Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-01-04/Preventing school violence

Where is the dispute?
Preventing school violence

Who is involved?
Just a list of the users involved. For example:


 * User:Zacherystaylor
 * User:ElKevbo
 * User:Arthur Rubin
 * User:Friday
 * and more as indicated on the talk page

What is the dispute?
I attempted to provide information about preventing school violence based on the work of numerous academics that have researched the subject. This has been rejected for numerous reasons none of which seem to address the subject very well in my opinion. Part of the problem seems to be a desire to provide a gun rights position and prevent any thing that contradicts this. Political POVs are being allowed and academic work is being suppressed or presented in a way that many people may not understand.

What would you like to change about this?
I would like to see this subject addressed in an honest manner based on academic material. I am not opposed to allowing gun rights advocates to present their view as they have in the past but I don't think they should be allowed to censor things they disagree with.

How do you think we can help?
Enforce the rules in a reasonable manner. There is an enormous amount of academic material available on this subject that could and should be allowed. This will require reasonable discretion as usual of course. There have been accusations that it isn't neutral yet these objections aren't being made about material by political sources that do little or no research. Gun rights should be a minor part of the issue but the entire article is being censored. As it stands Wikipedia is highly biased against academic sources on this subject and in favor of political sources. The people dominating the decision making process aren't doing much if any thing to check sources or read up on it. For more information see the talk page Talk:Preventing_school_violence. Also there is much more information on the art6icles linked to the School shooting page. This is an important issue and the only people addressing it on Wikipedia seem to be in favor of political positions that ignore research. Some exceptions include someone who does a lot of work but presents things in a manner that the average person doesn't understand.

Mediator notes
Not a suitable case for mediation, filing party only wants additional support for his position. Please read WP:MEDCABNOT

Discussion
Its not clear that this is really a case that is suitable for mediation, which is a process designed to work through content disputes between active editors, which is not what has occurred here, although its not clear what exactly you are looking for it seems you are looking for additional opposition to the deletion of your article on preventing school violence - and i don't think  mediation is really a place for you to gain advocacy or suppport for opposition or support of a particular decision but for the logical working through of content disputes between parties. Although you have not specified i am assuming that you are User:Zacherystaylor. And although it is not clear it seems that what you are looking for is support for the reinstatement of User:Zacherystaylor/preventing_school_violence. While i do not know the background to this case, I would suggest that you look again at the comments made at Articles for deletion/Preventing school violence, which do not appear to indicate a political opposition to me but instead request that you phrase and organise the good work you put into finding academic sources on the prevention of violence in schools in a format that reads like an encyclopaedic work and less like an advocacy piece or scholarly paper, your style of prose does not help in this regard and you might find it helpful to study some featured articles to see the way that high quality wikipedia articles are written and the tone of language used. With some work on reformatting and development then your work could be integrated into school violence or if it was of sufficient length produce an independent article on the prevention of school violence Ajbpearce (talk) 13:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

You are correct in assuming I am Zacherystasylor. Part of the problem is that the people objecting haven't done much if anything to contribute to the article. There have been no recommendations on how to improve it. There have been clear indications of bias that you haven't commented on. The bottom line is the quality of the way Wikipedia addresses the subject. Unfortunately despite an enormous amount of discussion there is little being done to improve it. I have indicated a clear bias on some pages towards gun rights advocacy and this has been ignored and efforts to provide academic material has met with nonstop bickering that doesn't do much if anything to address the subject. There is plenty of material on the talk page. I have read it before and it mostly seems to be inane comments that avoid the subject and prevent serious improvements. It is obvious that the input from sincere people more familiar with the subject that are willing to do work to improve this article and the way the entire subject is being handled would be helpful. Hopefully more people will take notice.

As for your comment that the RfD request does “not appear to indicate a political opposition” I respectfully disagree. Please note the comment “As an aside, it's arguable that arming teachers and trusted students is a good way to minimize school violence, so it should be in this article if this article is to be maintained, while the criticism section is inappropriate unless Joseph Gutheinz is a recognized expert in the appropriate field (and we can find real-world consensus as to what the appropriate field is). “ Arthur Rubin source. I would also like to point out that when I made a request for comment his response was to say “The second paragraph in this section on arming teachers has no basis for inclusion, as it's solely his opinion, and his credentials do not specify that he is an expert. I don't actually want to delete it, because there may be a legitimate source for the information.” source Then he proceeded to delete it any way when I restored it he tagged it as an unreliable source and irrelevant. I am now going to remove his tags since they were put there in response to my request and they were clearly based on his political views not a sincere objection based on an effort to check sources. However I don’t think he is the biggest problem and I do think he should be given credit for being upfront in his political positions. The bigger problem is that this has gone virtually unchallenged. He has indicated a clear political bias and by looking the other way every one else has given tacit support and focused the arguments on technical issues and rules. In the past when my writing skills haven’t been satisfactory on non controversial pages like archaeology people have rewritten it without changing the content. That doesn’t happen here. Here there has been endless arguing and no improvement.

Please excuse me if I seem a little blunt or uncivil that isn’t my intent but I’m going to get to the point here. No disrespect intended.


 * There have been hundreds of incidents where students have gone on rampages in schools and killed up to at least 33 people. There have also been thousands of lesser violent incidents.
 * There has been an enormous amount of research by credible academics on this subject to find out what is causing it. Two of the leading causes is abuse early in life and bullying.
 * The Mass Media has done little or nothing to educate the public about most of this research. It is on the library shelf for those who look for it. Instead the Mass Media has been endlessly manipulating the publics emotions.
 * Wikimedia and Wikipedia have requested help from the public and essentially offered them a chance to do a better job than the Mass Media.
 * I have done a lot of work to do just that on one of the most important subjects that Wikimedia addresses. My work is based on several sources with credentials that haven’t been disputed. I have been over ruled by people with reasons that do little if anything to address the subject at hand.
 * Wikipedia claims they don’t vote on the subject yet that is exactly what has happened here. None of the people that oppose it have done much if any reading on the subject and at least one has indicated a clear political bias.

Furthermore this isn’t just about one page it is about the way the subject is being handled in general. There is a standard way of handling the subject that doesn’t involve looking for the real causes. At least what is presented to the public doesn’t look for the real causes there are as I have said credible library books that do. The standard procedure involves punishing the perpetrators after the fact, debating guns, memorials, and political plugs where politicians express condolences and do little or nothing to educate the public. Since there are good books on the subject and the rules of Wikipedia do allow it if the contributors choose to interpret them properly Wikipedia can do a much better job than the Mass Media and be an important part of the solution. This can be done by referring to the academic work of the people who have researched the article whenever the subject comes up and providing a link to an article with more details. Wikipedia already repeats certain procedures that don’t tell the public how to solve the problem should they censure the procedures that do tell the public how to solve the problem? Then Wikimedia will deserve the contributions that they are asking for.

For Wikipedia to claim they are trying to be neutral, uncensored and opposed to advocacy without allowing work based on academic sources, using some reasonable discretion and at least trying to address the gun rights bias here would indicate that Wikipedia is often the opposite of what they claim.

Those who do sincere work shouldn’t be overruled by people that know little or nothing about the subject and sometimes have a political agenda.

Once again please excuse me if I seem uncivil but this isn’t about a trivial subject like a Lava Lamp. This subject is among the most important that Wikipedia could deal with. Wikipedia allows hundreds of articles about violence but due to bickering they draw the line when it comes to solutions based on academic sources under the current circumstances. This could be changed quickly and instead of being part of the problem Wikimedia could become part of the solution. Wikimedia shouldn’t just be an echo of the incompetent work of the Mass Media. Zacherystaylor (talk) 18:03, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I can see that you feel there is a dispute here, but I don't see that there is anything to mediate(ableit the very disjointed nature of where the dispute is alleged to have occurred and  your writing style makes it very difficult to assess whether or not you have a legitimate complaint), . The articles on school violence and  school shootings are dreadfully written at the moment, and could certainly do with expansion in relation to academic studies of prevention of such violence, but i don't see real evidence that content  written in an appropriate style  and in compliance with wikipedia policies is being removed.  Even if such evidence could be provided, i think it is unlikely that the appropriate step in such a case would be mediation. in relation to User:Zacherystaylor/preventing_school_violence the content there does not currently read in a style that I have confidence complies with wikipedias guidelines, but if you rewrite it then some of the underlying material would probably fit in school violence and  school shootings . if as you say you wish to improve the coverage of methods of prevention of school violence on wikipedia then i think this would probably be the most effective way for you to proceed. I would suggest you take your specific concerns over sources for School_shooting too the reliable sources noticeboard and see what people there think about them :), though if  you could not gain consensus there, and both parties agreed, that much narrower issue 'might' be suitable for mediation Ajbpearce (talk) 17:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC)