Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-02 Sources for opposing material on Natasha Demkina

Request Information

 * Request made by: Keith D. Tyler &para; 19:11, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Natasha Demkina and talk page


 * Who's involved?
 * User:Askolnick, a primary source; User:Julio Siqueira, a contributor to a critical website; User:Lumiere, User:Dreadlocke, other contrary editors; and to a lesser extent, myself and User:BillC, other contributors.


 * What's going on?
 * The existing state of the article is almost entirely dedicated to an experiment performed by two skeptic research groups in New York and aired on the Discovery Channel in 2004 and in which Mr. Skolnick was involved. The test results were published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer. There are numerous critics of that test, though none of them are published in what might be considered "reliable sources" under the terms of WP:RS. However, there is seen a need to provide WP:NPOV to the article. Mr. Skolnick has favored his determination of scientific accuracy (which he considers inviolable) as the only worthwhile content, while other editors believe that the need for WP:NPOV is paramount.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * I am asking on behalf of all editors (of which I am one) for a mediation to assist in determining how to weigh WP:RS vs. WP:NPOV in this case.


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?
 * N/A


 * Would you be willing to mediate yourself and accept an assignment as a mediator in a different case?


 * This is, following the Categorical Imperative, the idea that you might want to do
 * what you expect others to do. You don't have to, of course, that's why it's a question.


 * I'm not sure if or how that might conflict with being an WP:AMA member, so tentatively no for now.

Mediator response
I will assign this case to another mediator. Rohirok 22:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments by others
See also Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-02-23_Natasha_Demkina_Article --Fasten 07:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Please assign someone who is familiar with Mediation to mediate this article. It has already been through RFC, it does not need more; if I thought it did, I'd have gone back to WP:RFC, not here. - Keith D. Tyler &para; (WP:AMA) 18:59, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Disputing the Portrayal of the Dispute
 * Keith is misrepsenting my position and an important fact. First, Julio Siqueira is not "a contributor to a critical web site." Shame on Keith for this misrepresentation.  Siqueira doesn't contribute to a critical web site. The web site in question is his personal web site -- sites actually; when one gets shut down he moves to another. Siqueira is a professed enemy of researchers who are skeptical of paranormal claims. He publishes his personal attacks on his own web sites (one of which was recently shut down for repeated violations of a skeptic's copyright).


 * Siqueira, Keith, and several others want to include Siqueira's opinions in the Natasha Demkina article and they argue that his personal web site is a reputable publication. That's clearly nonsense. First of all, Siquiera has absolutely no expertise. He has never held a job in any field of science, and he's never published anything in this or any related field except on his own web site He was one of the authors of a paper on gut bacteria that was published in a Brazilian biomedical journal when he was a graduate student many years ago. Based on that, he has been misrepresenting himself as a "biologist," a "microbiologist," and a "clinical bacteriologist," even though he works as a grade school English teacher in Brazil. In other words, he is a quack.


 * I keep arguing with Keith and others that Wiki's policies and guidelines clearly say that personal web sites should never be used as secondary sources. They insist that NPOV concerns have to trump credibility and reputability concerns. I say, that's nonsense.


 * So to recap: Siqueira is NOT a contributor to a critical web site. It's his personal web site, which Siqueira, Keith, and several others want to cite as a credible source in the Wikipedia article on Natasha Demkina. They also want to cite personal web sites of anti-skeptic kooks like Victor Zammit and Brian Josephson. Zammit is a retired lawyer in Australia, who's never met a psychic who wasn't genuine or a skeptic who wasn't evil. Josephson is a Nobel laureate, whose field of expertise is in quantum mechanics. Josephson has never published any research in medicine or health in any peer reviewed journal. Because he's a Nobel laureate, if the personal attack he put up on his personal web page had been credible, he could have easily had it published in a science journal or other reputable publication. That's why it wound up on his own web site.


 * Another misrepresentation is Keith's statement that I consider the articles published in Skeptical Inquirer "inviolable) as the only worthwhile content." I have explained to Keith many times that I have no objection to adding any information or opinions that he or other editors can find in reputable sources. The problem is they can find very little outside of the web sites of well-known and lesser-known kooks and sleazy newspaper tabloids like Pravda RU and the Sun in the UK. (That in itself tells you something -- which Wiki readers also should know.) They therefore have been insisting that those sources are reputable enough.


 * That is the gist of the dispute. I am dismayed that Keith would misrepresent the dispute here, considering how well documented it is on the talk page. Askolnick 20:52, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * For illustrative purposes: Here, from Victor Zammit's personal web site, is how he begins one of his tirades against my fellow investigators and me:


 * "Debunking skeptics ambushed an innocent legally under-aged gifted psychic Natasha Demkina and 'raped' the objectivity of scientific method to attain their negative results. The experimenters blatantly violated the rules of scientific method and abused their position. They willfully bastardized scientific method to bring about negative results consistent with their entrenched negativity. A permanent MONUMENT OF SHAME will be built for these heinous debunkers as a permanent LEGACY of their entrenched negativism."


 * Yesterday, Keith added a link to this crackpot's site in the Natasha Demkina article, but I removed it. This is the kind of "reputable" material he and several others are arguing should be cited in this Wikipedia article.


 * In my opinion, some people in this debate are trying to fullfil that crackpot's prediction by turning the Wikipedia article on Natasha Demkina into "a permanent MONUMENT OF SHAME [that] will be built for these heinous debunkers as a permanent LEGACY of their entrenched negativism." Askolnick 14:22, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Without engaging in debate here, the added links in question are shown at . - Keith D. Tyler &para; 01:23, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Challenging Skolnick's "Misrepresentations"...


 * Andrew Skolnick has bitterly offended another Wikipedia editor, Julio Siqueira (me...), with the following comments that I now debunk:


 * 1- "Julio Siqueira is not 'a contributor to a critical web site.' "
 * Debunking: Yes, I am! And the link is this one.


 * 2- "Siqueira is a professed enemy of researchers who are skeptical of paranormal claims."
 * Debunking: I am an enemy of no one. I think CSICOP's and CSMMH's test with Natasha had its merits. But it also had its flaws. I myself am a skeptic, and have a site criticizing the most influential mediumnistic religion in Brazil, kardecism. It is Skolnick that is an enemy of anyone who in his view jeopardizes his...daily bread.


 * 3- "He publishes his personal attacks on his own web sites (one of which was recently shut down for repeated violations of a skeptic's copyright)."
 * Debunking: Hallucination or Pure Lie. The site is still on, this link. One page in it criticizing the James Randi's forum was deleted three times by hackers connected to Randi's forum (the third time, they managed to get the whole site down for some days). Most likelly, Randi was not involved in it (he suffered a heart attack soon after he first read my page). Geocities (the internet host of the site) simply does not know how it happened... One thing is certain: there was no violation of copyrights. What was deleted was the page (which I own the copyright), and not the images (two) that could, though remotely, be claimed to be copyright of the Old Man (Randi). Geocities never let me know the reason for this, and answered my email by saying that it was only "technical problems" (an euphemism for hackers' activity...). As a result of Geocities' lack of "transparency", I have temporarily moved the page to a fully commercial site, where I can be easily accessed, and even sued, if there is any copyright issue at stake (The Terra internet provider has my full address, my full documents' information, and etc). Curiously enough, so far no complaint for copyrights violation has turned up... So, either Skolnick is deliberately lying or he is passing on lies on behalf of others. Shameful both ways.


 * 4- "First of all, Siquiera has absolutely no expertise. He has never held a job in any field of science, and he's never published anything in this or any related field except on his own web site He was one of the authors of a paper on gut bacteria that was published in a Brazilian biomedical journal when he was a graduate student many years ago. Based on that, he has been misrepresenting himself as a "biologist," a "microbiologist," and a "clinical bacteriologist," even though he works as a grade school English teacher in Brazil. In other words, he is a quack."
 * Debunking: I have a biology degree and a master's degree in clinical bacteriology (and that alone makes me a biologist and a clinical bacteriologist). My expertise has been good enough to point out laughable instances of Skolnick's lack of expertise (but not lack of arrogance and pretence), such as when I patiently explained to him that, contrary to what he wrongly believed, granulomas are not necessarily microscopic, and also when I proved to him that, contrary to what he believed, appendixes cannot be easily detected by X-ray exams. My paper was published when I was actually a post graduation student. Even though Skolnick is fully aware that I am a biologist, he has been offending me repeatedly by saying that I lie when I claim to be a biologist (he even published a phony book review at the www.amazon.com site only saying that...). All the information that he has about me has been provided to him by me, fully openly, the same way I present it in my website.


 * Skolnick's True Intention is to use Wikipedia as a way to keep his daily bread pouring from the heavens without due effort... In his obsession (which some psychologists call "The Live and Let Die Compulsion") he has not refrained from being offensive to whoever dares to stand on his way. Believe it or not, even his fellow researchers have not been spared. The way he referred to both Ray Hyman and Richard Wiseman, in Skolnick's private email exchanges with me, would be enough, if I revealed them (and I could do it, because I told him from the very beginning that my intention was to pass all the information I exchanged with him to Brazilian skeptics and psi researchers), to get him banned from CSMMH for good. I don't think that it is necessary to cut his bread supply. But I hope he will come to understand that there is more in life than bread. And truth (in this case, truth about the weaknesses of their "test" with Natasha Demkina) is one of the spiritual values that we must cherish if we are to succeed as the dominant rational species of this world... Julio Siqueira 18:47, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Requesting Update
This case has not been updated since April 1. I will be closing this case and moving it to the archives if no update is given and/or there are no objections. Cowman109Talk 23:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Case closed
This case has been closed due to inactivity. Should mediation still be required, a new request for mediation should be filed. The listing of this case has been moved to the archives. Cowman109Talk 19:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)