Talk:Durban Declaration

Merger
The The Durban Declaration and Plan of Action article has far less information, and it appears the dates are wrong - unless there were two Durban declarations? But I can not seem to find any information that was the case. Mceder 11:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Given that the International AIDS Conference is held once every two years, and the WCAR conference was held in 2001, they aren't the same. Uncle G 15:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Authorship?
I am wondering who authored the Durban Declaration, is this known or was it anonymous? A5 (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Link to Rebuttal
About ten days ago I added a link to "reviewingaids.org", I had meant to link to a page containing a rebuttal to the Durban Declaration but unfortunately the former website had loaded it in a frame so I got the wrong URL. Anyway, MastCell removed the link citing EL and WEIGHT. I think it could have been removed because it linked to the wrong place, but now it links to the right place and I don't understand the relevance of the guidelines that MastCell cited. For instance, the second one says "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views". Well, the Durban Declaration is not about a dispute between just one party, but actually as usual there are two parties to the dispute, and it seems silly to suggest that the second party is irrelevant to this article. In fact, this article says "The declaration was drafted in response to AIDS denialism", so that makes the case of the denialists appropriate subject matter, in my opinion. If there is a better rebuttal, then we should link to that, but only providing links describing the dispute from one point of view would clearly be biased here. A5 (talk) 11:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The essence of WP:WEIGHT is that we don't need to get into "false equivalence". We don't present this as a point-counterpoint. The "other side" is described, but we use reliable sources to do so. Our content need to be based on reliable sources. A one-person wiki dedicated to AIDS denialism is not a reliable source. A self-published AIDS-denialist website is not a reliable source. If that's the best "rebuttal", then we need to accept that there is no reasonably sourced rebuttal and we shouldn't try to create one here. MastCell Talk 17:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply, MastCell. First of all, I reject your claim that the "other side" is described in any meaningful way in this article. And your defense of that state of affairs seems to be based on the idea that when there is a dispute between two parties, and the views of party B aren't accepted by the same media outlets as those of party A, then we can accommodate party A's attacks while ignoring anything that party B says in its defense - a principle which I also reject. I think that a fair presentation of any dispute must allow input from both sides; do you deny this? But before I go any further, since you have added a paragraph about Michael Specter, who has no scientific qualifications, quoting an article published in "The New Yorker", then I suppose a letter from a professor of public health in "Nature" should meet your standards of "reliability", and make us both happy - and I see one such letter on Peter Duesberg's website. I will go ahead and link to it, but if it is not suitable then please find a substitute yourself. There are plenty. A5 (talk) 12:26, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

← Couple of things. This edit has numerous problems, most of which have to do with gross violations of WP:WEIGHT. You cite a letter to the editor from an AIDS denialist at great length, and in a vacuum. Not only does this give undue weight to a fringe belief, but it ignores the subsequent letters printed in Nature in response to the AIDS-denialist claim, noting both scientific inaccuracies and the ridiculousness of the "free speech" argument. I've corrected this oversight. Additionally, duesberg.com is not a reliable source, and should not be referenced here. MastCell Talk 19:01, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * MastCell, I disagree with your changes and their rationale. You didn't answer the question I posed in my previous post. Your reason for removing the duesberg.com URL is contrived; it is a link to the actual article which appeared in Nature. I am not able to access the article through nih.gov or nature.com. I have restored the link. Unless you are going to replace it with another working link that doesn't require payment, removing a link to an article makes it look like you are trying to hide information from people. Also, it appears to me that your recent changes give undue weight to your own point of view. You accuse me of quoting a letter from an "AIDS denialist" and giving weight to a "fringe belief", as if there were some other way to provide context to the Durban declaration. I am not trying to push a certain point of view, but only to restore a balance which I think this article is sorely lacking. A5 (talk) 20:27, 20 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Please think about this for a second before reverting. If you cannot access the letter through the Nature site, then it is likely still both under copyright and restricted by the journal. If duesberg.com wants to reproduce copyrighted and restricted material, then that's between them and the copyright holder. But this is intended to be a free encyclopedia which respects copyright. I may be wrong about this - I have no real expertise in copyright law - but are you aware of any arrangement that allows duesberg.com to reproduce material which Nature has both copyrighted and restricted? In any case, we should not be linking to duesberg.com as it is an unreliable source. Please don't make ridiculous accusations that I'm "trying to hide information from people". It is trivially easy for any interested party to obtain this information in a manner which respects copyright. I could just as easily cite your cherry-picking of a single denialist letter without mentioning the several "mainstream" responses as evidence that you're trying to hide information, but where would that get us? My changes seek to restore appropriate weight to the mainstream view, which is held by virtually every scientist in the world and certainly all of those who actually perform scientific research on HIV/AIDS. The issue of undue weight is clear - cherry-picking one letter among many because it supports your view, and then presenting it devoid of appropriate context, violates WP:WEIGHT. MastCell Talk 20:55, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * MastCell, I don't understand what will satisfy your demands. I'm pretty sure that Stewart holds the copyright to his own letter, and I'm pretty sure that he is OK with Duesberg redistributing his letter. But if I iron out this issue with those parties, then you are going to say that duesberg.com isn't a reliable source anyway.
 * If a source is free, then it is not reliable enough for you. If a source is reliable enough for you, then people can't freely read it. If you are not trying to hide information, then kindly prove that it is possible to reasonably meet your standards, by adding a link to something from the denialist perspective that ordinary people can read with just one click and no payment. A5 (talk) 21:21, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You are confused on several points. First of all, copious AIDS-denialist material exists on the Internet, where it can be found by "ordinary people" with one click and no payment. If these ordinary people are particularly motivated, nearly every library stocks Nature free of charge. It is not my job to change or circumvent Nature's access policies. Wikipedia has standards of inclusion, because it aspires to be a serious, respectable reference work, and AIDS-denialist websites generally don't meet these standards. AIDS-denialist material is not being "censored" by virtue of being excluded from Wikipedia - it's not like bogus pseudoscientific claims have a right to be cited on Wikipedia which I am depriving them of. I have no idea what arrangement Gordon Stewart has with regard to his letter. In general, Nature leaves the copyright with the author, but they are subject to certain stipulations - for example, permission from Nature is required to reproduce the content on a website, as best I understand it. In any case, the copyright issue is a sidebar, since the source is unreliable. Enough with the strawmen. You cited a letter to the editor from Nature. I am not "hiding information" - in fact, I accept this as a useable, reliable source. I ask only that we present it with a minimum level of honesty and context. MastCell Talk 21:34, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * MastCell, you claim to "ask only that we present it with a minimum level of honesty and context". And yet you also stipulate that there be no direct link to the article, or to any literature written by denialists (you haven't risen to the challenge I just posed of finding such a link which fits your standards), and you make quoting such literature in any meaningful way impossible. Do these demands of yours fall under honesty or context? To me they take context away, and verge on dishonesty. The article is about a document which is written in response to a particular point of view. People will want to know what that point of view is, and you seem determined to make it difficult for them to find out. You deny that this is the case, yet all of your actions suggest otherwise. You're right about one thing: I am certainly confused. A5 (talk) 22:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Part of the problem may be that you're mischaracterizing my position. I do not stipulate that we not link to the Nature letter, only that we do not violate our reliable source guidelines in the process. We have an entire article on AIDS denialism, which details the subject extensively, is free, and is one click away. We don't need to duplicate that content here, and we don't need to bend our sourcing policies to accurately portray this subject. MastCell Talk 17:51, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I stand by what I said, and don't think that I'm mischaracterizing your position at all. You don't permit direct links to denialist literature, even from articles in the AIDS denialism category such as this one. That is a fact of your position as you have stated it, regardless of your invocation of reliable source guidelines as justification. I understand the reliable source guidelines and their rationale; I think that they are very important, and I think that you are misapplying them here in a way that sacrifices a number of higher editorial values, such as neutrality and accessibility, as I have already described above. Further, you don't allow denialist views to be quoted, but you quote their opponents at length, even to the point of repeating uninformative rhetoric such as the "pre-Copernican model of the universe" comparison, a classic strawman. You belatedly bring up Wikipedia's AIDS denialism article - yes, it contains useful information, but that doesn't fix the problems I have identified in this article (which is still a stub, by the way - "You can help Wikipedia by expanding it", it says). And the content you removed was not present in that article. A5 (talk) 22:46, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sigh. Obviously, I "permit" links to denialist literature - for example, the letter from Nature, or Duesberg's papers in various peer-reviewed journals. I don't "permit" citations to self-published websites spouting ignorance, but then neither does WP:RS or WP:V. Expanding articles is good, but a well-referenced and encyclopedic stub is preferable to a longer but poorly-sourced or slanted article. Articles here need to flow from good sources, as defined in the relevant policies. Expansion for its own sake doesn't really advance the goal of creating a serious and respectable reference work. I sense we're not making headway. Please feel free to seek further input, either via a third-opinion request, reliable-source noticeboard, or a request for comment. We could also consider asking for outside views from the Medicine WikiProject. MastCell Talk 20:34, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * MastCell, I am sighing as well. You say 'Obviously, I "permit" links to denialist literature'. I think this statement is misleading. Can you give an example of a direct link (you keep leaving out the word "direct") to something written by a denialist which you won't revert if it is added to this article? By a direct link I mean a link where you click on it and get a PDF or HTML version of the article, not some record in a citation database. I think the answer is a simple "no", but you keep evading the question with remarks like the one I just quoted. I will think about the other options, but it will be easier to have a discussion if you would frankly admit what your proposed policies entail. A5 (talk) 14:49, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Some reliable sources are not freely available, including, apparently, most back issues of Nature. My understanding of Wikipedia policy is that verifiability and reliability of sources, not 1-click full-text access, is paramount. Nature is a better encyclopedic source than a self-published AIDS-denialist website, even though the latter is freely available. I don't know how to express this more clearly, so I suspect we simply have an entrenched disagreement. Hence the suggestion to seek outside input. For the record, though, my "policy" is very simple: use verifiable material from reliable sources. We should use the best-quality sources available. If those sources are freely available, then that's a bonus. If they're not, then we can work around it without lowering our sourcing standards. MastCell Talk 17:18, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be more clear if you answered my question. Can we agree that the following statement characterises your position?: "I think, for reasons concerning reliability of sources, and the need to assign a low weight to minority views, that we should interpret Wikipedia's policies as effectively forbidding direct links to, or quotations of, material written by AIDS denialists, even within articles about AIDS denialism. If a third-party website is willing to provide a copyright-compatible free version of an article published previously in a reliable source, but which is not freely available from that source, we still cannot link to it." If it doesn't fit your views, you could help out by showing a counterexample. A5 (talk) 22:36, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to participate further in attempts to put words in my mouth when my position is quite clear and based on site policy. If material written by AIDS denialists appears in a reliable source, then it can be cited. Such citations appear in this very article. If material appears in unreliable sources, then it should not be cited. If this continues to seem incorrect or unclear, I invite you to seek outside input via the usual means. MastCell Talk 22:53, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, MastCell, I am not trying to put words in your mouth - I'm only trying to clarify the position of Wikipedia administrators such as yourself, so that we can move beyond this discussion. I'm sorry that you are offended by my characterisation of your position. Can you say which part of my characterisation is inaccurate, so that I don't misrepresent your views in the future? A5 (talk) 04:00, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Number of signatories?
The figure "5000" comes from the Nature publication. But if you count the number of signatories yourself, the total is 4974, which is "almost 5000", not "more than 5000".


 * 216 people signed it in Durban: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6791/extref/406015ai1.doc
 * 4758 people from 84 countries signed it some time later (exactly when is not known): http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6791/extref/406015ai2.doc

Total number of people who signed it: 4974 -- leuce (talk) 14:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The Nature intro states that the published signatures are those submitted by June 29. By the time the editor wrote that intro several days later, additional signatures had come in, hence more than 5000. By the beginning of the conference, there were more than 5000 signatures (according to other reliable sources). Keepcalmandcarryon (talk) 23:32, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Gross misrepresentation of cited material
I would like to dispute the fact that the following citation: [6] "Why are AIDS dissidents still making 15-year-old, long-refuted claims?"

After reading that document, there is no evidence "detailing numerous inaccurate scientific claims made by AIDS denialists" and infact that statement is a gross misrepresentation of the documents contents. Whoever cited this document has stated an outright lie.

There is actually less than one paragraph that even mentions the topic of the scientific claims of the AIDS-denialists, and in fact only one scientific claim is addressed in that paragraph, that being the origin of the emergence of AIDS in the 1980's. There are no scientific details addressed regarding this topic. The document only says that the AIDS-denailists claims are "simply incorrect", and that there was "slow initial spread to heterosexuals, PROBABLY because the epidemic first broke out exponentially here among homosexual men". This uncertain statement is hardly "detailing numerous inaccurate scientific claims made by AIDS-denialists.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the cited material. --Josephleeesl (talk) 20:03, 30 July 2012 (UTC)


 * "Gross" misrepresentation? Hardly. But I've fixed it up a bit. Your tendency towards hyperbole, however, is unlikely to serve you well in the future... &mdash; Scientizzle 20:29, 30 July 2012 (UTC)