User:Filll/AGF Challenge2

This is a draft of the 2nd batch of AGF Challenge Exercises

No negative reviews allowed
An author who is frequently in the news for his controversial theory that oil and gas are not the result of millions of years of decomposition of organic material has published a series of books describing his theories. He is a prominent faculty member at an Ivy League university. He believes that oil and gas are the result of inorganic processes deep within the earth's crust.

The faculty in his department have put a statement on the department webpage stating they disagree with his theory. Surveys of other scientists in his field show that over 99% of them think his theory is unscientific and contradicted by the evidence. Almost every review of his books by other scientists is negative. His work is quite popular among the public, however, who do not want to believe that the supply of fossil fuels is finite, and that we might run out of oil. He has testified as an expert witness in several trials where environmentalists were trying to block deep offshore drilling or drilling in the arctic. The other side in these trials has always ripped the testimony of this author to shreds, ridiculing him. However, he remains very popular with the majority of the public.

An article about one of his books on Wikipedia includes links to several negative reviews. One prominent Wikipedia editor demands that these negative reviews be removed, since they violate WP:BLP. The claim is that anything negative about these books in the reviews reflects negatively on the author's work, and on the author himself, and therefore violates WP:BLP.

In addition, several editors on Wikipedia have objected to statements in this author's biography on Wikipedia stating that the "scientific community disagrees with his theories". They claim that one cannot measure what the scientific community believes, so that this statement does not belong and is not valid.

Do the negative reviews of his work constitute a WP:BLP violation? Can Wikipedia link to these negative reviews? Can Wikipedia state that the "scientific community" agrees or disagrees with his theories? Are articles on this author's ideas WP:FRINGE theories since most of the public subscribes to them? What does WP:NPOV state about how these ideas should be presented on Wikipedia?

No littering
A prominent late night television advertiser is promoting a new technique for reducing colon cancer. He sells a book that recommends a number of unconventional preventive measures, including the consumption of ground up kitty litter. The idea is that certain brands of kitty litter (in particular, the brand this advertiser sells) introduce extra nonnutrative crude fiber in the diet and also absorb toxins in the colon as they travel through the human body. A small group of enthusiasts write an article for Wikipedia describing this health recommendation.

There are a handful of scientific studies on the value of this technique. Most of them are not double blinded or even singled blinded studies, and have a small number of participants. A few show some positive effect from this procedure, but some show very little difference between consuming cat litter and a placebo treatment. They are published mainly in a few journals devoted to alternative medicine. Recently a few review articles and larger studies published in mainstream medical journals have been published. The larger studies and metastudies show almost no difference between these cat litter treatments and a placebo. A couple of blogs and less prominent sources have called this treatment a form of "quackery" and fraudulent. The French, German and Swiss governments cut their insurance reimbursments in government health plans for this treatment based on the negative results of the large studies.

The article is rewritten to include a mix of the positive and negative research results. Also in the LEAD is a paragraph with quotes from representatives of the mainstream medical establishement, identifying the treatment as fraud and quackery.

Several new editors arrive on Wikipedia, including a famous alternative medical practioner who has an adjunct faculty position at the UCLA medical school. These new editors diligently try to remove all information drawn from the large negative studies, and promote the results from the small positive studies. Lists of the small positive studies are posted over and over, dozens of times on the talk page of this article. The talk page has to be automatically archived every 48 hours because it is getting so many posts; at least 100 or 200 kilobytes are archived every 2 days. There is a lot of argumentation.

The new editors claim that the editors who are trying to include the large studies are "science zealots" and unfair and unCIVIL and are WP:BITEing. It is claimed that including the words "quackery" and "fraud" are inflammatory, and are inappropriate since they are not well sourced anyway. The new editors say that to follow WP:NPOV, all the critical material must be removed from the article, since it is not neutral, as required by Neutral Point of View.

What should be done here?

The Naked Truth
Several Christian sects belonging to Christian naturism use a literal reading of the Book of Genesis to mean that it is forbidden by God to wear clothes, unless required as protection from the elements. One prominent sect, the Starkerites, have become more and more prominent in the UK in the last few decades. They are famous for their radio and television sermons promising that everyone who wears clothes is an affront to God and is going straight to hell. Some of the more extreme varieties of Starkerites, such as the Nakedites, even preach that people who wear clothes indoors should be summarily killed for their blasphemy. and have tried to get laws passed stating that all children attending government schools are required to doff their clothes indoors. This measure is meant to avoid offending any Nakedite children. There have been some well publicized lawsuits trying to impose Nakedite requirements on various commercial enterprises and public institutions, which the Nakedites have always lost.

Lately a contingent of Nakedites have joined Wikipedia and are changing all the articles on Christianity to reflect Nakedite teachings. Huge edit wars break out, since Nakedites regard all those who do not follow indoor nudity and Nakedite philosophy as not real Christians and infidels. Any efforts to stop them or slow them down are met with an angry response and a claim that they have a right to their religious freedom, which Wikipedia is supressing.

What should Wikipedia do?

Ebony
A dispute has broken out on a number of articles about black people in Wikipedia. A group of editors claim that Jamaicans and Ethiopians are not black since they are not the descendants of slaves living in the United States and therefore are not worthy of the label "black". The US government definition of a black person, being someone from subSaharan West Africa is trotted out. Other editors from Australia, South Asia, and Egypt disagree. Someone points out that according to this definition, South Africans of European descent are defined as black people. Conflicting government definitions from Canada, Cuba, Australia, the UK and the US are presented. Some view the phrase "black people" as a positive label and a source of pride, and others view it as a slur and do not want it applied to a given group. Eventually one particularly aggressive group of black studies students from the United States demands that their definition is the only correct definition, and that the other definitions do not exist and should not appear in the article. Anyone who disagrees with them is charged with racism and a huge fight ensues.

What should be done?

Splitting hairs
A group has started a public relations campaign to encourage as many people as possible to grow their hair as long as they can, on the basis that (1) long hair is more natural; after all, primitive man did not have ways to cut hair (2) hair represents the life force of the person (3) cutting the hair exposes the person's head to more cold air if the hair is cut too short and can contribute to diseases.

An article or two promoting this view is started on Wikipedia. In the middle of heated talk page discussions, one editor, User: Gravy Boy, calls another a "barber" because he wants to remove part of the article, effectively "cutting" it. A senior member of the Wikimedia Foundation states that calling someone a "barber" or alluding to cutting in any way is blatantly offensive and a violation of WP:CIVIL and obviously a blockable offense. Not long after this, you run into two editors involved in a dispute, where one has said they need to cut down an article because it is too long, and the other has charged him with a WP:CIVIL violation and is demanding that an admin take action to sanction him.

What would you do?

Judge not, less ye be judged
An anonymous editor on Wikipedia who frequently edits legal articles and who advertises himself as a retired judge often gets into disputes. Nevertheless, he seems to be a valuable contributor and seems to know a lot. You have his page watch listed, and you notice that this editor has been blocked for 2 weeks for stating in the middle of a heated argument that he was a judge. The blocking admin, User: Osama ban Hammer, stated that it is inappropriate to use this sort of information in an argument, and compared the judge to Essjay. You notice that the blocking admin, User: Osama ban Hammer, who is very prominent on Wikipedia, edits a lot of religious articles, and in particular articles about Judaism. He advertises prominently on his user page that he is a Rabbi.

What should you do?

Poof its gone!
A prominent belief in the Islamic World is that the World Trade Center never existed, and therefore the attack on September 11, 2001 never happened. A group on Wikipedia rejects all sources to the contrary as biased and propaganda. Anyone who disagees with them is accused of being bought off by the US government, or a CIA mole, or hopelessly deluded. Numerous sources from Al Jazeera and other similar sources are suggested to show that this theory is correct and should be the preferred one on Wikipedia. When it is suggested that this is a WP:FRINGE belief, Muslim editors counter with surveys of the Muslim world showing that 86 per cent subscribe to this belief, and with 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, in addition to many in Europe and India and China, those who disagree are a distinct minority. Wikipedia refuses and locks its articles on this subject. However, a petition that quickly gathers 500,000 signatures is created on the internet, asking that Wikipedia allow its article to be written from the point of view of the mainstream.

What should Wikipedia do?

I love Jesus
In an article on I Love Jesus Ministries International, someone with no user page and no talk page history puts a section reading

with a link to a main article about Mission Possible Cards:

What is appropriate to do here?

Sex and evolution
Several very complicated articles on a theory about the origin of sex are written on Wikipedia. For example:


 * The Evolutionary Theory of Sex was proposed in 1965 by V. Geodakian and now provides explanation of many sex-related phenomena such as sexual dimorphism, sex chromosomes, asymmetry of brain and hands, reciprocal effects, and congenital heart defects.


 * The theory was included in the textbooks,, college study programs,  was covered in numerous newspaper and magazine articles (two in the US  ) and TV programs.


 * The sex notion consists of two fundamental phenomena: the sexual process (conjugation of genetic information of two persons) and the sexual differentiation (partitioning this information into two parts). Depending on the presence (+) or absence (-) of these phenomena, the whole variety of existing reproduction models can be divided into three basic forms: asexual (-, -), hermaphrodite (+, -), and bi-sexual reproduction (+, +).


 * The sexual process and sexual differentiation are distinct, and moreover, directly opposite phenomena. Indeed, the sexual process diversifies genotypes, which is its objective in evolution, whereas differentiation halves the resulting diversity.


 * For instance, in an asexual population of size N, the maximum theoretically possible variability of offspring genotypes is N, given that the genotypes of all parents are different. Since the offspring of each asexual individual is a clone with the same genotype, the variability of the offspring σ is always lower than N.


 * In the sexual process, the variability of offspring is squared. In hermaphroditic organisms, each of N individuals can mate with all individuals except itself, i.e., N - 1; but, as the cross of individual A with individual B is the same as that of individual B with individual A (there is no reciprocal effect), at N >> 1, σ = N(N - 1)/2 ≈ N2/2; with the reciprocal effect, σ = N2.


 * In dioecious forms, sex differentiation that excludes same sex combinations (male-male, female-female), decreases the amount of diversity possible in hermaphrodites by at least two times: σ = N/2 x N/2 = N2/4 (each female with each male, with the same number of males and females equal to N/2). The offspring diversity in a population of dioecious organisms also depends on the sex ratio in the parental generation: it is the highest at a 1:1 sex ratio and decreases with any deviation from it.


 * The maximum progeny diversity of the asexual, hermaphrodite, and bi-sexual populations of the same size N are related as N : N2/2 : N2/4, i.e., the diversity is at least halved while passing from hermaphrodite to bisexual reproduction!  Then, it becomes completely unclear what the differentiation is intended for, if it halves the main bonus provided by the sexual process.  Why are all progressive species bi-sexual, since the asexual process is much more efficient and simple, and hermaphrodites produce a more diversified progeny?  This is the essence of the sex puzzle.


 * The fact that this problem is still unsolved is primarily due to the lack of a clear understanding that the sexual process and sexual differentiation are opposite phenomena. Researchers make attempts at understanding the advantage of the sexual reproduction (hermaphrodite and bi-sexual forms) over the asexual one, although it is necessary to understand the advantage of bi-sexuals over hermaphrodites.


 * The purpose of the sexual process is clear, and consists of diversifying. It is needed to comprehend the objective of the sexual differentiation.  Although it is recognized that, because bi-sexual methods have no visible advantages over asexual ones, bi-sexual reproduction should provide us with significant evolutionary bonuses, the sex problem is commonly considered as a reproduction problem but not an evolutionary one.


 * Sex differentiation is specialization in preserving and changing the genetic information of population. One of the sexes should be informationally more closely connected with the environment, and be more sensitive to the environmental factors.


 * Higher mortality and vulnerability of the males to all harmful factors of the environment make one believe that it is the operative, ecological subsystem of the population. While the females are the conservative subsystem that preserves the existing genotype distribution in the population.


 * A series of mechanisms were developed during different stages of sex evolution to provide this specialization. Compared to females, males experience more mutations, inherit fewer properties of their parents, have narrower reaction norm, higher aggressiveness and inquisitiveness, riskier behavior and other properties that move them closer to the environment. All these properties, moving the male sex to the frontline of the evolution, provide for receiving of ecological information.


 * The second group of properties includes great superfluity of male gametes, their small size and high mobility, the greater activity of mobility of males, their inclination towards polygamy and other ethologic and psychological qualities. Long periods of pregnancy, feeding and taking care of the descendants among the female population in reality increases the efficient concentration of the males, turning the male sex into superfluous, and thus cheap, while the female sex is turned into deficit and thus more expensive.
 * As a result of conservative-operative specialization of sexes, asynchronous evolution takes place: new characters first appear in the operative subsystem (males), are tested there, and then are passed on to the conservative subsystem (females).

Most of the references are in Russian. It is clearly a well known theory, but almost completely unknown in the West. The English in the articles is stilted.

What should be done?

Always wear a helmet
A disabilities lawyer on Wikipedia has been repeatedly tagging a popular motorcycle brand's article with and. In the article's discussion page, he says:

However, the editor only has 5 contributions to the article: 4 add the tags, and 1 reduces the lead. There is no evidence of him ever having added criticism or safety sections to the article. In fact, his point of view is entirely contained within the discussion page. When suggested to boldly edit, the editor replies he already has, and that it was whittled down by the same "aficionados" until nothing was left. He's "been there, done that". Going through the history, you find no evidence of him having contributed anything aside from the tags.

Editors are starting to get frustrated, and the talk page is getting heated.