Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-11-14 DCEETA


 * Note: Please limit posts to this page to brief statements about the nature of the dispute until a volunteer adopts the case. Keep ongoing discussions about the topic to the appropriate talk page(s), but feel free to provide links to the talk page(s) where discussion has happened (and may be ongoing) for the convenience of the informal mediator and other parties. This will help keep discussion from fragmenting out across more pages and make it easier for a volunteer to review the case. Thanks!

What's going on?
In an effort to reinstate an article deleted as essentially unsupported Dogue has opted instead for a straightforward dump of quotes onto the article page. He is resistant to any effort to write the article in accordance with the Manual of Style, or in an effort to adequately represent the sources in a balanced and reasonable manner.

His preferred approach, of predominantly personal attacks and questioning editor motives, has now reached the stage that he has stopped what passed for discussion.

What would you like to change about that?
I'd like the article to read as if it's actually in english and fairly represents the topic.

Mediator notes
This article is extremely controversial due to its relation to Area 51.Hereford 20:56, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Closing Statement: Douge's Article is very cited, but it is extremely poorly written. My Suggestions are:
 * Get ride of location section (covered by the template in top right corner)
 * Make the picture in the geography section smaller or get ride of it.
 * rewrite the rest to fit WP:MOS.
 * --Hereford 00:33, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion
Hello i dont get whats your pbromblem, is this a issue on DCEETA or with ?Hereford 00:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The issue is mainly user conduct.
 * ALR (talk) 08:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
 * What specifically has he donwHereford 02:13, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Personal attacks
 * Questioning of motivation
 * Repeated and persistent accusations of bad faith
 * Unwillingness to engage in discussion about the various concerns that have been raised around the article as he would wish it to be
 * Unwillingness to recognise that sources should be represented, rather than quoted verbatim
 * Unwillingness to use caveats to represent the quality and authoritativeness of a source
 * Unwillingness to write in accordance with the Manual of Style
 * It's difficult to point at diffs as s/he tends to edit each contribution to the talk page multiple times and either re-factor, or create a new section for each response.
 * ALR (talk) 16:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you prove this with edit links.Hereford 20:41, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It's all quite clear on the talk page without any need to piece together diffs. In fact given the style, it's probably better just to step through the talk page history.
 * That said, I think the commentary below is a pretty typical example.
 * ALR (talk) 21:51, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Further, the entry below essentially concedes the first three of my points. ALR (talk) 21:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * labeling behavior is not a personal attack, questioning motivation is not personal, blanket deleting of paragraphs of an article is not good editing, check out the talk.
 * "sources should be represented" is not in the Manual of Style. there are no hard rules about the use of quotes.  vague assertions are hard to comply with, even if i agreed.  ALR can't have it both ways, is it a quote dump, or is it using quotes to "articulate speculation"?
 * compare the before and after versions. does it strike you as good or bad editing? he takes a start article and makes it a stub.
 * i'm willing to have caveats, just not 'words not to use' like "alleged", ALR tends to shift his ground to reach a foregone conclusion, frankly i'm tired of being bullied, but you will have the wikipedia you want. are you going to allow this kind of edit behavior?  if you like his article better, i can always take this material elsewhere.  i stand ready to work with good faith editors, like Suntag, or Escape Orbit. Dogue (talk) 16:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * actually, i concede nothing, instead of inuendo, and shifting ground, ALR perhaps you would care to quote from the wiki policy that supports large deletions of quoted material?
 * "articulate speculation"? The criteria is verifiability WP:V: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed." I don't much care for the NYTimes either, so what?  It is a verifiable source. (it is not a dead link, but may require a login); no comment?
 * No. there doesn't appear to be a point to respond to. this critical point for which you do not have a credible response (still waiting) Dogue (talk) 15:08, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * so says ALR: The Manual of style talks about the style of an article, how to write something then back it up with sources, not just randomly blob up a few quotations and then leave the reader to try to work out what the author was trying to say. The editorial process is trying to find a way to inform the reader in a literate, concise and meaningful way, with consistent style throughout.  The indiscriminate use of randomly collected quotes which may or may not be relevant or appropriately presented is inappropriate in an encyclopedia.  The guiance on  No Original Research does contain material on  synthesis.  In particular I would suggest that  verifiability has been systematically abused by your approach which presents the reader with a random collection of selective quoting, misrepresentation and intellectual fraud to advance  your personal position and lacks inherent balance or communication effect.


 * Dogue (talk) 15:31, 16 December 2008 (UTC)