Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:23, 23 January 2008

Working draft

Note: This is only a draft, and some people may have edited statements of other peoples' beliefs and they may not yet have been approved/confirmed by the people to whom the beliefs are attributed here.

• Phyesalis wants to include certain material in the articles, including:

1. "Reproductive rights are a subset of human rights" or "Various reproductive rights have been established as human rights in international human rights documents" or a similar statement (RR) not including the current wording that substitutes "established" with "claimed";
2. A paragraph about men, health and behavior (2nd paragraph of this edit) (RR)
3. "FGC transcends religion as it is primarily a cultural practice." (FGC)

• Phyesalis' side:

1. Phyesalis argues that it is a fact that Reproductive Rights (RR) are Human rights (HR) as established by international human rights documents like the UN's Proclamation of Teheran, CEDAW, International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform (as sourced by Rebecca Cook, Charlotte Bunch, Freedman and Isaacs, and Amnesty International. If this is a fact, it requires little in the way of additional documentation. She has provided reliable sources and believes that the sources support and verify the material and that the material satisfies all relevant policies and guidelines.
2. Phyesalis objects to prose attribution such as "Reproductive rights are considered by Amnesty International to be human rights." because such a prose attribution gives the impression that the statement is opinion and not fact.
3. Phyesalis believes that the primary, non-ethnocentric focus of the article is reproductive rights in the international human rights context, and that all sources used must be international in scope or be contextualized in a specific country sub-section.
4. Phyesalis believes that the pro-life view is not represented by any sourced content in the article (WP:R, WP:V, or otherwise) therefore treatment of the pro-life position, given the level of documentation required by Coppertwig and Blackworm, is a violation of WP:Lead by presenting unique content in the lead not found elsewhere in the body of the article.
5. Phyesalis believes that the Pro-life POV is a minority view in international human rights discourses, that it should be included, and be weighted accordingly. She argues that the abortion debate is a small part of int'l RR and should not be allowed to skew the overall focus of international sections.
6. Phyesalis believes that when a person repeatedly reverts based on WP:NPOV and asks for additional documentation over an argued fact they should respond in kind and provide some sources to support their allegation, when the person accused of POV violations provides reliable documentation to support their position.

• Blackworm's and Coppertwig's side:

1. Blackworm and Coppertwig dispute the material and are not convinced that it's supported by the sources given or that it's possible to find sources supporting it.
2. Blackworm and Coppertwig believe that it's important to delete as quickly as possible material that's (apparently) unverified and unverifiable, so as to avoid misleading readers. "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. " and "Do not leave unsourced information in articles for too long, or at all in the case of information about living persons." (Both from WP:V.) Blackworm and Coppertwig believe that if only some, but not the vast majority, of people looking at the source consider it to support the material, then the material can be treated as unsourced.
3. Blackworm and Coppertwig believe that some of the material Phyesalis wishes to include violates WP:NPOV.
4. Blackworm and Coppertwig believe that when material is disputed, often a good solution is to present the material with a prose attribution, closely following the wording of the original source.
5. For some of the material, Coppertwig doesn't remember seeing sources that would allow it to be included even with a prose attribution.
6. Coppertwig doesn't understand what Phyesalis means by a "fact" about reproductive rights (e.g. whether the UN has the power to create human rights or to discover what they are). Coppertwig believes that human rights are something that cannot be created or even discovered for certainty by human beings, and that any statement about them is therefore (as Coppertwig sees it) necessarily an opinion.
7. Coppertwig believes that all statements must be written so that practically all people, including people with pro-life views, people with pro-property rights views etc. can compare them with the sources and agree that they're verifiable facts; and that this is required by WP:V.
8. Coppertwig believes that the person wanting to add disputed material has a responsibility to provide reliable sources, but that the person opposing the material normally doesn't have to provide sources.
9. Coppertwig believes that all statements must be completely verifable, and that the tiny minority clause in WP:NPOV is only talking about which statements to include and which to leave out; that it does not have the effect of allowing statements which are merely mostly true.

• Blackworm wants to include:

1. about NCM, a self-described "reproductive rights" advocacy group, and a court case involving them which they refer to as "Roe vs. Wade For Men."

• Phyesalis believes:

1. that the paragraph is not relevant to RR because RR is about sexual and reproductive health as established by various RR and HR institutions, like the UN and numerous NGO's.
2. that the paragraph is not relevant in sections of international scope because it's a fringe position in the U.S. This gives the info skewed weight.

• Blackworm believes:

1. that RR is about reproductive rights, not focussing exclusively on reproductive health, and that the material is relevant. (CT agrees)
2. that there is no requirement that only international sources be used in this article. (CT agrees)
3. that the paragraph does not belong in a separate U.S. section.

• Coppertwig believes:

1. that we need to find a source expressing an opposing point of view about that case and represent it too for WP:NPOV. Blackworm does not oppose the idea, but believes that finding a source opposing the view is not a necessary prerequisite for the inclusion of the view.

• Things we might all agree on: (put your initials after statements you agree with):

1. The lead section of Reproductive rights should give information abour the position of the UN (and/or extensions of the UN) with regard to reproductive rights. (CT) (Blackworm does not oppose nor require inclusion of the UN's position in the lead.)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Coppertwig (talk • contribs) 00:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments on changes

I've altered some things including the bit about my position on "international scope". I've never stated that I was opposed to relevant country-specific content. Blackworm, would you consider deleting that last bit in your section? I don't think it's an issue. Still working and adding diffs. Phyesalis (talk) 02:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Great to see some additions being made. I suggest changing "If this is a fact, it requires little in the way of additional documentation." to "Phyesalis believes that if this is a fact, then it requires little in the way of additional documentation."

Phyesalis, would you please clarify the meaning of the word "treatment" as I asked here (near the bottom of the diff, starting at "Phyesalis, you talked about whether...").

I can't find the quote from 3RR. Maybe it's from an earlier version of the policy or from a different page. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see Coppertwig and Blackworm section out their statements, it seems as if you each have different points. Also, Coppertwig, you've weighed in on the men's health material, but you make no comment on it in this draft - does this mean you have no opinion or that you've changed it? Also, you allege that you don't remember certain material being sourced, would you mind providing quotes and diffs? And to get an idea of what I mean by "treatment", I think it's best explained by WP:Lead#Relative emphasis, particularly:

"In general, the relative emphasis given to material in the lead should reflect its relative importance to the subject according to reliable sources. Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although specific facts, such as birthdates, titles, or scientific designations will often appear in the lead only. This should not be taken to exclude information from the lead, but to include it in both the lead and body: in a well-constructed article, the relative emphasis given to information in the lead will be reflected in the rest of the text."

My argument is this - you both challenge the NPOV of these facts, yet you do not provide "firm, substantive, and objective proof to the contrary" to back up your reverts and allegations of NPOV, only "mere disagreement" (per "reverting"). Now, I do not object to material which would establish your POV in the body of the article and indeed, having invited both of you to provide material to that effect. However, inclusion of this material would not skew the weight of the fact that various reproductive rights have been established as human rights in international human rights documents.

Your argument that you do not believe these things (human rights) can be established as facts does not subvert WP policy, particularly WP:R and WP:V. If you want to find R & V material which expresses this POV, I invite you to include it, it would be a good addition that would help us address some of these issues. But again, inclusion does not mean that your POV makes what are otherwise considered to be facts into opinions. I hope that's not too offensive, I don't know how else to frame it. Phyesalis (talk) 20:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Re diffs and quotes: I think the simplest way is to present this one diff, which is where I wrote the first draft of this page on Blackworm's talk page, and quote from it versions of two items which I don't remember seeing sources that would, in my opinion, support them being presented even with prose attribution: the statements are

and

--Coppertwig (talk) 23:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Re the quote from Help:Editing Help:Reverting: It's a very nice sentiment, and I wouldn't want to change the way it's worded there, but it's a copy of a Help page at Meta, not a Misplaced Pages policy or guideline, and what it describes is not the way Misplaced Pages actually works. People revert things. Here's an example of you reverting something: at Genital modification and mutilation with this explanation; it doesn't look like substantive, objective proof to me. That's the kind of edit people frequently do. I consider it quite normal. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

It's Help:Reverting, not Help:editing. As for your choice of my reverts, I would say that you have taken the example completely out of context. I was doing so in response to another editor's issues and the removal was never contested. The "See also" issues are not source issues. I don't see the relevance of your example. Phyesalis (talk) 15:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's a quote from the Times article, which is already a footnote in the men's issues paragraph, which provides a balancing point of view on that issue and could perhaps be used in the article: "Franz says that she is, of course, in favor of both parents' taking responsibility for a child, an impulse that she says legal abortion has undermined. One obvious problem, if men can sever their financial ties to unwanted children, is what becomes of that child, particularly as states cut back on health care and social services." (Wanda Franz, president of National Right to Life, quoted here.)

The purpose of the example revert I showed is to demonstrate that it's not normal Misplaced Pages practice to refrain from reverting whenever one lacks "firm, substantive, and objective proof". I believe it's an example of a revert you did without such proof, and that such reverts are frequently and normally carried out by Wikipedians in general including yourself.

Here at Misplaced Pages we have to figure out how to get along with people with diverse points of view (POV's): not only diverse POV's about the subject matter of the articles, but also diverse POV's about editing practices and how Misplaced Pages is supposed to work. While some things are widely agreed on and clearly laid out in policies, many other things are not. Various percentages of Wikipedians support various practices. Practices can differ from page to page, too: for example, the Talk:Circumcision talk page has a template at the top saying "Please read this talk page and discuss substantial changes here before making them." Although there is currently no such template at the top of Talk:AIDS, that is very much the practice there: someone tried to go against that and had an edit summary of "YOU take it to talk page. Explain your removal ! In addition, TED talk is NOT a AIDS reappraisal link!)" but did not succeed in adding their material to the article. New material on that page is frequently deleted with no other explanation than "get consensus on talk first". --Coppertwig (talk) 17:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The paragraph you quoted talks about what does or doesn't belong in the lead, but it doesn't say anything about what you mean by "treat". Let me try asking this way: Would you consider the following sentence to contain a "treatment" of pro-life views? "Reproductive rights are considered by Amnesty International to be human rights." --Coppertwig (talk) 02:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate you saying this, Phyesalis: "But again, inclusion does not mean that your POV makes what are otherwise considered to be facts into opinions." because with the phrase "otherwise considered to be facts" I feel that you're acknowledging that my/our point of view is different, and it allows me to breathe a sigh of relief. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I try to do the same for you. If you've expressed an opinion and I say something that contradicts it, I try to insert "in my opinion" or something if I'm addressing you, to acknowledge that I realize you disagree. For example, if you've said that a particular sentence does not violate WP:NPOV, then rather than saying "the sentence which violates NPOV" I would try to remember to say "the sentence which, in my opinion, violates NPOV", or equivalent in different words. If I forget to do this, please feel free to remind me. That can also be a way of discovering misunderstandings. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Coppertwig, I acknowledge that our points of view are different. Thank you for the conciliatory tone. I'm not seeing how your quote from the Time article addresses the broad international topic of reproductive rights (What does this say about maternal mortality, STIs, sex ed, or rape, for example?). It only addresses legal abortion in the U.S. (seeing as it's the National Right to Life). I still think it would be fine under a U.S. abortion sub-topic about legal abortion but not appropriate for the international section. That's my offered compromise.

As for the Amnesty International/Human rights phrasing issue, I see the phrasing as POV-pushing, essentially saying, even though the UN has ratified a number of reproductive rights as human rights (and vice versa that a number of pre-existing human rights have been re-articulated as reproductive rights) and numerous international human rights conferences have made Declarations regarding reproductive rights as human rights and been repeatedly adopted by well over 150 nations, WP is going to cherry-pick and skew the weight of this fact by presenting it as the opinion of a single human rights NGO.

Same thing for replacing "established" with "claimed". The UN is the gold standard on the international human rights community. If it has ratified RR as HR, then WP can say that various RR have been established as HR in international human rights documents. I have already offered the "established" wording to the objection to "Reproductive rights are a subset of human rights relating to sexual and reproductive health" (which I still find to be the more accurate lead).

Also, if I remove something from my section, I'd appreciate it if it remained removed. Phyesalis (talk) 17:04, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I put back in something you wanted removed, whether by accident or in an attempt to improve the overall document; although I looked through the page history of this page and didn't find where anything like that had happened.

I think we agree on a lot of things, actually. I think the lead section should definitely present the UN stance on reproductive rights. The UN is much more authoritative on that than AI, though AI is probably also be notable enough to appear briefly in the lead IMO, with less emphasis on it than on the UN.

I only put the sentence about AI in the lead as a temporary measure until we could work out wording about the UN. I think if it only mentions AI and not the UN it's rather unbalanced and missing important information; although to me, that's better than including what seem to me to be unverifiable statements. There's been little progress on developing wording about the UN because I've been waiting for you to tell me which passage(s) in the source(s) you're basing your statements on.

The point of the quote from the Times article is that if the paragraph Blackworm wants to put in is included, then for NPOV an alternative viewpoint on that same specific topic is also needed, in my opinion. The quote is from the same article as the material Blackworm put in. It's not about abortion. It's about financial responsibility of men with regards to babies they didn't want to have. It's an interesting development which may end up influencing how other countries deal with the same question. People watch things like this and countries do often copy each other; people argue, they have that right, so why shouldn't we have it here too? Also, in the process of debating the court case, fine points of the issue are brought out -- points which are interesting and important because most of the problems are universal, even if other countries choose a different final answer. I suppose maybe I have no particular opinion at this time about which section it should go in or whether there should be an international section and a U.S. section.

Your comments on the AI/human rights phrasing issue are interesting and may have helped move us a small step forward with regards to that wording. However, they tell me little or nothing about what you mean by the word "treatment". I believe it's important that each of the three of us understand what the statements in this mediation request mean, and hopefully that we all understand the same meanings. You say in point 4, "treatment of the pro-life position ... is a violation of WP:Lead" and I don't know what "treatment" means here. I need you to explain what "treatment" means, or else rephrase point 4. However, if you just replace "treatment" by another word, such as "consider", the same problem will remain -- I'll need that word explained in that context. I think the whole sentence needs to be made more concrete.

Re violating WP:LEAD: a simple solution is to add material to the article that corresponds to what's in the lead. Someone, perhaps Calil, suggested writing the rest of the article first and then writing the lead; maybe that's a good idea. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:32, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Key question for Phyesalis: Which passages in which reliable sources do you believe support the following statements?

• "Reproductive rights are a subset of human rights" or "Various reproductive rights have been established as human rights in international human rights documents", and
• "FGC transcends religion as it is primarily a cultural practice."

--Coppertwig (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I think I have a better question in response to RR as HR - since you haven't read the articles, what good faith reason do you have to think they don't? (I'm afraid your argument that asserting facts of establishment are like asserting which flavor of ice cream is the best isn't really a peg on which I can let you hang your hat). Also, given that the article, Reproductive rights, is a high-importance article in Wikiproject Human rights, its own Human rights sub-category, part of the human rights template, and asserted as such in Human rights (and has been vetted as "very well sourced" over there by 2 different project editors) what evidence have you provided to suggest they aren't? Like I said, this is a basic fact that hardly even requires documentation - but the AI statement that they have been established in international HR documents more than suffices. (This is where I start to get cranky.)

As for FGC, why is it that when Christians practice it all over Africa, and Christians have practiced it in the US, we don't say it's a Christian religious practice? Well, because (in my mind) it is primarily generated from a geo-political sub-culture that transcends religion. Transcend: To pass beyond, or to be greater than (I'm not using it as the tertiary def of "to exist independently of"). Now with Islam - there is a hell of a fine line between cultural law and religious law. Even though one Islamic sub-culture practices FGC as obligatory, that doesn't make it a global Islamic religious practice. But I think I've found an analogy that might help us see eye to eye: What if we had an article which asserted that snake charming and speaking in tongues were general obligatory Christian religious practices? Or that that Confirmation and confession were general obligatory Christian religious practices? --Phyesalis (talk) 21:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Even though I originally wrote the draft mediation request as a rather long document, I think that it's too long: I think that probably if we put in that long a mediation request that the mediators will reject the request as being too complicated. I suggest putting in a much shorter version in the request, but keeping the longer version to refer to also. However, if one of you prefers to put in the longer version as the mediation request, that's OK with me too (after Blackworm finishes going over it).

If we do a much shorter version, the following can be the entirety of my part:

Short version

Phyesalis' position

Coppertwig's position

Coppertwig disputes the material and is not convinced that it's supported by the sources given or that it's possible to find sources supporting it. Coppertwig would like to know what passages in what sources Phyesalis believes support the material, in order to use those passages as a basis for discussion/negotiation of the wording.

Blackworm's position

This dispute involves a multitude of disputed edits, all made by or opposed by Phyesalis. I believe my position on each of these edits, positions mostly if not entirely shared with Coppertwig and opposed only by Phyesalis, reflect a much better understanding of Misplaced Pages policy and ultimately improve the articles. Blackworm (talk) 07:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

End of short version. More comments

Phyesalis, although you haven't answered my question, I'll answer your question. I don't understand why you don't answer my question. You asked, "since you haven't read the articles, what good faith reason do you have to think they don't? " The reason is that I believe that the statements (about reproductive rights being a subset of human rights) are things that can't be proven by human beings, therefore whatever an article says, I believe that it doesn't prove those things. You would get a similar answer if you told someone that you had an article that contains proof that God exists, or proof that God doesn't exist. You asked: "what evidence have you provided to suggest they aren't?" I haven't. I don't expect to convince you that reproductive rights are not a subset of human rights -- just as I don't expect to convince anyone that God does or does not exist. I think what we need to do here is figure out how to get along, collaborate and compromise in spite of having different worldviews, rather than try to change each others' worldviews. Therefore I'm not presenting evidence to support my beliefs; and I don't have to, since I don't plan to try to put statements of my beliefs into the article. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Well said. Blackworm (talk) 07:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)