Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 19

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.

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

Dispute overview

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

The dispute is regarding the inclusion in the lead of a definition of libertarianism that states: "It is the political philosophy that holds individuals own themselves and thus have property rights in external things, or any political philosophy which approximates this view."

The definition comes from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [1] which states:"Libertarianism, in the strict sense, is the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things. In a looser sense, libertarianism is any view that approximates the strict view."

This information, in my opinion, respects all Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion: Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. As the publication it is in is a well renowned academic, peer-reviewed publication usually considered (not only in Wikipedia articles) as one of the most reliable sources.

I do not argue that the definition that is currently in the lead of the article should be removed (although it is unreferenced), only that the second definition not be forcefully discarded.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Fifelfoo (talk · contribs)
• North8000 (talk · contribs)
• Fsol (talk · contribs)

User Fifelfoo has removed the definition entirely twice, in [2] and [3], but left the reference and the source of the of the definition intact, thus misquoting it. The third time User Fifelfoo solved the problem of misquoting the source by completely removing the definition along with its reference, in [4].

User Fifelfoo has removed the definition by claiming it is a copyright violation and also reported the use of the words "own themselves and have" and "property rights in external things", as being a copyright infringement ([5]). This claim was dismissed.

• 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.

North8000 (talk · contribs) (notified at their talk page)

Fifelfoo (talk · contribs) (notified at their talk page)

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

This issue has been discussed on the Libertarianism talk page at [6].

• How do you think we can help?

A Wikipedia admin more knowledgeable about inclusion rules should decide one of three possible solutions:

1. Only keep the current unreferenced definition in the lead.

2. Only keep the referenced definition in the lead.

3. Keep both definitions and state it is variously defined as I proposed here [7]. This solution has the advantage of pleaing all points of view, however I wonder whether it is appropriate (according to Wikipedia guidelines) to force an unreferenced definition into a lead.

I cannot suggest any solution as I am a party to this dispute. However, in my opinion, discarding the referenced definition entirely to the expense of the unreferenced one is an even more inappropriate solution than keeping in both.

Fsol (talk) 14:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

My angle/emphasis in this dispute is 80% about process and 20% about content. The "process" side is that fsol is basically warring their particular content into the lead against consensus. I've been active at the article for I think almost two years, starting when it was in open warfare. My main goal has been to bring civility and civilization to the process there. And so I am against warring this in against consensus. The "20% about content" is that FSOL is basicaly trying to state property rights as a central tenet of libertarianism in the lead. Libertarians don't even agree on this, much less make it a central tenet. Fsol's only argument for warring this into the lead is that it is sourced....basically to a particular source that states that particular viewpoint. Fifelfoo has copy vio concerns about the material. My gut feel on the way to resolve this is to first resolve the copy vio concerns one way or the other and then to put the material that fsol wants to insert into the body of the article rather than the lead. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) First, I would like to mention that this noticeboard is not actually a place where admins make/enforce decisions. Anyone can comment on these disputes; this is just a place to get opinions from uninvolved editors who may know a little more about the wiki processes. If you need action from an admin, you should probably go to the admin noticeboard, though I think this can probably be resolved without going that far. First, North8000, let me point out something that could be problematic in your approach; you took the right step by taking the problem to the discussion board and here instead of edit warring, but you should not revert edits just because they "go against consensus". Since we have a content dispute, we obviously don't have a consensus; ergo, consensus-related reverts are malapropos. Because the copyvio concerns are being addressed on the admin noticeboard, we can't really tackle them here.

As far as the process is concerned, the main problems seem to be centered around the fact that we have essentially two or three editors, each with non-neutral points of view. (Let's face it; for a topic like "libertarianism" it's not possible for any one editor to be completely objective because every editor will have at least some opinion of the subject. The key here is to keep the article as neutral as possible.) The reason this is causing problems is because all of the involved editors are insistent on getting their own points of view in the article - this is a problem because of WP's neutrality policy. The objective here is not to provide balance by giving equal weight to two non-neutral points of view - the objective is to keep everything neutral. More to the point, the reason the process seems to have stalled is because (as far as I can tell from a quick look at the discussion on the talk page) the editors have resorted to making accusations instead of moving the discussion forward. All of you need to be more focused on discussing the content instead of discussing the editors. Instead of pointing out problems, suggest solutions. North8000, since (I'm assuming) you're the one who framed this dispute here, I'm going to suggest that you start by proposing how you think the content in question should be presented. All the other editors involved, if you don't agree with North8000's proposal, don't point out what's wrong with it but rather present a counter-proposal, explain it, and explain how it is different (not how it is "better") than the previous proposal. Cheers. Sleddog116 (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, as a proprietarian libertarian, my "POV" in general is the same one that fsol is pushing. But I don't think that such is agreed upon by libertarians much less being a central tenet of it, so I think it would be incorrect to state it as such in the lead. And my duty there is article accuracy/quality, even if against my preferences as is the case here. My proposal is to (once copy vio concerns at wp:AN are resolved which I am not involved in) have fsol put the material in exactly as they prefer except in the body of the article, possibly in the "overview" section. North8000 (talk) 15:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Sleddog116: Libertarianism has 3 years of argued consensus over the issue of whether bourgeois property is essential to the WEIGHTed scholarly opinions regarding Libertarianism. The correct place to reargue that consensus is the talk page. "One editor does not make a rebuttal" particularly when their argument consists of edit-warring. The article enforced Talk: page sanctions over disruptions to the article by editors continuously revisiting the scope and weight. So Fsol's edits are deeply problematic in this way. Prior to Fsol's edits, we had a use of Vallentyne that summarised his entire article, that was relevant to our article, and that represented the WEIGHT and body of the article. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• As normal with a dispute, the lodger presents an incomplete picture (though this should not be held against them, by the time a dispute has occurred, it is impossible to do so for less than a bodhisattva). As such I will present a fuller version:
  • One editor insists on using wikipedia's voice to express the first line of Vallentyne's article.
    • There is a clear copyright issue with this presentation (see WP:AN), so far one editor commented on the copyright issue externally, and used poor reasoning; the matter is outstanding. As this matter is being discussed elsewhere, we do not need to discuss that here.
  • Vallentyne is a partisan, who fails to conduct an adequate field review. He conducts a philosophical review, of limited merit, dismissing political philosophy and political history. His definition poorly, if at all, represents the WEIGHT of multiple scholarly tertiaries. In particular Fsol is using it to edit war an unWEIGHTable assertion regarding property into the lede, and if Vallentyne is read in full, an assertion which misuses Vallentyne's term-of-art in philosophy "property" as the common understanding of bourgeois private property.
  • Mis-WEIGHTing the property issue over political field reviews, such as Woodcock's field review to 1963, or Long's systematic theoretical review to 1998 is highly problematic. Both Long and Woodcock identify that property is a contested element within Libertarianism; both Long and Woodcock identify libertarianism as a political social engagement, not as a from first principles moral philosophy.
  • Vallentyne is being:
    • Mis-used to misrepresent his major conclusions, in particular by using a term-of-art as a common word
    • Mis-used to summarise the article's contents per LEDE
    • Mis-used as an out of discipline field review, when it is a partisan contribution to scholarly debate
    • Quoted (without proper encyclopaedic attribution) for a single sentence, rather than summarised for the contribution's findings
  • In particular Fsol needs to stop edit warring property as an essential part of the definition into the lede per
    • LEDE
    • Years, years of densely argued consensus over what scope Libertarianism has. I suggest editors peruse the archives. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

We could go into a lot of details about the source, what he actually means (as if he doesn't mean what he says) about the quality of the peer-review mechanism, etc. About what one's POV is, whether it is the same or different than that of others, etc. All these are interesting discussions but irrelevant ones for determining inclusion in a Wikipedia article. The only question that should be answered is: does this definition respect the guideline for inclusion in Wikipedia? The guide line does not request consensus (although it is preferable). The guidelines request: Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. As this definition appears in a well known peer reviewed academic publication it respects all three. And should thus be in the article and shouldn't be removed in favour of unreferenced content. -- Fsol (talk) 09:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

• T-ara (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

Naruto82 (talk · contribs) and I are disputing about whether or not T-ara's Leader timeline section should be ordered chronically or reversed. They have stated it should be ordered from latest-to-earliest because that was how it was ordered when the section was made. I have directed them to WP:STANDALONE's chronological ordering section, but they keep stating it is a "special case" when it is clearly not.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Chikazuku (talk · contribs)
• Naruto82 (talk · contribs)

We have had one dispute in the past about T-ara's Current members section, but have since resolved it.

• 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=T-ara}} --~~~~ 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 discussed about the issue on Naruto82 (talk · contribs)'s talk page but they have since started ignoring my messages.

• How do you think we can help?

Provide guidance on guidelines.

Chikazuku (talk) 19:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) Hi Chikazuku, Naruto82. Would I be right in saying that this diff outlines the dispute you are having? It strikes me that listing the earliest date first is the usual way of doing things - I don't think I have seen latest-first on Wikipedia before. The manual of style section that Chikazuku linked to also says that earliest-first should be preferred. Having said that, there is a way you can compromise here: by making the table sortable. How about changing the table using the instructions here so that it can be sorted either way? Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 23:58, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Species capitalization points (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

SMcCandlish has been trying to gain consensus to update the Manual of Style (WP:MOS) with clearer language at WP:MOS#Animals, plants, and other organisms, with the primary intent of stopping the rampant, willy-nilly capitalization of the names of organisms all over Wikipedia (Pallas's Cat, Ball Python, Neon Tetra, Mountain Oak, etc.), using wording that, in his view, represents the facts and the consensus on the matter, and allegedly with the secondary goal of reducing the amount and heat of the seven years of debate about the insistence of WP:WikiProject Birds (WP:BIRDS) on capitalization of the common names of bird species, the debate about which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. His stated position, and that of some others in the debate, is that in order to satisfy both of these goals, the MOS must (not should, but must, for policy reasons) indicate that the WP:BIRDS practice is controversial (or does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus, or whatever wording), since this is in fact the case, and it isn't MOS's job to arbitrate such a dispute. SMcCandlish feels that Kimvdlinde has been intentionally engaging in a tendentious campaign of obstructionist disruption, based on incorrect negative assumptions, to derail the proposal, principally through the WP:IDHT tactic.

KimvdLinde has engaged in the debate about this, and suspects these MOS changes to be an attack upon WP:BIRDS, rather than an attempt to deal with the wider problems SMcCandlish says he is actually more concerned about, much less something that could possibly help rather than hurt WP:BIRDS. She further believes that there is no consensus for MOS to state that the WP:BIRDS practice is controversial on Wikipedia (though she concedes that it is). She feels that MOS has no choice but to simply endorse The WP:BIRDS practice as the status quo. She also has stated a belief that SMcCandlish has "no good faith" in the matter, and that his real motives for the changes at MOS are simply to attack WP:BIRDS, despite his claims otherwise to be working for compromise (belied by his strong criticism of the project's capitalization and its alleged behavior about its capitalization preference, and his repeated statements that he thinks the capitalization practice is not appropriate on Wikipedia, and that he may continue to oppose it.) She detects, beyond this particular debate, a pattern of opposition, by various editors, to the WP:BIRDS capitalization scheme, which she characterizes as "capitalization warriors" meddling with and attacking the project; she thinks they do not understand the real-world bird naming conventions and are obsessing over typographical consistency.

SMcCandlish submitted this DRN, and is in good faith attempting to describe both sides' positions and actions accurately, including as perceived by each other, but expects that KimvdLinde will wish to make changes to reflect her views of the facts more accurately.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• SMcCandlish (talk · contribs)
• KimvdLinde (talk · contribs)

Discussions between the users have invariably turned into circular arguments, with considerable rancor.

• 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=Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Species capitalization points}} --~~~~ 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?

Both parties have had extensive talk page discussions between each other and among other interested parties on both sides at WT:MOS and to a lesser extent at WT:BIRDS, and again (one-on-one) at WP:AN/I. SMcCandlish has also tried talking with fellow project members of KimvdLinde's, like Sabine's Sunbird, a WT:BIRDS regular, to find more common ground. KimvdLinde tried leaving the debate for several days.

• How do you think we can help?

Perhaps broker a more civil discussion, with more structure so that positions can be presented and analyzed in a less noisy and circular fashion, with the possibility of better mutual understanding, less animosity, and a common goal of finding a resolution to the dispute.

— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 10:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• As an opening comment, kudos to the filer of this dispute for having a go at presenting both sides of the dispute in a neutral fashion. It's something I've seen rarely, if ever, on this noticeboard. Other DR assistants, take note, this ^ is how it should be done. On the dispute itself, it's far too late here to look into the dispute with any detail so I'll leave that to my colleagues to look at. Regards. Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 10:58, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Steven, I think a more civil discussion would be very beneficial, and I will participate. I think the description above is relative okay. If you think it beneficial, I would like to make a few corrections about the issue at hand. In that case, where would you like me to make amendments to that description? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 12:32, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure, just make the comments below :-) Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 01:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. My experience is starts with working at bird articles, and the repeated attempts by editors who are unfamiliar with the conversions in the ornithological literature to force the wikiproject to conform to general style rules. Over the years, we have seen them come and go and WP:BIRD has continued to follow the convention within the field to Capitalize Bird Names consistent with the bulk of the relevant literature.

In December, the petitioner entered the discussion (again?) rather heavy handed in that he was going to force WP:BIRD to conform to the lowercaps rule. This heavy-handedness was recently displayed when he unilaterally declared that there was a consensus for codifying the controversy in the MoS], and that it all came down the exact wording. After I showed that he had no consensus, notified the WP:BIRD project of the renewed discussion (which he had failed to do), and expressed that I did not trust him anymore, he ran to ANI to get his way. Instead of waiting till this discussion is resolved, he is now trying to get his way at the next place.

The heavy-handed approach is also illustrated by statements made by SMcCandlish such as "Your behavior, however, is actually making me want to go after the birds capitalization and get rid of it." and "She actually makes me want to take up the torch against your caps practice again (i.e., Kim, it's backfiring)" (Which would also be a violation of Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point), "I want to stop that, and leave the birds issue for later resolution, which could take another 7 years, basically." and the fact that he has already drafted an ArbCom request.

I feel I have to say this here in order to establish properly why there is a lot of bad blood and why I think mediation is very much needed. I am fine with only listing me and SMcCandlish as the parties, although many others have chimed in. However, I think that if we can solve this issue, the rest will probably be fine with it.

As for the questions that need to be resolved. I think there are 5 questions:

1. Does WP:RS (a policy) or WP:MoS (a guideline) have priority in determining what reliable sources should be used to determine what are the correct bird names?
2. Should the exception be focussed on WP:BIRD or should other exceptions be equally included?
3. Should the MoS be descriptive only or also indicate controversies?
4. If so, what is actually the controversy? The MoS regulars claim that the WP:BIRD editors do it wrong but the only party that has a problem with the current de facto standard are the MoS people.
5. And finally, if it is determined that the controversy should be included, how should it be worded?

Thank you for reading. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello? Anyone home? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll shoot someone through an email and get this sorted out. Cheers. 203.35.135.133 (talk) 22:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC) (Steve)

Hey guys. Steve, just sent me an e-mail asking to take over this thread. I'll be right with you guys as soon as I review the dispute and hopefully, we can work together to bring closure. Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs 22:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

For starters, I think it's important for both parties to take a deep breath and stay focused on the content at dispute and not the editors. I have to say that in most circumstances that you follow the policies and guidelines agreed by consensus (being WP:RS and WP:MoS), however, if rules are preventing you from improving the content of Wikipedia, then ignore all rules. To SMcCandlish, this noticeboard is informal and you should feel free to make any civilized, calm and concise statement at any time you wish. Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs 23:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I've tried to make each point as concise as possible, but there are so many of them it ended up huge. Not sure what to do about that other than assume that the bulk of the claims/refutations will fall by the wayside. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 23:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm just going to proceed. In looking at other cases here, that seems to be the way to go about it. I will number the points for easy reference. This will be long, because there's something problematic about almost everything Kim says above.

1. The assumption that editors who oppose the capitalization of bird common names in Wikipedia articles "are unfamiliar with the conventions in the ornithological literature" is false, and insultingly uncivil, as it is a claim that disagreeing with WP:BIRDS necessarily equals ignorance or stupidity. Because of how frequently that project browbeats orn. conventions into anyone who questions their practice here, there is literally no one involved in the debate, for 7+ years now, who is not quite familiar with the conventions.
2. WP:MOS is a style guideline. It can't "force" WP:BIRDS or anyone to do anything.
3. "The bulk of the relevant literature" is not at issue. At no time, in seven years of debate, has anyone ever claimed that the capitalization is not at least mostly standard practice in orn. lit., but the Kim constantly claims that this argument is being made against WP:BIRDS. It's never been made. This straw man is a favored debate-clouding technique used by Kim and several other project members to generate reams and reams of text, to drown out the actual discussion.
4. Kim's perception that I am "heavy-handed" is noted. It doesn't make my position wrong, my arguments faulty or my facts incorrect, but I admit to the fact that I do not mince words and am persistent, and that this can be off-putting and can short-circuit cooperation. I wish that Kim could see that her own debate tactics also cause severe communication problems.
5. I never said "[I] [am] going to force WP:BIRDS to conform to the lower[case] rule." This is a false accusation. Note that there's no diff, and Kim is very fond of diffs, as long as they support her version of events. She just made this up.
6. I didn't "unilaterally" declare anything. There was a clear consensus to modify MOS along the "points to include" lines in the proposal. If there was no consensus, she would not have felt the need to canvass and rile up her entire project to come disrupt the discussion and generate the appearance of lack of consensus.
7. No new consensus was needed to include some kind of wording in MOS to the effect that a controversy exists (what Kim calls "codifying the controversy"). Annotating when something within MOS (or a subpage thereof) is controversial is standard operating procedure, as has been proven to Kim several times, though she chooses to ignore the evidence
8. Kim's false poll, where she voted for people, after canvassing them to come and vote her way, did not "show that [I] had no consensus", only that she had no regard for Wikipedia process and policy.
9. I didn't "fail" to notify anyone. The birds project has made it plain that they watch MOS like a hawk (no pun intended), and no one is obligated to notify all possibly interested parties every time they post a proposal to WT:MOS, since it's a site-wide guideline that affects everyone. Given that this proposal was about setting a rule for everyone but that project, there was no reason to notify the project explicitly. Given that Kim was personally participating from early on, and that I did notify WT:AT, WT:FNAME and WT:TOL, there was again no reason to notify that project specifically (it would have taken me all day to individually notify every animals- and plants-related project, and WT:TOL exists specifically to centralize biology discussions and notices between all the biology projects.
10. Whether I expressed that I did not trust Kim any more is of questionable relevance. Kim said, at WT:BIRDS that she didn't trust me, in terms that strongly assumed bad faith; so of course I felt that way.
11. I filed an AN/I report about Kim because she was canvassing (a claim which AN/I upheld), making personal attacks (not upheld, though AN/I said Kim was assuming bad faith), poll tampering (AN/I did not comment for or against this claim) and engaging in disruptive editing (AN/I again did not comment). AN/I was not in a position to ensure that "[I] got my way", so Kim's accusation makes no sense; AN/I does not arbitrate disputes or make policy, it addresses disruptive editor behavior.
12. Synching a sub-guideline's advice with that of the controlling, parent guideline (the current text, not the proposed text, mind you) is not "trying to get [my] way at the next place", it's normal Wikipedian business. I've justified every single edit to MOS:CAPS, and after doing so even self-reverted for discussion, so Kim's accusation is again false. Maybe if Kim spent more time actually finding out the facts and figuring out what is actually happening instead of looking desperately for every possible way to attack me and my motivations, much of this strife would not have happened.
13. I'm disappointed that after Kim has had it explained to her twice already that I was making an ironic point, that she would continue to quote me out of context for sheer character assassination purposes. My ability to assume her good faith is severely eroded. The original statement I made (and paraphrased at WT:MOS) was made at WT:BIRDS: "[Kim] actually makes me want to take up the torch against your caps practice again (i.e., Kim, it's backfiring). But I'm about as tired of this as Sabine ... it's more important to compromise for the good of the 'pedia than for me to get my way." I would obviously not really go on a WP:POINT campaign. I was using irony to try to get through to her that she was making her project look like extremists who need to be opposed.
14. "I want to stop that, and leave the birds issue for later resolution, which could take another 7 years, basically." is a point in my favor. Why (even how) this can be quoted against me as a criticism is mysterious. In this quotation, I've conceding that while there's no consensus for WP:BIRDS to do what it does, the debate about whether to absolutely make them stop remains open and is likely to remain so indefinitely.
15. I did not "draft an ArbCom request". I was dragged unwillingly into an ArbCom case about capitalization more generally, and presented evidence at it (a draft of which Kim linked to). The completed evidence report, at the point I abandoned it, can be read here, where I withdrew it from the case, because I thought it would add more heat than light. Again, if Kim actually bothered to find out what is really happening rather than make assumptions and launch into attacks about things she does not have sufficient information to understand yet, a lot of strife could have been and could still be avoided.
16. Kim's "question to be resolved" #1 is a false dichotomy as has been explained to her many, many times. An entire section of the debate at WT:MOS is devoted to the fact that what constitutes a reliable source on facts about birds does not constitute a reliable source on style in a work for a general audience. But Kim again and again pretends none of this was ever said. In one ear, out the other. It's a favorite debate-mucking practice of WP:BIRDS. They assert that we must capitalize bird names because the specialist sources "all" do it (which isn't even true), while ignoring the obvious point, made by many every single time this debate comes up, that what specialist writers in specialist publications for a specialist audience has nothing at all to do with what general style guides recommend for general audiences. After whoever has made this point goes away, they simply reset the debate by re-stating the claim that must capitalize because specialist sources do it. It's an organized campaign of WP:IDHT-style tendentious editing, in which Kim is one of the leading obfuscators and filibusterers. Kim will often claim that the Chicago Manual of Style, a generalist work, supports her project's view, but this is a blatant falsehood.
17. This same point of Kim's further tries to cloud the debate with another straw man: "to determine what are the correct bird names". No one in the debate has suggested that the reliable sources on birds are not the reliable sources for what the bird names are, just that they are not reliable sources on encyclopedic writing style.
18. Kim's point #2 is blatant misdirection; she and her project demanded an "exception" to MOS's general guidance against capitalization of organism common names, but here essentially claims that her project is being unfairly targeted. It seems totally irrational until you realize it's just another way to try to attack me personally, as being mean and picking on her poor little project. In point of fact, no other project demands to capitalize organism names (some experimented with the idea, but met with the same resistance WP:BIRDS has, and listened to the opposition and went along with it, instead of deciding to become entrenched against the suggestion that their preference doesn't make sense in a general purpose encyclopedia.
19. Kim's third point is nonsensical. MoS is an explicitly proscriptive, not descriptive, document, like all style guides. It says what to do not what various people are doing. It is not in a position to pretend that controversies do not exist if they do, because doing so would effectively arbitrate them – it would endorse one side of the debate while the debate is still ongoing. Only WP:ARBCOM can do that. It would be a gross violation of policy.
20. Kim's point #4, asks "what is actually the controversy?", as if unaware of what the answer is: What specialist publications do for specialists is not particularly relevant to what a general encyclopedia should do for a general audience, and the reliable sources on that topic – other encyclopedias, dictionaries, style guides, mainstream publications like newspapers and non-bird-specific magazines, etc., etc., etc. – uniformly use lower case for species common names, including for birds. Yet WP:BIRDS ignores all this and insists on caps anyway, because they can't see the encyclopedic forest for their ornithological trees. That's what is actually the controversy, and has been for over half a decade.
21. The second part of her point #4 is another blatant falsehood. Even the tip-of-the-iceberg evidence I've gathered so far shows that all sorts of editors all over Wikipedia dispute what WP:BIRDS is doing, from the Village pump to specific article talk pages, and all sorts of project and guideline pages in betwen, and frequently in the birds project's own forum, month after month, year after year. The number of times MOS has ever even discussed it is utterly dwarfed by the number of times others have criticized the practice in other Wikipedia forums.
22. The last point, "how should it be worded" was actually the only question that was at issue.

The only good news to report in my review of Kim's lopsided claims is that it looks like we may have arrived at compromise wording on this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Another compromise text: Mention guidance. That will essentially moot this dispute resolution, though I'm happy to continue the discussion. While I've been refuting aspects of Kim's claims that I disagreed with, I've essentially raised my own grievances in the process and don't need a new section for doing so. I think that continued discussion would focus on a small number of the claims/refutations.

— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 23:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

TL;DR I would like some guidance here as to what to respond. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you both for your very detailed responses. It makes it easier to see all the issues with this dispute, thus, making it easier to resolve them. Firstly, I would consult WP:CRITERIA for deciding an article title and WP:AT#Treatment of alternative names for individual articles in disrepute. However, as an entire guideline to be adjusted, instead of just making your own rule up without a clear consensus from the community,I'd suggest making a well-written policy proposal on the village pump and putting up a notice at WP:CENT for the wider-community to vote on your proposed amendment. Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs 00:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Many have tried to get WP:BIRDS to do something like this for years, but they fear they would be shot down, and many project members assert that they don't need to, as if WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy didn't exist. So it goes, I guess. I am reasonably confident that the compromise wording at WT:MOS right now will keep the peace for a while (6 mo.? who knows?) I'm dead certain that people will continue to raise issues with the ungrammatical capitalization that the project effectively forces on everyone who edits a bird-related article, though. Someone will eventually make an RfC out of it. Won't be me! I'm so tired of this debate I could cough up my own skull (I mean the site-wide debate about bird capitalization; I'm perfectly fine with KimvdLinde and I trying to narrow our list of disputations here and work on the ones that actually matter.) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe, you should expand to the wider-community by making a RfC or a proposal at WP:CENT so instead of having peace for 6 months, you can have it for a longer time. (Just awaiting a response from KimvdLinde). Whenaxis talk · contribs 02:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I responded above, there is no sensible way to respond to 22 points and get somewhere. So, I would like some guidance as to where to respond to. An RfC to force WP:BIRD to conform would pretty much result in a walk out of many of the more active editors. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

That's okay. At least there will be an archive of 22 numbered responses to your false arguments I can point to by number next time you raise the same false arguments. It will be a big time-saver. I came here in good faith for dispute resolution, you came here to raise false accusations. You are not one to cite WP:POINT at anyone else. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 20:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

What would you like to see happen to MoS and the overall topics of birds and orinthology? And, how could you work with users like SMcCandlish to find a compromise between your two point of views? For example, you could use variants like Crag martin. The title is uncapitalized and in the lead (or lede) there are multiple capitalized versions of the name. Whenaxis talk · contribs 02:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Bird names are capitalized in all of the relevant bird literature. So, no, there is no option to compromise on that unless you want to gut a wikiproject of most of its editors. There is NO controversy within the project about the capitalization. The problem is that some editors want to force their preferred style on all these articles. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:00, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Everyone knows that bird lit. capitalizes bird common names (mostly); this has never been at issue and isn't relevant. There's always an option to compromise, and I re-present it below, since Kim ignored it the first time. Thirdly, two editors from the birds project have said they would quit over this, which they might or might not. That is not "most of [the project's] editors." No one has ever argued that the birds project does not have an internal local consensus against lower case, which is the entire reason the debate exists. The problem certainly is that "some editors" want to force their preferred style, on all editors, on all these articles – despite no one but bird specialists agreeing on such an odd style that does not suit a general-purpose encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 20:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I already outlined the obvious "win-win" solution here, I've reproposed it in clearer terms here: WT:Manual of Style#The other other solution, but Kim and most other members of the project just ignored it because it wouldn't give them 100% of what they wanted. User:Peter coxhead liked it, though. The gist is that we'd follow MOS in title and prose, like we do for every other kind of article, but give the sourced capitalized form and it's source as an alternative (among others, if any), like we would for any other kind of article: "The red-faced warbler (Scientificus namicus), also known as the crimson-faced warbler or the red-crested warbler is a whatever of the whatever family. The official International Ornithological Congress name for the species is Red-faced Warbler, while the American Ornithologists' Union prefers the variant Red-Faced Warbler. Its range extends from ... blah blah blah. The red-faced warbler's primary habitat is blah blah blah." This exact solution has worked perfectly well in other articles, with zero strife. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 20:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Any proposal that would alter the Capitalization rules at WP:BIRD is unacceptable. We came here about language of the MOS, not to change WP:BIRDS. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

BTW, to suggest that this "compromise" is a win-win is incorrect, it is a win-lose situation. It is not about just having somewhere once the proper bird name mentioned among a field of incorrect usage. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. I've clarified here that the win-win is readers and editors, generally, not your project and who you call "capitalization warriors"; those are illusory camps that would become irrelevant, as they should. The usage isn't incorrect anywhere. It would be against the conventions accepted by most (not all) ornithology publishers and publications to use lower case in bird-specialist literature, and it's perfectly correct according to all reliable sources on general English writing, in general English writing. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

KimvdLinde, would you be so kind to provide some sources or ornithology-related organizations that recognize lowercase for bird names, like SMcCandlish did above? Whenaxis talk · contribs 21:53, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure. I assumed that you meant uppercase. The standardized list of bird name is here: http://www.worldbirdnames.org The capitalization rules for names are here and a partial list of literature that follows this rule is here. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

That's quite a substantial list. Does SMcCandlish have any? Whenaxis talk · contribs 22:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

It's a red herring and a straw man: No one has ever disputed that specialist literature in ornithology and birdwatching uses capitalization. See my point #3, above. Encyclopedias, the Chicago Manual of Style, Hart's Rules, Fowler's Modern English Usage (original and revised), Strunk & White, dictionaries, newspapers, non-specialist magazines, refereed academic journals in biology and zoology and science more generally, other than ornigthology specialist journals – that is, everything Wikipedia's MOS draws on as reliable sources for style matters, in creating a style guide for a general encyclopedia – never (well, more like 0.001% of the time - Google can turn up a few examples) capitalize like this. None of this is or ever has been at issue. This is a great example of what I mean by WP:IDHT tactics. KimvdLinde has known for years that this is a red herring, and has been told at least a dozen to twenty times in this course of the most recent debate, including at least twice on this very page, that no one challenges the idea that caps are the norm in bird publications. She simply pretends not to hear it and clouds the debate by bringing it up as if it were the topic of the debate every single time she possibly can, leading to more paragraphs re-re-re-explaining that this is not the debate topic, and thereby generating confusion, noise and a WP:TLDR wall of text. This is the very definition of tendentious editing, a form of bad-faith conduct. I've tried for weeks to assume good faith but it just never ends. It's not an error, or a coincidence, or a mental handicap, or aliens controlling her brain. It's obviously, unmistakably deliberate. (PS: Yes, people in the course of earlier versions of the debate have found and made lists of ornithology works that don't capitalize, but no one cares; it's certainly not relevant to any argument I'm making, nor to any issue raised at WT:MOS.) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I won't be able to respond as promptly as I'd like to after this last response I'm writing now but feel free to continue to leave your comments and I'll respond by tomorrow at the latest. However, it seems that both of you have substantial sources for both sides, so I would respect the current policies on WP:MoS and WP:CRITERIA on article titles. Of course, there will be disputes in the future, but just changing ever single bird article that is lowercase is tedious and change it to uppercase. Besides, when typed into the searchbox on Wikipedia, either uppercase or lowercase is fine and it will bring you to the same page. Whenaxis talk · contribs 22:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

If you like, I can draft such an RfC and make sure it is neutrally worded. In turn, I would like the participants here to assemble a list of links to past discussion on the issue, so that we can make a definitive list that RfC contributors can refer to. I see that there is a list of discussions at WP:BIRD already, but are there others as well? (Also, Kim, would you be willing to wait for the outcome of such an RfC before making any decisions about retiring? It would be a shame to lose you.) Let me know what you think about this. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 00:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I've got a long but incomplete list at User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names (it's missing many years of WP:BIRDS archived discussions because I got tired that night and put it aside for later and didn't pick it up again). My list includes the discussion very broadly, across policy/guideline pages, VP, project pages of all sorts, etc, and a few article talk pages. There are probably hundreds of those that would be relevant, but finding them and figure out which ones are important is a big job. I would strongly suggest drafting such an RfC, and letting some of the most-involved parties have some input into it before launching it, as there are several proposals already bouncing around to choose from, as well as more extreme options from "every wikiproject should just be able to do what it wants" to "MOS should be made into a policy" that have already been rejected by consensus, many times, and should not be injected into any RfC debate. This RfC should be at WT:MOS or VPP, and should be made a WP:CD, or it will serve no purpose (there have already been RfCs and VPP discussion on this, but nothing ever happens as a result of them because they do not get broad enough input and peter out. The main thing to watch out for when it launches is what I've just documented at the essay WP:Specialist straw man, a campaign of disruption that follows a clearly identifiable pattern you can discern easily in this debate, even on this vary page. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 02:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the thing to do is to determine what reliable sources govern a specific article. With bird articles, it is bird literature. They use uppercaps for bird names. The fact that generic sources suggest lowercaps, all of them without ever discussing the bird situation, makes them weak sources to determine caps. Beyond that, WP:RS and WP:IAR are policies, while WP:MOS is a guideline. So, I think we should focus on how the current situation is best worded for the MOS so that future editors know what is going on and let is be as it is. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:57, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, I would keep in mind that an enforcement of lowercaps most likely will result in the retirement of various prolific WP:BIRD editors. Really, the bullying by generic editors who insist on having their pet issue forced on hard working volunteers of various wikiprojects is detrimental. When specific wikiprojects have clear and substantiated deviations, respect them and move on. There are MANY MANY far more important issues to solve. I am retired till this situation is resolved with a decent MoS entry. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:02, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This is exactly what I mean by WP:SPECIALSTRAW. It must be at least 20 times just in the last week that the idea has been shot down that that what reliable sources about ornithology do in orn. journals has nothing to do with how Wikipedia styles article text, which is derived from the reliable sources on grammar and English language style. This is true of every single topic on the entire system, and birds don't get a magical exception. It just goes in one ear and out the other. Well, not really. It's a pretense to cloud the debate, to get you to take seriously that this is what the issue is, since you're planning to do an RfC. The concept that being a reliable source on bird zoology does not made something a reliable source on the English language for a general audience has been made to this editor more times than is countable but she just doesn't hear it. She doesn't present an argument against it mind you, just ignores it and restates her own. It would be irrational if it weren't intentional. What is irrational is the notion that general style guides aren't reliable for style on birds in a general work because they don't specifically mention birds. WP has over a million articles (topics) on it. A style guide cannot possibly name them all! It gives a general rule, because that's how language works. There's no special language for talking about birds. If bird guidebooks and journals want to capitalize for their audience, more power to them. It has nothing to do with Wikipedia. If we made a capitalization exception for specialist literature capitalizing things for a specialist audience, every other noun on the system would be capitalized. I'm saying all this for Mr. Stradivarius's benefit; I'm done arguing with KimvdLinde, since her clear intent is to cause circular debate and cloud the consensus process as much as possible, to protect her own narrow interests. I came here in good faith, but her participation here has been a waste of my and sadly of WP:DRN's time. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 02:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This response is exactly what is the problem. SMcCandlish bluntly proclaims he is right, the other are wrong and now he will fly off to the next venue to get his way. And we have already an ArbCom case going on about a similar issue of a few editors trying to modify general policies and guidelines to accommodate their own view. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I am out of here. I already announced I would retire, and the ongoing bullshitting just makes it a better and better decision. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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 has continually affirmed the notability of primary schools. That would be perfectly fine...except that he has repeatedly called users who disagree with him "incompetent", "flat-out wrong" and "trolls". This when Purplebackpack89 cites WP:COMMONOUTCOMES vis-a-vis schools; a perfectly acceptable policy that has been reaffirmed numerous times. Danjel also suggested Purplebackpack89 follow BEFORE...on articles he didn't even AfD. Danjel would also bring up Purplebackpack89's stances on deletion in discussions where his stance was tangential (for example here and elsewhere; note that the so-called "non-existent" consensus is actually what is said at COMMONOUTCOMES); virtually always to mock or berate them.

Another issue that has come up is his attitude at school articles that are being improved; this often with Users Fmph and Epeefleche. This involves content disputes over the use of maintenance tags for articles that need to be improved. The most recent example of this was Lyneham Primary School Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 14:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Danjel (talk · contribs)
• Purplebackpack89 (talk · contribs)
• Epeefleche (talk · contribs)
• Fmph (talk · contribs)

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

Yes

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

Purplebackpack89 has repeatedly asked Danjel to tone it down. Danjel's general response was to rollback Purplebackpack89's edits. Others have also asked him to tone it down as well; he has ignored them

• How do you think we can help?

Inform Danjel of relevant policy; and perhaps ask him to step away from the topic (or even from Wikipedia in general) until he has a cooler head

Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 00:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

User:Purplebackpack89 is being faux-sensitive about his being called on misrepresenting consensus regarding notability of primary schools (i.e., that primary schools are "inherently non-notable" [8], which differs greatly from WP:OUTCOMES, as he points out, which states that "Schools that don't meet the [notability] standard typically get merged or redirected..." emph. added) and the fact that I vote against his moves to delete those articles at AfD. This is borderline harassment on his part. In any case, this is not a content dispute so this is the wrong forum. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 01:19, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

@Purplebackpack89: WP:COMMONOUTCOMES is an essay not a policy nor a guildline, so it can be ignored. Bidgee (talk) 01:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Not to the extent that someone who abides by it is "flat-out wrong" or "a troll" it can't, Bidgee. I'm fine with Danjel voting against me; it's the issue of him saying I'm flat-out wrong and incompetent I'm taking issue with. Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 01:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Danjel, this isn't about your views. It's about the way you express them. This is not a content dispute, it's a dispute about whether it's alright to call other users trolls and flat-out wrong. And even if it was a content dispute, this is a place for resolving those too Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 01:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, Danjel, it seems a tad hypocritical to accuse me of harassment when you bring up my deletion stances hither and yon in places that aren't particularly relevant Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 01:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

And finally, I fail to see how "inherently non-notable" is greatly different from "schools are generally [not kept]". They seem almost the same to me Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 02:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Your having said that, I don't think that there's anything here for me to respond to, so... I'm out. If there's something substantive posted, I'd appreciate a TB. Thanks. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 02:53, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Again, lemme remind everybody that the issue isn't content, but civility...attacking people you don't agree with...name-calling Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 03:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
• I had intended not commenting, however recent behaviour by Danjel on Talk:Lyneham_Primary_School has made me re-evaluate that position. S/he is displaying signs of ownership issues there, but I think they are related to current interactions between Danjel and any of the other participants mentioned above. Not sure if I know what the solution is except some form of interaction ban. But that seems OTT and possibly unbalanced. In his/her defence s/he never called me a troll, rather s/he called my editing and interaction "trolling". Good to see that s/he is not commenting on the editor. Fmph (talk) 06:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

• Web Sheriff (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

There has been a longstanding issue with this tone of this article, as can be seen on the article talk page and archives. In general the concern brought forth is that the article provides too much coverage of individual examples of clients, leading to a promotional tone. WP:ADVERT, WP:NPOV, and WP:UNDUE have been cited as examples. The counterargument is that enough examples have been removed from the article, and further reductions are too damaging.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• VQuakr (talk · contribs)
• Agadant (talk · contribs)
• Aprock (talk · contribs)

Only recent participants on the talk page are listed in this post, since the discussion has gone on for several months. There seems to be a significant ownership issue on the part of Agadant, who has contributed much of the content to the article but strongly resists changes by other editors. Several editors have left the discussion in frustration over the last few months. The discussion has become particularly heated today, making it obvious that some sort of intervention is needed.

• 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. [9], [10]

Resolving the dispute

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

This has been discussed extensively on the article talk page through dozens of discussion sections. In addition, I have discussed the matter with the article owner on their user talk page (as have others), and other editors have started a couple of noticeboard discussions (NPOV/N, COIN) related to the matter. The noticeboard discussions have focused on possible COI issues, which I do not really view as terribly relevant. I am convinced Agadant is editing without any COI in this matter, but that the issue is better defined as a long running content dispute.

• How do you think we can help?

I need advice on the most appropriate forum to get additional discussion on this topic, with the goal resolving the apparent impasse that has existed on the talk page for many months.

VQuakr (talk) 20:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, my goals do differ than VQuakr and Aprock. This is a very controversial subject, especially now with the recent WP:SOPA initiative. My goal has been to create an informative, well sourced article for the readers. The talk page and archives speak for themselves. I asked for guidance on how to write it from VQuakr a few weeks ago. He chose to not answer. I have been working very diligently to make the article comply but also interesting and informative. I don't know how VQuakr would know the other editors left in frustration. I did argue against deletion and still will because WP:NPOV calls for improvement not deletion. But deletion has been the only editing (?) done by the others. I have been thinking of asking for an uninvolved editor to work with to give me guidance in writing on a controversial article but didn't get the chance before the latest deleting was happening quickly today. Agadant (talk) 21:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I have notified Cameron Scott and SilkTork of this discussion, as they have been involved with this article in the past and were recently mentioned on the article talk page [11]. VQuakr (talk) 22:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) I noticed that the article has a lot of unsourced material and non-verifiable sources, which appears to be the main issue with the article and I can see that these problems attribute to making the article look like an advertisement. There are a lot of reversions to this article, so to stop the disruption to the page, can all involved editors agree not to revert or add anything to the article until this dispute is resolved? In addition, there is a lot to read behind the dispute, so to make it easier for editors viewing this and to help resolve this dispute in a timely manner—can each party provide a statement on where they stand with this topic? Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs 23:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree not to make any edits to the article while this is in discussion. My position is that the article needs fewer examples in its history section, and that the ownership issues with the article need to be addressed. VQuakr (talk) 23:19, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

There are long standing ownership and sourcing issues with the article. From Agadant's first edit[12] (where he added 23k bytes in one swell foop) to now, he has consistently supported the inclusion of sources which are little more than press releases from the company published in unreliable sources. All feedback indicating that the tone and sourcing for the article is inconsistent with the project goals has been met with stiff resistance, quickly devolving into Agadant's repeated accusations of bad faith editing toward many that question his edits. aprock (talk) 23:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I do not fit into the parameters of WP:OWN but perhaps you and VQuakr do at this point. The sourcing in this article has been attacked, but is mostly very good in my opinion. Anyone can check it out on the page. I am not that bad at finding reliable sources and look them over carefully, but sometimes do err. There have been very few discussions of tone and sourcing, just immediate deletions after the deleting editor makes a comment on the talk page. (If they even bother beforehand) I have been turned into COIN by you, Aprock, then you retracted it, but the damage was done to my reputation. I have been accused of WP:OWN, so many times it's getting old. And why? because I have been the one that has written the article and feel the constant deletions by editors who refuse to collaborate with improving it are very damaging to WP and the future of the project and attitude of editors who like to add content. I worked on the article for a long time on Word before I posted it. That's very common among content contributing editors on a sandbox but I don't like to use one. Agadant (talk) 23:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• My involvement was starting a discussion on balance in August 2011, and then briefly asking how things were going September 2011. I did not follow up on the matter, probably because I was busy elsewhere. I can see that my intention was to conduct a moderated discussion on achieving an editing balance on the amount and quality of information to include, and it is likely that is still what is needed. It is unlikely that a short-term discussion will fix this matter; I think what is needed is a neutral editor/group of editors who is/are prepared to invest some time on overseeing editing on the article until issues are resolved. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

@Agadant: What parts of your contributions, do you believe should be kept in-line with Wikipedia policies such as WP:ADVERT and WP:BLOGS?

Whenaxis, by Blog, do you mean the material that was said to be sourced by MusicAustralia? It says posted by "Music News Australia" so I thought it's considered reliable even if on a blog page. (it's only referenced one thing, so can be easily replaced, I'm sure.) And I don't know of any "self-published" sources that were used. Giacobbi wrote an article published on Mail Online, but that should be considered reliable. I didn't know that interviews could not be included? I see them on so many articles that are WP:FA. I was not allowed to use primary sources for the types of work they do, so that meant a lot of repetition of the same source for those type of things usually sourced to the official website. I didn't think Encore is a press release. If the editor's who disputed these on the talk page today would have given me a chance to discuss this like on most talk pages, they could have been replaced. It's not typical to just delete the material and very quickly as was done today. If you will note, I'm am not often collaborated with, just accused and the article tagged and deleted. I would have always loved to have had editors to work with to collaborate and discuss how to improve the article and I think that has been the biggest problem encountered there. I have just not wanted all my work and research to go for nothing when I sincerely feel it can be brought up to even a WP:GA article with help and guidance from a few editors interested in information for the readers. Agadant (talk) 01:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

In my honest opinion, most of the sources are sufficient, however, the information paraphrased from the sources come out trivial and almost direct to the events being portrayed, almost as if the reader is part of the company. For example: "Although the company's offices are located in England, most of the clients are located in the US" and "According to the Los Angeles Times, Web Sheriff is a 'leading advocate of the soft sell' in the anti-piracy industry". I do, however, like that the article is heavily sourced—just think about the content being taken out of the sources. And, I hope we can all learn from this that: collaboration is key to improving the content and it's a way to win friends and it allows you to feel welcomed on Wikipedia. Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs 02:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

@VQuakr and @aprock: I see that you are most concerned about the reliability of the sources that are being included. I must remind you that it is important to stay focused and comment on the content rather than the editor even if it seems that the editor is trying to "own" the article, per say. Maybe the editor is trying to maintain what the editor believes to be good-faith edits that are being reverted.

The biggest issue for me is actually editorial/tonal. Even if N number of customers can be verified in absolutely reliable sources, that does not mean N number of customers need to be listed out in the prose of the article. VQuakr (talk) 02:43, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, like I explained above to Agadant, "most of the sources are sufficient, however, the information paraphrased from the sources come out trivial and almost direct to the events being portrayed". Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs 02:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

@All: Before an edit is made, or before including material, it should be discussed on the talk page, particularly on controversial topics such as this one. If a consensus, can't be made, try asking for a RfC for what other editors think of your proposal. I agree with SilkTork on employing a neutral group of editors, for now, I'll be keeping my eye on this dispute and the page, itself—SilkTork, I know you're busy with ArbCom, but if you could also join this group for now, that'll be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs 01:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

@Whenaxis. This was already done in August and September of last year. If you'd like to see how the process unfolded, you can review the edits of those two months as well as talk page archives 2 and 3: Archive 2, Archive 3. After that period the article was then expanded from 23k to 33k, restoring much of the promotional content. aprock (talk) 15:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Is it mostly Agadant, who is adding promotional content? Whenaxis talk · contribs 21:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Nearly every word in the article was either written by Agadant, or had to be approved by Agadant. aprock (talk) 00:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's true, you and VQuakr added v. little content. - Just deleted or dumbed down my work. One entry you did make about there being skeptics to the gentle approach, I actually expanded on and added the skeptic's name and a quote from him in critical reception. Because I objected to deletions to my work as the only means of your editing the article, does not prove WP:OWN on my part. I never asked you to get your original material approved. - You just didn't write it. (except noted above) Wow, you're "hot on my trail". I haven't edited all day, but you put new and untrue accusations to my entry here in only 4 minutes? Agadant (talk) 01:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Whenaxis, I have not added back promotional content from 9 Sept. 2011. I have added new material to the article. There wasn't any objections to the new material, when I entered it. As far as I know the article wasn't supposed to be limited to 23k. An article can't be limited and never expanded. I mean I've never heard of it being done. I also added material I had posted on the talk page on 29 August 2011 before the discussion ended and no one objected, so I entered the Chicane and Lady Gaga material 27 Oct. 2011. Do you want me to provide diffs for this? Oddly enough, what VQuakr wanted to delete yesterday was some of the material that was left on 9 September 2011 and a small list of record labels in a footnote that he and Ronz put in the article and the Chicane entry he never objected to before. These constant misleading accusations are so damaging and time consuming to address but I will continue to. Agadant (talk) 23:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC) To clarify, I mean aprock's and VQuakr's accusations. Agadant (talk) 00:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

1. Let's take a look at some of the problem areas that VQuakr and aprock have brought up such as: promotional content. Some the areas have been pointed out here: [13] by aprock. What are your guys' thoughts on this?
2. This is a reminder to all editors: not everything said in sources is deemed to be signficant enough to be included in the subject of the article. In the future, use sources that are universally agreed upon as reliable, when in doubt, ask on the talk page and like I said earlier, "most of the sources are sufficient, however, the information paraphrased from the sources come out trivial and almost direct to the events being portrayed". Whenaxis talk · contribs 01:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The use of the word 'promotional' throws me off, right away, as it does not WP:AGF. I will look again at the sources and see whether I think they are reliable. I am not infallible. LOL, far from it! I know I deemed them such, when I used them. But, even if any, or all of them, should be found to not be reliable - on other talk pages I have seen - the material is not deleted immediately - as is always the first response on this article to anything, questioned by anybody, at any time. We would see (or I would) if the material that was sourced by them, can be sourced by other unimpeachable sources. I would welcome a "good faith" discussion about wording, sourcing and most important material to be emphasized in the article. I would most of all, welcome it to become unassailable as all controversial articles have to be and I would truly like to have collaboration towards this. I just disagree, "very strongly" that immediate deletion is the appropriate response. That response does not WP:AGF, IMO. Can you be more clear about what you mean by "trivial and almost direct to the events being portrayed"? I haven't seen that expression before and can't relate to it exactly and don't want to misinterpret a very important point that you want to make. Agadant (talk) 03:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that promotional carries some connotative baggage with it. But note that we are talking about promotional content here, not promotion in the context of an editor trying to push something. Relying too heavily on blogged interviews set up by a company with an active social networking PR department will result something analogous to a systematic bias, unintentionally resulting in a promotionally-toned article. VQuakr (talk) 04:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Allow me to highlight the feedback given by Agadant here. Instead of discussing the specific issues, he veers off into meta issue and never returns to the specific point. It can be quite difficult to get Agadant discuss or respond to specific issues. aprock (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Allow me to highlight I asked you if 2 of the reliable sources you put up for review, were not, in fact, reliable. And you did not answer but went immediately to another issue. here Give some specific examples, (that would be very helpful) and not just a general condemnation that can not be easily addressed, of course. And especially since we are not editing. If you want to pull out a specific sentence or paragraph, we can discuss how it is or isn't "up to standards" and work on improvement of wording or sourcing. Good idea? Agadant (talk) 20:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I see now that there is a lot of miscommunciation or misinterpretation between the parties. For now, Agadant, I think the best option for you would be to stop adding problem material that has been addressed over and over by the above parties. These users are here to help you, help improve the article and help make Wikipedia a reliable source, if you keep turning down their help, the article will never become better. To the other users, please be more courteous with Agadant and spend some extra time explaining any things that he has asked you to explain further, because if you're not specific it's easy to misinterpretation. The same goes to you Agadant. Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs 22:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Whenaxis, I am confused on several issues brought up: I have not kept adding problem material that has been addressed over and over by the above parties(?) I have not turned down their help but instead asked for it - I only resisted their only method of editing as being a deletion of material, instead of improvement. I'm now even confused about such matters as self-published material and blogs not being allowed, after looking at this WP:GA article: [This has self-published bio, etc.] I have other questions about determining reliable sources that I would like answered before I agree on which ones are not reliable. This should not be rushed as only Aprock, VQuakr and I have discussed it. Aprock will not address specific passages or sentences he objects to, leaving the entire article open to be considered problematic in his opinion and never able to be improved by wording changes or tone. Probably he will only offer deletion as the solution again. Regarding the example given of the wording here: "Although the company's offices are located in England, most of the clients are located in the US": couldn't that easily be changed to: "Most of the company's clients are located in the US"? I only added that back (and did discuss on talk page and said I would delete it, if objections were raised) because VQuakr said the company was a UK one and implied they had no US connection at all. And something that I don't understand that you wrote: "the information paraphrased from the sources come out trivial and almost direct to the events being portrayed". I asked already but you must have overlooked it. Don't mean to be a pest about it. Agadant (talk) 23:25, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Agadant's suggestion that an articles encyclopedic quality cannot be improved by the removal of dubious sources and eventual deletion of related content which cannot be attributed to reliable sources directly contradicts the policy WP:UNSOURCED. aprock (talk) 00:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please, Aprock, don't misrepresent me again! I never said that! Show us where I did! I said I am now confused about which of the sources are really unreliable. Why are you in such a hurry? The information sourced is accurate, not contentious or inflammatory, etc. or even promotional and was for the most part in the article on 9 September 2011, when the NPOV discussion ended. Do you think I won't refute you when you post misinformation about me here? Let's use our time more wisely. And I want a little more time - not an unreasonable request, at all. Agadant (talk) 00:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Agadant: "I only resisted their only method of editing as being a deletion of material, instead of improvement.". I see no reason why you should resist the constructive feedback you are being offered. aprock (talk) 00:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, tell me what the constructive feedback is specifically? Agadant (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Removing the dubious sources listed on the talk page. aprock (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I asked specific questions in order for a determination of which ones, indeed are dubious, but you will not discuss it now. Only pressure me! I believe in reliable sourcing, very strongly myself, but the ones involved are not clear-cut cases. I don't source carelessly, so they wouldn't even be there, if they weren't at least border-line.Agadant (talk) 01:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not trying to pressure you. I'm trying to get a handle on whether or not you agree that any of them are dubious. If you think they are all reliable, that's not a problem. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you need to reevaluate them on your own that's fine. If you'd like policy and guideline points which you can use to help you make that assessment, I'd be happy to provide them. aprock (talk) 01:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok we can try interpreting policy and see what sources are "problematic" and which ones are not. Let's start with the list on the talk page. aprock, can you provide some ideas why they are problematic and saying that they are blogs or self-published is not sufficient enough (apparently) and Agadant, can you provide some ideas why they should be kept. Whenaxis talk · contribs 21:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I think we have to first address: the Elephant in the room - The controversial/contentious subject matter of the article and the disregard and lack of respect towards me by the two other more combative and experienced editors in this type of disputes. Agadant (talk) 03:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Wrong elephant, as noted by aprock here. I suggest we leave it to the Whenaxis or other editors assuming the role of mediator to guide the main topic of discourse. VQuakr (talk) 04:53, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Whenaxis addressed me and Aprock, not you , and I was replying back to him on my concerns that there is a bias towards the Web Sheriff article and a consensus always formed between you and aprock with a goal of only deleting as much of it as you can, that needs to be looked at before I feel like my contributions to the conversation on sourcing is productive. I prefer to interact with discussion to solve problems, not argue endlessly and fruitlessly with editors, who work together to only denigrate my contributions and my intentions and have a common goal of deleting a various and changing quantity (but always large amount) of the Web Sheriff article using any means of trying to apply and quote policy that is the flavor of the day. Your reply only confirms the consensus concerns that I have. Agadant (talk) 10:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

• List of thrash metal bands (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

In the spirit of standards and improving the encyclopaedia, all articles should follow policy and guidelines, with exceptions if needed.

The issue of the article is the inclusion of entries where the citation mentions "thrash", but not "thrash metal". Our article "thrash" explains that it can mean any number of 5 genres of music. This is a clear cut case of inclusion into the article:

1. An entry must at least one citation
2. The citation must mention "thrash metal" to avoid inclusion of artists (including bands) who do not play the "thrash metal" genre, as evidenced by the article thrash which explains that "thrash" can mean any number of 5 genres-of-music.

The dispute is that I am trying to maintain a standard, while other editors refuse to provide proper citations for inclusion into this particular article.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Curb Chain (talk · contribs)
• 3family6 (talk · contribs)
• Mr Pyles (talk · contribs)

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

Yes

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

Resolving the dispute

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

Discussed here:

• Talk:List of thrash metal bands#All Thrash metal Is Thrash But Not Vice Versa
• Talk:List of thrash metal bands#Dishonest Revert

• How do you think we can help?

I need more opinions which can create a consensus on this matter, as the edit summary [14] is contradictory to our Policies & Guidelines

Curb Chain (talk) 04:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) I'm following this discussion with some interest, not for the mentioned list, but for usage in general on metal bands and albums (and not focused on thrash only).
Just recently I decided to change my behaviour from immediate reverting of unsourced changes to adding of citation templates instead, because a lot of information is factual, just not properly referenced. I started out feeling the same as User:Curb Chain (and I agree that IS the policy), but I've come to notice a lot of people either don't know about these policies, are new contributors or hope that by adding the information, someone that does know the facts and policies will make it a better entry. In this light I think removal of content should be the last step taken. Of course this doesn't go for blatant vandalism or anything falling under WP:POINT etc..

As for metal genres in general, I think it would be a good thing if Wikipedia doesn't follow the trend of creating a new (sub)genre for every band that differs just slightly from others. I think it's a good thing a lot of metal bands are listed as heavy metal music only, because everything else is a subgenre of this. Maybe a specification that something is thrash metal should still be ok, but when it changes into subsubsubgenres like bandana thrash I'd say no. Maybe create a page called 'List of thrash metal genres' where everybody can dump his subgenre (or even better, 'List of heavy metal genres', so you don't have to create a page for every subgenre of it), but for usage in articles stick to Thrash metal. Solves the whole "the ref says 'thrash' but not 'thrash metal'" issue at the same time. Personally I have great difficulty accepting genre names like nu-metal, djent and progressive blackened death metal (where somebody should now point out in a sarcastic way that progressive blackened death metal isn't an actual genre.... ;) ), they just mean nothing to me, it's all metal!

For some comic relief and to clarify my point I recommend reading this article, specially the 'Metal Genres' section. Don't forget to read the comments, because they instantly prove the writer's point!I hope this is of some use for this discussion, Quibus (talk) 07:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion; it is valued. Unfortunately, the article is not a reliable source, and is offtopic to the dispute. This is a black and white question, and you mentioned that articles should follow polices&guidelines except for extraneous circumstances. I am asking if the article should be following WP:RS or not.Curb Chain (talk) 09:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) I have a question. Would I be right in saying that four of the five genres listed at our disambiguation page thrash - namely, Crossover thrash, Post-thrash, Thrashcore, and Bandana thrash - are subgenres of the fifth genre, thrash metal? If so, it would seem reasonable to me to assume that a reference simply to "thrash" as a genre was referring to the top category of "thrash metal". — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 11:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no. Crossover thrash is a mixture of thrash metal and hardcore, so that one is still thrash metal, and post-thrash appears to be another term for groove metal, but this one still might count as thrash metal. However, thrashcore is just a form of hardcore punk, and bandana thrash is a subgenre of thrashcore. So basically, "thrash" is a term used to refer to thrash metal (probably its more common usage nowadays) and to a form of hardcore punk. My rationale is that if "thrash" is used solely with other "metal" adjectives, we can be certain as editors that the writer is referring to thrash metal. In any case where punk or hardcore is brought up, we need a more solid definition to say that it is thrash metal or thrashcore. In my view, this does not completely disregard guidelines, as the term "thrash" is being understood in the context of the larger passage.--¿3family6 _contribs 12:24, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any reliable sources to back up these claims?Curb Chain (talk) 05:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

My sources are the exact same ones that you used to start this discussion: Wikipedia. So unless you are saying that you are rejecting your own initial objection, your comment here does not make sense. As you have stated so many times, the burden is on the editor making the initial statement, so I should ask you: Where are the sources?--¿3family6 _contribs 12:25, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you are quite confused. Since you added the entry, the citation must be verifiable. The question is that the citation does not mention the word "thrash metal"; this is the source of the ambiguity and I am stating that you have not come up with the proof that the author when 'writing' "thrash" means "thrash metal.Curb Chain (talk) 20:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

My point is that you are accusing me of not complying with verifiability standards, but you have not provided any sources other than Wikipedia that "thrash" does not always refer to thrash metal. Really, until you do, you have no argument. Now, there probably are sources referring to forms of hardcore punk as thrash, but you have not provided any, and so you have no sourced argument that bands labeled simply as "thrash" should not be listed as thrash metal. As you have asked for sources that thrash and thrash metal are synonymous, I give you this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one.--¿3family6 _contribs 21:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Note: Both discussions are still active on the talk page.--¿3family6 _contribs 12:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so what I'm seeing from the discussions so far is that "thrash" is usually used to refer to thrash metal, but not always (as in this link that 3family6 provided on the talk page). Of course, we don't want there to be any ambiguity in the inclusion criteria, otherwise bands who are not actually thrash metal may creep onto the list. I'm wondering, though, if there isn't a way for us to reliably tell if references are referring to thrash metal even if they only say "thrash". Can anyone think of a fail-safe way of telling the difference between when "thrash" refers to thrash metal, and when it refers to, say, hardcore? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 00:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I would think that if the reference makes it clear that the artist in question is heavy metal, we can assume that it is thrash metal. There is pretty much no ambiguity, unless there are mentions of punk in the source in question.--¿3family6 _contribs 01:02, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable to me. Curb Chain, can you give us your opinion on this? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 03:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

• KDKA-TV (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• WPXI-TV (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• etc.

Dispute overview

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

We do not need a list of syndicated shows for every TV station website! This is irrevelant!

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• ACMEWikiNet (talk · contribs)
• Neutralhomer (talk · contribs)
• Tlonca (talk · contribs)

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

Not yet.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=All American TV Station Articles KDKA-TV, WPXI-TV, etc.}} --~~~~ in a new section on each user's talk page.

Resolving the dispute

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

• How do you think we can help?

Remove all the syndicated shows on every TV station article.

ACMEWikiNet (talk) 03:37, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks to me as if ACMEWikiNet is edit warring both against the editors mentioned above and against common sense: no matter how much you demand it, programming is relevant in an article about a television station. Nyttend (talk) 04:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

ACMEWikiNet has engaged in this behavior before back in November 2011, looks like he is back for round 2. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) Hello everyone - I've been looking around some of the pages involved in this dispute, but I can't find any discussion about it on a talk page. Could any of you point me to where you have already discussed this dispute? As you can see at the top of this page, the dispute resolution noticeboard "is not for disputes which have been carried out only through edit summaries or which have not received substantial discussion on a talk page"; so, if there is no discussion, this thread should probably be closed. (I suggest WikiProject Television as a good place to hold discussion on this topic if this is the case.) All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 10:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I would recommend WikiProject Television Stations as the place to discuss this. WP:TV is a Wikiproject for TV Shows and television in general. WP:TVS is for just television stations and the articles about them. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 11:22, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that does look better. I wasn't aware of WP Television Stations before, as I don't usually edit in the subject area. Having a discussion there rather than here would also have the benefits of involving interested users and creating a precedent so that similar disputes can be avoided in the future. So, let's do things that way. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 12:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

• Template:Campaignbox Sinai and Palestine (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Battle of Jaffa (1917) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

There is a dispute regarding what engagements should be included in this template.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• RoslynSKP (talk · contribs)
• Jim Sweeney (talk · contribs)

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

Yes.

• N.B. To inform the other users you may place the text {{subst:DRN-notice|thread=Sinai and Palestine Campaign template, Battle of Jaffa (1917)}} --~~~~ 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?

After numerous attempts to edit the template according to both editors views of the campaign discussion has continued on the talk page where no resolution is within sight. During this process Jim Sweeney created a stub article Battle of Jaffa (1917). This stub article is substantially based on coverage of the engagement in the Battle of Jerusalem (1917) article and really needs to be deleted.

• Comment The battle of Jaffa article is hardly a stub, the background information is taken from the battle of Jerusalem which is reasonable as it was the preceding battle. However Jaffa is part of the aftermath of that article and covered in one sentence All three infantry brigades of the 52nd (Lowland) Division managed to cross the River Auja on the night of 20–21 December. It is a recognised battle by the British, with the award of the Battle Honour Jaffa to the units involved. The battle was not part of the battle of Jerusalem as its around 40 miles away and fought 14 days after the city was captured. It was part of the Jerusalem Operations part of this campaign, which include the Affair of Huj, the Action of El Mughar and Capture of Junction Station (8 - 14 November), the Battle of Nabi Samweil (20 - 24 November), the Capture of Jerusalem (7 - 9 December) and the Battle of Jaffa (21 - 22 December). Jim Sweeney (talk) 07:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• How do you think we can help?

As both editors hold their views firmly there appears to be no way forward, as things stand. It was suggested by the editor who put a seven day hold on the template to apply to the dispute resolution noticeboard but I'm not sure how it works, nor what to expect.

Rskp (talk) 02:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) I notice that on the template talk page Nick-D said that these issues have been cropping up on several different articles. Could anyone give us an idea of the other articles that are involved? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 02:57, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Some time ago, when the names of the Affair of Abu Tellul and Affair of Katia were changed to battle, there were arguments on the MilHist talk page and I think on the articles' talk pages. There have also been arguments about the name of the Anzac Mounted Division which appears, at this time, to have been resolved. --Rskp (talk) 04:19, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've just noticed this dispute has appeared on the Mil Hist talk page at [15] --Rskp (talk) 04:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I believe all the points have been covered at the template talk page and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#What should be in Campaign Box templates. In connection to the two articles Katia and Abu Tellul, editors were invited to comment at WP:MILHIST. Several editors have commented on the talk pages and a consensus was reached to change the article names to a non POV name. RoslynSKP has never been happy with those decisions. Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

  Thanks for the background. It looks like this dispute is being debated well on the MILHIST talk page, and I don't see any sign that discussions there have stalled just yet. Let's wait and see if that discussion finds a consensus before doing anything else. If there is still no agreement after the end of that discussion then I think an RfC might be the best step. You can use my boilerplate RfC template to help structure it if you like. What do you both think about this? — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 14:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

How can the official name of a military engagement be POV? Twice in the recent past Jim Sweeney has ignored consensus reached on the MILHIST talk page when the consensus has gone against him, in one case he sort to transfer the discussion to WP:Australia. I must say I am not optimistic but remain hopeful that somewhere on Wikipedia I can get a fair go. --Rskp (talk) 23:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Hang on a second - before we talk about the specifics of the case, let's agree on the general outline of how we will proceed. What do you think of my suggestion to follow the MILHIST conversation, and if that doesn't find consensus, to hold an RfC? And by the way, I've also posted on the MILHIST talk page in an effort to stop the conversation there from going round in circles. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 06:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm just working on a response under the heading 'Arguments against including the disputed articles' in the MILHIST discussion. Sorry for the delay but life gets in the way sometimes. :) --Rskp (talk) 08:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to make clear that I have never ignored consensus. If I have links should be easy to provide.Jim Sweeney (talk) 22:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Jim Sweeney opposed the move of the ANZAC Mounted Division article to Anzac Mounted Division despite the MILHIST talk page consensus supporting Anzac Mounted Division denying there had been a consensus. In the process he went through a number of articles and changed the division's name from Anzac Mounted Division to ANZAC Mounted Division.

Subsequently Jim Sweeney substituted Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division which is the official name of the division and again went through a number of articles and changed the division's name. After a second long discussion on MILHIST talk page the consensus was that the Anzac Mounted Division was the appropriate name. At which point I went through and changed the division's name back to Anzac Mounted Division in a number of articles. Then I sought to move the division's article back to Anzac Mounted Division.

When the MILHIST talk page didn't succeed for a second time, Jim Sweeney apparently took the argument to WP:Australia, which I thought a parochial approach as New Zealand is also involved and the main MILHIST talk page was the appropriate place to air the problem. I don't know what discussion took place there as I had had enough. --Rskp (talk) 05:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thats not quite accurate - but its getting away from the dispute over the template etc.Jim Sweeney (talk) 08:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry I forgot to add the links to the discussions I referred to. The first regarding ANZAC is here [16] the second regarding Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division is here [17]. I don't know where to find the discussion on WP:Australia as I only read about it taking place. And the discussion regarding moving the Anzac Mounted Division article can be found on that article's talk page. I'm not sure what Jim Sweeney is referring to that is "not quite accurate".--Rskp (talk) 01:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Jim Sweeney has misrepresented the amount of copying that he has added to the Jaffa battle article from the Jerusalem article stating: "The information in Jaffa that is covered in Jerusalem is the background before the battle" and "The only part of Jerusalem that mentions Jaffa in in the aftermath, as it happened 11 days after the capture of the city, in a different place 40 miles away. As its part of the aftermath its covered in two sentences". [18].

A comparison of the two articles Battle of Jaffa (1917) and Battle of Jerusalem (1917) sub headings 3.3 24 November: First attack across the Nahr el Auja and more particularly 4.2 Second attack across the Nahr el Auja – Battle of Jaffa will shows, that of the 17 sources quoted in the Battle of Jaffa article, only three which are at the end of the article, are not mentioned in the four paragraphs of indepth description of the Jaffa battle in the 4.2 Second attack across the Nahr el Auja – Battle of Jaffa subsection of the Battle of Jerusalem article.

Because the Battle of Jaffa (1917) article is completely copied from an already existing article, except for two lengthy quotes from the web sites in the Aftermath section, it should be deleted, not only from the campaign template but from Wikipedia.--Rskp (talk) 09:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Rskp, if you think that the article should be deleted, you can nominate it at AfD. I'm not sure if it would be kept or not - a quick Google Books search showed that there are sources, but that some of them say the label "battle" is exaggerating its importance. In any case, it's not really relevant to the campaignbox dispute, so we probably shouldn't discuss it here. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 13:41, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Overnight this article has been substantially re edited and the amount of copied material from the Jerusalem article diluted, so its becoming less a slavish copy. However, the instance of Jim Sweeney's misrepresentation of the amount of material in the Jaffa article, at that time, which was copied from the Jerusalem article is still of major concern. --Rskp (talk) 22:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

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

Dispute overview

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

The information I've added is factual, objective and respectful. The article states that the Book of Mormon is based upon the Bible. The information I've added identifies contradictions to that statement. The information cites verifiable sources as defined by wikipedia (see Below). While of a differing point of view, the added material immediately follows the section Culture and Practices, and discusses factual differences between two written texts, making it therefore appropriate. I have modified language to ensure neutrality, respect and objectivity. While all readers may not agree with the added section, it is none-the-less a factual comparison of two texts, and challenges statements made on this page. My additions have been removed 4 times within 48 hours. It appears that censorship is being practiced, and no differong points of view are "allowed" on this page. Would welcome a third party opinion.

I have exchanged comments on the talk page of Mormons

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Adjwilley (talk · contribs)
• 72Dino (talk · contribs)
• Bilbobag (talk · contribs)

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

Yes.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

Have discussed on the Talk page. I have also explained my reason for posting when I added comments

• How do you think we can help?

While of a differing point of view, the material I've added to this page discusses factual differences between two written texts, making it therefore appropriate. I have modified language to ensure neutrality, respect and objectivity. While all readers may not agree with the added section, it is none-the-less a factual comparison of two texts, and challenges statements made on this page. My additions have been removed 4 times within 48 hours. It appears that censorship is being practiced, and no differong points of view are "allowed" on this page. Would welcome a third party opinion.

Bilbobag (talk) 19:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

My name was mentioned so I suppose I'll comment here. My main problem with the edit in question is that (in my opinion) it doesn't belong in a general article about Mormons. The article's focus is mainly on the Mormons as a people: their history, their unique culture, some of their unique practices and beliefs, etc. The edit, however seemed to be concerned mainly with pointing out doctrinal inconsistencies between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, effectively using the article as a coat rack for an anti-Book of Mormon screed. Also, as other editors have pointed out, there seem to be copyright problems with the source, which appears to be self-published. I personally don't see the discussion as needing a formal dispute resolution quite yet. The discussion on the talk page isn't even a day old. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:17, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

First this wasn't meant to be, and I tried to go out of my way to make sure this inclusion wasn't an "anti-Book of Mormon Screed'. As Adjwilley points out the Mormon page discusses "some of their (Mormon's) unique practices and beliefs". Many of those beliefs are based upon the Book of Mormon, which is listed on the page as a "companion to the Bible". I was simply pointing out that as a "companion" text, there are factual differences.

As to the copyright issue, I have explict permission from a recognized source to use their material. However to avoid any contrversey, I could re-write the article using only wording from the Book of Mormon and the Bible - both of which are in the public domain.

Lastly, a review of the history of the page shows that any factual material that has been added, in the past 5 months, that has a differing point of view, or that isn't flattering to Mormons gets removed; Some examples are:

04:26, 7 February 2012‎ Adjwilley (talk | contribs)‎ (81,424 bytes) (→Terminology: I think it's best to sidestep the history of the word "Mormon" for now.

18:29, 1 February 2012‎ Adjwilley (talk | contribs)‎ (78,971 bytes) (→Groups within Mormonism: removing LGBT and Utah Mormons from Groups section.)

16:56, 1 February 2012‎ Adjwilley (talk | contribs)‎ (78,816 bytes) (→Groups within Mormonism: Removing Black and International Mormons from the Groups section (moved to History in previous edit)) (undo)

02:57, 1 February 2012‎ Live Light (talk | contribs)‎ (78,970 bytes) (→Beliefs: ALL belief systems seem strange to someone in this modernized world. This tells us nothing.) (undo)

03:19, 26 October 2011‎ LittleOldManRetired (talk | contribs)‎ (65,739 bytes) (→Beliefs: omitted 2 addn Bible texts for comparison, these 5 texts have been ironically used both for and against the revelation of Joseph Smith, depending on who is interpreting them.) (undo)

Bilbobag (talk) 22:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Woah, hang on there. These edit summaries are out of context. For the two edits to the Groups section (LGBT, Utah, Black, and International) I was simply moving the material to other locations in the article; nothing was deleted. The Terminology edit was a minor edit that I made, related to when Mormons were first called Mormons, and a technical inaccuracy about the name of the church (lower case d with a hyphen). Live Light's edit was reverted I think, and I don't remember exactly what LittleOldManRetired's edit did. ~Adjwilley (talk) 23:25, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

(Comment from uninvolved editor) Bilbobag, sorry, but we can't include your material in Wikipedia as it is. Regardless of whether it is "for" or "against" Mormons, it breaks a number of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines:

1. The copyright problems outlined by TransporterMan on the talk page
2. It reads like an essay trying to advance a point of view, rather than being neutral and attributing significant points of view to their authors
3. The sources it is based on appear to be either primary sources (the Bible and the Book of Mormon) or self-published sources (Fulton County Gospel News and Apologetics Press), rather than the reliable, secondary sources that Wikipedia usually requires (note that WP:PRIMARY does list some exceptions, but they don't seem to apply here)
4. It doesn't appear to be directly relevant to the article - a better place to put material of this type (but re-written to reflect the points above) may be Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Criticism of the Book of Mormon, as 72Dino suggested on the talk page

I'm sorry that you have experienced difficulties in getting your edits accepted to the Mormons article, but I think that if you accept the points above then you will experience a lot less frustration in your editing. Some further questions you might want to ask yourself in determining what material may be suitable are "Who are the major mainstream academic scholars that have contributed to discussions on the Book of Mormon?", "Are their arguments already covered in any Wikipedia articles?", and "How can I edit the relevant Wikipedia articles to better reflect the views on the Book of Mormon present in the academic literature?" Let me know if you need any clarification on any of this. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 00:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Great response and comments. I Appreciate it.

Two questions. 1) Since the bible has more printed copies than any book ever, and arguably is the most "popular" (not my phrase, but is commonly referred to as), I don't understand how it's not acceptable, especially if I'm quoting a section from it. It would appear to me to be the same as stating that Paris is the capital of France?

2) Understand comment about not writing/adding what would be perceived as an attack piece, and honestly that's not my intent. I thought that each item in Wikipedia was to present ALL data about the subject, whether controversial or not. The Mormons contains section on "Beliefs" and "Culture and Practices" In these articles it's stated that the Bible and Book of Mormon are "companion" pieces. I'm not suggesting they aren't, but simply that there are differences, as put forth by numerous publications/authors. In my mind I think removing my additions presents only one side of the position about Mormon beliefs. Removing anything that presents a differing point of view is somewhat analgous to the Church of Scientology issue on Wikipedia, specifically Wikipedia's comments that "The Church of Scientology has long had a controversial history on the Internet, and has initiated campaigns to manipulate material and remove information critical of the organization from the web." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology_editing_on_Wikipedia So my question is, shouldn't comments that are factual, unbiased, and presenting a differing point of view, be allowed?

Thanks again for your insights and info, but would appreciate your thoughts on these questions. PS: I didn;t knwo where to reply so I also posted on your Message page - sorry for the duplication.Bilbobag (talk) 23:29, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

You may use the Bible as a primary source. Per Wikipedia policy on primary sources, this means that it can only be used to "make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source". So we can use the Bible for simple, factual statements about its contents, but any analysis or interpretation of those facts needs to be cited to reliable, secondary sources. (Also, due to the many different versions of the Bible and the differences between them, things that seem simple and factual may actually be problematic - a great deal of scholarly literature has been written on the subject.) I see that you have attempted to use secondary sources in your version to back up your analyses, but I'm afraid these sources don't count as reliable per Wikipedia guidelines. You really need to be using sources by respected scholars published by mainstream publishers or in mainstream journals. As for your second point, you need to realise that the Mormons article is about a fundamentally different subject than the one you are writing about. No matter what you think of the neutrality of the original article, it doesn't change the fact that you are trying to add material that is not directly related to it. Put bluntly, if you want to talk about differences between the Bible and the Book of Mormon, you need to edit other articles, not this one. Let me know if you have any further questions. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 01:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

• Cahokia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Native Americans in the United States (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

There is a dispute and ensuing edit war over the date style. This is an issue that has been resolved along time ago and wp:era is clear. In this case, the original date style is BC/AD. It was changed without a valid reason and without a consensus. It was recently changed back. Since that point, there seems to be a back-and-forth going on. This includes a 3 edit violation by Heironymous Rowe. This user states it should remain BCE/CE because it has be "stable for 4 years." wp:era does not list being "stable" as a valid reason. In fact, this would reward, and thereby encourage, users who "get away' with improper edits. The rules are clear: all date style should remain unchanged from their original--regardless of which style--unless a valid reason is given (other than preference) and a consensus for that reason is achieved.

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

• Heironymous Rowe (talk · contribs)
• Primus128 (talk · contribs)
• Moxy (talk · contribs)
• Parkwells (talk · contribs)
• Todd Volker (talk · contribs)
• Dougweller (talk · contribs)

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

Not yet.

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

Resolving the dispute

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

• How do you think we can help?

Primus128 (talk) 04:56, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The creater of this report is edit warring to change the date styles on two articles which had their styles changed years ago and a stable style has emerged which is different from the actual used in the very first edits for the article. I have suggested the user wait a few days and let other regular editors of these pages, which this editor is not, chime in and an an actual written consensus emerge. The user want his way now. I'm not sure why they had to bring this here, seems premature and WP:BATTLEy to me. Heiro 05:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Please review the article to see who is the one that is "edit warring." It was brought here because it was apparent that we have differing opinions on what the rules are on the topic. The reasons Heiro has given for the change from the original are not valid per WP:ERA. I know of at least one other user he has contacted to bring into this debate, and I do not believe this should be a decision based on rounding up people. It has broader implications since it is a subject debated ad nauseum throughout wikipedia. This is why a fair, clear and unbias rule must be enforced (it is already in place at WP:ERA. Primus128 (talk) 07:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I have now been threatened with WP:BOOMERANGs. This is exactly why this topic has come here. In the paragraph above he says it shouldn't be here, but on his talk page he tells me not to reply to his comments and says boomerangs are going to come my way. I believe all my comments to date have been done calmly and professionally. We simply will never agree on this rule. In fact, while Heiro thought it was okay to warn Todd_Volker citing WP:ERA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Todd_Volker#WP:ERA.2C_article_uses_CE_style.2C_not_AD he then said it was "moronic" when I cited WP:ERA. If you look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Heironymous_Rowe#WP:ERA he even pointed to something that says we should not follow any rule. I just saw no other course of action other than to put this topic before objective people who will not be weighed down by a bias on the topic. Primus128 (talk) 07:51, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you joking? Go read those pages I pointed you toward. A "boomerang" is something you throw that comes back to you, and if you are not looking it hits you in the head, lol. I asked you to no longer post at my talk page because templated me for 3rr, when I had 2, you then argued with an admin who pointed it out, and all you were doing was harrassing and baiting me. I have no use for that on my talk page. Plus, WP:IAR is a core policy here, if a rule makes no sense in a particular instance, it should not be followed just for the sake of following the rules. In any case, your particular interpretation of WP:ERA has been pointed out to you to be flawed, you are being asked to come up with valid reasons at two article talkpages for your desire to change a date style that has been stable for 4 years. So long in fact that when I templated those other users you refer to, I didn't even realize they had used the other date style previously. You are seeking to change date styles on articles that have been stable in this respect for as long as I've been an editor here, come up with a valid reason to do so other than "its the rules". Heiro 08:06, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Primus, you are arguing across two articles, one stable for at least two years, this one for over four. You are using an argument about 'originally' that was removed from WP:ERA which no longer gives priority to the era style originally used. If you didn't realise it had been changed, you should say so and back away, with hopefully an apology to show good faith. If you can't or won't do this, then it's hard to agree with you that you are only here to enforce the 'rules' (which I would take more seriously if you ever changed from BC to BCE). After I warned you about 3RR your warned Hiero who was only at 2RR and commplained on my page that I hadn't warned Hiero. And you brought this here without telling the three editors disagreeing with you about this dispute and without a notification on the talk pages of the two articles. Dougweller (talk) 09:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Primus referred to an early 2008 edit of mine on the Talk page of Cahokia on this topic as the reason to revert back to BC-AD, but did not consult with me at the time or since. I've worked on the article from time to time and never noticed when the era designation was changed, as I think it is appropriate for this kind of article and generally prefer it overall. I accepted that change, and it has clearly had consensus from other editors as well for four years. I think Primus is WP:DISRUPTIVE for arguing now for the reversion, not accepting the established consensus of working editors at Cahokia, and for bringing the issue to this page before exploring it further with other editors on the Talk page of the article. I support keeping BCE-CE era designation.Parkwells (talk) 14:07, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (Comment from uninvolved editor) Primus, Dougweller has a good point - WP:ERA doesn't appear to actually say what you have said it does. It's probably a good idea to back off from this dispute now, before things get too heated; pursuing it further will not end well, in my opinion. There seems to be a consensus at both talk pages to keep the date styles as they have been for the last few years, and this is also supported by the present wording of WP:ERA. Also, I strongly recommend that you leave the article at its present version even after 24 hours is up, as edits do not have to break 3RR to be classed as edit warring. With a little more experience, you will realise that sometimes on Wikipedia you have to put up with things that you might not agree with, for the greater benefit of the encyclopaedia. There are times when it can be worth sticking up for something on this site, but I'm afraid that this does not look like one of them. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 14:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Since no one has edited this discussion for several days, the OP has not edited at all since their last post here, and the discussions at the two article pages seems to be over as well, what do we do with this? Is there a process for closing it or archiving it? I've never really been involved in a thread at this board before so am unclear on what its processes are. Thanks. Heiro 01:34, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I've closed it. It looks like things have died down in this dispute, but if it flares up again don't be afraid to post back here. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 06:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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.

• Campaign for "santorum" neologism (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Dan Savage (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dispute overview

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

The dispute is about whether to Keep as Separate the article "Campaign for "santorum" neologism" or to Merge it, either into "Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality" or into "Dan Savage". There are two straw polls going on, respectively here and here. Supporters of either "Merge" proposal invoke WP:BLP and dispute independent notability. Opponents of the "Merge" proposals invoke independent notability.

The underlying issue clearly stirs passion among Wikipedia users and continuously creates controversies. In the recent past, there have been numerous Requests to Delete one of the subject articles ("Campaign for "santorum" neologism") -which have all been rejected- and, around the middle of 2011, one quite long dispute about the same issue, i.e. whether to Merge or not. The decision on the latter RfC was to "Keep as a separate article", though several "serious concerns" were expressed by the deciding Admin. It was also decided, in this context, to change the article's title from "Santorum (neologism)" to "Santorum Google problem" (subsequently changed again to its current title "Campaign for 'santorum' neologism"). The Admin taking the decision, acknowledging the seriousness of the subject and the importance of the Wikipedia issues involved, noted, "We should not count votes; rather we should weigh the force of reason."

Users involved

• Who is involved in the dispute?

The above are among the Wiki users who have actively participated in a discussion, straw poll or RfC. There may be more but I kept it at the maximum of twenty for the purpose of this Dispute Resolution. I'd suggest we do not allow the discussions to spill here. Instead, I'd ask the Admins to look into the issue and give the matter closure.

• 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=Santorum vs santorum}} --~~~~ 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?

The necessary steps have already been initiated by other Wikipedia users, e.g. discussions, RfC, straw polls, etc.

• How do you think we can help?

It is evident that, despite its many reincarnations, the issue is not resolved in the minds of most participants, since it keeps coming up for resolution. Therefore, a clear decision must be provided, with strong justification, in order for this issue to be, at last, resolved and stop it from re-surfacing time and again.

The Gnome (talk) 07:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

• The fact that we already have already had a conclusive discussion about this issue with an obviously clear result means that bringing the issue to this board is a waste of time. We have a clear decision already. In fact, there have been a number of previous merge proposals as well -- all of which have failed. Let it go. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:06, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
• Sorry, process fork - wrong forum. Please alert me if this goes anywhere, but otherwise I have other things to do than participate in the 5th or 6th simultaneous discussion attempting to do away with Wikipedia's coverage of the whole Santorum thing. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:24, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
• Wrong forum, and stinks of forum shopping. There is no need for DR as MULTIPLE attempts to garner consensus for the merge proposal have overwhelmingly failed over the years, the latest attempt included. If anything, an univolved administrator should be requested to close the latest RfC.

Also, the statement that "the issue is not resolved in the minds of most participants" is patently false, as the !voting records show, both for this and for the many preceeding RfCs. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 08:29, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.