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Velvet Revolver

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.


Dispute overview

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

I hope this is the correct place for this, if not, please direct me to it. A user keeps adding a rumour to the article about a singer the band members performed with. One of the band members, Duff McKagan, stated that they might work with one of the singers they performed with at a benefit concert, leading to a number of sites speculating that Jimmy Gnecco is said singer. The only facts there are, is that they might work with one of the singers. There is nothing that states that they are working with anyone.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=American Staffordshire Terrier}} --~~~~ 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 this with MillerCrosses on his talk page, under the heading Velvet Revolver, while he has replied to my talk page under the heading Revolver. I have made him aware of Wikipedia policies such as WP:CRYSTAL and WP:3RR and explained why rumours shouldn't be included.

  • How do you think we can help?

Perhaps explain to him why the content was removed, why it was disruptive to the article incase I havn't made myself clear. It is a fairly small issue that seems to have become bigger, perhaps simply for lack of understanding how wikipedia works.

HrZ (talk) 17:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Velvet Revolver discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.


I am a mediator/clerk here at this noticeboard. While you are to be commended for bringing this to dispute resolution, it must also be said that what's been going on over this issue is clearly an edit war and all reversions must stop immediately. The three revert rule says:

Even without a 3RR violation, an administrator may still act if they believe a user's behavior constitutes edit warring, and any user may report edit-warring with or without 3RR being breached. The rule is not an entitlement to revert a page a specific number of times.

I've left an edit war warning on both of your talk pages.

That having been said, neither the source which reported the facts on which the speculation is based nor the source which makes the speculation is a reliable source and the rumor/speculation cannot be included in Wikipedia without a reliable source. (Per this policy.) The sentence and its source should be removed (but not by HrZ, unless Miller Crosses agrees for him to do so). MillerCrosses you said in this edit that "If the nice people at wikipedia told it was wrong to add it then that would be fine." You've now been told (and I'm not only nice, I've been called relentlessly nice ), so would you please delete the sentence and reference? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:51, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

MillerCrosses has, per this edit and this edit self-reverted the information as requested. I appreciate and thank him for his consideration and understanding. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:16, 21 October 2011 (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.

Journal of Cosmology

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.


Dispute overview

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

Dispute on adding info and references to article, being reverted in order to keep only negative info in the article, talk page discussions on peer review status and info going nowhere.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
I have added most of the users who participated in talk page discussion of the issues I listed below. If you don't regard yourself as involved with this dispute, feel free to remove yourself from the list. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:19, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I am concerned about the involvement of users WMC and Headbomb, as they seem to be trying to only keep negative information on the Journal in the article. And, on the other hand, 174.252 (who appears to be having IP address changes, so the last two sections may change) is clearly trying to add positive information on the Journal. I've been trying to work in the middle of all of this and just add information in general to the article, but i've run up against WMC and Headbomb's extremely negative opinion about the Journal. I have to work against comments like "the problem is that it publishes ideas which are utter nonsense, and rubbish that would never be found in any respectable journal" and "It's fringe stuff, new age crap, patent nonsense..." and "Well J Cosmology is run by a bunch of kooks". I recently tried to add information that had been heavily covered in the news, but it was constantly removed, leaving the majority of the article just negative information about the Journal. Discussion on the talk page is clearly going no where and i'm not quite sure what to do. SilverserenC 18:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Another recent example would be: "And I don't know of anyone who would interpret this as an example anything other than the usual kook rant about persecution", which is speaking about the editor of the Journal responding to criticism. SilverserenC 23:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Journal of Cosmology}} --~~~~ on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

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

Multiple discussions on the talk page that don't go anywhere.

  • How do you think we can help?

Admittedly, i'm not quite sure. I didn't want to escalate this to ANI, so I thought this would be a good first step. Perhaps we can get further opinions about the argument?

SilverserenC 18:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Journal of Cosmology discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

The recent problems were mostly caused by IP 174.xxx.xxx.xxx, a long term persistent sock of User:BookWorm44/User:Chemistryfan (and as you might expect, the old "problems" were also caused by these guys and their socks). Now that they've been blocked, and the article and talkpage semi-protected, it should be fairly easy to resume normal editing practices on that article now that it's are free of disruptions from SPAs. Silver Seren puts the whole thing out of context.

Regarding the "addition of content that's been covered in the news", every journal gets mentioned in the news from time to time, and listing every occurrence is simply WP:ISNOT/WP:CRUFT. Just imagine what it would mean for journals like Physical Review Letters, Nature, Science, The Lancet, BMJ, etc... if we start making explicit mentions of everything that's been covered in the press. That Paul Davies wrote an article supporting Martian exploration is nothing special, and really out of place in this article. That's something best left for the article on the Colonization of Mars. Although since JOC is not a reliable source, it probably shouldn't be mentioned at all, except perhaps on the article about Paul Davies. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:03, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Considering we're dealing with a Journal that has published 16 volumes in 2 years, it would take quite a while to get to Nature levels, but I digress. Not every issue of JoC received coverage and the few that do, such as the Mars one that received extensive major media coverage, it should be included in the article.
Furthermore, if you're going to use that argument, then I could say that the criticism for Hoover's paper doesn't belong in the Journal article, but in Hoover's article. Since it is, of course, minor and in only a single issue. SilverserenC 19:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
The Hoover controversy is the reason why the journal is considered notable by our standards. Without it, it wouldn't pass WP:NJOURNALS. And no, it's not because some issue received some press coverage that it should be explicitly mentioned in our articles, in exactly the same way that specific The New York Times articles should not be mentioned because the Los Angeles Times mentioned them or had a reply. No other journal or magazine article is written like that, and Journal of Cosmology does not warrant a deviation from this practice. If you want to change this practice, bring it up at WP:JOURNALS and gain consensus for it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:33, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
You mean it doesn't meet the essay, WP:NJOURNALS? There are plenty of sources that discuss the JoC that is outside of the Hoover papers. For example, this. The JoC essentially instigated a revival of discussion by NASA and other groups about an expedition to Mars. SilverserenC 19:37, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Wikilawyer all you want, WP:NJOURNALS has been trialled by fire for years now and has the endorsement of every editor at WP:JOURNALS. Every deletion discussion about journals relies on WP:NJOURNALS to be its guiding light. Martian exploration is mentioned in the article, but there's zero need to have a detailed breakdown of every issue (see in particular WP:JWG#What not to include). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:42, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, according to that, the line about focus in the Scope should actually be a part of the first line of the lede. As for the info I was trying to add, it wasn't a "List of articles published in the journal", so I still don't see where you're going with for the Mars coverage. Not to mention that Nature has a list of articles. SilverserenC 19:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
SilverSeren and others on the page have tried to improve the NPOV of the page besides just BookWorm/Chemistryfan and myself. I deny being BookWorm and have tried at SPI to have CU level evidence gathered to support my claim but the original blocking (of my IP addresses) administrator DeltaQuad has denied my CU request using my cooperation there as claimed evidence for duck. I can only assume this is because he doesn't wish to have his original error exposed. Regardless of my personal status there are a number of editors that agree the current article is biased and should be fixed. All attempts to remedy the situation have been blocked primarily by HB and Mr. Connolley.
Today I put in a request to have the scope of the article expanded to be consistent with the description provided on the journal's website (which was the existing source of material to support that section prior to my getting involved). For some reason that material had been censored to exclude a number of sub-disciplines from the list included on the journal's about page. Given that HB and Mr. Connolley have been collaborating quite effectively at seeking to disparage this journal one has to wonder why a topic such has climate change has been left out of the scope section. Especially when one considers that (a) 1 of the only 16 volumes published by the journal is dedicated specifically to climate change, (b) that this journal is likely to have published climate change material with which Mr. Connolley disagrees, (c) that Mr. Connolley is topic banned, broadly construed, from editing topics relating to climate change and here he is edit warring to disparage this little known journal, and (d) only days after having starting to edit at this journal he applied to have his topic ban removed. AGF demands that we assume that Mr. Connolley's awareness of this journal's relationship with climate change was unknown to him when he began editing there. But there has been much discussion of that relationship at his request for amendment to his topic ban and so his subsequent edits to this page can and should be viewed as a violation of his ban. Indeed, his comment where he argued against the inclusion of climate change into the journal's scope based on a claim of bad faith suggests that he is fully aware that he is treading on thin ice and yet he persists. Even if you ABF concerning my motives that does not change the facts. The journal has published material on climate change and the absence of this fact from the article should be corrected.
Mr. Connolley labels my request as bad faith. I claim that HB's persistent hounding of me as being some sock when I am trying to cooperate at SPI is equally bad faith. --174.252.215.182 (talk) 19:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Shortly after writing this, the IP was blocked for block evasion. [1] Cardamon (talk) 23:50, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
In addition to what Mr. 174 said above, I found this source by Lawrence Solomon that points out that the JoC does cover climate change. SilverserenC 19:59, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
You really are something else you know. Can't even drop a notice at the most relevant Wikiproject without being accused of being some canvassing troll. Since you're not interesting in resolving disputes, and more concerned with depicting your opponents as POV warriors, I'm done entertaining you. Hell, WMC can't even ask for advice about whether he should participate in this conversation without being accused of canvassing. Enjoy talking to yourself. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:18, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
You didn't put a neutral edit summary. You specifically worded the notice so that people would have your opinion before even getting to this discussion. If you had worded it neutrally, that would have been fine, but you didn't. SilverserenC 20:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
As for WMC, that's because he stated "as a couple of editors are doing their best to shift it into CC type territory (spuriously, in my view, and entirely to try to eliminate an opinion they don't want to hear)", which is, again, non-neutral. SilverserenC 20:27, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I think this request is quite badly construed. As noted by HB, the problems seem to have come from a malicious banned sock. The immeadiate solution to this, if the sock is IP-hopping, is to semi the page; that way people who aren't the sock can have a reasonable conversation. I don't care for the way SS has been echoing the sock, above. So I'm inclined to think that nothing really needs to be done here, other perhaps than SS calming down a little. There is a discussion on the article talk page: do we really need this report? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:00, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Multiple discussions have sprouted up on the talk page, such as here and here with separate users, where Headbomb is reverting and trying to control the article to only have negative information. The issue with the IP (a single comment above) has little to nothing to do with this DR request. SilverserenC 23:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Hold on. One of those listed disputes, at least from my perspective, isn't about NPOV and I don't think it is fair to characterize it as 'reverting to only have negative information'. That being said, a blanket reversion of a whole bunch of edits, from grammar changes to issues of sourcing to POV, all in a single edit with the summary "revert bunch of completely innappropriate changes" does seem a little ownery. Agricolae (talk) 15:35, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't see how to view it otherwise. That part that you removed, properly I believe, is about negative things affiliated with JoC, so Headbomb reverted your removal to keep it in the article. What do you view as the reasoning behind the reversion? SilverserenC 16:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't see the inclusion of that material as inherently negative - in fact, I see a significant risk that an uninformed reader may view that paragraph as too positive - take them at their words and view this as evidence of reasonableness by JoC and that Nature and Science are the unreasonable ones. Still, at least my role in the dispute is about one thing and one thing only: that we shouldn't be using any self-published response if it hasn't been commented upon by any WP:RS. As to Hb, I AGFed and took the reversion as an attempt at fairness - letting them have their say, as per Hb's first response. Of course, his more recent response that the material is likely to be viewed as a "usual kook rant about persecution" places this good-faith interpretation into question (it also beggar's the mind to figure out how something meant to be seen as self-immolating is so vital to the article that its deletion is to be viewed as 'inappropriate'), but I am not sure that means the purpose or the reversions is to make them look bad, as opposed to Hb just using this to justify the inclusion of self-published material that is desired in the article for some other reason (e.g. letting them have their say) - that though self-published it isn't unduly self-serving if it makes them look foolish, so its OK to override the normal standards of sourcing to include it. Agricolae (talk) 19:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in getting back to you about this. Per SilverSeren's comment above I will ignore the issue of the sockpuppets and comment only on the disputes between the established users on the page. I have taken a look at the talk page, and it seems that there are a number of things being disputed. In my experience, the best way to get a handle on complex disputes is to make a list of all the different issues being disputed, so that we can concentrate on specific, concrete issues. Here are the ones that I have noticed:

  • Whether to call journal "peer-reviewed" and how to qualify the quality of its peer review process
  • Whether/how to present PZ Meyers' criticism of the journal, particularly regarding the quote from his blog
  • How to characterize the view of the journal by mainstream science
  • Whether to present the journal's coverage of climate change in the article
  • [EDIT] Whether to include coverage of the volume dealing with the feasibility of a human mission to Mars

Please let me know if you agree with this list. Also, if I have mis-characterized any of these disputes or left anything out, please correct me below. After we have found some agreement on what is under dispute it should give us a clearer idea of how to proceed. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 12:58, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

All four of the issues you pointed out are correct, though I would like to add one more, which was what prompted me to make this DRN request. I added this information about a specific volume of the Journal that received significant coverage because of the responses it got from people and also how it prompted NASA to start looking into possible Mars missions again. However, that paragraph was removed twice by Headbomb, who stated that we shouldn't be covering individual volumes, making a comparison to the journal Nature and how long it would be if we covered all the individual journals. I responded with both that the JoC only has 16 volumes and also that we should only be providing information on the ones that received significant coverage in the news or elsewhere. In comparison, the criticism of the Hoover paper could be seen the same way and should therefore, under that reasoning, also be removed because it is just commenting on a single Volume of the JoC. This is actually the main crux of my disagreement with Headbomb and how he is not allowing anything to be added to the article that is neutral or even slightly positive. SilverserenC 14:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the correction - I'm not sure how I missed that one. I've added it to the list of issues in my original post. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 14:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I have similar concerns as Silver seren. I don't think the article is neutral; it's main purpose seems to be to "show" that the journal is garbage. Compared to respected scientific journals, it probably is, but still - this is not the right way to write an encyclopedia article. I cannot offer any useful solution (I am especially not aware of any more positive information that could be added into the article for balance), and I don't wish to argue with anyone. Perhaps deleting the article would be a good way to end the dispute? Another solution would be to ask for third-party opinions. Nanobear (talk) 16:09, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I personally feel that deletion is never the proper answer when there is a dispute over article content. Even if it is POV, having something is better than nothing. And I don't believe there is much positive information to add, but I think there's plenty of neutral information that can be added to flesh out the article, like I tried to do before. If such information is added, then I think the article would be more properly balanced with the criticisms section, rather than it is now with mainly just being criticisms. SilverserenC 16:38, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
The fact that this journal may occasionally cover climate change is covered within the list of disciplines mentioned in the artcle such as Earth sciences and planetary sciences. I don't think it is necessary to mention every detailed discipline that the journal might have a paper on. So far it has not been desmonstrated that this paper [2] on clmate change has recieved the coverage that the Hoover paper has. The Hoover paper has recieved an extraordinary amount of coverage in the main stream press and science blogs. That is why the Hoover paper is in this article - it has achieved notability. This paper on climate change may have not achieved notability and may instead be considered WP:UNDUE if it is placed in the article.
Unfortunately, I have to doubt the anonymous IP's good intentions in bringing up the cliamte change issue [3], [4], [5]. It seemed to me that they brought this up on the talk page to neutralize the further contributions of an editor in good standing to this article. Although an editor has shown there is one secondary source coverage of JOC's paper on climate change [6], it appears that the conclusions are oversimplified and does not agree with the mainstream view.
I don't have anything against adding some content about the one-way mission to mars. That may have recieved enough coverage to be notable. However, again, I think it must be asked if this is real science or is it some fringe view? Also, again, compared to the Hoover paper, how much coverage in the press has this recieved? ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 18:02, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Examples:
To Boldly Go: What Made 400 People Volunteer for a One-Way Mission to Mars? - Fox News
Life On Mars: One-Way Ticket To Red Planet - Sky News
Scientists propose one-way trips to Mars - MSNBC
Out of the spaceship – and into a sandpit - The Independent
Those were the ones I was using in the section when I added it. Other sources covering it would be The Washington Post, Press Online, and Berliner Morgenpost. I could probably find a lot more if I looked harder. SilverserenC 19:19, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I remember this being in the news! This is the same organization? Wow, I didn't even realize that. Yes, I think this belongs in the article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:12, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
Both the Hoover and Mars papers received significant coverage by secondary reliable sources. For everyone's convenience, here are links to Google News Archive Searches for both:
A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:33, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Lest there be any doubt that mainstream climate scientists have paid attention to climate change artcles published in the journal of cosmology see here. Google "Journal of Cosmology" + realclimate to find more references and coverage of the realclimate discussion. --174.252.199.217 (talk) 21:02, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

    • I have been in communication with the actual owners of the Journal of Cosmology website, and I think it's best that the article entry for the Journal of Cosmology is deleted from wikipedia, they agreed, infact they even see the article on wiki as an attack against them and an ongoing problem, theres arguements on there everyday on the article for JOC on wiki, it aint neutral, and it really is just copping up problem after problem, it isnt a mainstream journal, and to be honest doesnt have many references. I suggest we all have a vote and nominate it for deletion. Would be best that way. 212.219.63.252 (talk) 21:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

212.219.63.252, when you say "it aint neutral", are you referring to the JOC itself or the WP page about it? The journal itself may not be neutral, but is notable, so I do not see deletion is a serious option. The WP article should try to be neutral, and therefore should not focus only on the JOC article that has been most criticized. For instance, the JOC's contribution to discussion about missions to Mars should be covered, as something that has been picked up by major media. Kalidasa 777 (talk) 00:18, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

  • I checked out A Quest For Knowledge's link to the google search pertaining to the one way trip to Mars, and I have to agree that there is plenty of press coverage. It appears to be sufficiently notable. The next question to ask might be how to cover this in the article? I noticed on the JOC talk page that this is probably popular science coverage rather than actual research. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 05:49, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
First, I want to clarify my level of involvement in this dispute. IIRC I have never edited the article until this past week. My only prior involvement with this topic was way back in March 2011 when this journal's reliability came up at the reliable sources noticeboard where I said that this doesn't appear to be a reliable journal:

I only started this editing this article because references to it (such as the one at DRN) kept showing up on my watchlist and I decided to check it out. So, I've only edited the article for about a week. That's my current level of involvement from a topic perspective.

From an editor perspective, I am not familiar with Headbomb. I don't recall any prior interaction with them. I do recognize Silver seren's name and I'm sure that I've interacted with them at some point. Probably several points. But I don't remember anything specific. If I had to guess, our interactions were probably positive.

I worked on this article for about a week and this was my experience:

I made a series of changes to the article all of which were clueful and were explained in the edit summaries.[7][8][9][10][11] [12][13] [14] Another editor also made a change with a clear explanation in the edit summary.[15] Headbomb reverted all of these changes with an edit summary of "revert bunch of completely inappropriate changes". Such an edit summary is entirely inadequate. It gives me no indication of what they didn't like or why. Both me and the other editor started discussions on the talk page.[16][17] Between the two of us, Headbomb was asked 7 times why he reverted our changes before he gave anything but a vague, meaningless response. In fact, he tried to shift the burden to me to explain why I objected to his reverts. It took a lot of time, but most (but not all) of the changes have since been added back into the article by Headbomb (which suggests that he didn't really examine what he reverted) but it was a difficult, painful process.

At the same time I added (what could be considered) positive information about this topic:

I also added (what could be considered) negative information about this topic:

The 'negative' information was eventually allowed back in the information. The 'positive' information was not. The other editor's contribution was also eventually allowed back in the article but again it was 'negative' information:

At the same time, another editor added 'negative' information[18] and that was allowed into the article.

Regarding the proposed addition of their Mars exploration, I remember reading about this in the news, but had no idea that this was the same group. I didn't make the connection until I read the above discussion. I think some mention belongs in the article.

The entire discussion can be found here: Mass revert of improvements. (Note that there was some confusion over the difference between peer-review and reputation which we didn't quite work out. At first I didn't understand what they were saying, but when I did, I explained I was really referring to the publication's reputation.)

I'm going to conclude this statement by basically repeating what I said at the end of that thread:

There's was an awful lot of discussion to get relatively few changes in the article, even a change to fix a run-on sentence was originally rejected and required multiple posts on the talk page to get into the article. There are several accusations of WP:OWN and after being there for a few days, but I am reaching a similar conclusion. We all have to work together. The sky is not going to fall if we add a paragraph about Mars or add a phrase about Penrose/Wickramasinghe or whoever to the article. I suggest the reigns be relaxed and other editors be allowed to work on the article.

Take from this what you will. I have no real interest in this topic (beyond the Mars bit) and I have no wish to get any more involved in this dispute. I am removing the article from my watchlist. I'm not familiar with how DRN works, but I hope that this was helpful. Good luck to all. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:49, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Addendum: Now that I think about it, parts of the article (namely the Reliability and Hoover paper controversy sections) descends into dangerously WP:ATTACK-ish territory, as if it was written to make the subject look bad. I'm not saying that was anyone's intention, but it is what ended up happening. The Reliability section, fortunately, does not mention any living people whose reputations could be hurt, but the Hoover section obviously does, and living people are mentioned in other parts of the article. Now that I think about it, it might even be a candidate for speedy deletion per G10, I'm not sure. But the topic's obviously notable. You might want to notify the editors of WP:BLPN who might know better how to handle these sort of things. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:00, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your further comments, everyone. I think that this dispute is too big and too complex for us to resolve here, and that it is probably time to look at some higher-level dispute resolution mechanisms. I suggest drafting an RfC that addresses the questions of whether to include the Mars mission coverage and how to portray the Hoover paper controversy; I think this would be a good next step to make towards resolving the issues here. We should also list the RfC at the appropriate WikiProjects to get their input, as WikiProject norms (particularly of WikiProject Journals) seem to play a big part in this dispute. Does this sound like a reasonable course of action to everyone? — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 05:50, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I see that the article's talk page has been quiet for about a week - are editors here still in need of dispute resolution? What do you think of my suggestion in the previous comment? If things continue to be quiet I think I will close this thread as stale. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 10:13, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't think an RfC would be of much use, really. And i'm sure the dispute will start up again the moment anyone tries to add anything else to the article. Since the article is, currently, still just an attack piece, i'm planning on starting up a discussion on adding the Mars Mission info and we'll have to see how that goes. I've just been busy with tests over the past week. SilverserenC 16:38, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Closing this one as stale. See comment at the top.

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.

Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2000

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.


Dispute overview

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

I am working very hard on this article. User:Mystylplx is persistently violating WP:NPOV with edits like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ralph_Nader_presidential_campaign,_2000&diff=453569704&oldid=453553960 and edit warring. User:Mystylplx also posts negative remarks about me on talk pages.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2000}} --~~~~ 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?

Yes. Warnings, etc.

  • How do you think we can help?

Mediation.

99.12.181.124 (talk) 20:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Ralph Nader presidential campaign, 2000 discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Note: There is currently an ANI on this. This goes way beyond just a .content dispute. Mystylplx (talk) 20:34, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

User:Mystylplx is harassing me and fueling disputes, but I'm not going to post that on every Wikipedia page or board. 99.12.181.124 (talk) 21:06, 22 October 2011 (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.

Space Rangers 2: Dominators

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.


Dispute overview

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

A warning that is more specific than the previous warning is being removed without explanation.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

I can't comment to the editor's page, because it is protected. Editor has not responded to Discussion comment. Editor has responded to me on my Talk page only with boilerplate. Boilerplate threats, that is.

  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Space Rangers 2: Dominators}} --~~~~ 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?

Yes, the page is blocked from editing

  • How do you think we can help?

Open a dialog? Allow my edit?

98.210.209.79 (talk) 06:39, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Space Rangers 2: Dominators discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.


The statement "This can cause widespread damage to your computer" that you are trying to add is currently unsourced, and on first read it sounds like it might be original research. The comment that you wrote when reverting changes "I understand that Wikipedia editors don't have the fucking brains they were born with, but love their little bureaucracy, but please read the Discussion and make an intelligent response before reverting this again" is a bit harsh. Maybe if you added a source for the addition the other user would no longer have an issue with it. As it stands now, Anikingos doesn't seem to be doing anything wrong. --Stvfetterly (talk) 15:37, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I've posted on the talk page; I'll paraphrase what I put there. Essentially, if you want to write about problems with a puiece of software, we need verification. This means a reliable, third-party source which documents any problems would need to be provided. Without this, we cannot include the information on Wikipedia, as we cannot be sure that it is accurate. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 16:32, 23 October 2011 (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.

Battle of Tali-Ihantala, Continuation War

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.


Dispute overview

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

These articles are biased in favor of the Finnish point of view and attempts to introduce alternative views have led to long disputes. The overall problem is how to fairly present contradictory information from reliable sources and avoid original research. It looks like the other user has trouble with this.

The dispute can be narrowed to specific statements in the articles.

1) ...according to Soviet sources the Finns advanced and took the settlement of Novyi Beloostrov on 4 September, but a Soviet counter-attack threw them out the next day,[ref1][ref2] although the war diary of the Finnish 12th Division facing the settlement[ref3] does not mention the fighting and notes that it was quiet at the time[ref4] and neither does Finnish chronology of the Continuation War.[ref5][19]

The second part of the sentence is original research; information from a reliable source cannot be put in doubt by the research of a user, by what he concludes from the information he was able or unable to find.


2) Finnish forces achieved a defensive victory,[ref1][ref2] though Russian historian N. Baryshnikov criticizes this as an exaggeration[ref3][20]

The pro-Finnish view about the result of the battle is presented as an indisputable fact. My attempt to make the sentence more balanced (by adding a phrase like Some historians state that the... at the start of the sentence) is always reverted.


3) ...the Finnish government decided to interpret the present Soviet response as it was written: a demand for unconditional surrender[ref1][ref2][ref3][21]

The part in bold implies that the Finns were given an unconditional surrender demand, which is not the case as many sources say otherwise. I have even quoted the actual text of the demand and the words unconditional surrender or unconditional capitulation do not appear there.[22]


4) The Battle of Tali-Ihantala, along with other Finnish victories (Battle of Vyborg Bay (1944), Battle of Vuosalmi, Battle of Nietjärvi ,and Battle of Ilomantsi) achieved during the period, finally convinced the Soviet leadership that conquering Finland was proving difficult, and not worth the cost;[ref1]the battle was possibly the single most important battle fought in the Continuation War, as it largely determined the final outcome of the war, allowing Finland to conclude the war with relatively favorable terms[ref2][ref1] and continue its existence as an autonomous and independent nation.[ref1][23]

Once again this presents the Finnish view as an undisputed fact. Although I have a source that states that such views are from Finnish historiography, I decided to add - In Finnish sources and some publications outside of Finland, it is stated that... or According to some historians like Henrik Lunde..., to the beginning (instead of just According to Finnish historiography...) as a compromise, but even that is constantly being removed.


5) Though conquering Finland was not one of the known goals of the Soviet offensive[ref1][ref2][ref3] and there is no solid documentary evidence, like military orders, that the Soviet high command intended to advance to Helsinki and occupy the country.[ref4] there exist strong evidence that Soviets intended to advance far beyond the borders of 1940.[ref5][24]

This looks like synthesis; two pieces of information (not conquering Finland + order to advance into Finland) are combined to imply something else, although I am not sure what exactly he tries to imply... The last citation is for the text of the actual order (primary source) and so the phrase strong evidence that Soviets intended to advance far beyond could only be his own interpretation.


6) According to Baryshnikov, Finnish propaganda soon started talking about a victory, and after the war this claim of achieving a victory in stopping the Soviets from conquering Finland became an official theme in Finnish historiography[ref1] however contrary to Baryshnikov's claim view of the Finnish victory is not limited to Finnish historiography.[ref2][ref3][25]

Again, the last part is not a conclusion from a reliable source but comes from the user. This conclusion is obviously wrong too; Baryshnikov never says that the view is limited to Finnish historians.


7)

Also, Wanderer602 insists on using the Finnish name (Viipuri) for the city of Vyborg,[26] even though in English it is known as Vyborg now. During the war it looks like it was mostly known as Viborg. [27]

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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.[28]

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Battle of Tali-Ihantala, Continuation War}} --~~~~ 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?

There are long discussions on the talk pages that go in circles.[29][30][31][32] I tried third opinion[33] and the no original research noticeboard twice.[34][35] There were reports created in the incidents and edit warring noticeboards.[36][37] Comments were also made on an admin's talk page[38][39] and he eventually suggested to go here.[40]

  • How do you think we can help?

Help determine how to present the information from sources correctly, so that the articles are more balanced.

YMB29 (talk) 00:51, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Battle of Tali-Ihantala, Continuation War discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Collapsing uncivil discussion
As discussed in length in the talk pages i'll provide here short descriptions of the issues.
  1. None of what is written is OR, all comments are as per information available from the listed sources.
  2. So far only Baryshnikov has claimed that it would not have been a Finnish victory. Since it has been insisted that his view must be represented what there currently reads seems to me a fairly well balanced statement.
  3. 'As per written' - or analogous statements - can actually be found from sources. In other words Soviet demand was so poorly worded that it demanded surrender/capitulation before anything else.
  4. As discussed earlier Baryshnikov's view is represented later on - sources which state Tali-Ihantala as Finnish victory are plentiful. The source YMB29 refers to is used as a blanket statement - in essence every one who comes with conclusion that it was a Finnish victory is marked as 'following Finnish historiography' even though as per what has been discussed there is no evidence (apart from clear OR 'evidence') of such beyond what amounts in essence to be circular reasoning based on that very statement.
  5. It is only there to note that Soviet goals extended far beyond pre-war borders. STAVKA order is that strong evidence.
  6. Criticism is there only because of the Baryshnikov's claim that the view would be limited to what he describes as 'Finnish historiography' - in essence source is stating only Finnish or related would have come up such a conclusion, since there exists sources which are not Finnish and still state the same it seemed important enough to note it in the article.
  7. See the discussions on the Talk:Gdansk/Vote Talk:Gdańsk and Viipuri talk pages. As per those the name ought to be Viipuri.
I'll leave the personal insults from YMB29 out of this.
- Wanderer602 (talk) 04:32, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. You coming to a conclusion that there was no fighting based on your personal research of sources is not OR? Where is your source that explicitly says that the Soviet sources are wrong and there was no fighting? You don't have one...
  2. You are making it look like Finnish victory is an obvious fact and only some minor historian is challenging it.
  3. I quoted the actual text and where you are seeing the word unconditional I don't know... Just because it was misinterpreted by the Finns, does not give you a reason to say "as it was written". This is another one of your OR phrases.
  4. Did you yourself understand what you wrote? The issue is not just the statement about a Finnish victory but the other conclusions, for which you provided only two sources, and this does not give you the right to present those conclusions as indisputable facts. There is nothing wrong with attributing the conclusions to the authors. The issue discussed on the talk page is your claim that a non-Finnish historian can't be following Finnish historiography (basing his conclusions on Finnish sources and views), which is the basis of your OR for issue #6.
  5. The problem here is how you use the text of the order. You can't interpret it yourself or use it for synthesis.
  6. You showed that this is indeed your OR quite well there... Once again such personal interpretations don't belong in the article.
  7. You still did not explain how that Danzig/Gdansk vote supports your claim that it ought to be Viipuri. Just because the Finns occupied it?
Overall, your constant original research speaks for itself. -YMB29 (talk) 06:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. As stated before the source came to the conclusion that there was no fighting at the location - there was fighting in the vicinity of the site but not at the Valkeasaari station (N. Beloostrov). And that statement is supported by the war diaries.
  2. So far there has not been anything but minor historian disputing the fact that it was Finnish victory so why should it not be stated so?
  3. As per sources state - the demand required Finns first to surrender (without discussing terms) before anything else. Is that not unconditional surrender? Same statement is repeated in number of sources.
  4. Actually the claim that they would be using Finnish historiography is based on the conclusions they had reached and separately to the claim Baryshnikov made - which makes it original synthesis from your part to claim that they would be 'following Finnish historiography' - you have not provided any evidence of such beyond you OR. As for that matter even though certain conclusion might be common in 'Finnish historiography' it does not mean that you can apply the same logic vice versa and deduct that any one coming to such a conclusion would be following 'Finnish historiography' - that deduction is already without basis even if it had not been OR.
  5. It is not synthesis or even research - the document plainly states that the goal of the offensive laid far beyond the borders of 1940 - it is documentary evidence that Soviet goals laid deep in Finland.
  6. It is not original research to point out that there are sources which directly contradict what he is stating. Had you phrased the original claim in more clear manner there would not be need for such but instead you have insisted inserting the claim that certain view would be 'of Finnish historiography'.
  7. Please read through the Danzig/Gdansk discussion. It is explained there. Also as a minor detail Finns did not occupy Viipuri (sw: Viborg, ru: Vyborg) instead that town and the land lost in Winter War were rejoined into Finland (annexed if you will).
As for that matter you have so far blamed me for lying, for manipulating sources and once again for original research, every time without any basis. Now could you please keep the insults you hurl out of the discussion, this in not a place for them.
- Wanderer602 (talk) 07:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. The source came to that conclusion?? It is your conclusion... Are you going to lie now?
  2. Who told you that he is a minor historian? Just because you don't like what he says... Also who told you that Finnish victory is a universally accepted fact? Again, it is your own conclusion...
  3. So again, where in the text of the Soviet response do you see a call for unconditional surrender? I have quoted sources that prove your claim wrong.[41] You just ignore what you don't like.
  4. So a non-Finnish author repeating the same things as Finnish authors means he bases his statements on Russian or German sources and not Finnish sources? That does not make sense... I used this argument against your OR that non-Finnish authors cannot be following Finnish historiography and so Baryshnikov is wrong, which you constantly insert into the article.
  5. Deep into Finland is your interpretation. You implying that they intended to continue is also your OR.
  6. This is not about my claim but about what a historian writes (I quoted him on the talk page). You can't interpret him how you want to.
  7. It does not matter if it was annexed or occupied. No treaty was signed, so formally it was Soviet. And that is not the main point anyway. Most important is how it was referred to in English. You still fail to answer my question about that vote.
I don't know where you see insults. I guess by showing your OR I am insulting you... -YMB29 (talk) 14:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. The history of the war book which goes through the action in the front but omits any mentions of activity at N. Beloostrov, that is the cited source which you have so far ignored.
  2. Finnish victory appears in several serious studies of the battle of Tali-Ihantala - so far i have not seen other claims than Baryshnikov's that it would not have been such.
  3. Even according to your own source which you selectively quoted "But the badly-drafted Soviet note demanding "capitulation" had already been sent on 23 June...". What ever may be the reason Soviets managed to represent their demand in a way that when read literally was a demand for unconditional surrender. Selectively quoting your sources does not improve your case either.
  4. Just because non-Finnish historians reaches same conclusions as Finns do does not mean he would be 'following Finnish historiography'. As discussed earlier such a claim is not only OR but clear blunder in deduction.
  5. Kymiriver line is deep within Finland. And the order commands Soviets to advance there. The order does not explicitly tell them to stop there however.
  6. He stated that something would be found in Finnish historiography, since the same conclusion as which Finns reached was also reached by non-Finnish historians (ie. outside Finnish historiography) it should be noted there.
  7. Actually it was as formally Soviet as it was Finnish. That is what annexation does - again see Danzig/Gdansk case. When referring to German rule it is called Danzig - in similar manner when referring to Finnish rule it should be called Viipuri. The vote in question handles similar case - town with several names during different time periods. The case there is equivalent to that in case with Viipuri/Viborg/Vyborg. As for that matter the town has no English name, again see the case with Danzig/Gdansk issue.
So far you have not been able to show there to be have been OR. In addition you have directly claimed [42] that i would have been lying (which is an insult) or intentionally manipulating sources.
- Wanderer602 (talk) 14:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. Just because it omits it or you are unable to find mention of it, does not mean it did not happen. You conclude that nothing happened, which is OR...
  2. That is again your own conclusion based on the sources you looked at.
  3. Constantly misusing sources does not help you... Badly-drafted does not change the fact that the Finns misinterpreted it and does not mean that you can claim that it demanded unconditional surrender...
  4. No you are the one claiming that a non-Finnish historian cannot be following Finnish historiography and based on this you are inserting OR into the article.
  5. There was no order to advance further and so you implying that there was is OR. The line being deep into Finland is your interpretation.
  6. Again that is completely your OR. See #4.
  7. We can look at literature written during that time. The name Viborg was common at the time, not Viipuri... So you are saying that it is about who ruled the city? Well during the battle the Soviets controlled it, so by your own logic it was Soviet and the name Vyborg has to be used in the article.
Again, your edits speak for themselves. You made those accusations (about lying and manipulating) about me first[43] and I just responded. -YMB29 (talk) 16:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. Just included further translation from the Finnish war diaries, of JR6 & 18D, link, which also make it clear that neither did JR6 attack N. Beloostrov. Also as stated previously the history of the war (chronology) makes no mention of action at N. Beloostrov. I do not conclude that nothing happened, the chronology does.
  2. So far there has not been anything apart Baryshnikov's claims that it wouldn't be so.
  3. What Soviets intended with the demand is irrelevant. What matters is how Finns interpreted it - since it was so 'badly drafted' (as per your source) that Finns understood it to be demand for unconditional surrender, in other words when Finns read it as it was written it was a demand for unconditional surrender.
  4. I'm not claiming they would be following any type of 'historiography'. You have made the claims and so far those claims have been nothing but your OR - just because writers come up with same conclusions as the Finns do does not mean that they would be following Finnish sources or 'following Finnish historiography'.
  5. I'm not implying that there was. However the given order indicated in no way that the indicated line would be the final line of the advance. We simply do not know if it was or was not.
  6. I didn't reach any conclusion or made OR there. The other sources - which are clearly not Finnish - came to same conclusion as the Finns did - that section concerning Baryshnikov implies that such a view would have been a Finnish view. Since there is contradicting sources shouldn't those be mentioned?
  7. Please read the Danzig/Gdansk discussion. The issue is discussed there. Besides name 'Vyborg' was applied only after 1948 (even according to Vyborg page) so it clearly can't be the name of the place.
Except that you did insert lies or falsehoods in your edit, see: [44], none of the reliable sources were Finnish despite what your edit stated - both summary and actual edit. Furthermore you indicated (separately) that Lunde would not have stated that the battle ended in Finnish victory while he explicitly mentions exactly that.
- Wanderer602 (talk) 17:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. The chronology does not explicitly say that there was no fighting; that is your conclusion based on it. You can quote as many sources as you like, but as long as they don't explicitly say that, it is your conclusion... Is the concept of original research so hard to understand?
  2. Well Baryshnikov does more than just claim... Claiming is what you do, such as claiming the disputed statement to be a fact...
  3. No, not all Finns understood it as a demand for unconditional surrender and they were debating this. As another user pointed out, it was Mannerheim who decided on interpreting it as unconditional surrender.[45] You have no basis to claim it to be interpreted "as it was written", when the actual text proves you wrong...
  4. Just because writers are not Finnish and come up with the same conclusions as the Finns does not mean they did not use Finnish sources or views. You are claiming that this is not true and inserting this OR into the article (view of the Finnish victory is not limited to Finnish historiography).
  5. So don't imply anything if there is no information...
  6. No because your statement is based on your interpretation of what Baryshnikov means and your assumption that Lunde does not follow Finnish historiography just because he is not Finnish.
  7. How can it be applied only in 1948 when it has always been known so. That part in the Vyborg article is unsourced... You tell me what exactly I have to read in that long Danzig/Gdansk discussion? You are continuing to ignore that it was known as Viborg in English during the war...
Your accusations have no basis. Don't know when I said that Lunde does not say something he does say or what that diff means according to you (the sources don't have to be Finnish for a statement to be according to the Finnish point of view...). You have weird interpretations of what others say, which is very disruptive... -YMB29 (talk) 18:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. Chronology lists combat action in the front, yet it omits all mentions of action at N. Beloostrov on September 4/5. It is conclusion done in the source that there were no action, as stated before. This matter was explained to you several times before by one of reviewers of the case yet since the result was not what you wanted you have chosen to ignore it.
  2. So far the statements i made in the article have been sourced so i fail to see what you are referring to. Baryshnikov is entitled to have his opinion - as are you - but that does mean his views would need to be dominant like you have represented it.
  3. As your own source states, it was 'badly phrased'. Finns were not sure what Soviets were after with it so they - as per Mannerheim's suggestion - read it as it had been written. The demand requires - as per written - Finns to surrender without terms before anything else would take place - is that not unconditional surrender or not?
  4. Actually the claim that when they came up with same conclusions as the Finns would mark them as 'following Finnish historiography' - or using Finnish sources - is your conclusion for which you alone need to find evidence - other than the original research you have presented so far. I have never marked those writers following any historiography, those claims have been yours and so far you have been unable to prove it in any other manner than by your OR. I do not make claim that they would or that they would not use Finnish sources, I simply do not know what is the case - you however have represented it (that they would use Finnish sources) as a fact and have failed to prove it.
  5. That you got wrong, if you state that order told the offensive 'to stop at Kymiriver' then its not true, while 'to continue to Kymiriver' would be.
  6. So far the only evidence of Lunde 'following the Finnish historiography' has been your OR so i fail to see how it - your original research - is relevant to this matter.
  7. Viipuri/Viborg/Vyborg does not have an explicit name in English unlike certain other places have (for nice example see Ushant) - see for example [46] or [47] or [48] all which refer to the town explicitly as 'Viipuri'. Read the case through and more importantly the final verdict that was reached.
So accusations which are proven are without basis? For you to claim that they were Finnish opinions you actually need to prove that they represent Finnish view. Otherwise you are introducing falsehoods into the article - in other words OR, except that with the ongoing discussion on the topic you had to have been perfectly aware of the matter and yet intentionally included misleading information to the article.
- Wanderer602 (talk) 19:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. What are you talking about? It is your conclusion that just because a source does not mention it, it did not happen. There is no going around this... Another user who gave a third opinion clearly told you that what you are doing is original research [49] but you ignore this...
  2. I did not say that his views should be dominant; that is another one of your false interpretations... Where is your source for Finnish victory being a commonly accepted fact?
  3. No... again where do you see the word unconditional? You see something others don't? If it was written as a demand for unconditional surrender why did some Finns fail to see that? The phrase "as it was written" is completely your own false interpretation.
  4. Where do you see me making such statements in the article? So you are going to deny that you inserted into the article this: however contrary to Baryshnikov's claim view of the Finnish victory is not limited to Finnish historiography Here you assume that just because Lunde is not Finnish he cannot be following Finnish historiography and that Baryshnikov meant that such views are only limited to Finnish historiography. You put this OR into the article, not me, so don't blame me...
  5. I did not say stop... Look at my last edit. When will you learn to read carefully? Saying to continue is OR since it implies without basis that they would have advanced further.
  6. It is OR to claim that Lunde does not follow it. See #4.
  7. I read it over and so what? Most of your links don't work...
What accusations have you proven? All of what you accuse me of is relevant to you... You have inserted OR and misleading statements into articles and then lied that you did not... -YMB29 (talk) 21:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. The third source is chronology of the events. It is supported by the war diaries, none of which have indicated any activity at N. Beloostrov.
  2. Just see the listed sources. If attacker fails to in its attack that is generally considered to be victory for the defender.
  3. Demand was 'badly phrased' and indicated - when read from word to word - that Finns needed first to surrender before anything else could happen. That is unconditional surrender, nothing else.
  4. Actually so far only you have claimed that Lunde would be following some certain historiography but you have only provided evidence based on your OR to support it. The sources (all non Finnish) mark there that claim that victory would only be 'Finnish version' does not correspond with reality.
  5. You do not need to say it, it is enough that you imply it would have.
  6. As before you made the claim Lunde would be following some 'historiography', so it is you who needs to provide evidence for it - something beyond the OR evidence you provided earlier.
  7. Links work perfectly fine. Just tested all three of them. Inability to open simple webpages is not a reason to dismiss them.
That you inserted clearly false information into the article. That you misrepresented sources. Both seen from the diffs which you made.
- Wanderer602 (talk) 05:23, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. You are denying a fact based on omission. Give it up; you are making yourself look bad...
  2. Generally considered by who, you?
  3. Capitulation does not mean unconditional surrender. Look it up in a dictionary...
  4. So you are going to deny that you inserted the phrase I quoted into the article? In that case it is easy to prove that you are lying... That the phrase is OR is obvious to anyone. It proves that it is you who is making claims about Lunde and Baryshnikov. Also you claim as fact more than just Finnish victory at this battle but that it also saved Finland...
  5. How do I imply it? All the implying is coming from you...
  6. So you inserted OR into the article and still continue to blame me...
  7. Inability to give proper links is not a reason to believe they prove anything. So you have a maximum of three articles, while I gave a link to pages of NY Times articles (368 articles) which use the name Viborg. Are you going to ignore that?
What diffs are you talking about? Once again, your comments and edits speak for themselves. Seeing words that don't appear in the text and denying your own OR from the article are clear examples of lying and manipulation... -YMB29 (talk) 06:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
  1. As per what person reviewing the page noted, that if there was a reliable secondary source concentrating in the events that omits the fighting then it would not be OR to state that it did not happen. As it happens i provided just that kind of source. Just because you do not like it does not mean it is not true.
  2. As the attacker failed it is defenders victory. If we would go with your logic then it would mean that for example Battle of Britain was not a British victory. In addition several sources support statement of Finnish victory.
  3. Capitulation does not, however capitulation without terms does. And that is exactly what the Soviet demand in its 'bad phrasing' did. It demanded Finns to surrender without negotiating terms.
  4. There were several sources behind that claim why should i deny it? All sources which are non-Finnish and come to similar conclusion as the Finns did. Clearly marking that such a viewpoint is not solely Finnish like it had been implied. Also for that matter i did not make claims that Lunde would be following any historiography, all those claims came from you however only evidence for them has been your OR.
  5. Continue to does not imply that the offensive would continue from that line nor does it imply that it would. It only states that it would continue to.
  6. I inserted statement supported by several sources and you insist it is OR.
  7. They more than enough to prove that your claim that 'Viborg' would have been the sole name of the town in English is not true.
I already provided you with the diff. Give examples were i would have done such edits.
- Wanderer602 (talk) 07:20, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely disgusting behaviour from the both of you. You both need a good whack on the knuckles. You are both on notice, any further incivility and this will be escalated to ANI. Articles should be balanced and fairly represent all major viewpoints represented in reliable sources. If there's a question on whether sources used are reliable, RSN is good for that sort of stuff. Resolving content disputes is what this board is for, not to engage in a tit-for-tat discussion. If discussion is to continue in such a manner then it will be closed and referred to ANI. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 08:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

So you are saying that the only the party making the report is allowed make allegations without the other party being allowed to speak up? - Wanderer602 (talk) 11:19, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, dispute resolution is specifically for getting outside help with disputes that editors cannot resolve on their own. I don't think there is any problem with giving your side of the story in one or two posts, and indeed it is expected. However, just turning the dispute resolution page into a continuation of a previous argument is not very helpful. I suggest waiting for outside input rather than just responding to the other involved editors and escalating the dispute. Looking at all the different issues involved, this looks like a good candidate for informal mediation at the Mediation Cabal to me. Would you both be open to some informal mediation? All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 11:35, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm ok with anything that gets the matter resolved. - Wanderer602 (talk) 11:41, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I am not against it, but the issues are simple enough to get resolved here if anyone would comment on the statements I quoted in the initial post. I mean it is not difficult to tell what is original research and what is not or how to use sources in a balanced matter. -YMB29 (talk) 14:22, 20 October 2011 (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.

American Staffordshire Terrier

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.


Dispute overview

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

The American Staffordshire Terrier (AmStaff) and others in this breed group are controversial among dogs because their temperament and suitability to be around people and other animals are in dispute. To this end, the American Temperament Test Society (ATTS) gives tests of dog temperament to people who volunteer to bring in their dog and also pay the testing fee. The results are summarized by group to attempt to make statements about breed temperament. The ATTS is a corporation that charges for their tests and also provides breed summarizes at their website. The ATTS is not a society for dog breed experts or anything of the sort. In the AmStaff article, the percentage of AmStaffs passing the ATTS test is compared other breeds. This is an inappropriate use of the ATTS data. The reason is that the sample of dogs from each breed has not been selected with an eye for them being random, representative of each breed. It is a voluntary, paid sample. In this situation, one would expect that results would be unreliable. This is due to several bias-inducing mechanisms, notably self-selection bias. In short, people are not expected to bring in aggressive dogs and pay for them to flunk a test. The ATTS and those who use their data have made no effort to make their sample by breed representative and do not acknowledge the high likelihood, based upon basic logic, that breed temperament summaries will be biased high and that rankings will likely be misleading. Therefore, the portion of the AmStaff article citing the ATTS statistics should be removed until these concerns are addressed.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=American Staffordshire Terrier}} --~~~~ 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 this with k84m97 on the discussion section of this article in the subheading "ATTS test". I was usually not signed in but had this IP 76.92.68.79.

  • How do you think we can help?

Provide an outside perspective to judge this dispute based upon the merits of both sides.

Wvguy8258 (talk) 21:36, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

American Staffordshire Terrier discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

I am a mediator/clerk here at DRN. I've taken a look at the discussion so far and the thing which strikes me the most is that there is not a single discussion about why this material can or cannot be included under Wikipedia policy. The entire discussion is about the merits and deficits of the material itself. The most fundamental policy for inclusion in WP is verifiability and that policy begins:

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

Another important policy is no original research which says, in effect, that Wikipedia only reports information as it has been set out in a reliable source without interpretation or analysis of that information (and "reliable source" means something very specific, not just it's dictionary-definition meaning). Part of the no original research policy is the policy on primary sources. It says, in pertinent part,

Primary sources are very close to an event, often accounts written by people who are directly involved, offering an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. A ... scientific paper documenting a new experiment is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment. ... Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation.

(Emphasis added.) ATTS is, for the data it produces, a primary source. Its experimental results cannot be directly used in an article because they have not been published in a reliable source. A quick scan of Google News would appear to indicate that the ATTS data has been mentioned in mainstream newspapers, which are one kind of reliable source, but you must realize that all that can be included in an article is what those newspaper articles or other reliable sources say about the ATTS results, without interpretation or analysis (and you must even then avoid letters to the editor, reader blogs, and certain other types of newspaper features, see identifying reliable sources for help with this). Once that is done, then other reliable sources may be found which question the ATTS results. If so (and only if so), then what those sources say may also be included in the article to call the ATTS results into question, but not to exclude the ATTS results. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC) Correction: Newspapers are not a reliable source for scientific data, per this rule. The ATTS results should not, therefore, be included in the article unless reported in a reliable source of the type which would look at their work with a critical, professional eye, such as a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Sorry for the confusion. — TransporterMan (TALK) 14:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Hi there, I found info on this in Dogs in Canada magazine which is a prestigious publication founded in 1889 and offers "expert advice on health, behaviour, training, nutrition, sporting activities" Please take a look. P.S. I looked it up and every article on dogs at wiki use sources from prestigious specialty magazines and Kennel Clubs. Regards k84m97 (talk) 23:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
The moderator specifically wrote " The ATTS results should not, therefore, be included in the article unless reported in a reliable source of the type which would look at their work with a critical, professional eye, such as a peer-reviewed scientific journal." The website : http://www.dogsincanada.com/american-staffordshire-terrier-fact-or-fallacy that k84m87 points toward in the discussion section to justify inclusion of the ATTS stats is a magazine that is now only available in online form and was only available in print sporadically before, relying upon their online readership. This is not remotely similar to a "peer-reviewed scientific journal", as mentioned, that would be capable to transparently evaluate the weight of any evidence. I therefore suggest that this source does not meet stated standards and mention of the ATTS stats should be removed until such time that a legitimate reference materializes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wvguy8258 (talk • contribs) 07:05, 22 October 2011 (UTC) Wvguy8258 (talk) 07:06, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
This magazine appears from 1889 and is one of the most prestigious pet magazines on the north American continent. Wvguy8258's hate speeches toward this and related dog breeds are well known. I tried to conform with the mediator's advice. Same conclusion about Temperament tests in Scot E. Dowd Ph.D., Assessment of Canine Temperament in Relation to Breed Groups, Matrix Canine Research Institute. Shallowater, TX 79363.Assessment of Canine Temperament in Relation to Breed Groups Maybe we shold use this scientific paper as source, the conclusion is the same.k84m97 (talk) 07:19, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
k84m97 ridiculous ad hominem related to me practicing hate speech about dog breeds is noted, as is that he/she has owned the breed we are discussing here for 15 years (as stated on their talk page). k84m97 seems to be confused about what a peer-reviewed scientific journal actually is. It is not a well-respected magazine, like Time. It is not a self-published article by a guy with a PhD and a website, such as the last suggestion.Wvguy8258 (talk) 19:08, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Scot E. Dowd Ph.D.:Assessment of Canine Temperament in Relation to Breed Groups, Matrix Canine Research Institute, 2006. The site just host the research as the research is done by Matrix Canine Research Institute. It's a scientific research Assessment of Canine Temperament in Relation to Breed Groups, Scot E. Dowd Ph.D. Matrix Canine Research Institute, 2006 As you can see here and the article's talk page user Wvguy8258 is insulting me. IT Wouldn't meter to him where was the research done, if it not negative toward this and similar breeds he will not agree.k84m97 (talk) 19:38, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
It appears you are not understanding what a peer-reviewed scientific journal is or even similar to. An article written by a guy with a PhD that works somewhere with "research institute" in the name does not automatically qualify. If it did, then everything written by a PhD on university letter head would automatically be a fitting source for wikipedia. It is obvious why this is not the case. Wvguy8258 (talk) 19:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I've had a brief look at this dispute and thought I might give my suggestions. Firstly, can we please discuss this civilly? Let's keep the discussion on the article in hand, rather than the personality, editing history or whatever of other users. As TransporterMan said, reliable sources would be required for us to include the ATTS test. Since then, this source has been provided to verify the claim made. I'm afraid that this is not really a reliable source; what we really need is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal. Dogs in Canada is a magazine - not a scientific journal - and is not peer-reivewed. If the ATTS tests are to be included, a better source would need to be found. Can I also just suggest that the two of you do not edit the page until this dispute is resolved. You've done well to bring the issue here - it is now counter-productive to try to edit the page before we reach resolution. I also suggest you take a look at our 3RR policy. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 19:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you ItsZippy. Please check also this source Assessment of Canine Temperament in Relation to Breed Groups, Scot E. Dowd Ph.D. Matrix Canine Research Institute, 2006. The site just host the study. The research is done by Matrix Canine Research Institute, Texas and was published in 2006: "Scot E. Dowd Ph.D.:Assessment of Canine Temperament in Relation to Breed Groups" Please take a look.k84m97 (talk) 20:11, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that source K84m97, but I don't think it qualifies as a reliable source. The source seems to be original research - it was carried out by the people who published it. For it to be used as a reliable source on Wikipedia, the results would have to be referenced in another reliable, third-party location. In this case, the best place would be a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Until something along those lines is found, I would suggest that information on the ATTS tests are not included. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 21:27, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the fast reply. I used from this research what they analyzed from the American Temperament test Society. The research regarding the temperament was done by ATTS, Matrix Canine Research analyze and use those data. What do you think? Thank you. k84m97 (talk) 21:37, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I looked up the article. While sources from dog magazines are not suitable sources for Wikipedia the second one qualifies since the research refers to a study carried out by the American Temperament Test Society, thus is not a primary source.Regards !Citizen of the USA (talk) 21:52, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
The second one is not peer-reviewed or from a scientific journal. Do you disagree with the original mediators insistence upon these traits? Also, please look around the website for the research group that produced the .pdf (http://www.canineresearch.net/) and then ask yourself if an organization with unnamed experts, taking paypal donations from the general public, and specializing in research to combat breed specific legislation is an appropriate peer-reviewed and scientific source, such as a journal. Wvguy8258 (talk) 22:30, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Wvguy8258, As asked I gave my opinion on the subject. Do NOT attack me and please keep to the subject, after all this is an Encyclopedia.Citizen of the USA (talk) 23:14, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Citizen, if you think what I wrote was not related to the subject at hand and was an attack, then I do not know what to say as your reply is flabbergasting. I will rely upon others reading this to sort it out and read what I wrote and also what you did in reply. Wvguy8258 (talk) 06:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
The author of the .pdf from Matrix Canine Research also runs an online university related to learning about pit bulls. This is slightly odd behavior from a scientist to be relied upon to review data related to the subject. I assure you that before I became interested in this subject I was unaware of the depth and tangled web of those related to this subject. It would make a great sociological study. This may be useful if mediators want to learn about this source. It is found here: http://www.ukcpitbull.com/edu2/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=2 Wvguy8258 (talk) 06:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Citizen of the USA, the problem with the second source is that it seems to be original research. The publishers seem to be the people who carried out the tests, or were at least close to those who did so. This means we cannot use it as a reliable secondary source to verify a claim. Unless and until a reliable source is found which is completely detached from the group who carried out the tests, they should not be included. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 16:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
ItsZippy I looked it up again. I wasn't able to find connection between the authors of the studies. The second study mentions and analyse the first one, thus is not a primary source and I find it appropriate to be included. In all dog breed related articles sources come from AKC and some primary sources. If this references are not suitable I feel we could delete 90% of the contents of dog related articles. You will hardly find info on dogs in publications like Time and also which publication is suitable or not is also a mater of debate. The AKC and county authorities are using the results of temperament tests: Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors allow an unaltered license provision for owners of "restricted breeds" if they pass the ATTS test.American Kennel Club Another user also got also involved in this dispute. See on talk page. RegardsCitizen of the USA (talk) 17:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Just a math/logic point, as I have a compulsion to correct errors of this type. Citizen, LA county allowing individual dogs to be vindicated by a temperament test is a different kettle of fish than summarizing results by breed for interbreed comparison. No one has disputed that individual tests are valid for individual dogs, but these individual tests must be properly distributed within a dog breed for the summary of that group to be valid.Wvguy8258 (talk) 21:02, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
"Secondary sources rely on primary sources for their material, making analytic or evaluative claims about them. For example, a review article that analyzes research papers in a field is a secondary source for the research" Future-more "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them" As from the ATTS were used only the statistics I see no problem mentioning these two sources.Citizen of the USA (talk) 17:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply, Citizen. I still have a problem with this source, because it comes from this website. The website seems to be run by one man with no professional backing, which lends me to believe it is unreliable. The research paper comes from this page, where it is listed with a number of other papers. The paper itself, I think, is written by the people who carried out the investigation, making it original research. For it to be used, a reliable source would have to comment on the research paper (at the moment, we have an unreliable source linking to it).
Your second source looks more promising. It does mention the tests and seems much more reliable. I think that one could be used in the article. However, its use of the information is limited, and you could probably only include what the website has to say about it. From what I understand, the ATTS test is referenced when outlining the requirements for a license: that will be all you can really talk about in the article.
I hope that helps. I think that, at present, a limited amount on information can be put into the article, based on the recently provided source. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 17:34, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your fast reply ItsZippy. That "The paper itself, I think, is written by the people who carried out the investigation" you think it without proof what makes it speculation. And regarding the site what hosts the paper, it si just hosting it. The analyse itself was published in print. However I'll go to the library to look for other sources. As I mentioned above another user is taking part in the dispute (see talk page) 3 users are backing the sources and two are against it. I'll see what I'll find tomorrow. Regards!Citizen of the USA (talk) 18:11, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
It seems the author, Scot E. Dowd, is also a pit bull breeder: http://www.apbt.info/tiki-pagehistory.php?page=Dr%20Matrix&source=0 Wvguy8258 (talk) 02:03, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Citizen, why did you come in acting as if you were going to mediate and now you are actively looking for a way to prop up the ATTS stats by finding sources? Wvguy8258 (talk) 21:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I know I am just speculating but, so we can ensure that we only use good quality sources, it would be helpful if we can find out exactly who published the paper and if they have any affiliation or other relationship with the ATTS. If you can find other sources, that would be really helpful. Also, just a quick clarification - though the discussion may be '3 against 2' in regards to the sources, please remember that Wikipedia is not a democracy and we operate by consensus. Therefore, the dispute needs to be based on the quality of argument, rather than the number of people who support an idea. Thanks for discussing this civilly with me - I always appreciate people taking time to talk through a problem. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 18:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
This is the outfit that originally published the research: http://www.canineresearch.net/ as a scientist flipping around these pages sets off red flags. But see that is just an educated opinion, not proof. The site specifies that they have great experts, then never lists them or their bios. They ask for paypal donations front and center. They play cheesy 70s porno music on the site. None of their publications are in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Most of their research topics are related to breed-specific legislation, specifically within the pit bull breed group. As far as them and the AKC making claims and being a secondary source of sorts, I believe when a source is making a math/logic claim it must be reasonable to assume that the group can evaluate a logical/mathematical argument. The AKC is a limited liability corporation that makes money off of dogs, and does advocacy as well no doubt. I'm surprised Wikipedia does not have some method to keep their use appropriate in terms of subject matter and methods. For instance, if NASA were to bring a dog into space would it be appropriate for the AKC to comment on the physics of weightless dogs given that they are a dog outfit? Obviously, no. It is a similar, but less extreme case, when the AKC tries to make claims using any sort of statistic. Wvguy8258 (talk) 21:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
ItsZippy I also appreciate people taking time to discuss and resolve the issue. Thanks you. Wvguy8258 focus on the article and stop attacking people who disagree with you. Thank you.Citizen of the USA (talk) 23:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Citizen, as stated before, I am not attacking you. I trust others will see this. Your first entry was one of trying to be a mediator between k84m97 and myself. Now, you are repeatedly claiming that I am attacking you when I am not and trying to help make k84m97's case. It is not an attack to point these things out. Why get involved with dispute resolution when a slight breeze is seen as an attack? Wvguy8258 (talk) 23:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Citizen, it would be helpful if you stopped accusing people of making personal attacks; Wvguy8258 has done no such thing. He has actually made quite a strong argument against the Canine Research website and the target of his comments has always been the reliability of the sources, not you or any other editor here.

As for the sources in question, Wvguy8258 has made a strong argument against the use of both of the sources. The research paper, in order to be reliable, needs to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. If you can find evidence of this, we can use it. If you cannot, we can't use it. As Wvguy8258 points out, the AKC does seem to have quite a strong conflict of interest. A dog owners organisation commenting on legislation regarding the ownership of dogs will not be reliable. That is because, as they will be affected by such legislation, we cannot be sure of their neutrality. If you want the ATTS tests included, we really do need a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Failing that, a reliable source with no interest or involvement in dog ownership legislation may provide a possible alternative. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 12:27, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion taking place at Talk:American Staffordshire Terrier. As discussion is now taking place at the talk page, and we seem to be going in circles here, I am going to close this discussion. If you wish to continue discussing the dispute, please use the talk page, where discourse is under way. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 12:37, 24 October 2011 (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.

Wikipedia:Wikiproject Airlines

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.


Dispute overview

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

There has been a dipute whether or not years should be include for start dates on an airline's destination page.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Wikipedia:Wikiproject Airlines}} --~~~~ 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 started a discussion on the talk page at WP:AIRLINES but the discussion, with other editors commenting on the issue but it has not helped reached a consensus yet. A similar dispute occurred regarding years for start dates in airport article. It was discussed and consensus was reached.

  • How do you think we can help?


Snoozlepet (talk) 18:22, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikiproject Airlines discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

SUMMARY
The dispute began with the edit of two airline destinations articles I'm watchlisting, namely British Airways destinations and Qantas destinations. These airlines have announced the launch of new services, and User:Snoozlepet and me started discussing whether to include the year on the date provided or not. Despite the discussion relies on start dates, this edit was made on an end date, so I believe the discussion should be extended to start and end dates in general. There had been a discussion on the matter at WP:AIRPORTS and consensus was gained. I suggest we should gain consensus at WP:AIRLINES, a separate project, before modifying airline destinations articles.--Jetstreamer (talk) 22:00, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, coming to dispute resolution seems premature. The discussion on the wikiproject page has existed for less than 24 hours, which seems like hardly enough time for the project members (which includes me) to achieve consensus. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 22:08, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Maybe, but we can also take advantage of this channel to solve the dispute. Here's my opinion: I object the inclusion of dates as they render unnecessary, on the basis that airlines do not provide launch/resumption/disruption of services with an anticipation of more than a year. Today is 22 October 2011. Can anybody exemplify such a date beyond 23 October 2012?--Jetstreamer (talk) 00:25, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I thin you're missing the point. If I see "begins September 20" in an article, whether it be an airport destination list, airline destination list, or something unrelated entirely, the average reader doesn't know if that meant September 20, 2011, and nobody has yet updated the article to reflect that the service has begun, or if it's September 20, 2012. Or, for that matter, 2013 or 2009. -- Hawaiian717 (talk) 01:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that in this situation, DRN is a bit premature. I'll leave this open for another day to see if any issues have become stuck at the project talk page, but it really should be discussed there first before it's brought here. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 20:08, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

As some have said already, DRN at this point seems premature. There is already discussion taking place at the appropriate talk page, so DRN is not yet needed. If the dispute cannot be easily solved there, feel free to bring it back here. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 14:12, 24 October 2011 (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.

Non-Lethal Weapons

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.


Dispute overview

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

Binkersnet has: Stalled implentation of previous Mediation and Arbitartaion decisions and attemetped to game the systemn by insterted baised material AFTER Arbitation ordered that baised matirail be ballenced; And has filed an bad-faith edit war complaint against be for removing the material in question (IAW the decision made at Arbitation).

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

This is a blatnat attmept to dodge both the oreder handed down at Arbitraion and diseminate a propganda. The litteral letter of Arbitration only applied to one section; However, the spirit was to apply to the entire document.

  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Non-Lethal Weapons}} --~~~~ 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?

Throughout the talk page this has been addressed; I even requeestedd to page be locked after this particular misconduct occured (I do not know why exactly it did not happen). The decision of the Arbitration was quite clear; Biased material must be balance with the other side of the story.

  • How do you think we can help?

Lock the page; Order those includingg the biased material to stop or ban them. (At this point, it is Binkersnet alone doing htis; BereanHunter is not being helpfull, but isn't puting the biased matterial back in.)

Trying To Make Wikipedia At Least Better Than The ''Weekly World News.'' (talk) 17:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Non-Lethal Weapons discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Comment from Binksternet

I don't see any actionable proposal here, nor any substantial problem. Reddson wishes to remove sources he doesn't like and is frustrated by Wikipedia's policy for reliable sources. Binksternet (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2011 (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.

United Kingdom

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.

Dispute overview

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

User:MrRhythm on 23 October changed the GDP nominal and PPP rankings for the UK in the article infobox. The accepted, long-standing values of 6th and 7th are linked from the List of countries by GDP (nominal) and List of countries by GDP (PPP) respectively, where they are sourced from the World Bank, IMF, and CIA Factbook. MrRhythm is changing the values based on his own analysis of the 2011 British census. However, doing this introduces conflict both within the article (as the former values are mentioned elsewhere in the article) and with the two GDP lists themselves. Both I and User:Rangoon11 have reverted MrRhythm's edits over the past two days, but we do not wish to edit-war and want to resolve this dispute amicably.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=United Kingdom}} --~~~~ 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 started a discussion of the issue on the article talk page and invited MrRhythm to join there. User:Rangoon11 has joined the discussion there and agrees that the current values should stay in place for consistency and accuracy. However, MrRhythm has so far chosen not to do so, ignoring the invitation on his talk page and instead simply re-inserting his rankings into the article.

  • How do you think we can help?

I hope that you can give advice on how to communicate with this unresponsive editor so this issue can be resolved. In his four months of editing at Wikipedia, he has never used a talk page or an edit summary. I do not wish to edit-war and am happy to discuss the issue but so far I see little sign of discussion forthcoming.

NORTHUMBRIAN SPRǢC 15:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

United Kingdom discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Hi Northumbrian. Firstly, your position on the content is right - the sources do support the original content of the page and any change would require a reliable source, as opposed to the original research being provided by . I think, however, that this is less of a content dispute and more of a conduct issue, as MrRhythm has made no effort to discuss the issue and is on the verge of edit warring. Let me just thank you for your attempt to communicate with this editor, rather than taking part in an edit war; I would suggest that you take the issue to WP:ANI where an administrator can deal with the editor involved. If MrRhythm responds to your attempts to communicate, then try to discuss the issue on the talk page (and bring it back here or go to mediation). In light of that, I'm going to close this discussion. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 17:38, 25 October 2011 (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.

Depleted_uranium

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.

Dispute overview

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

A fairly new editor is adding in content that is clearly original research and keeps adding it in. Content summaries are becoming more fringe with each addition.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Depleted_uranium}} --~~~~ 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 asked them to take it to talk page.

  • How do you think we can help?

I'm unsure if this fits with 3RR or with disruptive editing or ??

PRONIZ (talk) 18:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Depleted_uranium discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

Hi there PRONIZ, thanks for posting here. I've had a look at the problem and I cannot find any evidence of you trying to discuss this with the editor. DRN should only be used once other forms of dispute resolution have been exhausted. Your first stop should be to start a discussion on the talk page with the user. If that gets nowhere, it might be worth requesting a third opinion. Only once those paths are exhausted should you bring it here. So far, all I've seen is an argument through edit summaries and the beginnings of an edit war. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 18:48, 25 October 2011 (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.

Togakure-ryū

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.


Dispute overview

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

When I originally came to this article, I found it like this. After working on it for a while, I turned it into this. Then User:Stvfetterly (alternate account User:GuitarStv) came along and made these changes to the article, turning it into this. I reverted him and started a discussion on the Talk page. He based his changes on these three sources. After a lot of back and forth (and a few reversions back and forth), I reverted back, but kept the Koryu Books ref in a Criticism section, so the article looked like this. We had already discussed and thrown out the MARdb source, as the site itself states in its disclaimer that it is unreliable. We are still discussing the Iga Ninja Museum source. In the middle of discussing with me, he turned the article into this.

Clearly, we're not going to get anywhere from here. I have asked him multiple times to show reliable sources that state that the history of Togakure-ryu is incorrect, because then we could include them in the article, but none has been forthcoming thus far.

Also, he believes that any source made by anyone related to the subject whatsoever cannot be included (for that matter, he believes that sources from the masters of the style cannot be used for anything too.) And, perplexedly, any source that discusses with, quotes, or references the masters of the style can't be used. SilverserenC 18:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?
  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Togakure-ryū}} --~~~~ 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?

Talk page discussion

  • How do you think we can help?

Give an opinion on the sources presented by both of us and what should be done with the article.

SilverserenC 18:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Togakure-ryū discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.

The Bujinkan is a large organization that has claims historical ninjitsu lineage dating back thousands of years. They have published many documents claiming this lineage, and their leader (Masaaki Hatsumi) claims to have a scroll that shows all of this (although it has never been produced for verification). This organization has a large financial motivation to make these claims. When I came to the article, the references used in it were nearly entirely published by the Bujinkan and it's subsidiaries.

As an example, the following references were used in the article:

  • Hatsumi, Masaaki (1988). Essence of ninjutsu: the nine traditions. Contemporary Books. Retrieved October 16, 2011. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) - Written by Masaaki Hatsumi, head of Bujinkan
  • Morris, Glenn (1992). Path Notes of an American Ninja Master. North Atlantic Books. pp. 1–2. Retrieved October 16, 2011. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) - Written by Glen Morris, instructor of Bujinkan
  • Andy Adams (October 1982). "The Roots and Reality of Ninjutsu". Black Belt. 20 (10). Active Interest Media: 45–48. Retrieved Octobr 10, 2011. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)CS1 maint: year (link) - Written from information from primary source, Masaaki Hatsumi, head of Bujinkan
  • Levy, Joel (2008). Ninja: The Shadow Warrior. Sterling Publishing Company. p. 47. Retrieved October 16, 2011. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) - Written by Joel Levy, instructor of Bujinkan
  • Andy Adams (October 1986). "Ninjutu's Leader Opens Fire". Black Belt. 24 (10). Active Interest Media: 36–40. ISSN 0277-3066. Retrieved October 16, 2011.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: year (link)Written from information from primary source, Masaaki Hatsumi, head of Bujinkan
  • Wilhelm, Thomas (2010). Ninja Hacking: Unconventional Penetration Testing Tactics and Techniques. Elsevier. pp. 10–12. Retrieved October 16, 2011. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) - Written by Thomas Wilhelm, instructor of Bujinkan
  • Andrew Breen (December 1992). "Trick or treat?". Black Belt. Active Interest Media: 30–34. ISSN 0277-3066. Retrieved October 16, 2011.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: year (link) - Written from information from primary source, Masaaki Hatsumi, head of Bujinkan
  • Hayes, Stephen K. (1990). The ninja and their secret fighting art. Tuttle Publishing. p. 22. Retrieved October 16, 2011. - Written by Stephen Hayes, former instructor of Bujinkan
  • Darryl Caldwell (June 1985). "The Ninja Web". Black Belt (Active Interest Media) 23 (6): 15. ISSN 0277-3066. Retrieved October 17, 2011. - Written by Darryl Caldwell, instructor of Bujinkan
  • Stephen Hayes (January 1978). "Ninjutsu: A Martial Art of Mystique". Black Belt (Active Interest Media) 16 (1): 76-78. ISSN 0277-3066. Retrieved October 20, 2011. - Written by Stephen Hayes, former instructor of Bujinkan
  • Kornicki, Peter Francis; McMullen, James (1996). Religion in Japan: arrows to heaven and earth. Cambridge University Press. p. 34. Retrieved October 16, 2011. uses Hatsumi Masaaki, head of Bujinkan as source for the article

My original intention in modifying the article was to indicate that the bulk of it was written with publications of the Bujinkan, so I attempted to modify the language of the article. I also added some citation tags, and introduced some links as references to support this view.

Silver Seren immediately reverted my changes claiming that they were POV. I re-added my references, and tried to make some other edits to the article including useful redirects. Silver Seren again reverted my changes. I made more modifications to the page and Silver Seren reverted these changes again for the third time, again calling my changes POV, and indicating that if the Bujinkan claims something to be true, it is. I attempted to modify my changes to the article so that they would be less POV. More reversions happened, etc. etc. Eventually Silver Seren indicated that we should not use Self Published Sources as the basis for the article. I agreed, removing sources from the Iga ninja museam (who may have a financial interest in claiming ancient ninjitsu lineage), and the Bujinkan (who have a financial interest in claiming ancient ninjitsu lineage). After removal of Bujinkan related sources, there was not much information left in the article.

I've provided the following links regarding the Bujinkan's disputed lineage:

Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 19:10, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

See, no, I never said that. I said that Takamatsu calling himself the 33rd Soke isn't something you can change without having a source that says otherwise (or specifically disputes the lineage, for that matter).
And none of those sources, as far as I can tell from who the publishers are, are self published sources. They don't appear to be self published, which means paid for by the author to have a printing house print the books for them. All of the publishers in this case appear to be reputable publishers who choose what they publish. And I don't understand how Black Belt magazine can possibly be a self published source, unless you can prove somehow that they let people write articles in exchange for those people giving them money. SilverserenC 19:28, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
"Secondly, you are adding words like claimed for Takamatsu, when he is the 33rd Soke, he is stated to be as such by the group, so he is" - Silver Seren, (from the talk page). The group you're referring to is the Bujinkan, Takamatsu is the person who is claiming a lineage that stretches back 33 generations. You're claiming that since they say he's a grandmaster going back 33 generations, he is. Do I misunderstand your statement?
Next, the articles written for Black Belt magazine all cite/use Hatsumi as their primary source. They're simply relaying information from him to their readers. How is that not self publishing? Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 19:39, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
You haven't presented any reliable sources that actively dispute the lineage that Takamatsu stated. We don't automatically assume people are wrong unless there are reliable sources that state they are wrong and, even then, we don't say they are wrong, we just include another line discussing the statement made by whoever disputes it. (Also, where is Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu in this discussion? I notice no one ever talks about him, even though the lineage says he's the 32nd Soke)
You don't know what information comes from Hatsumi (besides the quotes) and what information was researched by the author. When they are published in a reputable magazine, they are not self published. You're acting as if an interview would count as self publishing. I think you're confusing primary sources with self published sources. And, even then, there's a bit of a debate in the Wikipedia community where interviews and the like fall along there. Though these sources aren't even interviews, they are articles that use quotes obtained from Hatsumi, that's it. SilverserenC 19:49, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Please excuse me, you are correct. I should have written primary sources. Hatsumi and the Bujinkan were the primary source of almost all historical information in the article you were writing. That's what I was trying to indicate with my edits that you reverted. Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 20:08, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Except that there's nothing wrong with using primary sources. I was not using them for any sort of analysis or interpretation, I was using them for descriptions of the history of the style, which is probably best done from a primary source anyways. SilverserenC 20:12, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Right, and the additions that I made to the article were from other sources that dispute the claims of the Bujinkan. These are the additions that you kept reverting. I removed the Bujinkan referenced material to try and bring the article to an NPOV since you seemed determined to get rid of any dissenting opinion that differs with the Bujinkan. --Stvfetterly (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
We were still discussing the additions on the talk page. It's clear that MARdb is not a reliable source to use. But I went ahead and did add the Koryu reference into the article. We were still discussing the Iga Ninja Museum, so you had no reason to remove everything else from the article. I am not determined to "get rid of any dissenting opinion", i'm trying to make sure the opinions are coming from reliable sources that are relevant to the article. I already stated that I would be fine with using the Iga Ninja Museum, though using it for a sentence saying that the Iga Ninja Museum believe that its director is the only true heir of Ninjutsu isn't all that relevant, but i'm fine in adding it if you think it's absolutely necessary. SilverserenC 20:35, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure exactly how canvassing works on this noticeboard, but I think contacting someone who has discussed with me in the past on this subject, saying that they don't consider Ninjutsu to be real, is inappropriate. I wonder if I should add Jni as a participant in this dispute, since they did make the two comments on the talk page. SilverserenC 21:00, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I contacted the only other person who was involved in the discussion on the Togakure page. The exact message that I wrote him was "Hey, just wonder if you want to stop by [[50]] if you've got some time." Are you really going to accuse me of canvassing because I notified him of the dispute you raised?
As far as what you 'allowed' on 'your' page from the Koryu.com website, please explain why it's OK for you to carefully and specifically word the source of criticism of Bujinkan claims regarding Togakure-rye via your addition of this:
  • Koryu Books, a publisher of Koryū Bujutsu ("old school") books and related materials, stated on its website that it does not consider Ninjutsu or any of its styles to be koryū and, thus, does not sell books related to them.
but it's not OK for me to do similar regarding Bujinkan sources with modifications to the article worded like this:
  • According to Bujinkan instructor Glen Morris[9], the history of Togakure-ryū started in the Mie Prefecture with its creator, Daisuke Nishina in 1162
The whole editing dispute arose from your rejection of that type of modification. As well, you misrepresented the information from the Koryu.com website when you included it. The website is not criticizing Togakure-ryu (the ancient ninja art), but rather saying that the people who claim to be practicing it in modern times do not have a traceable lineage. This directly impacts the claims of Bujinkan Sokes being made in the article. The ones that you say are true because the Bujinkan says it's so (please refer to quote from talk pages included above). Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 22:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I had more of an issue with how your original edits to the article added words like claimed and purported 11 total times into the article, including three times within three sentences in the lede. Also, you added citation needed templates to both the lede (which is a summary of the article and doesn't require references) and to sections of the article that already clearly had references. You also relied on the three references linked to above to make statement that were not included in them, such as the sentence "Neither Takamatsu , nor Hatsumi have been recognized as having any historical relation to ninjas or ninja schools" from the Iga Ninja Museum FAQ, which doesn't mention either of them and, thus, is original research.
You also removed the sentence "This includes a lack of kata, which are "choreographed combat training routines"" for some reason, along with other parts of sentences.
Believe me, the "According to" bits are the least of my concerns. SilverserenC 00:17, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I removed the sentence about the lack of kata because later on in the same section there was a (Bujinkan) referenced sentence that stated that kata are performed in Togakure-ryu. Clearly the style can't both use and eschew kata. This was an attempt to improve the article.
The lede had a citations tag added to it because there were claims made that sounded doubtful and were not referenced. This is standard wiki policy.
I'll conceded that the wording regarding Takamatsu and Hatsumi's claim was not NPOV. If you had complained about that rather than continuously reverting the whole article I would have reworded it. Please realize however, you're now arguing about wording that has been removed from the article.
If you would like an alternate reference regarding the legitimacy of Bujinkan ninjitsu there's a good one that has been added to the Togakure-ryu page by another wiki user:

  • The late Fujita Seiko was the last of the living ninja ... No ninja exist today

    — Donn Draeger, Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts, p 130, 1969
Will this be considered a valid reference by you since even though it doesn't originate from Bujinkan sources? Do you work for or study under the Bujinkan organization? I'm trying to understand why you seem to put so much faith in their writings above all other sources of information, and why you seen to be taking modifications to this article so personally. Please remember that you do not own the article. Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 01:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
The sentence later on said, "Togakure-ryū does contain some "historical kata", but they are different from traditional Japanese styles in that they require someone to be attacking the practitioner, similar to the training in judo and aikido." That doesn't interfere with the prior reference, which stated that they don't have current kata that they normally practice.
The lede was a generalized version of the article, per WP:LEDECITE. It didn't say anything that wasn't already stated in the body of the article (and referenced there). Including the minimum amount of references in the lede is standard wiki policy.
I'm arguing about both, the inclusion of sentences that aren't included in the references you cited and the removal of sentences (and parts of sentences) that were cited and discussed specifically in their references. SilverserenC 02:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
And that should be a reliable sources, yes, though I would like to know the full context of that quote, because the "..." means that words were taken out. Also, it being a reliable source doesn't mean we throw out everything else either.
And, no, I have nothing to do with Bujinkan, I just prefer articles to be written neutrally and comprehensively. This article was very clearly not being allowed to improve because editors of other martial arts disliked it. Or that's the impression I got, at least. SilverserenC 02:51, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Found it on Google Books, but page 120 doesn't seem to be included in the preview. The pages after seem useful however. Though it doesn't seem to discuss modern times or even any specific styles of ninjutsu, so it's kind of limited as a source. What I want to know is, how is it defining "last ninja" in its book? Because I think the practitioners of the modern styles would agree that none of them are "ninjas", they just practice the style of ninjutsu. The pages that I can see don't seem to imply that ninjutsu died out, it actually implies that it went underground, with the whole ninjas becoming farmers and having to keep it secret thing, which more supports the described history of Togakure-ryu than anything else. SilverserenC 02:59, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Heavy reliance on Bujinkan-only sources does not seem to be NPOV to me. i don't have any dislike of ninjitsu, I just believe that historical claims should be verified . . . by people other than those who are making the claim. I know that this is a sticking point between us. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stvfetterly (talk • contribs) 04:33, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't accept your original research. Even less so since you've based it on your interpretation of a couple random pages of a book you partially read on google. Please also see:
  • 3rd edition of the Bugei ryuha daijiten (one of the most important documents about historical martial arts in Japan), Watatani (who was a friend of Takamatsu) states that Takamatsu's (and thus the Bujinkan's) ninjutsu was made up from childhood ninja games. (Indicating that there could not be a 34 successor long historical lineage in Tokagure-Ryu.)
  • Ben Bradley specifically describes Togakure-ryu as having a 'disputed lineage' - http://www.bullshido.org/Ninjutsu#note2
That of course, is in addition to The Koryu.com and The Iga ninja museam of Japan (which claims that there is only one surviving ninja with a lineage, and he's not a Bujinkan member). This should answer your reason for bringing up this dispute, and should be more than enough to convince anyone that the claims of the Bujinkan are just that . . . claims. These claims are not widely accepted outside of their own organization. That's what all of my edits have been attempting to clearly show to readers. Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 04:13, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Sure, a random friend of Takamatsu is reliable and far more important than anything Takamatsu ever said. Not to mention that they removed that statement from the friend in the 4th edition, which should tell you something.
You just linked me to a Martial Arts Wiki. What am I supposed to get out of this? Is this Ben Bradley person someone important? It just says he reads Japanese. Is this supposed to make him reliable?
You keep bringing up either bad sources or just alright ones (like Koryu), but they don't really point to anything. A book publisher saying they don't consider Ninjutsu to be Koryu and a museum director saying that he is the only true heir of Ninjutsu. Is that...it? I would have expected something a bit more...reliable. At least the Bujinkan members managed to publish actual books through reputable publishers on the topic. Do you have any actual reliable source that directly discusses Togakure Ryu and specifically calls the lineage into question? Because, right now, you really have little to nothing. SilverserenC 04:53, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
And I also notice you went and added the Draeger quote (without attaching the actual reference) to every possible article associated with Togakure-ryu, such as Masaaki Hatsumi, Toshitsugu Takamatsu, Bujinkan, and Schools of Ninjutsu. Are you sure you're not on some sort of crusade here? What exactly is your relation to Bujinkan? I assume, if there is one, it's not a good one. SilverserenC 04:59, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

So to summarize, so far in our discussions I've been told:

  • The http://www.mardb.com/ninjutsu-and-koryu-bujutsu/ article is an invalid reference because the introduction contains information similar to that found on Koryu.com, despite the fact that article contains a lot of relevant information written on the topic of modern day ninjas including sections written by martial arts researchers Ron Beaubien, Ellis Amdur and Dr. Karl Friday (a history professor specializing in Japan).
  • The Koryu.com is only an 'OK' reference, despite the fact that they are known for dealing with historical martial arts in Japan and related articles and books on a daily basis.
  • The Iga ninja museum in Japan is not a valid reference because they are affiliated with a school of ninjitsu that is not the Bujinkan.
  • The words of Donn Draeger in "Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts" are an invalid reference because of original research that SilverSaran completed with the help of Google.
  • Information from the Bugei ryuha daijiten (The "Encyclopedia of Martial art schools") is not acceptable because they no longer contained reference to Takamatsu after the 3rd edition.
  • http://www.bullshido.org/Ninjutsu#note2 is not acceptable because SilverSaren doesn't know who Ben Bradley is. (An active martial artist who lives in Japan, speaks Japanese, and writes articles about martial arts.)

The preceding list contains published books, works by scholars of Japan, a publisher who deals with historical martial arts in Japan, researchers well respected in the martial arts community, and one of the single best sources for Japanese martial history (Bugei ryuha daijiten) all contain material that call the lineage of anyone claiming to be teaching historical ninjutsu into question. None of these references seem to meet SilverSaren's stringent requirements to be 'good'. Meanwhile, anything published by the Bujinkan (or any magazine articles reporting their information) is considered acceptable. In our discussions SilverSaren has claimed that if the Bujinkan says something is so, it is so. He also continue to claim to support a neutral point of view. Frankly this confuses me, as ignoring or disputing all sources not of Bujinkan origin does (at first glance) appear biased.

I have no personal experience with the Bujinkan or any of their instructors / students. I have no opinion on the quality of martial art training that they offer as I have not enrolled in one of their schools. It may well be fantastic. From what I've seen, Masaaki Hatsumi is an incredibly talented martial artist. Many historical claims made by the Bujinkan organization however, are not commonly accepted. This should be pointed out in all pertinent articles to keep Wikipedia neutral and avoid bias in the articles.

I would like to resolve whatever dispute SilverSaren has with me, and have come here in good faith attempting to do just that. We seem to be mired in a bickering contest now however. What exactly do you propose is done with the Togakure-Ryu article SilverSaren? Clearly a simple reversion will not suffice, as the old version is nearly entirely (at least 90%) composed of Bujinkan sources. Differentiating all Bujinkan historical claims from the history accounted for by independent third party sources in the old article is difficult without using many instances of 'claimed', 'asserted', 'according to', etc. and I understand that they can be read as POV, so that is probably not a good way to do things either. I propose that the article be reworded to focus primarily on historical facts that can be verified outside of the Bujinkan, then a separate section with maybe a paragraph or two indicating the Bujinkan historical and lineage claims. This would seem to be a reasonable compromise between having no Bujinkan sources (as now) and having predominantly Bujinkan sources (as before). Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 13:49, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

No,that's not reasonable at all. It's amazing how out of context you can make my words, while also managing to not listen to a word i'm saying. I've already explained the reason for the sources time and again.
MARdb is not reliable because it states that it is not reliable on its own disclaimer page and i'm not entirely sure how it's writing process works, since it words things like a wiki, saying that there are user submitted things, but doesn't appear to have an indication of signing up for it.
Koryu is an okay sources, yes, I included the information that it doesn't consider Togakure-ryu to be koryu, that's really all you can get out of that article.
The Iga Ninja Museum would be reliable, but i'm not sure what information you're trying to use for it. What you originally had it referencing in the article was original research, because it doesn't say anything about Hatsumi or Takamatsu. If you want to reference that the director of the museum considers himself the last heir of ninjutsu, feel free, but that doesn't seem like it really does anything.
I never said Draeger was unreliable, I said I would like better context for his comment, since it's on a page I can't view. Also since the rest of the pages I can view has information that is exactly the same as what I had in the article, like the Organization section I had.
We can include the Bugei ryuha daijiten, but the fact that they removed the statement from Takamatsu's friend in the 4th edition implies that they don't stand by it any longer.
And Bullshido is a Wiki. Wikis are not reliable sources, that is a fact. Wikipedia is not a reliable source and neither is any other kind of wiki. They are user edited and, thus, unreliable.
I've already explained all of these points. You have yet to actually present a source that specifically discusses Togakure-ryu and how it's lineage is fake. You've either presented sources that talk about ninjutsu in general or ones that do that and are unreliable. You really don't have any strong sources at all. SilverserenC 16:45, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Although they do not all specifically center around the word "Togakure-ryu", all the points listed above do discuss the Bujinkan claims that Silverseren wrote into the Togakure-ryu article which were not neutral:
  • The MARdb website has a pretty standard legal disclaimer for liability on the disclaimer page. Likely this it to protect them from people who attempt a martial arts technique and hurt themselves. This disclaimer does not make mention of reliability of the site or state that the site is unreliable as Silversaran has claimed. I do not see a reason why the experts listed in the article should be discounted because of a standard, generic legal disclaimer. The information by experts contained in the article casts doubt on Hatsumi's claim to Togakure-ryu lineage that existed throughout the Togakure-ryu article as Silversaran had written it.
  • Re: Koryu.com. Silversaran is again misrepresenting this source. Koryu.com is not claiming that Ninjitsu is not a Koryu art. They are claiming that "modern-day ninjutsu and ninjutsu-derived arts are not koryu bujutsu". (Koryu, of course meaning 'traditional school', bujutsu meaning 'warrior techniques/arts'.) This statement thus indicates that they do not believe any modern school has a lineage dating back to the ancient ninja. This directly effects Hatsumi's claim to lineage that existed throughout the Togakure-ryu article as Silversaran had written it.
  • Re: The Iga ninja museam. Let's try some basic logic here. If I claim to be the 'last ninja', then I am claiming that no other ninjas exist. If you then claim to be a ninja, then my claim is incompatible with your claim. You could say that my claim disputes your claim. Now let's put this in context of the article: the Iga ninja museum claims the last ninja with lineage is not Hatsumi. Hatsumi claims to have ninja lineage. Therefore, the Iga ninja museum disputes Hatsumi's claim. This link adds more evidence that Hatsumi's ninja lineage claim (through Togakure-ryu) is disputed.
  • Please check the local library if you need better context for Draeger's comment. Again, this citation indicates that there are no more ninja alive who have an ancient lineage. Hatsumi claims to be a ninja with an ancient lineage (through Togakure-ryu). This link adds more evidence that Hatsumi's lineage claim is disputed.
  • The Bugei ryuha daijiten may have removed the statement about Takamatsu making up his ninja art for many reasons. At the very least though, it deserves to stay in the article since Takamatsu was the 'ninja teacher' of Hatsumi, who is claiming to have a traditional martial art stretching back 34 generations. If (as his friend indicated) Takamatsu made the whole thing up, this would mean that modern Togakure-ryu has no lineage. This link adds more evidence that Hatsumi's lineage claim is disputed.
Finally, I've also suggested a way to Silverseran to modify the Togakure-ryu article to be more neutral. He has indicated that my suggestions are unacceptable without offering any of his own in their place. In the end, what is the point of this dispute? To better the Togakure-ryu article. Silversaren seems to have no interest in that outcome. Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 18:22, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
The MARdb disclaimer page says "makes no warranty, express or implied, as to the nature or accuracy of any material on this site". So they are saying that you have no reason to believe they are accurate. This means they are unreliable. Reliable means that the information is accurate and trustworthy.
I included the Koryu.com statement in the article, saying they don't consider Togakure-ryu koryu bujutsu. Why are we still discussing this one?
The problem with "basic logic" is that you are applying analysis and interpretation to something that is not stated in the source. That is the exact definition of original research. You can only state (reworded of course) the information that is directly included in a source, not extrapolate on it.
That's not what the quote says at all, again, you're inferring things from it that it's not saying. It says that Seiko was the last living ninja, that isn't saying anything about the practice of ninjutsu. Continuing the practice and line of ninjutsu has nothing to do with being a ninja. Again, the same book goes on to say that the ninjas became farmers because of pressure from the samurai-controlled government, so their practices of ninjutsu went underground. It's not affecting the lineage of the styles at all.
The issue is that a random friend (does it list his last name?) isn't necessarily a reliable source for the information. And the fact that they removed it in the next edition says something. If you want to include that statement from the friend, fine, but there's no reason for it to go in the lede. That's just pushing an agenda.
I want the article to go back to the way it is here, where it is more comprehensive, and add further criticisms and such onto that version of the article. SilverserenC 18:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Black Belt magazine has a standard boilerplate disclaimer in all of it's issues as well. It disclaims reliability, safety, effectiveness, regarding the nature of material in the magazine. Why is SilverSaren OK with the magazine (with articles filled with Bujinkan claims), but not the article that I produced?
The Koryu.com reference was brought up again to demonstrate Silverseren's POV in editing the article, and how he did not correctly describe the content of the source in the only edit containing one of the citations that he allowed to remain in the article.
I have no issue with rewording the Iga ninja reference to be as NPOV and true to the citation as possible. I only ask that the same be applied to the Bujinkan sources that Silversaren has provided to the article. This would include full representation when listing contentious material taken from Bujinkan sources.
Silversaran has not yet provided a page number and quote of text for his claim that Draeger wrote that ninjas became 'secret farmers' after the death of the last ninja.
I did not say anything about including references from the Bugei ryuha daijiten in the lede. Silverseren is now using a Straw man logical fallacy to attempt to push his agenda. The name of Takamatsu's friend who wrote about him in the encyclopedia is Watatani.
I think that reverting back to Silversaran's edition of the article (primarily written by him alone) would be a mistake. It is well written, but there is no indication that more than 90% of the material is sourced from claims made by the Bujinkan. This is not a neutral point of view. As an example of the problem, let's look at the lede that Silversaren favours:
Togakure-ryū 戸隠流 is a historical tradition of Ninjutsu known as the "School of the Hidden Door", founded during the Oho period (1161-1162) by Daisuke Nishina (Togakure), who learned his original fighting techniques from a Chinese monk named Kain Dōshi. However, the history and early lineage of Togakure-ryū may be impossible to verify due to the antiquity of the time period.[1] After Togakure, the title of Sōke (grand master) was passed down through other practitioners that kept the style secret from the outside world.
The 33rd Sōke, Toshitsugu Takamatsu, became renowned throughout China and Japan for his martial arts abilities and also his extensive knowledge that resulted from learning the Ninjutsu skills. Passing on the title of Sōke to the 34th, Masaaki Hatsumi, it was Hatsumi who took the style public, which has resulted in the ninja craze in the Western world. Hatsumi went on to create the Bujinkan organization that practices the nine styles of ninjutsu and has more than 50 dojos internationally.
The style of Togakure-ryū has been described as being less restricted into certain training regimens like other styles and instead encourages questions and individual, personal training. One of the main goals of the training is to teach students the ability of shin shin shin gan (God's eyes, God's mind) so that they can learn to properly know their opponents and defend themselves.
The second paragraph is entirely about the claimed lineage of the Bujinkan. The third paragraph is entirely taken from material from the Bujinkan. The final sentance in the first paragraph is taken from Bujinkan material. Finally, the first paragraph indicates that "lineage of Togakure-ryu may be impossible to verify" and then then goes on to treat the Bujinkan as having a verified lineage. This is confusing, and non-sensical. This is just the lede to the article, things get worse as you read on.
I submit that Silverseren is attempting to protect an article that he created from modification by other Wikipedians. He has been pushing for the article's inclusion as a DYK article and has now indicated that he's not willing to compromise. Regards, --Stvfetterly (talk) 19:48, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I found the "Seiko was the last Ninja" statement. It's actually on page 130 in the book, not 120. And it clearly states that it defines ninjas as "espionage agents". So, yes, there are no current ninjas. The people practicing ninjutsu today are not espionage agents. They haven't been needed since WWII. And with modern technology anyways, their usefulness in that regard kinda decreases. Oh, and right after it says Seiko was the last ninja (going onto page 131 now), it says "Modern authorities such as T. Hatsumi are responsible for most research being done on ninjutsu". So the book considers Hatsumi to be an authority on the subject. There's your reliability.
You did include it in the lede though. It's not a straw man if i'm referring to something that you actually did. Is Watatani his last name or first name?
The lede isn't confusing at all. Saying that proof of Togakure may be hard or impossible to verify doesn't preclude discussing the stated history of it. Again, no one has proven that Togakure didn't exist or create the style, in fact, while it may be impossible to directly verify, there seems to be enough evidence that implies that the history is likely to have happened as described. Of course, we have little information to rely on for such a period as that. It might be easier to actually research whether Doshi existed and was exiled as a starting point. But that's going a bit off topic.
I submitted it for DYK after I expanded the article by five times. How is that pushing for its inclusion? I submitted it and then put it on hold after this dispute started. It has little to nothing to do with this. I'll go ahead and remove it if you think it's that big of a deal. SilverserenC 20:07, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I would take the quote Modern authorities such as T. Hatsumi are responsible for most research being done on ninjutsu with a grain of salt, it might as well have a tongue in cheek hidden meaning like Modern research on ninjutsu is so poor or non-existent that T. Hatsumi can be considered an authority. And of course this quote supports the notion that almost all sources are primary sources derived from Hatsumi/Bujinkan. jni (talk) 14:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

To start off, DRN isn't a talk page. We might have to change the rules here to limit initial discussion without input from a third party to one opening statement. Reading through walls of text right off the bat is not very inviting, and is possibly the reason why no one has looked over this yet. I will read over the discussion today and post some comments later, until then please don't add more to the discussion. Thanks. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 20:27, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Note that there is older discussion about this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Martial arts#Togakure-ryū. jni (talk) 14:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I am currently reviewing the above discussion and related discussions. I will comment shortly. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 03:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
From my initial analysis, I believe the sources are reliable. The subject is on a topic that was created 1,000 years ago. I'm not seeing how these book sources are primary. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 18:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Alpha, in martial arts, the senior students of a school do not question their teacher's version of history. The question here is about how independent the sources are. The word 'primary' is being used here to express that they are all people with loyalty to their teachers - they are not disinterested. Thanks for your effort in going through all this material! jmcw (talk) 21:41, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for clarifying. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Are you still analyzing the discussion? SilverserenC 22:47, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Togakure-ryū, continued

There is quite a bit of material here. Many thanks to the editors who go through this material. jmcw (talk) 00:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I will make a leading/POV synopsis to try to give some understanding to this wall of text: that Togakure-ryū is historically documented is not in question. The question is about Togakure-ryū from recent times: is there a reliable source that connects the historical Togakure-ryū to the modern Togakure-ryū. Silverseren believes that the material from the modern schools establishes this link; I think that Stvfetterly, jni (and I) do not believe that until now that independent, reliable sources have been shown to this link. jmcw (talk) 00:50, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, yes, the claim of lineage by the Bujinkan is the issue that I have with Togakure-ryu article. No issue with the existence of ancient Togakure-ryu. --Stvfetterly (talk) 12:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I must make a stronger stance here; I'm not convinced that the historical Togakure-ryū even existed. 1969 edition of Bugei Ryuha Daijiten noted that: This is a genealogy newly put together by Takamatsu Toshitsugu, who made use of (took advantage of) the popularity of written materials on ninjutsu after the Taishō era. What are those written materials? They are not textbooks or old densho, but portrayals of ninja in fiction, that were popular in Japan in early decades of past century and especially during 50s and 60s (Taisho era was 1912 to 1926). If Togakure-ryū is real, why was the geneology newly put together while taking advantage of popularity of ninjas in fiction? Any written records about Togakure-ryū before Takamatsu do not exist. Academic historians do not study history of Togakure-ryū or Bujinkan simply because they don't have any material to work with. It is hard to find a reliable secondary source stating this though. As others have pointed out, problem with Silversaren's sources is that nearly all of them are derived from a single source and that source (Bujinkan organization) is not a dis-interested third party. On the contrary the authors of ninjutsu books affiliated with Bujinkan make money by writing books, offering training seminars and by running commercial ninjutsu dojos so they have a direct motive to make their art appear older and more prestigious than it really is. jni (talk) 13:55, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Jni, do you think the Nigel Cawthorne "The Immortals: History's Fighting Elites"[51] reference is acceptable? jmcw (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
While I don't want to get into another long discussion like above, I would like to point out two things. First, the section in the 1969 edition of the Bugei, as already explained, was put together by someone named Watatani, who claims to be a friend of Takamatsu. The information in the 1969 edition was drastically changed in later editions (as shown here) and that sentence specifically was removed. There is no reliability in the statement since it has been removed and I would also like to point out that because Watatani is affiliated with Takamatsu, that also makes him a primary source. Thus, the Bugei is of the same level as the sources I was utilizing.
Second, please look at the Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia of History and Innovation, Volume 2. On page 163, it states, "the records found in the Ninpo traditions, combined with the plethora of information available in primary historical texts, portray a multifaceted military discipline that cannot be removed from its social, political, and military context.", when speaking of Ninpo. Just before this, it states, "Present-day systems that trace their roots to this era include Gyokko, Koto, Togakure, Iga, Koga, and others." I think this is pretty straightforward in saying that there are historical texts that discuss all the forms.
Oh, and I would also like to note that it discusses the Iga Museum on page 170, saying that it "promotes a mix of truth and fiction about ninjutsu for the entertainment of visitors." SilverserenC 14:13, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
@jmcw: Cawthorne's "The Immortals: History's Fighting Elites" is no textbook and it might get its information from Wikipedia. It tells the legend of Daisuke Nishina essentially same manner as old revisions of our Togakure-ryu article. Unfortunately page 223 that should list references is missing from the Google books review but 224 lists Wikimedia Common as source for most images in this book. We should verify if the ninjutsu section in this book is based on Wikipedia before using it as reference. I think the editorial review in Library Journal vol. 135 iss. 6 p. 86 about this book summarizes it appropriately: "Attractively produced and illustrated, it could attract some readers although it's of marginal use."
@Silver seren: I see you are utilizing my argument that BRDJ could be considered primary source here. No objection to that, but in that case we must treat it consistently i.e. not use this encyclopedia to support pro-Bujinkan POV either (that this is a documented entity with long history). Old revisions like [52] contained statements like It must, however be noted that the Bugei Ryuha Daijiten recognises Togakure-ryū as a legitimate koryu bujutsu school. Statements like that are dubious given the tone of Togakure-ryu entry in the earlier editions of BRDJ. It does not necessary mean anything that 1978 edition has removed this one sentence. The editors might have done that just for politeness, or growing tired of ire from neo-ninjas. It is indeed somewhat harsh to claim in encyclopedia that ones friend got his ideas from popular fictions and backdated the alleged history.
It is no surprise that Roy Ron, author of Ninpo article in Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia of History and Innovation, Volume 2 criticizes the Iga Ninja Museum and other ninjutsu organizations. As has been pointed out before, he is an instructor of Genbukan, which is an off-shoot of Bujinkan. Note however that his article does not contain the unverifiable legend of Daisuke Nishiina or monk Kain Doshi or any other disputed embellishments. jni (talk) 16:40, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I think that we should be using both sets of primary sources, both for and against, since there's nothing wrong with using primary sources, as long as they are used in the correct manner. Roy Ron also uses the BRDJ in the encyclopedia, but he uses the 1978 version and that's the one we should be using as well, not picking and choosing from statements in old editions that were rewritten in later editions. Stvfetterly and I have already been discussing how to rewrite the article to keep it comprehensive with the information from the prop primary sources, while also explaining to the reader that the information is from such sources, along with exhibiting the counter arguments from anti primary sources. SilverserenC 17:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Please close this discussion

Stvfetterly and I have reached a compromise on the article. So the dispute has been resolved. SilverserenC 23:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. Glad to hear. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 23:30, 28 October 2011 (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.

Necromancy

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.


Dispute overview

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

On 12 June 2011, Canstusdis added content to the article on necromancy regarding a single religious vision / spirit visitation experienced by an Elder of the LDS Church in 1877 and used that as a basis for the claim "The LDS Church believes that the dead can contact the living." Since then, this particular content has been deleted from the article by four separate users, myself (Apo-kalypso) included, only for Canstusdis to revert the edit in each instance (the first attempt I made to remove it was 30 September 2011). Given that they did not supply any rationale, I cannot speak to the others' motives for deleting this content, but for my part, I stated: 1) the incident did not fit the definition of necromancy as it is outlined in the article, 2) the cited source was not reliable, 3) neither incident nor source supported a general inference as to the contemporary LDS Church's stance on such phenomenon, making any claim along these lines original research, and 4) associating a purported belief of the LDS Church with the practice of necromancy – which the LDS Church clearly repudiates – can potentially be read as defamation. Apparently dissatisfied with my rationale, Canstusdis restored the content and called upon me to initiate a discussion on the article talk page instead; I did so on 10 October 2011. We have now reached the point where Canstusdis is actually proposing to change the article's definition of its own subject in order to accommodate inclusion of the disputed content, which I think crosses the line in all sorts of directions.

Users involved

  • Who is involved in the dispute?

Jean Calleo became involved in the talk page discussion as a third party on her own initiative.

  • 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.

  • N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Necromancy}} --~~~~ 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?

Starting 10 October 2011, I have undertaken to engage Canstusdis in a discussion on the article talk page, and Jean Calleo interceded with a third opinion (it did not come about as the result of a formal request, however) in support of my position on the issue, but after continuing to exchange several posts with Canstusdis, I find myself increasingly concerned about the character and course his participation is assuming in this discussion; in particular, his recent troubling proposal of a by-any-means-necessary solution to retain the disputed content in the article, content which clearly does not belong there in the first place.

  • How do you think we can help?

Please direct me to a means of resolving this dispute, whether here or elsewhere on Wikipedia. I would very much like to arrive at a reasonable consensus decision as how to move forward with the article.

Apo-kalypso (talk) 04:57, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Necromancy discussion

Discussion about the issues listed above take place here. Remember to keep discussions calm, brief, and focused on the issues at hand.


Canstusdis understands that the main issue is the definition of necromancy. He believes that what he's trying to add to the article qualifies as necromancy, citing the dictionary definition of necromancy: "divination involving the dead or death". I think he should look up the definition of "divination".

Any kind of divination and especially necromancy are associated with (black) magic(k) and witchcraft; simply being contacted by the dead does not instantly qualify as necromancy, just like worshiping ancestors' spirits doesn't qualify and just like seeing ghosts doesn't qualify. — Jean Calleo (talk) 12:09, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Again, according to most dictionary definitions, including Wiktionary:
divination
1. The act of divining; a foreseeing or foretelling of future events
2. The pretended art of discovering secrets or the future by preternatural means
Again, you'll notice that this definition does not require the use black magic or witchcraft. And although I do understand that contacting the dead doesn't automatically qualify as necromancy, according to LDS Church documents (Journal of Discourses, 19:229), and the official LDS Church news website (ldschurchnews.com), Elder Woodruff undertook an event foretold to him by dead spirits. And again, in my opinion, Elder Woodruff's experience is best described as necromancy.
BTW, I really feel outnumbered here by two LDS apologists. ---Canstusdis (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, there's something I never thought I'd be called. Jean Calleo and I are not ganging up on you, Canstusdis, and our objection to the inclusion of this particular content in the article has nothing whatsoever to do with our thoughts, feelings, or experiences regarding the LDS Church and its culture, history, or doctrine. That aside, having read the Journal of Discourses cited above (the passage is actually found at 19:230, not 19:229), I cannot see where the "spirits of the dead" foretold, predicted, or revealed any future event when they appeared to Woodruff. As I said before, he did not set out to conjure, invoke, or raise them in order to gain their audience, they came to him of their own accord, not to deliver an omen or prophecy, but to make a request – one not even phrased as an imperative. That is simply not divination, let alone necromancy. — Apo-kalypso (talk) 02:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I am a mediator at this noticeboard. I am not affiliated in any way with either spiritualism or the LDS Church, both broadly construed, and am indeed a self-proclaimed skeptic (see my user page) as to such matters. The issue is over this edit.

  • I believe the LDS Church News article (but not the other two sources in the contested edit) is a reliable source for what it says. It is, however, prohibited original research to extrapolate, however, from what that article says to a general statement that, "The LDS Church believes that the dead can contact the living." That sentence implies that the belief in the dead contacting the living is part of LDS doctrine or, at the very least, wholly-accepted practice but there is nothing in that article which supports that claim, which makes it original research.
  • The questioning of the definition of "necromancy" which begins the article will be, I believe, eventually similarly unavailing, though it has some very slight merit at the moment. The initial sentence of the article is not supported by an inline citation to a reliable source establishing the definition. As such, it is open to question and revision and, indeed, removal if no such source can be found. I have no doubt, however, that a source for the term can be found (I have found several already) and that that the source will reference divination by means of or through the dead — whether through summoning, raising, or other contact (I'm intentionally being as broad as possible here). The key here, however, is that divination (and the word "art" in the definition cited by Canstusdis, though I note that only in passing without either approval or rejection of that definition) requires an intentional use of the dead, not merely a passive, unsolicited receipt of information. While reasonable minds might differ over the question of whether the divination was for the purpose of seeking unknown or hidden information versus discovery of future events, no version of the definition that I've been able to find would include a mere passive repetition of information learned from the dead.

The information in the edit is not appropriate for the article. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

  • I can re-write my addition to more accurately represent the reference.
  • No definition that I cited uses the word "art".
  • No common mainstream definition of necromancy necessarily requires it to be an intentional act.
  • Woodruff's experience was not just a "mere passive repetition of information". He acted upon the alleged instructions of dead spirits.
---Canstusdis (talk) 18:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but the mention of this apparently (though I stand to be corrected) isolated, anomalous event within the LDS church simply does not fit within the scope of the article as it is currently written since the current scope is largely based on the definition in the first sentence. An analysis of the various dictionary definitions of "necromancy" really does not solve the issue since dictionaries merely define words and are not intended to be encyclopedic as to subjects or facts; the bigger question is what necromancy includes in practice by its adherents and by its detractors. The one reliable source documents what allegedly happened, but what happened is different enough from necromancy as ordinarily described and criticized (and as currently described in the article) that it can be reasonably argued that you also need a reliable source which says that what was described is something which would ordinarily be described and included within the concept of necromancy. You can, of course, attempt to obtain consensus on the article talk page to broaden the scope of the article, but until you achieve that, the material just does not fit and is not appropriate for this article, in my opinion. At the end of the day, the inclusion must be supported one way or the other by consensus and you do not have it. I know that you weren't the editor who brought this dispute to this noticeboard, but part of what we "serve" here is a neutral point of view from experienced Wikipedia editors. You're free to take this advice or leave it, but my opinion is that it is not likely that you will be able to form a consensus to include this material, though you are free to try to continue to do so through continued discussion at the article talk page or an RFC or you may seek another opinion through the Mediation Cabal or the Mediation Committee. Some other neutral here at this noticeboard may also have a different opinion, so I'm leaving this discussion open for the time being and will close it in a day or two if no one else chooses to weigh in. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Canstusdis – On the article talk page, you only linked to the Dictionary.com definition of "necromancy" without formally entering it into the discussion (referring to it as "most dictionary definitions" when, in fact, it was only a definition from one dictionary; indeed, a definition that does, contrary to your disavowal, use the word "art"), and you also neglected to render the complete definition from Wiktionary. In order to eliminate the ambiguity resulting from a selective presentation of factual evidence, I have taken it upon myself to do this, adding several more "common mainstream" definitions for the sake of comparison.
  • Cambridge Dictionary: The practice of claiming to be able to communicate with the dead in order to discover what is going to happen in the future, or black magic.
  • Dictionary.com: A method of divination through alleged communication with the dead; black art; magic in general, especially that practiced by a witch or sorcerer; sorcery, witchcraft, conjuration.
  • The Free Dictionary: The practice of supposedly communicating with the spirits of the dead in order to predict the future; black magic, sorcery.
  • Macmillan Dictionary: The practice of communicating with dead people in order to learn about the future.
  • Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Conjuration of the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events; magic, sorcery.
  • Oxford Dictionary: The supposed practice of communicating with the dead, especially in order to predict the future; witchcraft, sorcery, or black magic in general.
  • Webster's Dictionary: The art of revealing future events by means of a pretended communication with the dead; the black art; hence, magic in general; conjuration, enchantment.
  • Wiktionary: Divination involving the dead or death; loosely, any sorcery or witchcraft, especially involving death or the dead, particularly sorcery involving raising or reanimating the dead.
  • WordNet Dictionary: Sorcery, black magic, black art; the belief in magical spells that harness occult forces or evil spirits to produce unnatural effects in the world; conjuring up the dead, especially for prophesying.
You may be able to pick up on some common elements here: practice, method, art, conjuration, magic, occult, sorcery, witchcraft.
Now let's do it for "divination", using the same sources.
  • Cambridge Dictionary: The skill or act of saying or discovering what will happen in the future.
  • Dictionary.com: The practice of attempting to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; augury, prophecy; perception by intuition, instinctive foresight.
  • The Free Dictionary: The art or act of foretelling future events or revealing occult knowledge by means of augury or an alleged supernatural agency; an inspired guess or presentiment; something that has been divined.
  • Macmillan Dictionary: The practice of finding out about the future by receiving signs from the spirit world.
  • Merriam-Webster Dictionary: The art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers; unusual insight, intuitive perception.
  • Oxford Dictionary: The practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.
  • Webster's Dictionary: The act of divining; a foreseeing or foretelling of future events; the pretended art discovering secret or future by preternatural means; an indication of what is future or secret; augury omen, conjectural presage, prediction.
  • Wiktionary: The act of divining, a foreseeing or foretelling of future events; [repeats Webster's definition].
  • WordNet Dictionary: Successful conjecture by unusual insight or good luck; a prediction uttered under divine inspiration; foretelling, soothsaying, fortune telling, the art or gift of prophecy (or the pretense of prophecy) by supernatural means.
Again, there are some common threads: skill, practice, art, occult, supernatural.
As I see it (you are likely to discount what follows on that basis alone), part of the problem in this situation is that you seize upon certain words or phrases – or your personal interpretation thereof – to the exclusion of all others and throw the entire weight of your argument behind them (cf., TransporterMan's probably accidental substitution of "repetition" for "receipt" in his comment above). When someone advances a broader/clearer view that accounts for the things you have previously ignored or disregarded, you continue to maintain an artificially narrow/vague perspective despite its revealed insufficiency. Rather than acknowledge this, you propose to reconcile it with drastic solutions like, "If the incident does not conform to the definition, then the definition must be changed to conform to the incident". You alone cannot select or synthesize the most appropriate definition best suited to your individual purpose, for, in the end, that seems the only reason you would be doing it, not to enhance or improve the article's overall quality. In any case, even the most general definition among those I listed would not serve to describe the incident. — Apo-kalypso (talk) 02:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
C'mon, Apo-kalypso. Again with the personal attacks? Again making things up that don't jive with the facts? How many false accusations do I have to endure from you? Please, just stop. ---Canstusdis (talk) 14:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Canstusdis, this issue can be solved by stacking arguments against arguments. There is no need and no room for additional dramatics and manipulation tactics. You've demonstrated throughout this whole conversation that besides trying to prove you're right (as we all are) you're also trying to intimidate and distract/derail other editors. We're not dense enough to fall for that, so you're welcome to stop.
What's your current argument? — Jean Calleo (talk) 14:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I've asked Apo-kalypso and now I'll ask you. Stop with the unfounded accusations. I have not acted in bad faith as has been suggested by the both of you nor am I now trying to divert this conversation with "dramatics and manipulation tactics". Again, please just stop with the accusations. ---Canstusdis (talk) 18:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Okay. — Jean Calleo (talk) 21:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Enough. Stop talking about one another. Limit your comments to the content issues, without personal comments. Unless someone has something more to say about the content issue, I'm prepared to close this discussion with my opinion and recommendation against the inclusion of the material for the reasons I stated above. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 18:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I apologize for straying from the focus of this discussion. It is clear that there is nothing more to be said about the issue at hand that was not already said at the start and has since been said many times over. I appreciate you, ItsZippy, and Jean Calleo for taking the time to weigh in. — Apo-kalypso (talk) 21:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

TransporterMan has already interjected with his opinion as a mediator here; as a fellow mediator (and as someone with no connection to the LDS Church whatsoever), I shall do the same. Canstusdis has taken a source which mentions Elder Wilford Woodruff's vision and gone on to suggest that the LDS Church as a whole believes in necromancy. This is synthesis of the source, so cannot be used. Unless a reliable source can be provided which explicitly states that the LDS believes in necromancy, the LDS should be left out of the article. As for the definition of necromancy, previous editors have provided swathes of sources to support the current definition. Thus, I see no reason to change it. I urge all involved in this dispute to remain civil and focus their posts on the content and arguments, rather than each other. Any posts which question the motives and conduct of other editors instead of the content issue are unhelpful. As TransporterMan said, if this continues, the discussion will be closed. Furthermore, unless Canstusdis has any further contributions to make, which have not been raised and addressed already, I suggest the discussion is closed with the resolution that Canstusdis' proposed changes are kept out of the article. ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 18:55, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems that the issue has been resolved. Would there be any objections to the closure of this discussion now? ItsZippy (talk • contributions) 11:55, 28 October 2011 (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.
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