Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Historicity of Jesus

Historicity of Jesus

The filing party (the editor who opened this request) will add the basic details for this dispute below.

Editors involved in this dispute

1. IseeEwe (talk · contribs) – filing party
2. Smeat75 (talk · contribs)
3. Mmeijeri (talk · contribs)
4. Bill the Cat 7 (talk · contribs)
5. Tgeorgescu (talk · contribs)
6. Fearofreprisal (talk · contribs)
7. Wdford (talk · contribs)
8. Blackthorne2k (talk · contribs)
9. John Carter (talk · contribs)
10. Wickorama (talk · contribs)
11. Woerkilt (talk · contribs)
12. Themoother (talk · contribs)
13. Sparkveela (talk · contribs)
14. Lyingforjebus (talk · contribs)
15. Edit Centric (talk · contribs)
16. Spirit469 (talk · contribs)
17. Saddhiyama (talk · contribs)
18. Martijn Meijering (talk · contribs)
19. Rbreen (talk · contribs)
20. Huon (talk · contribs)
21. Ian.thomson (talk · contribs)
22. Robin Lionheart (talk · contribs)
23. HiLo48 (talk · contribs)
24. FormerIP (talk · contribs)

Articles affected by this dispute

1. Historicity of Jesus

Other attempts at resolving this dispute that you have attempted

• Talk:Balloon#I disagree with this edit
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#The dispute tag seems to be retained merely to humour certain lay readers.
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Analysis of historical evidence
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Scope of this article
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Preconceptions on Historicity
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Source and Context
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#The Nitty Gritty
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Do we have a new sockpuppet?
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Request for comments: Inclusion of more than "theological historical criticism" scholarship
• Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Author doesn't understand what he posted is not Historicity, But is the history of Jesus according to folklore. The article is incorrect. I'll explain.
• several months (at least) of recent discussions on these questions have not resolved the matter
• request for comment process did not resolve [1]
• DRN request did not resolve. Editor referred by DRN coordinator to Mediation Committee, and ANI, for resolution of the issues as the matter was too large and complex for DRN process [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by IseeEwe (talk • contribs) 22:46, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Issues to be mediated

What is this dispute about? What sections, sentences, or issues in the article(s) can you not agree on? If you are the editor who opened this request, list these issues to be mediated under "Primary issues". If you did not open this request, you can add additional issues to be mediated under "Additional issues". The issues to be mediated would be properly agreed upon later, if this request for mediation is accepted.

Primary issues (added by the filing party)

1. article tagged with disputed neutrality
2. multiple ongoing disputes of POV
3. multiple ongoing disputes of scope
4. multiple ongoing disputes of validity of citations
5. multiple ongoing disputes of competent authority
6. multiple ongoing disputes of reliability of sources
7. disputed claims of consensus

Additional issues (added by other parties)

• Additional issue 1
• Additional issue 2

Parties' agreement to mediation

If you are a named party, please sign below and indicate whether you agree or refuse to participate in mediation. Remember that all editors are obliged to resolve disputes about content through discussion, mediation, or other similar means. If you do not wish to participate in mediation, you must arrange another form of dispute resolution. Comments and questions should be made underneath the numbered list below, to avoid confusion.

1. Agree. IseeEwe (talk) 22:39, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
2. Agree. Röbin Liönheart (talk) 23:33, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
3. Agree. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:47, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
4. Agree. HiLo48 (talk) 00:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
5. Refuse. Too many issues to mediate at once. Choose one specific issue associated with one WP policy (e.g. WP:SCOPE, WP:POV, WP:IRS, WP:V), and you might have a chance to gain some headway. Fearofreprisal (talk) 00:52, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
6. Undecided. More eyes on the filing user could result in correction sooner, but that correction would not be needed of he had paid any attention to the discussikns he cites yet was often not a part of. Ian.thomson (talk) 02:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
7. Refuse. Bad-faith request. IseeEwe named me as a party but explicitly declares they will not engage with me. Also, IseeEwe currently is blocked for personal attacks and edit-warring, making mediation moot for the next two weeks. Huon (talk) 11:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
8. Agree. This is a long-standing problem, which has involved many attempts by many people over time. Wdford (talk) 13:50, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
9. Agree. Blackthorne2k (talk) 05:59, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
10. Unsure. There are really issues here and there have been for a long time, but there are complicating factors, some of which have already been mentioned. First of all, conduct issues by the requester, who has quite rightly been blocked. Also, there may indeed be too many issues to handle at once. The same issues and any potential resolution also affect several closely related articles, namely Historical Jesus and Christ Myth Theory. There is even disagreement over whether Historicity of Jesus should be a separate page or whether it should be merged into the other two. Finally, a much broader set of pages is plagued by similar problems. The Jesus page was at least for a while patrolled by a cabal of religiously inspired editors who edit-warred and wikilawyered against anything they didn't like. One of them has since deleted his account and revealed himself to be a Christian apologist, who was therefore clearly acting in bad faith. The Jesus article is at least somewhat encyclopedic and respectable, but check out the article on Paul the Apostle, its talk page and recent edits to it, and you'll see direct interpretation of scripture and clear evidence of religious bias. At the same time many of these pages are constantly being raided by probable sockpuppets making outrageous demands to remove all statements by biblical scholars, who they often confuse with theologians. I think this is a much bigger problem than can be handled by a mediation procedure, but also one that deserves much more attention than it's getting. Martijn Meijering (talk) 14:55, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
11. Unsure as I think the request is probably at least somewhat premature and insufficient efforts to resolve concerns on the article talk page have necessarily taken place to necessitate such a step yet. John Carter (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Decision of the Mediation Committee

This section should only be edited by a mediator. The Mediation Committee's representative will indicate in due course whether the request is accepted (meaning a mediator will be assigned) or rejected (meaning you will have to try a different type of dispute resolution). If the mediator asks you a question in this section, you may edit here.

• Comment: Several parties have agreed to mediation, but there are many more who have not. Comments by Martijn Meijering and John Carter are noted. We will review further. Sunray (talk) 17:55, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
• Reject. There are significant conduct issues involved with this case. The filing party was blocked for two weeks and there seems to be a notable lack of good faith. It wouldn't be possible to mediate in such an environment. That said, there have been some insightful comments about the deficiencies of the article. If a smaller number of editors wish to resolve those issues, a mediation might be possible. The case would have to meet the the prerequisites for mediation identified in the Mediation Policy. A re-application could be made if the prerequisites are deemed to be met. For the Mediation Committee Sunray (talk) 04:15, 18 August 2014 (UTC)