Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates/Requests/May 2007/Levine2112

Case Filed On: 05:27, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Your problem:
There has been a longtime dispute with little or no consensus about whether or not to add verifiable information about the board certification status of Stephen Barrett to the subject's article. The subject himself has provided information on the discussion page that he is in fact not board certified because he failed one-half of the exam in 1964 and elected not to retake the exam to date. The information is also confirmed by several other primary and secondary sources including legal documents, news articles, research papers, and various other publication. Currently, this information doesn't appear on the article; although it had for the better part of last year and earlier this year. In summary, I think this is a policy dispute as the editors disagree on the issues of WP:RS, WP:WEIGHT and WP:BLP (to name a few). There are personal attacks happening here, but it isn't central to the dispute (though I wish civility could be improved).

For the last several months, the editors have been trying to follow WP:DR in good faith; however civility has waned and wobbled and hostility has flared from time-to-time. Staw polls were taken. RfAs were filed but ignored to date. There was a mediation process which didn't accomplish much on Wikipedia and it has since moved to an arbitration by email; however, this process has yet to begin. The mediator has been doing a good job and I fully support his decision to handle mediation via email as it should reduce the incivility. I just fear that this process may still take a while to get started (it has been close to a month since the idea was proposed).

I am looking for third-party opinions from Wiki experts knowledgeable on policy and precedent who can decide whether the information should be added or withheld from the article. Pretty much all of the information regarding this issue can be found on Talk:Stephen Barrett starting at the top and going down - all the way down (sorry, we have been rather verbose in our dispute). Please let me know if there is anything which I can do to facilitate this process.

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AMA Information
Case Status: NEW

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