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Clarification request: Waldorf education/Review

Initiated by hgilbert (talk) at 19:52, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• hgilbert (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Alexbrn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jellypear (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Binksternet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• A13ean (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• EPadmirateur (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Statement by hgilbert

The original arbitration indicated that "Information may be included in articles if they can be verified by reference to reliable sources. As applied to this matter, except with respect to information which is not controversial, material published in Anthroposophy related publications, especially by persons deeply involved in the movement such as teachers or theoreticians, are considered self published and thus not reliable sources."

There are frequently sources proposed that are from peer reviewed presses or journals, but whose authors have a strong or weak connection to Waldorf education or anthroposophy. Some editors of this article argue that these sources are to be considered reliable due to the peer-reviewed publishing process. Other editors argue that any connection of an author to Waldorf/anthroposophy makes all publications by that author unreliable sources for an article on Waldorf education, independently of how they were published.

It seems to me that the latter stance would be in flagrant violation of NPOV. My understanding is that any publication that would satisfy RS (e.g. peer reviewed journals and academic presses) would be a RS for this article, independently of the author's institutional affiliation or world-view. In addition, though anthroposophic presses and journals would be completely excluded as sources for any controversial or disputed material, they should be available as sources about factual information regarding their own institution (e.g. numbers of schools, content of the curriculum, etc.), in line with ABOUTSELF.

A currently disputed source, as a concrete example, is:

• Carlo Willmann, Waldorfpädogogik, Kölner Veröffentlichungen zur Religionsgeschichte, v. 27. Böhlau Verlag, ISBN 3-412-16700-2. The press is a highly regarded academic press, the book volume 27 of a highly regarded series on the history of religion. The author is a Catholic theologian who has been connected with Waldorf schools in various ways.

Statement by Alexbrn

I have been editing the Waldorf education article for several weeks now, and I am personally not convinced the issue at hand is contested for most editors. As I have written on the talk page there, I use the following rough rules of thumb for evaluating sources in the light of the Arbcom ruling:

• Peer-reviewed nearly always okay; University Presses nearly always okay; mainstream news media nearly always okay for reportage.
• Of the remainder:
• Authored by somebody "involved in Waldorf", or from an Anthroposophical source: generally bad.
• Dissertations, general books, conference papers, research reports etc.: assess on the basis of whether there is evidence of editorial oversight, whether they are cited by good RS publications, and how "heavy" the claim they are making is.
• Normal WP caution to apply to web sites, self-published, primary, etc.

I don't think any editor is contending that peer-reviewed sources by Waldorf-involved people should be automatically out-of-bounds – and indeed we do include such sources: e.g. Robert A. McDermott is a leading anthroposophist and Waldorf advocate yet his work is frequently cited by us when it appears in peer-reviewed journal articles.

Any difficulty has arisen for statements which are maybe controversial and/or maybe written by a Waldorf-involved-author and/or from a source which may be of high quality. This is the case for the Willmann source that hgilbert mentioned. Willmann is senior academic at a university teaching Waldorf education but appears to be published in a reasonable (but not peer-reviewed) book. Because this case is unclear, I tagged this source {{rs}} rather than remove it, and was expecting some Talk page discussion.

In such cases as these, my view is that if the statement being sourced is truly uncontroversial, and notable enough for WP, then a neutral non-Waldorf source will exist for it that can be used. This was indeed the case for Willmann, where hgilbert graciously changed the source to a better one: a peer-reviewed journal article by Heiner Ullrich. The problem was solved, and solved well.

I would be reassured if the committee could re-affirm the original ruling and its intepretation as evidenced by the current Waldorf education article. Furthermore, it would be good to know if the current selection of sources used there meets its approval in the light of its request that editors "remove all original research and other unverifiable information, including all controversial information sourced in Anthroposophy related publications" – something I have been striving to do. Alexbrn 14:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

• Since nobody has commented on this request so far, in order not to give the impression that we are ignoring you, I'll start by saying that I'm awaiting further statements before expressing my opinion (also, I need to familiarise myself with the original case, which was quite before my time). Salvio 13:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
• The principles passed in the decision reflect the interpretation of the 2006-2007 committee of the policies and guidelines as they existed at the time of the decision. Our policies and guidelines governing reliable sources and self-published sources have undoubtedly evolved in five years, and the sources should be judged under our current standards instead of the one interpreted five years ago. The question whether any particular source is a reliable source is a content matter for WP:RS/N, and outside the jurisdiction of this committee. T. Canens (talk) 14:06, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
• We would be remiss to assume that because the community was unable to regulate this topic in 2006, it is unable to do so today. The Misplaced Pages community has expanded its capacity to resolve disputes over contentious topics, and for that reason I am minded to vacate (by motion) the article probation remedy that was passed in 2006 and confirmed in 2007. AGK 15:44, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
• I think that, even if the committee felt the need to retain jurisdiction over that particular matter, we would need to reevaluate the situation according the current context and not the situation as it was over six years ago (which is an eternity in Misplaced Pages terms). I'm open to arguments that there remains a problem needing Committee intervention, but it seems clear to me that the original ruling has long been overtaken by our evolving policies on reliable sourcing. — Coren  16:31, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
• After reviewing the case and reading Alexbrn's comments, it appears that care is needed to keep these articles from drifting toward inappropriate bias, and the sanctions have been working. The words quoted above: "Information may be included in articles...." are from a findings of fact in the case, and while they informed the decision, are not a formal part of the sanctions, which are that Waldorf education and related articles are placed on probation (and later that Pete K is banned indefinitely from those articles). ArbCom article probation asks that editors are especially mindful of content policies, such as WP:NPOV, and that seems a sensible precaution to keep in place for articles which have suffered from POV problems in the past. The ArbCom ruling did not forbid using Anthroposophy related publications, but found in 2006 that for controversial statements those publications were unreliable. As my colleagues have indicated above, actual discussion on which sources are suitable today can be dealt with by discussion on the talkpage of the articles or by raising the matter at appropriate noticeboards, such as WP:RS/N. SilkTork 22:26, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

As regards Alexbrn's question regarding this line in the remedy: "Editors of these articles are expected to remove all original research and other unverifiable information, including all controversial information sourced in Anthroposophy related publications." I think Alexbrn's own comment, "if the statement being sourced is truly uncontroversial, and notable enough for WP, then a neutral non-Waldorf source will exist for it that can be used" matches that in WP:SELFPUBLISH which says: "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so". As for the actual sources used in the Waldorf education article - that is a matter for contributors to discuss, not for ArbCom. SilkTork 22:41, 21 January 2013 (UTC)