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Macclesfield Bank, South China Sea Islands

No discussion for over 5 days. Guy Macon (talk) 01:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Template:Braille

No discussion for over 5 days. Guy Macon (talk) 01:42, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Fascism#democracy

• Talk:Fascism#democracy (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The problem is involving a dispute over fascism's political relationship with democracy. The article titled Fascism currently says that fascism rejects liberal democracy but says that fascism denies that it is entirely against democracy. Two users, Yiddi and The Four Deuces (TFD) have claimed that fascism did not claim to be democratic and that it was opposed democracy entirely. The user Trust Is All You Need (TIAYN) noted that fascism has claimed to support a form of democracy. TFD made a statement that caused the dispute to solidify, TFD said: "Fascism was not democratic even in theory" - the bolded part is the part that I and others have contested is not accurate.

I agreed with TIAYN that fascism did indeed claim to support democracy, and I provided evidence of fascists declaring that fascism supported a form of democracy. Italian Fascist theorist Giovanni Gentile in the Doctrine of Fascism that he ghostwrote for Mussolini, declares support for an "organized, centralized, authoritarian democracy". I utilized the World Fascism encyclopedia by Cyprian Blamires as a reference for the quote, and furthermore the source goes on to explain fascism's claims to being democratic, see here: , Blamires' source is a reputable source that is available at English language university libraries, including Harvard University's library, see here . Note that I am not saying that fascism is democratic in practice, I am saying that fascism claims to be democratic. What I am saying is that the issue of fascism being undemocratic in practice does not mean thereby that the ideology opposed democracy or was not democratic in theory.

TFD responded that sources by scholars were needed to verify this. I provided sources from preeminent scholar on fascism Roger Griffin and A. James Gregor (I initially forgot that I used Gregor's source and said it was by another scholar on fascism, Emilio Gentile, out of confusion, because the authors have two books that are visually similar). Both these sources clearly showed scholars acknowledging fascism's ideological claim to be democratic, see here for Griffin's source: , see here for Gregor's source: . TFD responded by saying that WP:WEIGHT applied. I responded that the issue of TFD claiming that "Fascism was not democratic even in theory" is factually inaccurate and that that claim cannot hold WP:WEIGHT because the sources I provided demonstrate that fascism did claim to be democratic in theory. I suggested that TFD accept a compromise involving a statement along the lines of: "fascism is widely regarded as undemocratic in practice in spite of claims by fascists that they are democratic". TFD did not acknowledge this. The argument continued, and I and the users TIAYN and Collect have grown frustrated over what we view as stubbornness by TFD to admit that his argument that "Fascism was not democratic even in theory" is not factually accurate and is thus an untenable argument. TFD claims that I am promoting an obscure claim.--R-41 (talk) 19:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Yiddi (talk · contribs)
• The Four Deuces (talk · contribs)
• Trust Is All You Need (talk · contribs)
• R-41 (talk · contribs)
• Collect (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Talk:Fascism#democracy}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Have attempted Misplaced Pages:Negotiation to seek a compromise. The compromise was involving an acceptance by TFD and users on a phrase we could both agree upon, basically along the lines of the following: "Fascism is widely regarded to be undemocratic in practice in spite of claims by fascists that they support democracy". Misplaced Pages:Negotiation failed, frustration between users has grown.

• How do you think we can help?

There needs to be a resolution on the specific issue of TFD's continued claim that "Fascism was not democratic even in theory", that TFD is using to justify an argument that fascism was entirely, and without any qualifications, "opposed to democracy", because I have presented evidence that contradicts this claim. As I have said, TFD is refusing to accept the material as disproving her/his argument. He/she claims that WP:WEIGHT applies to justify her/his claim, I claim that WP:WEIGHT does not apply to her/his claim because it is factually inaccurate. Her/his claim needs to be reviewed as to whether it is logically tenable to uphold, given the fact that sources I have have been provided that appear to completely refute it.

R-41 (talk) 19:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Fascism#democracy discussion

From uninvolved volunteer. I suggest working in two steps. First reach agreement about the sources that you think are most relevant to the topic. You'll be using objective criteria like author's expertise, academic publisher, reviews, how much on the topic, how recent. Then look at them to see how they treat the different aspects of fascism. That should help you move away from yes/no on particular phrasings, and instead give a thorough treatment to the relationship between democracy and the different theories and practices of fascism. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:39, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I understand your idea, but the issue of TFD's claim that "Fascism was not democratic even in theory" being contradicted by the fact that in theory there are multiple examples of fascism being declared by its theorists or leaders to be democratic. Again the issue is not that it actually is democratic in practice, but that in theory it did claim to be. The problem is that TFD's claim that it is not consistent with what fascist theories proclaimed, and that indeed scholars like one of the most preeminent scholars on fascism Roger Griffin, and another prominent scholar on fascism, A. James Gregor, have noted fascist claims to be democratic. I understand and appreciate what you have said, but it seems to me that TFD's statement, that he is using for his argument, is factually inaccurate.--R-41 (talk) 15:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I just want to commend User:R-41 for writing a well detailed but striaghtforward file and Dispute Overview.Curb Chain (talk) 23:41, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

It is also accurate and dispassionate, and I commend him highly for it. Meanwhile, I think it would profit others to read the discussions at the article talk page. Collect (talk) 01:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Also note TFD's "response" at . Where one editor dismoisses the sheaf of answers provided by another editor as "pointless" I fear that this is not just a "content dispute" but a case of WP:Collect's Law being demonstrated. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Collect.--R-41 (talk) 15:12, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

We need to focus on the article, not on editor behaviour. If someone makes a statement on a talk page that you don't find convincing, especially if it's a short statement, probably best to ignore it. I think there is a substantive disagreement about article content behind this, which is the only thing we could address here. Could you state what that disagreement is. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:47, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The disagreement is about the basis of TFD's argument that the article should say that "Fascism opposes democracy" based on TFD's claim that "Fascism was not democratic even in theory". The reason why TFD's statement is important is because that is the basis for her/his argument for removing the current sourced sentence from the intro that says that "Fascism condemns liberal democracy for basing government legitimacy on quantity rather than quality, and for causing quarreling partisan politics, but fascists deny that they are entirely against democracy." and replacing it with "Fascism opposes democracy". The problem is that there is evidence that fascists in their theory declared themselves to be democratic, but they did indicate that they opposed liberal democracy. I have provided several sources to verify that fascist did claim to be democratic. Therefore, the fascists did not oppose democracy - "oppose" indicates that fascists held a negative value towards democracy as a whole without any qualifications - the evidence suggests that in their ideology, they did not declare such a negative value towards it as a whole without any qualifications, but they did indeed oppose liberal democracy.--R-41 (talk) 18:32, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Absent from R-41's exposition, which presents only support for his/her position re. the disputed content (and yet is eulogized somewhere above as "dispassionate" and highly commendable!), is any material that might support TFD's position. E.g. Jackson J. Spielvogel, associate professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University, in Western Civilization: Since 1300 (Cengage Learning, 2011), quotes Mussolini/Gentile: "Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it" et seq. . Writegeist (talk) 01:46, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

You have taken what they said out of context, they clearly say that they are referring to the conventional form of democracy, based on multiparty system and parliament. In the same document, the Doctrine of Fascism, it says that they support an "authoritarian democracy".--R-41 (talk) 15:38, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

The vast majority of descriptions of fascist ideology say it was anti-democratic, and ignore that in an essay attacking democracy, a Fascist said that fascism was democracy. The few scholars who have commented on the sentence have not given it a lot of attention and do not appear to agree on what it meant. Anthony Arblaster, for example, said, "Yet even Mussolini, or his ghost-writer Gentile, paid lip-service to the term by definining Fascism in the next sentence as 'organized, centralized, authoritarian democracy'." (Democracy, p. 48) Arblaster's interpretation does not support the view that fascism was democratic or even claimed to be. We should not take an obscure, ambiguous quote and provide it with a weight and meaning not accepted in mainstream sources. TFD (talk) 05:45, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, so we are not here to discuss fascism, but you want help in resolving whether the article should contain a statement "fascism is opposed to democracy". Is that correct? Please answer but I have given one suggestion already and I'm hoping that another volunteer will comment and lead. Itsmejudith (talk)

I really think an administrator has to review if TFD's claim is logically tenable. Just look at TFD's last claim posted here, it is completely illogical. He shows the Arblaster source that shows the statement by Gentile that fascism is "organized, centralized, authoritarian democracy" where the author claims it was disgenuine, and goes on to say "Arblaster's interpretation does not support the view that fascism was democratic or even claimed to be". But he did acknowledge that fascists claimed to be democratic, the quote by the Fascist theorist Gentile declaring it to be "organized, centralized, authoritarian democracy" the author happens to believe that it was disgenuine. Do you see the logical fallacy with TFD's argument that fascism didn't even claim to be democratic?--R-41 (talk) 14:57, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I hope a volunteer will come along who will help you to formulate the problem in a way that will allow it to be resolved. But if you do want to discuss sources (as I suggested above), then I will be happy to facilitate that. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Here is a source that describes fascism's claim to be democratic in detail: The civic foundations of fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania, 1870-1945 by Dylan J. Riley.

Here is a paraphrase of Riley's work from a Misplaced Pages article I wrote: In the fascist and quasi-fascist regimes that governed Italy, Romania, and Spain from the 1920s to the 1970s, authoritarian democracy was promoted as an alternative to liberal democracy, multi-party based democracy was dismantled and replaced by corporatist representation of state-sanctioned corporate groups that would unite people into interest groups to address the state that would act in the interest of the general will of the nation and thus exercise an orderly form of popular rule. {Riley, Pp. 4-5) Italian Fascists argued that authoritarian democracy is capable of representing the different interests of society that advise the state and the state acts in the interest of the nation.(Riley, Pp. 4.) In contrast, fascists denounced liberal democracy for not being a true democracy but in fact being un-democratic because from the fascist perspective, elections and parliaments are unable to represent the interests of the nation because it lumps together individuals who have little in common into geographical districts to vote for an array of parties to represent them that results in little unanimity in terms of interests, projects, or intentions, and that liberal democracy's multi-party elections merely serve as a means to legitimize elite rule without addressing the interests of the general will of the nation. (Riley, Pp. 4.)

TFD has criticized this source in the past because Riley takes the unconventional stance of saying that although fascism was definately not liberal democratic, fascism did claim to be democratic and could conceivably be considered an authoritarian democracy (outside of the conventional liberal democratic idealist view on what democracy is). Riley's source focuses particularly on the original fascism, Italian Fascism, it claimed to represent an "authoritarian democracy" and Riley notes that the basis of its claim to be democratic is through its corporatism whereby the Italian Fascists claimed that they upheld the general will of their nation through participation in corporatist sectoral organizations. Now TFD would be correct to say that Riley's opinion that fascism may have been democratic in practice is certainly a minority view, but Riley's description of fascism's claim to be democratic through appeals to public participation in the state and to the general will are important, and I believe are of interest to at least mention briefly the fascism article. Riley's source shows, like the other sources I have shown, that fascism did indeed claim to be democratic and sought to present itself as democratic.--R-41 (talk) 17:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

All the reviews of this book that you presented say that Riley's writings on fascism and democracy challenge existing views and you would need to show that discussion of his views had gained some sort of recognition. The article should reflect what is typically found in mainstream sources and we should not be including views that are universally ignored. Certainly we should not present them as facts. TFD (talk) 20:16, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I knew that you would focus on Riley's view that fascism may be democratic in a sense, rather than acknowledging that he has noted fascism's claim to be democratic. I am saying that your statement "Fascism was not democratic even in theory" is inaccurate. Don't you get it TFD? I mean it is rattling my mind that you cannot acknowledge that fascists DID claim to be democratic, your statement "Fascism was not democratic even in theory" is factually false, and you know it.--R-41 (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

R-41 please note: your personal attacks on TFD, both here and at Collect's talk page, e.g. and , are not really conducive to dispute resolution. Writegeist (talk) 21:44, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh great, you again, Writegeist. I told you to stay away from me. I said on Collect's page that I seriously think that TFD's comments have become irrational and I specifically said that I didn't mean it as an insult or a joke, I was serious. TFD has been shown evidence from fascists and a quote from the Doctrine of Fascism stating their claim that they supported democracy, so TFD's argument that "Fascism was not democratic even in theory" has been proven false, and he knows that it is false. The only possible reason you are aware about what I said to Collect is because you are Wikihounding either me or Collect. I remember you insulting a WQA volunteer whom you then as another WQA volunteer were supposed to cooperate with. You patronizingly told the volunteer to get a desk job, amid me asking for assistance for other users there for help in resolve a dispute between two other users. That WQA volunteer, not me, reported you for your personal attack and uncivil behaviour. Also you have repeatedly talked about Collect and me on your talk page after discussions with both of us had ended, and you regularly talked about us in a condescending manner to other users. You are here to stir up crap because you have a grudge against me for calling you out for acting like a jerk to that WQA volunteer. I will not speak to you on anything here, nor listen to you Writegeist, because I regard your intentions here, as hostile and vindictive, you are involved here to carry out your personal vendetta against me and you clearly have been Wikihounding either Collect or me, to be aware of that one statement that I made to Collect.--R-41 (talk) 22:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Huh? This noticeboard is for dispute resolution, not dispute escalation. By all means raise your personal issues at my talk page. Not here. Writegeist (talk) 00:12, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Your prior post imdicates blatant stalking at best. I suggest you redact your posts which are not going to aid in any resolution at all. Collect (talk) 00:39, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Note: the only Highbeam source for a review of Riley's work is at and quite contrary to TFDs assertion about every review - does not disparage Riley at all.

Riley (sociology, U. of California at Berkeley) explains how this came to be by arguing that civil society facilitated the emergence of fascism in these countries because it preceded the establishment of strong political organizations among both dominant classes and nonelites. Because of this lack of hegemonic politics, the democratic demands of voluntary associations "assumed a paradoxically antiliberal and authoritarian form: a technocratic rejection of politics as such," which created a general crisis of politics that provided space for the growth of fascist movements.

Clearly does not support TFDs blanket assertion about reviews. Other reviews include This brilliant comparative study of the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain, and Romania brings Tocqueville and Gramsci into a novel and surprising conversation. It will change the way you think about civil society, fascism, and democracy.(William Sewell, the University of Chicago 2011), Make no mistake, this is much more than comparative fascisms. Dylan Riley not only rethinks and meshes the legacies of Tocqueville, Arendt and Gramsci; he sobers us up to the actual history of civil society and democratization in continental Europe. This theoretical lesson seems still gravely relevant elsewhere in the world today. (Georgi Derluguian, author of Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-Systems Biography 2010) etc. (Amazon.com listing of 9 reviews - none of which is what TFD implies all reviews are) When asserting that all reviews are antithetical to a book, it helps if one is actually dealing with facts. Collect (talk) 00:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Collect, you should be aware that dustjackets of books tend to copy the most complimentary paragraphs of reviews and may not present a proper summary.

Stanley G. Payne, who is one of the world's foremost experts on fascism, and quoted by R-41 dozens of times, for example, wrote, "The most controversial aspect will be its definition of Fascism, which he calls an 'authoritarian democracy', using the latter term in a distinctive manner that is not as clearly defined as it might be....The thrust of his argument is that democracy is a broader concept and practice than the classic liberal democracy of the West....It is doubtful that this definition will gain much acceptance." Payne praises the book for other aspects.

Riley has presented a new interpretation of fascism and democracy which may or may not gain notice, but so far has not. Since we are not a crystal ball, his views are safely ignored.

TFD (talk) 08:12, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

You present a single source for your position - where you claimed that virtually every source agrees with what you know to be the truth. I presented a substantial number of reviews (not "dust jacket blurbs" as you term them) which directly contradict your assertions. Examples which contradict an assertion disprove it. You are in DEADHORSE territory now. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:27, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that Riley is potentially RS for the article. So are his academic reviewers. If you want a further opinion on this go to RSN with a brief question and avoid commenting until some uninvolved editors have had their say. But if you can all agree on this general principle then there is a lot to be worked out about what is best taken from Riley, how to balance it etc. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

It is not a matter of rs, but a matter of weight. what weight do we provide views that have not yet gained acceptance, especially when one of the most noted experts says that they are unlikely to gain any acceptance? TFD (talk) 08:37, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

You saw above that I suggested a procedure in two steps. It seems that this is now moving to the second step, what may be used from Riley without attribution or comment, what can be used and balanced, and what shouldn't be used at all. Does everyone involved have access to the whole book? Has everyone read it in its entirety? Itsmejudith (talk) 09:07, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

No one questions whether the book is a reliable source, only whether A the opinions presented in the book support R-41's edits and B whether the opinions expressed in the book have gained any acceptance. I have read a substantial portion of the book (what was available on Google books). But our role is not to evaluate original ideas but to report what sources say about them. Of course R-41 has not read this book, he formed an opinion and searched for sources that appeared to support his views. He does not care whether a books was written by Gentile the Fascist or Gentile the fascism scholar. He presents sources from decades ago. I conscientiously read all these sources and when I explain what is wrong with them, R-41 uses Google to find another source he has obviously not read. That is the wrong approach - do not assume something and look for sources, identify sources and reflect what they say. TFD (talk) 01:44, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Riley's book was published by Johns Hopkins, prima facie a reliable source. He has received multiple awards, including the Seymour Lipset Award. .

The book succeeds in providing an explanation of the origins and varieties of fascism that is both theoretically powerful and empirically accurate. (Max Whyte, University of Chicago in Chicago Journals)

DA Messenger in American Historical Review says Dylan Riley, a sociologist, examines the understudied role of civil society in fascism's rise in Italy, Spain, and Romania

is also far more than a "blurb" In short the book has gotten many academic reviews, and has been well-received. It is from a major academic publisher, and the use of one person asserting that "no one accepts it" is here shown to be ludicrous and tendentious to the extreme at this point. Googlescholar, which I generally found not to be utile except in really blatant cases, here shows some value - with the book title getting nearly two thousand hits! So let us look at Payne and what he actually wrote (noting that he appears to be in the minority here if we believe TFDs assertions!) - Payne objects on the grounds that the use of "authoritarian democracy" as a term "would nominally include many forms of authoritarianism on the one hand, while failing to distinguish Fascism from Communism on the other." Payne does not say that Riley is wrong - just that Payne would prefer a narrower definition, of all things, in his review, and not that he finds Riley to be wrong. In short - likely misuse by excerptation of a review which does not actually say what TFD has asserted it says. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Collect, you need to distinguish between facts and opinions. No one questions where Riley got his facts right, or even if he has argued his case cogently. The issue is whether his opinions about fascism and democracy have gained acceptance. As the reviews show, they have not. TFD (talk) 17:43, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

You at first averred that no one gave Riley a favourable review, then that no one "supported" Riley, then that the reviews were mere "blurbs" now you are reduced to arguing that the reviews 'which were almost totally favourable somehow still do not show that Riley has any "acceptance" per what you "know" to be the "truth." Too many steps involved TFD for me to take your arguments seriously. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:50, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Collect, before jumping in, could you please read the discussions. You appear to have no understanding of the topic, the matter under discussion or the sources presented and your comments do not help to bring the discussion forward. I did not for example say that "no one gave Riley a favourable review" and your misrepresentation of what I said is offensive to me and a waste of eveyone's time, including your own. Can you explain what your point is about the subject of discussion or are you just arguing for the point of arguing? PS - could you please stop using terms like "averred" - it does not sound educated, merely someone trying to sound educated. TFD (talk) 02:19, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Following your rationales step-by-step shows your position for what it is, and I need not list all the academic reviews, academic scholarly citations etc. any more than I have thus far. And all you are reduced to is saying you dislike the English word "averred"? Really? That is what this board is for - that "averred" is disliked by you? Cheers. Will someone hat TFD's off-the-wall commentary - I do not think having it here does him any great favours at all. Collect (talk) 12:03, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

To get back on topic, as I said I think TFD is ignoring that Riley is acknowledging the fact that fascists claimed be democratic. I actually agree with TFD in that I disagree with Riley that fascism was in practice democratic - the two prominent fascist regimes were led by narcissistic individuals, Mussolini and Hitler, who sought to make sure that no one could challenge their vision of what Italy and Germany should become. But that is just my personal review of Riley's view. That being said, I will summarize my points by saying that TFD's argument based on this statement: "Fascism was not democratic even in theory", is inconsistent with this Italian Fascist declaration that fascism involves an "organized, centralized authoritarian democracy" --R-41 (talk) 15:48, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Have you read Riley's book in full? Itsmejudith (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I have read significant portions of it on Google Books, much of it is shown, though there are sections that are not shown because it is a preview of the book. Nevertheless the summary of what the book is arguing is described on pages 10 and 11 in particular. Riley's work is not some lunatic fringe work, it applies methodology and uses political analysis - particularly Tocquevillian analysis of democracy and civil society. Riley says the problem is that there is a common POV in the Western world to associate liberalism (as in liberal political culture) with democracy and automatically associate authoritarianism with antidemocracy (see page 11 of Riley), he says that this view is biased and illogical.--R-41 (talk) 17:35, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

If you're arguing to include material based on a source, you really have to have read all of it. We can all see that this is very serious academic research. The question now is which bits of Riley's arguments should be used in the article, and if they need balancing. I haven't read the book myself by the way, but I will if it helps to move this dispute forward. It looks extremely interesting. But without reading it all, and the reviews, we are not in a position to say which bits we can use, and how. Otherwise, we are working in the wrong direction, wanting to make a point and finding a reference for the point, as opposed to identifying a good source and working out what to take from it. I hope that point is well taken. By the way, you don't actually have anyone formally facilitating on this. I said I would only comment on sources, and I may well be reaching the limit of my competence in resolving your case. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:51, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Riley's work is a serious discourse that has received attention from the scholarly community. We need to have references that are serious in examining common claims made about fascism. Riley challenges claims that fascism is necessarily the opposite of democracy simply because it is authoritarian. On page 2, he says his claim very clearly: "fascism, far from being the opposite of democracy, was a twisted and distorted form of democratization, that, paradoxically, embraced authoritarian means", see here: . I believe that the combination of evidence that fascists claimed to be democratic alongside claims by the majority of scholars that it was undemocratic and a minority of scholars that it was a non-liberal form of democracy could be said in the following way: "Fascism is widely regarded to be undemocratic in practice, although fascists themselves claimed to be democratic and there are a minority of scholars who view fascism as supporting a variant of democracy". I would welcome an invitation through proper channels of a WP:EXPERT on political concepts and systems such as democracy and fascism to assist you and other moderators and observers here, in the discussion.--R-41 (talk) 18:30, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Not sure that an expert is what's needed. I'm well enough read in 20th century European history to understand the points at issue. You could probably do with someone who edits in completely different areas, to stand back and apply conflict resolution techniques. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:15, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I think is up to the editor asking to add information to provide sources, and I have not asked for any additions. The type of source we should use I believe is an article on fascist ideology or an introduction or introductory chapter to a book on fascist ideology that outlines the major issues, how various scholars have addressed them and the degree of acceptance of these views. TFD (talk) 07:16, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The user Yiddi who has since been indefinately blocked from Misplaced Pages and admitted to being a sockpuppet of the banned User:Chaosname, said that the article should say that "fascism opposes democracy", and you TFD supported such a statement. So you are advocating a claim that "fascism opposes democracy", that is a major overarching claim with no conditions, you need evidence to confirm that fascism as an ideology "opposes" democracy as a whole, and not just liberal democracy.--R-41 (talk) 16:12, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not advocating including any claim, I am merely oposing the inclusion of your claim. TFD (talk) 18:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Volunteer Comment: I would like to offer some advice, from a logical standpoint. I have no in-depth knowledge of any of the "claims" made here. As stated in WP:Fringe_theories page, "Ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong." I believe R-41's claim could also fall under an "exceptional claim." If there is verifiable proof that fascists have claimed fascism to be similar or variant of democracy, it should be included in the article. If it is also the minority opinion, it should be stated as such. I believe that User:R-41 has provided sources to back up his claim, and if such sources are verifiable and acceptable under WP policy, he has met the conditions necessary for inclusion. I also think it would help to have a clear, simple statement as to why TFD feels the claim in question should not be included, if worded properly. Sources to support your statement would be very useful as well. Arguments over the viewpoint of any author are not necessary. If the statement was made, it deserves to be included. If it is widely viewed as incorrect, it should be noted. Acronin3 (talk) 19:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The claim is not "exceptional" at all. It is the refusal to accept what is a current and accepted reliable source which is now "exceptional" as is evident to anyone reading the colloquy thereon. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:50, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Acronin3. I will recap for you. Since articles and introductions and introductory books about fascism ignore the reference to "authoritarian democracy", it is so insignificant that it should be ignored per WP:WEIGHT. Bear in mind that the claim fascists supported democracy is based on an interpretation of a single sentence in a 1923 article by Mussolini attacking democracy. Otherwise he made no statements whatsoever saying that he supported democracy and the sentence is almost entirely ignored except in such lengthy writings such as the 3000 page dictionary of fascism, but even then is given little prominence. The few scholars who have discussed the sentence are not necessarily convinced that it is a genuine statement. It is in any case the wrong approach, we are supposed to reflect what the experts think not look for sources to add what we happen to believe. TFD (talk) 20:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Would the involved editors please state (very briefly indeed) which statements in the article are at issue. The word "democracy" appears 23 times and I don't think all of those are problematic. The phrase "liberal democracy" also appears many times, and is overlinked. Someone could sort that, and perhaps also check that the qualifier is used in the source, so that sources aren't misrepresented. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

"Fascism condemns liberal democracy for basing government legitimacy on quantity rather than quality, and for causing quarreling partisan politics, but fascists deny that they are entirely against democracy."Jens Rydgren. Movements of exclusion: radical right-wing populism in the Western world. Hauppauge, New York, USA: Nova Publishers, 2005. Pp. 6.Blamires, Cyprian, World Fascism: a Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1 (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2006) p. 170-171 While the first source does not say that fascists "deny that they are entirely against democracy", it was apparently chosen because it says that fascists oppose liberal democracy, while most sources merely say that they oppose democracy. Note that the book is about right-wing populism, not fascism. The second source says, "However, the same article suggests that there is a way that the term "democracy" can be understood which is compatible with Fascism--namely, when it is understood as "organized, centralized, authoritarian democracy"". Notice that there is no mention of this essay in the book's 26 page introduction.(pp.1-26) TFD (talk) 17:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Fascists repeatedly claimed to be democratic. The issue about whether they were in practice is separate from the fact that they claimed to be democratic. I have shown TFD, the example from the Doctrine of Fascism that says "organized, centralized authoritarian democracy", and numerous other examples of fascists declaring support for a form of democracy. I chose the first source by Rydgren because it describes precisely what fascism ideologically opposed in liberal democracy - its ideal of rule through quantity rather than rule through quality. WP:WEIGHT does not warrant exclusion of material analyzed by scholars simply because a quote is mentioned once in a book - quotes are typically only mentioned once in a book, nor does it warrant acceptance of TFD's clearly factually incorrect claim that "Fascism was not democratic even in theory". I propose that the following compromise to resolve this by addressing the different claims and the different weights of scholarly opinion: "'Fascism is widely regarded by scholars to be undemocratic and anti-democratic in practice. Fascism denounces liberal democracy for basing government legitimacy on quantity rather than quality. However fascists have claimed to be democratic and a minority of scholars regard fascism as supporting a form of democracy.". This could be placed in the main body of the article and the existing sentence referring to fascism's relations with democracy in the intro could be removed.--R-41 (talk) 21:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

thanks, both, for clarifying. And for your suggested text, R-41. Your second sentence is ungrammatical . If you could rephrase, then others can comment on whether this is an acceptable compromise. It does seem better to take this from the lead into the main body. Did you still want to consider how to use Riley? Itsmejudith (talk) 22:43, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I have fixed the sentence for my latest proposal above. To Itsmejudith, as to your inquiry on how Riley's work should be used here, Riley should be mentioned as being amongst a minority of scholars who view fascism as supporting a form of democracy, after saying that most scholars view fascism as undemocratic and anti-democratic in practice - that way WP:WEIGHT is upheld, and the different perspectives are shown.--R-41 (talk) 23:12, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Just so other users here don't get lost in all the conversation I will restate my latest compromise proposal here: "Fascism is widely regarded by scholars to be undemocratic and anti-democratic in practice. Fascism denounces liberal democracy for basing government legitimacy on quantity rather than quality. However fascists have claimed to be democratic and a minority of scholars regard fascism as supporting a form of democracy.". This will be put in the main body of the article, and the current sentence mentioning fascism's relation with democracy will be removed from the intro.--R-41 (talk) 23:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

R-41's claim that "Fascists repeatedly claimed to be democratic" is false. The source he provides is one sentence from a 1923 article condemning democracy. R-41 does not appreciate irony, "a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions". It would be wrong for us to make a claim that does not appear in summaries of fascist ideology. This is anyway similar to the approach of conspiracy theorists, where one sentence, e.g., Eisenhower saying "military industrial complex" or George Bush saying "new world order" becomes the basis of a theory about their political agendas. TFD (talk) 05:03, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

An astounding claim -- so any quote you might dislike because it is not the WP:TRUTH should be discarded now becasuse you know it is "irony"? We established the source is a reliable source. That is is widely cited and accepted by the academic community, that the reviews in scholarly journals were not "blurbs", that the author and publisher are both notable for works in the field, and now we are to remove it as being "irony"? And then the gratuitius comparison of R-41 to "conspiracy theorists"? Sorry TFD, the fifth line of defense you present falls. Collect (talk) 14:34, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Let's focus on content, shall we? R-41 has suggested proposed wording, which it seems to me is worth discussing properly. But there is quite a lot of proposed wording here, and each point will have to be worked on separately. R-41, each point will need its source. I am going to advise on sourcing myself here below, as that is one of my main interests in the encyclopedia. Weight should also be carefully considered. Pulling the proposed wording into its component parts:

1. "Fascism is widely regarded by scholars to be undemocratic and anti-democratic in practice." That is a claim to scholarly consensus. We need a source for the fact that this is the consensus. It isn't enough just to refer to two, three or four works that support the point.
2. "Fascism denounces liberal democracy for basing government legitimacy on quantity rather than quality." We need a source for that. I'm worried about the tense of the verb here. Are we sure that fascism has always said the same things about democracy/liberal democracy from the 1920s until today? Another question is whether denunciations made in the 1920s would be valid today, given that democratic systems have themselves evolved.
3. "However fascists have claimed to be democratic..." I would expect a reference at that point. Also, would it not be better to detail some such claims, rather than making this blanket assertion? Do we have to send the reader to look up the sources?
4. "A minority of scholars regard fascism as supporting a form of democracy.". Again, this is a claim about the scholarly consensus. We need a source that spells out that this is the minority view. If it is just Riley, then we can't say "a minority of scholars". We would have to say "According to Riley..." and then probably also... "a reviewer of his book said that this definition was unlikely to be generally accepted". #This will be put in the main body of the article, and the current sentence mentioning fascism's relation with democracy will be removed from the intro. I'm crossing my fingers that there may be immediate consensus for this one.

I hope this helps, also that you will get some more non-involved comments. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I do not think that we can use a single sentence in one article to say, "However fascists have claimed to be democratic". The few sources that have commented on this sentence do not appear to support the claim. Even if they did, the claim is so obscure that it should be ignored. We have one scholar who recently claimed that fascism was democratic (he says that his opinion is original), and a review by a fascism scholar that says his view is unlikely to be accepted. Again, weight says we should ignore this. TFD (talk) 13:59, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

What do you think about something more specific? Roughly like: In 19xx Mussolini made a speech in which he said .... (ref Riley, page number). Riley argues that fascism makes claims about democracy (ref Riley). In a generally favourable review, scholar says Riley's view on this is unlikely to be accepted. (ref) In 19xx Hitler said... (ref). So we get nearer to showing the reader what happened rather than telling them what happened. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:12, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that when writing articles we should only include what most writers would mention in an article of comparable length. We should not leave readers with the impression that there is a dispute about whether or not fascism was democratic. Also, there are many other minority views about fascism that could have an equal claim for inclusion. It is better to put these things into separate articles. TFD (talk) 15:56, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Minority views are different than fringe views. And scholarly minority views should be shown. Riley's work is scholarly and was reviewed and praised by multiple reviewers.--R-41 (talk) 22:09, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I want to add one more thing that I believe I have not made myself clear about here and on the Talk:Nazism page. While I believe that we cannot deny that various fascists did claim to support a form of democracy, we do not have to take their claims to support a form of democracy, seriously. Perhaps this can reduce a bit of tension here and help to move towards a resolution.--R-41 (talk) 03:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm about to go off on wikibreak, so if you folks can continue the discussion on the talk page, that will be good. If you can't then you will need to post here asking for further attention. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:55, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

If there is no response, this thread will be closed 24 hours after this time: July 27, 2012 at 01:52 (UTC) Reason: Appears to be resolved

The Zombie Diaries, World of the Dead: The Zombie Diaries

No discussion for over 5 days. Guy Macon (talk) 01:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Autobiography of a Yogi

No discussion for 4 days. Guy Macon (talk) 06:23, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

16:10

Closing due to lack of discussion. Recommend that filing editor seek resolution from other channels such as WP:3O or WP:RFC. Sleddog116 (talk) 18:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. – General close. See comments for reasoning. Filed by Indrek on 12:32, 14 July 2012 (UTC). 16:10 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? The dispute is over a part of a sentence, shown in bold in the quote below (word-wrapped and refs removed for legibility, original revision is here): While the lower cost of 16:9 computer displays, along with the convenience of having the same aspect ratio in different devices, has been seen as a positive, many consider 16:9 to be inferior to 16:10 for productivity-oriented tasks (such as Internet browsing, editing documents or spreadsheets, and using professional design and engineering applications), which benefit more from vertical resolution, rather than horizontal. Urklistre's objections to this statement have, over the course of the dispute, been the following: That it's subjective and misrepresents an opinion as fact . I accepted that the statement may have been unintentionally ambiguous and misleading and amended it accordingly . Urklistre did not find this acceptable, claiming that, quote, "Just because some people consider that doesnt mean that it is considered" , and insisting on reverting to his version of the statement . That the sources aren't good because they discuss individual resolutions, rather than aspect ratios , which I refuted by quoting the relevant parts of the sources . That the statement contradicts an article on Lifehacker that discusses the effects of high resolutions and single vs. multiple displays on productivity , and this article by ProductivePractised.com which focuses more on the number and sizes of displays , which I believe have nothing to do with the subject at hand (the industry's move from 16:10 to 16:9 and the response to that move). That the statement contradicts hypothetical opposing opinions , which he never provided reliable sources for. That there's no room in Misplaced Pages for opinions (which is obviously false). That the edit is overall a step backwards from the "more objective and simply higher quality" pre-dispute revision (which contained little more than a verbatim copy&paste from a source, and had no representation whatsoever of opposing opinions). I have made a number of suggestions to reword the statement in a way that addresses any legitimate concerns, but Urklistre either outright rejected or simply ignored all of them, including one version that was in response to his own sole attempt at compromise . Further, Urklistre was unwilling to refrain from editing or removing the disputed content until the dispute is resolved, immediately reverting back to his preferred revision after the temporary protection expired and insisting that, quote, "Everything that there is no consensus about should be removed" . He also implied ulterior motives behind my recommendation (which was based on WP:CONSENSUS and WP:PREFER) to keep the article as it was when it was protected . Some examples of Urklistre's conduct during the discussion: dismissing the sources I provided as "just opinions" , " more valid than mine or yours" , "noob sources" , "noobs comments" , "not serious" , "neither relevant or significant" , "low quality blogs" and containing "false statements" and "factual errors" , and the statement backed by those sources as "simply false" and "a paradox" , without any supporting evidence or explanation accusing me of being biased and deleting "research" , again without evidence or explanation aggressively telling me to "back off" calling the whole discussion a "farse" (sic) indicating intention to resume edit warring as soon as temporary protection is removed , directly below a comment from a moderator encouraging us to resolve the dispute through discussion, rather than reverting editing my comments without good reason or my permission (a violation of WP:TPO), under the pretext of "equality", but with the apparent goal of disrupting my argument by removing emphasis from where I felt it was needed to accurately convey my argument lying about the status of the dispute Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? Indrek (talk · contribs) Urklistre (talk · contribs) Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Yes. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=16:10}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? Tried to discuss the issue on the talk page, filed an edit war / 3RR report, filed a request for a third opinion How do you think we can help? By helping establish consensus on the following points: Reliability of the following sources (suggested by me): http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/1652880/time-ditch-awful-hd-1080p-widescreens http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2328932,00.asp http://vr-zone.com/articles/monitor-aspect-ratios--beyond-16-9-ipad-to-the-rescue-/13399.html http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_6.html http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1723060/gateways-displays-common-sense http://www.lowendmac.com/musings/08mm/golden-ratio.html Top three are the ones I'd prefer to keep (per agreement with Urklistre to trim the number down to three ), all six are included for sake of completeness. Relevance and significance of the opinions provided by those sources (namely, that 16:10 displays provide more vertical space than 16:9 displays and are therefore better suited for productivity-oriented tasks) in the section of the article that discusses the move from 16:10 to 16:9. Whether or not the following wording (my last suggested version) accurately and without bias represents and summarises those opinions: "some believe productivity-oriented tasks, such as editing documents or spreadsheets and using design or engineering applications, to benefit more from vertical resolution rather than horizontal and thus consider 16:10 displays to be more suitable for such tasks." Reliability and relevance of the following sources (suggested by Urklistre): http://lifehacker.com/5616859/is-the-multiple+monitor-productivity-boost-a-myth http://productivepractices.com/content/monitors_and_productivity.php Note: Urklistre has changed his argument a number of times over the course of the dispute, and I'm not entirely sure that he hasn't changed his mind about the above sources as well. Nevertheless, I thought it only fair to include them here. Pending the outcome of the previous point, the best way to incorporate the information from Urklistre's sources so that the views provided in them, as well as the views provided by the sources I suggested (also pending their approval as reliable and relevant), are both represented fairly and proportionately (per WP:NPOV). Indrek (talk) 12:32, 14 July 2012 (UTC) 16:10 discussion Discussion about the issues listed above takes place here. Remember to keep your comments calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. Template:Cue Hello; I am a regular volunteer here on the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. Thank you, Indrek, for your detailed introduction of the dispute. Before we begin working through your points, I would like to remind all of the involved disputants that no binding decisions are issued here. DRN is merely an informal process in which uninvolved editors (like myself) attempt to help disputants establish consensus. DRN is for content issues, not conduct. If you have conduct issues with another user that need to be addressed, the proper place for that is WP:WQA, but I think we can probably avoid that if we all avoid getting into personalities. Now, that being said - I would like to take some time and look at a few of the sources you provided above. I probably won't comment on the reliability of the sources yet; before I do anything, I would like to hear Urklistre's response to the above points. Cheers. Sleddog116 (talk) 15:15, 16 July 2012 (UTC) Thanks for your response. Just a quick note, re the conduct issues I listed - I was simply going by the guidelines here that state that, quote, "when conduct is a factor in a dispute over article content, that's OK", and decided to err on the side of being thorough. I agree with you completely, though, that if we can resolve the dispute amicably and without escalating conduct issues to dedicated forums, that would be ideal. Indrek (talk) 15:34, 16 July 2012 (UTC) This thread has been one week without discussion. The dispute resolution process requires all parties of a dispute to participate. If one side is unwilling to discuss the problem here, this dispute may need to be filed at other venues (in my opinion, this dispute could probably be settled by a third opinion). If no further discussion occurs within 24 hours, this thread will be closed. Sleddog116 (talk) 12:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC) I've already tried requesting a third opinion. None was given. Unless you're positive that a second try will be more successful (or are willing to provide a third opinion yourself), I'd rather explore alternative options (WP:RSN+WP:NPOVN? WP:RFC?). Or can I assume that Urklistre's apparent unwillingness to discuss the issue means he has lost interest and backed out of the dispute? I guess not, but doesn't hurt to check. Indrek (talk) 14:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC) Actually, looking at recent edit history of WP:3O, it appears requests are being handled much faster now than when I first tried. I'll give it another shot, then, unless of course this thread becomes active in the next ~24 hours. I've also posted another notice on Urklistre's talk page, in case he missed the first one. Indrek (talk) 14:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Robert Stinnett

No discussion for over 3 days. Guy Macon (talk) 02:26, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thomas Sowell

• Thomas Sowell (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The editors are trying to remove a Media Matters source (diff) based on their POV and are trying to justify it on WP:Undue and consensus. The reasoning fails since it's minimally used once in the entire article so it can't possibly be considered Undue unless it also happens to not be an RS.

To give some background, we had a dispute resolution discussion about this same source earlier to which it was found that Media Matters is a reliable source and yet editors are trying to remove it on baseless grounds. (diff).

It's worth noting that removal of MMfA based on POV is not uncommon in the article (diff, diff, diff, diff).

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• CartoonDiablo (talk · contribs)
• Arzel (talk · contribs)
• Thargor Orlando (talk · contribs)
• Lionelt (talk · contribs)
• Hugetim (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Thomas Sowell}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Discussed it in talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

By determining:

1. If using the MMfA source constitutes Undue
2. If the editors are trying to exclude it based on POV and baselessly trying to use policies to justify it.

CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thomas Sowell discussion

This is the third time he's tried this, and he's already got two arbitration requests that have been declined. There is no consensus to add the information whatsoever, and CartoonDiablo is simply trying to use dispute resolution as a bludgeon to eventually get editors he disagrees with sanctioned. CartoonDiablo disengages from the talk page when he doesn't like the questions being asked, and does nothing to even demonstrate that the information he wants to put in is viable, never mind build any consensus. Compromise was attempted and didn't work. Enough is enough. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

So I was disengaged (diff, diff)? And there is no comprimise between removing something for POV and not removing it; what you Arzel, Lionelt and others are doing is removing material because it doesn't fit your POV and are trying to find any baseless reason possible to do so (and might I add violating WP:NPOV). The fact is consensus doesn't give editors the license to violate Misplaced Pages policies. CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

You were disengaged for weeks, yes. As noted in the talk page. You've consistently violated policies in re-adding the information without discussion or consensus. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:24, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Media Matters is a reliable source for facts and certainly a reliable source for its own opinions. However, if we want to say Sowell's comment "has been criticized by liberal groups such as...", we need a source that makes that observation. The DNC btw is not a "liberal group". This really belongs in the Thomas Sowell#Columns section, where we can combine praise and criticism. We need to avoid long criticism sections filled with anecdotes in all BLP articles. TFD (talk) 19:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

How is MMfA reliable, as it's a self-published, highly-partisan group? Furthermore, even if it is reliable, there is no consensus to include the criticisms by them and them alone, so why are we even having this discussion? Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:24, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

See the for example reliable sources noticeboard "Media matters (25th time asked)". You might also want to read the first 24 discussion threads and any ones that have been brought up since. TFD (talk) 21:32, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

That link does not say that MMfA is a RS for factual information. One banned editor makes the stupid artgument that MMfA is equatable to FNC, it is not. MMfA, by it's own admission is currently dedicated to the destruction of FNC, there is simply no way in hell that such a source could ever be considered a reliable source for factual information. Arzel (talk) 03:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually I forgot to include Hugetim but with his input there is no consensus. CartoonDiablo (talk) 20:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

No consensus to add, yes. You've been trying to add it for a year and a half and have gotten pushback from countless editors. You still haven't quite gotten the hint. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

When did this dispute start and what was the state of the article then? If a third party affirmed it's inclusion, wouldn't you need consensus to remove the information, not to add it? Thing is that "countless" POV edits don't override policy, which is what we should be talking about. Hugetim 20:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It appears that CD first started trying to add MMfA in January 2011, and was reverted within a couple days. This has been a slow burn since then, with a couple flareups, and you actually appear to be the first person in 18 months to back him up on this at the article. Multiple users have argued against its inclusion, and CD, to this point, refuses to justify its inclusion per policy. I have asked him a series of questions regarding the content at the talk page, and he refuses to answer them. He's fighting a lonely battle and is actively forum-shopping to get the result he wants at this stage. Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it's also worth noting that Thargor has done disruptive edits that violate reverting due to no consensus (diff, diff) which hold no validity outside of being POV edits. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that is "worth noting" at all. The purpose of this noticeboard is not to help resolve disputes about the behavior of editors. There are other noticeboards for that. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:20, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It's done in the context of whether or not these are POV edits done with baseless justifications. As far as I can tell it's the only explanation for that as all. CartoonDiablo (talk) 23:24, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of context, it is not appropriate to use this noticeboard to label Thargor Orlando's edits as "disruptive" in order to make your case in a content dispute. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

This is just an attempt to try and get users he disagrees with sanctioned. This is not an honest attempt to resolve the dispute, but a means to an end. We only need to assume good faith until there's evidence to the contrary, and when a user comes into a talk page and says "it will result in sanctions" if we don't bend to his will, well... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thargor Orlando (talk • contribs) 02:35, 18 July 2012

The MMfA website is a valid source for the opinions of MMfA. TFD (talk) 03:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe so. That doesn't make them a valid, noteworthy, or reliable source for criticism of anyone in particular. Especially when the consensus is overwhelmingly against using it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 04:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The point of taking issues to this board is to get the views of experienced editors. That you and a few other editors who do not understand policies have formed a "consensus" is of no interest to me. And as explained, editors like you have challenged MMfA countless times and have failed to persuade anyone. TFD (talk) 05:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

That you assume I do not understand policies has not been proven even a little bit. Even if MMfA is a worthwhile source to use - something that has not been established, mind you - that does not mean we have the consensus to use it here. This is not a discussion in good faith, regardless, as CartoonDiablo believes DR to be about building a case for sanctions against editors, not to resolve a dispute. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

MMfA has been declared a "valid, noteworthy, or reliable source" 25 times now. The issue at hand is whether or not the source constitutes Undue weight or whether the editors are simply using POV exclusion. As of yet, none of the editors have even tried to justify why it would be considered undue weight. CartoonDiablo (talk) 06:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you're seeing any consensus of any kind for your point of view there. It's undue weight because it's the bulk of criticism coming from one unreliable, hyper-partisan, self-published group. You lack the consensus to add it, nor have you justified why criticism from MMfA is noteworthy for inclusion in this article. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

That is your personal opinion but MMfA has been proven to be a reliable source 25 times now, unless you have another argument for why its undue then there is no validity to the claim of undue weight. CartoonDiablo (talk) 20:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that's hyperbole, actually, but there doesn't actually seem to be consensus there that it's reliable. And you still haven't shown the consensus for using it at the Sowell article, either. Or why it's noteworthy enough for inclusion. You avoid those questions constantly. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm surprised this is even an issue, quite frankly. The use of Media Matters for America as a reference is perfectly acceptable when used as an attributed primary source. Moreover, I think in this case the opinion of the organization is valid and useful, and doesn't fall foul of WP:NPOV. Sowell's views are very much outside the mainstream, and MMfA offers a useful critique to draw from. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Isn't calling Sowell's views "outside the mainstream" POV in itself? Furthermore, if we can note the criticism without using poor or blatantly partisan sources, shouldn't we? Because we can on one of the MMfA sections CD keeps re-adding. Furthermore, if only MMfA is criticizing something, is it worth noting even if the consensus at the page is that it's not? Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

No it is not POV to call Sowell's views outside the mainstream, since NPOV requires us to distinguish between mainstream and non-mainstream opinion. TFD (talk) 18:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

And how is Sowell outside the mainstream? Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. And MMfA isn't "poor" or "blatantly partisan". All it basically does is report on right-wing media. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

That's the definition of blatantly partisan! That's literally partisanship! Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Sowell's writings have been ignored in the academic community - he is not even mentioned in any of the economics textbooks I have seen. If his views reflected the mainstream then there would be no need for a Tea Party, etc., because the main parties would already embrace these ideas. The comparison with MMfA is wrong btw, the opinions of a writer and the factual nature of his writing are mutually exclusive. TFD (talk) 20:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what being "ignored" by the academic community has to do with much, but I'm unaware of him offering anything novel that would be published in such a way, either. You've not actually mentioned anything non-mainstream about his ideas, but I agree - the comparison with MMfA isn't the issue here, it's whether MMfA is a good source for the controversies in the Sowell article. To bring it back around, there are two controversies in the article - one that is noted by multiple third party non-self-published neutral sources, one that is only sourced by MMfA. We don't need the MMfA citation for the first controversy, and there's no disagreement that the controversy is worth noting. The question, then, is why do we need a controversy noted only by MMfA at all? What value is it? Why is it noteworthy simply because a hyper-partisan, self-published group notes it? Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

MMfA is not the only source for the controversy, it's also cited by the DNC as well as well as Politico and the Washington Monthly. And even if MMfA was the only citation then it be warranted by its virtue as a reliable source. Again the only issue for whether it's undue weight (which is what this dispute resolution is about) would be if MMfA wasn't a reliable source. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Last things first, the dispute is about MMfA as a source period. That you're complaining about some of the arguments against using MMfA doesn't change the dispute. As for the use of MMfA, there are two controversies listed: the Hitler comparison, which is sourced by plenty of neutral sources, and the race card comparison, sourced at the time of this dispute only by MMfA, but now also by PFAW, another hyper-partisan poor source. There's no question from anyone that the Hitler thing can and should stay - it's clearly noteworthy and can be sourced properly. The questions are: 1) why do we need MMfA for the Hitler comparison if we have neutral, reliable sources for it, and 2) why do we need the second criticism at all if only MMfA and extreme partisan groups notice it? It's not noteworthy enough, and it's not sourced well enough for inclusion. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Whether or not you see it as a reliable source doesn't change the fact that it is and has been held as such for a long time; this also answers (2), because it is reliable the second criticism is warranted. If your only argument for undue weight is that it's not a reliable source then this discussion could have been over two years ago. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with CartoonDiablo on this. It's not a question of "why do we need MMfA" so much as MMfA is okay so we can use it. Thargor is suggesting MMfA be discarded as a source in preference to others because Thargor doesn't like MMfA. I'm sorry, but that just isn't a good enough reason to discard a notable reliable source. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm still trying to see where it's been held in any way shape or form. This "25th time" (which seems to be hyperbole) certainly doesn't show an consensus, and I'm suggesting MMfA not be used because there's no consensus for its use at the article and it's a poor source to use for unnoteworthy criticisms. Where is this consensus that it's a reliable source and that their criticisms are automatically noteworthy? Thargor Orlando (talk) 01:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

(out) Thargor Orlando, your argument makes no sense. You say we should not mention comments by MMfA, which editors have agreed 25+ times is a reliable source, yet you do not complain about mentioning comments of the DNC, which is not a reliable source. You have turned the discussion into something irrelevant. TFD (talk) 04:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

We're not using the DNC, we're using independent, reliable, neutral media to discuss what the DNC is saying. Their criticism is noteworthy. No one, to this point, has explained why MMfA's is worthy of note, nor have they shown the consensus that MMfA is okay - it certainly isn't clear at the page initially linked, and if "25 times" is not hyperbole, that it's a question so often should be a massive red flag that it's not actually a good source. Even if we assume MMfA is a good source, that doesn't answer why their criticisms are automatically noteworthy or demonstrate consensus to use them on this page and in this context. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:11, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

MMfA is an often-quoted mainstream media source that has clearly won the approval of Misplaced Pages in terms of its reliability as a source. You don't want to see it used as a source because you perceive it has a "liberal bias". Well that's just too bad, Thargor. There's a clear consensus here that MMfA is fine as a source, and I suggest we can "port" this consensus over to Talk:Thomas Sewell where Arzel is busy carrying your torch. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:25, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I notice people are continuing to avoid the salient questions. Where has it "clearly won approval?" It's not that it has a "liberal bias," MSNBC and the Guardian have a liberal bias and they're fine - it's that they're a blatantly partisan unreliable source who's simple act of criticism is not nearly enough to assume that it's worthy of inclusion. Where is this consensus you speak of? Simply repeating it time and time again doesn't make it true. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it obvious? More people agree with CartoonDiablo's position in this thread than yours, and that position is backed-up by previous discussions about the quality of MMfA as a reliable source. Ergo, consensus. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:43, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

So his forum shopping worked, in other words. Can you stop avoiding the questions and answer them as to why you agree with CartoonDiablo, since he appears to be incapable of answering those questions himself? Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I already said why I agree. I certainly think the opinion of MMfA on comments made by Sewell is at least as relevant as the opinion of Louie "more guns would've stopped the shooter in Aurora" Gohmert, who is clearly from the extreme right on the POV scale. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Wait, so MMfA, a hard-left partisan organization is "at least as relevant" a sitting Congressman speaking on the house floor? This is really your comparison? That's where you go with this instead of answering the questions posed? If you think you've answered them, show me where. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

MMfA is not a "hard-left partisan organization", and Louie Gohmert is definitely a hard-right partisan individual. You are letting your personal point of view affect your judgement in this matter. I can understand now why a frustrated CartoonDiablo brought the dispute to this noticeboard! -- Scjessey (talk) 19:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

MMfA is not a hard-left partisan organization? Per their own website, they describe themselves as "progressive," and they aim to deal with what they believe is "conservative misinformation." What part of that is not hard-left or partisan? The NYT calls it a "highly partisan research organization", so it's fairly clear on an objective level. It's not a personal point of view thing - if someone was trying to add NewsBusters to an article about, say, Keith Olbermann, I'd have the same position, as they're a hard-right partisan organization of self-published people. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

"Progressive" isn't "hard left". Learn: Progressivism in the United States. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Progressives are the far left of the Democratic party and any source that has a dedicated objective of destroying conservative figures (as does MMfA) is not a reliable source, end of story. There is simply no way to logically argue that MMfA and their dedicated objective of destruction of conservative figures and FNC can be considered to be a reliable source for anything except their own opinion, especially within BLP articles. Now if an event recieves considerable coverage by actual reliable sources one could argue that you could pile on the MMfA critcism as well. However, if MMfA is the only one doing the criticism then it is not that notable for sufficient weight concerns. Arzel (talk) 21:30, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Well said. But if we can have a criticism without having MMfA sourced to it, why use MMfA? The MMfA-only criticism was rightly removed by one of the editors on the opposite side of this, so we're making progress, but I see no need to continue using MMfA for the Hitler thing when we have plenty of indisputably mainstream, credible, neutral sources to use instead. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I see no point in continuing to discuss this with either of you. You're so blinded by your right-wing ideology you are no longer open to reasonable arguments or discussion. It's clear you'll do anything or say anything to scrub the Sowell article of criticism (including resorting to edit warring) and I don't want to get mixed up in that sort of behavior. Enjoy your time in the echo chamber. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:24, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with criticism, as long as it's well-sourced. Your need to resort to personal attacks is duly noted, however. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

MMfA and consensus

Let's take a look at the supposed consensus here. While the search function is less than stellar, a search at the reliable sources noticeboard brings up a number of discussions that talk about MMfA specifically. They are as follows:

• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Media Research Center, Media Matters for America, Newsbusters: This is from 2010, and is probably the most detailed discussion. Clearly, there are a lot of feelings and beliefs about MMfA (and other groups like it), and there was actually an end discussion/vote that doesn't show much in the way of consensus for including anything like MMfA. In fact, a strict vote count shows the plurality saying to "exclude." Clearly, there's no consensus on the matter here.
• Media Matters (25th time asked): Not really the 25th time by any real count, it appears to be hyperbole as I suspected, but this discussion notes a few things, such as how MMfA was removed from a Fox News controversy article at the time for a lot of the same reasons I've opposed its inclusion above. The discussion certainly shows a consensus at that time that MMfA is not self-published (a point of view I disagree with, but it's in black and white), but not much of any consensus about its use overall. No conclusion appears to have been reached the way the conclusion appears to be reached regarding its status as to whether it's self-published or not, for comparison.
• Media Matters Blogs: Begins with one editor asserting a consensus that doesn't exist from my previous link above, and the discussion goes on from there. A lot of derailing from one editor asserting consensus over and over (sound familiar?) but there doesn't appear to be consensus there either.
• Media Matters and News Hounds: A short one noting the similarities between the two groups. The discussion is short, and thus of limited value, but the weight of the arguments again doesn't appear to be showing any significant consensus in either direction.
• Reliability of Media Matters: From a few months ago, a four comment discussion that dissolved very quickly into attacks. Another unproven assertion of consensus, nothing much of value to add.
• MMFA - Media Matters for America: This is from 2008, and outside of the WorldNetDaily derailment (and WND is a terrible source), the weight of consensus from this, at least, would indicate MMfA not being a good source. That's why we're not cherry-picking our boards here, though.
• Media Matters yet again: A short one from 2010, with limited input and no real consensus to speak of.
• User-generated blog posts and an unattributed Media Matters post as criticism of a peer-reviewed journal article: From 2010, one complaint with one piece of input referring back to previous discussions and the supposed consensus that doesn't appear to exist.
• Media Matters for America: From 2010, no responses.
• Media Matters for America, Huffington Post, and Newshounds: From 2009, most of this gets delegated to HuffPo's status more than MMfA, but I don't see a MMfA consensus here, either.
• Do these sources qualify as reliable sources?: From 2011. MMfA barely discussed, "editorial decision" comes up a few times.

That's all the section headings specifically about MMfA. There are other mentions here and there, but few that actually discuss MMfA as a viable/nonviable source in more than a passing statement. One place I decided to check afterward when doing this was the Biography of Living People Noticeboard. Some relevant findings there:

• Mocking a BLP at Media Matters for America: From 2008. More about an issue with Stephen Colbert than MMfA, but there are examples here of people's distrust of MMfA on BLPs and some editorial decisions not to use them (such as at The Obama Nation at that time).
• John Gibson (political commentator): From 2010, this actually mirrors the Sowell dispute quite well in many ways. One editor makes a good point that a bunch of involved people talking does not necessarily create a sitewide consensus, but the lean on this discussion appears to significantly want to treat these sorts of blatantly partisan "watchdog"-type groups the same and exclude them.
• Carl Cameron: From 2009, this appears to have a significant problem with using MMfA based on their blatant partisanship, using examples of other partisan-type sources.
• Coatrack, or valid criticism: From 2009, at least gives the appearance of being careful with MMfA as it's a primary source for criticism.
• Use of sources such as mediamatters and newsbusters In bios: From 2008, derailed early as the person in question was a banned user's sock, but the discussion seems to be against partisan sources in criticism pages (with a lot of dislike of criticism pages period, to be fair).
• Pamela Geller: 2010, a comment saying that MMfA shouldn't be used went unchallenged.

That's all the stuff that deals with MMfA specifically, and while I don't think this demonstrates a consensus for MMfA and BLP, the arguments at least seem to lean against MMfA. One thing to note, however, is that many times people were referred to the Neutral Point of View Noticeboard. CartoonDiablo tried to get the change approved there first and got stonewalled, thus the continued forum shopping, but not much of anything useful beyond that.

So at this point, the issue of consensus seems to be in significant contention. That there specifically does not appear to be a consensus one way or the other certainly doesn't mean that it's been proven time and time again as asserted above. That there seems to be significant issue with its use in BLPs is definitely worthy of attention. One thing that does keep coming up is the use of editorial discretion, and the consensus at the talk page for Sowell, even with CartoonDiablo's forum shopping, definitely doesn't show consensus for including MMfA as a source and may actually show consensus against doing so at that page. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The question isn't whether MMFA is RS, the question is whether MMFA passes WP:UNDUE in the Thomas Sowell article. We're certainly not going to include every RS that has dicsussed Sowell. We have to choose which RS sources to include and exclude. That is the purpose of the article talk page. And IMO MMFA represents such a tiny itty bitty position that is does not pass WP:UNDUE.– Lionel 02:38, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The question is both, really. If MMfA isn't a good source, it's certainly not going to pass undue, but people seem to think that because it's supposedly a good source, it obviously passes undue. The purpose of this is more to note the flaw in that argument. Thargor Orlando (talk) 03:27, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

No, whether MMfA is sometimes a reliable source is not part of this particular dispute. That's because no one denies that MMfA can be a reliable source for the views of MMfA. Rather, it seems like the argument you want to make (and which Lionelt is making) is that only the DNC's views on Sowell's column raising the specter of Nazism should be cited in the article - or that, whoever should be cited, it shouldn't be MMfA. (But I do appreciate your helpful summary of the history of Misplaced Pages RS debate over MMfA - and I agree with you that the "25 times" claim doesn't hold up.) Would you be willing to agree that whether MMfA is an RS is not the issue, at least in this particular case? I think that could help us move toward agreement. -Hugetim 06:02, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You're late to the dispute, you weren't originally part of it, so you may be confused as to what it's about - the reliability of MMfA is also in dispute in the context of this article. With that said, it's not the most relevant part since it appears CD is the only person still hung up on Rwanda, and I was the one who originally put the Nazism-without-MMfA compromise in the article. I have no issue whatsoever with the Hitler controversy being there, as it's well-sourced by neutral, independent observers as well as criticized by noteworthy organizations that are not blatantly partisan (as opposed to political like the DNC, who would be expected to respond and would be appropriate to add). Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:01, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the DNC is literally the definition of a partisan organization, so I'm not sure where you are going with that distinction. Do you have any other ways to explain what it is about MMfA that should exclude its views from ever being cited in an article about a conservative figure? Could you also be more specific about why MMfA should not be considered a reliable source for the views of MMfA? (Or, let's set those questions aside and discuss whether MMfA's view is worth citing in this particular instance, and I'm beginning to think maybe not.) -Hugetim 21:41, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The DNC is a political organization, and a noteworthy one at that. My issue is not so much that MMfA is not reliable for its own views, as even the most unnoteworthy conspiracy theorist would be, but that MMfA noting something is not, in and of itself, noteworthy. The DNC noting something, however? That's a different story, especially in response to a criticism/complaint/smear on the President, and especially one handled by nonpartisan sources with (theoretically) no axes to grind. I actually think we're all in agreement on this basic point, CD excluded. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:15, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The irony of this discussion (and I do appreciate the research and history for it) is that it excludes the most specific and most recent one, the one that is about this dispute and has had explicitly it is reliable:

• Acceptible Use MMfA is clearly an organization with a political slant. However, that does not mean that their opinion cannot be quoted in a Misplaced Pages article. Political-based articles routinely cite sources which have a political stance (e.g., NRA, PETA, NAACP). There have been at least 25 reliable source discussions about MMfA, and the general conclusion of the RS forums is that the organization cannot be used as a source of news, but that their opinion can be cited. The text cited above makes it clear that MMfA is a liberal organization, and that the comment in question is their opinion. The actual article comparing Obama's actions to Hitler's is referenced in Investor's Business Daily, which is a reliable source of news, and the paragraph also gives the opinion of two people supporting Sowell's publication of the article, thus ensuring the commentary is NPOV. Based on this, inclusion of MMfA is acceptible. (emphasis added) Debbie W. 03:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

This is the same reasoning I used for the Rwanda criticism. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I did miss that, thanks for highlighting it. As Debbie W is a banned sockpuppeter, as the discussion was not about reliable sources and/or NPOV (which would have had volunteers skilled and interested in those areas), and the uninvolved person who is not currently banned referred it to those places? I wouldn't hang your hat on it. Even if we threw it into the pile, it still doesn't show a consensus in either direction for your position. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:06, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Debbie W wasn't banned for making that decision so the consensus is valid, as far as I can tell blocks do not disqualify consensus in dispute resolution etc. as long as it wasn't related to that decision/consensus. CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

No, but she's no longer part of the process, and you *still* haven't shown where that consensus is after being asked countless times. Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:49, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

So are the people in the earlier discussions a "part of the process" (which isn't how dispute resolution works anyway)? You and Arzel are the only people even trying to claim it's not reliable, this conclusion is as clear now as it was in the prior Sowell-MMfA dispute. CartoonDiablo (talk) 22:34, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Consensus proposal

1. MMfA is a reliable source for the views of MMfA, which are admittedly progressive.
2. MMfA's views are sometimes noteworthy enough to be included in an article and sometimes not.
3. An incident only covered by MMfA is not noteworthy enough to be included in a BLP article, but coverage by MMfA can contribute to an incident being considered noteworthy.
4. To determine whether MMfA's views on a given incident are sufficiently noteworthy to include/cite, we take into account whether MMfA was mentioned in other coverage of the incident in reliable sources, though this is not necessary if it is one of the best sources for an incident for some other reason.
5. There is currently not consensus about whether MMfA is generally a reliable source or a questionable source for facts. It is not a self-published source.

I hope that these, taken together, are a set of principles we can all agree on and take back to the Sowell talk page to apply to the specific incidents in question. What do you think? -Hugetim 05:53, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I can't outright agree with number 2 mainly because of number 5. I'm not entirely sure number 5 is entirely accurate, but for the sake of compromise I wouldn't make noise about it. I'd make it more concise with the following:

1. MMfA is a reliable source for the views of MMfA.
2. There is currently not consensus about whether MMfA is generally a reliable source or a questionable source for facts. It is not a self-published source.
3. An incident only covered by MMfA is not noteworthy enough to be included in a BLP article, but coverage by MMfA can contribute to an incident being considered noteworthy. This does not mean that we need to rely on MMfA citations to make the case.

3 and 4 are basically saying the same thing, and since the crux of the problem is using MMfA when we have better sources, I'm not sure why we'd even need to leave those windows open period. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:11, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with everything suggested by Hugetim, although the fifth point seems to only be the case because of two involved users. Everyone else seems perfectly happy with it. - 76.124.173.41 (talk) 13:39, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

(Using my original numbering) I don't see how you can disagree with #2 if you agree with #1. MMfA is a notable organization (which is why it has its own article). Thus it is at least conceivable that its views would be noteworthy in the context of another topic (at least as its opinion if not as fact). It seems like you reject my #4 for the same reason. Can you elaborate? -Hugetim 17:45, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Being a notable organization does not mean that everything they do is worthy of note, or that simple virtue of being noteworthy makes one also worthy of mention. I again contrast with NewsBusters, or NewsMax or WorldNetDaily, none of which would be considered acceptable as sources even though they are noteworthy organizations. To open that can of worms means to allow a partisan echo chamber to repeat the same things to each other, thus making them noteworthy for inclusion? Better to limit it to neutral, nonpartisan, reliable sources to avoid that trap. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The views of all those organizations are sometimes worth citing (though I agree they seem questionable as sources for facts, without endorsing the equivalence with MMfA you are implying). That's all I'm suggesting we agree on here in #2. While I can understand the desire for clarity and ease behind your proposal to just ban all citations of their views, that's not consistent with policy. We need to assess these things according to context. There may be some scope for specifying some category of topics on which we will not cite MMfA (e.g. conservative figures, though I do not agree with that proposal), but a blanket ban is definately not going to fly. -Hugetim 18:53, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, a blanket ban could never gain consensus simply by a little-viewed dispute board, either, and I'm more looking forward to getting to the end of this so I can go back to making my couple changes a week when necessary. Is it safe to say that, for this article, we're in agreement that MMfA alone should not be a basis for including a criticism, and that we shouldn't use MMfA if we don't need to? Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:15, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

1. Widely covered events which also have a response from MMfA can have the response that MMfA was also critical of the event.
2. There is no reason to use MMfA as a main source in almost any circumstance. If an event is noteworthy it will have recieved considerable attention in mainstream sources as to negate the need to even consider MMfA.
3. Some things that MMfA complains about will get picked up by mainstream sources, in which case (1) will apply.
4. MMfA itself is not sufficient to demonstrate weight for an event as they report on every minor conservative issue concievable. As a result MMfA must then either be considered reliable for one of the two scenarios (MMfA is reliable for everything, and conversely MMfA is reliable for nothing) or (Editors must use editorial judgement for what MMfA reports on as a noteworthy event, which falls back onto 1).

The simple solution is to not use sources like MMfA as a source, especially within BLP articles where they are predisposed to be critical of conservative figures regardless of the issue. To say that MMfA is critical of a conservative is like saying water is wet and adds nothing to the article other than to load up BLP articles with a bunch of undue criticsm from an organization which is doesn't like them anyway. Arzel (talk) 15:53, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

By that reckoning, to say Louie Gohmert is complimentary of a conservative is like saying fire is hot. I see a double standard here. A noteworthy organization has given a noteworthy opinion of a noteworthy person. Nobody would complain if it was the New York Times with the opinion, and MMfA is really no different. - 76.124.173.41 (talk) 17:17, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Except that a sitting Congressman and the widely-considered "paper of record" is noteworthy in a way that a random highly-partisan website is not. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

As was covered earlier, MMfA is considered a reliable source so the only distinction is that the New York Times is a more reliable source but both count as reliable.

My proposal is this regarding the noteworthiness of MMfA:

1. MMfA is a reliable source for the views of MMfA, which are admittedly progressive.
2. An incident only covered by MMfA is not noteworthy enough to be included in a BLP article, but coverage by MMfA can contribute to an incident being considered noteworthy.
3. The consensus is that MMfA is a reliable source for information in general but to be covered in a BLP it has to pass 2.

As far as I can tell, 2 3 and 4 are essentially the same and are covered sufficiently by (Hugetim's) 3 alone. CartoonDiablo (talk) 20:08, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

CD, I think the research is clear that there is no consensus for MMfA being a reliable source. Since you're really the only person who still has substantive protest (as far as I can tell), are you okay with us removing Rwanda and leaving Hitler w/o the MMfA cite? If so, we can move on. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm exhausted personally, and I'm going to try to stop responding awaiting third party mediation, but I do not want my silence to be misunderstood as agreement with the many unanswered points in this dispute, many of which I disagree with. I found this helpful for perspective: Misplaced Pages:Consensus#Reaching_consensus_through_discussion. -Hugetim 23:20, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Personally I'm also awaiting a third party response but I'm not OK with either because MMfA was found to be a reliable source (per the Rwanda section) and (as far as I can tell) Thargor is the only person who wants to remove it from the Hitler comparison. CartoonDiablo (talk) 01:23, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

You're still clinging to that even with the sitewide research showing a lack of consensus otherwise. At some point you'll have to accept the lack of consensus on this issue. Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I see many more editors taking a position opposing yours, Thargor. There's no clear consensus because you and Arzel have adopted an obstructionist position. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:21, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I welcome you to show where such a consensus exists that MMfA is reliable, then - I've done the legwork research-wise, after all. Meanwhile, it doesn't seem like anyone has an argument as to why we need the MMfA citation for the Hitler issue, and you'd think that would be a worthwhile compromise for some. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I would argue that a majority of editors in this very thread say that MMfA is a reliable source. That's good enough for me. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Thankfully, consensus is not supposed to be by majority vote, but by rational and well-founded arguments. I'm not entirely certain what you guys are arguing for and against in looking over a summary of the thread here. No publisher can be called 100% reliable for all purposes and uses. They are self-admittedly biased, and that bias should be recognized when using MMfA as a source for published material, but are they generally inaccurate or over the top? -- Avanu (talk) 22:30, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

In this specific thread, perhaps - you'd then have to explain how the selection of 6 editors that have chimed in at some point a) trump those who have not, such as the folks CD attempted to drag into arbitration, and b) trump the numerous discussions that clearly show a lack of consensus on the matter. You cannot do either of those things. Thargor Orlando (talk) 03:01, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Reiterating the consensus

The dispute right now is whether MMfA is given undue weight which is based on whether or not it is a reliable source. To reiterate the consensus which seemed to have been missed, It was said to be reliable source by the former MMfA-Sowell dispute:

* Acceptible Use MMfA is clearly an organization with a political slant. However, that does not mean that their opinion cannot be quoted in a Misplaced Pages article. Political-based articles routinely cite sources which have a political stance (e.g., NRA, PETA, NAACP). There have been at least 25 reliable source discussions about MMfA, and the general conclusion of the RS forums is that the organization cannot be used as a source of news, but that their opinion can be cited. The text cited above makes it clear that MMfA is a liberal organization, and that the comment in question is their opinion. The actual article comparing Obama's actions to Hitler's is referenced in Investor's Business Daily, which is a reliable source of news, and the paragraph also gives the opinion of two people supporting Sowell's publication of the article, thus ensuring the commentary is NPOV. Based on this, inclusion of MMfA is acceptible. (emphasis added) Debbie W. 03:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

The arguments against this are that user was banned for an unrelated reason, however since his/her block had nothing to do with the dispute resolution decision the argument of illegitimacy is not valid.

For others that didn't notice, Scjessey is an outside opinion that assists dispute resolution and came with the same conclusion. Thus since it's an RS, the undue argument fails. For the sake of WP:Exhaust this dispute seems to have been over a long time ago. CartoonDiablo (talk) 22:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

So are you saying that MMfA is a reliable third-party direct publisher of analysis that can be included in a Misplaced Pages article? Or are you saying that some other reliable sources can include commentary from MMfA and those bits of commentary can be included in a Misplaced Pages article? -- Avanu (talk) 23:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd say either is fine. MMfA is frequently quoted by other news organizations and Misplaced Pages often uses it as a reference for both primary and secondary sourcing. When citing MMfA opinion, the usual form is something along the lines of "liberal organization Media Matters for America noted..." so there's no doubt about a potential bias. The problem here is that two editors evidently seem to think it isn't appropriate for an article to include critical commentary from an organization on the opposite side of the political spectrum from the subject, even when it is a notable opinion from a notable organization about a notable comment made by that subject. Not only is that a minority opinion, but it is against the usual Misplaced Pages conventions in issues like this. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

At least be honest - we're more than fine with critical information from opposing viewpoints, just not certain groups that are not reliable or noteworthy in and of themselves. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

That's rather disingenuous. Media Matters for America is reliable as a source and offers noteworthy opinion of the subject. Repeatedly stating your non-conforming position will not magically make it prevail. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

If this is true, where's the evidence? Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:40, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

CD, can you please explain why one banned editor's opinion trumps literally years of discussion on reliable sourcing and BLP boards? The dispute was truly over before it began - you still lack consensus for including MMfA, and we don't need it to source the claim that we all agree should remain. Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:58, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

The Zeitgeist Movement

No discussion for over 4 days. Guy Macon (talk) 02:36, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

List of countries by beer consumption per capita

• List of countries by beer consumption per capita (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

Anyone's comments are welcomed here. Basically there is a debate on a little-edited page's talk page about what the default sort should be. Should we have it setup alphabetically or by number? My position is stated on the talk page, but to restate it here -- the article is about the per capita consumption (a number) of beer. It seems reasonable that rather than sort the list of countries by where they fall in an alphabetical listing, it should be done by the number reflected in the wiki's content. That's how it's been for six years, until this week . In addition one of the other editors involved has now included a mini "help document" within the article to help the poor average reader sort the information properly. As you can see here and here there seem to be some ownership issues going on here. I invite anyone willing to please comment. Thanks.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Erikeltic (talk · contribs)
• Jbening (talk · contribs)
• Timeshifter (talk · contribs)
• Elockid (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=List of countries by beer consumption per capita}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

• How do you think we can help?

I invite people to weigh in on the article and to help explain how changes are applied. WP:BRD isn't being followed and the clear examples of ownership I listed above are making it very difficult to discuss the issue rationally.

Erikeltic 23:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

List of countries by beer consumption per capita discussion

I think the list should be ordered by per capita consumption when the reader first opens the page, because that is what he will expect to see. And I don't see why the list would be any harder to maintain in this order than it would be in alphabetical order. Wahrmund (talk) 18:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

This is a remarkably premature resort to dispute resolution, regarding an issue of very little concern to anyone. The user who has called for resolution here was the only person writing on the article's talk page in favor of his position. So far, I've seen no evidence (there or here) that he has grasped the logic of the arguments being advanced against his position. If bringing the discussion over here can somehow cause more substantive discussion over on the article's talk page, then so much the better. But I've already articulated on the article's talk page what I think is the shared position of Timeshifter and myself, so I see no need to reiterate it here. Jbening (talk) 01:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I guess you missed the part where you should have read that Misplaced Pages isn't a democracy. The bottom line (and this is why we have the ANI open to combat the other issues) is that between you and Timeshifter taking turns reverting 1-2-1, the consensus, which has stood for six years, can't be restored without engaging in the edit war you guys started two days ago. That's it. (period) So, while you can call these "drama boards" and what not, the basic reason I came here is to request additional third party editors to comment on the discussion. Erikeltic 01:48, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

This is the wrong forum for opinions on content. Try WP:3O Fasttimes68 (talk) 01:50, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

According to WP:30, "If more than two editors are involved, 3O is not appropriate. Please follow other methods in the dispute resolution process such as the dispute resolution noticeboard." We have more than two editors involved in this issue, so that's why I came here. Erikeltic 01:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

You know when I saw the headline of this DR I thought it was someone not happy that their country was not listed! My immediate thought was simply have to 2 tables one by per capita and then another by country a-z, as soon as I got to the article page, I soon realised I could order the columns by clicking on the little headers in the top row, I really dont see a problem as it can be reorded a-z if desired. As Wahrmund said above, the reader expects to see the breakdown by per capita as that is what the article is titled, same problem could exist either way depending how the article was titled but you can sort by clicking in the header row so I see no issue here, leave it as is and if needs be, put a note that it can be reordered by clicking on the header row for those that dont know or see what the little arrows indicate. Webwidget (talk) 23:04, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Arranging a list alphabetically without rankings is much easier to maintain than a list with rankings. It is sometimes a huge pain to update numerical lists, especially large ones. The problem with using an alphabetical list is that readers tend to prefer having a numerical list. We do have a method of sorting the table numerically by pressing the sort button but most readers from what I've seen are unaware that they can sort numerically. There is no indication that such a feature exists. Elockid 21:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me, Elockid, that you just answered the question yourself. If it's sortable, but it's not intuitively obvious that it's sortable, add a note (before or after) that informs readers that it's sortable. - Jorgath (talk) 17:24, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

War on Women

• War on Women (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The dispute is over whether it's an "attack" phrase or used as a "pejorative" in the lead. As it currently stands there are no reliable sources calling the phrase an "attack" phrase nor a pejorative. The editors' reasoning is that because it can be used to attack people (as an RS would say) that the lead it should say it is "used as an attack."

This violates WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV because it infers that the phrase is used solely to attack people when no RS makes such a claim. By that logic the phrase can mean policies that "attack women." The obvious mainstream interpretation is that it's simply a phrase used to describe policies. As well the editors have claimed consensus which cannot be used to violate Misplaced Pages policies.

For comparison, the phrase Feminazi has four sources claiming it's a pejorative and doesn't claim to be an "attack" phrase or "used to attack" feminists. This by comparison has no sources for either. CartoonDiablo (talk) 01:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• CartoonDiablo (talk · contribs)
• 24dot (talk · contribs)
• Morphh (talk · contribs)
• OSborn (talk · contribs)
• Kilopi (talk · contribs)
• Lionelt (talk · contribs)
• Arzel (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=War on Women}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Discussed it on the talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

Helping to decide whether or not the phrase can adequately be called an "attack" phrase, a "pejorative" etc. or whether its just a description of policies.

CartoonDiablo (talk) 01:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

War on Women discussion

Note: The thread in question is Talk:War_on_Women#.22Attack.22.2F.22Used_by_democrats.22_in_lead. OSborn _contribs. 02:24, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Just for reference the lead that I proposed would say:

The War on Women is a political phrase used to describe Republican Party initiatives in federal and state legislatures to restrict women, especially with regard to reproductive rights.

Right now the consensus is to add that it's a "pejorative" that's "used to attack" without any RS for either claim. The fact is no reliable source has ever claimed that it's a pejorative or that it's solely used to attack Republicans. CartoonDiablo (talk) 06:41, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll note that CartoonDiablo removes the qualifier that specifies this is an opinion, suggesting as a statement of fact that the initiatives restrict women. Of course, opponents would argue that they promote life, protect religious freedom, and that the entire thing is fabricated. Right or wrong, point is, it's an opinion that needs to be qualified. Morphh 13:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll also note that sources have been provided and the majority of sources use the term as a charge against Republican policies. This is, however, not good enough for CartoonDiablo, as they don't specify that the term can be used "solely", "only", "exclusively" to attack the policies. As if one side proudly proclaims they voted for the "War on Women", which CartoonDiablo argues just describes a group of policies. I'm open to other language. I'm not married to the exact terms "attack" or "pejorative", but I do think we have to describe the combative charge implied by the term's use, which is supported by such use in reliable sources. The term by itself charges wrongdoing against women and Republicans are the recipients of that charge. In the vast majority of cases, someone invoking this term in political discourse is attacking certain policies as wrong. Morphh 13:11, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The overwhelming majority of the sources say its done to restrict or limit women; including the pro-life and religious arguments would be under WP:Due and WP:Fringe, obviously there's a place for them but they are not the mainstream definition of the phrase.

That aside, sources do not call it an "attack" anymore then they say the policies are an "attack" on women, to show either you would need sources just like how the Feminazi article has four sources for the claim that it's a pejorative. What they say is it's a description of policies, you can "attack" someone with that description or it can be used to "attack" women but neither supersedes the intention to describe the policies.. CartoonDiablo (talk) 20:37, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I briefly stated my position on the talk page where a rough consensus seems to be emerging and don't intend to add much to it here. The term is usually used by Democrats to criticize Republicans, and sometimes used by non-Democrats or to criticize non-Republicans. Despite CartoonDiablo's protestations, I have still never seen the term used to portray whoever is alleged to be waging the war in a positive or neutral light. I don't much care which sources are used (several have been suggested on the talk page) and am open to negotiation on the exact wording so long as it doesn't misrepresent the typical usage as attested by multiple sources. Kilopi (talk) 20:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

None of the sources for the lead, (UniteWomen, NOW, Melinda Gates, GOP women etc.) are Democrats, claiming such would be WP:NPOV. That aside, that would be your (Kilopi's) interpretation of the phrase but there is not a single reliable source claiming that the War on Women is a pejorative or used solely to attack Republicans which is what the lead is claiming.

As far as I can tell, the lead now is a misrepresentation of the phrase. CartoonDiablo (talk) 00:15, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

CartoonDiablo claims there are no sources to support calling "War on Women" a pejorative or attack phrase, but The Hill, National Journal, Politifact and FactCheck sources provided on the Talk page all characterize the phrase that way. CartoonDiablo dismisses these claiming that War on Women is not used exclusively in a pejorative context but I have yet to see any other usage (to clarify: I recall hearing other usage but it was still as a pejorative and it was not regarding the issues the rest of the lede discusses) and regardless this is by far the main use.

CartoonDiablo's proposed version biases (diff) the page. As I remarked on the Talk:, the context of the phrase being a pejorative is extremely important to maintaining a NPOV. CartoonDiablo later went on the claim on the Talk: that "I don't think that would be proper because it's almost universally accepted that they are policies that restrict women, not just "charged" with doing it" which is quite non-neutral.

This has gone round and round and the consensus from the Talk page is that the phrase should be characterized in the lede as a pejorative and/or attack phrase. OSborn _contribs. 20:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

None of those sources claims the phrase is pejorative or that it's solely used to attack women, what it claims is that the phrase has been used in the action of attacking someone which isn't any kind of justification since any phrase can be used to attack anyone.

By that logic these sources would warrant defining the phrase as an "attack on women":

• What's Behind the Conservative Attack on Women? - The New Yorker
• Reproductive Health Laws Prove GOP 'War on Women' Is No Fiction - U.S. News & World Report
• The Campaign Against Women - The New York Times
• War Over Women Comes to White House - ABC News
• GOP 'War On Women' Loses Momentum In The States - Huffington Post
• Melinda Gates hits out at 'war on women' on eve of summit - The Guardian (this source is actually used)

Does that mean the War on Women should be defined as an "attack on women"? No it doesn't, but neither should it be defined as an "attack" on Republicans or a pejorative especially when there's less evidence for doing so. CartoonDiablo (talk) 20:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

And secondly, consensus doesn't allow for violating Misplaced Pages policies and by defining it in the NPOV way it is right now that's exactly what the editors are doing. CartoonDiablo (talk) 20:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

You are mistaken, those articles are using the phrase as a pejorative. They are instances of the pejorative being used. Incidentally, those are opinions pieces rather AFAIK more journalistic pieces like the Politifact source. OSborn _contribs. 20:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The ABC News, Huffington Post and Guardian articles are not opinion pieces and none of the sources you cited claim it's "pejorative"; that is your interpretation of how the articles are "using the phrase" which would amount to WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV.

Likewise in none of the articles I posted can it be deduced that it is an "attack on women." What the obvious mainstream opinion of the sources is that it's a description of the policies, it's neither an "attack" on Republicans nor is it an "attack" on women; to use either is to use WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Even in the sources that are not directly using the phrase (the non-opinion ones) the sources are reporting on others using the phrase in a pejorative fashion. As I stated on the Talk, the Politifact source mentions "... the left’s "War on Women" attacks against Republican ". At this point we are simply rehashing the discussion that has already taken place on Talk:. OSborn _contribs. 21:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

What "fashion" the sources are reporting on it is based on your (OSborn's) interpretation, not the actual sources. By that logic, the other non-opinion ones are using it in a "fashion" which says that it amounts to an "attack on women." Unless a reliable source explicitly calls it a pejorative or says it's primarily used to "attack" Republicans then your interpretation of it isn't any better than mine. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Do the sources contradict the phrase being a pejorative? They are simply the other half of the lede sentence, " argued to ". OSborn _contribs. 21:54, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

It's obviously an accusation being made. There's nothing biased in stating that fact. It's also an accurate accusation, as revealed by even three female GOP politicians objecting to their own party's restrictions on women's rights. There are plenty of sources to use for such wording. -- Brangifer (talk) 15:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

To OSborn, do the sources contradict that it's an "attack on women"? The fact is it's a judgement call on your part, not on the source. Unless a source explicitly states it's a pejorative or an "attack" then your engaging in WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV.

To Brangifer, any phrase can be used to accuse anyone in a given context but that doesn't mean its exclusively used as such. If you were to infer from a source that it's a pejorative based on that (as opposed to it explicitly saying that), then it would be your interpretation not the source's. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

As has been demonstrated several times now, reliable sources do characterize the phrase as an "attack" and as nobody is coming forward with sources which contradict, I think we've settled that the phrase is in fact an attack and/or pejorative. There is no synthesis here. This is a claim which has been clearly stated in several sources. OSborn _contribs. 21:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

CD, I'm not sure what your objections really are here. Your arguments are confusing, as if there's a hidden agenda, or am I missing something? I'll AGF and assume you've got a good explanation. I don't want to misunderstand you, so I'll just ask you.

Are your objections purely based in policy, i.e. to avoid a SYNTH violation? Fine! Then all we need is to find how RS describe the use of the phrase. It really make no difference if it's objective fact or an opinion, since we document opinions here. We can even attribute it if that will help. Right? There are many descriptions, including "attack" and "accusation", and numerous variations that are synonyms. We can just pick a couple good quotes from RS (using the words) and be done with it. If you disagree, then say so. In the mean time other editors can start searching for good examples and proposing them after you reply.

....or is your disagreement based on an attempt to somehow shield the Democrats (I voted for Obama, and likely will again) from appearing to "attack" their rightful opponents, the GOP? There is no point in that. Avoiding that makes the Dems look like cowards. Tell it like it is. The GOP is up to no good when they attack women's rights in their attempts to take us back a couple hundred years. It's just a matter of how it's described, so don't be afraid to document that the Democrats are defending women by attacking the GOP's war on women, because that's what it is, and even female GOP senators agree.

....or is it some other problem? -- Brangifer (talk) 01:19, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

To OSborn, no they do not (and no they haven't). Reliable sources say it's both an "attack" on women and an "attack" on Republicans, that is because the action of how the phrase is used is not necessarily the definition. You could "attack" anyone using any phrase but that would not change the definition of it.

To Brangifer let me rephrase myself, there is not a single RS that defines the phrase as either a pejorative or an attack, editors are using SYNTH by interpreting the action of how the phrase is used as the definition when it clearly isn't. For War on Women to be considered an attack or pejorative it would need to be like the Feminazi article where it is defined by reliable sources as a pejorative or attack, and not just used in the context of one. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:36, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• Hello. I am a volunteer here at DRN. Please note that the purpose of this noticeboard is to request dispute resolution and seek assistance from outside editors -it's not an extension of the article talk page. You are all free to continue discussing the issue on the talk page until a volunteer opens the discussion - if it hasn't been looked at in a few hours I'll do it myself, but please cease discussion for the time being. It makes things difficult for us because we have to read through a wall of text to understand the dispute and this takes longer. Thanks for your patience. Steven Zhang 07:19, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Question - I'd be willing to help get consensus on this. Starting with the word "pejorative": that is a very loaded word, and it does need reliable sources to justify its use, particularly in the first sentence of the lead. At first glance, it looks like the lead would read just fine without that word: "The "War on Women" is a pejorative political phrase used to describe Republican Party initiatives ...". So, editors that want to include "pejorative" need to provide some strong sources that use that word or a close synonym. If the sources are few or weak, it is better to omit the word from the lead, and instead go into detail about that issue (that is, is it pejorative or not?) in the body of the article. Could some editor please post quotes from sources that use "pejorative" (or a close synonym) to describe WoW? --Noleander (talk) 21:04, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly what I'm talking about. As the sources currently state, the phrase is just a description with no mention of it being a pejorative or an "attack" outside of being used as one (which is done for different reasons on both sides). My point with SYNTH is editors are trying to use sources which do not define the phrase is pejorative or an attack but use it in the context of one to try and show it as an attack or pejorative.

As far as I can tell, no RS has ever defined War on Women as an attack phrase or pejorative. CartoonDiablo (talk) 21:36, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the first couple sentences of any article are typically used to define the topic of the article, so any descriptive adjectives need to be strongly rooted in reliable sources. Absent that, the "pejoartiveness" of the WoW phrase should be discussed in the body, not the lead. But let's wait a couple of days and see if any sources turn up. --Noleander (talk) 04:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Synonyms that demonstrate (quotes) the way the term is used

There is no need for editorial synthesis to find the descriptions used in RS. Here are some references which contain such descriptive words (bold emphasis added): -- Brangifer (talk) 01:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

An accusation

• Accusations of GOP's war on women are not 'for no reason', The Rachel Maddow Show, NBC News, April 14, 2012

• Dispatches From the War on Contraception, Slate, Amanda Marcotte, July 18, 2012

• "With all the angry denials earlier this year from Republicans who have been accused of conducting a war on women, you might think that those same Republicans might just lay off that war until after the election, if only to suck the momentum out of their critics' narrative."

A description

• John McCain: 'War On Women' Is 'Imaginary,' 'Conjured' By Democrats, The Huffington Post, Laura Bassett, 04/26/2012

• "Democrats have increasingly referred to the "War on Women" over the past several months to describe the GOP's sustained legislative focus on issues that affect women's health and rights. An amendment to a sweeping transportation bill pushed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) would have allowed employers to deny women contraception coverage for any moral reason. Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) vetoed funding for rape crisis centers last week, and several GOP governors supported legislation that mandates medically unnecessary ultrasound procedures for women who are seeking abortions. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), meanwhile, recently repealed the state's equal pay law."

• (The one above lists several of the various ways in which the GOP have been attacking "women's health and rights".)

• The War on Sex: The Contraception Controversy's Hidden Agenda, Ruth Bettelheim, Ph.D., The Huffington Post, 03/6/2012

• "This controversy has been described as a war on women. It may be that, but it is also, and perhaps more effectively, a war against sexuality itself."

• GOP tried to make most of supermajority, Alia Beard Rau, USA Today, 5/6/2012

• "Abortion-rights and women's-rights groups rallied against what they described as a war on women at the Arizona Legislature -- and nationwide."

On another note, who started using the phrase? The answer is here! -- Brangifer (talk) 01:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Brangifer: Could you explain the purpose of the lower sources under "Descriptions"? (The "accusations" examples do support the notion of pejorative a bit, so I'm not questioning them). Is the purpose of the Descriptive examples to show that sometimes the WoW term is used in a non-pejorative sense? --Noleander (talk) 14:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Not exactly. They are used as examples of it being called a "description". It's a very neutral term that doesn't really serve any purpose, in the sense that it doesn't describe the motivation for using the phrase. It's obviously a term that's being used to attack GOP legislation. It's a direct accusation. In that sense it's obviously a pejorative term, but we don't need to use the word "pejorative", when we already have RS that use the term "accusation". We don't have to use it in the lead, although the lead would be rather "duh" without it. The motivation for using the phrase needs to be stated in the lead, and "accusation" and "attack" are found in RS. (I still don't get why CD is talking about "defining" the term. That's unnecessary. We can safely ignore that, or at least treat it as another issue unrelated to this one. In that sense it's become a straw man which successfully sidetracks us from dealing with this matter at hand.) -- Brangifer (talk) 05:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Copying from talk, 24dot provided:

The Hill, July 2, 2012—"The memo is just the latest part of the Democrats' long-running attack on what they consider the Republicans' "war on women."" National Journal, July 10, 2012—"When it comes to waging the "war on women" attack on Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the Obama campaign is pushing the envelope."

Kilopi provided Politifact Democrats and labor leaders are giving this a high profile, mirroring the left’s "War on Women" attacks against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. and FactCheck It was Romney who first attacked the president’s economic policies as a “war on women,” citing specifically the fact that 92 percent of the jobs lost under Obama were lost by women.

Only the National Journal source has ever been disputed (as an opinion piece.) I have yet to see a source which directly contradicts these sources. OSborn _contribs. 17:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Correct. We could use the word "attack", using RS. The phrase is indeed used as an attack on the GOP's War on Women. So we could say "attack" or "accusation". Either one is backed by RS. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The only reliable source that supports it being an "accusation" is the slate article but again that's not a definition, it's an action or context in which the word is being used.

And again to OSborn, Politifact and FactCheck are not defining the phrase as an attack, it's mentioning the action that some are using it as. By that logic we would have to include this:

Attack on Women

• War Over Women Comes to White House - ABC News

• "Lisa Murkowski, speaking about reproductive rights, telling a Chamber of Commerce crowd in Alaska that "it makes no sense to make this attack on women."

• GOP 'War On Women' Loses Momentum In The States - Huffington Post

• "This year, the legislators here have seen a huge increase in vocal opposition to some of the things they're doing to attack women's health care and their access to it," he told HuffPost.

• Melinda Gates hits out at 'war on women' on eve of summit - The Guardian (this source is actually used)

• Anti-abortion campaigners in the US have seized on comments by a Harvard professor, Lant Pritchett, who attacked Gates for counting women who have not expressed a desire for contraception as needing it.

• "War on Women" - American Civil Liberties Union

• The "War on Women" describes the legislative and rhetorical attacks on women and women’s rights taking place across the nation.

My point with this is not that it is an attack on women, it's that it follows the same logic, unless an RS explicitly defines it as an "attack" or pejorative (of which none have) then we are to assume it is a description. CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:45, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Forget about "defining the phrase". That's irrelevant to this discussion. We're seeking to find words that describe the motivation behind the use of the phrase. It's used to accuse and attack (both pejorative terms) the GOP, first by Democrats, and it's been picked up by others. It was started by a very high-ranking Democrat.

Secondly, you're mixing the GOP's counter attack (using the same Democratic phrase, which is the subject of this article) into this discussion. That will only confuse things. If you want to deal with that, start a new thread. They use it in a totally different way, but also as an attack/response, and because the Dems used it first, it's a counter attack. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Idea - How about rephrasing the lead to something like:

The War on Women is a phrase used to describe conservative initiatives in federal and state legislatures that are perceived as limiting women's rights, particularly reproductive rights. The phrase is often used by feminists or liberals when attacking or criticizing conservative positions.

That removes the "pejorative" from the encyclopedias voice, and uses "attack" in a manner that is more consistent with the sources. --Noleander (talk) 19:51, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

That would also require putting in the opinion that it's seen as an "attack" on women. It's why I think the best solution is for using a neutral description:

The War on Women is a political phrase used to describe Republican Party initiatives in federal and state legislatures which are seen as restricting women, especially with regard to reproductive rights.

CartoonDiablo (talk) 01:18, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Of course we can just state that the Dems say the GOP is waging a war on women, but that says nothing about the spirit in which they're doing it. They are justifiably upset and created the phrase as an attack on the GOP. Read this article which describes its creation and history. It was started by a Democratic Representative, and then became widely known when Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz became the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. It became THE attack phrase used by the party against the GOP's legislative actions that attacked women's health and rights.

I favor that the lead (after inclusion in the body) uses descriptive word(s) that show RS consider it an "attack" and "accusation". -- Brangifer (talk) 05:14, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

What we end up with is:

""The "War on Women" is a political slogan used by Democrats asserting that Republican policies are contrary to the interests of women with regard to "reproductive rights." Close enough? Collect (talk) 18:53, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

That catches the essence of its use very neutrally. We could make it even more descriptive, assuming the body of the article already has such content:

• "The phrase War on Women is a political slogan first used by Democrats in response to Republican statements and legislation which they believed attacked women's sexuality and reproductive rights, as well as limited their access to healthcare. It became a popular catchphrase used by women's rights groups, and even some female GOP politicians, to criticize such GOP legislation."

Brangifer (talk) 20:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

To Brangifer, that wouldn't work because:

• Neither the Slate article you cited nor any other source calls it an "attack" or "pejorative"
• Unless you consider virtually every women's group in the US the Democratic Party its not exclusively used by them.
• The intro says how it became popular and how its used (as well as the background in the article), the lead is meant to give a contemporary definition, not a timeline. CartoonDiablo (talk) 22:30, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

There are sources above which use the word "attack" and "accusation". We don't need to use the word "pejorative", but it's easy to find RS which use words like "attack" and "accusation", which clearly demonstrate that WoW is used in a pejorative sense. (It is not used to flatter the GOP!)

The lead is meant to sum up the article, starting with a definition, which necessarily involves a few words (or even single word) that reveal the motivation for the use of the phrase. It's a political attack phrase. All parties do it, and the Dems aren't cowards. They're attacking the GOP for their attacks on women, IOW the Dems are defending women against the GOP's attacks on them. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I could go for Collect's wording but note that the term is not limited to reproductive rights. There's still terms like Anti-choice, Pro-birth, etc. for that. The War on Women term is interesting in that it also encompasses non-reproductive aspects of women's health (breast cancer, maybe osteoporosis), various aspects of employment law, funding anti-domestic violence programs, and probably a few other things considered as a unified agenda. Kilopi (talk) 23:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

You are quite right. It is a phrase that responds to many aspects related to women. One source above calls it (the GOP's legislation) an attack on women's sexuality. The many areas related to women that are under attack seem to be an attempt to roll back the clock to a time when women had no rights, with Rush Limbaugh calling giving women the right to vote a bad move. My wording includes more than reproductive rights. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Stephanie Adams

User:Hal 9000 Jr. has been blocked. Nothing to do Fasttimes68 (talk) 00:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. – New discussion. Filed by Hal 9000 Jr. on 23:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC). Stephanie Adams (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? There is currently an excessive amount of contentious posting taking place on Talk:Stephanie Adams. The primary bone of contention seems to be over her teaching a Learning Annex course on "How to Marry Rich," the tone of which seems to suggest disparaging intent. Without relevant amplification, what's the point of inserting this information? And if maligning Stephanie Adams isn't the intention of those who support the insertion, then why are they so dogged in their attempts to add it? Admittedly, I visited the page because I'm a fan of the subject, and I was floored to find Armageddon on the talkpage. Obscenities and personal attacks are being hurled back and forth throughout, and no Misplaced Pages admin has done anything to bring this flagrant lack of professionalism to a halt. Please make a determination on this matter. Hal 9000 Jr. (talk) 23:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? Delicious carbuncle (talk · contribs) Fasttimes68 (talk · contribs) Errant (talk · contribs) Hoary (talk · contribs) Milowent (talk · contribs) Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Yes. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Stephanie Adams}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? None but to contact a Misplaced Pages admin for conflict resolution. How do you think we can help? Make a determination on the matter. Hal 9000 Jr. (talk) 23:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Stephanie Adams discussion Discussion about the issues listed above takes place here. Remember to keep your comments calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Date Windowing deletion proposal and Shadowjams misconduct

wrong venue. Try WP:RFCC or WP:DRWP:DELREVCurb Chain (talk) 16:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. – New discussion. Filed by Fresheneesz on 02:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC). ]  Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? User:Shadowjams has repeatedly ignored WP:Assume good faith and WP:Speedy when marking pages for deletion and interacting with myself and other (completely unrelated) users. You can see clearly from his talk page that he completely ignores my attempts to discuss his deletion proposal of Date_windowing, and only responded after I started investigating his conduct with other users. I listed a few cases on his talk page where he has made incorrect edits and then either ignored the users who have come to his talk page to discuss them, or wasn't cooperative with those users. I responded in detail on my talk page. This user is badgering me because I nominated an article they created. They then dug through my edit history to find some supposed faults of mine. I've responded multiple times to them on my talk page and they're just going around in circles with the same claims. Shadowjams (talk) 05:30, 19 July 2012 (UTC) I did mention your response to my "badgering". However, the only things you really responded to were the diffs I enumerated. You simply ignored my comments about your afd, you ignored my point about non-notability, you ignored all my points about how you ignore *other* users as well. As a matter of fact, your response here again ignores the fact that I said "he completely ignores my attempts to discuss his deletion proposal of Date_windowing" - which is as a matter of fact, what started this whole thing. Fresheneesz (talk) 09:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? Shadowjams (talk · contribs) Fresheneesz (talk · contribs) Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Yes To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Date Windowing deletion proposal and Shadowjams misconduct}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? I have attempted to talk to him about his proposal for speedy deletion on the talk page of the article, I've attempted to talk to him about his afd on his talk page, and I've attempted to talk to him about his conduct toward other users on his talk page. How do you think we can help? I'm wondering if I'm perhaps misunderstanding the policies of assuming good faith and creating speedy deletions, and if not, informing me how I can deal with a non-cooperative administrator who I believe is hurting the wikipedia community. Fresheneesz (talk) 02:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC) As said below, I'm not an admin, nor have I claimed to be one. Shadowjams (talk) 05:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Fine. You're certainly involved enough though. The point here is not whether or not you're an admin, my concern is about your conduct. Fresheneesz (talk) 09:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Date Windowing deletion proposal and Shadowjams misconduct discussion Discussion about the issues listed above takes place here. Remember to keep your comments calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. While it doesn't really effect the discussion here, it should be clarified that User:Shadowjams is not an admin. Monty845 02:54, 19 July 2012 (UTC) You're right on both accounts. I assumed that he was based on the fact that he has rollback rights and uses special tools. Fresheneesz (talk) 09:14, 19 July 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sikorsky S-76

• Sikorsky S-76 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The s-76 is a Sikorsky helicopter created at the same time (a year later) that Sikorsky built the S-70. The S-76 uses the same general drivetrain, although owing to it's civilian focus it doesn't have the armor or crashability features of the s-70, so it can use shorter rotors, smaller engines. While the editors patrolling the article allow vague mentions of similarities between the two helicopters, they will revert any mention that the blades are of the same composition, and airfoil, the rotor head is the same, the bearing of both the main and tail rotor is the same, and the transmission is of the same design. This information is supported by references, but they refuse any mention of the information, and insist that the references do not support the information... I cannot reconcile the contents of the references, and any statement denying facts about the composition of the rotor, the air foil of the rotor, the main rotor head, the main rotor bearing, the transmission, or the bearingless tail rotor.

An impasse has been reached.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• TeeTylerToe (talk · contribs)
• Ahunt (talk · contribs)
• Fnlayson (talk · contribs)
• Kyteto (talk · contribs)
• YSSYguy (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Sikorsky S-76}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

• How do you think we can help?

Break the impasse

TeeTylerToe (talk) 21:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Sikorsky S-76 discussion

• The comment under discussion on the talk page was that the S-76 was a civil version of the S-70 which the dispute overview doesnt mention, none of the other editors agreed with User:TeeTylerToe that the S-76 is a civil version of S-70 but nobody was disputing that some of the technology is the same as would be expected from the same manufacturer. User:TeeTylerToe added a statement to the article which was not that clear but stated that the two did not have the same engines, rotors and engines, the changes were reverted hence the talk page discussion. No reliable sources were provided that state the S-76 is a civil S-70 and original research by looking at photographs will show they are different helicopters. I dont see any impasse or a dispute. MilborneOne (talk) 22:20, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• There is no dispute or impasse to be resolved. User:TeeTylerToe proposed changes to the article and provided references that showed that his proposed changes were factually incorrect. The unanimous consensus of the other editors working on the page was to not include his content as per WP:V, but he included it anyway and was reverted. He seems unable to accept that his counter-factual POV is not acceptable in an encyclopedia, refused to accept consensus and has also refused to drop the matter. Even after the Talk:Sikorsky S-76 discussion was closed he tried to continue it on his own talk page and when that resulted in an admin threatening to block him for POV-pushing, here we are now. This has now gone from mere POV pushing to Misplaced Pages:Tendentious editing against an established consensus. - Ahunt (talk) 22:50, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• The above says it much better than I could ever. This is a case of an editor who refuses to listen and is tendentiously editing to push his point of view, based on original research, against verifiabile reality. TTT, WP:CONSENSUS does not mean "agreeing with me". Please drop the stick before you are blocked for being disruptive. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:11, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• I do not know why I have been listed as "involved in a dispute". A discussion was being held on the talk page, I provided my (civil) opinion on this issue once, and have not returned since - I have not fought for a perspective, nor have I participated in the discussion but on that one instance - Providing an opinion on the issue to help achieve a healthy level of participation towards consensus is not, in my opinion, a dispute, unless having an opinion that isn't entirely identical to one other editor's is now grounds for labelling as disputing. Kyteto (talk) 23:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• Contrary to MilborneOne's assertion, my edits were factually supported by references. Also "they look different" has no bearing on the similarities in the drivetrain of the two helicopters.

Contrary to Ahunt's assertion, the edits were factually supported by the reference.

None of the editors arguing against the edit seem willing to make any counter-argument that details any one fact that is not supported by the references, yet they repeatedly insist that there is a disagreement of fact. What exact factual error is there in the edit?TeeTylerToe (talk) 23:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

• COMMENT: Uninvolved third party here, pointing out for TeeTylerToe to read WP:Synthesis, which states that "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be a synthesis of published material to advance a new position, which is original research.(Jimmy Wales has said of synthesized historical theories: "Some who completely understand why Misplaced Pages ought not create novel theories of physics by citing the results of experiments and so on and synthesizing them into something new, may fail to see how the same thing applies to history." (Wales, Jimmy. "Original research", December 6, 2004) "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article." The general consensus amongst the regular editor has spoken up, we all agree that you have a case of your own original research to argue here, even the history books is against you. What you represent is nothing short of WP:Fringe theories. --Dave 01:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
  • There is no synthesis. The sikorskyarchives reference is the source of everything in the edit. The second source is simply there as a secondary source. Other editors keep disputing the facts of that edit which is why there are two references.TeeTylerToe (talk) 02:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
    • TTT, when everybody else is saying you're wrong, you might want to at least consider that maybe the problem isn't them. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
      • You've read both the sikorskyarchives page and my edit. Are you now for the first time entering a claim that the edit represents a synthesis between the two links? Maybe the reason that I still make my argument is because I know that 2+2 isn't 5, that the edit doesn't represent synthesis between the two sources, and that the edit isn't contradicted by the reference.
      • If you ask several people from different religions how the universe was created or something like that, the truth isn't some amalgamation of each of those responses.TeeTylerToe (talk) 02:41, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
        • "the edit isn't contradicted by the reference." That's not the problem though, the issue is that you're trying to insert a conclusion that isn't stated or wholley supported by the reference. Simply because the reference "doesn't disagree" isn't enough, it actually has to agree/state the fact you are trying to place in the article, else you would be stretching what it is actually saying. And considering that is direct quotes from the company's CEO that DO contradict this stance, there are sounces that have a direct opinion contrary to what you have concluded. Kyteto (talk) 10:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
          • "the edit isn't contradicted by the reference." - is a completely fallacious argument. If that were valid you could insert the text "the S-76 and S-70 are the same aircraft" and cite a book on the subject of Elephant Taxonomy using that argument. As per WP:V you need to cite a reference that supports what you are adding, not one that doesn't contradict it. As it stands we have references cited here that do contradict what you are trying to insert. - Ahunt (talk) 11:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
• (Edit conflict) The background to this dispute seems to be that TeeTylerToe doesn't want to acknowledge that the two helicopters are completely different, which is patently obvious to all except for him. He has fixated on similarities between the drivetrains of the two types as being proof that they are the same type, whereas even if the drivetrains were identical, that fundamentally does not make them the same because the airframes are completely different - a fact which he seems determined to ignore, or doesn't understand. I suspect the latter because of a comment he makes on his talk page: "If the only difference between the ch-53 and the ch-54 is the fuselage, I would say they should be considered variants of the same type of helicopter". This is the wrong end of the stick - if the only thing the CH-53 and CH-54 have in common is the drivetrain, they must be treated as distinct types.

The actual text of the particular edit (leaving out the refs) is as follows: The mechanical differences between the s-70 and s-76 include weaker engines, smaller rotors, and the orientation of the tail rotor was changed. While they share transmissions of the same design, it's unknown if the s-76's with less powerful engines share the exact same model of the s-70, though with the increases in engine power the s-76 has gotten, it's possible that if there were differences in the transmission model, those differences no longer exist.

The sentence "The mechanical differences between the s-70 and s-76 include weaker engines, smaller rotors, and the orientation of the tail rotor was changed" is absolutely true. "Weaker engines" means "different engines produced by different manufacturers"; in the case of the S-70 General Electric and in the case of the S-76 four different engines of much less horsepower by three different manufacturers, none of which are General Electric. So, not the same. "Smaller rotors" is self explanatory; so, not the same. "The orientation of the tail rotor was changed" means that on one helicopter it's on the right side of the tail rotor pylon and on the other it's on the left; which means they are fundamentally different because, with the rotor turning in the same direction for both types, the tail rotor gearboxes must turn in opposite directions (in the same sense that the wheels on the left side of your car turn in the opposite direction to those on the right side); so, not the same.

The sentence "while they share transmissions of the same design, it's unknown if the s-76's with less powerful engines share the exact same model of the s-70, though with the increases in engine power the s-76 has gotten, it's possible that if there were differences in the transmission model, those differences no longer exist" is a mixture of falsehood, WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. "While they share transmissions of the same design" is incorrect; for the reason stated above for the tail rotor gearbox, while for the main rotor gearbox it is not true because of the different power absorption requirements and because the S-70 transmission is designed to run without oil for 30 minutes and the S-76's is not; so, not the same. "It's unknown if the s-76's with less powerful engines share the exact same model of the s-70" just means that TeeTylerToe doesn't know; while "with the increases in engine power the s-76 has gotten, it's possible that if there were differences in the transmission model, those differences no longer exist" is OR and SYNTH, in that TeeTylerToe thinks it's possible the differences no longer exist.

It is pointless to include the two sentences in question in the S-76 article, unless one is pushing the POV that the two types are the same, otherwise why mention the information at all? The S-76 article clearly states that it was derived from the S-70, so there is no need for the two sentences. There is no impasse. YSSYguy (talk) 03:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• A "weaker engine" says nothing about the manufacturer of the engine, only that the engine is less powerful. It is factually correct to say that the s-76A has weaker engines. It is also factually correct to say that the s-76A has smaller/shorter rotors.

What I meant with my edit with respect to the transmission is meant to convey that both the s-70 and the s-76A use a bull head main transmission rather than a more traditional planetary gear transmission. That said, I believe YSSYguy is overstated the changes required to move the tail rotor from one side to the other. Whether the transmissions were the same, or are the same now or not does not change that they use the same design.

I don't know why editors like YSSYguy are pushing an agenda of suppressing information about similarities between the S-76 and the S-70 whether one is derived from the other, or whether one is a variant of the other.TeeTylerToe (talk) 04:26, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• • Your argument is that since they use the same engine and drivetrain, they are related. This is textbook WP:SYNTH. By that logic, I could say that a 1969 Chevrolet pickup is the same thing as a 1969 Chevrolet Nova, since they both use the 350 small-block Chevy engine and a four-speed manual transmission. The opinion of everyone here but you is that you are editing the article, including the statements of the helicopters using similar/identical drivetrains, to push your POV that these are related models of helicopters. Please listen, drop the stick, and stop pushing this issue, as there comes a point where POV pushing becomes disruptive, and disruptive editing leads to blocks. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
    • That does not relate to the edit in question.TeeTylerToe (talk) 06:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

For more than a week, in an article and on four different Talk Pages you have put forth the opinion that the S-70 and S-76 are one and the same, starting with the inclusion of the S-76 (and S-92) in a list of S-70 models (this edit marking my first involvement) and then the suggestion that the two types' articles be merged. Then you initiate the whole rigmarole here on this page, and eventually state that all you wanted to do was say that both "use a bull head main transmission" instead of another transmission design. If that's all you wanted to say, why didn't you say it? YSSYguy (talk) 08:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what bearing that has on this discussion, but I wanted to create a single article discussing the mechanical design of the s-70. The rotor composition, and airfoil, the forged aluminium rotor head, the elastometric main rotor bearing, the bull head transmission, and the bearingless tail rotor. Because there were 6-9 articles all covering variants or derivatives of the s-70, and all of the covered the same shallow overview, and none of them had any decent depth, and if any one article did have decent depth, it would have been information that belonged in each of those 6-9 articles.TeeTylerToe (talk) 20:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment from (involved) editor. That the S-76 uses technology first used on the S-70 is not in doubt. This does not make one a version or derivative of the other however. Reliable sources all treat the S-70 and S-76 as completly different types, while there is a statement on the S-76 talk page from the then Sikorsky president that the S-76 "...is not a derivative aircraft in any sense of the word". Reliable sources do not refer to the S-76 as the civil version of the S-70, and neither should the articles in question.Nigel Ish (talk) 08:36, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Why is this even an issue? Look at these two web pages:

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/sik_s-70.php

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/sik_s-76.php

Pretty clear, I would say. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Er: WP:AVIASTAR. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 10:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The standard for a link used in a talk page discussion is not the same as the standard for a citation in an article. In fact, Misplaced Pages:External links tells us to discuss links that may violate copyright on talk pages. You can't do that without telling people what the link links to. For the purpose of this discussion all that matters is whether the pictures at aviastar.org are pictures of the rotorcraft in question. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:28, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Judging by the different way references have been interpreted by parties in this case, it probably would be worth clarifying what you mean by Pretty clear.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I mean that they are about as alike as Chaka Khan and Jackie Chan. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:27, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

What bearing does the matter of the type certification of the s-70 and the type certification of the s-76, or the matter of whether the S-76 is a derivative of the S-70 or a variant of it have to do with this edit?TeeTylerToe (talk) 20:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Because this whole thing started as your insistence that the S-70 and the S-76 are the same helicopter, that you continued insisting for quite some length. Due to this your edits stating that the S-76 uses the same drivetrain as the S-70 can only be seen as the same thing. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I have just made this edit, which re-arranged some of the existing copy and which includes the following new material: Sikorsky's design work on the UH-60 Black Hawk was utilised when developing the S-76, which employed the same design- and construction techniques; and aerodynamic features; for its main and tail rotor systems as the UH-60. I believe this is no mre than a re-wording of the information in the source used (here) and gives an appropriate amount of weight to the limited similarities between the two types. YSSYguy (talk) 09:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

User:TeeTylerToe - you can note that it is considered very bad form to bring a dispute here and then when this doesn't seem to be going your way to try to edit war on the article page to get your own way. If you keep this up you will likely be blocked from further editting. - Ahunt (talk) 19:11, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Participants can note that User:TeeTylerToe was blocked 31 hours for edit warring. - Ahunt (talk) 10:10, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Focus on the Family

Appears to be resolved. Guy Macon (talk) 02:41, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Harvard University (Notable people)

• Harvard University (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The problems revolve around the Notable people section. At this point, the most relevant issue is the question of whether the information in this section should have citations. I deleted the section because it was completely uncited and included a lot of BLP information. ElKevbo reverted, objecting on the grounds that " some of it is common knowledge and trivially verifiable." I redeleted per WP:BLP and began a discussion at the talk page. Eeng rereverted shortly thereafter, saying that WP:BLPCAT trumped my reading of BLP.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Bdb484 (talk · contribs)
• ElKevbo (talk · contribs)
• EEng (talk · contribs)
• Hot Stop (talk · contribs)
• Fat&Happy (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Harvard University (Notable people)}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

We're still locked in at the D stage of WP:BRD. I would typically go next to WP:3O, but we're already at five opinions, so my experience tells me that they'd likely decline the request on those grounds.

• How do you think we can help?

We could use a few more eyes and thoughtful opinions.

— Bdb484 (talk) 13:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Harvard University (Notable people) discussion

Why would one need citations when listing notable alumni? Where would the citations link to? Electric Catfish 15:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

What always bothers me about these lists is the lack of citations to show that people qualify for the list. So the citation would link to proof that the person is an alumnus. It's no good saying it's already in the subject's article, as we know we can't use Misplaced Pages articles as sources and that references can come and go in articles. Dougweller (talk) 16:15, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

As it would on any other article, the citations would link to a reliable source supporting the claim that the person is a graduate or faculty member. For instance, Steeler Nation has a section on "famous fans." While I think this information is unencyclopedic, restricting the list to names with sources has helped to keep the list from growing out of control. — Bdb484 (talk) 17:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

We need to discuss the general policy on this at WikiProject Universities. I need time to think about it as I have only just encountered the objection. The vast majority of university and college articles have lists of notable people, and they hardly ever carry references at that point, but most entries are verifiable. We sometimes have had questions about individuals. I know that ElKevbo is careful about these matters and would keep spam entries out. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:39, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it should or should not be the subject of a policy change discussion, but for the time being, I agree with Dougweller. WP:V couldn't be any clearer: "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation." That applies to all parts of WP. This has been challenged (and I can find nothing that says that the reasons for a challenge must be stated, indeed a bare revert without even an edit summary is a sufficient challenge; about the only insufficient challenge would be one which itself somehow violates policy). It must therefore either be sourced or removed. WP:BLPCAT is clearly inapplicable. WP:IAR can be used to create a local exception to WP:V, but to use it, you have to get consensus, and you don't have it. Even if you did, IAR consensuses tend to be pretty fragile since consensus can change. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

BLPcat days the same rules applies for lists. Hot Stop 18:42, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

The crucial phrase is "material likely to be challenged ". Are we worried about Isaac Newton's listing at University of Cambridge? Are we worried about Alan Bennett's (living)? What I suggest is this. We don't need to go into a big dispute here.The WikiProject guidelines will be rewritten to make it clear that all these lists, and paragraphs where it is prose, need inline citation. We will all work on improving the articles. We will add citation needed templates. And where including someone living could possibly be disparaging, we will remove the person's name and leave a message on the article talk page. It will take some time to clean it all up, but we can do it, assuming good faith and working together. Even with BLPs, though, 90 per cent of the time the person is proud to be included as an alumnus and the university is proud have their distinguished alumnus mentioned. At the WikiProject we will advise editors to consult BLPN if there is any doubt at all. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:58, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

But the policy does say, "challenged or likely to be challenged". I think "challenged" is pretty crucial, too, or it wouldn't be in the policy. "Likely to be challenged" is irrelevant if it has, in fact, been challenged. (And I'd also like to just note in passing that anything decided at a WikiProject, such as Universities, cannot under WP:CONLIMITED create an exception to policy, unless the policy-making procedure in WP:POLICY is followed.) I fully agree that there's no need for a big dispute here, because there's no room for a dispute: Once the nonsensical appeal to BLPCAT is disregarded, the matter is solved by WP:V. If anyone wants to start an effort to change policy, that's up to them, but it's not needed to settle this dispute. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:16, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Anything has has been challenged counts with likely to be challenged. However, I'm not going to be deleting whole sections where it is more appropriate to tag. I checked some of our FAs and they do have inline citations for most or all alumni, thank goodness. Some major university articles that aren't yet FA lack the inline citations, and this has not been challenged, mainly because few people would object to being listed as a Harvard or Cambridge alumnus even if it were an error. I also suspect that many lists have been copied or migrated from the universities' own websites, and while this is not ideal, a university is in principle RS for who studied there, Itsmejudith (talk) 19:51, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

In that case, is it possible that the information has actually been sourced (through an External Link to the university website), just not cited inline? - Jorgath (talk) 21:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I wouldn't delete the section, either, and wholly agree that the best practices version is to tag and wait a few days, help look for sources, and then delete whatever hasn't been sourced, but policy clearly says that it's acceptable to just go ahead and delete. @Jorgath: Policy requires an inline citation once the material has been challenged. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:46, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

(1) While I'm sure he meant well I wouldn't call Bdb484's summary a good representation of the discussion that I, and three other editors, have had with him about this at some length on the article Talk page. Out of respect for that effort I ask that people read that discussion prior to commenting and, as a start, address the arguments already made there.

(2) In particular, I'd like to know why my reading of BLPCAT is "nonsensical".

(3) I don't understand how itsmejudith can predict that WikiProject (presumably Wikiproject University) guidelines "will" be changed in such-and-such a way.

(4) Anyway, I belive this is simply a question (though not necessarily a simple question) of interpretation of BLP, with applicability well beyond any one project -- e.g. listings of "notable residents" of cities and towns. If the discussion is going to expand beyond this one article then I suggest it be transferred to BLPN.

(5) But first, I repeat, please read the discussion linked above and speak to the arguments there.

EEng (talk) 22:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I will look at the article talk pages in detail. The reason I can predict that the article guidelines will be changed is that I know that WP:UNI is a fantastic project and is going to follow overall policy. If members of the project feel that the wider guidelines are incorrect, fhey'll take it up in the right places. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Everybody agrees we should follow policy. The disagreement is over exactly what BLP policy requires in this case. I'll be interested to hear what you think after you've read the talk. EEng (talk) 23:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC) P.S. What is "WP:*!* OS"?

@EEng: Perhaps I've missed the point about BLPCAT (it wouldn't be the first time I've ever missed a point). Are you saying that BLPCAT says something about whether or not sources are required or are you citing it for something altogether different? (I get that whatever it says appears to apply to lists as well as categories; I don't contend that it doesn't. I haven't looked at the question of whether it applies equally to embedded lists in textual articles as well as list-only articles, but I'm willing to assume for the time being for the sake of argument that it applies equally to both.) If you contend that it says something about providing sources, what is it that you say it says? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 23:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC) PS: And, yes, before you ask, I have already read the discussion at the article talk page. — TM 00:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The argument re BLPCAT is at ] and I don't know how I could better set it out than as given there. EEng (talk) 22:18, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone might want to notify the Schools WikiProject as well. See, for example, List of Old Wykehamists. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:20, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I added to the article structure guidelines that list items must have inline citations, especially BLPs. If this is insufficient, please let the project know. I'm off on wikibreak now. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:18, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

That list of Wykehamists illustrates some problems, but it also introduces a possible solution.

Problem 1: If permitted to, such lists will grow like weeds into sprawling, uncited messes. (For instance: List of people from New York City or List of University of Oxford people) Including this many names on the "people from" sections of any of these pages would obviously be inappropriate and create some WP:UNDUE problems by making it look like the most important thing about the college was the people who went there. (It's not exactly a "notable people" list, but for an example of lists done right, see The Hollywood Blacklist.)

Problem 2: If someone just wants a list of people affiliated with a place or institution or whatever, they cannot typically rely on Misplaced Pages lists because it is not practical for them to click through every single link on a page like this. If we want Misplaced Pages to be reliable, we have to put the citations on the pages where the information is, i.e. every page.

I think this demonstrates the need to treat these pages differently. It might make more sense to have a "Notable people" section on the page itself, but with stringent criteria to keep the list from growing out of control or creating the undue weight problems -- for instance, limiting the section to people whose affiliation with the institution is, in and of itself, notable. That would require coverage of the link between the two-- not just mention of it -- in reliable sources. That would keep the list down, but the section could also include a hatnote to "List of people from X," where anyone's name could be added, assuming it was accompanied with a citation. — Bdb484 (talk) 14:03, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like the community agrees that all this material should be accompanied by inline citations. I've gone ahead and tagged the offending material so we can pull together those citations in the near future or strike it if no one bothers.

So have we reached a resolution on this? I don't want to put words in anyone's mouths, but I also don't want to leave this active on the noticeboard if we've reached a consensus.— Bdb484 (talk) 17:37, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

No, there is certainly no consensus. You brought this here from Talk:Harvard University after four other editors disagreed with your belief that the lack of individual, inline citations for each entry on that article's list of notable faculty, staff, and alumni justified your wholesale deletion of the entire list. Having followed the conversation (but not reviewing it now, so I invite any corrections) I believe the situation is:

(1) There is disagreement (with at least several editors on each side) about whether an inline citation is required for each entry in a university "Notable people" list, where each entry is itself a link to an article covering that person stating -- and presumably sourcing, though gaps are always possible -- that fact. The arguments for no-inline-cite-required include:

• WP:BLPCAT, though oddly written, seems to say that membership of a person in a list or category, where that person has an article on him or her, may be supported by sources found in the article on that person without requiring that the cite be repeated beyond its appearance in the article on the person. Please note no one is saying that no cite is needed; rather the question is whether the cite may appear just once -- in the person's article -- versus needing to be repeated, as an inline cite, in another article which merely lists the person as an alumnus or whathaveyou. Discussion here:
• Though alumni/faculty status could -- like anything else -- conceivably become in a bone of contention in some cases, on the spectrum of potential for angry controversy this ranks low
• Allowing the supporting source to appear just once -- in the person's article -- rather than twice -- in the person's article and in the list -- centralizes scrutiny of the source and, if it happens to be missing, means that supplying it just once (in the person's article) supplies it everywhere it's expected to be.

The arguments for inline-cite-required include

• Assertions that BLP requires it without, despite repeated requests, addressing the arguments above that that's not true

(2) Except for you, even those who do think inline cites ought to be required for list entries do not propose that the lack of such cites justifies wholesale deletion of the list.

Since no one's addressed the argument regarding BLPCAT (other than to call it "nonsensical"), I don't think we can say consensus has been reached.

EEng (talk) 22:18, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Glad I asked. I think the idea of centralizing scrutiny of the source is interesting, but I'm not sure that it doesn't present its own problems. If, as mentioned above, a reader simply wants just a list of novelists from the United States and wants to make sure it's reliable, do we really want them to force them to click through to 1,223 pages just so that we can centralize the vetting of sources? — Bdb484 (talk) 01:25, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, I think the reason no one has followed up on your BLPCAT issue is that no one can find anything in there saying what you're arguing.

BLPCAT says "'Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers" and that its principles apply equally to lists. But you're making it say something that it doesn't, by:

1. mistaking the observation that categories don't carry disclaimers for a principle, rather than a fact that informs the principles;
2. extending that nonexistent "principle" to lists and assuming that a lack of disclaimers eliminates the need for citations
3. overlooking a critical difference between categories and lists, i.e., that categories do not carry disclaimers because they cannot carrry disclaimers -- there just isn't a way to do it in WP.

All of that makes a lot of leaps that I don't think most other editors are willing to make. — Bdb484 (talk) 01:36, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

We simply do not use other articles as sources, that's basic policy and overrides anything in a guideline. Among other reasons, articles get rewritten and sections and sources disappear. Dougweller (talk) 13:40, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Comment - WP policies are clear on this: All material in all WP articles (and lists and categories) must be verifiable, per WP:Verifiability. That means citations (footnotes) must be supplied. Referring to other WP articles or lists is not sufficient. Although it is possible to find other articles without citations, that is not an excuse to avoid providing citations when requested. Per WP:BURDEN, the burden is on the editor wishing to include the material to provide the citations. Before removing uncited material, it is polite to post a notice and wait a couple of weeks before removing uncited material (but it is even more polite to look for citations before removing). --Noleander (talk) 13:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the formatting of the citations: it would look more aesthetic if the footnotes are at the end of each sentence, or the end of each paragraph (rather than next to each name). See WP:CITEBUNDLE for examples on how to do that. --Noleander (talk) 14:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I asked for an explanation of how BLPCAT is supposed to apply to this, and said that I had read the article talk page discussion on the subject, but was answered with the assertion that it cannot be explained better than that. That being the case, then it doesn't apply. — I'm a lawyer and I've been practicing law for over 25 years and I'm both trained and experienced in wringing (some might say strangling, but I wouldn't) every drop of meaning out of a statute, contract, insurance policy, or other rule. (Heck, I even understood where Bill Clinton was coming from when he disputed the meaning of the word "is".) But BLPCAT does not have anything — zero, nada, nothing — to do with sourcing. WP:CIRCULAR is the rule here (and thanks to Dougweller for the reminder of where to find it). Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:20, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Disruption in Serer religion

• Serer religion (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

On 14 July 2012 User:Eladynnus tagged the Serer religion as WP:POV without an edit summary and left a message on the article's talk page suggesting the Serer culture is not as sophisticated as being portrayed here, see POV issues discusion. In that discussion, they also accused me of deliberately presenting inaccurate information and said they needs a French speaker to evaluate all Serer articles and sources. Apparently they had an issue with some images which are actually Serer pictographs. I have told them in that discussion (several times) to be bold and edit the article if they have alternative reliable sources. Instead, they have resulted in edit wars with me by placing tags here, here and here. Even an administrator in that discussion told them their tagging is unjustified, yet they still continued placing tags. I even added an additional ref to the section they take issue with just to keep the peace (better seen here) but their actions have continued (see diffs above). Note also that since this issue started an IP all of a sudden appeared from nowhere and placed a speedy deletion template on the Serer religion article which I have removed here. As of todate, Eladynnus has made no attempt to edit the article other than placing tags (see their contribution history ). Apparently, they are waiting for a French speaker to evaluate all Serer articles and sources (see the discussion above). I've told them I have never heard of that, and Wiki's articles cannot be hijacked in that way. The article is fully referenced and they are free to go through the references. With respect, if they cannot read French, that is their problem not mine. Please would someone intervene in this because this issue is getting out of hand. Note that I have also posted a message to another editor who mistakenly reverted my edits without seeing the previous reference I added, and saying my edit summary was contradictory to the templates I removed .

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Tamsier (talk · contribs)
• Eladynnus (talk · contribs)

Eladynnus should be bold and improve the article if they take issue with a section and introduce RS. I have repeatedly told them to be bold and that I do NOT own these articles and anyone is free to edit them. However, disruption and drive-by-tagging of Wiki articles is not encouraged.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes .

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Serer religion}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

When I first saw their tags and the discussion they opened up in the article's talk page, I have repeatedly told them to assume good faith and be bold and improve the articles if they have other reliable sources that supports their claim . So far, they have made no attempt to improve the article other than tagging it. I have also added an additional source regarding the images they take issue with just to keep the peace , but as you can see, they have added back the POV and disputed fact templates on the article .

• How do you think we can help?

With respect, these tags do not belong to this article. All the previous disputes with actual contributors to this article were resolved. If Eladynnus believes otherwise, they should be bold and edit parts of what they take issue with by adding RS to support their claim. I have told them this many times which they have not done. Wiki articles cannot be hijacked, or waite for a French speaker who may or may not turn up to do their work for them. As such these templates should be removed and Eladynnus should be made aware that what they are doing is disrupting the project. They can go through all the Serer related articles under Category Serer people and evaluate them. I have no problem with that, but kidnapping them (per their remark on the disccussion above and elsewhere) is not permitted per Wiki policy.

Tamsier (talk) 14:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Serer religion discussion

First of all, you don't need to specify an edit summary when tagging articles. Electric Catfish 15:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Electriccatfish2 for your feedback. Perhaps you don't have to but it is considered good practice, wouldn't you agree? Tamsier (talk) 19:01, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I actually did include edit summaries in all of my subsequent restorations of the tags 1 2 3. Eladynnus (talk) 19:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Eladynnus, do you believe the entire article is non-neutral, or that specific sections are? If sections, which ones? - Jorgath (talk) 21:09, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it seems that all of Tamsier's articles are written in a sunny "they believe this-and-this" style which is reminiscent of D&D supplements. The Serer religion article is a good example of this style. I also think that he is attempting to "Sererize" articles about Senegal and The Gambia by "laying claim" to certain ethnic groups, inserting references to the Serer wherever possible, exaggerating the importance of Serer articles by rating the pages himself, and trying to make general discussions of Senegal specifically about the Serer (here). I think the article needs to be rewritten, but due to its sprawl and the way that Tamsier insults those he disagrees with I don't see that happening. Eladynnus (talk) 21:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

This seems to me to be a situation where an {{expert-subject}} tag might have been more appropriate. Although Tammsier seems to have expertise on the Serer, would you mind standing back and letting another expert evaluate this case as a solution to the dispute? - Jorgath (talk) 21:09, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Jorgath for your contribution. I have absolutely no problem in standing back and letting another review the whole article and any Serer related article as far as I am concerned. In fact, the more the merrier and I have told Eladynnus that in the article's talk page. As far as I can guage with any degree of certainty, Eladynnus's objection is the Serer pictographs (images). Although they have placed the POV template at the top of the article indicating they take issue with the article (as well as the fact template under cosmology section), I'm yet to ascertain what they find to be POV, perhaps Eladynnus can explain. But as far as standing back, absolutely no problem. The more editors and eyes the better. Thanks.Tamsier (talk) 21:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Great! Eladynnus, would getting expert eyes on the article be an acceptable resolution for you? - Jorgath (talk) 21:36, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

That would be good, but I also believe that Tamsier's activities need to be closely monitored by third parties as he has been banned in the past for sockpuppeting and attacking other editors. Eladynnus (talk) 21:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd also like to invite Drmies to this discussion before anything is done as he has interacted with Tamsier in the past and may be able to shed some more light on this subject. Eladynnus (talk) 21:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Drmies supported the original removal of the tag because my most immediate issue was with a section detailing "raampa", a writing system which I and JSTOR had never heard of, and which only had a crank's site as a source. Since the NPOV tag is not for that sort of issue, it was probably right that it be removed at that point. Later I articulated my NPOV concerns more clearly and found the appropriate tag for the raampa dispute, but Tamsier seems to believe that any tags are vandalism and has been posting threats, insults, and ultimatums on the talk page ever since. As you can see from my links above, I've had to restore these tags several times (including once where he didn't mention it in the edit summary 1). Eladynnus (talk) 21:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, I see that Tamsier has added a tag to an article which was only written by me, Peasant leagues (Brazil). Judging from the nasty comment on the talk page and his own attitude toward tags, I can hardly believe that this was done in good faith, although I'll be happy to develop the article further before removing the tag. Eladynnus (talk) 21:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Please leave the behavioral issues off of this; the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard is for content disputes only. If you have concerns about Tamsier's behavior, there are other forums for that. As for your other concerns, I believe that an expert evaluating the page would of course evaluate the raampa aspect too. Below is my proposed resolution. - Jorgath (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Jorgath makes a good point. Eladynnus, comments on Tamsier are not for this venue, even though I have plenty of problems with Tamsier's behavior. Tamsier, if you wish to improve our relationship, start by dividing these long sections into shorter paragraphs, s'il vous plait. ;)

  I have no expertise on the subject matter and not much interest, right now, to become an expert, but allow me an observation: I don't see yet that anyone has addressed the language issue and I'd like to state the obvious. Tamsier is obviously correct in pointing out that not knowing French is not their problem. Whatever the French wiki does or does not do is irrelevant here, but citations are citations, no matter which language they are. Having read over the entire talk page again, I find it striking that none of these POV accusations actually state specifically which statement(s) or section(s) or image(s) are supposed to be not-neutral. If the taggers which to make a case for the tags, they should start by making a case for the tags, rather than just play "revert" with an original unexplained tag. Drmies (talk) 23:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Resolution

I propose that the POV tag at the top of the article be replaced by an {{expert-subject}} template with appropriate parameters filled. The in-section tag should be left in place so as to help guide any expert(s) to the locus of the dispute. Both of you would then step back from the article until such time as expert attention has been given to it. Would this be acceptable to both of you? Drmies hasn't yet weighed in, but would you be OK with this resolution too? - Jorgath (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support - I have no problem with that. Tamsier (talk) 23:30, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
• Sure--I don't see much of a problem with that either provided that there is some specificity to it, and that someone on the talk page explains exactly what the problem is. Funny thing is, for all I know Tamsier is somewhat of an expert here. If the only problem is "does this French source verify the information?" then I find the argument for the tag rather weak. Drmies (talk) 23:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
  • If that's actually the only problem, I read French nearly fluently. - Jorgath (talk) 23:53, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
    • I would love to hear what the actual problem is. FWIW, I'm a talented and experienced French kisser and if properly imbibed can recite Boris Vian. Drmies (talk) 23:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Comment - I'm just saying yes here to keep the peace, although I agree pretty much with Drmies observations. I see no justifiable reason for tagging this article but if others think otherwise, then there is no problem.Tamsier (talk) 00:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• I support this. Eladynnus (talk) 00:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
  • You were asked a question above as to what you find to be POV or non-neutral about the article. Do you want to address that in the relevant section? I'm sure it will help others including myself because I still haven't a clue other than your objection with images.Tamsier (talk) 01:24, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• I have changed the tag over as per the proposal. I'll leave this open as to Eladynnus' answer to the POV question for a little while, although I encourage them to post that to the article talk page instead/as well. - Jorgath (talk) 01:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Jorgath--let me propose something here as well. If there are no specific indications of where and how the article is not partial (indications that cannot be derived from opinions about Tamsier or extrapolations from a set of other articles), then there shouldn't be a tag at all. I want Eladynnus to put his money where his mouth his, if you'll pardon my French. Drmies (talk) 04:46, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
    • I looked at some of these articles a while ago and was not happy about what seemed to be exaggerated claims. I certainly saw some interpretations by French authors being put forward as fact and made some minor changes, which Tamsier agreed to. Specifically these were archaeological interpretations of prehistoric artefacts deducing that they showed certain aspects of religion existed much longer ago than any would be expected, and from my studies of English speaking archaeologists I know that these interpretations would in many cases not have been entertained by them.(Sorry, this is a clumsy way of putting what I see as the problem). I would guess that the problems I saw exist elsewhere in related articles, ie interpretations being put forward as fact. A large part of the problem may simply be that only one archaeologist has studied these cultures, and that archaeologist may have an approach that other archaeologists would not share. There's really no way around that except to make sure that the articles make it clear these are interpretations. Of course, there may be criticism of Gravrand somewhere which would be useful. An example of the problem I see is States headed by ancient Serer Lamanes. Gravrand here is basically saying that Serer culture is 10,000 years old. I've read quite a bit of archaeology, and I've never seen a claim that an existing culture is anywhere near that old. Claims that the concept of reincarnation can be shown to have existed that long ago I find equally dubious. I don't know the solution to this, although it would be nice if there were any other experts besides Issa Laye Thiaw, Cheikh Anta Diop and Henry Gravrand. And for the record, I don't consider that Alan Rake, used at States headed by ancient Serer Lamanes as a source for this long time depth, to be a reliable source and I'm bothered that a non-archaeologist would be used for this. Dougweller (talk) 07:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
      • With this edit Tamsier added considerable content. Specifically, he wrote "They were settled people at the time of the Neolithic Era, about 10,000 years ago". This is cited to page 50 of this book. Can someone else comment on whether the source backs the claim, as I don't think it does. Dougweller (talk) 07:53, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
        • The Kingdom of Sine is claimed to be much older than the 14th century, see for instance Timeline of Serer history. The article says it was renamed in the 14th century. However, other sources contradict this. Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal: Disciples and Citizens in Fatick by Leonardo A. Villalón calls it "One of three Serer kingdoms to emerge between the

fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries". And "A nomadic caste: the Fulani woodcarvers historical background and evolution M Dupire" - Anthropos, 1985 - JSTOR "In the case where a non-centralized society became a kingdom in the past (13th century), as among the bilineal Serer of Sine". I'm not convinced I don't see POV problems, specifically presenting a time depth as fact when other sources don't suggest this. Dougweller (talk) 09:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• If I may respond to Dougweller. You and I had this discussion before in the archaeological notice board. And as I said in that that thread, the Serers are mostly dominant in Senegal hence the reason why there are more French sources. Any edit that is made in reference to archaeological sources is made exactly in the light of archaeological evidence. Indeed there is little if not anything at all in the Serer religion article that actually deals with Serer archaeological sites. The article is mainly religious, just like any other religious article on English Misplaced Pages. I also think that you are forcusing too much on Gravrand which is fine and understandable because I have cited him where appropriate. But as I have told you before, there are several other sources (yes most of them in French) such as the works of Charles Becker ("Vestiges historiques, trémoins matériels du passé clans les pays sereer". Dakar. 1993. CNRS - ORS TO M); Cyr Descamps, Guy Thilmans & Y. Thommeret (Les tumulus coquilliers des îles du Saloum (Sénégal), Bulletin ASEQUA, Dakar, Université Cheikh Anta Diop) and many others by Descamps who carried out a detailed archaeological excavation back in the 1970s. You are free to rebuke Gravrand, Thiaw, Diop, or anyhbody else, but they are reliable sources and I have no problem if their is another reliable sources that says otherwise. As regards to the Bafour link you provided above, that was a citation error (a transitional error) as it is the work of Gravrand I am citing there. But since you and I have already had this dicussion before, and considering the fact that it was I who made that external link in good faith so that others can evaluate the sources themselves, I thought you would have realised that was an error on my part rather than trying to hold that against me here. This is the first time I realised that error since I expanded that article. And since you and I have had some conversations about history/archaeology, I would have appreciated a little note on my talk page the minute you realised the error. You are not obliged to do that of course, but it would have been appreciated. If I may now moved on to your next point (the Kingdom of Sine). Provided you know the history, there is nothing contradictory with the King of Sine article and the work of Villalón you cited above. 14th century means the 1300s which I'm sure you well know. And that renaming came via Maad a Sinig Maysa Wali Jaxateh Manneh (var : Maysa Wali Dione), the first member from the Guelowar dynasty to rule in Sine. Reading these two articles (Maysa Wali & Guelowar) would explain exactly what Villalón is talking about there. See also : Alioune Sarr, "Histoire du Sine-Saloum" (Sénégal), Introduction, bibliographie et notes par Charles Becker, (1986-87). As regards to the 15th century (1400s), that relates to another Serer kingdom (the Kingdom of Saloum) renamed during the reign of Mbegan Ndour who regined c. 1494. You may see the work of Abdou Boury Ba, "Essai sur l’histoire du Saloum et du Rip" (avant-propos par Charles Becker et Victor Martin), Bulletin de l'IFAN, tome 38, série B, numéro 4, octobre 1976. I find it rather offensive that I am being accused here of deliberately presenting inaccurate infor. I would not necessarily take great offense to it coming Eladynnus, but when it comes from another editor like Dougweller, that my integrity is put into question, I take great offense to that. I may be very vocal and sometimes rather stubborn, but I respect the the field of history and African history far to much to do anything that tarnishes the profession. As of today, I will create no more African articles in English Wiki. Thank you all for you contribution. Tamsier (talk) 14:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

That seems unnecessary. I don't think it is your integrity but perhaps your zeal, and we are all careless at times. I am a bit uncertain what you are saying about the Kingdom of Sine, but the articles do seem to suggest it is much, more earlier than the 14th century and was simply renamed then, whereas the sources I see don't support that. And as we've agreed, I think, "They were settled people at the time of the Neolithic Era, about 10,000 years ago"." should clearly make it Gravrand's opinion. I don't know of any other claims for a 10,000 year old culture and I find this one extremely dubious. And as I've suggested, one problem is too few opinions which then makes the articles pov. I'm sure that there are sources that provide alternative suggestions as to the origins of these groups. Dougweller (talk) 14:55, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the article in the timeline has already mentioned the "proto-Serers", therefore there is nothing "dubious" at all. The work of Gravrand is backed by Becker, Descamps, etc. You are free to read them. As regards to the Kingdom of Sine, it is just as reported by the prevailing view on the history of Sine and Saloum, and that is the work of Gravrand's "Cosaan" and "Pangool" or Alioune Sarr's "Histoire du Sine-Saloum", contributed to by Becker. You would be hard press to find any scholar writing in detail about the history of Sine or Saloum without reference to Sarr's work or Gravrand's. As I said before, it was renamed in the 14th century (before 1400) during the Guelowar period. However, if you want to go further back to it history, you will need to go back to the Lamanic period. See Alioune Sarr "Histoire du Sine Saloum", you may also see the work of Niokhobaye Diouf ("Chronique du royaume du Sine", Suivie de notes sur les traditions orales et les sources écrites concernant le royaume du Sine par Charles Becker et Victor Martin. Bulletin de l'Ifan (1972)) and Henry Gravrand's ("La civilisation Sereer Cosaan", les orgines vol.1 (1983) & "La civilisation sereer Pangool", vol 2. (1990). Tamsier (talk) 16:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

EDIT - For the record I have corrected the citation error raised above by Dougweller and added a ref to a claim made by another editor .Tamsier (talk) 10:18, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Tamsier went to WP:FTN about phoenicia.org, a fringe website that also hosts some copyvio, and in my reply to him I've raised the issue of the name "Raampa pictgraphs", a name that seems to only appear at phoenicia.org and our articles. These are normally referred to as rock art of the Tassili n'Ajjer or Tassili n'Ajjer rock art - there is quite a bit of literature on this on Google books, for instance. Dougweller (talk) 14:04, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose I thought I was clear that I don't agree with the expert tag being added (or rather only the expert tag). I'd like to see at least the "too few opinions" added. It's a bit more complicated for me as I see "Raampa pictographs" as at best OR and possibly POV. I don't think this is resolved. Dougweller (talk) 16:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment I think it is also worth looking at the Fringe theory notice board following a query that I have opened . Dougweller also seem to assume that I have I said the rock arts of the Tassili n'Ajjer are called Raampa. I have never said the rock arts of the Tassili n'Ajjer are called Raampa. I challenge them to prove otherwise. Any reference that I have ever made regarding the Tassili n'Ajjer is in reference the Serer Pangool, not Raampa. Please do not confuse the two and please do not misrepresent me as you did above and in your edit summary here. Tamsier (talk) 18:34, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
    • QuestionGood faith, please. I've asked what these "Raampa pictographs" are. You are the editor who has added them to articles. They don't seem to exist outside Misplaced Pages and a fringe website. If these aren't the rock art at Tassili n'Ajjer I'm sorry, but you haven't yet explained what they are. We shouldn't be using a name for them that doesn't exist in reliable sources. Where are they, what do reliable sources actually call them or how do they describe them? I thought this was a simple question, but it doesn't seem to be. We shouldn't be calling them the Raampa pictographs, that's a form of original research - we shouldn't be the source of a name for these. Dougweller (talk) 21:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Alan Chambers (Exodus International)

• Alan Chambers (Exodus International) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

An editor is adding a LGBT category to Alan Chambers. Chambers has not self-identified as LGBT and this is a violation of WP:BLPCAT. The editor has violated WP:BRD and seems determined to edit war. On the other hand, even though I can claim the 3RR exemption I will not edit war with the editor.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Lionelt (talk · contribs)
• Bemorej (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Alan Chambers (Exodus International)}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Pointed out the BLP violation to the editor on the article talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

Remove the LGBT category and warn the editor in no uncertain terms that BLP violations will not be tolerated.

– Lionel 07:55, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Alan Chambers (Exodus International) discussion

I am a dispute resolution volunteer. Adding a category like LGBT to a person who has not openly identified themselves as such is a violation of WP:BLPCAT, part of the WP:BLP policy. But it seems to me that the place this should be going is to the BLP noticeboard, where you can get more eyes on it to specifically deal with any violations of the BLP policy. If there's some other content dispute going on, we'll be happy to help with it, but a BLP issue is what they specialize in. - Jorgath (talk) 12:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• I am also a DRN volunteer. It seems that there are 2 citations regarding the LBGT statement. There is one that is reliable and one that is not. On Misplaced Pages, we must be very careful with what we say about living people in BLPs. If it was no sourced properly, it would be a violation of WP: BLPCAT and it would be removed. However, it is fine to put that in if it is reliably sourced. Also, I see edit warring going on. I have issued warnings to the editors involved, but if the reverts continue, I will report them to WP: ANEW and the editors who reverted will likely be blocked. Electric Catfish 13:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• I'm also a regular DRN volunteer. From what I can tell, Chambers concedes, agrees, or admits (the first chapter of his most recent book can be viewed at Amazon) that:

• he once considered himself gay and actively engaged in the homosexual lifestyle,
• sexual attraction to members of the same sex is not a choice and may be, in whole or in part, genetic,
• that such attraction cannot be "cured" and that a person may not become "ex-gay", and
• that he himself is still sexually attracted to men.

What he seems to be saying now is that individuals who have such a sexual attraction may choose not to act upon it just as one may choose not to act upon any other tendency or temptation and may choose instead to live a heterosexual lifestyle, which is what he has done. The guidelines set out in Misplaced Pages:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality say in the "Other considerations" section that "People who occupy the grey areas are not a valid argument against the existence of a category; if they do not fit, they simply should not be added to it." (Emphasis added.) In light of that statement, I see three logical possibilities here:

• Chambers unequivocally self-identifies in reliable sources as a gay man living a heterosexual lifestyle, in which case listing him under LGBT labels, categories, or lists would be acceptable.
• Chambers unequivocally self-identifies in reliable sources as a heterosexual man who has homosexual attractions, in which case listing him under LGBT labels, categories, or lists would be inappropriate. (Why? Because one's self-labeling should always win the day here at Misplaced Pages insofar as lists, categories, and labels are concerned. It's certainly acceptable to note in the text of an article (if it can be shown through reliable sources and does not give inappropriate weight to the issue) any contradiction between one's self-labeling and the actual facts, but for purposes of labels, categories, and lists here one's own self-labeling should control.)
• Chambers does not unequivocally self-identify in either of those ways, or his self-identification cannot be established through reliable sources, in which case listing him under LGBT labels, categories, or lists would also be inappropriate.

The issue is, for Chambers, ultimately definitional (and this could be stated in a couple of different ways, but this is the simplest): Is a person gay because he has homosexual attractions or is he gay because he leads a homosexual lifestyle? His rejection of the term "ex-gay" would seem to indicate the former, but he may be simply rejecting that term because of his belief that one cannot be "cured" of homosexual attractions. For that reason, I believe that unless a reliable source can be found in which Chambers expressly and unequivocally, without any need for analysis or interpretation, self-labels himself as currently being gay that he should not be categorized or listed in any LGBT category or list despite the fact that he self-identifies himself as once having been gay. (Indeed, I note that he is currently still categorized under "People self-identified as ex-gay". Since there are reliable sources such as this which say that he now rejects that term, I think that it ought to also be removed from the article. I do not feel the same way about the "Ex-gay movement" category, by the way; if it can be reliably sourced that he was once part of that movement that category can remain even though he is no longer a part of it, since that's not self-identification about who or what he is.) Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:30, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Addendum: After reading and searching more of Chambers' book "Leaving Homosexuality", I'm more convinced — and I'm the first to admit that what I'm about to say involves original research and could not be included in an article — that my foregoing analysis of the possibilities of how he might or might not self-identify is correct. In his book, most notably at page 133, he talks about part of leaving homosexuality being a rejection of self-identification as being homosexual and substituting for it an identity in Christ: "Whether a male homosexual or a lesbian, there is a push to identify yourself as gay. Life becomes ordered around that. There are gay newspapers, gay magazines, gay television channels, gay tourist attractions, gay jargon, gay churches, and so on. ... For that reason, a large part of 'staying the course' after leaving homosexuality is becoming rooted in your new identity in Christ." On page 143 he refers to "minister to gay-identified people" (emphasis added) and on page 23 he says, "As I often say, the opposite of homosexuality isn't heterosexuality; it's holiness. God wants you to pursue His holiness not heterosexuality." (Emphasis in original.) I'm not suggesting that a search for reliable sources in which he clearly and unequivocally identifies himself as either homosexual or heterosexual shouldn't be undertaken, but from what he says in his book, I strongly suspect that he is taking a nuanced position which at the very least rejects self-identification as a homosexual and may also reject self-identification as a heterosexual. For the reasons I gave above, unless an unequivocal reliable source can be found to prove my analysis wrong, he should not be categorized or listed in LGBT categories. — TransporterMan (TALK) 18:21, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Deftones

• Deftones (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

Disagreement on wither or not post-metal should be included in the infobox to the article. As it stands, there are only two sources that support post-metal in any way but they are weak supports (Creative Loathing describes one album as "shoegaze-metal" while Hololulu Weekly states they have only dabbled in sub-genres such as post-metal). Three other sources are also in the article. However, two of them do not make any mention of post-metal while another is not considered a reliable source for a genre discussion. It should be noted that the genre is included already in the article in the musical style section. The editor argues that there is more weight to post-metal than the other genres already in the infobox, but has yet to provide any strong evidence to support his claim. There had also been a previous discussion on the topic with the same editor involved.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• HrZ (talk · contribs)
• Trascendence (talk · contribs)
• Fezmar9 (talk · contribs)
• NJZombie (talk · contribs)
• Yawaraey (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Deftones}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Posted on the user's talk page. A discussion was later started on the article talk page.

• How do you think we can help?

Helping to decide wither or not it should be included in the infobox. At this point, the discussion just seems to be going in circles. And looks likely to continue that way.

HrZ (talk) 14:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Deftones discussion

This dispute actually originated in April 2012 when Trascendence submitted the same sources for the same reason. This wasn't supported back then by myself or HrZ. It seems that we're having a communication issue explaining: what defines a reliable source, that claims need to be directly supported by sources provided and that a band's genre field in the infobox should be general and only include a few commonly and widely accepted genres that describe a band's overall sound. Based on the evidence provided by Trascendence and my own research, this genre doesn't seem widely supported by the media enough to warrant inclusion—it merely gets mentioned here or there. Fezmar9 (talk) 16:02, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe it has to be this of a big problem to put it up, it's simple, in the infobox "experimental rock" is included, and it has only one full-reliable source, post-metal has two (and one is the same source used to include experimental rock) and there are more sources backing post-metal up, but for some reason or other opositors claims these sources unreliable, even thought they rarely uses that highly demanding criteria in the rest of the article, or their wikipedia edits at all.
In the infobox also appears the genre "nu metal" despite it being a rather controversial genre, that the band haven't played anything close enough to be confused with it in 12 years, the band themselves opposing to be labeled as such and having several proffesional writers denying that the band has ever been it. Nobody sees these kind of active disregard towards post-metal, wich being a genre actually played by the band has more right to be in the infobox. I'll put a link to Deftones' talk page here Trascendence (talk) 03:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Wheel Hub Motor

• Wheel Hub Motor (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

the wheel hub motor article as it stands is providing a misleading perspective that is effectively scientifically-uninformed "wishful thinking" on the part of its former contributors. the former contributors desperately want direct-drive wheel hub motors to be successful when used in larger EVs (1000kg+ vehicles) and to bring all of the benefits to EVs that such a product would, if actually successful, genuinely bring. however: engineering science, basic physics and actual evidence in the form of many failed companies and attempted EV hub motor products is against them. this leaves a bit of a problem: even finding any evidence in the form of real-world products that show that large EV hub motors are completely impractical, or even online "authoritative" articles on the subject showing the same, are extremely hard to find (i.e. practically non-existent or paywalled). the reason why such products do not exist and so are hard to find examples of in the real-world is precisely because they *are* impractical and not achievable with current scientific and engineering techniques, and so do not exist! Ebikeguy is unfortunately a known individual who deploys rather fascist wikipedia "policy" rules to destroy any contributions made to wikipedia where evidence is hard to find, as well as failing to allow people time to develop the article whilst actually looking for such evidence. it's got to stop!

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Ebikeguy (talk · contribs)
• Dennis Bratland (talk · contribs)

this is not a "negative comment" *about* Ebikeguy, the person. it is a simple statement of the unfortunate actions and the consequences and disruption of his continued actions. non-negative and accurate statement begins: Ebikeguy has a general policy of reverting entire sections - entire contributions - that do not conform to a very specific subset of wikipedia policies, of which he has extensive knowledge. there is no flexibility; there is no discussion; there is no inclusion, nothing: just revert, revert, revert. an article may be being edited and improved, and right in the middle of that editing, all of a sudden the commit does not work. investigation leads to find that, just as improvements and references were being added, an *entire* section has been removed. this is completely intolerable and he has done it several times: i have encountered him before and this is not the first time that he has deployed this kind of policy. rather than work with the contributors who may have less experience and knowledge of wikipedia policy, he sees fit to "lay down the law" in what can only be described as an extremely fascist manner, disrupting the editing process and making it difficult to do research and ongoing improvements. rather than take this advice he then calls in *additional* people with whom he has, i assume, worked before, who of course back him up rather than work towards the *actual* improvement of the article.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Wheel Hub Motor}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

discussed on talk page. talk page ignored, as was previous discussions on other articles to which Ebikeguy also deployed the same fascist reversion policies. i did not take any further steps on those other pages, choosing instead to abandon efforts to improve the article, but as this is at least the second time he's done it and he has not improved since, i cannot leave this alone because he is actively destroying wikipedia article contributions and leaving those articles providing *misleading* information to wikipedia readers. this is highly irresponsible.

• How do you think we can help?

there are a number of ways. the first would be to bring in some additional much more experienced people who recognise that this article is:

• a) in development
• b) is in need of improvement
• c) is a particularly challenging technical area, requiring signficant experience in maths, physics, engineering and electronics
• d) that the failure even of people *with* expertise to actually create a successful wheel hub product actually makes it difficult to find the references that are being quotes demanded quotes under wikipedia policy.
• e) appreciates what best appropriate warnings can be added to the top of the page
• f) has sufficient authority within wikipedia to monitor Ebikeguy's contributions and to mentor him on more appropriate and more inclusive editorial contributions that do not make people feel like they should just abandon wikipedia entirely.

g* ) just has some useful suggestions on how best to proceed with this rather challenging area, given that it is an area where the current modern science and engineering techniques is heavily against the chances of success, and how best to express that in a wikipedia page *without* it getting deleted as "opinion" by people such as Ebikeguy.

86.131.167.23 (talk) 15:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Wheel Hub Motor discussion

• The person behind 86.131.167.23 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 81.129.112.196 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and whatever other IPs they use has said "due to previous experience with fascist deployment of wikipedia policy by Ebikeguy i am choosing to remain anonymous rather than log in with my usual account." This is sock puppetry, "Logging out to make problematic edits as an IP address". It's clear they intend to use anonymity to make personal attacks in every post, and so there is no point in attempting to resolve the content disupte with them. Any necessary changes to Wheel hub motor or any other article can wait for a different editor who is capable of working in a collaborative environment. I don't intend to engage with this person, and hopefully page protection and blocks of the IPs they use will be sufficient to put a stop to this. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:56, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• • Dennis this is total bullshit, and pure speculation on your part. If you are an experienced Misplaced Pages Editor you should know better than to make accusations like this, which *are* personal, yet you have been claiming completely incorrectly and hypocritically in this case that *my* comments are "personal attacks". You clearly do not know the difference between criticising a person directly and criticising their actions. I am happy to provide arbitration individuals with my IP address and account details, and they will find that I am a long-term wikipedia contributor, but i will NOT provide those details in such a way that the person known as "EBikeguy" can find out who I am. I feel extremely intimidated by his behaviour and by the policies that he deploys in an extremely fascist manner, which he has done on both this article *and* other articles which are similarly factually incorrect and quite technically obscure areas, and thus i wish to remain anonymous. If you cannot respect that and instead feel that I have some "agenda" to push then I feel extremely sorry for you and would advise you to cease editing of wikipedia. It is also clear that you not understand that the deployment of technologies such as TOR and other proxies make it completely pointless to block IP address ranges. It would also be equally pointless to force me to have to create a special account using an anonymous email address just to get round any "page protection". So please cease and desist from *actual* personal attacks, which are providing evidence to arbitrators that you are acting in a wildly-inappropriate fashion for involvement in wikipedia, and take peoples' contributions at face value rather than assuming wild ulterior motives just because someone chooses to remain anonymous. what actually happened was: i started out editing anonymously completely by mistake, you silly man, but when I saw Ebikeguy getting involved I went "uh-oh, here we go again", and decided to *stay* anonymous. all right?? 86.131.167.23 (talk) 16:11, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• Evidently you do not understand the difference between criticizing a person vs. their actions if you keep calling them a fascist. --Jprg1966  16:15, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• i did no such thing! i used phrases such as "fascist actions". at *no* point did i *ever* say "this person is a fascist". that would be unbelievably rude, wildly inappropriate, self-defeating and also factually inaccurate. the use of the word "fascist" as a noun has a completely different connotation and meaning from its use as an adverb or adjective as used to describe *actions*. i have made a study of the different ways in which people confuse the distinction between themselves and their actions, because as a prominent free software specialist with over a decade of involvement in public forums i've been forced to learn. so. from your phrase, unfortunately "evidently", it is you who does not a) read plain english b) understand plain english c) understand the difference between criticising a person by using a noun and criticising their actions by using the exact same word as an adjective. i trust that Jprg1966's comments will be disregarded entirely, in the evaluation and arbitration of this page 86.131.167.23 (talk) 17:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC).

• You were originally reported to WP: ANEW for edit warring, after multiple messages to stop. Unless you are reverting obvious vandalism or BLP violations, an editor may not revert more than 3 ties in any given 24 hour period. Elockid protected the page and only Ebikeguy (who is autoconfirmed) may edit it. Electric Catfish 16:09, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• • hi Electric, thank you for explaining this. if you read what i have written above, you will see that i wrote that Ebikeguy's "reversion" policies were to destroy *entire* sections that i was in the process of improving at the time. this was extremely disruptive to have entire sections removed out from under you whilst actually working in good faith to improve an article's quality. so yes, absolutely, i viewed Ebikeguy's actions as quite obvious vandalism. he's done this before. i cannot now recall which article, and because my username under which i *may* have edited that other article may be associated with both that article's editing and also from there my realworld identity, i do not wish to identify publicly what that article was. yes i feel that intimidated by ebikeguy's actions. 86.131.167.23 (talk) 16:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I beg to differ. I think anyone who reviews the page history will see that I have only restored the page to the form that editor consensus approves. Sincerely, Ebikeguy (talk) 16:29, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

please point to this "consensus" which was pre-existing at the time that you reverted an ENTIRE section that i was working on. please also point to efforts made by you to communicate this fact to me, taking into account the fact that i was accidentally operating under an anonymous IP at the time. please do not try to use the "welcome" message as justification: i am looking for actual factual evidence that you made an attempt to communicate and say "oi! what are you doing??" and "hey - um, do you know that there's a wikipedia policy on this which you're violating, would you like some help improving the article? can i help you to find references that are more appropriate, at all?" 86.131.167.23 (talk) 17:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• Please note that I welcomed this user to Misplaced Pages and was the first editor to send him/her links regarding properly referencing language inserted into articles. Since my initial welcome, many other editors have attempted to explain Misplaced Pages policies to this anonymous editor, at both of the IP addresses from which he/she is posting, but our efforts have been to no avail. This IP editor insists on adding improperly-referenced, POV-pushing language to Wheel hub motor, and the rest of us insist on deleting this inappropriate language. Any advice on how I could handle similar situations more smoothly in the future would be much appreciated. Thanks, Ebikeguy (talk) 16:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

i take it that you are intending to hide behind a set of procedures, with this "welcome"? i didn't even see it, because i was focussed on editing and contributing to the page. i can only speculate that you intend to use the fact that you made a "welcome" as evidence of "good faith". the most nastiest, vicious-minded individual in the world can issue a "welcome" with warm words over the internet just as well as someone else can do so. i trust that this use of a "welcome" will be disregarded in an arbitration of this matter, and that we can get to the main issue which is that the article is factually misleading. 86.131.167.23 (talk) 17:26, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

also, btw: and i mean this absolutely and whole-heartedly: i am delighted to see that you have stated that you wish to improve handling of this and similar situations in the future. perhaps i have got through to you, after all, and made you pause for thought. it's the lack of discussion and engagement, and the non-inclusive heavy-handed deployment of the wikipedia policies that you are familiar with, but that i am not, that has me so f*****g pissed off and irked about. if you understand that then i think you'll do absolutely fine, and, most importantly, we will not clash again in the future. and i won't feel threatened and intimidated by your much greater experience and knowledge of wikipedia policy and deployment thereof, nor further feel a need to stay anonymous. 86.131.167.23 (talk) 17:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

• You handled yourself fine. It's just that the IP shouldn't have made personal attacks. Electric Catfish 16:49, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Catfish: no personal attacks were made. Ebikeguy's reversions were done without any consultation, without warning, and were extremely disruptive to an ongoing series of edits and technical improvements to the article. and were probably also prejudiced by an accidental use of anonymous editing. this i deemed to be "fascist", and if you can think of a more appropriate phrase which describes the exact same behaviour i will gladly use that instead. 86.131.167.23 (talk) 17:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

First of all, you cannot assume that another editor distrusted you because you edited as an IP. The reversion of good-faith edits could be considered "disruptive," "annoying," "against Misplaced Pages policy," etc., but it is never fascist. --Jprg1966  18:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I am a regular volunteer here at DRN. So far, everything in this discussion has been about user conduct. The "rules" for this noticeboard make it quite clear that this board is for content disputes, not conduct disputes. If there is any further discussion about user conduct, I will close this listing. If you want to talk about whether specific content is or is not appropriate for Misplaced Pages, please do so, but if you want to talk about conduct, take it to WP:WQA, WP:RFC/U, WP:ANI, or some specialty conduct noticeboard such as (if applicable) WP:3RRN, but no more here. — TransporterMan (TALK) 18:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Good point. To add my US$0.02, I see ebikeguy behaving in a reasonable manner in the face of a disruptive and abusive editor who is posting what mostly amounts to personal analysis / original research. So as far as the content goes I think he was right to remove it. --Biker Biker (talk) 19:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I find it very unusual that there are two people listed (Ebikeguy and Dennis Bratland), but only one of them is mentioned in the reporter's complaint. I don't want to derail this thread with user conduct, but I thought that needed to be pointed out. Is there some content that Dennis Bratland is adding that you disagree with, IP 86? - Jorgath (talk) 04:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm taking this page off my watchlist. If something needs my attention, please let me know. Thanks. Ebikeguy (talk) 17:28, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Chickfila, Winshape

• Chick-fil-A (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• WinShape Foundation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

Right now many keep trying to remove anything that shows Chickfila/Winshape in any negative light. I have posted in the TALK section asking why they have changed it from Anti-Gay to other words as over a dozen+ references show that Anti-gay is what is being used by many independent verifiable references. Even when some see they have no good references to support what they want, their POV, others come in and start the mess over again. Chickfila is locked now and I asked a Admin to lock Winshape. I think we will need the Admins of Misplaced Pages to decide what lang can be used as its never going to be settled until someone higher up rules what references and language is best fitting.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Belchfire (talk · contribs)
• TheRedPenOfDoom (talk · contribs)
• Still-24-45-42-125 (talk · contribs)
• Dudeman5685 (talk · contribs)
• Shearonink (talk · contribs)
• Algonquin7 (talk · contribs)
• MsFionnuala (talk · contribs)
• 72Dino (talk · contribs) 

Just need someone higher up to look into, does not seem to be getting better and don't want to get banned.

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Not yet./Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Chieckfila, Winshape}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Lots of TALK but very few new Referances

• How do you think we can help?

Make the decision and tell everyone that is it.

216.81.81.85 (talk) 12:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Chickfila, Winshape discussion

Although I have edited these articles, I do not believe I made any edits regarding the term "anti-gay". Also, IP editor, an administrator is not someone "higher up". They just have certain tools that other editors do not. 72Dino (talk) 16:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I am a regular volunteer here at DRN. I'm afraid that what you are asking is not possible. This is not an adminstrator's forum and except for the occasional administrator who just happens to join in, none of us here are administrators. Moreover, administrators at Misplaced Pages have absolutely no power or authority to decide content questions. What goes into or stays out of Misplaced Pages is decided by the consensus of ordinary editors, partly that consensus which is reached in individual discussions, and partly that which is embodied in policy and guidelines. As for "its never going to be settled until someone higher up rules what references and language is best fitting," please see here for what happens when no agreement can be reached. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:08, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe this is why none of the editors listed were notified about this thread. 72Dino (talk) 18:05, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

While the IPs request to "have an admin make a decision" is not possible, particularly in this forum, this forum may be an appropriate place to have a centralized and mediated discussion to help multiple parties come to an agreement about a discussion that has tended to spiral and repeat istelf across multiple sections of multiple articles and talk pages. -- The Red Pen of Doom 13:52, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Red Pen, I don't disagree and that's the reason I left this open for the IP editor to supplement it if s/he cares to do so. I think it might be better if this was closed and a new case filed with a clearer statement of what the particular content issues may be rather than trying to patch up this listing, but feel free to do either if you would like for this to go forward. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:30, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

The editor who initiated this is trying to push changes that have been reverted by five other editors. I offer that the best possible outcome here is that he come away with an understanding of the word "consensus". He might also benefit if he could grok the policy WP:BIT. Belchfire (talk) 14:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea why I have been mentioned here at this point - I disengaged from posting about 'what to call the groups the article subject donates to' on Talk:WinShape Foundation back on July 20th. After Editor 216.81.94.75 posted this at "Talk:WinShape Foundation#Any thoughts on the word choice of the following at Support for anti-gay groups section", I posted the following on as a response:

"Again, I am sorry you feel that way, whatever you think that was not my intent. I think this discussion is veering off into discussing editors and not the content at hand so I will refrain from any further posts until a consensus is established whatever that might be."

Also, my only recent edits to Chick-fil-A have been to correct errant titles in refs, and to add sourced information re:Chick-Fil-A & the Mayor of Boston. My last post to Talk:Chick-fil-A was on July 20 when I ended with "All I care about in this case is that the article be as precise and as neutral with its word-choices as it can possibly be."
Whatever the consensus of the editorial community is at these two associated articles I am fine with. Shearonink (talk) 16:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I do not think this is needed we are working towards compromise as of recently we have not gotten the compromise exactly right but I think were close so my suggestion is that we give it a couple more days. Also just because we use a source does not mean we need to use it's polemics or unneutral language and narrative we should report it's facts and filter out it's bias same thing we would do with something from fox news or MsnbcAlgonquin7 (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Also the most uncompromising one in the debate was IP 216 who started this dispute resolution was blocked for block evasion without him thinking every editor who has the audacity to disagree with him is editing in bad faith then a resolution can be reached this is unnecessary even more now Algonquin7 (talk) 21:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Not to distract from the idle chit-chat, but there really are a dozen reliable sources that characterize Chik-fil-a and Winshape as "anti-gay", so the attempt to conceal this is quite problematic. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 02:24, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Those sources newsoulets can't help themselves to use polemics and subjective headlines to grab attention on a controversial issues like this since they need to make money, while wikipedia should be bland and neutral like encylopedia's always are they not the most interesting things but are necessary for spin-free information, the current header is that and has stayed for quite sometime so maybe fingers crossed consensus was reached. Algonquin7 (talk) 05:47, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

These newspapers are reliable sources. You're not. Enough said. Still-24-45-42-125 (talk) 05:51, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Resource-based economy

• Resource-based economy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The article currently states that the term "Resource-based economy" is used by the technocracy movement. The term exists in one paper on one website related to the organization. I think that one article by one member doesn't make a whole organisation, and that you therefore can't say that the organization as a whole uses the term. User Earl King Jr disagrees.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• OpenFuture (talk · contribs)
• Earl_King_Jr. (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Resource-based economy}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Discussed on the talk page: Talk:Resource-based_economy#Google_books_survey

• How do you think we can help?

Providing opinions.

OpenFuture (talk) 15:01, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Resource-based economy discussion

Unless a source can be tied directly to it being organizational level, then I would refrain from attributing it as such. I've read essays about technocracy and I do not think the term 'resource based economy' comes up often, and when it is used the term is often literal. I think we need sources which state this more clearly before the assertion can be made, since it is a point of contention. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

There is a direct source which uses the term resource-based economy from one of their essay writers which was written years ago and still in their official information presentation

Their Faq's material mentions something close to the term also and and and and . Earl King Jr. (talk) 15:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Long post, so short one sentence version: It's an essay which uses the term and doesn't make use of it in a way that alters it in a meaningful way. Long version: Here's the problem, its just a term to describe an already existing idea, its not as if Technocracy advocates created the term or use it in a way which is unique, novel or different in meaning then what is already established. Its the equivalent of saying George Washington spoke of a monarchy, but America is not a monarchy. The term is used to express an idea. Price System is different though. According to the essay, which is the only one directly mentioning it, economies use resources. In the essay it refers to natural resources, non-renewable ones and to a lesser extent environmental ones. At the most basic level, everything is a 'resource-based economy', water, air, labor, metals, soil, animals, forests, everything. Whether I trade my knowledge, customer service, sweat equity, livestock, anything, I expect to be rewarded accordingly. Here the essay fails to explain anything. It doesn't get to the point of how 'resources' would be dealt with other then 'efficiently' and hope agreements can be made. It also suggests needless waste and destruction for money would be eliminated as a result of this.

The essay may just be a general idea, but that's its crutch, it doesn't explain anything and the details are left behind. Other ideas like eliminating competing products, mass production and reworking logistics is a common idea. Why have an Ipad and 10 other types of tablets out there? Why not just make one superior product and issue them out for so many 'credits' equivolent to their impact and cost? I've seen other essays from technocracy sites which show that everyone in the technate of North America would get the equivalent of $10 million a year in credits as part of their 'fair share' of 'output'. Leading to a realization that its enough for a home, a car and just about everything one needs to live comfortably with everyone else and still have enough 'whim' money for most individuals barring the 'private yacht, jet, three mansions and a pool of caramel sauce' types. That would be an unsustainable drain on resources and could not be maintained. Technocracy believes that waste is bad and can be fixed with calculated action and superior technology. Any economy, including a technate would be 'resource-based' because we live in a world of broad 'resources', natural or otherwise. I don't think it is fair to say 'Technocracy uses this term', because its just a term in some essay of unremarkable importance and scope, it cannot even grasp the term of the word itself. I can blast the essay all night on its faults and logical issues, but I do not believe this one instance of the term appearing is akin to labeling it as a founding idea, principal or even recognized use. Its just another term, and the essay doesn't even understand the implications of the term, it is undue to make the assertion based on it. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

The title of the information essay is Accounting For Nature:Moving Toward-Resource-Based Economics and it mentions the term resource-based economy in the body of the essay. It does not have to be a novel appreciation of the word. It fits into the same usage as the other two fringe groups, the way it is being used.

Please give a link for the thing you quote. The statement quote you made about the subject I've seen other essays from technocracy sites which show that everyone in the technate of North America would get the equivalent of $10 million a year in credits as part of their 'fair share' of 'output'. Thanks. I assume it is from their official site but have never read that information. Earl King Jr. (talk) 01:25, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

"Their Faq's material mentions something close to the term also" - No they don't. They use the word "resources". None of the links talk in any way of a resource-based economy. You can argue that what the technocracy movement wants is the same as what The Venus Project calls a resource.based economy, sure. I agree they are similar (or even equivalent). But this is about whether The Technocracy Movement uses the term "Resource-based economy". And they don't. --OpenFuture (talk) 05:54, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Bane in other media, Bane (comics)

No talk page discussion, but I have copied Farhadpersia's response here to Talk:Bane_in_other_media#Discussion_from_DRN to get talk started there. If discussion there stalls, please feel free to relist here. — TransporterMan (TALK) 14:39, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Closed discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. – General close. See comments for reasoning. Filed by Williamsburgland on 17:36, 25 July 2012 (UTC). Bane in other media (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Bane (comics) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Dispute overview Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here? In short, the editor below, who has been active since the 22nd of this month and has made hundreds of edits focusing almost entirely on the topics above and related articles, sometimes massive edits without discussion or consensus. He has consistently reverted changes and refused to discuss before reverting any changes to his preferred version. He is also involved in a similar and lengthy discussion around another related topic where he appears unwilling to accept consensus. Finally, another user left he and I a warning for edit warring (which I find questionable since I did not break 3RR and tried to initiate discussion) while I was creating this, so I'll include that person as well. Users involved Who is involved in the dispute? Williamsburgland (talk · contribs) Farhadpersia (talk · contribs) Callanecc (talk · contribs) Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".) Oops - yes, I informed them immediately after posting this. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Bane in other media, Bane (comics)}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page. Resolving the dispute Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken? I've discussed on his page and explained my position in my edit summaries. How do you think we can help? I'd like to come to a consensus on the overly long and detailed sections in Bane in other media, as well as the other editors overall attitude of his way or no way. Williamsburgland (talk) 17:36, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Bane in other media, Bane (comics) discussion Discussion about the issues listed above takes place here. Remember to keep your comments calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand. I am a regular volunteer here at DRN. Most of what you say above refers to conduct issues which are not handled at this noticeboard, please try WP:WQA, WP:RFCU, or WP:SPI for those. As for the "overly long and detailed sections in Bane in other media," I can find no discussion of that topic at either article's talk page or at the other editor's user talk page and this noticeboard (and all other forms of content dispute resolution) requires talk page discussion before listing a request for DR. Please discuss the issues at the article talk page(s) and if you cannot come to a resolution, then please feel free to re-list here. I'll leave this open for awhile so you can point us to a discussion if I've missed it. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:27, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Bane in other media I'm not sure what is going on here, but I think I know what to say. Let me start by informing you all that I was the one who created the Bane in other media article in the first place, seeing as how it was being said that that article was being too lengthy. So before anyone says that my methods are "too lengthy," remember that my incentive was to fix that in the first place, while still being informative. Secondly, I suppose the DKR section of Bane in other media is overly long, but it may just seem that way because his character arc in that film is obviously very significant. Nonetheless, is character arc is explained in full in all of the other sections of the article, from Bane's first appearance to his defeat. So the film section should be no exception. Thirdly, the Bane in other media article follows the exact same format of the Joker in other media article, and if you look at that article, it is just as lengthy as the Bane in other media article, if not even more lengthy. Not only that, but the Joker in other media article has been that way for years, if I am not mistaken, since TDK was released. So I do not think proceeding by massively trimming down Bane's character arc explanation in the film sections while the Joker's article hasn't been trimmed down is appropriate. Lastly, I do not know what the Lazarus Pit has to do with this, or why it was brought up here. I haven't continued to undo reverts of that page, if that is what this is about. I was doing it before, but I stopped, because I decided that consensus is more important, even though I feel consensus is faulty over that issue. Farhadpersia (talk) 01:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

99 Flake

• 99 Flake (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

While reading recent changes I noticed that some of the facts in the article had been significantly changed without any citation or edit summary - I therefore reverted the edit and put an appropriate warning template on the user's talk page.

The user then made their edit again without an adit summary. This time I took it for vandalism and reverted again with the next level template warning on their user talk page.

The user made their edit a third time again without an edit summary. This time I assumed good faith and reverted the edit but with an explanatory edit summary and added a personal note on the user's talk page.

Another IP then made the same edit a fourth time, once more without an edit summary. I left it as it so as not to fall foul of the WP:3RR.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Lineslarge (talk · contribs)
• 137.205.90.143 (talk · contribs)
• 137.205.157.31 (talk · contribs)

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes.

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=99 Flake}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

Posted on the user's talk page three times and added an explanatory edit summary to the page in question.

• How do you think we can help?

Give an opinion on whether the edits I reverted were vandalism or good faith and how the dispute should be resolved.

Lineslarge (talk) 19:48, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

99 Flake discussion

This looks like straightforward vandalism. If the reversions continue, request semi-protection of the article. Formerip (talk) 20:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• Hi! I'm a DRN volunteer and the edits appear to be vandalism. If the edit warring continues, please report in to WP: ANEW. I will also issue the IPs 3RR warnings. Electric Catfish 21:21, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

• Yep, looks to be vandalism here as well. Though I would probably contact someone if you bounce back reverting any edits twice and the editor replaces it again without contact. Do not want to run afoul of edit warring, which can be imposed before 3RR. Though vandalism is vandalism. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:14, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Misha B, Talk:Misha B

• Misha B (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Talk:Misha B (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

A POV has been applied. I think its unfair as I have honestly tried to remain neutral, and truthful especially regarding a false accusation made against the subject. I have looked at other artists pages and tried to follow their examples.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Zoebuggie☺whispers (talk · contribs)
• Sionk (talk · contribs)
• Livin'InAGhostTown (talk · contribs)
• Reli source (talk · contribs)
• Zoeblackmore (talk · contribs)(mysel again not sure which to use)f

The are a few anti-Misha B folks online who write abusive things on a youtube videos, I am not sure if one of them is in that cateogary

• Have you informed all the editors mentioned above that you have posted this dispute? (If not, once you have informed them come back and replace the text "Not yet" with "Yes".)

Yes

• To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Misha B, Talk:Misha B}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

• Have you tried to resolve this dispute already? If so, what steps have you taken?

it keeps coming up, we do not agree, I feel I am being unfairly criticized as a new editor, trying to get it right.

• How do you think we can help?

by adding fresh independent comments, if more folks say I got it wrong then I will listen. This will help me as I am unwell.

...Zoebuggie☺whispers 22:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Misha B, Talk:Misha B discussion

• Hi! I'm a volunteer here at the DRN. First of all, yes there are POV issues, but they are minor, and your edits don't violate WP: BLPCAT as they are properly sourced (kudos to you!). However, it seems as if a bit of edit warring is going on. You may not know about Misplaced Pages's # Revert Rule, but I think that it would be best if the reverts stopped. I think that you handled yourself correctly for the most part. Electric Catfish 00:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you for your comment :), I will try to be more careful about POV. I admit that I do like this singer to the extent that I have on many occasions countered cyber abuse against her. This probably affects my objectivity, maybe I have been over defensive. Mostly my errors are down to me relatively new to Misplaced Pages editing and where done in good faith regards neutrality, e.g. I posted a couple of positive reviews from blogs in error. I am going to step away from the article for a few days....Zoebuggie☺whispers 11:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• Good idea. Like I said, you handled yourself fine. Electric Catfish 21:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Bulgaria

• Bulgaria (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

• Can you give us a quick explanation of what is going on? What is the issue you are bringing here?

The Formation section of Bulgaria article http://en.wikipedia.org/Bulgaria, which was in effect since 2006 was changed, with the date 681 eliminated from it. The users Ceco31,Gligan, Apcbg, ximhua & V3n0M93 disagreed with this change and expressed their opinion on the talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Bulgaria, quoting Encyclopedia Britanica, which clearly states that the beginning of Modern Bulgaria starts in 681 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/84090/Bulgaria/42721/The-beginnings-of-modern-Bulgaria, therefore the date 681 should be retained in the Info box for accuracy purposes. Other arguments listed were that the creation of the Bulgarian language and alphabet happened in the X century Bulgaria, which was an integral part of the Formation of Bulgaria. The national symbols of Bulgaria - Lion also carried over. The dominant religion - Bulgarian Orthodox also carried over. Bulgarian identity and naming of the country and people was carried over. Thus, for historical accuracy the section should be renamed Formation with the dates 681 (First Bulgarian Empire) and 1185 (Second Bulgarian Empire) present. Also, examples were given with Poland, Serbia, Portugal, Spain, Germany which have a Formation section, which accurately shows the historical dates for those counties.

The above facts were rejected by Tourbillon, Chipmunkdavis and William Thweatt. When an attempt was being made for a compromise with them by offering them 3 options (by ximhua), it was rejected in a rude and uncivilized manner.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Ximhua (talk · contribs)
• Ceco31 (talk · contribs)
• Gligan (talk · contribs)
• Apcbg (talk · contribs)
• V3n0M93 (talk · contribs)
• Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs)
• William Thweatt (talk · contribs)
• Tourbillon (talk · contribs)