Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-07 Affirmative Action in the United States

Mediation Case: 2006-10-07 Affirmative Action in the United States
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Request Information

 * Request made by: Jmabel | Talk 23:22, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Affirmative action in the United States


 * Who's involved?
 * Jmabel, Wiley, and Minidoxigirli on one side, Psychohistorian on the other


 * What's going on?
 * Psychohistorian, after agreeing not to put certain material in Affirmative Action has been placing it (over the objections of the three of us) in Affirmative action in the United States. It's a bit complicated and it might be worth a look at the histories and talk pages.


 * Wiley originally said he would be the one to ask for mediation, but it has been 10 days and he hasn't done it, so I am taking the bull by the horns.


 * Basically, Psychohistorian is inserting weakly sourced material claiming, in effect, that affirmative action benefits illegal aliens, and being (in my view at least) absolutely sophistic in invoking WP:NOR, WP:V etc., to say that we cannot concern ourselves with the actual truth of these statements, only with the fact that someone made them. For example, Peter Kirsanow in the National Review says without citation that Thomas Sowell says that this is the case. (In short, all we have is that columnist A says that scholar B makes a claim C.) Psychohistorian says that it would be "original research" to pursue whether Sowell actually says what Kirsanow claims he said, let alone whether the claim about affirmative action for illegal aliens is accurate.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * There is something of an epistemological morass here between notability, NOR, etc. While claim C, if true, would be notable, the fact that A says that B says C is not. And that is all we have. And if I understand Psychohistorian correctly, he seems to be saying that NOR means that we cannot even explore the question of whether B says this, or whether C is true, because that would be original research, because as "A says the B says C" is clearly true.


 * Just for comparison, at Spanglish, on the other side of a vaguely similar situation, and with (I think) a tremendously better citation on my side, I've been willing to accept that a published book (Spanglish) from a reputable press (HarperCollins) by Ilan Stavans—a tenured academic in a related field (he is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College)—is not citable on the topic simply because there is a loose consensus among other editors that his views on the topic are idiosyncratic. So I feel that Psychohistorian is asking to get controversial material into an article on a tremendously weaker basis that I would ever hold for were I on the other side of the argument.


 * I know that this is hideously complicated in the abstract, and I'd end up at essay length if I were to try to explain the whole policy issue here. Probably the best place to get a handle on what is going on is Talk:Affirmative action in the United States/Archives/2012.


 * The short version: I think he is trying to game the system, playing policies off against each other, in an intellectually dishonest effort to get weak information into the article for political reasons.


 * Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?
 * I don't care either way.

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



Discussion
Just popping in to agree. I offered several compromises on the talk page. I'm not sure if it would be appropriate to transfer them here, or leave them there, but hey, they're there.Minidoxigirli 02:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Since things are nice and contained on the Affirmative Action talk page, it's probably best to work there. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 13:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't understand that remark: the main current issue is on Affirmative action in the United States, not Affirmative action. - Jmabel | Talk 04:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Please don't get hung up in pedantics, Jmabel. My meaning was plainly obvious, even if I didn't spell out the entire (lengthy) name of the article.  Thank you for your understanding in this.  -- ShinmaWa(talk) 17:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * No, actually, it wasn't obvious, given that we have an article of that name and it is where the problem started. I was afraid you were suggesting taking this up in an article where the issues had already been resolved. But you hadn't, so it's fine. - Jmabel | Talk 04:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

After two weeks with one party no longer participating in the medication, abandonining it for other things, I've closed this mediation. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 17:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)