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Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Occupy Wall Street

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This mediation case is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this case page.

Occupy Wall Street

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Formal mediation case
ArticleOccupy Wall Street (talk) 
Opened03 May 2012
MediatorLord Roem (talk)
StatusClosed
NotesNone
Users involved in dispute
  1. Becritical (talk · contribs), filing party
  2. Amadscientist (talk · contribs)
  3. Equazcion (talk · contribs)
  4. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk · contribs)
  5. Penyulap (talk · contribs)
Articles concerned in this dispute
Other steps of dispute resolution that have been attempted


Issues to be mediated

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All aspects of article content over which there is disagreement should be listed here. The filing party should define the scope under "Primary issues", which is used to frame the case; other parties to the dispute can list other issues under "Additional issues", and can contest the primary issues on the case talk page.

Primary issues

This issue concerns a few paragraphs of text (various headings) which describe the economic background, complaints, and surrounding economic issues related to OWS. Due to the fact that the other parties have not fully stated what they feel is wrong with the various versions, it is difficult to say what the dispute really is. That is part of what we need mediation for.

I recently rewrote the section to take into consideration the objections of Amadscientist and The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous. However, the new section was removed [1] over the objections of myself and Equazcion, and contrary to the policy explanations of User:Dreadstar and User:Littleolive oil. There was only one sentence which seemed to be objectionable to those removing text, although they agreed that the sentence was factually true. I rewrote the section yet again, [2] to take objections into consideration. It has been agreed between all parties participating on the DR/N, including User:RegentsPark who is an outside party helping us, that mediation is the necessary next step.

Background: It would help any mediator to read this article by economist Joseph Stiglitz, which gives a broad background and makes clear how overarchingly important per WEIGHT the section in question is. The Wikipedia section merely summarizes the themes in this article and gives them more specific statistics.

Additional issues (added by other parties)
Amadscientist
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  • Some content issues, but unclear what those are as keeping up with what the other editor is agreeing to, demanding, requesting or seeking, changes in an almost random fashion depending mostly on control over eventual outcome of content instead of attempting editing collaboration. Accusations and threats fly and interrupt discussion constantly from both Becritical and Equazcion making it difficult to dicuss and slowly driving away long term editors from the page. Accusations seem to include a variation on "one minute you say this and the next you are saying that" when attempts are made to try a different approach or address different issues with the same content when discussion stalls. This is an ongoing dispute for just about 6 months or so. There is accepted consensus that is being respected by both parties in the section so there might well be a way to compromise that both parties can agree on but DR seemed to stall at the request that a single version be voted on "up or down" by the editor filing this mediation request. The threat or statement from Becritical to use mediation has been under circumstances where it is used as a tool of intimidation on the talkpage. He has a history of using the ANI, DR/N process seeking administrative admonishment of and punitive action to editors that do not agree with his position. Equazcion takes credit for a topic ban on one editor and makes the accusation that I am trying to portray the subject in a bad light. This, along with his actions at the project page seem to be a war on me personally as he has taken aim directly at me and a handful of others editors. He appears to be an "edit warrior" looking for excuses to block, ban or remove editors he finds in his path. Being able to spot a recurring Sock of Centerist Fiasco is not an excuse to go after editors on an article and then brag about getting an editor topic banned on the Mediation request.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I forgot about the accusation "...Amadscientist tend to be in favor of removing content (period, but) especially content that they're concerned will justify the Occupy movement -- and without explicitly saying so, they believe myself and BeCritical to be attempting to portray the movement in a positive light". No, but that is a pretty serious accusation. --Amadscientist (talk) 06:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Equazcion
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  • To further explain the issue BeCritical mentions: We have plenty of reliable secondary sources that state the statistics of income inequality, and plenty of reliable secondary sources that state income inequality is a fundamental focus of the movement; but AKA and Amadscientist reject any statistical content not backed up by sources that explicitly state that the Occupy movement makes use of them. You can see this summed up in an outside comment at DRN here. Much of this content has also been argued down due to sources repeatedly being rejected because they don't meet (what I would call unreasonable) standards -- AKA insists on researching and approving of the credentials of individual authors, and removing (sometimes large quantities of) content when they don't "qualify", though they are published by reliable sources per WP:RS.
  • These editors in fact don't even dispute any facts in the content they want removed, and have used WP:V's "likely to be challenged" clause as a basis for demanding these "satisfactory" refs for nearly anything. Equazcion (talk) 05:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Penyulap
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Would anyone mind if I join in here ? I do not know if it is procedurally correct to allow me to do so, but I'd like to participate, as it might mean that NPOV-type tag in the reactions section could be taken down finally. Can I go ahead and add myself into the discussion? Penyulap ☏ 01:27, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Well the article has nothing of the usual summary of related articles as far as reactions to OWS goes. Like first cab off the rank is Occupy London where (cut and paste) "The protests began in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, United States." So there is no mention of that, or any other of the list of reactionary protests in the article. Anyhow, I'd tried including that sort of thing, got the OWS treatment of everything gets block reverted again and again, gave up, but did manage to pop a nice NPOV template in there, which someone polished up into a world view thingy template, very nice, and it only blinks on and off now and then. There are other issues of course, and I've thought for like 6 months that a few topic bans would completely solve all the problems, but meh, if there are braver souls than I who want to try to fix things, I'll offer my support. Penyulap ☏ 04:58, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I'd suggest that ordering the template above might go by notability/article size rather than alphabetic, or at least have an indication of notability/size of the movement. Penyulap ☏ 05:02, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well your Lordship :) there is a section here kind of outlining where the reactions section was up to, but with the unfortunate loss of one editor to some kind of ban I was opposed to, on re-reading the section it looks like I'd now be able to do as I please with the article, the only real problem would be shouts of surprise when the article doubles/triples/whatever in size in one edit. So I don't know what there is for me to do here. I'd suggest the committee declares Penyulap can do as he pleases with the article and people are not allowed to fall down dead from shock, OR that Penyulap be banned from any further involvement in the mediation process in regards to Occupy Wall Street because he is completely and utterly superfluous to progress. Or both, I can't make up my mind, I think some procrastination is in order. Penyulap ☏ 15:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous
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A primary issue: the automatic classification by some of a dispute over sources and weight, as well as OR as manifestly POV. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 18:01, 9 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Parties' agreement to mediation

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All parties please indicate below whether they agree to mediation of this dispute; remember to sign your post. Extended comments should be made on the case talk page. Every party listed above will be automatically notified that this request has been filed.

  1. Agree. Be——Critical 01:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agree. Equazcion (talk) 01:48, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Agree. Amadscientist (talk) 03:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Sweet! Penyulap ☏ 05:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I'm in. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 01:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Decision of the Mediation Committee

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A member of the Mediation Committee will indicate whether this request is to be accepted or rejected. Notes concerning the request and questions to the parties may also be posed by a committee member in this section.


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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