Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-07-17 Ars Technica

Mediation Case: 2006-07-17 Ars Technica
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: Debuskjt 22:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Ars Technica


 * Who's involved?
 * Tsetna, debuskjt, Reindeer Flotilla, Dave-G, and 216.227.83.118


 * What's going on?
 * A few members (now mostly one anonymous member) have been reverting removal of problematic criticism on the Ars Technica page without accurately defending it on the Talk page or, in some cases, even trying to argue that the criticism is accurate. Talk:Ars Technica A listing of problematic criticism was put up for 10 days without a defense or argument from anyone. Once the criticism was removed, 216.227.83.118 started reverting the article without regard for new content in other sections.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * We would like a mediator to try to intervene, and escalate if a compromise can't be reached.


 * Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?
 * I'm impartial to how you work. I can be reached most easily via e-mail at debuskjt@gmail.com

Mediator response
I'll take this case and try to do my best. I hope we can get any conflicts solved.  fetofs  Hello! 14:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm closing this case. No response from other party obtained.  fetofs  Hello! 22:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

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



Discussion


I am the "anonymous user" at 216.227.83.118. I can be reached at dolmakibbeh@gmail.com. Over the last few months, I have tried to improve the Ars Technica article. However, any attempt by myself or others to maintain a reasonable criticism section has been met with incredible resistance. I have in the past made mistakes when restoring the section, but before restoring I do try to look at what else has been changed and only change that which I believed to be incorrect, correct. I have been amenable to many compromises which have been made in the article, only to see the compromised-upon items removed or corrupted wholesale at a later time. This is, I know, the nature of Wikipedia articles. But I feel that I, TomServo3000, Dave-G, Warrens, Digitalme, Maramba, and Krist_ski have been trying to give a balanced, NPOV, and have done a bit of leg work digging up citations (not as easy when you did not add the criticism yourself), and after every new "requirement" was met, a new one was tacked on, mostly by Tsetna. At one point, I had to add multiple citations, because "one time is not enough to prove a trend".

It has been a frustrating experience, and I get very strong feelings, which I suppose may be incorrect, that the goal of the "opposing" editors is to keep any real criticism off of the Ars Technica article. I have compromised on wording, splitting out of the section (compromise assisted by Hamilton_burr) and have literally spent hours trying to use the ArsTechnica search function (painstakingly slow) before I found that Google could do the job more quickly, but then still spending hours searching on Google. This is partly a result of Ars being so popular. Having read Ars diligently for at least 5 years, I have seen many of the articles, threads, etc., that make up this criticism section. Assuming the opposing Wiki editors do the same, I can't imagine that they have not witnessed it. In fact, they seem to be very in tune with the forums and editorial stance of Ars, and might even be better suited than me at finding more citations. In any case, I am really hoping that mediation will work out some compromises that are accurate, while preventing the mass removal of information from the article.

Regarding the lack of defense "from anyone", I think it is safe to say that if you look at the discussion history, these things were gone over endlessly, and I just didn't have the time to participate over the last two weeks (holidays, birthdays, work, etc.). My statement to that effect was belittled as being a cop-out. Other users have had no change in the frequency of their edits, as far as I can see, as they are not baby-sitting the article. So naturally they may not have responded. Also, please note the volume of the information Tsetna is "requiring" to "validate" everything. It will literally take hours if I am to compose a thoughtful, researched response. Thanks.--216.227.122.185 14:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I’m involved in this so I will comment. My editing record clearly shows that I have contributed much to the article, including a criticism of my own and some sub sections. The documentation of the various problems with the criticisms speaks for itself, as does the complete absence of any rebuttal. 216.227.x’s characterization of the article’s history is inaccurate and purposefully misrepresentative. There was no previous consensus… from the minute these criticisms appeared they were challenged. Finally after a few months of being ignored in our objections a few of us decided to challenge them in a clear and thorough way, saying that we will remove them if they are not rebutted (WP:RS indicates that this is more than proper procedure). I cannot speak for the others, but as a long time Ars reader and forum user, I got involved when I saw criticisms of the site that are clearly not true. Some of the criticisms border on defamation in my opinion, attributing to living persons nasty behaviors for which there is no solid proof. Criticisms say that the site admins ban people for asking for refunds, that they ban people for expressing their opinions, that they are malicious in their enforcement of the rules. There is no reputable, reliable source for these claims.

216.227.x and others believe that they can read a page on the forum, interpret it to mean whatever they want, and pass that off as fact. Even worse, the citations they keep digging up do not even relate to the criticisms they are attached too, not even remotely close (this has been documented ). I take Wikipedia as an encyclopedia seriously. It is not a repository of opinion or a place to push POV as fact. Note what he writes above:

“literally spent hours trying to use the ArsTechnica search function painstakingly slow) before I found that Google could do the job      more quickly, but then still spending hours searching on Google.”

He is spending hours because he is conducting original research. He is setting out to prove something by searching for “evidence” on the Ars Technica forum, and then he tries to synthesizer this into new interpretations and opinions. He contacts other users asking them to use his methods to conduct more original research (, , many others). I don't care that he contacts other users, but I do think it is interesting that he invites people into a fishing expedition to find the evidence he claims is already there.

So yes, the claim that these things “have been gone over endlessly” is incorrect. The article history demonstrates this to be a misrepresentation, and I challenge him or anyone else to document where the four specific criticisms have been “gone over endlessly.” Two of them have never been defended (B & C), another one is entirely lacking for a citation (they keep adding random links even when they don’t make any sense ), and the oldest one’s defense can be summed up as follows: “if you actually spent time reading through some of the forums, you see this to be true” … that’s really convincing. (Note: he was immediately disagreed with by another person who reads the site, and another person later debunked the entire thing ). Tsetna 20:19, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

A point or two before I retire for the evening. "He is spending hours because he is conducting original research". Indeed I had to research citations - at Tsetna's demand. Some of the previous citations did not actually seem to pertain to the criticism - they were either mangled when added (who hasn't had copy/paste errors?) or later on through the many edits, assuming good faith on the part of the editors who added them. In any case, Tsetna demanded they be removed unless cited. I tried to assist by providing citations, and yes, since I am not familiar with every thread, I did not always know what to look for. However, I wasted my time, as I feel Tsetna only made such demands not to obtain citations, but to form a pretense for removal of the information. After the citations were added, he did not revert for a while, and when he did, he had a whole other set of policy guidelines in his arsenal.

So, I don't see how digging through "reference material" to find citations demanded by the person above is performing original research. Tsetna also tried to claim that any reference from the OpenForum (the subject of part of the article) was not a valid primary or secondary source as it came from an Bulletin Board. I can't see how this could be the case, when the article is specifically addressing the bulletin board, that the BB cannot be used as a valid source.

As I said earlier, I have read ArsTechnica for a long time. I like the site. It is in my bookmarks toolbar right between Slashdot and Anandtech. I would consider myself a fan of the site. But I do not carry an emotional attachment which prevents me from taking a balanced look at the site, or consider the events that other editors have documented as being automatically false. If you look through the history, you can see several instances of people making comments like "Why does this even need a crit. section. It doesn't!" and then removing the lot, with no real discussion. But forbid Dave-G restores the criticism, and people carry on about how he didn't consult the talk page.

Tsetna also comments on the comment “if you actually spent time reading through some of the forums, you see this to be true”, which he ridicules. What he doesn't mention is that while trying to qualify a criticism (i.e. make it sound less harsh) he himself provided a citation to an article whose linked thread demonstrates the exact behaviors referred to in the criticism section.--216.227.122.185 04:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Blaming the situation on me when there are so many others complaining is unfair. I didn’t add unsourced and biased criticism to the article, although 216.227x did (“criticism A” ). It should not be wrong to ask that materials be cited according to policy, especially when it is clear to many people that the materials are not true. The claim that previous evidence has been “mangled” is not supported by the record. 216.217.x’s contributions did not include citations (2/20/2006), “criticism B” was added by Tomservo3000 without any cited source (3/20), criticism D was added (5/14) with a citation linking to an index of posts (not a proper citation at all) (Dave-G, added links to many things, none of which matched anything , and finally 216.227.x added criticism C (5/15) with a citation that didn’t support what it was attached to . When citations were immediately demanded by several other editors a few editors haphazardly added anything they could find, sometimes the same link for multiple points.

If the criticisms in question were notable and published by reliable, reputable sources (like they should be), it wouldn’t take hours to find reliable citations (or the 3 months that most of this material has been undocumented). Wikipedia is not a collection of opinions and it is not a place to synthesize new opinions and interpretations. Wikipedia also makes it clear that you should not use posts on a message board as primary or secondary sources. The reasons why should be obvious. Do you know all of the parties? How do you know that one of them is not lying, pushing an agenda, or misrepresenting something? How do you know that your interpretation is accurate? I’ll give two proofs of why this should matter from the article’s own history: Then there are criticisms A-D, which have many documented problems. The problems all form from the issues with original research, verifiability, and reliable sources. Going on a fishing expedition will only lead to more arguing because unless someone find a self-published resource written by a reliable, known, and reputable source explicitly documenting what is being written about in the post itself (that is, no inferring it or interpreting it), it will be original research, unverifiable, and unreliable. Tsetna 17:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * There was a bad criticism about a user supposedly being banned for asking for a refund. The citation did not support the accusation. So 216.227.x actually suggests that it is my responsibility to track the user down and find out what really happened . No the real problem is that the criticism and the citation should have never been there.
 * The subscription criticism about setup times had a similar problem when Dave-G tried to offer a citation that he interpreted as being about problems which were not actually documented.

I suspect there is sock puppetry happening. Since this mediation began, a number of users who have not participated in the discussion have reverted the article, and from what I have read about suspicious behavior, some of them fit the bill. This revert was done by Gallifr3y who registered today and immediately reverted the article. Another user, Tatsuma, registered yesterday and immediately reverted the article, then reverted again. Both are new users in the same 24 hour period, both are reverting to an older contested version of the article. Neither account is participating in the discussion. Gee, I wonder! Tsetna 21:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)