Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-05-22/Electromagnetic therapy (alternative medicine)

Where is the dispute?
The problem can be found on the talk page of the article talk:electromagnetic therapy (alternative medicine). One may also take a look at electromagetic therapy.

Who is involved?
A short list of the users involved, for example;


 * User:Verbal
 * User:CyclePat

What is the dispute?
Several issues which stem around the discussion regarding the articles name. A notice was placed on the NPOV board here. I believe there is miss-understanding of WP:NPOV which is being wrongly inferred for both the title and the articles content.
 * Secondly, the references used in the first sentence to describe Electromagnetic therapy (EMFT) as an alternative therapy are wrong. They don't talk about alternative therapy. A little further within the article there are at least two references that somewhat mention "alternative therapy". However the references that do talk about "alternative therapy" can be considered primary sources per WP:OR. More specifically per WP:PSTS it is a primary source because it is close to the event. "The key point about a primary source is that it offers an insider's view to an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on." Or in short, it's not arms length. The sources in particular I'm now talking about is the American Cancer Society (ACS) and USCD which offer "an insiders view" to what EMFT is according their organizations. Again, these organizations are directly involved with treating cancer patients, hence, they will evidently have to point out that EMFT is an alternative medicine. There is nothing wrong with that... it's just this should be considered within the article and how we use the information. When you look at the article is no real secondary source to prove that EMFT is "alternative medicine". It's really just a minor POV which should be contrasted with other important POVs.
 * Thirdly, as I add information to the article which pertains to EMFT, it is removed because according to Verbal "the scope" of the article must deal with "alternative therapy"... however there are many peer-reviewed studies which all have a definition for EMFT. NONE of them claim EMFT to be an alternative therapy. (See pub med.) To complicate things, the communication between user:Verbal and myself is quite poor and annoying. I believe this is because I do not believe in his method of revert ask question. He does this for everthing, including information that is removed which is not properly referenced. Also, this is because, one person reverts the other person. But what makes it most annoying is that within the edit summary, one will accuse or ask the other to discuss changes, when in fact the discussion was pre-empted by actually indicating in advance the issues at hand on the talk page. It's annoying if you indicate there is a problem, no one comments, then when you fix it they revert you and ask for a discussion which is already happening. At least put a little "yup read it" or something. Anyways, when I add information I also remove some information. These edits are multi-facet, hence when Verbal reverts them, he also puts back some "miss-information". Take for example the aforementioned example of the 2 first sources to the article which do not reference EMFT as being alternative medicine. I've talked about this on the articles page, however, user Verbal hasn't responded and keeps requesting that I talk about my changes. He removes information which is perfectly well sourced such as the bone therapy, which comes from the Mayo clinic (that's a better source then the ACS). Anything that deals with anything else... what that means is that the article is stuck because there are no "strong proponents" or major views regarding EMFT being alternative therapy but there are thousands of references which regarding EMFT... electromagnetic fields being used as therapy. Finally, there appears to be some confusion regarding EMFT and electromagnetic field therapy devices which could probably be a separate article.  Anyways, per WP:DUE, as for alternative therapy again, I think it is a viewpoint that is held by a significant minority and that the prominent adherents are the ACS or Cancer Treatment Centers, we should try to include it, but in a neutral tone... Take a look at the article Chiropractic and you will see how I was inspired to make my changes (now reverted again). Lastly, user:Verbal claims I'm attacking him, however I have not done this as explained on my talk page. I have simply highlighted the fact that his actions are disruptive and lack civility and that I am expecting an apology for his annoying templates he has used on my user page which distract from the core issues of properly discussing problems with the article. --CyclePat (talk) 05:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

What would you like to change about this?
You can look all the above, but particularly the annoying issue of trying to communicate. Hence, perhaps someone could encourage user Verbal to, pun intented, be a little more Verbal and stop trying to get Polls, which, no matter what, will not resolve the issue... since what we are dealing with is a problem that deals with Principles and these principles need to be properly discussed.

How do you think we can help?
If you help with mediating a conversation, keeping things focused on content... (since we both appear to be having trouble focusing, at this point on content and not user conduct) (ie.: comments in edit summary) this may be a good start.

Agenda for Mediation
These texts are for the mediator only. Mediation case for


 * [0%] Getting started.
 * [5%] Garner party agreement to ground rules.
 * [10%] Establish party stances in dispute; ascertain what each party wishes to get out of the mediation.
 * [20%] Discuss action that needs to be taken to make the articles stable, create RFCs if necessary and use noticeboards to help gather outside consensus.
 * [40%] Propose formal solutions to dispute.
 * [50%] Garner support for one or more of the proposed solutions.
 * [80%] Refine and tailor solutions.
 * [85%] Garner party support for final solution.
 * [90%] Evaluate final solution—and whether it has resolved issues.
 * [95%] Implement solution.
 * [100%] Close mediation.

Ground rules

 * Please keep all comments focused on facts. Proper editing decorum must be maintained, and as such, incivility and personal attacks must not occur. Mediators don't normally deal with conduct issues, however I'm not a normal mediator, and reserve the right to do so.
 * All participants are asked to refrain from any editing of any of the disputed articles, including for vandalism patrolling. I've watchlisted all the articles, so can pick up vandalism, and if there are proposals to change content while the case is running, I will make them if I feel there is consensus to do so.
 * MedCab is not a formal part of the dispute resolution process, and cannot provide binding sanctions. Nevertheless, I ask that everyone involved agree to abide by the outcome of this case, or move to the next stage of dispute resoltion if you feel unable to do so.

Please sign just your username below, with four tildes (~) to indicate your agreement with the ground rules and your participation in the case.