Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-04-12 rational trigonometry

Mediation Case: 2006-04-12 rational trigonometry
Please observe Etiquette and Talk Page Etiquette in disputes. If you submit complaints or insults your edits are likely to be removed by the mediator, any other refactoring of the mediation case by anybody but the mediator is likely to be reverted. If you are not satisfied with the mediation procedure please submit your complaints to Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal.

Request Information

 * Request made by: Abu Amaal 17:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Talk:rational trigonometry


 * Who's involved?
 * Abu Amaal, Piet Delport, Michael Hardy, Tearlach


 * What's going on?
 * Frankly, I don't think much is going on but as you can see on my Talk page User:Pepsidrinka felt we had reached dispute resolution phase. Feel free to disagree. I believe the page needs a major overhaul. The replies to date relate to peripheral issues. I don't consider this in itself a problem but I do consider it an inefficient way of approaching the subject. I have now added an expert attention tag to the page itself which may be what it needed. But not having known at the start what tags are availalbe, I have little confidence that I have selected the most useful one. There might be more of a dispute if I actually felt like undertaking the rewrite, which to date I don't. I am contemplating identifying some suitable external links and adding them.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * Nothing much. Anything that needs changing if I'm not using the resources efficiently. Are my multiple posts to the Talk page more useful than one would be? Should I phrase my point differently?


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?
 * Well I wouldn't mind email but as I understand it this page is publicly visible so I'm not going to post the address here. I guess you can go to my talk page. I don't think you actually need to talk to anyone else.


 * You don't have to type your email address here.
 * Wikipedia can send email to you: Special:Emailuser/Abu Amaal
 * --Fasten 17:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. My preferences page was a little messed up. That feature should be working now.Abu Amaal 02:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Would you be willing to be a mediator yourself, and accept a mediation assignment 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.


 * Not until I understand the layout here a lot better than I currently do. Probably two years off. And my time is severely limited. I'm not sure you don't have better things to do with your time as well (which remark is kindly meant).

Evidence
Please report evidence in this section with for misconduct and  for 3RR violations. If you need help ask a mediator or an advocate. Evidence is of limited use in mediation as the mediator has no authority. Providing some evidence may, however, be useful in making both sides act more civil. Etiquette: Although it's understandably difficult in a heated argument, if the other party is not as civil as you'd like them to be, make sure to be more civil than him or her, not less.

Compromise offers
This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.

Comments by others
Comment from Tearlach I think invoking mediation - meant to be a nuclear option when just about everything else has failed - is highly inappropriate at this stage. There has been no misconduct. Abu Amaal posted in Talk:Rational trigonometry that he thought the article was unsatisfactory; a few editors mildly disagreed; now he wants one of the higher levels of dispute resolution. It's overkill. Tearlach 19:28, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree. I don't think there's any question about the controversiality of Wildberger's views on the relative merits of conventional and rational trigonometry, their place in school curriculums, and so on.  (Wildberger himself seems to openly encourage the controversy, if anything.)  The only disagreement seems to be about where this controversy should be discussed (if at all):
 * Abu Amaal advocates rewriting (or giving a "major overhaul" to) the Rational trigonometry article itself, to take the controversy into account.
 * Michael Hardy, Tearlach, and i feel that it's entirely appropriate to keep the article as it is (IOW, limited to a mathematical treatment of the theory), and have it link to a separate discussion of any wider controversies surrounding the topic (possibly as part of an article about Wildberger, or his book).
 * (I hope i didn't misrepresent anyone's views above.)
 * As an aside: Michael Hardy also suggested that it might be slightly premature to try to give an encyclopedic treatment of the controversy surrounding the topic, considering how young and comparatively little-known rational trigonometry still is.  Wikipedia can't really describe a controversy if it can't yet be clearly established what the controversy is about, what the conflicting viewpoints are, and who is attributable as holding them.  --Piet Delport 14:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

While using the talk page of the article in question to solve a dispute is encouraged to involve a larger audience, feel free to discuss the case below if that is not possible. Other mediators are also encouraged to join in on the discussion as Wikipedia is based on consensus.

Discussion
I don't think the material on the page is controversial, for reasons I've explained on the accompanying talk page. I did however send an email to Prof. Norman Wildberger suggesting that perhaps he could contribute. He may be the only person on this planet who could be considered an expert on this subject. Michael Hardy 00:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * suggesting that perhaps he could contribute
 * Maybe on the Talk page. Direct contribution would be a breach of Autobiography. Tearlach 00:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why it would be autobiographical. It would be about the topic, not about the topic's originator. Michael Hardy 02:26, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Autobiography "applies to articles about you, your achievements, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest". Tearlach 13:57, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

My current understanding is that treating this as a mediated dispute was an error and an inefficient use of resources. On that basis I would imagine that whoever is responsible for closing out such pages should class it as resolved (or something similar - possibly never under dispute). I never had any difficulties with the people involved. - The exchange above is interesting. Doesn't it also belong on the Talk:rational trigonometry page?Abu Amaal 17:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)