Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attachment Therapy

Case Opened on 17:45, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Case Closed on 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this case. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the as needed, but closed cases should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Requests for arbitration.

Involved parties

 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.
 * Sockpuppets of DPeterson, blocked since beginning of case.

Requests for comment

 * Request for comments concerning DPeterson: Requests for comment/DPeterson
 * Unanswered RfC's: Dyadic Developmental Therapy, Advocates for Children in Therapy (1), Advocates for Children in Therapy (2)

Statement by Shotwell
This arbitration requests is the result of nearly one year of content disputes over Attachment Therapy and related articles. This content dispute has been unnecessarily prolonged due to serious user-conduct issues. Resolution is extremely unlikely without intervention to address these issues.

DPeterson, RalphLender, JonesRD, SamDavidson, MarkWood, and JohnsonRon edit the attachment therapy related pages with the clear agenda of advertising Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). They have inserted and defended extraordinary and unverified claims concerning DDP into a wide variety of articles. Reactive attachment disorder contains a good example of DDP advertising.

There have been many accusations of sock-puppetry against Dpeterson et al, but at least one checkuser showed that three of the accounts were unrelated. Nonetheless, this group of editors acts in unison to promote DDP. They goes so far as to repeatedly copy/paste each other's comments and veiled personal attacks. They act uniformly to give the false appearance of consensus and to bolster their baseless allegations, conclusions, and reverts.

In addition to this meat-puppetry, DPeterson et al. almost always avoid substantive discussion, opting instead to make repeated and unfounded WP:COI and WP:ATTACK allegations. This most recently occurred on a declined mediation request. The shear volume of these allegations and refusal to participate in meaningful discussion makes it exceedingly difficult to discuss content. The discussions typically degenerate into personal comments. The net effect of this behavior is to stall, delay, or avoid any meaningful discussion.

The most troublesome behavior is their refusal to compromise, discuss, or admit wrong on the issues ranging from the large and important to small and irrelevant. For example, a claim inserted into Advocates for Children in Therapy concerning the leaders of this organization was opposed by a few editors on the basis of it being unverified, irrelevant, and a violation of WP:BLP. Rather than participate in meaningful debate about this issue, Dpeterson et al simply formed an echo chamber and repeatedly asserted their conclusion that the material was relevant and sourced. They provided no argument, no evidence, and no discussion aside from this conclusion. They promptly revert any changes whilst simultaneously chiding editors about WP:OWN, consensus, and so forth. Such behavior is the de facto standard from this group of editors. (Partial statement redacted by clerk, see clerk notes below)

In short, there are some interesting and thick content disputes on the Attachment Therapy related articles. This is a highly controversial subject and such disputes are inevitable. This request for arbitration does not seek resolution of these content disputes, rather, it seeks intervention in the user-conduct issues that have made it impossible to move forward. I believe the talk pages of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Advocates for Children in Therapy, and Attachment Therapy speak for themselves. shotwell 11:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Statement by StokerAce
There have been many accusations tossed around in this case. One of them is that Dpeterson and some of the others mentioned by Shotwell above have been pushing the views of Dr. Arthur Becker-Weidman, a practitioner of Dyadic Developmental Psycotherapy. Dr. Becker-Weidman's wikipedia page is here: User:AWeidman While it is difficult to sort through all of the issues, it seems that much of this Wikipedia dispute is a spillover from a real life dispute. The Advocates for Children in Therapy (ACT) web site lists Dyadic Developmental Psycotherapy as a possibly harmful practice (scroll down a bit here: ) In the early stages of the Wikipedia dispute there were some testy exchanges between Dr. Becker-Weidman and Jean Mercer, one of the leaders of ACT. Dr. Becker-Weidman was taken to task by a Wikipedia administrator for one of his remarks:  Within a month after Dr. Becker-Weidman received this criticism, DPeterson opened an account and began editing:   There have been some allegeations that Dr. Becker-Weidman and DPeterson have made contributions from the same IP address (see the following that someone left on my talk page: ), but this issue remains unclear. What is clear is that DPeterson, in one of his first contributions, created a Wikipedia article about ACT that was clearly POV, where he called ACT "not part of the mainstream". See

In sum, it is not clear exactly who DPeterson et al. are and what their relationship with Dr. Becker-Weidman is. In my view, though, it would be very useful if a neutral arbitrator would look into all of the pages mentioned by Shotwell and offer an opinion on the editing that has gone on there.

Statement by SamDavidson
This content dispute has been going on for at least one year, fueled by the rigidity of certain users, a group of whom are leaders of the group, Advocates for Children in Therapy (User:Sarner & User:Jean Mercer) who have a WP:COI in this dispute since they are leaders of this group with a specific agenda they pursue against Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, attachment therapy, and a variety of others. They have a financial interest in this dispute (books they publish, a career built on this dispute, etc.) It has escalated over time with a variety of Personal Attacks ( Link redacted by clerk Penwhale -- See clerk notes below ) and unsupported accusations by that group against various editors (accusations of being sockpuppets, meatpuppets, etc.). Several of those editors have been sanctioned (Sarner, for example and recently Maypole was banned).

There have been several related mediations which appear to have been resolved/settled, only to be reinstated when the group did not get their way.

On the surface the dispute is centered on the inclusion of material about Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, which is a treatment with empirical support in several professional peer-reviewed publications, in several related articles. The ACT group and its supporters seem to be waging a concerted effort to have these references removed, despite the fact that the references and statements they support meet various wiki standards, such as being from verifiable and reliable sources. SamDavidson 16:38, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Fainites
I support the statements of Shotwell and StokerAce above. I attempted to edit the Attachment Therapy page by 'consensus' using good sources and by trying to avoid the past feud between ACT on one side and DPeterson et al who support Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy on the other. I had little success. The group of 6 editors named is unmovable in their determination to use various attachment and other articles as platforms to advertise Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. In pursuit of this they refuse to sensibly discuss content from sources, misquote and misrepresent sources and alter quotations (bottom edit). The most striking example of misrepresenting sources is edits designed to make it appear that Becker-Weidman was cited positively by a major Taskforce report on the subject whereas he was in fact specifically criticised. They do not allow and indeed revert any edits that do not have their 'permission' and if an editor disagrees with them they conduct frequent polls to enforce their 'consensus'. This can be seen on all talkpages. Their consensus is invariably the same, the inclusion of DDP, inaccurately, as 'evidence based' and mainstream, the obfuscation of the meaning and nature of 'attachment therapy' and the controversy surrounding the diagnosis of attachment disorder and the use of attachment therapy, and the denigration and misrepresentation of Advocates for Children in Therapy, their opponents in the real world. They repeat and copy each others edits and personal attacks. It is almost impossible to discuss content because of the constant admonishments against others of WP:OWN or AGF or W:PA,and because of their constant accusations and attacks against members of ACT or anybody who opposes them whom they accuse of being supporters of ACT.

AWeidman started the page on DDP in December 2005 and described it in glowing terms. He started inserting DDP into other articles at about the same time editing as IP 68.66.160.228. These pages descended into edit wars with Sarner from ACT and independent editors. This situation was resolved by the arrival of DPeterson,20th May 2006 (who has also edited as IP 68.66.160.228), MarkWood, 20th May 2006, JonesRD 18th June 2006, JohnsonRon 19th June 2006, SamDavidson 30th June 2006 and RalphLender 5th July 2006. All of these editors went more or less straight to the attachment pages (see John Bowlby, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and Attachment disorder and Reactive attachment disorder) and have edited in total support of Becker-Weidman and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy ever since. This support includes resistence to fixing dead links, 'consensus' that sources say the opposite to what they actually say and constant repetition of attacks against opponents. All opposition is swamped by this group of aggressive, cohesive editors and as a consequence these pages have stagnated.

It is inserted into about a dozen other articles not primarily concerned with attachment such as Emotional dysregulation, Adoption, Child Welfare and so on.

Other editors do not object to the accurate inclusion of DDP but do object to the warping of the attachment articles in DDP's defence.

I urge the committee to accept this case as without some kind of resolution from Arbcom this dispute will not go away and it is affecting an entire range of articles on attachment. This is considered an important topic within child development. Fainites 17:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

(Note: Maypole was banned as a sock of HeadleyDown, referred by me to FT2. He was a recent arrival and had very little involvement in the attachment pages and was not specifically sanctioned for disruptive editing there.)

Statement by Jean Mercer
Although discussion of Wiki articles generally seems to deal with processes and goals internal to Wiki, in this case I would like to point out a responsibility to vulnerable members of the public. Families dealing with children's mental health issues deserve complete and accurate information from organizations that claim to be reliable sources. Deceptive or incomplete material can cost families dearly, both financially and emotionally. If Wikipedia is not willing or able to enforce relevant guidelines, articles dealing with children's mental health should be deleted. No print encyclopedia attempts to deal with every complex topic, and there seems no reason for such an attempt here, unless some quality control is possible. Jean Mercer 19:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I should also point out that there are some standard ways of categorizing the evidentiary foundation of a treatment, and that it is important not to accept the claim that publication in a peer-reviewed journal is equivalent to an EBP classification. Such statements are particularly problematic in that Wiki readers are unlikely to be aware of classification systems or competent to parse the research evidence. As a general rule, Wiki may accept print publication as qualification for citation, but a higher standard should be applied for articles on physical and mental health issues, or the article should include discussion of theoretical and research background. I suggest that in these cases Wiki has a responsibility to go beyond the "caveat lector"-- "Here's my disclaimer"-- principle. Jean Mercer 15:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Statement by JonesRD
The dispute here is a content dispute that has been going on for a while. Leaders Advocates for Children in Therapy, which is an advocacy group [] that is “dedicated to halting the dangerous cruelty done to children by Attachment Therapy (AT), its associated Therapeutic Parenting practices, and other unvalidated, pseudoscientific interventions,” and their supporters have been unrelenting in their opposition to the inclusion of material about Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and other issues. Two leaders of ACT user:Sarner and user:Jean Mercer [], [],  [], as well as their followers, have been very vocal in this dispute, representing the views of their organization. The issues have been mediated in the past and when not resolved in their favor, they continued to raise the same or similar issues in other venues. For example, see prior mediations and other venues:
 * Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-07 Advocates for Children in Therapy
 * Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-05-21 John Bowlby
 * Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-18 Sarner's reverts-edits of Bowlby and Candace Newmaker
 * Very lengthy talk page discussions at Talk:Attachment Therapy, Talk:Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Talk:Advocates for Children in Therapy.
 * Request for comments concerning DPeterson: Requests for comment/DPeterson
 * Recently closed (without any mediation taking place) mediation request: Requests for mediation/Attachment Therapy

While there have been some user-conduct issues from time to time, the primary issue is a disagreement about several content items, including, but not limited to:

1.	Is there evidence to support the statement that Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy is an effective treatment? This has been debated on several pages. There are several professional peer-reviewed publications and at least three empirical articles to support the statement, which meet the standard of being reliable and verifiable. Despite this, the group continues to dispute inclusion of such material in the articles.

2.	Is the inclusion of information about Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy appropriate in several of the articles, such as Child Welfare or Adoption or Emotional dysregulation appropriate? Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy is a treatment for children with Reactive Attachment Disorder and trauma. These articles, and others, discuss such children and have material about the treatment of such children. Therefore the disputed material is relevant….but the group of ACT and supporters continue to dispute that.

3.	Is the fact that the leaders of ACT are not licensed mental health professionals a relevant fact? Again, this is a content dispute. On one hand is the position that since the group is an advocacy group regarding mental health treatment, the professional credentials of it’s leaders is a relevant fact. On the other hand, the ACT leaders and supporters dispute the relevance of this fact.

There are other related content disputes, but the above three cover and include most of the others. JonesRD talk 16:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Statement by DPeterson
This is a content dispute regarding several articles such as articles: Attachment Therapy, Reactive attachment disorder, Bowlby, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, and Advocates for Children in Therapy. The dispute initially was driven in part by the unique positions of two leaders of the advocacy group, Advocates for Children in Therapy (Sarner and Mercer) and their supporters. This group and its supporters have as their mission, “ACT works to mobilize parents, professionals, private and governmental regulators, prosecutors, juries, and legislators to end the physical torture and emotional abuse that is AT” [] (retrieved 03 July 2007). Their advocacy is the basis for this content dispute. Several in this group, which includes two of the three leaders of the advocacy group, Advocates for Children in Therapy, User:Sarner and User:Jean Mercer, and later supporters, have led a dispute regarding Attachment Therapy and the treatment of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder, focusing on Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and several other issues. They have brought this dispute into the Wikipedia forum. Several disputes were mediated and resolved, only to be re-raised by the same group of editors when the outcome was not to their liking. See:


 * 1) Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-07 Advocates for Children in Therapy
 * 2) Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-05-21 John Bowlby
 * 3) Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-10-18 Sarner's reverts-edits of Bowlby and Candace Newmaker

Also see talk page discussions (there are others that exemplify the extent of this content dispute, but these will serve as an example):
 * 1) Talk:Attachment Therapy,
 * 2) Talk:Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy,
 * 3) Talk:Advocates for Children in Therapy.

When material has been added to the articles that meets the Wikipedia standard of being verifiable (several articles in professional peer-reviewed publications of empirical studies) regarding Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, various members of the group continue to dispute the inclusion of that material. ACT and its supporters dispute that Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy has evidence to support its effectiveness and that it is not a coercive treatment as defined in the Attachment Therapy article. They and their supports continue to argue this point despite repeated attempts at dialogue and the provision of ample evidence to support a view different from their view.

At times it has appeared that they are purposely baiting me and trying to be provocative and I must admit that I have risen to the “bait,” and said things that I regret. There have been a number of instances in which my comments were personal and not directed at content. Several of these comments probably rise to the level of personal attacks. While I feel I was “baited,” I also feel saddened and some shame about my conduct. It isn’t what I expect of myself or others. I apologize for this now and will apologize more directly and formally to any editor who feels wronged by me or my words. In the interests of conciliation, I will not at this time raise any concerns I have had regarding the conduct of other editors since I view the dispute here as predominantly a content dispute.

ISSUES:

1. Many of these content issues were mediated in the past and resolved, only to be resurrected. See, for example, the following initiated by Shotwell: [] (request for advocate) Sarner: [] (mediation) Shotwell: [] (mediation) DPeterson: [] (mediation)

2. Content dispute largely focusing on the issues described above by RDJones, so I won’t repeat those here. However I will provide a link in each instance as an example of the extent of the content.

A. Treatment effectiveness: [] [] [] [] []

B. Leaders of ACT not licensed mental health professionals: [] []

In summary, this is a content dispute around a few related topics (listed above and in RDJones), which has gotten heated at times. I will refrain from listing those instances at this time since the focus of my comment is on the content dispute, which seems most significant.

Statement by Sarner
The behavior of the six users in question (DPeterson, RalphLender, SamDavidson, JonesRD, MarkWood, JohnsonRon) are difficult in many respects. The specific complaints of Shotwell, Fainites, StokerAce &mdash; all experienced Wikipedians &mdash; are well taken, and I endorse them in every particular. And a review of the documentation in those complaints, and edit histories of the articles effected, also disclose a number of tactics by the six users in question which are not mentioned by Shotwell, Fainites, or StokerAce &mdash; tactics which particularly frustrate the objective of trying to produce accurate and reliable articles dealing with the emotional attachment of children. To wit:


 * 1) Bullying. They enforce their singular point of view by edit-warring over the slightest change in article texts.  They automatically revert changes by certain other editors, even those legitimately marked as "minor" or which make an indisputable correction. (Partial statement redacted-- see clerk notes)
 * 2) Graffiti. They tag opposing users for "vandalism" for making changes they disagree with.  My own talk page, for example, has been "tagged" many times by DPeterson.  The talk pages for the articles are littered with tags of all sorts.
 * 3) False Claims. They persistently mischaracterize actions by or about opponents.  Lsi john has listed here one significant example.  Another is the oft-repeated claim &mdash; again seen here by SamDavidson &mdash; suggesting that I have been "sanctioned" for my editing activity on the pages in question, when in fact that has never happened.  Still another is the mischaracterization of good-faith comments on talk-pages as "provocative" and "inflamatory" [sic].
 * 4) Padding. Shotwell has mentioned the cohesive nature of the six users during disputes.  An additional concern is that they almost always come in with the exact same arguments as the first one made by their ilk, often even with the exact same wording, right down to identical misspellings.  Occasionally, the same user repeats his own arguments, just changing a word or two from the original.
 * 5) Wiki-lawyering. This would be reprehensible enough, but it's worse because in their case it's particularly bad wiki-lawyering. The arguments made are invariably irrelevant, immaterial, and illogical.  They stretch or misinterpret Wiki policies/guidelines, deliberately misstate facts, falsely cite references, and repeatedly breach witiquette under the pretense of enforcing it.
 * 6) Gaming. The six repeatedly try to game the Wiki system, as for example, by round-robin changes of subject.  They attempted to thwart mediation &mdash; where article content is the stated focus &mdash; by harping that the "important" issues were really the conduct (or participation) of their opponents.  Then they have attempted to thwart arbitration &mdash; where user conduct issues are actually at issue &mdash; by arguing (as done here in this request) that the really important issues are the content disputes.

It is impossible for reasonable editors to deal with such behaviors without recourse to an authoritative referee. Such behaviors chill Wikipedia editing by truly knowledgeable people who do not have unlimited time and patience to deal with rogue users or situations on their own. My hope is that the Arbitration Committee will either install a referee for the articles in question, and/or impose truly enforceable sanctions that not only resolve this situation but set precedents. Wikipedia readers would be better served if truly knowledgeable people could make good-faith contributions to the encyclopedia without being abused, bullied, or hounded into silence.

Statement by RalphLender
I concur with the statements by User:SamDavidson, User:DPeterson, and User:JonesRD and will try not to duplicate their material here.

This is a content dispute. It is about a year old. It has focused on a variety of articles, all related to the evaluation and treatment of children with disorders of attachment. The content dispute has been led by the leaders (User:Sarner and User:Jean Mercer) of the advocacy group Advocates for Children in Therapy, some of their supporters, and others. (Bowlby, Attachment Therapy, Advocates for Children in Therapy, Reactive attachment disorder, Candace Newmaker, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Attachment Theory, among others). The content issues have been extensively mediated and after resolution in each case, the same or similar issues are disputed again in another article or in a slightly different form; although the substance remains the same.

The substance of the content dispute revolves around the issues outlined in the statements by SamDavidson, DPeterson, and RDJones, and I won’t repeat those here.

I do not intend to raise issues of user conduct at this time regarding many of the others involved since those are secondary to the primary issues, which are content disputes. However, if that becomes an issue later I can provide a number to diffs to show such conduct on the part of Sarner, Mercer, FatherTree, and many of their supporters. I also don’t know if this is the venue to comment on other editors statements and will leave that for later, if it is appropriate. However, I feel I must point out one glaring inaccuracy in Sarner’s statement. His point 3, “False Claims,” he states, “suggesting that I have been "sanctioned" for my editing activity on the pages in question, when in fact that has never happened.” When he has been sanctioned before: [],  []. If this is not the appropriate place for this, the clerk can delete these lines.

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0)

 * Accept. - SimonP 16:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept Paul August &#9742; 21:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept. Kirill 17:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision = All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Dispute resolution
1) Wikipedia's dispute resolution process exists for the benefit of editors acting in good faith to resolve a disagreement. Bad-faith attempts to game the process are prohibited, and will result in sanctions against those engaging in them.

Passed 8-0 at 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry
2.2) The contemporaneous use of multiple accounts by a single user to create a false impression of consensus is prohibited.

Passed 8-0 at 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest
3) Editors at Wikipedia are expected to work towards neutral point of view in their editing activities. It is not possible to simultaneously pursue NPOV and an activist agenda. Editors who have exceptionally strong professional, political, or financial commitments to a particular point of view are asked to refrain from editing in affected subject areas.  This is particularly true when the affected subject areas are controversial.

Passed 8-0 at 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Locus of dispute
1) The dispute centers around Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Advocates for Children in Therapy, and a number of related topics. These articles have been the subject of editing by adherents of various viewpoints of the topic, who have frequently been in conflict with one another.

Passed 8-0 at 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Real-world involvement
2) A number of editors, including, , and , have various degrees of real-world involvement with the topics in question.

Passed 8-0 at 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

DPeterson
3) created four sock puppets:, , , and . They were used to edit war and to create the appearance of consensus, contravening the policy on sockpuppetry. The four sock puppets were blocked indefinitely after they were identified as such by checkusers  and.

Passed 8-0 at 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

DPeterson banned
1) is banned from Wikipedia for a period of one year.

Passed 8-0 at 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Parties reminded
2) All parties are reminded of the need for care when editing in an area with a potential conflict of interest. They are encouraged to fully disclose any such circumstances that may apply to them and to voluntarily refrain from editing articles where they may reasonably be perceived to have such a conflict.

Passed 8-0 at 19:44, 30 August 2007 (UTC)