Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-06-23 Electron Transport

Mediation Case: 2006-06-23 Electron Transport
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Request Information

 * Request made by: Btarski 17:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Wikipedia article Electron Transport Chain


 * Who's involved?
 * Me (btarski), Arcadian (a Wikipedia Administrator), Wikipedia users.


 * What's going on?

Arcadian removed a Wikipedia article. He took a single, coherent article and broke it up into five separate articles. In doing this, he completely missed the point of the original article, at least in my opinion. He also removed access (by Wikipedia readers) to the original article.

The first of Arcadian’s new articles, “Electron transport chain,” contains only background information and references from the original article, but no discussion of electron transport chains themselves (despite the title). The other four new articles now have no references, and they do not reference each other. Thus isolated and taken out of context, they are virtually meaningless to the average reader. Moreover, three of them are now incomprehensible. Arcadian himself labels them “stubs.”

Arcadian’s explanation for this action? “Article far too long – split out headers into own pages.”

As an editor, what would Arcadian think if I took Wikipedia’s featured article on Russian history and did the same thing? I personally think it's far too long. What if I split it into five separate articles (Imperial Russia, The Russian Revolution, The Soviet Union etc.) and delete the original article? Would this be an improvement?

The point of the electron transport article was to highlight the remarkable similarities in this process across all fields of biology, from the simplest organisms to the most complex. The discovery of these fundamental similarities was one of the crowning achievements of 20th century biology. The underlying unity of these seemingly unrelated processes (photosynthesis, mitochondrial ATP production, lithotrophy) motivates modern research in energy metabolism, one of the most exciting fields in biology.

Obviously (it seems to me), you can’t appreciate underlying unities if an article is broken up into little bits and pieces. I think this is a disservice to Wikipedia readers.

The original article introduced background information and terminology in a systematic way. When Arcadian “split out” these topics, he produced new articles that are incomprehensible to the average reader. For example, his new “Photosynthetic electron transport chains in bacteria” article begins as follows:

"PSII, PSI and cytochrome b6f are found in chloroplasts. All plants and all photosynthetic algae contain chloroplasts, which produce NADPH and ATP by the mechanisms described above."

This is supposed to be an article? What are PSII, PSI, b6f, NADPH? What are the “mechanisms described above”? The new article makes no sense, because it has been taken out of context. No wonder Arcadian now thinks it’s a stub.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * 1. Restore the article to where it stood just before Arcadian's 17 June 2006 edit.


 * 2. Ask Arcadian to please leave it alone.  Let other Wikipedians work on it.


 * 3. Recognize that deleting an existing article and creating five new articles, three of which are stubs, simply because "I      personally think it's too long," is not, in general, good editorial policy.


 * Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?
 * btarski@hawaii.rr.com is the best way to reach me. I do not think that discretion is necessary or even desirable.


 * Thank you.

Mediator response
Requestor has not attempted dialogue yet. Advised him to do so; we can step in if necessary. Ideogram 21:14, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I have taken the case and started dialog with both involved parties, as well as opening the issue on the article talk page here. -- Aguerriero  ( talk ) 18:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Compromise offers
Involved parties have agreed to the compromise here. Closing mediation. Aguerriero ( talk ) 18:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)