Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-08-10 The Root of All Evil?

Mediation Case: The Root of All Evil?
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: Miller 12:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * The name of the article is The Root of All Evil?


 * Who's involved?
 * There's me George Miller who’s desperately trying to include some important information into the above article. Only problem is the fact(s) that I want to add tend to portray Richard Dawkins, the presenter of the program, in a more positive light than the user Laurence Boyce would like it to.


 * What's going on?
 * Most of the problems are the result of what Laurence sees as an NPOV violation. I’m guessing from all the posts on his user discussion page that he’s not a big fan of Richard Dawkins and that he is running some kind of mini vendetta against him on Wikipedia. A classic example of this (there are many cases but I’ll just mention this one so you can get the gist of the problem) is when Richard Dawkins and Ted Haggard are discussing the age of the Earth. Here is Laurence’s own slanted and highly misleading version of events:


 * “Dawkins asks if [Haggard] accepts [sciences] clear demonstration that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Haggard implies that this age is only accepted by some of scientific community and might seem laughable to future generations, at which an irked Dawkins asks if he wants to take a bet.”


 * In reality Dawkins was not “irked” about the idea of future generations laughing at the idea of the Earth being 4.5 Billion years old, he was irked because Haggard said Dawkin’s grandchildren would laugh at him! That was a pretty cheeky thing for Haggard to say and Dawkins quite rightly responded by saying “you wanna bet?” Time and time again Laurence purposely presents what Dawkins and his interviewee say in a distorted way so as to mislead the reader and portray Dawkins in a bad light. Every time I rectify this he immediately reverts my edits. He has done it way more than 3 times now! Can someone please ask him to stop doing this? He makes me feel like I don’t have the right to edit the article. Here are typical posts of his from the talk page of the article:


 * “George, I've reverted your latest bunch of edits plus an anon edit because they're rubbish!”
 * “I have reverted your edits again George; they're no better in my view. Please don't edit. Talk.”


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * I just want my edits to remain in place without being reverted every day by the same user. I thought this was against Wikipedia policy.

Mediator response
Taken Æon  Insane Ward 16:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Closed due to lack of response. Æon Insanity Now! EA!  02:33, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I would just like to record the fact that this mediation has been closed without my ever having been contacted, or given an opportunity to respond to the false allegations above. Laurence Boyce 10:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

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