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Regarding : 'Multiple editors disagreed with Martin and reverted him and yet somehow they are the ones who edit warred' Regarding : 'Multiple editors disagreed with Martin and reverted him and yet somehow they are the ones who edit warred'

⚫ Yes, two editors reverting another editor's edits multiple times in quick succession is called '''edit warring'''. That's the very defintion of edit warring. Consensus and discussion on a talk page is an entirely different matter and should not be confused with edit warring. The two editors who 'disagreed' with martin, attempted neither one of those other options, they opted instead to Edit War, and then falsely accuse Martin of 3RR.
⚫ As a matter of fact, it's highly unfair for two editors who have the same view to gang edit war against a single editor - ostensibly to avoid violating 3RR (at least that's what it looks like to me). Talk it out on the talk page or work in positive ways to find wording that satisifes both sides instead of just reverting, over and over again, those attempts being made by another editor to find acceptable wording. Reverting is a bad tactic.
⚫ Yes, two editors reverting another editor's edits multiple times in quick succession is called edit warring. That's the very definition of edit warring. Consensus and discussion on a talk page is an entirely different matter and should be confused with edit warring. The two editors who 'disagreed' with martin, attempted neither one of those other options, they opted instead to Edit War, and then falsely accuse Martin of 3RR.
⚫ If anyone believes that Martin was edit warring, then they also have to admit that the other two editors were also engaging in edit warring. Either way, bad for the two oppositional editors that are now accusing martin of the very behavior they engaged in.
⚫ As a matter of fact, it's highly unfair for two editors who have the same view to gang edit war ostensibly to avoid violating 3RR, and that's what it looks like to me. Talk it out on the talk page or work in positive ways to find wording that satisfies both sides instead of reverting over and over again those attempts being made to find acceptable wording. Reverting is a bad tactic.
⚫ If anyone believes that Martin was edit warring, then they also have to admit that the other two editors were also engaging in edit warring. Either way, bad for the two oppositional editors.


End of what I was sent. ''']''' <sub>(] Ψ ])</sub> 00:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC) End of what I was sent. ''']''' <sub>(] Ψ ])</sub> 00:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Revision as of 00:34, 14 May 2007

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs; a shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues. If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: .

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Be aware that arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.


Evidence presented by User:JzG

Inappropriate advocacy

In the original request, Tom Butler says this: "This is not about an editor misbehaving in Misplaced Pages. This is just a turf war between people who think these subjects should be honestly presented and people who are offended by any suggestion of something outside of mainstream science."

This exemplifies the problem perfectly. To represent this as a turf war is factually wrong - WP:NPOV is canonical policy, and pro-science editors have repeatedly referenced this policy. Moreover, to represent the dispute in terms which imply that sympathetic portrayal of paranormal subjects is "honest" and scientific realism is some kind of religious doctrine which is "offended" by that is both grossly offensive to the other parties in the dispute, and an implicit repudiation of WP:NPOV. It is akin to portraying the Biblical inerrantist view as "honest" in creationism and the scientific rationalist perspective as being offended by this "truth".

WP:NPOV allows for minority and fringe views to be described, but not in terms which obscures the fact that they are minority or finrge views, per Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. We are al aware that some people believe Elvis was abducted by aliens, that does not mean we should document that theory as fact and discount scientific rationalist dissent as simply editors who are "offended" by the notion that it goes against science.

Emotional investment

Butler describes this edit as "disgusting". it was an autobiographical edit, and the subject changed "his contract was not renewed" to "he left". The cited source, an interview with the subject, says this:

Dean: Well, I was expecting to get a continuation contract. Every six months you'd get a new contract. Then one day I got a separation contract, and I said, what is that? They said that the university has decided it no longer wants to engage in the research you're doing.


I listened, looked at my boss, and I said, they can't be serious. You can't not renew somebody's contract because you don't happen to like the topic of the research-- because that's a violation of rule number one of academic freedom, which is not just the principle, it's actually written down as part of the rule. You can't do this. So when I protested they immediately changed their tune. And every time they raised another issue I challenged that, and they kept changing it, over and over and over. Finally it became very clear that they wanted me out no matter what. So I figured, well, they don't want me here, I don't want to stay, and so I left.

In other words, he didn't leave, his contract was not renewed, precisely as the article suggests. But the content dispute is immaterial: the language used to describe Minderbinder's conduct here, which appears entirely in line with WP:ATT, WP:NPOV and WP:BLP, suggests a level of emotional investment in the content by Butler at least which is not conducive to neutrality.

Below, Davkal calls this "misrepresentation" and "biased editing". No, it's not. It's a valid interpretation of the source offered. Again, the language betrays a wholly inappropriate personailising of the issues, and a worrying degree of personal emotional investment in the tone of the article.

The most neutral way of addressing the issue may be to say that he left following the refusal to renew his contract, but that is not really the issue here, what is at issue is the high levels of emotional investment on display.

Parapsychology and pseudoscience

It is asserted by some of the parapsychology proponents that the basis of the dispute is the characterisation of parapsychology as pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is defined as any body of knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that claims to be scientific but does not follow the scientific method. Parapsychologys is defined as the study of any phenomena that cannot be explained by natural law (Britannica). These definitions inherently conflict. Parapsychology is vigorously asserted to be scientific by its Misplaced Pages proponents, per statements in this arbitration case. A core principle of the scientific method is controlled, independently repeatable experiment, also falsifiability.

In parapsychology, although a claim is certainly made to following the scientific method, both controls and repeatability are often lacking (, many others echoing the same comment). Or to put it another way, the problem with studies of psi is that "one anomaly is replacing another. This seems to be a general strategy in the literature of the anomalous." . Therefore, it is not a failure of WP:NPOV to characterise parapsychological topics provided reliable sources can be cited. In many cases, as implicitly acknowledged by the sources, there is no unequivocal statement that such-and-such a parapsychology topic is pseudoscientific - because the subject is not just rejected, it is considered ignorable - for the most part the scientific journals do not characterise pseudosciences as pseudoscientific, they simply ignore them.

To categorise parapsychology as science is certainly problematic: a source commonly cited, the admission by AAAS of one parapsychology research group in the 1960s, is questionable and may constitute original research. In the 1960s all sorts of whacky stuff got funded and investigated - for example, remote viewing, something which there is little doubt would now be completely rejected for official funding. The intellectual climate in the 1960s was greatly different to what it is now, and more importantly the few serious investigations undertaken back then have tended to reinforce the mainstream view that parapsychology is untestable and thus not scientific. Many strange phenomena inexplicable by conventional understanding in the 1960s are now well understood through the development of quantum theory and other modern mathematical and physical modelling techniques.

It is not reasonable to characterise parapsychology as science without evidence that it is considered scientific by at least a reaosnable minority of the scientific establishment. I have yet to see any evidence that it is so. At best it might be characterised as fringe science but even that may be misleading since, for example, serious scientific endeavours are being made in the area of cold fusion. Perhaps the proponents could cite the papers on parapsychology which have been published recently in influential journals such as Nature. Two articles in SciAm and 79 in Nature have mentioned parapsychology since these journals went online, and the overall tone varies from sceptical to derisive. The most visible recent discussion was inrespect of the closure of the Princeton lab earlier this year (The lab that asked the wrong questions, Nature, Feb 2007). This from the director:

It was Jahn's decision to close the lab. He set out to prove the existence of the effect and, at 76, believes the work is done. But such tiny deviations from chance have not convinced mainstream scientists, and the lab's results have been studiously ignored by the wider community. Apart from a couple of early reviews (R. G. Jahn Proc. IEEE 70, 136–170; 1982 and R. G. Jahn and B. J. Dunne Found. Phys. 16, 721–772; 1986), Jahn's papers were rejected from mainstream journals. Jahn believes he was unfairly judged because of the questions he asked, not because of methodological flaws.

However:

The difficulty is that it's virtually impossible to prove that such subtle effects aren't caused by some flaw in the methods or equipment. A recent meta-analysis (H. Bösch et al. Psychol. Bull. 132, 497–523; 2006) combined 380 studies on the phenomenon, often termed psychokinesis, including data from the PEAR lab. It concluded that although there is a statistically significant overall effect, it is not consistent and relatively few negative studies would cancel it out, so biased publication of positive results could be the cause.

All this is, of course, original research by me :-) However,the overall tone is clear: parapsychology is considered ignorable by the mainstream scientific community and to characterise it as science is plainly contentious. So the debate should be between category:fringe science and category:pseudoscience, with independent sources, not Misplaced Pages editors' personal beliefs, defining the outcome. That outcome is likely to be different between different articles.

Esoteric definitions of paranormal

I have come across several articles which have at times been tagged as part of WikiProject Paranormal, but which have no evident connection to the paranormal as generally understood. For example, homopolar generator (aka Faraday Disc). Others are part of the collection of articles on over-unity devices, which are for the most part either pseudoscience or outright fraud and not in any way paranormal. It is unclear to me what the purpose might be of drawing these into the Wikiproject.

Evidence presented by user:davkal

Misrepresentation of sourced information

A fundamental problem in this dispute consists in editors refusing to provide sources or providing sources that do not support the contention they are sources for. An example of this is the unsupported claim by user:Minderbinder that Dean Radin's contract was not renewed and his revert of the supported claim that Dean Radin left his employment of his own accord. The source for this claim, which User:JzG cites in full above and which is the only source provided in the article, states clearly that Radin did in fact leave of his own accord. That is, the source, which is an interview with Radin, concludes with the words "so I left", and while the source does mention the initial attempt by his employers to not renew Radin's contract it is clear that this decision was reversed - "so when I protested they immediately changed their tune" - and after further difficulties which are not described in detail Radin decided to leave.

We have here, then, a clear case where an edit supported by a source (Radin left) was changed to something unsupported by the source (Radin's contract was not renewed), but which is more in line with the editor's personal dislike for anything and anybody associated positively with the paranormal. To make matters worse, however, this type of misrepresentation of source information is cited by supporting editors as an example of good practice, and: a) the complete failure of the source actually to support the claim is ignored; b) the source is described as if it did in fact obviously support the claim - when this is clearly not true; c) a number of Wiki rules are then cited as if the fundamental point here was not simply an accurate representation of the source but some other various Wiki policies; and d) any editor disputing such claims is then accused of breaching/failing to understand these other rules.

I know of no way to resolve this type of misrepresentative editing. One could edit war and get blocked, one could report the incident but many times an admin will support the misrepresentation (as user:JzG does above) because it better reflects their POV, or one could simply allow vast amounts of incorrect information to remain in Wiki. The above may be a trivial example, but it represents something ubiquitous in paranormal articles in Wiki and these are places where, in my opinion, the rules governing all aspects of good conduct on Wiki have completely broken down. If an admin can cite such a clear breach of the fundamental basis for an accurate Wiki as an example of good practice then I don't know where we can go from here.Davkal 11:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

In response to this point, user:Mastcell says below, "the other (unacknowledged) option is to recognize that consensus has gone against you, accept it, and move on". Mastcell appears to believe that if a source says P and a consensus of Wiki editors decide they would rather it said not-P, then that consensus of editors are entitled to write "not-P" in an article and cite the source regardless. Needless to say I do not subscribe to that logic. By openly advocating this type of alteration-of-source-content-by-consensus (misrepresentation-of-source-content-by-consensus) Mastcell clearly demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding concerning what is, and what is not, up for debate. If a source says "P" then the source says "P", and no amount of consensus, or edit warring, or blocking, will make it say "not-P". What those things will do is ensure that Wiki incorrectly says "not-P" when the source says "P". In other words, Wiki will be full of incorrect information.

Further examples of sources being misrepresented.

In the main section of the List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts article we have the header "Paranormal subjects". Four sources are provided for this claim yet none of them explicitly say that the paranormal is and of itself pseudoscience. Some do not even mention the word "paranormal". Nonetheless, these sources are used support the claim (original research) that the paranormal = pseudoscience and to justify taking information from many other sources to compile a list of 16 different alleged paranormal subjects that by reference to this dubious identification are considered pseudoscience. And not only considered pseudoscience, but identified both in the main introduction, and in the introduction to the section where they are listed, as being subject to "a broad consensus concerning their pseudoscientific status. Indicative of this are assertions by mainstream, specialized scientific bodies (e.g., a society of plasma physicists) or one or more national- or regional-level Academies of Science". This is simply not true. The mainstream bodies whose identifications are supposed to be necessary and sufficient for inclusion in this list have neither identified paranormal subjects in general as pseudoscience, nor many of the topics found under that heading. Many of the topics on that list have been identified as pseudoscience by sceptical organisations (CSICOP, the Skeptics Society etc.) but these organisations have their own separate section immediately following the section reserved for things identified as pseudoscience by mainstream scientific bodies. The article is explicitly divided in this way.

Sources are being misrepresented in this article, then, in the following ways:

1. Claims that are not made in various sources (e.g., paranormal=pseudoscience) are presented as having been made in those sources.

2. Sources that are not mainstream scientific bodies (e.g., CSICOP, the Septics Society and Skepdic) are being cited in a section supposedly reserved exclusively for statements by mainstream scientific bodies such as the association of plasma-physicists.

3. Both (1) and (2) above, as well as single statements from single sources are being explicitly presented as representing a "broad consensus" of the mainstream scientific community.

4. Articles on the websites of scientific associations are being misrepresented as "statements from" those scientific associations.

These lists, the sources, and the way the article is structured, has been maintained by a number of sceptical editors including User:Simoes, user:ScienceApologist, user:minderbinder and user:LuckyLouie.

Systematically biasing articles in favour of pseudosceptical viewpoints

Looking at two of the main article being discussed here, Electronic voice phenomenon and the List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts we can see that the so-called sceptical editors are intent on pushing their own minority (pseudosceptical) viewpoint into articles in a way that clearly breaches NPOV and undue weight.

For example, in the section of the EVP article dealing with paranormal and naturalistic explanations for the phenomenon we currently have only 92 words covering all the various paranormal speculation that has been put forward for EVP and around 850 words devoted to sceptical/pseudosceptical speculation - even though the pseudosceptical speculation consists in simply making the same one or two pointst again and again and again. Indeed, one pseudosceptical source, The Skepdic's disctionary (which can be identified clearly as pseudosceptical since the author of the work, Robert Carroll, openly admits that his book "does not try to present a balanced account of occult subjects") is given over twice as much space (185 words) as all the paranormal speculation added together. This pseudosceptical speculation, then, which has been subject to no scientific validation of any kind, accounts for nearly one third of the total article. An article which has to introduce the topic, deal with the history, the notable cases, the use in popular culture and the proposed paranormal explanations/speculation amongst other things. At the same time as this pushing of a minority POV has gone on; a) many notable cases of highly qualified people being involved with EVP have been removed from the article; and b) attempts to state clearly that there has been no scientific study of EVP have been removed - sometimes to be replaced by the completely false claim that there has been such study .

The List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts is in many ways worse. In that article NPOV has been done away with altogether and the article now openly lists things as pseudoscience, not on the basis of any objective measure and without any possibility of mitigation or discussion, but simply on the say-so of (pseudo)sceptical groups such as CSICOP and the Skeptics Society. The second section of that article is merely Wiki being used as soapbox for minority views on a grand scale.

Evidence presented by Pjacobi

WikiProject Paranormal is abused to build and mobilize a faction in Misplaced Pages

This is most evident, when observing how the project is involved in articles which aren't topically related to "Paranormal" but only in the hope of finding support against the "Scientific POV/Mainstream/Establishment Wikinquisition".

WikiProject Paranormal tries to invent a separate 'jurisdiction' in its area

Note the wording of the straw poll regarding Megalith on the WikiProject talk page:

Here again the notion of 'juridiction' and the wide area it should apply to:

Severe misjudgement of what is an acceptable source

User:Perfectblue97

Note especially ISBN 189226403X and ISBN 978-0976406495.

I can't even guess whether this was seriously proposed or just a provocation.

"Pseudoscienceness" of Parapsychology is not the core problem

It may be difficult to give a good encyclopedic exposition of why, and which part, of parapsychology is (or is not) considered pseudoscience (by whom). But this is only a minor part of the controversy underlying this ArbCom case. For (academic) Parapsychology is only a small part of the entire field of of "Paranormal", and what is generally considered "Paranormal" is only a small part of the articles addressed by the WikiProject Paranormal. Which starts by the wholesale inclusion of Ufology, adds Ancient astronaut theory and is now adding Category:Nikola Tesla and "free energy" stuff -- by the influence of User:Reddi I assume.

I've tried myself do add a differentiated assessment at Talk:Parapsychology , . I've found Martinphi's campaigning there rather maximalistic and unhelpfull.

Evidence presented by ScienceApologist

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

Davkal is a problematic editor

Davkal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s history is long and tortured. I have begun to collect a lot of evidence here:

Davkal first began to insist upon his beliefs in the paranormal being portrayed as fact at

Some AN/Is of interest:

Tom Butler has a definite conflict of interest

Tom Butler maintains his own website regarding Electronic voice phenomenon (EVP). .

Tom tried to promote his own vision of EVP at Misplaced Pages but was cautioned against it for conflict of interest reasons: Talk:Electronic voice phenomenon/Archive1#Misleading reference

Tom then decided to post an article critical of Misplaced Pages on his website. From that essay, it seems that he may have quite a persecution complex.

Wooyi has aligned himself with paranormal supporters

Wooyi has positioned himself as opposed to general principles of WP:NPOV and supported User:Martinphi's efforts to reinterpret this policy.

Evidence presented by LuckyLouie

Parapsychology used as a term to push POV in article leads

  • Example of misuse of "parapsychology" in order to justify a pro-paranormal, minority definition in an article lead:
  • Term "parapsychology" employed consistently by a small group of editors to create article leads using minority POV rather than mainstream dictionary definitions of the subject; , , ,, ], Ectoplasm_(parapsychology), and many others.

Davkal is a disruptive editor

Davkal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)'s actions show a pattern of being disruptive and uncivil.

Some highlights of the past 60 days:

Misplaced Pages being used as a place to right great wrongs

Two editors involved in this arbitration display high levels of inappropriate advocacy regarding the paranormal, extending to offsite activities which appear to be disruptive to the task of writing an encyclopedia.

  • Most disturbing is an anti-Misplaced Pages essay on User:Tom Butler's AA-EVP website entitled "Concerns With Misplaced Pages" in which he attacks specific Misplaced Pages editors, calling one a "bully". The section called "The Inquisition" is especially troubling, as it accuses these editors and even some admins of mounting an organized persecution to "censor" paranormal advocates. A new WP user was directed to this site via Talk Page message .
  • A link to an alternate "AA-EVP version" of the EVP article was repeatedly added to the "Further Reading" section of the EVP article , , .
  • Also of concern is User:Martinphi's website entitled "Paranormal Primer" previously called "Paranormal Practicum" which also accuses Misplaced Pages of "censorship", and displays links to both Tom Butler and Dean Radin's anti-Misplaced Pages essays. Before Martin's essay was removed from his userspace, he had employed it inappropriately. Here he cites it to another editor in order to sell his POV in the Parapsychology article. And here he directs a new user who disagrees with his POV in the Psychic article to refer to it. Here he recommends it to new user Annalisa Ventola. Here he actually cites it as if it were "policy" to justfy an edit (!). And here I'm not sure what's going on.
  • Also of some concern was User_talk:Martinphi/NPOV, a forking of WP:NPOV which contained POV-driven revisions to WP core policies, such as "However, when we are presenting the viewpoint of a paranormal topic in the main body of an article, we must present it as if it is a fact". (Administrators who have access to records of deleted userspace files may see this particular diff at ) These files were voluntarily deleted by their author.

It is difficult to imagine editors with such obvious emotional investment are making good faith edits to paranormal articles.

Response to Tom Butler's comment -- There's no "yellow journalism" at work here, Tom. Only evidence of extreme advocacy. If Martin was trying to be helpful to Misplaced Pages, creating and distributing a nonconsensus guideline of "do's and don'ts for paranormal articles" was the wrong way to go about it. - LuckyLouie 23:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest and POV pushing by User:Tom Butler

Evidence presented by Wikidudeman

Being affiliated with the AAAS does not equal a field of science

I have no new evidence to present concerning the conduct of the various users involved in this arbitration however I do want to make one thing clear that I believe is important. The Parapsychological Association is an official affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement(AAAS)]. Proponents of parapsychology often claim that being affiliated with the AAAS is proof parapsychology is a "field of science". This is incorrect. A simple glance at the list of affiliates and one sees that the American Library Association is also an affiliate. Does this mean that the American Library Association is a "field of science"? The criteria for being listed as an affiliate of the AAAS can be found here ]. None of the criteria say anything about being a "field of science". Moreover parapsychology is not one of the 24 sections of the AAAS.

Evidence presented by PerfectBlue

It is my proposition that most pages relating to the paranormal (forgetting pseudoscience, for a minute), are "special cases" where the mere inclusion of the tag "paranormal" at the beginning tells the users "all that they need to know" about the contents. Basically, that the page is a record of "what people claim" and "what people believe" NOT hard science. As such, when dealing with ghost, ghouls and things that go bump in the night, our primary concern should be notability, not verifiability of science. Yes, include WP:V to prove that users aren;t making things up, yes, include WP:RS to make sure that users aren't simply citing their boyfriend's blog, but no to the level of evidence that is required in science, history and biography. In most cases, what is needed is the history of a topic (past sightings in a haunting, past account of mediumship etc). Evidence that "belief exists", not evidence of such things as science fact, because most clearly are not.

"Random Paranormal reality show A" doesn't need to be scientifically valid in order to attract X million viewer, and "Random Kook B" might write in crayon because he isn't allowed sharp object, but that doesn't stop X million people buying his book. They just need to be real and be notable.

However skeptics seem intent on editing myth, legend and belief as if they were "hard science" and appear intent on deleting any information that demonstrates 1) that belief in the paranormal is widespread, 2) that belief is usually independent of scientific evidence 3) that not everybody involved in the paranormal is a lunatic.

This debate should be about certain editors, not the topic which they edit

Many complaints revolve around certain editors, but is being extended to the topic which they edit by skeptics seeking to use examples of the few to tar the work of the many.

Parapsychology should be distinguished from amateur ghost hunting and Pseudoscience

The discipline of parapsychology is verifiable and undeniably recognized as a branch of science. This recognition was granted by in 1969 when the AAAS granted full recognized status to "Parapsychological association" a PSi research group. This is verifiable through the AAAS website. Yet many skeptical users persist in treating all parapsychology as a pseudoscience regsarrdless of the quality and verifiability of the work.

Parapsychology is literally the scientific study of the paranormal. No matter who engages in a paranormal experiment or what their results are, so long as they follow the rules of science they are Parapsychologists.

Abuse of redflag

Redflag requires that "extraordinary claims" should have a higher level of WP:RS than "ordinary claims", however skeptics persist in applying Redflag to "absurd claims" too. Claimed sightings of Unicorns and Bigfoot, little green men, or Elvis working the counter at a 24/7 mart should require only proof that the person claiming to have made the sighting really did make make the claim. They should not require peer-review evidence from an expert witness.

Skeptics engage in smear tactics and bad faith editing

Skeptics have repeatedly engaged in bad faith edits. Taken from a single page: Here, a skeptic introduces highly unacceptable wording to try and discredit a researcher. Here one deliberately tries to add doubt. Questioning the integrity of equipment used in an experiment even though no third party source exists (or was presented) to cast that doubt. [http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Electronic_voice_phenomenon&diff=118082007&oldid=118053574

Skeptical users abuse WP:RS

Skepitical users demand unreasonable levels of WP:RS for non redflag issues. For example, it was put forward that an individual (Alexander MacRae) had previously worked in the field of voice recognition. This is an unremarkable claim, and certainly not redflag, but it was highly relevant to the page (electric voice phenomona) as it verified him as being an expert working in his given field and therefore gave his work credibility. Skeptic refused to accept an article from one of the world's best known paranormal investigation magazines (Fate) and refused to accept a book by a notable academic with experience in relevant fields (David Fontana, distinguished Visiting Fellow at Cardiff University, Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University)

Instead skeptics demand to see 40 years old paper based contractors records which were likely lost or destroyed decades ago.

Here a user dismisses content as being "hearsay" (see edit summary) even though it is verifiable to several books (see sources).

Skeptical fail to observe WP:RS themselves, "enhance" the qualifications of people, and fail to mention their skeptical involvement

Here skeptics quote David Federlein as being a professional sound engineer. Later investigation found him to be a seasons artist and an unsigned musician whose only sound engineer experience was a non academically recognized course in using mixing equipment.Skeptical users also failed to mention that Federlein is a frequent commentator on http://www.randi.org/ (user name fowlsound), and that he was an administrator at http://www.skepticwiki.org/ and http://www.skepticwiki.org/. Thus, that he was not an objective expert but was a member of the pubic and a confirmed long term skeptic.

Skeptical users delete qualifications and experience to discredit authors

here a skeptical user deletes the background of an electrical engineer and calls him a "paranormal investigator". effectively stating that he is an "ghost hunter" rather than an expert in his field.

here the same information is removed again on the grounds that the author conducted an interview, with the subject, rather than worked along side him. Which is a clear abuse of WP:V and WP:RS which both permit information sourced to interviews conducted by professional writers and journalist.

Skeptical users are institutionally bias against non-skeptical authors

Skeptical users use "belief in the paranormal" as a benchmark for reliability. They automatically label sources from people who believe in the paranormal as being unreliable regardless of the authors qualifications and academic background. An example taken from an arbitration statement :

the only citations for said claim are to paranormal promoters.

here the above user has made an rather emotional edit titled "Fontana is unreliable, Fontana is unreliable, Fontana is unreliable, Fontana is unreliable, Fontana is unreliable" that deletes a citation from the author on the grounds tat they are not a skeptic even though they are highly qualified (David Fontana, distinguished Visiting Fellow at Cardiff University, Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University).

Response to "Evidence presented by Minderbinder"

In response to the Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Paranormal/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_Minderbinder following, users should note that this issue has already been dealt with in an action against said user. - perfectblue 07:40, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Wooyi

MFD harassment, votestacking

I'd like to present the evidence regarding to the misuse of MFD by the so-called "skeptics". Martinphi had written his opinion on a user subpage but the skeptics sent it for MFD, Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Martinphi/Paranormal primer. Then, they votestacked the MFD (a large portion of delete vote came from one side in this arbitration case. The closing admin deleted it, not because the page clearly violate any policy but because Martin agreed to the deletion. The admin admitted,

We generally give users fairly wide latitude in their user space to express POV, which was a primary concern of this debate. If you take raw numbers into account, there are 2 keeps and 8 deletes; however MFD is not explicitly a vote. The fact that the creator explicitly said that he does not care what is done to it weighed heavily in on my decision to close this as delete.

This kind of abusive use of MFD should raise arbitrator's concern.

It is not accurate to state parapsychology is not a field of science

Many sources Parapsychology as a scientific study, self-evident in the Google definition search here. Also, the American heritage dictionary define parapsychology as "study of extrasensory perception, such as telepathy, psychokinesis, and clairvoyance" without stating if it is science or not, leaving it as a gray area. Another note, there are many recognized scientific studies that are largely subjective, like philosophy (defined in American heritage as "science comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology").

I have not taken any side in this dispute, though ScienceApologist said otherwise

In this evidence page User:ScienceApologist indicated that I took the pro-paranormal-editor side in this arbitration case, which is not true. I have reverted and criticized a pro-paranormal editor, and I have endorsed some of ScienceApologist's proposals. What I have done is to present some of the serious misbehavior and POV-pushing of skeptic editors, not taking a side.

Evidence presented by Minderbinder

Martinphi has consistently engaged in POV pushing and disruptive editing

  1. Use of sock puppets, including for 3RR evasion: sock or meat puppet created to advance his positions (resulted in indefinite block of sock account)
  2. Violating NPOV by modifying sentences to insert positive appraisal or legitimacy to claims in/about parapsychology/the paranormal: Additional recent example at Dowsing:
  3. Edit warring on the crop circles article (did not result in block due to sockpuppetry):
  4. Soapbox/advocacy: Welcoming a new user by directing him/her to off-site material warning parapsychology proponents about individual Misplaced Pages editors and articles on the paranormal, then vowing to continue distributing the advocacy link and accusing an involved admin of vandalism. Additional defense of the advocacy:
  5. POV forking - POV fork created, complete with an original title of "Criticism and response in parapsychology" and rebuttals of strawman arguments. Additional POV forking by insisting that information positive to parapsychology remain in the main article while criticism stay in a separate article.
  6. Adding his wording of an article on which he was involved with a dispute as an example to WP:WTA, a clear conflict of interest: Edit warring over this change:
  7. Violating NPOV by cherry-picking all and only the entries related to parapsychology for citation requests and later removal despite the problem being endemic to virtually all entries on the list: The edit war that ensued (resulted in 3RR block) Removing "parapsychology" from a disputed statement and then removing the fact-tag, leaving the statement to cover another field Shifting POV slant from anti-parapsychology to pro-parapsychology:
  8. WP:POINT Attempting (3 days after his own 3RR block expired) to get a user blocked by alleging violation of 3RR on the basis of five reverts made, in different sections, over the course of two weeks: He later claimed to have not expected the report to be acted upon even before he filed it. In giving his reasoning behind the action, he wrote that he filed the report against the other user "because past reports seemed to be a factor in my own blocking."
  9. Violating NPOV by insisting on defining a fringe topic with unproven existence with wording that makes it sound like it actually exists. Insistence that it's OK to have sentences (in this case the opening sentence of the article, defining the term, violating undue weight by presenting a fringe view first and the mainstream view later: "We should define it as being paranormal (and we can just say that is what it actually is, and then say it may or may not exist). Right?") that aren't NPOV as long as the other side is given later in the article. Also, insisting that "majority view" of NPOV is defined as a majority of those studying a fringe topic and not a majority of scientists in general, or a majority of the general public ("Ok, please consider me to be yelling now: the majority view, not the minority view but the majority view, is that EVP is paranormal.") "apeals to the authority of the mainstream must be avoided."
  10. Violating WP:RS - repeatedly removing info sourced to Time Magazine, saying it's not a reliable source (while using references to fringe publications)
  11. Violating NPOV and WP:V: using "according to the PA..." (parapsychological association) as justification for using fringe definitions defining terms like Psychic as real phenomena. Calling definitions from mainstream dictionaries and encyclopedias "the definite minority", "misleading", "those definitions say something different from what they mean" . Again, "demonstrably untrue", in reference to dictionary definitions:"Do you really want Misplaced Pages to promote bunk?" "You are also eliminating a really good generall policy: define the phenomena as real, then say that there is skepticism about it. It is just an invitation to weasels. It is what the skeptics have been trying to do on here for months, in an attempt to discredit anything and everything psychic." Many POV edits to Psychic trying to change the definition from a claimed power to one that actually exists: (via meatpuppet, circumventing 3RR) (yet another meatpuppet) "This is a better version" (describing the removal of "purportedly" as NPOV) , moving the info about the existence to a separate sentence: (via meatpuppet, circumventing 3RR) (here calling the inclusion of the mention that existince is disputed "pov pushing") (again via meatpuppet) (again calling his version NPOV), addition of three fringe sources to support his fringe definition and a fourth which included multiple definitions, more than half of which included "apparently", a term martinphi has objected to and removed as "NPOV": . Note that this has been going on for months, it looks like Martinphi has been trying to redefine "psychic" as if it exists since last October
  12. Violating NPOV by adding (swapping out telepathy for the appropriate subject) "There is a consensus within that field that some instances of telepathy are real." to a number of articles.
  13. Violating NPOV on John Edward: (in this case with the misleading edit summary "replacing image" when he's also making a controversial text change) . With this article, Martinphi repeatedly objected to wording such as "author and television personality who describes himself as a psychic medium" and "self-described" claiming it to be POV, although wording like "says" is recommended by wikipedia guidelines as the most neutral alternative per WP:WTA.
  14. WP:POINT: Disruptively fact tag bombing and refusal to correct items he says are wrong, "I'd fix more for you, but my edits are deleted on this article." "I won't fix it because my edits get deleted" (and other similarly uncivil edit summaries) seemingly to make a WP:POINT: making one fix ; continued uncivil/sarcastic edit summaries:
  15. POV pushing and revert warring at Institute of Noetic Sciences: (changing "alleged paranormal" to just paranormal, removing sourced mentions of specific paranormal topics)

The above list is adapted from Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Martinphi with some tweaks and additions. There was wide agreement that these actions were disruptive, but Martinphi insists that his behaviour is based in policy and refuses to change it. These items have been discussed, but since Martinphi refuses to follow wikipedia policies, it looks like it will take arbcom action to deal with them.

Evidence presented by MastCell

Content issues

Insofar as I've followed the content disputes at Electronic Voice Phenomenon and related pages, I agree fully with JzG's formulation of the issues above.

User Conduct

This case has ended up here because of problematic user conduct which is inimical to consensus-building. I think the problems can be summed up briefly with a couple of representative diffs:

  • Following this up with "The accusations of tendentiousness are only the result of other editor's mis-interpretations of the rules" points up the second issue. A number of people have problems with Martinphi's conduct, as evidenced by the comments at his RfC. The above comments and Martin's responses at the RfC suggest that he's becoming more intractably committed to a course that the community feels is disruptive. That's unfortunate, because he has the potential to be a valuable contributor to paranormal articles - but we all need to respond constructively to community disapproval of our actions, or our tenure here is prone to be short and rocky.

Evidence presented by the honorable User:Rednblu

Self-contradictory Misplaced Pages policy text encourages this behavior

The real problem here is that NPOV, Verifiability not truth, Attributability, No original research, and ReliableSource are stated in such murky and self-contradictory text that, unless the BigBoss bangs them over the head, the honorable majority gang bringing this suit can get their way repeatedly throughout Misplaced Pages by attributing mere unverifiable rumor, ridicule, accusation, hearsay, and defamatory remarks to a VerifiableSpeaker. The accused is right in accusing his accusers of "contemptibly biased behavior." It is contemptibly biased behavior even when done in good faith. Of course, the accusers here are quite sure that they are defending the truth, and they are--I will agree. But the standard here should be "Verifiability, not truth." Accordingly, what is needed is an adequate definition of Misplaced Pages policy, such as requiring any assertion in a Misplaced Pages page to be a quote or paraphrase of a ReliableSource that has applied a professional standard of "Verifiability, not truth." The following are examples of the accusers violating the "Verifiability, not truth" standard that they are unfairly imposing on the accused.

The accusing gang violate the very standards they seek to impose on the accused

  • Here the honorable accusing editor has the audacity to tag as "dubious" what the ReliableSource explicitly says. Then, should the accused be held guilty for doing the same thing in good faith?
  • Here the honorable accusing editor has the audacity to impose the judgment of a straw poll of the accusing gang in opposition to the truth of what the ReliableSources actually say. Then, should the accused be held guilty for doing the same thing in good faith?
  • Here the honorable accusing editor has the audacity to censor from Misplaced Pages the published statements of Nobel laureates, which the honorable accusing editor dismisses as merely "personal opinions." Then, should the accused be held guilty for doing the same thing in good faith?
  • . . .
  • Quod erat demonstrandum. The honorable accused editor quickly learns that Misplaced Pages policy expects him to organize his own gang of warrior editors. For, in the absence of clear and self-consistent normative statements of NPOV, Verifiability not truth, Attributability, No original research, and ReliableSource, the Misplaced Pages page is merely what is left after the honorable accusing gang in good faith gets done with it. --Rednblu 19:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Tom Butler

Misplaced Pages is potentially a tremendous benefit to society, but it has a few fatal flaws which has made some articles more misleading than beneficial. Since Misplaced Pages is posing as an authoritative reference source, the managers and editors have a social responsibility to do all they can to assure the integrity of the articles. That responsibility has not been met. It is common knowledge amongst educators that Misplaced Pages must not be used in student homework.

Informed Consensus

With the current rules about conflict of interest, it is essentially impossible for editors to achieve an informed consensus on any subject. This is especially true of controversial subjects. The MacRae discussion in the EVP article is a good example of this. The editors did not know of him until I mentioned his research, yet there have been many edit wars over how his credentials were to be characterized, and some editors have essentially invented the technical aspects of his experiment. Who in those discussions were informed enough to characterize the data in an informed way?

Anyone who has taken the time to study a controversial subject is probably going to fall under the conflict of interest rule, thus guaranteeing that virtually everything in the encyclopedia is written by people who are not considered experts in the subject. In the absence of subject matter experts, a consensus has too often become a matter of who can out bully the opposing view.

The solution is obvious. Allow for subject matter experts, change the conflict of interest view to only mean instances when it is clear that the editor is seeking financial gain at the expense of accuracy of the article, stop the characterization of data and stop the categorization of subjects.

Characterization of Data

I hate how Kazuba repeatedly attacked Dean Radin in his talk page with unrealistic requests for clarification of virtually everything Radin has written, clearly intended to start a fight. However, my real issue was how Radin was attacked in the article about him. He was eliminated as an editor because of conflict of interest while he was trying to defend himself. Why was it that the editors found it necessary to characterize how and why he left the University of Nevada? The fact is that he left. Characterizing a change in job as something like "was dismissed" is both unnecessary and makes the article sound more like an editorial than an encyclopedia article.

Judging from past actions, it appears that the skeptical editors were determined to us the article about Radin as a way to discredit his work and the field of parapsychology. They were doing it by inappropriately characterizing data--a common practice in Misplaced Pages.

Characterizing data too often becomes an exercise in fictional writing.

Categorizing Subjects

Categorizing a subject as pseudo-anything is really stating that the subject is false. "Pseudo-" is a derogatory statement intended to tell the reader that all that is written about the subject cannot be trusted.

At the same time, classifying a subject as paranormal tells the reader that science cannot explain it, and therefore it is not a real thing. From the American Heritage Dictionary: Paranormal: Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation. As I read the common usage of the word in Misplaced Pages, "paranormal" is just another way of classifying the data to bias it toward what the classifier believes. It is blatant point of view pushing.

The field of parapsychology does not include survival research. That is a fact that is supported by the definition of psychology. From the American Heritage Dictionary: Parapsychology: The study of the evidence for psychological phenomena, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis, that are inexplicable by science. Survival research is an entirely different subject and EVP is survival research. By classifying EVP as a subject of parapsychology, the classifier is telling the reader that EVP is a "psychological phenomena" and therefore not real.

A good many of the edit wars in Misplaced Pages have been over classification of data, and the very practice of classifying data is inappropriate for an encyclopedia, as it casts subjects into artificial, and probably transient status which tends to linger for a long time after the data has changed.

Turf Wars

I find it humorous that JzG complained about my "inappropriate advocacy" when I said the real issue is just a turf war, and then he proceeded to prove my point by saying all of the bad things the "proponent" editors have done. Even PerfectBlue got into that one.

I was blocked while trying to keep MSHyde from equating the skeptical dictionary's view with science in the EVP article. MSHyde, ScienceApologist, LuckyLoue and Minderbinder took me to the admin people for that. Later, a bot caught up with MSHyde and deleted her. It turns out she had been banned before for similar overly aggressive editing.

The person who blocked me was InShaneee. He was recently disciplined for being too quick to block people. It seems obvious that the skeptics are very quick to eliminate competing editors, rather than seek a different approach to writing an article.

Simoes proposed a three-tier arrangement for acceptable references that would be used as references for the Pseudoscience categorization. Science academies were to be top, then specialty science organizations and last was to be skeptical organizations. I believe that they have agreed on a two-tier arrangement, with science organizations at top and skeptics at bottom. The obvious problem is that such categorization is just POV pushing by name calling, but Simoes is a philosophy major working very hard on a science categorization page and trying to make the skeptical view be used along side science originations. Of course, the other skeptics are cheering him on.

The larger problem is that in application on the List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts ( http://en.wikipedia.org/List_of_pseudosciences_and_pseudoscientific_concepts ) page, there is no apparent effort to distinguish which tier the reference comes from. In effect, skeptics are ranked at the same level as scientists.

Simoes is the same person who initiated the Request for Comments on MartinPhi, which is clearly a skeptic versus "proponent" attack.

There is an active Misplaced Pages sponsored skeptic's club of which many of the editors posting on this page are members. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Rational_Skepticism/Members ) If anyone had any doubt that there is a struggle for dominance in Misplaced Pages, then one only has to compare the list of most aggressive skeptical editors with the list of skeptics club members.

MartinPhi's Paranormal Primer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Martinphi/Paranormal_primer ) was deleted with the charge that it said in part: "The more controversial or fringe a subject, the less the lead should tell the reader what to believe..." But the charges did not state the sentence that followed. MartinPhi also said, "This is because the reader should be allowed to make up his/her own mind concerning the subject of the article." I gather the skeptical editors do not trust the reader to arrive at the right conclusion.

The charges also complained that Martin said "Parapsychology is a scientific field." This is still a hotly debated position and certainly is not grounds for deleting the article.

In a note to JoshuaZ, the person who initiated the delete process, LuckyLouie said on JoshuaZ's talk page that the article, "... This does not appear to be an essay. Note in particular many controversial revisions to WP core policies, such as in which the User issues such dictates as, "However, when we are presenting the viewpoint of a paranormal topic in the main body of an article, we must present it as if it is a fact". A psuedo-policy such as User_talk:Martinphi/NPOV has the potential to be highly disruptive to the community and get in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia. -- LuckyLouie 22:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)" I have a copy of the essay made about that time and there is no such quote. I invite LuckyLouie to produce it.

Demon's decision to delete MartinPhi's article included the statement that, "The fact that the creator explicitly said that he does not care what is done to it weighed heavily in on my decision to close this as delete." I am confident that MartinPhi made that statement out of anger at being ganged up on by a bunch of masked people. The statement was essentially made under duress and should have never been used as justification for deletion.

What has occurred in the successful delete process is the blatant censoring of an editor's personal page in order to eliminate a competing editor. That is very much a turf war tactic.

LuckyLouie, what kind of yellow journalism are you up to now? That last reference, at http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Perfectblue97&diff=prev&oldid=104794110%20"Paranormal%20Practicum just illustrates that MartinPhi was only trying to help out with that essay you all were so afraid of. Especially, "I've just started an essay where I'm trying to address some of the errors often committed on Paranormal pages mostly by super-skeptics."
The point he explained later on is another major subject of disagreement we who want just the facts have with you who want to characterize the data your way. It would be good if everyone read it. As for the reference MartinPhi used, the fact is Bubba73, there have been numerous "randomness tests" that show that there is a foundation for the existence of psychic ability. In fact, that is what remote viewing is all about, and that is very well documented.
This is another example of characterization of data by someone who either does not know better or who chooses to ignore data because it does not support his beliefs. Tom Butler 23:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
But don't you see LuckyLouie, saying something is a "nonconsensus guideline" is the world according to the skeptics club. You are posing a one-sided view of MartinPhi's essay and that is yellow journalism by definition. From the AHD: "yellow journalism: Journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers." You are just muckraking in an effort to find damning evidence and all that you find is only testimony to your warped sense of reality.
The goals of the Skeptics club is a "nonconsensus guideline" and you all do not even have the nerve to address our complaints about it being a cadre determined to meet the goals as:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Wikiproject_Rational_Skepticism:
The goals of this WikiProject ( WikiProject Rational Skepticism ) are as follows:
To create new articles relating to science and reason.
To create new Misplaced Pages articles regarding those topics not yet covered by Misplaced Pages, but which are covered by The Skeptic's Dictionary.
To place pseudoscience tags on articles related to pseudoscience, fraudster tags on articles concerning convicted fraudsters, and add to criticisms sections where criticism is due.
To identify cases of fraud and other unethical/illegal activities undertaken by religious and quasi-religious organizations, as they often go unreported.
To improve those articles which need help.
To serve as a nexus and discussion area for editors interested in doing such work.
Especially note Article 2. The Skeptic's Dictionary is at the core of the skeptic's club guidelines. Also note: "To place pseudoscience tags..."; and, "To serve as a nexus and discussion area for editors interested in doing such work." which is a blatant invitation for skeptics to use the club as a rallying point for training and advise. Isn't this what the skeptics are always accusing "proponents" of? Tom Butler 01:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Desired Outcome of this Arbitration

First, if the arbitration committee cannot or will not initiate steps to revisit Misplaced Pages policy concerning Neutral Point of View, Conflict of Interest, Characterization of Data, Classification of Subjects and the sponsoring of clubs, then they should state as much and tell us what they are willing to do.

MartinPhi's suggestion that: "However, when we are presenting the viewpoint of a paranormal topic in the main body of an article, we must present it as if it is a fact." is exactly what I am advocating here. Misplaced Pages editors should be required to present just the facts and without characterization. If more than the facts are not known with proper citation, then they should be left out. In truth, the less said the better if the alternative is to fabricate a new data by speculating in the article.

Categories have become a lever used by the dominant editor group to push ideology. I am advocating that they be dropped entirely from Misplaced Pages.

If an editor has knowledge about a subject--including his or her article page--they should be allowed to make contributions to the articles concerned so long as they provide proper citations and the edits remain on point. I understand that it is difficult to distinguish edits to promote a view verses edits to explain, but sorting that out will be much better than the ideological edit wars we are seeing now. Tom Butler 17:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


Evidence presented by Tim Smith

Seeing Pjacobi's comments above about WikiProject Paranormal, I thought I would mention another project to which several of the involved parties belong: WikiProject Rational Skepticism. (See also Tom Butler's remarks on this project above.)

WikiProject Rational Skepticism factionalizes Misplaced Pages

I and another user have expressed concern about the apparent entry condition for WikiProject Rational Skepticism. Other projects are open to everyone. WikiProject Christianity, for example, is not a project for Christians, but a project to improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of Christianity. WikiProject Paranormal is not a project for believers in the paranormal, but a project to improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of the paranormal. WikiProject Rational Skepticism, in contrast, casts itself as "the central hub for Skeptical Wikipedians to get together and work on improving Misplaced Pages" and hosts "Skeptic watchlists", a page "for skeptics to post their watchlist suggestions, or links to their watchlists" (my bolds). Category:WikiProject Rational Skepticism members is even a subcategory of Category:Skeptical Wikipedians.

Seeking to improve Misplaced Pages is great, but factionalizing it with a project "for Skeptical Wikipedians" and "for skeptics", whose categorized members are automatically classified as "Skeptical" through a parent category, is worrying. Some comments from me and others:

  • "Is this a valid Wikiproject? Other wikiprojects seem to be based around particular topics, with the goals of improving those articles. This wikiproject seems to have a particular belief system as a condition of entry. Does that contravene any guidelines? If not, is it appropriate?" —Leon
  • "Inasmuch as this project's typical subject area is largely covered by other projects like WikiProject Pseudoscience and WikiProject Paranormal, and inasmuch as it employs a divisive and exclusionary condition of entry, I join Leon in questioning its validity and appropriateness." —Tim Smith
  • "There is an active Misplaced Pages sponsored skeptic's club If anyone had any doubt that there is a struggle for dominance in Misplaced Pages, then one only has to compare the list of most aggressive skeptical editors with the list of skeptics club members." —Tom Butler

Because membership is not for users merely interested in the epistemological position of "rational skepticism", but for those who actually take that position, the "alerts" and "tasks" posted to the project of AfDs, RfCs, and articles in need of a "POV check" sit uneasily with the spirit of WP:CANVAS, which frowns upon soliciting opinions from a partisan audience. At that guideline's talk page, User:Trialsanderrors, while observing that generally when posting notices to WikiProjects, "the benefit of expertise overrides the potential problems of partisanship", added that "This might not be true for all projects", addressing the possibility of one being "overrun by a partisan crowd" and expressing the risk faced by "WikiProjects that serve primarily as rallying ground for a certain POV". Without passing judgment on the individual members, I find WikiProject Rational Skepticism, as a group "for Skeptical Wikipedians" and "for skeptics", to merit concern in this context. Tim Smith 04:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Annalisa Ventola

Before I begin, I should disclose that even though I teach music for a living, I am also somewhat active in the fields of parapsychology and anomalous psychology. I have outed myself, my activities and my interests on my user page, so feel free to have a look of you are concerned about potential conflict of interest.

The field of parapsychology is misrepresented at Misplaced Pages

I've previously requested that the Arbitration committee limit the scope of their decision to the user conduct issues that were addressed in the original request for arbitration. There are misunderstandings about what parapsychology is and is not on all sides of the issue, but we are capable of working this out ourselves. Part of the current problem is that the article on parapsychology itself is poorly written. It reads as a case for the existence of extra-sensory perception rather than being descriptive of the field of parapsychology itself. I've been working on a rewrite of the article in my sandbox. I believe that it is still possible for there to be an article written about the field that would satisfy the editors of both WikiProject:Paranormal and Wikiproject:Rational Skepticism, without the help of arbitration.

Pseudoscience is a pejorative term and must be used with great caution, if at all

Pseudoscience means 'false science', but if you look at the List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, you'll see topics on that list (such as neoshamanism) that make no claims to being scientific at all. Rather, the editors have jumbled together a list of both purported sciences as well as beliefs that they find unsavory for one reason or another. Since their criteria for demarcation are not clear, one can't help but question their motives for creating the list and defending it so vigorously. For a time, parapsychology was on the list based on a Russian document that didn't even use the word parapsychology once. Now parapsychology is still on the list, but without a citation at all.

Studying a parapsychological topic does not imply personal belief in that topic

Editors often suggest that we should accept the supposed pseudoscientific nature of parapsychology as self-evident because the field studies topics that appear to fall outside of our current understanding of physics and/or how the mind works. However, this kind of thinking suggests that there are aspects of human experience that are not amenable to the scientific method, and no scientist would agree with that. If you open up a Journal of Parapsychology, you will find studies that attempt to demonstrate some form of psychic functioning, but you will also find studies with negative results. You might also find studies about the personality characteristics of people who believe in the paranormal, or studies about the self-image of OBE experiencers. There might be an article about slight of hand tricks, or about the ways in which experimenters might be prone to self-deception. These 'fringe journals' are run by university professors at reputable universities, and they have every interest in looking at strange human experiences from all angles and they do so with the rigor of any other scientific journal.

The work of parapsychologists has received serious consideration in mainstream academia

Even though the field of parapsychology is considered marginal within academia, it has received enough consideration in mainstream science to merit categorization as either a 'questionable science' or possibly even an 'alternative scientific theory'. If the Parapsychological Association's affiliation with the American Academy for the Advancement of Science isn't enough to establish this, then what about the existence of parapsychology laboratories at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), Lund University (Sweden), University of Adelaide (Australia) Northampton University (England), University of Virginia (USA) or the University of Arizona (USA)? And if that is yet not enough, how about the fact of occasional parapsychology articles being presented in mainstream publications? How about if I cite a handful:

  • Bosch, H., Steinkamp, F., & Boller, E. (2006). Examining psychokinesis: The interaction of human intention with random number generators � a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 132(4), July. pp. 497-523.
  • Cardeña, E., Lynn, S. J., & Krippner, S. (Eds.) (2000). Varieties of anomalous experience: Examining the scientific evidence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
  • Jahn, R. G., & Dunne, B. J. (1986). On the quantum mechanics of consciousness, with application to anomalous phenomena. Foundations of Physics 16(8), August. pp. 721-772.


--Annalisa Ventola (Talk | Contribs) 07:54, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Simoes

Davkal

Not too long ago, I made a post on the ANI page listing some of his more recent activity. These were limited to his personal attacks and belligerent behavior:

    • labeling contributions of other users as "stupid"
    • referring to users with whom he disagrees as the "pseudoskeptical side"
    • referring to another user's "green cheese pseudoargument" (???)
    • calling another user "willfully stupid"
    • telling a user "too bad" in response to his question.
    • sarcasm
    • hostile dismissal of a proffered source
    • dismissing an admin's advice by telling him to "dry eyes"
    • referring to another user's (rather benign) comment as "racist bullshit"

Evidence presented by Martinphi

A typical case

I know I said I wasn't going to burden ArbCom with any more material in this case, but someone sent me the following. I think it is very worth including here, because it is very similar to the kind of misinterpretation of the rules which consistently manifests itself relative to paranormal articles. It is also a great example of how some editors try to skew the rules to "get" other editors they don't like- to threaten them and have them sanctioned (example of threat- see second edit summary). The 3RR report brought by Minderbinder was a continuation of this misinterpretation, disruptive editing, edit warring, and intimidation.

discussion in paranormal arbitration workshop, and response.

Here are all the diffs I could find from the IONS article in which I make a change after another editor.

Following, what someone sent to me:

Simoes definition of a revert is wrong, he's mixing two different sentences in WP:3RR, and is misinterpreting one of the sentences that was mixed in.

"A revert is to undo all changes made to an article page after a specific time in the past. The result will be that the page becomes identical in content to the page saved at that time. However, in the context of the English Misplaced Pages three revert rule, a revert is defined far more broadly as any change to an article that partially or completely goes back to any older version of an article."

The changes in wording between each of Martin’s four edits is very significant, they are so different from one another that it clearly shows it is editing and not reverting. The edits include adding a reference. The edits are also clearly meant to be an attempt to reach a compromise wording, not to engage in edit warring.

It may have been a partial revert, but not in such a way as would violate 3RR:

"A partial revert is accomplished either by an ordinary edit of the current version, or by editing an old version. The former is convenient, for example, for a partial reversion of a recent addition, while the latter is convenient for a partial reversion of a deletion."

What Martinphi did was not a revert, but Minderbinder and JoshuaZ were reverting.

Simoes is reading this sentence in 3RR backwards, it actually would apply to the reverts Minderbinder and JoshuaZ were making, not Martin's:

"A revert means undoing the actions of another editor, whether involving the same or different material each time."

It's the actions of the "other editor" which involve the "same or different material". Martin was posting different material each time, not reverting back to an earlier version. Martin was ADDING different material each time, not reverting to an earlier version.

The sentence in 3RR probably should be re-written for clarity.

Actually, User:SlimVirgin wrote that sentence, perhaps she should be contacted to provide clarity. If the above understanding is incorrect, then the WP:Revert article needs to be changed to reflect the new information.

This recent change in wording from early March 2007, may actually be at odds with not only WP:Revert, but with general understanding of what a 3RR revert actually is.

The general understanding by both regular editors and administrators of what constitutes a 3RR revert is well stated by these posts:

It was stated by a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, Erik Muller:

"Gradual change to an article is emphatically not a reversion, and not covered by any of the definitions of 3RR. It is not a partial revert but an edit."

As a matter of fact, Erik directly mentions Martin's editing style as one that is NOT considered to be reverts that would violate WP:3RR here:

"..the variations were of exactly the word which was in dispute and an attempt to reach a compromise wording through gradual editing. They were not "reverts" by any reasonable definition. By the way, if you review the recent history of the article, you will find that Martinphi is trying to find a middle ground in a similar way; by your definition, he has "reverted" repeatedly and not left a single comment on the talk page about his edits.--Eloquence* 21:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)"

(here's the whole section for your information.)

And from an Admin who handles 3RR vios:

"Generally, the 3RR covers exact reverts, but it also covers edits which are substantially reverts, i.e. where one or two words are changed over and over again."

Martin did far more than merely changing "one or two words", Martin was making substantial wording changes each time, and doing exactly what our esteemed Misplaced Pages Foundation member described as "an attempt to reach a compromise wording through gradual editing. They were not "reverts" by any reasonable definition.

If Simoe's reading of this sentence from 3RR is correct:

"A revert means undoing the actions of another editor, whether involving the same or different material each time."

Where Simoes says "An edit is considered a revert if it undoes the changes of another—in whole or in part. All the diffs are clearly this."

Then EVERY SINGLE EDIT after an article's creation is a Revert. By that definition, if I create an article and someone comes along and edits it, even if only to correct a spelling error, then the editor making the change is undoing my actions - undoing the actions of another editor.

From that perspective, it would be a ridiculously broad and vague statement that would totally render it meaningless.

Regarding this comment: 'Multiple editors disagreed with Martin and reverted him and yet somehow they are the ones who edit warred'

Yes, two editors reverting another editor's edits multiple times in quick succession is called edit warring. That's the very defintion of edit warring. Consensus and discussion on a talk page is an entirely different matter and should not be confused with edit warring. The two editors who 'disagreed' with martin, attempted neither one of those other options, they opted instead to Edit War, and then falsely accuse Martin of 3RR.

As a matter of fact, it's highly unfair for two editors who have the same view to gang edit war against a single editor - ostensibly to avoid violating 3RR (at least that's what it looks like to me). Talk it out on the talk page or work in positive ways to find wording that satisifes both sides instead of just reverting, over and over again, those attempts being made by another editor to find acceptable wording. Reverting is a bad tactic.

If anyone believes that Martin was edit warring, then they also have to admit that the other two editors were also engaging in edit warring. Either way, bad for the two oppositional editors that are now accusing martin of the very behavior they engaged in.

End of what I was sent. Martin (Talk Ψ Contribs) 00:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

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