. Mathsci (talk) 23:35, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Comment by the uninvolved Wikipedian who found the source Mikemikev had put a citation needed tag on a statement in the lede of Race_(classification_of_humans). The statement was familiar to me, as it is a mainstream statement that has been amply confirmed by research and appears all over reliable secondary sources on the subject, and I readily found a review article by major researchers on the issue that confirmed the statement, which I cited with a reference tag exactly where Mikemikev's citation needed tag had been. Mikemikev has since then further edited the lede with the spin he desires, shown in some of the diffs he has kindly shared. Ramdrake and Mathsci, who did other edits on the lede after that, have already responded above on this proposed decision talk page. This amply illustrates two things. First, it shows that an effective topic ban on the most disruptive editors involved in the Race and intelligence article (by which I here mean Mikemikev rather than Ramdrake or Mathsci) must sweep in most topics related to "race" as such as well as most topics related to human intelligence. Second, it is crucially important that editors turn directly to the sources and read what they say to ensure that Misplaced Pages is edited without undue weight in articles on controversial topics. (I added a reference to a source with full text online both because it is a very high-quality source and because that way many onlookers could easily read the source for themselves and see what the overall balance of statements in the source is.) I feel sorry for editors who are stuck in Confirmation bias when they read new sources. A lot of the fudge currently in the article Race and intelligence is a direct result of quoting articles from too long ago by authors who have since changed their minds. We editors ought to be able to change our minds too on the basis of the most recent reliable sources. If not, best that editors who don't want to represent current reliable sources accurately be encouraged to edit articles on other topics, through a topic ban. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:53, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Weiji, the citation you provided was this:

Statement 2: We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population

Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups, where those groups are defined in terms of linguistic, geographic, and cultural boundaries . Patterns of variation, however, are far from random. We recognize that human population history, including major migrations from one continent to another as well as more short-range movements, has led to correlation between genetic variation and geographic distribution . This finding is particularly true of indigenous peoples; populations characterized by a high degree of interaction with neighboring groups adhere less to these patterns.

Now do you really not see the problem with taking Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups, where those groups are defined in terms of linguistic, geographic, and cultural boundaries out of that statement and using it in a synthetic argument concluding This disproves the antiquated understanding of races as almost uniform groups of people that can be identified by a few visible traits, sourced to P. Aspinall's Language matters: the vocabulary of racism in health care? mikemikev (talk) 15:26, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Mikemikev is BLATANLY misrepresenting this source. This text is criticizing the usage of race in classifications. The usage that Mikemikev made in Race_(classification_of_humans) is grossly inappropiate. I made a full reply in the talk page. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:55, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

John Maynard Smith (1920-2004) was remembered after his long and illustrious career as a scholar who said

that there was no reason to believe that the gap in IQ scores between black and white Americans, to which the article had also referred, was genetic in origin. (JMS was not impressed by IQ theory, which revolves around the idea of a factor called g, referring to general intelligence - or by those he felt overstated its explanatory power, whom he called "g groupies".) And he insisted that even if something was natural, it was "nonsense" to say that it was inevitable. John Maynard Smith 1920-2004

I suppose (I write this as a teacher) that a student best honors the memory of his late teacher by acknowledging the principles the teacher stood for. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:53, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci and Weiji: Can you please stop wasting everybodies time with ultra-hypocritical lies and diversions (respectively), and admit that you took Sforza out of context to imply the opposite of the entire statement?

I'm guessing you think you have the moral high ground, so you think you don't need to admit mistakes. It's difficult working with people like that.

And incidentally, Maynard Smith is expressing agnosticism, right? mikemikev (talk) 05:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

This exchange is a perfect illustration of the fact that Mathsci has, throughout, been editing in support of a mainstream, properly sourced position, while Mikemikev is only on this encyclopedia for the purpose of trolling. I do hope that the arbs will not naively conclude that balance is to be found somewhere equidistant from the two. It most certainly isn't. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Hear; hear, Judith. That's all I will say about this illustration of tendentious editing, so that ArbCom has time to decide this case, without further distraction from this thread. See you on Misplaced Pages, editing articles on the basis of reliable sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 20:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

What you need to bear in mind is that my edit was an improvement. If "We recognize that individuals of two different geographically defined human populations are more likely to differ at any given site in the genome than are two individuals of the same geographically defined population" was cherry picked, "Research in human genetics has highlighted that there is more genetic variation within than between human groups" was even more cherry picked and out of context. All I was trying to do was bring the article closer to the intended meaning of the source, which I did. What you're doing now is comparing my edit to some perfect imaginary interpretation, and not applying the same standard to Mathsci. This edit verges on the embarrassing. I'm trying to engage in dialogue in order to improve it, in order to improve WP, and all I'm getting is pure hostility, nothing constructive. I gave a thorough deconstruction on the talk page, why has nobody responded? I mean, are you all such experts in genetics that what I wrote doesn't deserve a response? Or is the reality that I'm facing the "races only exist as social constructs" club, who feel that their self-assumed moral authority excuses them from any kind of knowledgeable discussion? Proper sourcing does not mean cherry picking statements out of context to synthesize a POV, whether that POV is mainstream or otherwise. mikemikev (talk) 13:43, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Dawkins has written a popular account that represents his own opinions. I do not question the validity of his opinions, but this is not an authoritative secondary source on mainstream views of race among humans. One must therefore be careful when quoting him; one must know the larger context, by which I mean, one must know where to locate, among scientists, the view Dawkins has an dhis agenda, what audience he is writing to. One must also know the larger body of work on race, in order to acess Dawkins views. I have not seen evidence that Mikemikev has this knowledge and is able to contextualize Dawkins, although WeijiBaikeBianji, Mathsci, and some other editors have shown considerable knowledge of the general field and current research.

But, as Itsmejudith correctly points out, the real issue here is Mikemikev's pattern of behavior. Put simply, Mikemikev generally employs a tit-for-tat strategy. Whenever an editor accuses him of doing something wong, he immediately accuses that editor of doing the same wrong thing. Then he has to grasp for evidence to justify his accusation, which he has tried to do here. But the real point is not the evidence; Mikemikev's evidence is always weak or entirely misplaced, because evidence is the afterthought. This is exactly what happened with Matc=hsci. mathscie saw a pattern of evidence, and because of that evidence made an accusation against Mikemikev. Mikemikev's immediate response is to make the same accusation against Mathsci. He is not motivated by the evidence, he is motivated solely by Mathsci's accusation against him. No wonder his attempts to provide evidence are invariaby weak or just plain bizarre.

Sometimes Mikemikev (and sometimes Captain Occam) demand more edit-difs, when they are accused of being single purpose point of view warriors. But why bother? Their own pattern of attacking anyone who accuses them of misreading or misusing a source is the evidence. The evidence is right here. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:13, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Put simply, Mikemikev generally employs a tit-for-tat strategy. Whenever an editor accuses him of doing something wong, he immediately accuses that editor of doing the same wrong thing. Then he has to grasp for evidence to justify his accusation, which he has tried to do here.

Interesting. I said the same thing about Mathsci here. One would expect that accusation to be repeated also, which appears to be happening here.

This is where I accused Mathsci and co. of cherry picking. Without acknowledging this Mathsci starts a thread accusing me of cherry picking, even though my edit was inclusive of the wider context of the source, while his tag team member reverts back to the narrow cherry picked quote.

Now we have "races do not exist" club member Slrubenstein, accusing me of hypocritical evidence-free inditement, while producing no evidence. (And lauding his club members 'superior' grasp of the subject matter for good measure).

How fun! mikemikev (talk) 16:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Nowhere have I ever written that races do not exist. I would love to see you provide evidence of my having said that, anywhere, in any article or talkspace in Misplaced Pages. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

mikemikev (talk) 18:36, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Biological race != race. In particular, race is usually understood as a social construct, not a biological one. For example, Spike Lee and Nelson Mandella are both said to be "black" despite the fact that they are members of different "biological population clusters". aprock (talk) 19:03, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

"Biological population cluster"? I'm in a different "biological population cluster" to my cousin. We are the same ethnicity and race though. I guess Spike Lee and Mandela are from different ethnic groups? mikemikev (talk) 19:38, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Once again, Mikemikev saves me the trouble of providing an edit diff. His edit of 18:36, 26 July 2010 (UTC) is both a good example of his cherry-picking, and a good example of his utter miscomprehension of science, that makes him so unqualifid to contribute content to these articles. If one looks at the quote in context, one sees two things. First, that I claim that race is a social construct (and for anyone else as woefully ignorant of both science and the English language as Mikemikev, things that are constructed are quite real. But perhaps Mikemikev is in the habit of wandering around construction sites without a hardhat. That would actually explain many things.) Second, one sees that all that I am saying in this passage is that races are not part of the mechanism of speciation among human beings. The amount of gnetic material shared by people of different races is one indicator of gene flow among races that acts against speciation. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:49, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm talking about biological race, that should be obvious. We all agree social race exists. Nobody has argued that races are heading towards speciation, why mention this? Are you trying to dazzle us? What's that about a hard hat, and English? It's just childish. I think your mentality speaks for itself. mikemikev (talk) 20:17, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Why mention speciation? It was in the example you "cherry-picked." Don't you even read your own examples? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Why mention it here. How is it possible to not cherry pick a diff illustrating behaviour. I realise that you're probably just being difficult on purpose, but sometimes I wonder whether you really are this dense. mikemikev (talk) 20:44, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

YOU mentioned it here! You just don't get it. A text is interpreted in its context. If you refer to a text, its context is imediately relevant. It is your taking texts out of context that is one sign of your cherry picking. Slrubenstein | Talk 08

39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Uhh, no. I hope you feel as petty reading this as I do writing it, but this is where you started discussing speciation here. When someone provides a diff it's not a license to give a condescending little lecture on all the unrelated information in that diff, in a lame effort to impress everybody with how 'scientific' you are. mikemikev (talk) 11:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

<= On the Race and intelligence article, David.Kane some time back restored what he claimed was a "stable version of the lede" here . That move was against consensus and soon reverted. Unilaterally rolling back the lede like that is not how wikipedia is edited. He tried a similar game on Race (classification of humans), again rolling back a lede from a month ago. Since wikipedia is edited incrementally and cumulatively, this is a highly dsiruptive way of editing. It as if David.Kane is taking some kind of administrative role. However, no administrator is allowed to do that and nor, as far as I am aware, any user. Mathsci (talk) 20:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

David.Kane is now edit warring on Race (classification of humans) by rolling back the lede twice now. I have never seen a user roll back a lede in this way twice. Not even an administrator can do that. This is just disruptive editing by somebody who seems to have placed themselves beyond wikipedia rules. In those corcumstances I don't really feel there's any point in interacting with this user at the moment until they calm down. David.Kane just seems to be gaming the system at the moment. Mathsci (talk) 21:07, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Unless I am completely mistaken (please, anyone, correct me if I'm wrong), it is perfectly permissible to edit articles by making large changes all at once. That would seem to be consistent with the bold edit, revert, discuss cycle sometimes encountered on wikis, including this wiki. But I agree that ordinarily merely reverting to a version of an article a month or several months old is not a constructive edit. What I like to do, by way of courtesy as a newbie among veterans, is first use an article talk page to identify article issues (which almost always revolve around poor sourcing ) that I think need to be addressed, and to make bold edits after sharing source lists with other editors. That is not mandatory, but I hope it is helpful to the project. (I am about to do top-to-bottom rewrites of some articles related to the sources I have in my office at the moment, and I want to make sure that it is by no means mandatory that editing on Misplaced Pages is always incremental.) I think the key issue is not how many or how few words change per edit, as that would be edit-countitis, but rather whether the words in the article fairly and accurately reflect reliable sources and are neutral in point of view and encyclopedic in tone. As a newbie here (not quite eligible for the second level of service award), I appreciate correction from more knowledgeable Wikipedians if my view of this is mistaken. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 21:36, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

David.Kane has been asked to self-revert by Biophys and me. It remains to be seen how he responds. Mathsci (talk) 00:30, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Wow. Mikemikev's pov-pushing misuse of the Ancestor's Tale reference in that case is especially egregious. And it seems no one but Mikemikev's defended it, while Mathsci, Enric Naval, Itsmejudith, and aprock have all pointed out how improperly mikemikev used it in this case. I've checked it too-Dawkin's couldn't have been more clear that there was nearly unanimous agreement among scientists in support of the contrary view than what mikemikev represented it to be in the article. Dawkins is putting forth his own opinion against that consensus, and the Cavalli-Sforza et al statements played no part in his argument, so mikemikev's "therefore" was WP:SYN. Dawkins does claim that Lewontin's view was the orthodox view in science. Yet as I so frequently I saw happening in disputes before the arbitration, David.Kane restores mikemikev's misleading claim (twice) and lectures the others to discuss it, and to get consensus on the talk page first? There's obviously already been lengthy discussion on this, with input from all of the editors involved except David.Kane!? Forcryingoutloud.

To answer your question, WeijiBaikeBianji, there is no policy against WP:BRD - but this looks nothing like WP:BRD. This looks like more of the same--disrespect of WP:V and WP:SYN on mikemikev's part, with tag team backup from David.Kane. It's absurd that so much time has been wasted on such a bogusly sourced edit already. Professor marginalia (talk) 00:46, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Now Captain Occam has shown up to backup mikemikev and David.Kane repeating the "let's discuss" like some mumbling sleepwalker. David.Kane hasn't discussed. Captain Occam hasn't discussed. While there has been discussion provided by those they're challenging, and the dispute's been so thoroughly addressed there's clearly nothing more to discuss. What's caused the disruption in that article? The only RFAR-involved editors to add anything to that article in the past month has been mikemikev, and throughout discussions here and on the article's talkpage, nobody has defended the validity of mikemikev's edits except mikemikev himself, defending his edit against the half dozen other editors supporting its deletion who've actually consulted the source. Hopeless. Professor marginalia (talk) 04:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam is making false claims of consensus there yet again. Certainly this is not the way changes are decided on wikipedia. The lede has not been "stable" as Captain Occam asserts there. In mid-May there was a flurry of editing. I myself formulated an earlier (and better) neutral version of the caveat or proviso statement concerning physical anthropologists and race-based medicine to replace a POV statement about Gill. At that time David.Kane tried to make major changes to the lede which I and others reverted. Again these were simply tailored to the view that race is a biological attribute. If other editors like Biophys decide to add things to the lede, that's the natural way things happen on wikipedia. Captain Occam and David.Kane's coordinated response is very little different from what has been seen before on History of the race and intelligence controversy. With Mikemikev, all three of these users seem to have adopted an inappropriate confrontational approach to editing which is not usual on wikipedia articles: they invent mechanisms outside wikipedia editing policy to obstruct progress on an article. I don't think the race article was controversial before they started editing it. If these users had practice editing major articles, not related to race, their editing behaviour might improve. Misplaced Pages has no need for editors who keep finding new ways to break wikipedia editing policy and then try to bully other editors into accepting that kind of behaviour. David.Kane and Captain Occam made the same kind of claims about BLP violations in blanking large of numbers of sourced edits in May and June. Their obstructive behaviour is no different in this case. I believe at this stage that both of them merit a 6 month topic ban from race-related articles. On the basis of his editing record so far, all of which seems to be disruptive even during this ArbCom case, Mikemikev should probably be blocked from editing wikipedia for a period of at least three months, possibly longer. Mathsci (talk) 06:22, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I do need to apologize now to David.Kane for accusing him of restoring mikemikev's edit twice. He did not--his reverts undoing a month's worth of edits also included undoing mikemikev's, so that accusation from me was incorrect and unfair, and I do apologize for it. I still fail to see any evidence that he's actively participated to discuss the disputes there, and the disruptive effect is essentially the same. Misplaced Pages's not poker--and legit editors don't bluff with fraudulently sourced claims. But the race/intelligence disputes were already too obfuscated by misunderstanding and mischaracterization--I was aware of this and still got tangled up by it. So as to do what I can not add to the confusion, I want to repeat that mikemikev's edits were insupportable, but David.Kane did not restore them. Professor marginalia (talk) 07:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

'Hey Everybody!!! Hey Everybody!!! You cannot make the accusations of tag-teaming by Davd Kane, Captain occam, and Mikemikev without providing edit difs. Oh, wait. Oopsy! You guys are saying the tag teaming is happening right now! You guys are saying it is occuring before our eyes! You guys are just saying anyone can go to the Race article and see it happening right now!!! I am tired of Captain Occam and the rest hiding behind these demands for "edit diffs" when at the very same time they are actively engaged in the problematic behavior. And of course, the delicious irony of accusing Ramdrake and Mathsci of tag-teaming - as a feeble attempt to distract ArbCom from witnessing their own tag-teaming. This is frankly why I seldome edit these articles any more. Let them turn into crap. I and several others did hard research to lay out all major points of view (including the viw that races are taxanomic, and that races are lineages), but also the mainstream scientific view. And these guys want to delete the mainstream view and install their own fringe view. I am sick and tired of fighting the same fight over and over and over and over and over... Slrubenstein | Talk 08:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The root of the problem?

It seems Slrubenstein has been involved here a long time. His poor understanding of science, and horror at anything which could be vaguely considered "racist", combined with Mathsci's political machinations, and hordes of unthinking reverting meatpuppets, may be why race related articles are such a mess. mikemikev (talk) 08:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Topic restriction

With regard to:

3) All named parties to this case are subject to the following restriction for one year: edits to the topic area of race and intelligence, broadly construed, including talk pages must constitute no more than one half of their total edits outside project space.

This is a novel approach. So far one Arb has opposed it on the basis that it could easily be gamed. I have two propositions:

First apply this mechanism retroactively to determine who among the parties to arbitration would, by this text, be considered for all intents and purposes SPAs or at leased obsessive. One could even have a cut-off of one month prior to arbitration (assuming that in the time leading up to arbitration, all editors devote much more if not all attention to the article under dispute. Consider applying flat-out one-year topic bans to all editors towhom this applies

Second I suspect that among themselves the members of ArbCom can figure out the major ways this proposal could be gamed. Just reformulate the proposal so as to exclude those forms of gaming.

If this does not catch all SPAs or edit warriors, so what? I do not think anyone is proposing it as a complete solution and it obviously cannot function as a complete solution; its only effect can be to clear some space for some serious consructive collaborative editing for the near future. And that is urgently needed. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:16, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I have made no secret that I believe the SPAs should be topic banned. Many are well over 50%. Cool Hand Luke 20:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

According to the existing principles for single purpose accounts, aren’t they only a problem if it can be demonstrated that they’re engaging in advocacy? You’ve stated yourself here that very little evidence has been provided in the way of demonstrating any actual inappropriate conduct on our part. I agree that’s the case; the people accusing me and David.Kane of advocacy and policy violations generally are not providing any diffs supporting these claims. If the only thing that’s been demonstrated is that we edit a narrow range of articles, why do you think this warrants topic bans? --Captain Occam (talk) 21:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, how would you make the affirmative case that you are not engaged in unencyclopedic advocacy? What overt behavior of your own that you can point to in your contribs would show a consistent pattern of turning to the most reliable secondary sources to let those call the facts as they see them? (That should have been on the evidence page of the case file a long time ago.) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 23:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

While novel, I regret that I do not see that ">50% edits elsewhere" addresses behavioral issues which editors have here have associated with the dark side of so-called "single purpose accounts." PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 00:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I strongly support blocking indefinitely any SPA account (less than 700 of edits, all of them on the same subject) who are actively engaged in edit warring after receiving a couple of warnings. But such policy must be consistently applied by individual administrators and during all arbitration cases. So far, that was never the case. Biophys (talk) 00:44, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

That'd block a lot of SPA's. I'm sure that has been considered by them as well: why be a SPA in the first place? To game the system. Eagerly awaiting further insight... Doc9871 (talk) 00:51, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

From my perspective, viewing from a distance, I do not see any unencyclopedic advocacy on the part of Occam: I see an attempt to keep the R&I articles balanced. The behavior of the two factions is not comparable. The environmentist faction is trying to obliterate all mention of hereditist factors by silencing their opponents by administrative means. On the other hand, to my understanding, the hereditist faction is not seeking to silence the views of their opponents but is merely seeking to ensure that this viewpoint gets a mention. It is also becoming clear from discussions elsewhere that the distinction between primary and secondary sources is, in real life, often hard to distinguish. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC).

Certainly some deep factions here - how can a compromise be met between them (in general)? Never, really, as it will always be there; but skirmishes like this must be resolved with clear reasoning from both sides. Individual battles end, but the war goes on. When reasoning doesn't work, somebody's view goes (squish) Cheers :> Doc9871 (talk) 01:28, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Why block an SPA? If they're really an SPA, a topic ban will have the same effect, while allowing them to move to other topics where they are not so invested. Topic bans are the preferred response for non-neutral SPAs. Cool Hand Luke 18:00, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, A topic ban provides the opportunity and encouragement for an SPA to diversify to (hopefully) non-controversial topics on wikipedia. Xxanthippe's remarks as usual seem completely wide of the mark: she evidently does not recognize that there is a problem with SPAs. Mathsci (talk) 18:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

WeijiBaikeBianji: I pointed this out in my response to Ramdrake here. If anyone actually looks at the entirety of my content contributions, they’ll see that there have been just as many examples of me adding pro-environmental information to the article (or removing/reducing pro-hereditarian information) as there have been examples of the opposite. As far as I can tell, nobody has ever supported the assertion that I’m overall a “pro-hereditarian” editor without basing it on opinions I’ve expressed outside of Misplaced Pages, which according to past ArbCom rulings is not sufficient to demonstrate POV-pushing on Misplaced Pages. ("A strong point of view expressed elsewhere on a subject does not necessarily mean POV-pushing editing on Misplaced Pages; that can only be determined by the edits to Misplaced Pages.")

Several people have complained about the “if you’re not for us you’re against us” attitude that some people involved in this article tend to have, and this really is a perfect example of that. The group of editors who seem to have article ownership issues apply the term “POV-pushing SPA” (or similar labels) to basically everyone who opposes them, regardless of whether or not it’s consistent with our contributions. Some of the people to whom this label gets applied, such as XXanthippe, Rvcx and Victor Chmara, aren’t SPAs at all; and for others who actually do edit a narrow range of articles, such as me and David.Kane, the claim that we’re engaging in advocacy is not consistent with the entirety of our contributions. Some of the people who are accused of being “pro-hereditarian editors”, such as Ludwigs2, have even explicitly stated that they oppose the hereditarian viewpoint. Since it’s clearly inaccurate to paint everyone who opposes the dominant group of editors with the same brush like this, it bothers me a lot if arbitrator are going to view it that way.

I don’t think I should need to demonstrate more in my own case than the fact that I’ve made an approximately equal number of edits in favor of both viewpoints. But regarding your point about my having relied a lot of primary sources: to the extent that this has anything to do with neutrality, it’s been an effort to maximize it. With a few notable exceptions such as the APA report, almost all secondary sources about race and intelligence are trying to prove either the environmental or hereditarian hypothesis, but something we noticed while discussing this during mediation was that all of them tend to cite the same primary sources, regardless of whether they do so from a hereditarian or environmental perspective, and they all also mostly agree about the validity of the data presented in these primary sources. The disagreement among secondary sources is only in how they think these primary sources should be interpreted. The reason behind using a lot of primary sources was that since we were trying to present the data on this topic as neutrally as possible, we concluded that the most neutral presentation of this data would be in the primary sources that both pro-hereditarian and pro-environmental secondary sources agree are worth citing and discussing.

Perhaps this was a good idea, and perhaps it wasn’t. An alternate method of having a data-centric structure would have been to present both the pro-hereditarian and pro-environmental interpretation of each line of data alongside each other, without using the primary source at all; the downside of that method is that both pro-hereditarian and pro-environmental researchers are liable to subtly distort this data in support of their preferred viewpoint. But whether the method we used was the best one or not, consensus supported it at the time, and it also isn’t inconsistent with any Misplaced Pages policies. WP:RS specifically allows the use of primary sources, so long as they’re carefully used in order to avoid syth, and the proposed remedy disallowing the use of primary sources doesn’t seem likely to pass at this point. So if I’ve made an approximately equal number of content edits in favor of either viewpoint about this topic (which I have), I did not violate any sourcing policies with my use of primary sources (which I didn’t), and the reason for my heavy use of them was in the interest of finding the best possible balance between making the article informative and making it neutral (which it was), the claim that I’ve been engaging in advocacy is unsupported. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:48, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Side Note - Primary sources are certainly allowed, but, "Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources." Just a guideline: not written in stone. Jus' sayin'... Doc9871 (talk) 02:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess the most succinct way to describe this is that the overall structure of the article was based on the way this topic is presented in secondary sources (mostly the APA’s Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns and Nisbett’s Intelligence and How to Get It, along with a few others), and we also used these secondary sources and their references to determine which primary data was important enough to be included. But when we were discussing the data itself within this framework, it was cited mostly to these primary sources.

I know this is a kind of unorthodox way of handling the sourcing, but as long as secondary sources are being used as the basis for the determining the article’s overall structure as well as which data it covers, I don’t think it’s really inconsistent with PSTS policy. We needed to come up with an unorthodox solution in order to make a version of the article that could be supported by consensus, and this method worked, at least for a few months. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:03, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

If it only worked for a few months, it didn't work overall (it may never). I agree with the "unorthodox", part: but it must blindingly convince the jury. Keep digging, and make so much sense that there is pitiful resistance (if any). Cheers, Cap'n :> Doc9871 (talk) 03:17, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

If it didn’t work in the long run (and I suppose that it didn’t, since there’s no longer a consensus for either the article’s current structure or any possible change to it), then I don’t think there’s anything that would work. The people who are now strongly opposing the article’s current structure are people who are of the opinion that the theory that the racial IQ gap is caused entirely by environmental factors is the mainstream hypothesis, and that therefore there is no such thing as giving it undue weight. (For example, see Ramdrake’s comments in this section: “Seeing as the non-hereditarian hypotheseis for explaining the Black-White IQ gap is the mainstream hypothesis, please explain how it could be given undue weight to start with”) If there is no such thing as undue weight for the environmental hypothesis, what this amounts to is that no amount of favoritism towards the environmental hypothesis is too much coverage, and no lack of coverage of the hereditarian hypothesis is too little.

Most of the rest of us regard the mainstream position as being the APA’s position that the cause of the IQ gap is currently undetermined. I don’t think most of the editors involved in this article are likely to be convinced that the American Psychological Association is something other than mainstream. And as for people like Ramdrake, they’ve been advocating their own position about this for several years, and have been argued about it by many other editors (e.g. Quizkajer and Legalleft) whom they eventually drove off, so them changing their own positions does not seem likely either. In a situation like this, any long-term consensus at all simply is not possible. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:47, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

No one is going to change their position: and there's no such thing as long-term consensus. You can't convince a creationist that we are descended from "monkeys" in one sentence. Cite the stuff in the most neutral manner possible. Then, it just might survive. Until the next mass extinction, that is... Doc9871 (talk) 04:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Topic restriction (3.1)

It seems to me that "all named editors" would have to be restricted to those who have not already proved "they can edit in other areas without issues." (This keeps most SPAs, and probably some other editors, in the restriction list.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Why? mikemikev (talk) 09:57, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Because there's no timeframe on (proving) "they can edit in other areas without issues." If the editor in question has already proved that, he should then be exempt from the restriction as written. (I should add that I'm not sure where Mathsci falls, here.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:16, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

So the prime factor in this topic ban proposal is behaviour in other areas? Ludicrous. mikemikev (talk) 13:23, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

In 2010: new articles created Handel concerti grossi Op.6 (254 edits while on wikibreak), Christopher Jencks (15 edits), Basil Lam (14 edits), John Clegg (violinist) (5 edits), Pietro Castrucci (6 edits), Otto Klineberg (11 edits), Robert M. Hauser (4 edits), History of the race and intelligence controversy (422 edits), Hanover Square Rooms (126 edits), Clavier-Übung III (407 edits); files created 145; main other articles edited Race and intelligence (123 edits, new material for rewrite), Snyderman and Rothman (study) (111 edits, complete rewrite), Mainstream Science on Intelligence (54 edits, complete rewrite). Music, files and biography - over 1000 edits; HR&IC related articles - about 720 edits (almost all April and May). Total number of content edits since joining wikipedia 8,861. Number of content edits to race-related articles from 2006 to March 2010: around 50.

   * 600 - Differential geometry of surfaces +
   * 422 - History of the race and intelligence controversy +
   * 407 - Clavier-Übung III +
   * 335 - Marseille 
   * 265 - Europe
   * 254 - Handel concerti grossi Op.6 +
   * 247 - Zonal spherical function +
   * 231 - Plancherel theorem for spherical functions +
   * 226 - Aix-en-Provence
   * 201 - Orbifold + 
   * 198 - Château of Vauvenargues +
   * 189 - Spectral theory of ordinary differential equations +
   * 160 - The Four Seasons (Poussin) +
   * 154 - Handel organ concertos Op.4 +
   * 154 - Race and intelligence
   * 147 - Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes +
   * 143 - Ethnic groups in Europe 
   * 128 - Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm' ic... +
   * 126 - Hanover Square Rooms +
   * 111 - Snyderman and Rothman (study)
   * 102 - Auguste Pavie +
   * 93 - Butcher group +
   * 88 - Commutation theorem +
   * 80 - Surface 
   * 80 - Building (mathematics)
   * 79 - Handel House Museum +
   * 72 - Handel organ concertos Op.7 +
   * 71 - Triumphs of Caesar +
   * 69 - Littelmann path model +
   * 66 - Porte d'Aix +
   * 65 - Hethumids 
   * 65 - Phèdre 
   * 57 - Iphigénie
   * 54 - Prime number
   * 54 - Mainstream Science on Intelligence
   * 53 - Boundedly generated group
   * 51 - Charles Sanford Terry (historian) +
   * 47 - Restricted representation
   * 46 - Clavichord
   * 46 - FBI transform +
   * 45 - Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56
   * 44 - Orgelbüchlein
   * 44 - Philippe Solari +
   * 41 - Franco-Siamese War
   * 39 - Witchcraft
   * 39 - Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht, BW... +
   * 39 - Kazhdan's property (T)
   * 37 - Kostant polynomial +
   * 37 - Fundamental group
   * 36 - Assassination of Inspector Grosgurin
   * 35 - La Vieille Charité +
   * 34 - Michael Atiyah
   * 34 - Criticism of non-standard analysis
   * 33 - Sheffield incest case
   * 33 - Guy of Ibelin, bishop of Limassol +
   * 31 - Von Neumann algebra
   * 31 - Representation theory of the Lorentz group
   * 30 - Knizhnik–Zamolodchikov equations
   * 29 - Triangulation (topology)
   * 29 - Florentin Smarandache
   * 29 - Guy of Ibelin (died 1304) +
   * 26 - Alexander R. Todd, Baron Todd
   * 26 - Janet Trotter +
   * 26 - Great Plague of Marseille +
   * 25 - Abington Park
   * 25 - Hethum II, King of Armenia
   * 24 - Jacques Hadamard 
   * 24 - La Couronne, Bouches-du-Rhône +
   * 24 - Mathematical Association of America
   * 24 - Guy of Ibelin, constable of Cyprus +
   * 24 - La cheminée du roi René +
   * 24 - Andromaque +
   * 23 - Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul
   * 22 - Diffeomorphism
   * 22 - Guy of Ibelin (1286–1308) +
   * 21 - Smarandache function
   * 21 - Paul Mellars +
   * 19 - Old Port of Marseille
   * 19 - Cauchy–Kowalevski theorem +
   * 18 - John Christopher Smith
   * 17 - Guy of Ibelin, seneschal of Cyprus +
   * 17 - French Academy of Sciences
   * 17 - Isothermal coordinates
   * 17 - Victor d'Hupay 
   * 16 - Isospectral
   * 16 - Fredholm determinant +
   * 16 - Gaulish language
   * 16 - Graph of groups
   * 16 - Amenable group
   * 16 - Gábor Szegő
   * 15 - Christopher Jencks +
   * 15 - Affiliated operator
   * 14 - Basil Lam +
   * 14 - Alwyn Van der Merwe
   * 13 - Hilbert space
   * 13 - Ibelin
   * 13 - Race (classification of humans)
   * 13 - Richard Overy
   * 13 - Caroline Elam +
   * 13 - Ruggero Santilli

Mathsci (talk) 21:36, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

My reading of this might be wrong, but fwiw, I think that the intention of this is to give everyone a 3 month break and give the area a 3 month break from the same noise, edits, comments, etc. from the same users. No conduct has necessarily been ideal in this dispute, be it SPA or non-SPA (not speaking about anyone specifically in saying this), so this is a remedy in itself. If the users involved nevertheless do not demonstrate they can leave the area alone for 3 months, then the break will be for longer, but if they cannot, then the break will be lifted at the end of the period. Possibly anyway. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:39, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a possible interpretation, but I don't see it as definitive. It appears to me that, the way it's written, the remedy only applies for 3 months, and editors could petition for earlier removal of restrictions. With your (Ncmvocalist's) reading, the remedy would extend for at least 3 months, with individual review after 3 months. However, ArbCom remedies almost always have a time limit, and that there's no time limit here other than 3 months, so it would be an anomalous interpretation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 11:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you're mistaken; ArbCom remedies are not always with a time limit - there are plenty of examples that can be found at the restrictions log. The one that I remember in light of the most recent announcement is the Ottava Rima restrictions case; the EEML case is another where a motion was recently passed. My reading stems from the fact that it says "banned from...topic...for a minimum of three months. During this time, editors will need to show ...t the expiration of this restriction, parties can petition" ArbCom to lift it. Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it a little ironic that editors who have all along expressed concern about the unhealthy nature of SPA editing will also receive the same treatment that is prescribed for SPA editing. However, I do agree that almost everyone involved needs a break, protecting the article for a period may be an option, though this would only affect one article and not its satellites.

My second concern is that 3 months is a rather short period. I wouldn't be surprised if the day after the topic bans expire, an edit war errupts, in which case we would be back at square one in October. The reason I think 3 months is short is based on how long this dispute has been going on for. I had initially traced the origins of this dispute to October 2009, but on further research I have found some controversial editing that stretches to July 2009 and June 2009, which means that problems may have existed for over a year. Three months seems like too short a time to break a habit that has been going on for up to or even more than year. Wapondaponda (talk) 12:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Although I agree with Arthur Rubin, do not overestimate the significance of this remedy. Consider editing something like Human population genetics or psychological tests other than IQ, and you will be just fine. I bet this will not be regarded as topic ban violation, unless you start reporting each other at AE (do not do it). On the other hand, every editor sanctioned in the "Remedies" section must be found guilty of something in "Findings of fact". That's a rule.Biophys (talk) 14:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the "topic" in any topic ban needs to be carefully defined. I think the sensible proposal is to provide a short cooling-off period for everyone (say, two weeks - enough can happen in real life or editing other articles to allow someone to return with a fresh perspective) and a longer topic ban (six months? 9 months?) for SPAs. Someone who has contributed prodeuctively and in a collaborative fashion to several other articles has skills which, however displaced by the heat of passion in an intense conflict, quickly return. SPAs who simply do not have experience in productive collaborative editing need to learn those skills, and I do not think three months is enough time. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:00, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that "edit in other areas without issues" gets to the heart of the problem, on all sides. No one denies that I can edit an article like, say, Rubin Causal Matching when no other Wikipiedia editor (meaningfully) disagrees with me. The test is: Can you edit an article with other editors with different points of view (than your own) which need to be handled collaboratively? The fact that, for example, MathSci has contributed thousands of edits to articles that no other editor disagrees with him about tells us nothing important about his ability to work together with others on Misplaced Pages just as my contributions to List of Williams College people tells us nothing about my ability to do so. Being an SPA tells us nothing about one's ability to work collaboratively on contentious articles. David.Kane (talk) 15:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess you are trying to say that you are an SPA but that you are able to work collaboratively. I beg to differ. Once upon a time, I knew little about David Kane, he seemed like a reasonable editor, always civil. However Captain Occam had been consistently mentioning that he only trusted David Kane, VA, DJ and nobody else, so I was concerned about DKs neutrality. DK gave assurances that he was impartial, but when he wrote the article it was very biased and the result of his biased writing was a string of disruptive edits. I thus find DK's "ability to work collaboratively" a bit of a ruse.

Secondly DK states "Being an SPA tells us nothing about one's ability to work collaboratively on contentious articles". I once again disagree somewhat. SPAs are primarily a problem when they edit contentious articles and are less of a problem, often a benefit, when they edit non-controversial articles. If an SPA is involved in articles about race, ethnic conflicts, sectarianism or nationalism, without knowing much about the specific dispute, you would be wise to be concerned about the SPA. Wapondaponda (talk) 16:33, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

That is a good example. Mikemikev's whol edit history is another good example - virtually all of his edits have involved the R&I controversy and I cannot recall his ever adding anything of value. I will admit this: his is not technically a single purpose account. His first edits were to add links in Dutch and Chinese to Ear pick, then this wonderfully encyclopedia contribution to an article on a Chinese university, which was eventually deleted, and then changed the introduction to the Climate change article (which was again overwritten by other editors. It was at that point that he began making edits to the talk page of the R&I article. He did make this edit to the talk page for the article on Anti-miscegenation laws - he claimed that Jewish law was anti-miscegenist. User:Wtmitchell called him on it, pointing out that the concept of race post-dates the Bible and one cannot use it to interpret ancient Jewish law. Now, I have three important points to make: first, Mikemikev backed off, which implies that at that time at least he understood that race is a social construction (and thus not universally valid). Second, backing off is not really the same thing as collaborative editing. In none of his first twenty four edits did he engage in what anyone would call "collaborative editing." And third - after those twenty four first edits, all or virtually all of his edits have been to R&I or R&I controversy related pages. I think this is a very good example of the trouble someone can et into when they rush to involve themselves in highly controversial topics when they have no experience in collaborative editing. Maybe Mikemikev is such a POV-warrior that he is hopeless. I do not want to believe that. I still have some hope that if he spent six months or a year working on other articles, collaborating with other editors, getting into the normal arguments we all get into and manage to resolve through discussion and compromise ... if he can really experience that and learn from the experience, maybe he will then know how to contribute positively to articles on topics he has very strong personal views on. He may not technically be a single purpose account, but for all intents and purposes he is, and his case I think illustrates precisely the point I made in my first comment in this section. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:15, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

My edits to Climate Change were overwritten? This is not true, my edit stood. Diffs please.

I didn't 'back off' from anything, I just didn't bother to follow up. How dare you assume my motives like this? mikemikev (talk) 20:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

You backed off. You were asked to provide a source substantiating your claims. You said you would try to - and you disappeared from the article. My point remains: you are incapable of collaborative editing. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:21, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Rubbish. I didn't even look for sources. I just didn't bother, I practically forgot about it. How on earth can you speak for my motivation? It shows how little respect you have for factual accuracy. mikemikev (talk) 12:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

“My reading of this might be wrong, but fwiw, I think that the intention of this is to give everyone a 3 month break and give the area a 3 month break from the same noise, edits, comments, etc. from the same users. No conduct has necessarily been ideal in this dispute, be it SPA or non-SPA (not speaking about anyone specifically in saying this), so this is a remedy in itself.”

Judging by GWH’s comment here, I think Ncmvocalist’s interpretation is right. GWH isn’t referring just to SPAs; he’s referring to everyone.

This is an improvement over other proposed remedies that have been suggested, because it acknowledges the fact that to the extent that the existence of SPAs is a problem at all, it’s only one facet of the conflict over these articles. Incivility, article ownership, and edit warring are just as much a problem when they come from editors who edit a wide range of articles as when they come from editors who edit a narrow range, and this case in particular, contributing to a wide range of articles has been no guarantee against engaging in any of these behaviors on the race and intelligence article. As David.Kane pointed out, some people have no trouble contributing to articles about non-controversial topics, but lack the ability to seek consensus and compromise when other editors disagree with them.

In the proposed decision, SirFozzie has also suggested that ArbCom might want to vote on individual sanctions for each editor involved in the dispute, which I think is a good idea. Some of the involved parties in this dispute, such as Maunus, have never been accused of being disruptive at all; and there are also people such as Xxanthippe for whom the only dirt Mathsci was able to dig up about them (on this page) has nothing to do with race and intelligence. If ArbCom implements uniform sanctions for race and intelligence topics against all of the involved parties in this case, it seems likely that these sanctions will cover a lot of users for whom they’re not appropriate. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:25, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

No, as Professor Marginalia has shown, it is the tag-teaming by you, Mikemikev, and David Kane, three editors who are in effect SPAs, that is the real problem.{http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence/Proposed_decision&diff=prev&oldid=375648078}. That is why I think that while everyone could benefit from a two week cooling-off period, the crucial remedy would be to give you three six or nine month topic bans, so you can learn how to edit constructively. Maybe GWH was not referring solely to SPAs, but my point is, if we want an efective resolution of this problem, he should have. Misplaced Pages depends on well-informed editors who know how to do dispassionate research and edit in a collaborative fashion. SPA POV-pushers have held the R&I article hostage for a long time. Sometimes, it is just confusing to read. Sometimes it simply forwards racist science as if this were mainstream science. Most of the time it is simply misleading. If Misplaced Pages wants to be the world's number one encyclopedia, we cannot abide by this situation.

The core problem here is that race remains one of the most convenient ways to explain or excuse social inequality. Since it was advocated by scientists in the 19th century it still has a whiff of science about it and people who use it think that makes it legitimate. And therefore, articles dealing with race will remain magnests for fringe POV pushers. But here above all else Misplaced Pages needs to be scrupulous in following its own policies, especially NPOV and NOR. Collaborative editing among well-informed editors can save these articles. Tag-teacming by SPA POV pushes can ruin them. Slrubenstein | Talk 08:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

What article are you accusing me of tag-teaming on now? Based on your comment here, I assume you’re referring to Race (classification of humans). I haven’t edited that article since May 16th. Is your attitude that everything I’m doing wrong is so self-evident, it’s ridiculous for anyone to ask you to justify your claim that I’m currently tag-teaming on an article which I haven’t edited in the past two months?

That’s the attitude you’re expressing in the comment I linked to. And really, if this is the attitude you’re going to have, I don’t think there’s anything left for us to discuss. Once a person says “to hell with evidence, it’s true because I know it’s true”, the possibility of persuading them to change anything about their opinion goes out the window. I just hope that if arbitrators consider a topic ban for me, they’ll expect more than this sort of tautology as a reason for it. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

You have had a lot to say, most of it inaccurate, on the talk page of that article: you appeared there to express support for the recent disruptive edits of Mikemikev and David.Kane. Likewise you wasted time over one typo on an ArbCom discussion page in conjunction with these two editors. The sooner you get a little bit of experience editing non-controversial properly encyclopedic articles and start developing a slightly healthier attitude to regular content editors, the better. Mathsci (talk) 06:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the talk about SPAs is not really helpful. One should simply look at the behavior of every editor involved, specifically with relation to the Race and Intelligence controversy, just as usual.Biophys (talk) 16:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, this whole thread has gone in a most distasteful direction. On top of Mathsci's litany of contributions I note this side discussion at Mathsci's talk. There is no place for off-topic innuendo or implications at these proceedings. Neither:

• negative: Vecrumba has not edited much, Vecrumba = EEML, Vecrumba has "stated" interest in R&I, etc. = negative evidence having nothing to do with my participation here, indeed pretty much (innuendo coming...) stating I'm lying, which I can only take as lobbying for sanctions; nor:
• positive: look at all that Mathsci has edited, surely he is far more worthy than "disruptive" "clueless" Vecrumba who is "not an editor in good standing" (I can provide diffs for Mathsci's use of these words, I'm just using myself to provide some specific examples, I'm not unique in this regard); we ought now to bow in supplication unto Mathsci's contributions, (implication coming...) surely they excuse any churlish behavior on Mathsci's part;

have any bearing on the conflict at the R&I article and related. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 16:58, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Finding of Fact 3.2.3: Who, exactly, "purported to create a binding decision?"

I am confused by Finding of Fact 3.2.3 on informal mediation. The claim is that: "attempt at mediation was fundamentally flawed because it purported to create a binding decision . . ." I could be wrong, but I do not see a single piece of evidence to support this fact. Who, exactly, "purported to create a binding decision?" I did not. I do not know any participant who did. I assume that the only person who could have (plausibly) done so was Ludwig2 (the last mediator). Did he? Not that I can see. Am I wrong to read this as (undesirable, in my view) bashing of the mediator? David.Kane (talk) 19:36, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

yeah, it's bogus language, but I've mostly given up expecting a clarification or revision. I suppose we can't expect arbiters to be completely unbiased, and as expressions of bias goes it's not particularly drastic or destructive. It's a bit disappointing that they are not more communicative about it, but that's wikipedia for you. C'est la vie. --Ludwigs2 19:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Topic restrictions: A proposal

I think that the topic restriction is a step in the right direction but it is neither enough to apply the restriction only to this one topic nor is it right to apply it uniformly to all involved editors. What we have here are two sides, one arguing that a group of SPAs are dominating and skewing neutrality in articles in the area and the other, the SPAs, arguing that they are being unfairly maligned by the first group. Both cannot be right and both cannot be wrong and arbitrators need to make a determination as to which one has the stronger argument. A topic restriction on both groups implies that arbitrators are unable to make that determination.

Carrying this thought further, assuming that arbitrators cannot decide which group has a stronger case, or even if it is determined that the first group is actually incorrect, i.e., that the SPAs are neither here as advocates for a POV nor are they skewing neutrality, we can only assume that the first group is acting in good faith because it seems unlikely that a set of editors, hitherto uninvolved in race and intelligence related articles, have suddenly decided to malign a group of editors for purely malevolent or POV pushing reasons. Thus, whatever the outcome, it doesn't make sense to go much beyond admonishment for that group. On the other hand, unless arbitrators make a specific determination that the group of SPAs are not pushing a POV (independently or in tandem with each other), it makes perfect sense to topic ban members of that group for a reasonable duration. That will give them the opportunity to exhibit that they are not here solely to advocate their position (assuming they are not here merely for advocacy reasons) or it will help the encyclopedia by removing a set of agenda editors from a controversial area (assuming that they are here merely for advocacy reasons). This may appear to be unduly harsh on the single purpose accounts if they are actually making a good faith attempt to be neutral, but the reality is that wikipedia has become a fertile breeding ground for agenda editors who are unable to get sufficient traction or respect for their views in the world outside wikipedia and we need to guard against the damaging effects of this on wikipedia's neutral, duly weighted, presentation of 'accepted wisdom'. Meanwhile, the articles are still here on wikipedia, editing will not be dominated by the SPAs, new editors will doubtless arrive to work on the subject matter, and, assuming that they have been acting in good faith, these single purpose editors can return to editing these articles once the restriction has expired. --RegentsPark (talk) 02:08, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

RegentsPark - I think you've misunderstood the nature of the problem here, and unduly dichotomized the situation. It is in fact fairly easy to get a situation in which one group is skewing neutrality in an article and is also being unfairly maligned by others. I think that editors like mikemikev and Captain Occam over-emphasize a relatively minor (but still notable) perspective in the debate, and that causes a number of headaches in the talk page discussions and article editing, but I also think editors on the other side of the dispute have gone off the deep end with respect to incivility and personal attacks. It would be a bad mistake to allow the article to be skewed by editors who misunderstand sourcing policy sufficiently to push a particular POV (because that would make for a crappy article). it would be an equally bad mistake to allow the article to be dominated by editors who have abandoned all attempts at civility and consensus so that they can defeat what they see as an unacceptable POV (because that would make for a crapy article and a crappy editing environment). I'm not certain whether the more extreme editors on either end actually have the temperament to edit wikipedia, period; he best solution would be to restrict the nastier people on both sides (we all know who they are) but leave the more moderate editors unhampered. You cannot rein in agenda pushing without reining in incivility (and vice versa) - either way you will just get a crappy, misinformative article. --Ludwigs2 04:07, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2, I don't disagree with what you say as a general principal. Incivility should be addressed appropriately, whatever the cause. However, I disagree with your conclusion that removing editors who have been uncivil is the best solution. Incivility in this case is a symptom rather than a cause and addressing only the symptoms will not effect a cure. The core issue, in my opinion, is not the incivility but rather the skewing of neutrality by long term single purpose accounts and the only cure for that is topic, or preferably, area banning the SPAs. The best of SPAs learn to stay within the bounds of civility and policy and approaching this as a traditional content and civility issue is not going to do the right thing for the encyclopedia. --RegentsPark (talk) 11:51, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

“we can only assume that the first group is acting in good faith because it seems unlikely that a set of editors, hitherto uninvolved in race and intelligence related articles, have suddenly decided to malign a group of editors for purely malevolent or POV pushing reasons. Thus, whatever the outcome, it doesn't make sense to go much beyond admonishment for that group.”

It’s factually incorrect to state that the group of editors advocating topic bans for SPAs is “hitherto uninvolved” in race and intelligence, and you’ll see that if you look at the article’s edit history over the past few years. Muntuwandi’s and Mathsci’s involvement in articles related to this topic goes back at least to 2007, and in the case of Ramdrake and Slrubenstein it’s been even longer than that; 2006 or earlier. This is one of the things I was referring to when I described what I consider to be long-term article ownership. My understanding of the root cause of the conflict is that after having maintained their preferred version of the article for several years, these editors regard any newcomers who attempt to significantly change the article as intruders in their territory, or something equivalent to that.

They might be acting in good faith, and they might not, but I don’t think this distinction should matter a huge amount with regard to whatever remedy ArbCom comes up with. Because the fact of the matter is that personal attacks, stonewalling and a battleground attitude are disruptive whether they’re being done in a conscious effort to drive away dissenting editors, or whether they’re emotional reactions from editors who firmly believe that the other side is wrong and simply can’t help themselves. Either way, it results in an editing atmosphere that’s highly unpleasant not only to actual SPAs, but also to experienced non-SPA editors like Varoon Arya, Ludwigs2 and Vecrumba, who are treated with all of this same hostility when they oppose the historically dominant group of editors in any meaningful way. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:10, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, is there any precedent for topic-banning SPAs if advocacy (or any other policy violation) can’t be demonstrated? I don’t think there is. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:21, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

@Ludwigs2. I believe you have a unique perspective here. You are essentially suggesting that a bad encyclopedia written by civil editors is equally as undesirable as a good encyclopedia written by uncivil editors. I'm pretty sure that while neither outcome is the best, those are not equal outcomes. aprock (talk) 04:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam writes above,

Muntuwandi’s and Mathsci’s involvement in articles related to this topic goes back at least to 2007, and in the case of Ramdrake and Slrubenstein it’s been even longer than that; 2006 or earlier. This is one of the things I was referring to when I described what I consider to be long-term article ownership.

Just a clarification, indeed I did first edit race and intelligence in 2007, but my involvement has not been continuous since then. I have gone for months, possible even periods longer than a year, with either marginal or no involvement at all with the article. I believe that similar patterns may be found with some of the other editors. For example, I recall Ramdrake was absent for several months during the later stages of the mediation, though there were still numerous problems during the mediation, so it wouldn't be fair to pin the blame on him. In short being interested in article for a long time is not equivalent to article ownership. Long-term interest in certain articles will invariably happen if one has been a Wikipedian for a number of years. Rather, what constitutes article ownership is the inability to let go of the article so that others can have a opportunity to shape the article. What I do see from Captain Occam's editing history is an unbroken pattern of editing race and intelligence that extends to over a year. Further it would seem that even as far back as September 2008 your were only interested in race and intelligence. Wapondaponda (talk) 11:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

@ RegentsPark: Actually, you're own lead-in to this thread suggests the possibility that incivility might itself be the cause (i.e. that one group of editors is unfairly maligning the second group). I'm simply removing the straw-man argument that it needs to be strictly one or the other, and therefore we should pin all punishments on side A. Editors who push a POV are a problem, yes, but we are not in arbitration because a POV has been pushed; we are in arbitration because editors on both sides have decided to engage in battle over the issue. The genetic side of this debate is not the worst of the bunch when it comes to personal attacks and political warfare. If you punish one side but not the other side, he unpunished side is going to count it as a victory, and you will see their behavior replicated and magnified in other battles on wikipedia. I'm sorry, but this has to be a no-win situation, because either side winning will end up damaging the encyclopedia.

@ Aprock: I am suggesting that the only way to write a good encyclopedia is through civil communication. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that this article will reach a state where it "is written and done", and that we must ensure that the article is good by that point, even if it means (metaphorically) killing off editors who get in our way. That's obviously false: Misplaced Pages is an ongoing project, the article will always be open for revision, the topic is nowhere close to being resolved in the scientific literature - we have all the time in the world to sit back and discuss the issue in calm and measured tones. This whole "rush, rush, let's screw the hell out of the stupid SPAs before they fuck things up" attitude is about as unwikipedian as it gets, and only serves to make editing unpleasant and generate reams of angry diatribe - it does very little to create a clearer, more balanced article. If we insist that editors are calm and civil, then articles will inevitably get better over time, because calm, civil discussion always improves articles. It may not be a fast process, but it always works. get it? --Ludwigs2 13:12, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

It may surprise you, but editing in the face of the POV pushing done by Occam, mikemikev, and David.Kane isn't pleasant either. aprock (talk) 15:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

that doesn't surprise me at all. Remember, I had to mediate this mess, and before Mathsci swang into full sabotage mode my primary problem was trying to rein in Occam, Mike, and Faye so that editors like you, Waponda and slrubenstein could get a word in edgewise. didya think I was having a lot of fun with that? All of you claim the luxury of leaving your heads stuck way up your own POVs (which is fine), but I did not enjoy having TechnoFaye accuse me of nasty, stupid crap when I tried to get her to cooperate any more than I enjoyed having Mathsci accuse me of nasty, stupid crap when I tried to get him to cooperate. There is such a low level of emotional maturity on this page all the way around that almost nothing I've seen surprises me. --Ludwigs2 16:00, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Civility isn't a one way street. Calling for civility first before all else, then suggesting that I have my head stuck way up my own POV seems a bit disingenuous to me. Have you considered taking a wiki-break? aprock (talk) 16:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

My apologies - it was meant as a humorous way of saying that you are all entitled to argue for your own perspectives. what you are not entitled to do is assume that your perspective is 'The Truth' and that everyone who disagrees with you is a problem editor by definition. That applies to you and Mathsci as much as it applies to Occam and mikemike. This dispute reeks of entitlement issues (e.g., editors who believe they are 'entitled' to certain privileges and/or exemptions from policy, for one reason or another), and I think it's high time that it was made clear to everyone involved that no such entitlements exist. If one can't accept wikipedia as a level playing field, one misses the core concept of wikipedia entirely, and one becomes a distinct problem for the project; this is true of everyone, without exception. --Ludwigs2 17:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Contrary to popular WP:MEMES, when it comes to Wiki-conflicts, it's not what you've done over the years, it's how you've behaved lately. No entitlement excuses poor behavior. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 03:58, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

As I've pointed out several times, Ludwigs2 allowed the mediation process to degenerate. I have already described the drift from editors in November to editors in March. Instead of personalizing the discussion, Ludwigs2 should attempt to view the mediation process dispassionately. It had two glaring defects by late March: a complete change in the editors involved with a clear imbalance; and consensus to break wikipedia editing policy by using mostly primary sources. My 100 or so edits to Race and intelligence have not been reverted, are well sourced and constructive. Ludwigs2's approach to mediation was fundamentally flawed. He chose an article where he had previously conflicted with most of the regular editors. Intellectual integrity would have prevented most people from intervening in those circumstances. Editing experience is editing experience, contrary to what Ludwigs2 suggests. He chose deliberately to flout wikipedia policies on WP:RS. He chose to have a draft of Race and intelligence edited directly in namespace, where any content, once added, would be very hard to change or discuss. Indeed he even suggested to Xavexgoem that the article could be locked once that draft had been created. His latest attempt to take over the mediation for the renaming of Israel and the apartheid analogy does not so far seem to have had any success.

The actual process of adding content to wikipedia is slow, time-consuming and quite often solitary. There seem to be too many non-administrative editors getting a buzz from doing things on wikipedia which are far removed from that process. They spend so much time doing it, that they have actually completely forgotten what is involved in producing articles. Nevertheless at the drop of the hat they deliver their own lengthy homilies on the matter. But wikipedia is primarily intended to be a high quality online encyclopedia. It has fairly precise editing rules and codes of behaviour. Those rules in particular allow the open scrutiny and critism of content edits. That is the "self-correcting" process by which wikipedia usually works, since errors always creep in. Misplaced Pages was not intended as a social experiment for playing mind games on volunteer editors. Nor was it intended to be a means of duping the public in controversial areas on the fringes of science. Mathsci (talk) 08:09, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci: you have pointed out many, many things in this arbitration which are explicitly and inarguably lies. Why should anyone believe what you say, particularly when everything you say has the self-serving venom typical of adolescents (who spend their time trying to augment their self images through extensive, detailed, and minute criticism of everyone and everything around them). You're embarrassing yourself, and I don't even really care enough to tell you to stop. --Ludwigs2 11:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

@Mathsci: The actual process of adding content to wikipedia is slow, time-consuming and quite often solitary. I am genuinely sorry for your not experiencing the greatest benefit of Misplaced Pages, which is sharing one's passion for a subject with others. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing—I've certainly gotten along with editors whose editorial viewpoint I generally dispute—it is about the opportunity to "learn through teaching" in a collegial atmosphere. "Many hands make light work," not "My hands only make lonely work." Any solitude is by your choice; if not choice, then of your making. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:28, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with two statements here. When Mathsci says that article editing is often solitary, I agree that my going to the university library to check out reliable sources, and especially my typing to add in carefully checked references, is something that I have to do myself, by myself without distraction. When Peters says that one of the delights of working on Misplaced Pages is learning from other editors, and especially discussing points of view that I or other editors may never have considered before, I agree with that too. I am a teacher by occupation. The best teaching is very interactive with learners, a lively exchange in which the teacher may not be doing most of the talking. But the best teaching, like any performance, takes much preparation out of public view, to make second nature the deep knowledge of the subject that allows interactive, responsive discussion. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Vecrumba, I think you've misunderstood mathsci's 'solitary editor' comment. By solitary, I take it he means that the process of editing involves sitting in front of a computer editing content without physically interacting with other people. Other people - at home friends, at work colleagues, at a Starbucks strangers - may be around, but the editing process rarely involves physical interaction with others. There certainly is virtual collaboration but a lot of that collaboration is incidental and shifting. Unless, of course, the editor has only a single area of interest, in which case that collaboration takes on a different, possibly less desirable, hue. And, if and when that collaboration takes on an off-wiki cast, then it definitely becomes dangerous and undesirable. --RegentsPark (talk) 14:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with RP and Weij too. But MatchSci certainly does not have to say this - the whole point of his sharing his record of work on a wide range of articles over the years is simple: anyone familiar with any portion of this work would know that MathSci knows this quite well. His behavior at Misplaced Pages consistently shows that he is willing to do the solitary research AND learn through discussion with other editors who have done the research. The problem is that Captain Occam and Mikemikev's interventions consistently reveal that they either have not done the research, or profoundly misunderstand what they have read (whether this is because of a lack of understanding of fundamental science, or a bias towards one view that distorts their readings, I cannot say although I have seen some evidence of both. This is where Mikemikev being an SPA is evidence - it is behavior that by itself is okay but correlates highly with POV-pushing and in Mikemikev it is not at all hard to see that in his case, it is POV-pushing. The arguments we had over "regression to the mean" were a perfect example of his insistence in editing the article despite his complete ignorance of the topic. What does SPA mean? It means that his purpose, his intent, is to edit the article, regardless - regardless of his ignorance, or of his misunderstanding. That kind of editing is only disruptive. It has no beneficial function whatsoever. This is really quite simple: Misplaced Pages would be a better encyclopedia if Mikemikev did not exist. It would be a worse encyclopedia if MathSci didn't exist. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:36, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

slr: without disagreeing with what you say entirely, I have to point out that the 'regression to the mean' discussion provides some interesting insights. if you read the tail end of that debate, here - Talk:Race_and_intelligence/Archive_77#Regression_III - you'll notice that mikemikev (though clearly pushing a hard-line case through the discussion) actually accepted it when I corrected him on the science, and allowed the whole section to get reintegrated in a much more minor position. Compare Mathsci's reaction when I made a much more minor revision to the lead where he basically tells me I write 'mumbo jumbo' and should "leave the lede alone". that leaves me with the following observations:

• Is Mathsci a more skilled, more experienced editor than mikemikev? yes, clearly.
• Is Mathsci a more neutral editor then mikemikev? again, yes, though perhaps not as much as one might expect.
• Is Mathsci a better editor than mikemikev with respect to consensus and cooperation? no, mike is better in that regard.

Mike may be an editor with an agenda, but mike can ultimately be reasoned with; Mathsci cannot. once Mathsci has decided (in his own head) what the correct form of an article should be, no amount of discussion or reason will sway him from what he wants, and any attempt to do so risks a hail of personal attacks and intransigent calls for administrative action. Working with Mathsci sucks. now I happen to believe that if Mathsci would restrict himself to working on lonely, isolated pages, where he can do what he does without interacting with others, he would be nothing but an asset to the encyclopedia. but I would rather deal with the hardest-core POV-pusher you can find that Mathsci, because at least I have a hope of convincing a POV-pusher using reason. --Ludwigs2 17:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

@Slrubenstein: You imply that Guy of Ibelin (died 1304) is worth the loss of editors who don't put up with Mathsci's bottomless well of congratulation of self and derision of others. Were I to agree with you regarding Mikemikev, I'd suggest that given my treatment here, Misplaced Pages would be even more better off with Mathsci's departure. Fortunately, I'm not looking to ban anyone here today, although this all seems to have turned into another instantiation of the meme that "ban-hammer" = "solution." If Mathsci were less eager to disparage his perceived opponents and stick to discussion of the topic, there would be far less sturm und drang at R&I (or, really, anywhere else he goes). He's already insulted and attacked me without even knowing if I editorially support his position. When is the last time an editor attacked you pointlessly and without provocation and you settled into a collaborative relationship at an article? As long as Mathsci is beating editors and you are safely on the same end of the stick as he is, do you really condone such behavior? PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 17:16, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I seldom find MathSci churlish. If he has been, I would suggest that it has occured after repeated baiting towards the end of a very contentious mediation. In any event, the most important thing to me is the quality of his edits and I am not JUST talking about the many non-race related articles he has edited, but the substantial improvements he made to race-related articles, especially the article on the history of the controversy - at times it seemed like he was the only one to take time to go to a library to read real books on the topic. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci's first comment in the mediation (and I use that loosely, since it was actually in ANI) was a sarcastic complaint, and his second comment involved a request to get me blocked for no readily apparent reason. You don't find that churlish? Mathsci has out-and-out lied in this arbitration, multiple times, to manufacture bad impressions about other editors. You don't find that churlish? over 90% of Mathsci's posts in this arbitration (and a greater percentage on the article and mediation talk pages) involved ad hominem attacks and/or calls for administrative sanctions on other editors. You don't find that churlish?

pray tell, what do you consider to be churlish behavior? currently anything short of rape/murder seems to pass muster with you, at least where Mathsci is concerned...

I don't disagree with you about the quality of his edits. I think if he were writing this encyclopedia all by himself it would be a halfway decent encyclopedia (though I believe it would have a distinct bias). however, he's not. unless you want to change wikipedia so that only the 'cool kids' get to play in its sandbox (where I imagine you'd want to be the one deciding who the cool kids are), then you're going to have to recognize that 'playing well with others' is a required skill that Mathsci simply fails to embrace. --Ludwigs2 18:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Suggesting currently anything short of rape/murder seems to pass muster with you is anything but civil. aprock (talk) 19:18, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

@ Aprock: it maybe hyperbolic, but it's hardly uncivil. Lord knows I'm not accusing anyone of committing such crimes (or whatever their wiki-equivalent would be), I'm just pointing out how utterly obnoxious Mathsci can be and still get people to excuse his excesses. I expect it has something to do with the way this situation is polarized: you and slrubenstein (who are generally reasonable individuals) are sufficiently pissed off at Occam and mikemike to think that Mathsci's otherwise offensive behavior is justified, and so you're willing to stick up for him when you probably shouldn't. Me, I'm sufficiently disgusted with everyone in this stupid dispute that I have something approaching objectivity. the only reason I'm snapping an Mathsci more than others here is that Mathsci has had the bad grace to lie to my face, which pisses me off terribly. I can't stand liars.

trust me, you'd do a lot better in all this if you didn't have Mathsci arguing on your side of this debacle. Without his obnoxiousness clouding the issue, you'd have a much stronger position. --Ludwigs2 23:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm doing just fine, but thanks for your concern. I do find your assertion that caricaturing someone's ethics is a part of civil discourse somewhat off. aprock (talk) 02:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe that is frustration speaking regarding seemingly blind defense of someone. At some point we'll need to start trying to stay out of the bog, though.PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:29, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

You do realize the irony of your statement don't you? You and Slrubenstein are making exactly the same argument here. aprock (talk) 21:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

lol - that is a bit on the funny side. tell you what: you convince Mathsci to get off my case, and I'll get off his. you won't get a better deal anywhere. --Ludwigs2 23:11, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Civility isn't "an eye for an eye". The premise that incivility in the face of incivility will prove effective is unlikely to be bear much fruit. aprock (talk) 02:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be better than Mathsci, or worse. I firmly believe that the way an editor treats others is indicative of what that editor considers appropriate behavior, and then I treat that editor in that appropriate-to-them manner. I can be the most sensible, reasonable, and considerate editor you've every met, and I can also be a complete ass, and it doesn't matter to me which I am (except that I prefer the former). If it's the norm on wikipedia to bitch each other out and call each other names, I can work with that. If it's the norm to engage in high-minded deliberation and collegial respect, I can work with that as well. I happily let others determine the cultural norms.

However, if you're asking me to smile politely and engage in calm, reasoned discourse like a good boy while other editors rage and snarl and pour out a cornucopia of insults... why would I do that? Don't get me wrong, I like the discursive ideals you see written in policy pages, but if I'm the only person who respects them then those ideals aren't worth the electrons that hold them on the wikimedia servers. It would be one thing if Mathsci were still some wet-behind-the-ears newb (I can be patient with people who don't understand the system), but given an editor with his experience and his intelligence still ignoring civility and consensus in conversations, and a set of arbitrators who aren't willing to stick up for those principles at need... hmph.

Very few people in this dispute respect civility or consensus, and while I am one of them, I am not going to cling to those principles to the extent that it allows editors like Mathsci to piss on me at will. I'm just not that noble. If you object to that, tough; I don't care. As I said before, the instant Mathsci gets off my back, I'll have no interest in getting on his, and peace will reign. That is the dimensions we have to to work within.

That should put a rest to your snarky attempts to imply I'm not living up to my own ideals, because now you know that I'm not even trying to live up to my ideals. So do you have anything else to add, or are you done? --Ludwigs2 03:10, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

@Mathsci, having mediated before, with less or more success, any and all degeneration is the function of the editors involved, not of the mediator. It is less important whether a mediator has had editorial disagreements with mediation participants than (a) have the mediator's disagreements been in good faith and (b) does the mediator have the respect of the editors involved regardless of POV in the conflict being mediated? (b) is helped immeasurably if the mediator has expertise in the topic and has demonstrated themselves to fairly represent sources. It's not your edits which are at issue, nor have I seen much in the manner of complaint in that arena. It is your manner of engaging in and, from my vantage point, chomping at the bit to escalate conflict. Your response here to issues raised regarding your conduct, that is to: ignore, counter-accuse, laud yourself lording over other's WP paucities—diffs provided, et al. demonstrates either a lack of people skills or (my perception on how you come across, not intended as a personal attack) a galactic-size ego brimming over with nothing but self-fulfilling contempt for anyone who might have a different perspective from you because they are simply too clueless to know to agree with you. If you can cite positive examples of constructive behavior where it comes to your treatment of thought independent from yours, changing your position on something would be helpful, perhaps you can share some of those instead of more litanies of your contributions elsewhere and seek to emulate that positive conduct here. Slrubenstein admonishes us not to throw the Mathsci baby out with the bathwater. Prove him right where your conduct (not content) is concerned. Personally, I don't see any impediment to working with any editor here, with the exception of yourself. Prove me wrong.

   IMHO, Slrubenstein's and Ramdrake's advice to you to heap more litanies of your contributions upon us at these proceedings does not serve you well. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 19:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

The Ibelin edits (done in collaboration with Elonka) were related to clearing up some of the mess created by PHG in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Franco-Mongol alliance. Auguste Pavie was related in a quite different way to French-Siam relations and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/PHG. The highly problematic area related to Eastern Europe, where almost all of Vecrumba's edits have been, seems completely different to the current type of article under discussion. In EE articles I imagine that most contributors have some kind allegiance or POV. Here, however, the fundamental issue seems to be about whether users are following core wikipedia editing policies or not. I'm still trying to work out why Ludwigs2 of all people is lecturing other users on article editing and civility. Mathsci (talk) 23:19, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I have a very simple rule, Mathsci: when people take me to the high road, I walk the high road; when people take me to the low road, I walk the low road. I prefer the high road as a matter of principle (and I will always encourage people to move that way), but I can have a lot of fun on the low road if that's the way things go. If you don't like the way I act towards you, I suggest you invest in a mirror. --Ludwigs2 00:37, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• Looking at my own case , it seems that Arbs follow the rule known as Misplaced Pages:No vested contributors. It does not matter if someone was an SPA or not. It does not matter if someone contributed a lot in the area and had no trouble with editing in other areas. It only matters what they did recently, specifically in the area of conflict.Biophys (talk) 00:54, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

@Mathsci: I'm glad to see there might be some hope. As for EE, it's a vast topic area. Leaving aside Soviet fiction, there are genuine disagreements on culture and history going all the way back to before the Baltic and Slavic languages went their separate ways. And there are all the usual editorial conflicts, as in editors creating their own summaries of a secondary source insisting they are correct—except the authors of the source themselves offer their own summary, curiously not mentioned, which says something quite the opposite. The subjects change, but the techniques for misrepresenting sources, for using primary sources ("No, really, circumstances have changed!") to insist on trumping reputable sources published two or three years prior, et al., that is, all the ways you push a POV, none of those change.

   Would you characterize R&I as an area where editors have no allegiance to an editorial position? Where you see editors not sticking to good editing policy as being the fundamental issue, I see it as a manifestation of a fundamental issue which lies elsewhere.

   Your view of the problem at R&I rather implies reputable sources only say "X", any content postulating "Y" is merely the misapplication of unreliable sources. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 01:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

It would be helpful for the decision to address "consensus"

I see much mention of "consensus" as a basis for defending edits that cannot be defended on the basis of Misplaced Pages policy and cannot be defended on the basis of following reliable sources with neutral point of view. I think it would be helpful for several of the parties and quite a few of the onlookers to review the role of consensus in editing Misplaced Pages. If any editor can be bold, and if the paramount principles of the project include neutral point of view and verifiability, then consensus must mostly be an instrumental value to achieve those substantive values, not something that can be used to delay or block serious content edits based on improved sources for articles. I hope ArbCom will make this issue clear, because I came to the article, just as mediation had broken down, to encounter many claims about "consensus" that were not well documented and that certainly didn't reflect any consensus to follow Misplaced Pages policy while using reliable sources thoughtfully to edit an encyclopedia with neutral point of view. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 04:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring described as one editor versus "consensus" is a complete misrepresentation when neither versions of content involved are ultimately suitable. Nor is "balanced" (50% yours, 50% mine) the same as "representative." Nor is endlessly slinging WP:FRINGE, WP:NPOV and WP:POV a substitute for conversing in English and describing a perceived issue. All this is symptomatic of editors shouting down each other's (doomed to be) inferior content instead of collaborating. Editors who cast personal aspersions contribute to and escalate such shouting.

   Nor is consensus a game of chairs where the music stops, everyone grabs a seat and those sitting are now consensus and the person left standing doesn't count. We must be vigilant that any consensus reflects a fair and accurate representation of reliable (and I believe inclusive set of such) sources, else that consensus is artificial and bound to fail. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:27, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Short version, we are here to tell a story for the average reader, not wage a thesis over reductio ad environment versus genetics. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I hace already suggested that the arbs address civility and consensus as primary issues in this case, but they appear to be reluctant to do so. so while I agree with your assessment, I suspect it's a futile request. --Ludwigs2 14:45, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

re: Focus of dispute #2

At its core, the dispute centers on the inclusion of a number of primary sources that advances the hypothesis that differences in a number of social phenomena (primarily intelligence as tested) is explained mostly or in part by genetics and ethnic background while the secondary sources generally dismiss those claims.

I think this is a misstatement. The labels primary versus secondary have been used to suppress content necessary to building an appropriate narrative which is necessary to represent the whole of the subject matter. For example, one cannot suppress what "X" states in study "A" or later states about study "A" (as "primary") in favor of what source "Y" says about "A" (as "secondary"). "X" and "Y" can be argued to be primary or secondary depending on their roles in any given situation. What is essential is to represent "X" versus "Y" in an inclusive and representative context. Eliminating content leads to imbalance, not balance, because it removes the possibility of complete representation.
   I believe this representation of the conflict is a potentially dangerous acceptance at face value of the meme put forth by one set of participants in the conflict. I don't believe that anyone is suggesting primary sources trump secondary sources or are preferable to secondary sources. Elsewhere at WP:RSN completely uninvolved editors well-versed in the use of sources have argued that for the purposes of WP, the data is the primary source, and any interpretation whether in a study or critique of that study is secondary. The point is that what is important is full representation of interpretation of data—whether author or critic of a study, both roles involve review of data and methods and interpretations and critiques (or responses to critiques) thereof. There's no confusion over who the R&I players are. This is independent of any personal or editorial preference for any position. (I realize this has been discussed in piece parts above, I wanted to be clear regarding specific text and my reservations.) PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:55, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Your interpretations of "primary vs. secondary" are at odds with both WP:MEDRS and WP:PRIMARY...... --Enric Naval (talk) 16:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you're missing my point that arguing over primary versus secondary (and reliable, as you toss that in), in the case of R&I, those labels are used to control, not enhance, content. The debate I've read at R&I is not a real discussion as to how best to represent the subject matter, only endless conflict over whether someone's study is primary or secondary, or whether some critiquing is primary or secondary based on whether published in a journal or the same comments in a text book, etc., etc. The repeated attacks on certain content as WP:FRINGE is just part of the non-constructive debate, that is, even mentioning that genetics has ever been postulated (in the modern era) as a factor affecting measurements of intelligence is to be stamped out. Even Jensen has written that's a postulation—there's no impediment to representing R&I over time fairly and accurately other than editorial obstinancy. I can hear the cries that current scholarship has given the lie to Jensen and the "hereditarian camp", etc. That's not an excuse to censor content, that's an opportunity to represent the current state of scholarship building upon and in addition to what has transpired before. You can't tell a story of where we are without telling the story of how we got here.

I think we all aware what constitutes reliable, primary, and secondary sources. IMHO, the "debate" regarding those at the article is far more a symptom of something else. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 17:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Peters, you wrote, "I think we all aware what constitutes reliable, primary, and secondary sources." As to this topic, I daresay that some editors could use some review about which sources are reliable secondary sources for editing the article(s) under arbitration, so how about helping everyone out by naming some examples that you have at hand by the computer you use to edit Misplaced Pages? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 19:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Most books are packed away right now (unfortunately, have now been for an extended period, including also my history books) and not very accessible. It will likely take me a while to get to it, but I'd be glad to do some capsule summaries and reviews. I much prefer real books to Google books, but I can see what's available online as a substitute. :-) PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 23:29, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Somewhere in these proceedings or at talk I recall something about not needing to read Jensen, that reliable secondary sources were not only sufficient, but to be used exclusively, regarding Jensen-related content at the R&I article. For now I'll leave you with a quote from Richard Lewontin not long after Jensen's publication: "Professor Jensen has surely become the most discussed and least read essayist since Karl Marx." Lewontin—a Jensen critic—and Jensen went on to engage in the sort of "exchange" that is wont to occur in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 23:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll leave things off with one last thought. Much has been agonized over secondary sources. In the sort of intellectual debate that defines R&I, it's not what did "A" say or do and what does reliable source "B" say about it. The most interesting (and IMHO useful) reading is where the "onion" builds over time—inevitably with Jensen at the core if we are to understand the "conflict"—and each layer builds on and interprets the prior. I had offered up that one of my litmus tests for sources is to run to the one that someone insists is worthless. (Even worthless sources have value read properly, but "worthless" is also often a misdirection label and not a factual description.) Another litmus test is: to what degree does the "next" scholar build a new "onion" layer that presents the best = most plausible, most insightful (pardon the extended scientific metaphor) unified field theory encompassing all the layers prior? Always question sources as you read them. (I've found mistakes, confirmed with authors, in secondary sources.) PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 00:18, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, even in peer-reviewed journals. However, an author commenting on the meaning of his work (even in a peer-reviewed journal commenting on his work in a peer-reviewed journal) is generally less reliable then commentary by others in peer-reviewed journals. They comment on what he wrote and implied; he can comment on his actual opinions, which are generally not as notable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

(Actually one mistake was in a university history text.) It's a lot easier if we simply take sources for what they are and represent them for what they are. That takes care of 99.99% of the conflict regarding primary versus secondary. An author discussing his prior work, or responding to critiques of his work, has value. How an author's work is viewed, and its impact acknowledged, in the long term by scholarship obviously has more value. There's no disagreement (nor should there be any need to argue over striking content) if we all simply stick to appropriate narrative. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

In writing the history article, I mainly used books on the history of psychology. I did not use books written by Lewontin or Gould at the time, as these are obviously primary sources. Returning to the Race and intelligence article, I think it would be helpful if Vecrumba could give us a few instances of the new WP:RS he is recommending. It should be possible to locate these on the web using library catalogues, etc, without the need to unpack boxes of books. Mathsci (talk) 23:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, missing key pages online, but from the previews available, I'm intrigued by his nuanced multi-modal structure for within-group-heritability and between-group-heritability in terms of how the two are related in the R&I debate, his "mapping in" of the positions of key individuals in the R&I debate, that mapping also including what is the position of true hereditarians?

• Neven Sesardic's "Making Sense of Heritability" (2005)

Hard copy coming via snail-mail (Adobe eBook was $68! at publisher's site). Alas, books have been packed away for quite some time, so this is one that I don't actually have but I expect will be a good excuse to ride the train now and then instead of driving to work. :-) PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 01:58, 29 July 2010 (UTC)