Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-09-12/Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg

Where is the dispute?

 * Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg (see also split off articles Peace of Bautzen and Treaty of Merseburg
 * Johannes von Baysen
 * Zemuzil, Duke of Pomerania

Who is involved?

 * User:Radeksz (initiator)
 * User:Skäpperöd

What is the dispute?
The dispute is between myself (Radek) and User Skapperod and it concerns several articles dealing with Polish and German history, and the history of Pomerania, the three listed above being the last ones. Additional articles on which we've had similar disagreements on in the past include: and probably a few others that I'm forgetting about at the moment.
 * Bolesław III Wrymouth ,
 * Pomerania-Stolp
 * Expulsion of Germans after World War II

The list of issues that perennially come up includes:
 * Use of sources, in particular
 * Possible bias and pov resulting from a one sided use of only German language sources in articles.
 * Misrepresentation or misinterpretation of sources in ways which lead to original research and synthesis
 * Verification of text from off line and/or non-English sources (i.e. text and quotes needed for verification are not provided despite requests)
 * Use of pre-1989 Polish sources. This has come up in several places ((scroll down to half way of the section), ), despite the fact that it has been the subject previous RSN discussions.
 * Abuse of the dispute resolution process - I'm not sure how to word this "neutrally", but basically, in my view Skapperod often asks for outside opinion through RfC, 3O or at RSN - which is commendable - but then, if that outside opinion disagrees with his stance, he does his best to ignore it. The Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg article is the latest example.
 * Criticism vs. personal attacks - are allegations of OR, SYNTH and POV personal attacks or are they legitimate criticisms of the article text?

What would you like to change about this?
These discussion generally unfold in similar ways and same issues are coming up repeatedly. Criticisms of article text are usually taken personally rather than being seen as attempts at improving the article. Other forms of dispute resolution process, such as RfC or 3O have failed in the past. The reliability of the same set of sources is always questioned across articles, despite it having been settled in RSN discussions. A certain stubbornness appears to set in and after awhile it seems like it doesn't matter WHAT a particular edit is, only WHO has made it.

As a result better communication is needed. While I think there's generally good faith on both sides it sometimes seems to get lost in the heat of discussion. Proper rules about conduct during and after RfCs and 3O need to be clarified.

How do you think we can help?
Isolated attempts at dispute resolution, such as RfCs and 3O have not generally worked, partly because the outside party involved usually leaves the article in question shortly after the opinion or comment is provided or simply does not have the time to engage the deeper issues present here. Hence, a mediation which deals with these in a bit more thorough way is needed.

A good place to start would be too look over the talk page of the article for Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg, the latest disagreement. While the article concerns what is essentially an obscure piece of history (globally speaking), I don't think mediators need to have a background in history of the region here - rather, they can focus on the way that the discussion was conducted, how sources were used etc. I think the discussion over at Zemuzil is also quite instructive.

Response by Skäpperöd
I am not currently involved in a content dispute at Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg, as I had referred that to the community. Please feel invited:
 * Talk:Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg

Radeksz's behavior at this and other articles is being investigated at Arbitration/Requests/Amendment. Skäpperöd (talk) 21:42, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Response by Radeksz
My behavior is not "being investigated". All that has happened is that Skapperod has merely filed a spurious report on me, after the RfC on Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg did not go as he had hoped. This kind of vindictive gaming of Wikipedia dispute resolution process is part of the request for mediation here. This is obviously a content dispute which Skapperod is trying to settle through inappropriate means (by filing spurious reports in an attempt to get other editors banned rather than working towards WP:CONSENSUS or following through on a RfC request).

If there really is no content dispute at Treaties of Bautzen and Merseburg is it ok now to make it into the disambiguation page, as I suggested, and as the RfC outside commentator agreed should be done?radek (talk) 00:36, 13 September 2010 (UTC)