Revision as of 01:55, 6 February 2006

Case Opened on 02:22, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Case Closed on 01:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

Complaining witness

• FT2 (talk · contribs)

Nominal defendants

• HeadleyDown (talk | contribs)
• JPLogan (talk | contribs)
• DaveRight (talk | contribs), also apparently edited as D.Right (talk | contribs)
• AliceDeGrey (talk | contribs)
• Bookmain (talk | contribs)
• Camridge (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Added 16:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
• Flavius_vanillus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Added 16:24, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Additional suspected accounts, sock-puppets or cronies (primarily NLP talk page):

• AMaulden (talk | contribs)
• HansAntel (talk | contribs)
• JaseC (talk | contribs)

Brief summary of case

The neuro-linguistic programming ("NLP") article has been damaged by aggressive POV warrioring. The named accounts (including sockpuppets, meatpuppets and cronies) are all one-use accounts, created within the same short time period. Their appearance here is connected to vandalism, disruption and POV warfare by User:HeadleyDown, in combination with a message posted on the Yahoo skeptics-forum in September encouraging forum users to visit the Misplaced Pages NLP article. The users, acting in broad concert , have been engaging in a common behavior of extreme POV warfare, vandalism, sock-puppeteering, and ongoing breach of policy on that article ever since. Despite RfC and mediation, a large number of explanations by various users of WP:NPOV and other policies, and a second attempt at mediation purely focussing upon NPOV aspects of the matter, the behavior remains constant. Several explicit warnings were given of referral to Arbcom (example), combined with courteous requests to comply with key WP policies despite personal attacks and lack of civility to other editors. These measures failing and the problems continuing unabated, bona fide wikipedians working on this article voted 7-0 that mediation is fruitless, and to approach ArbCom for a ban on editing on the subject of NLP and its associated articles by the above and by their associated cronies.

Statement by FT2

Please limit your statement to 500 words

The Neuro-linguistic programming article, which has for the most part been well run in a civil manner in the past, has been disrupted principally by users HeadleyDown, JPLogan, but also with POV degradation, personal attacks and/or remarks by others such as User:DaveRight, Bookmain and AliceDeGrey. There is now strong suspicion that most if not all of the named users may be sock puppets, due to similarities in their editing and histories. Having run the gamut of reasonable discussion, other contributors to the page in question voted to request arbitration.

None of the users named have made any any significant contribution to any topic other than this one topic and other NLP-related articles (with the exception of DaveRight on Neurofeedback and Speed reading). In some instances they have continued their POV approach on NLP to the detriment of other pages too. In essense, they have acted as POV warriors with a single viewpoint who have proven unable or uninterested in the wiki approach or policies, and have little interest in anything beyond their own view. (eg, see: Psychopablum created by JPLogan). Fundamentally they do not seem to show the slightest ability or care for collaborating in a wiki manner. Indeed their idea of collaboration is insults and ignoring or dismissal of issues, often with personal attacks and remarks. Since apparently joining Misplaced Pages at similar times (HeadleyDown Aug 2005, JPLogan and AliceDeGrey Sept 2005, DaveRight Oct 2005, etc), all have done virtually no other editing except POV degradation on the NLP article and/or negative talk page comments to its existing editors.

Accordingly it is the majority sense of those presenting this request that an appropriate ban from Misplaced Pages NLP editing is appropriate, and this is what is requested.

Examples of POV warring (DIFF examples of each given in the ArbCom vote on the article talk page)

• POV suppression
• 3RR breach reported Oct 26
• Repeated deletion of sourced material or cited fact about the subject by reputable authors, often followed by addition of more POV material.
• Personal attacks (including assumption of bad faith).
• Ignoring of requests to discuss edits
• Citation of fraudulent credentials of renown ascribed to an author to back up a slanted source (a web opinion presented as scientific "research")
• Falsely representing the opinion of professional bodies or ignoring their actual opinions as stated on their own website (which had been pointed out multiple times).
• Defamatory personal attacks, eg JPLogan's NLP talk page comment "I'm sure someone will find a citation for it... Wanna make some money out of NLP?" in response to removal of a highly critical and unsourced personally written opinion.

These and other examples can be found as DIFFs in the Arbitration vote.

Arbitration vote and DIFF citations at

Talk:Neuro-linguistic_programming#Arbitration.

Other action before Arbitration vote

• Prior to the vote, a formal request was posted to the mediator's talk page for an opinion whether he felt the mediation process was able to resolve the issue.
• I and others also warned HeadleyDown and others on multiple occasions that co-editors' patience was running out, and that he needed to respect NPOV policy, as numerous other editors had also stated. I told him explicitly on three occasions that his present type of conduct would be unacceptable on Misplaced Pages, and would ultimately lead to an Arbitration Committee referral to prevent him editing the article. His reply was initially to agree to renewed mediation, but almost immediately to revert to personal remarks and increased POV attack.

Article vote on ArbCom referral (Nov 3)

Users voting for ArbCom referral (with support for statement that mediation is unlikely to be fruitful):

1. FT2
2. Comaze
3. Lee1
4. FuelWagon
5. GregA (originally posted as User:203.217.56.137)
6. User:PatrickMerlevede
7. User:Justin Anderson (also posting as 211.27.105.9)

User indicating strong support but not voting due to short time of editing:

1. Faxx: "If the history of this discussion has demonstrated anything, it's the pointlessness of trying to engage Headleydown and his ridiculous sock-puppets in a constructive dialogue. lets just get to arbitration a.s.a.p .... FT2 has already moved for arbitration not long ago. There were votes although I did not participate due to not really participating in the editing. I've just been reading the endlesly recycling discussion. Nothing will get done this way. HeadleyDown obviously has nothing better to do with his time than pursue his crusade." and

Users voting against arbitration:

1. None, other than comments by the users concerned.

Mediator's comments:

1. Following the Arbcom vote, the mediator commented that he felt it was neither efficient nor necessary.
2. Two days later the mediator added: "Note: to Headley et al, just because I am mediating here does not mean that I have the final say...."

Example events since arbitration vote

Despite the semblence of continuing mediation,

• HeadleyDown deleted the Arbcom vote post, in "revenge" for his reply being moved (unchanged) to the marked comments section below.
• HeadleyDown deleted two of Justin Anderson's comments from the Talk page.
• 3RR broken on at least two further separate occasions preventing balancing material being added, or slanted writing being corrected. (example: 15:02 Nov 7 16:38 Nov 7 17:51 Nov 7 01:10 Nov 8)
• Multiple personal remarks and attacks
• The article has had further core factual material removed
• Related articles to NLP have also begun being degraded; when it was noted that some specialised material was being moved to side-articles, HeadleyDown's response was: "Hi FT2. Presently the NLP modelling page is full of hype and exagerated claims. I wonder why you didn't notice:) That will change soon enough. Regards HeadleyDown"
• Talk page posts explaining and discussing edits, with the intent of promoting mutual collaboration, continue to be bluntly ignored. (eg: )
• The definitions of the subject, cited from its founders' websites and standard texts, was deleted complete with citations, by JPLogan.
• An attempt to balance an apparent misrepresentation of an author was followed by ignoring the request to discuss on talk page, and deletion of the balancing quote and addition of more POV citations. This left the introduction with 3 selectively represented views showing a view that NLP was pseudoscience and a cult, and not one of the many research and other citations showing that the opposite view is strongly supported.
• POV warfare edits continue to the present time (eg in this edit series dated Nov 15 (12 days after the article vote and 2 days after the formal RFArb posting), DaveRight adds the word "pseudoscience" or "pseudoscientific" 3 times in different places and removes the {{dubious}} tag from a fourth. Following this edit, the article contains 25 mentions of the word "pseudoscience" or "pseudoscientific" alone, excuding section titles.

Other information

• One editor, User:TBP, was explicitly self-identified as a sock puppet on his talk page before becoming involved in this article Oct 17 DIFF. He played no part in the vote or its discussion, and only a minor role in the talk page debate, mostly between Oct 27-29.
• I have responded (#FT2_responses_to_user_statements) to the statements of the named users below, with citations. In summary, the counter-allegations (like most of the allegations in the article) are spurious and unhampered by inconvenient notions like article history or DIFFs. Examples include user:HeadleyDown calling reversion of his highly slanted post back to the mediated version, "Lots of anti NPOV activity" and "Removal of a cited fact", and allegations of "crimes". As user:FuelWagon observes, much of the editing is attempts to hold back the flood of POV warfare, which is then named "promotion" and used to justify personal attacks and remarks.

We have acted with appropriate patience and reserve, but despite much patience, many flames, and much time, there is just no sign whatsoever of any intent to change, nor any significant indication they want to change enough to participate appropriately in Misplaced Pages NLP for the foreseeable future. We therefore ask that ArbCom accept this matter for Arbitration.

FT2 10:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Likely source of visiting users identified

Following GregA's statement, I have done some digging. See Yahoo skeptics forum index for a likely source of "meatpuppets" or cronies. Example post: message 8773 in which a main motivator of these posts describes NLP in terms identical to those we see in this article (c.f. AliceDeGrey's rewording of the intro commencing: "Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a method for programming the mind" ). The emphasis on subjects in this post, such as engrams, L/R brain, Eye movements, Dianetics, were also each major points of dispute on Misplaced Pages, forced into this article with excessive prominence by the named users against consensus of other editors. A message dated Sep 5 encourages skeptic-forum users to visit the Misplaced Pages article.

Strong evidence for a cause/effect connection, rather than effect/cause or coincidence, comes from a post on the skeptics forum dated Sep. 19 17:59 asking for advice how to argue the case NLP is a pseudoscience. The reply suggested "It would be easy to do an analysis of the characteristics listed in this chapter of pseudosciences and relate them to NLP," linking to Lilienfeld as a source. Such a list appeared on the Misplaced Pages article less than 36 hours later, added by JPLogan, citing Lilienfeld, on Sept 21

Timewise too, all the major single-purpose accounts cited were created within the same short time period that Misplaced Pages NLP was being discussed in an identical manner in this forum: HeadleyDown arrived here Aug 5, the Misplaced Pages article was "discovered" on this forum around 5 Sept 2005 message 8647, JPLogan's first edit under his own account was on Sept 17, AliceDeGrey Sept 21, DaveRight Oct 12, Bookmain Oct 13 (NB: possibly some posted as IPs before getting an account, or heard about it elsewhere).

Statement by HeadleyDown

Please limit your statement to 500 words

Hello mediators/arbitrators. This is interesting. I simply want to say that arbitration is an extremely long way off, and our helpful mediator VoiceOfAll seems to concur with that. Mediation seems to be working well. Each time the NLP promoters (I call them that because a lot of them have a vested interest) remove lots of cited fact, the mediator steps in and they calm down. When the more neutral (sorry, less proNLPers) compromise (usually a lot in favour of NLP) the proNLPers calm down some more. I have to admit it does get very tedious to have to restore censored facts all the time, and have to keep answering the same questions all the time (badgering), so things do get a little heated at times. It doesn't help that nearly all non-proNLPers have been labeled sockpuppets at some time. But things are moving forward now the mediator has helped out. Actually there are often major moves in the direction away from arbitration. I personally am fairly ok with the idea of arbitration, but it seems a bit silly to do so when mediation is starting to work so well with a level head and an good and increasing understanding of the subject. Anyway, its all up to you. Regards HeadleyDown 12:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

(the following diffs were inserted by HeadleyDown into FT2's statement area. Moved by FuelWagon into HeadleyDown's own area. FuelWagon 22:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC))

Hello Arbitrators. For the sake of helping with examining behaviour, here is some evidence of one so-called unbiased editor from the FT2 camp. Actually he is one of the milder examples compared to others such as FT2 or Comaze:

FuelWagon was removing occult/psychic development info that is common knowledgeHeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Showing both a complete lack of knowledge, a lack of ability to research, and a desire to delete facts that are even presented within NLP books. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Again a total disregard for the facts as they are verifiable in links and books. He deleted the fact because he don’t like the sound of New Age (it does not represent the subject as respectable), even though NLP is promoted using primarily the New Age category for promotion, NLP started at Esalen working with people from Esalen institute which was the hub of new age thinking in the 70s. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Again, removal of cited facts with a disregard for re-phrasing etc. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

FuelWagon’s strong desire to remove the word “pseudoscience” even though it appears in all of the literature of lilienfeld, Eisner, and Salerno. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

removing a cited and verifiable link that is actually a fact. This is verified by psychotherapists such as Lilienfeld and others who are extremely critical of such bodies promoting pseudoscience. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The attribution to these people only is FuelWagon inferring that only these people have these views. The majority of scientists who know the subject (psychologists eg) have these views. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

This was removed by FuelWagon also. NLP is promoted by NLP promoters under these categories. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Lots of interest in wild and obscure claims (THE study of structure---) that do not clarify anything and that go against what the mediator suggested, plus a lot of hype. And deletion of fact. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

It is categorized with these other groups because of it’s pseudoscientific principles, its lack of support, and its ineffectiveness, together with its association with cults. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Further removal of cited facts – not alteration or comromise, just blatant censorship. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

the same research-shy ignorance. HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

FuelWagon claimed that the prior was a clear violation of NLP and even a criticism. But it was a clear statement written by the mediator for the most part, plus it is far clearer and more concise than the hype version. FuelWagon also writes that the methods are empirically untested (erroneous and extremely biased in order to dismiss the scientific findings). HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Again, whittling away the pseudoscience evidence, even though it is stated clearly in the literature HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

As I said, this is me being mild. There are far worse cases to come. RegardsHeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Here are some of FT2’s crimes:

FT2 Removing a cited fact that was a view of psychotherapists. Removing a concluding statement from the paragraph in favour of a small section of an argument in the middle of the paragraph of an academic paper. Again, selective editing without adding the conclusion of the paragraph, and removing more cited fact. Lots of anti NPOV activity. HeadleyDown 12:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

FT2 adding as much hype in one go as possible. HeadleyDown 12:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

again FT2 removing properly cited facts. HeadleyDown 12:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

FT2’s masterpiece of selective editing. The end of the paragraph actually states – But NLP has failed in controlled experiments and so it is relegated. This is FT2’s biggest trick. He likes to take the middle parts of arguments(the positive bits) and cut off the negative conclusion. No other researcher has ever quoted FT2’s section. All other people who quote Sharpley do so using -NLP failed, or is unsupported etc. From a research perspective it is intellectually fraudulent, clear selective editing, biased in the extreme, and grossly misleading. HeadleyDown 12:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Here FT2 writes: “It is worth noting that NLP has been criticised for being both ineffective, and for being too effective (ie used for mind control and manipulation). This contradiction has not yet been resolved.” This is FT2’s view. It is also the view of some vandals who claimed the same thing prior to FT2’s appearance. I am willing to overlook that, but the fact is; FT2 is willing to write his own opinion on the article even though he claims to have had lots of experience on Misplaced Pages. The view is not the view of any other author. HeadleyDown 12:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

There are many more similar breaches of cooperation, good research and policy that FT2 continues to commit and of course you can judge them as you wish. Regards HeadleyDown 12:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

(The following text was added, again to FT2's statement area, after FT2's response/rebuttal of the above)

OK Arbitrators, I wrote the above but I regret it. It is all too shrill. Forget that I said the above. The whole arbitration episode is quite ridiculous. Arbitrators should not have to look around all the content stuff. The fact is, to my knowledge, nobody has done any recent sockpuppetry, there have been no particular offenses (including people calling me a stupid wanker) and the mediator is doing fine (a lot better than I expected). The situation is thus: NLP breeds a lot of followers, and they don't like the fact that science says NLP does not work. It makes them feel really down. They try to remove the fact using every NLP method they can. Misplaced Pages is a lot more reasonable than that. Facts get removed, and the fact-minded place them back in the article. Devotees keep removing them or demanding more facts and so more facts get placed on the article. They continue to remove the facts as they look more and more depressing to devotees, and they call the mediators, or the arbitrators. They hope that by some miracle they can remove the facts by removing the scientists. Do what you will and try to make the devotees a little less censorious. Otherwise, I am fairly content to restore scientific facts as they are presented by scientists. Best regards HeadleyDown 15:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

(The following text was added, again to an out-of-place statement area, some time after other responses were posted below)

About solution and resolution

Hi again Arbitrators. Things are moving forward again, (in terms of solutions). We seem to be gathering agreement on arranging the article in order to suit all parties including that of the mediator. Its only a simple measure, but following on from general Misplaced Pages convention in cases of controversial and pseudoscientific articles, to place the main claims of NLP in the above section (and basically allow all the NLP trainers such as GregA, and stated NLP fans such as FT2 and Comaze to put whatever promotional stuff they like within NPOV reason within that section), and to have the findings of science testing (which are both negative and critical), and the claims to science (which are part of the criticisms) and the pseudoscience explanation, within the criticisms section. This is in order to make it easier to make the article more concise and remove redundancy (as has been recommended by the mediator and others), it should help reduce deletions-due-to-slight-misswordings, and will also make it less confusing for the reader (have 1 criticisms section instead of several).

There are some reservations by the science minded, but overall they seem to be resigned to giving NLP promotion a position of primacy (as long as the opening reflects the main body with a few paras of promotional description and a para or so of criticism balance).

The proNLPers seem to be stuck in accusation mode, but I guess they will come round soon enough. It is an option that gives them an opportunity to give NLP a full hearing using the inevitably promotional NLP terms, and without any early main body criticisms, while the science minded can get on with brevifying the criticism section, reducing redundancy, giving due concessions, and explaining the more pseudoscientific aspects of NLP. Regards HeadleyDown 10:24, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by JPLogan JPLogan 02:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to check my behaviour. You will find that I am no sockpuppet, although accusations abound. I really feel that the proNLP editors have just shot themselves in the foot again. Certainly I have held back on posting the more damning evidence against NLP, and I have posted plenty of remarks and solutions to solve problems. I suggest that arbitrators keep a due sense of humour. Certainly I find the whole thing ridiculous. The NLP promoters have gone against NPOV so many times. Anyway, do your best with all the checking. CheersJPLogan 02:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by party user:FuelWagon re: NLP

I became involved in the NLP article in October. I hadn't heard of "Neuro Linguistic Programming" until I found the article, and I have no personal bias for or against the topic. But it is clear to me that the article is in clear violation of NPOV. There appear to be a number of editors with proclaimed biases against NLP who are editing the article in violation of NPOV. Someone with a longer history of the article can present more evidence, but here are a few diffs that show some blatant biases that directly affect the article.

06:58, 23 September 2005 HeadleyDown modifies the first sentence of the introduction to say "(NLP) is a quasi-spiritual behavior-modification technique", where the term "quasi-spiritual" is clearly POV, disputed, and biased. (Violation of WP:NPOV)

02:52, 25 October 2005 JPLogan modifies the first sentence of the entire NLP article to say "NLP is a pseudoscientific self help development", where the term "pseudoscientific" is clearly POV, disputed, and biased. (Violation of WP:NPOV)

03:24, 1 November 2005 DaveRight reverts with the edit summary "I think that deserves some punishment." (violation of WP:Point)

03:39, 3 November 2005 DaveRight does a blanket revert of a number of edits, reinserting a bunch of text including "Many such courses appear to depend more upon charismatic appeal, wish-fulfillment, quick fixes, and lack of critical faculty, than actual quantifiable results, and so are often considered pure pseudoscience." as well as "Similar to other amoral pseudoscientific psychocults such as Dianetics and EST" Both sentences present as fact what is actualy disputed opinions of NLP, namely calling NLP "wish fullfillment", "pseudoscience", "amoral", and "psychocult" (Violation of WP:NPOV)

17:13, 12 November 2005 HeadleyDown removes a critic of NLP's opinion from the criticism section ("Jan Damen describes NLP as occult"), rewords it to passive tense so the source (Jan Damen) is not mentioned and the opinion is presented more as fact, and then reinserts it into the pro-NLP section, making it look as if a pro-NLP source describes NLP as "occult". (Violation of WP:NPOV)

01:23, 16 November 2005 HeadleyDown again reports in the pro-NLP section of introduction that NLP is used for "occult" purposes, where "occult" is POV, biased, and disputed.

03:35, 16 November 2005 DaveRight reports in the pro-NLP section of introduction that NLP is "fringe", where the term "fringe" is POV, biased, and disputed.

01:55, 17 November 2005 HeadleyDown inserts statement that NLP is used for "fringe therapy", "psychic activities", "covert seduction", and the "occult".

02:33, 17 November 2005 HeadleyDown inserts statement that NLP is "Similar to other amoral pseudoscientific psychocults such as Dianetics and EST"

(update) Headley wrote "So why did you not rewrite it?" Here are some diffs that I've dug up showing about a dozen attempts by me to correct NPOV violations committed by another editor by rewriting them to follow policy. I believe most of these attempts by me were reverted by other editors on the page.

edit summary: "Jan Damen describes NLP as occult" edit summary "Reporting the various points of view as being stated by their sources, rather than stateing them as fact." Edit summary: "I'm rewriting the intro so that all POV statements are reported as someone's point of view, rather than reported as a "fact" followed by (name).)" edit summary: "Attribute pro-NLP information to advocates and supporters." edit summary "reporting the pro-NLP point of view from pro-NLP sources. including URL's so folks can verify.)" edit summary "report the NLP point of view in NLP words," edit summary "intro describes the pro-NLP point of view from pro-NLP sources. URL's to verify." edit summary "attributing to Dilts" edit summary "another source" edit summary "source" edit summary "introduce NLP using the words of NLP supporters. provide URL's so other's can verify accuracy."

(update) HeadleyDown provided a number of diffs that he claims are POV violatios on my part. I've included them below with my own interpretation on what each diff shows.

These diffs were posted by HeadleyDown 11:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC) the format of each diff is

explanation by HeadleyDown.

my explanation in indented format

FuelWagon was removing occult/psychic development info that is common knowledge

"quick fix or lay therapy, NLP trance seduction, and psychic or occult practices." completely unsourced, unverifiable.

Again a total disregard for the facts as they are verifiable in links and books. He deleted the fact because he don’t like the sound of New Age (it does not represent the subject as respectable), even though NLP is promoted using primarily the New Age category for promotion, NLP started at Esalen working with people from Esalen institute which was the hub of new age thinking in the 70s.

The disputed content is "The foundation for Bandler and Grinder's NLP is based in" followed by "spirituality" or "New Age". The block quote provided in the article immediately below this assertion never uses the phrase "New Age", but mentions that NLP is based on spirituality. I change the content to match what the sourced quote supports.

Again, removal of cited facts with a disregard for re-phrasing etc.

I've provided a dozen diffs that show a dozen attempts by me to rephrase POV statements into NPOV statements. They have all been reverted. This diff shows a POV statement that I deleted. I am not required to "re-phrase" every NPOV violation made by HeadleyDown et al. I've tried and they revert it. Deleting a POV statement is not violation of policy. And a dozen attempts by me to "re-phrase" their pov statements should be sufficient to show good-faith efforts by me to try and work with these editors.

FuelWagon’s strong desire to remove the word “pseudoscience” even though it appears in all of the literature of lilienfeld, Eisner, and Salerno.

"pseudoscience" is POV, and in this diff, the word is unsourced, reported as fact, violating NPOV.

removing a cited and verifiable link that is actually a fact. This is verified by psychotherapists such as Lilienfeld and others who are extremely critical of such bodies promoting pseudoscience.

The content says NLP has also been identified by the ] as quintessential ]ry (Parker 1999). {{dubious}}. It was marked with a "dubious" tag and given how inflamatory a statement it is, I deleted it saying that it required some means to verify it. My edit summary ends with "please provide a URL for verification."

The attribution to these people only is FuelWagon inferring that only these people have these views. The majority of scientists who know the subject (psychologists eg) have these views.

This is an example of me "re-phrasing" POV statements into NPOV statements. I report the views as being stated by the sources who hold them. HeadleyDown then says that these sources are not the only people who have these views. The only problem is that HeadleyDown never provided any verifiable sources to support his claim, except to say that it is "common knowledge".

This was removed by FuelWagon also. NLP is promoted by NLP promoters under these categories.

Edit summary says "This is criticism and belongs in the criticism section of intro, with plenty of sources to support use of such biased words". And HeadleyDown found a website selling witchcraft training tapes that said it used NLP techniques. That is like saying since abortion bomber Eric Rudolph is christian, then the introduction to the Christianity article should say that christianity is promoted by people who bomb abortion clinics. As far as I know, the poeple who developed NLP do not associate themselves or NLP with occult practices.

Lots of interest in wild and obscure claims (THE study of structure---) that do not clarify anything and that go against what the mediator suggested, plus a lot of hype. And deletion of fact.

Edit summary "reporting the pro-NLP point of view from pro-NLP sources. including URL's so folks can verify.". I report how the NLP Seminars Group International defines NLP and provide a URL. This is not a violation of policy. HeadleyDown wants to define NLP using the words of critics of NLP only. I inserted other points of view.

It is categorized with these other groups because of it’s pseudoscientific principles, its lack of support, and its ineffectiveness, together with its association with cults.

Edit summary: "Dianetics and Landmark Forum is off topic.". ANd it's impossible to tell if the Council Against Health Fraud mentions Dianetics and Landmark, or if "Loma" mentions them, or if HeadleyDown inserted them on his own. Unsourced and unclear assertion.

Further removal of cited facts – not alteration or comromise, just blatant censorship.

POV wording "NLP is an amoral, pseudoscientific psychocult (Smith)" needs to be rewritten to "Smith states that NLP is an amoral, pseudoscientific psychocult". I've done this a dozen times. it keeps getting reverted, so I deleted this one.

FuelWagon claimed that the prior was a clear violation of NLP and even a criticism. But it was a clear statement written by the mediator for the most part, plus it is far clearer and more concise than the hype version. FuelWagon also writes that the methods are empirically untested (erroneous and extremely biased in order to dismiss the scientific findings).

Edit summary says it all "report the NLP point of view in NLP words, not simply criticize NLP." HeadleyDown refuses to allow pro-NLP sources to have their point of view reported in the article, and insists on reporting only the views that are critical of NLP.

Again, whittling away the pseudoscience evidence, even though it is stated clearly in the literature

HeadleyDown needs to rewrite "NLP is pseudoscience (Smith)" to "Smith states that NLP is pseudoscience". I've done it a dozen times and got reverted.

(update) Nothing has changed. I requested a page lock a couple days ago after another edit war broke out and the article was thrashing over the same stuff. The talk page shows no sign by the anti-NLP folks of emphasizing Neutral Point Of View, rather they continue to talk about what is basically a "Scientific Point Of View". This wouldn't be impossible to work with except that their version of "science" often appears to boil down to "original research". Claims are made to condemn NLP, but it doesn't match the quote provided to support the claim. Seemingly innocent quotes from NLP sources get paraphrased into wildly biased words by anti-NLP editors. A quote from one NLP source talking about how NLP is "spiritual" was paraphrased by an anti-NLP editor as "new age". Another quote was paraphrased as being claims of "supernatural" powers, but the quote provided didn't use the word "supernatural". What I originally thought was simply highly scientific editors who are simply passionate about science is looking more like a simple case of biased editors who are prejudiced against NLP and use the label of "science" as an excuse for their POV editing. i.e. a scientist is neutral, is focused on facts, and goes wherever the evidence takes them. Some of these editors are totally biased, are focused only on finding 'facts' that condemn NLP, and are willing to do original research to get there, and then claim that "science" backs them up. The only thing keeping the POV warriors at bay is a continued page lock, and that can't last forever. At the very least, there are a number of editors who need a years probation on any psychological, therapeutic, self-help sort of topic before I'd recommend the page be unlocked. Can another member of arbcom take a look at the above diffs and accept this case so it can get processed? Thanks. FuelWagon 14:41, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Allow me to chip in DaveRight 03:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I am not DRight:) I am Dave. OK. No idea who DRight is, but he has a cool name:) OK. For what its worth, you may want to look at the Scientology and Dianetics article page. Similar things seem to have gone on there. NLP is one of those pseudoscience subjects that recruits lots of believers who love to hear about "human potential, metaprograms, the difference that makes the difference, the science and technology of excellence" and so on. In fact, they have had all those things on the article at some point. It is interesting though, how often they advocate and even physically remove cited scientific fact. FT2 for example, keeps wanting to remove fact. He also posts his own opinion within the article even when there is absolutely no author who holds the same opinion. He posts strategically altered paragraphs (with the negative ending removed) in order to promote NLP. The fact is, NLP is a pseudoscience, according to scientists, psychologists, linguists, and anthropologists. In fact it is in the same category as Dianetics and EST and sometimes phrenology. The NLP promotional team are dead set on removing facts as they have physically done for months, and they have even tried to recruit vandals from newsgroups. Things do get a bit lively on the discussion page, though the only direct insults have been to poor old Headley. NLP promoter's call him things such as "dullard" and "wanker". No such activity has been seen from neutral editors towards proNLPers, dispite the ridiculous level of fact deletion. There is a general slur campaign against anyone who does not promote NLP. To my knowledge, no negative comment or insults or vandalism has been conducted from neutral editors to the NLPpromoter's pages. Anyway, go ahead and check my ip and tell the NLPpromoters to stop removing scientific facts. ATB Dave DaveRight 03:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Statement by party Voice of All

While I don't believe that arbitration is the best option for now, I would say that the placement of ((test3)) and ((test4)) signs, accuations of extreme POV, and use of alternate names is likely occuring on both sides here. An IP check on all of the users would be well appretiated, as duplicates can be banned, leaving only the true users. This will removed inflated edit wars and vote tallies/consensus.

I would note however, that I had already recommended that people edit one section at a time. The blanket reverts were mainly of edits to multiple sections. One the other hand, too much anti-NLP criticism has been going into the article recently, under the idea that it is a fact or he did actually say this; article's can not have every single fact about the topic, they must be streamlined, and some sort of balance between truth and representation of all POVs must be reached.Voice of All 00:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)