Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2011-06-22/Abortion-rights movement/Archive

Possible users to be added to mediation
There were two major discussions over this issue in the past couple months with dozens of users involved, so six is two few for mediation. Many of those users probably thought the issue was resolved and don't know this is still going on. I went through those discussions and made a list of users who seemed most active (at least three or so substantive comments) in the discussions. I have no idea what side each user was on, I just scrolled through looking for repeating usernames. It would be best if we could notify these folks and see who wants to be involved, then add a general notice on the articles.

NYyankees51 (talk) 03:50, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * User:DD2K
 * User:Unscintillating
 * User:LedRush
 * User:PhGustaf
 * User:Lionelt
 * User:Binksternet
 * User talk:Kenatipo
 * User:B
 * User:HiLo48
 * User:Baseball Bugs
 * User:Haymaker
 * User:DeCausa
 * User:Snottywong
 * User:Arzel
 * User:Kwamikagami
 * User:Griswaldo
 * User:Marauder40


 * Feel free to send out a notification of the case to their talk pages. Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  04:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah by all means add more people. I just picked the most active people in the most recent discussions. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 07:07, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm going to contact the people on the above list later tonight. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 18:07, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * All contacted. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 18:46, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing that. NYyankees51 (talk) 23:35, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem :). I'm going to send a reminder message and also contact User:Collect as I remember they were interested before. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 19:10, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Andrew c's thoughts
I haven't really had the time I'd like to devote to Wikipedia, so I'm not sure if I can participate at a level that I'd really like. Also, this really reminds me of the Roman Catholic Church vs. Catholic Church debacle which ended up resulting in a move via mediation (which I was not involved in). And I was bitter about the whole process because I felt a very small group of editors worked behind closed doors to come up with a binding resolution with no real way to appeal or object after the fact of it's move. I don't want it to come to that, but if that is the dirty tool we must use in order to restore some sort of article naming parity due to a rogue admin's bad closure, so be it. -Andrew c [talk] 20:23, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It would also be nice to resolve the things that caused these long winded move discussions in the first place. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 20:30, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Notification
Every editor who has edited either pro-life or pro-choice over the past year (or the talk pages of those articles) has now been notified of this mediation. HuskyHuskie (talk) 00:14, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Was that really necessary? You realize that one of the canvassing criteria at WP:CANVAS is "Scale", which prohibits "posting an excessive number of messages to individual users"?  You sent a message to nearly 250 editors on July 4 between 12:33 and 15:49 UTC (with a 1-hour break in the middle).  It took you over 2 hours of posting as fast as you can to post a message to that many people.  Not to mention, many of the people you posted to had already gotten a message about this discussion from another editor 3 days earlier.  This seems extremely inappropriate and disruptive.  &mdash;SW&mdash; comment 03:26, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No it's not. For a discussion of this gravity, we need the widest range of input possible. And it's inappropriate and very disruptive for you to assume bad faith in this, especially when he spent two hours doing it. NYyankees51 (talk) 03:44, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see the problem either. (I had been involved in editing the article a while back and wasn't caught up in the original sweep - I'm quite grateful.) That said, let's not raise the temperature by throwing charges of disruption around.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:51, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit conflict
 * Sigh. Look, I personally think that WP:CANVASS is the biggest load of horse manure we have around these parts, and you've just given me one more reason to think so. Here's my thinking:
 * I've come across more than one discussion that was "invalidated" because an editor was accused of being "selective" in who he notified (Vote stacking). Best way to avoid that is to cast a wide net.
 * This subject has been of great importance to a significant number of editors over a long period of time. But many of them have thrown up their hands in the past and said that they couldn't stand to deal with the bullshit any longer, and may no longer be following these talk pages.  They still have opinions, and in fact, it is exactly these people whom we need to reach, to let people on both sides of a contentious issue know that there may be a chance for the topic that frustrated them to be resolved.
 * The notion that it is somehow "disruptive" to post a large number of messages absolutely astounds me. What's the logic there?  If I post the exact same message to, say, five people, that is "non-disruptive", but to 200 editors it is?  Why?  Each individual editor had exactly the same message.  If it was not disruptive to five people, how is it disruptive to 200?  Am I disrupting the individual editors or am I disrupting Wikipedia?  Is it because the units of disruptiveness accumulate somehow?  I just don't get it.
 * Your point about posting this to editors who had already been notified is a valid point, I guess. I hadn't really thought of it as being "disruptive", though it was obviously unnecessary.  On the other hand, what kind of damage do you suppose it caused? I will grant you that if this was a regular problem (editors receiving multiple notifications of the same discussions) that it would really suck.  I should have been more careful.
 * You sent a message to nearly 250 editors on July 4 between 12:33 and 15:49 UTC (with a 1-hour break in the middle). It took you over 2 hours of posting as fast as you can to post a message to that many people. So what? I'm not trying to be combative, I just don't get why this matters.  Are you saying that somehow this would have been more acceptable if I had done this over a 24- or 48-hour period?  If so, why?


 * My personal belief is that there should be no limits on notifications; if there was some freedom on this matter, we wouldn't have so many decisions revisited time and time again because "consensus" was achieved with a grand total of eight editors. But the fact is, WP:CANVASS exists, and I always make a sincere attempt to follow it.  I submit, however, that what you have pointed out here makes it clear (to me, anyway), that the policy is internally contradictory.  If we want to require messages to be neutral, transparent, and non-partisan, then we can't also limit the quantity, because when you do that, you have an impact on the message itself.  It is simply a fact that a larger sample is more likely to accurately reflect the general population.  What if the government decided that Gallup is "disruptive" when it polls 1,000 people and says that it can only poll 200 in the future?  Would Gallup's results be as accurately a reflection of the general population as before?  And if you tell me that you don't value having a representive sample of opinion, please tell me why. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:08, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

As I read it, CANVASS requires all to be notified lest any accusation of "selection" be made. WP:False consensus shows that a small number of notifications to a selected group is more pernicious that a large number to an unselected group - I know of no case where "too many unselected random opinions" was a problem . Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:42, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * My problem is less with WP:CANVAS (although it's still a concern) and more with the lack of thought put into it. At the very least you could have been more careful with your turbo copying and pasting.  I certainly didn't need two messages from two different editors alerting me to the presence of this discussion, in which I have no interest because the last time I took part in a related discussion was probably well over a year ago.  If you're going to mass-notify hundreds of editors, at least do some minimal coordination and make sure you're the only one notifying, and perhaps limit yourself to notifying only users who have recently been a part of the discussion, rather than notifying any user who has edited any article or talk page associated with abortion in the last 10 years.  A little discretion goes a long way, and I doubt you'd get called out for not notifying an editor who made a single minor edit to the article 39 months ago.  And, on an unrelated note, if you think you're going to get a consensus on whether the sky is blue with 300+ editors contributing in the discussion, then good luck with that.  &mdash;SW&mdash; squeal 00:58, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * you just have to set the bar a bit lower percentage-wise. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 06:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Snottywong, are you really complaining that you might have received two notifications? Husky went to a lot of trouble to do this, and as somebody who admittedly doesn't have a clue what's going on in this dispute, you're in no place to complain. NYyankees51 (talk) 18:16, 6 July 2011 (UTC) Comments redacted. This discussion is closed.  Steven Zhang  The clock is ticking....  00:35, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

An aspect to consider: self-appellation
I was 'canvassed' to join this discussion because I happened to "drive-by" edit the subject. I have no clear position on the abortion issue, and I didn't read the above discussion carefully, but if I am not mistaken, a certain aspect is missed from consideration, namely, "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are self-namings. As such, of course the terms are loaded, and of course, the opposing parties evaluate the loadedness in exactly polar ways ("ours" is good and "theirs" is bad). And of course the sides want to rename the opposite side.

There is nothing unusual in propagandist/PR namings. Heck, People's Republic of Poland was hardly "People's", but we don't attempt to rename it into a Communist Poland.

Therefore I would say that the argument of self-appellation speaks in favor of "pro-"titles. Lovok Sovok (talk) 02:10, 13 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The Google snippet for www.prolife.com says, "Christian group that argues against abortion and premarital sex." So even while this discussion is named "abortion-rights", it should still allow, probably by a separate article about the group, that "pro-life" is also associated with the concepts "Christian" and "premarital sex".  Unscintillating (talk) 05:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * People's Republic is generally used to refer to communist states. It isn't a POV term in that respect. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 06:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Eraserhead, can you please explain your remark? Calling a communist dictatorship a "people's republic" is so POV it's laughable, and it's laughable because it's so obviously a lie.   --  Kenatipo    speak! 17:02, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * In my own studies of government systems, I came to the conclusion that there is actually very little difference between an "ideal" communist state and an "ideal" democracy. The main difference is that in an ideal communist state the people are supposed to somehow automatically know what is best for everyone, and make policies based on that, while in an ideal democracy people get to try to convince each other what is best for themselves is also best for everyone.  In actual practice, NO government since the ancient Incas or ancient Athens has approached either ideal.  The "communist" states of the modern era were/are actually just plain dictatorships or committeeships lying about themselves, and the "democracies" are mostly imitations of the ancient Roman Republic. V (talk) 12:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I forgot to say that at least the "communist" regimes of the recent era had a reason to lie: Karl Marx indicated that a period of dictatorship was needed to sort-of force people to learn how to become unselfish enough to "automatically know what is best for everyone".  So the main reason those regimes fell was because, apparently, human selfishness is tougher than a dictatorship.  Meanwhile, somebody pointed out above that the term "pro-life" is a "big lie" (well, I suppose it might be true if the logic is valid).  What rationale have the pro-lifers got, for such a lie?  Besides short-sightedness, that is?  And why should anyone that short-sighted be believed regarding anything about public policy --or even Wikipedia policy? V (talk) 19:18, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ugh! White man speak in riddles!  --  Kenatipo    speak! 00:56, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What riddle? Either the human race is heading toward a Malthsuian Catastrophe, or it isn't.  If it is, then anything that helps the process along cannot be called "pro-life".  Let's see...  Here's some evidence that people who would be called "pro-life" today were indeed thinking about the short term instead of the long term: Great Famine (Ireland).  Here's something about the fish in the seas: http://www.ecoearth.info/blog/2008/05/ocean_ecosystems_collapsing_ru.asp --that word "sustainability" has a meaning that a lot of people seem to be ignoring:  It is physically impossible to "sustain" a food supply in a limited space (such as the oceans) if the population depending on that supply keeps growing (in other words, population must be sustained, too).  Here's something about farmland: http://articles.latimes.com/1997-03-20/local/me-40012_1_prime-farmland --while that's just one city, the same thing is happening to growing cities all over the world.  Who is taking the long view, that we need that farmland to feed that growing population?  Does anyone really expect "fishing" to take up the slack?  NOTE TO ALL HERE: I apologize for getting off-topic, but I've decided that I completely agree that abortion opponents using the label "pro-life" are truly indulging in a big lie without even knowing it --at least I hope they aren't deliberately trying to cause a Malthusian Catastrophe!  V (talk) 18:19, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ugh! White man speak nonsense!  Need read more Aquinas !!  --  Kenatipo    speak! 18:57, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Mere claims that something is nonsense are worthless. What evidence can you offer?  Whatever Thomas Aquinas had to say, it did not include facts about the modern world, such as: (1) synthetic fertilizers are essential to feed today's global population ( http://www.tfi.org/factsandstats/fertilizerandfood.cfm ), and (2) much of that fertilizer requires petroleum, one way or another, during its manufacture, which ties the cost of fertilizer to the cost of petroleum ( http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1717572,00.html ), and (3) the world's petroleum production rate is near is maximum possible peak ( Peak oil ), after which total production will inevitably diminish, with prices of everything dependent upon it going up while their production rates also decline, and (4) the fresh water needed to grow crops is also becoming globally problematic ( Water crisis and http://www.webofcreation.org/Earth%20Problems/water.htm ).  A Pollyanna attitude may be fine and dandy for Aquinas and others, but it doesn't change the basic facts (A) that while all those just-listed problems are happening, humanity is adding 80-odd million new mouths-to-feed to the World  population each year, and (B) that people on Easter Island did indeed experience at least a partial Malthusian Catastrophe (80+% population drop), proving that humanity on Island Earth is not immune to the possibility.  So, what facts, not mere speculations or unsupported worthless claims, can you offer to offset the evidence that larger troubles, than we have now, are on the way? (Note to others: I'm not trying to "right a great wrong" here; I'm merely want to see how Kenatipo can support what he says, despite the facts against him, that I've spouted "nonsense".) V (talk) 07:43, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * V Objectivist 208.103.154.94, I've got some really bad news for you -- the population on Easter Island is growing again. If you don't mosey on over there and kill off a few people, they'll be facing another "Malthusian Catastrophe" real soon.  Leave your laptop at home, and give us a full report when you get back.  Your friend, --  Kenatipo    speak! 16:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * V Objectivist 208.103.154.94, St. Thomas just asked me to remind you that IT WOULD BE WRONG for you to kill anyone on Easter Island (unless it was self-defense). So, you're on your own.  Your friend, --  Kenatipo    speak! 16:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that the best you can do? DUH, isn't it obvious that if the whole world's human population is increasing in the present era, then that of Easter Island probably is, too?  What you wrote does nothing to address the facts I presented earlier.  Therefore, I submit that it is you who speak nonsense.  If all you have is nonsense to spout, then you (and anyone else who dares to spout similar nonsense) can be ignored in this debate about changing the title of the other article, from using the short-term truth but long-term lie of "pro-life".  V (talk) 17:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I had another idea. Since the sun is going to flame out in several billion years and we wouldn't want those alive on earth then to suffer the pain of freezing to death, why don't we all slash our wrists and throats right now?  (apres vous, monsieur!)  your friend, --  Kenatipo    speak! 18:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * More nonsense, I see. That's because the Sun can do its world-broiling thing completely independently of human actions, but if a Malthusian Catastrophe strikes humanity, it will be entirely the fault of humanity.  I'll re-phrase what Malthus wrote, very simply, as: "Any species that breeds like a bunch of stupid animals is, eventually, going to mostly die like a bunch of stupid animals."  And mathematics doesn't lie ( http://www.koransky.com/Trackers/Other/IsAnyoneListening.html ).  Go ahead, do some population-increase calculations all by yourself, and see what worldwide total numbers of mouths-to-feed are most likely to exist in the reasonably near future.  Then think about what sort of standard-of-living could be possible for them, given the available facts about, during that same reasonably near future, declines in oil production, fertilizer production, fresh-water availability, and even technically important metals ( http://www.businessinsider.com/energy-and-mineral-production-on-a-permanent-downward-spiral-2009-12 ).  Consider the "eventually" proposed by Isaac Asimov (the prior "Is Anyone Listening" link), in which the entire mass of the Universe is technomagically converted into human bodies during the next 10,000 years or so, after which everyone dies, since there will be no oxygen to breathe --it was all converted into human bodies, see!?  In the absence of such technomagic, a global Malthusian Catastrophe for humanity is very probable very much sooner, possibly even before this current century ends.  If you really think the human species is more than just another bunch of stupid animals, then try proving it with facts --not nonsense!-- showing how we are "immune" to a Malthusian Catastrophe, in spite of Asimov's math (or, better, what we-as-a-species should do to prevent it, that ordinary stupid animals can't do). V (talk) 06:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * As Chuck Yeager says: Never borrow trouble. --  Kenatipo    speak! 16:01, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't have to borrow trouble if it is headed your way (see all those links I included above) just by doing nothing. So, anyone who is truly "pro-life" is going to work toward preventing a Malthusian Catastrophe, while the average ordinary "pro-lifers", who haven't been doing any long-term thinking-it-through (exactly like stupid animals that can't do long-term thinking), need to have their ignorance cured.  After which either (A) they also will begin to work toward preventing a Malthusian Catastrophe, or (B) they will be revealed as actually "pro-genocide" of most of the human race, and their usage of "pro-life" is, indeed, just a big lie (which obviously means it should not be used in the title of a Wikipedia article!).  In which category are you, now? V (talk) 17:53, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have a confession to make, Objectivist. I've been in the deaf (TL;DNR) category for your last three paragraphs.  --  Kenatipo    speak! 18:04, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's fine; if your response to being offered information is to choose to be ignorant, then you should recuse yourself from being involved in an informed discussion such as this overall page. Which again means there becomes one less objection to changing the title of a Wikipedia article from using the faulty phrase "pro-life"! V (talk) 18:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Your Malthusian Catastrophe argument doesn't change any votes. Your human life, like everyone's, began at your conception.  It's called pro-life because it seeks to keep the mother and her unborn baby alive.  --  Kenatipo    speak! 19:10, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know full well that the "pro-life" crowd is only interested in talking about the short term, and not interested in the long term consequences of their acts. In the long term, though, how do you plan on keeping them alive?  Why isn't it obvious that your short-term efforts will be TOTALLY WASTED if they all die anyway, of starvation??? They (along with most of the rest of humanity) will have been murdered by folks like you, who want unfeedable mouths to be born!  And that's why your policy, long-term, is nothing less than "pro-genocide".  By the way, please don't tell other stupidly obvious lies, like when you use the phrase "unborn baby" --it's not a "baby" until after it is born, alive ( http://www.thefreedictionary.com/baby ).  Applying the word prior to birth is just wishful/misleading (lying!) thinking, which gets dashed perhaps 1/6 of the time when a miscarriage or still-birth Naturally happens ( http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/266317-overview#a0199 ). V (talk) 21:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Frankly, my dear, I think you should stick to "Cold fusion". --  Kenatipo    speak! 22:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've never particularly thought that one had to go farther than the correlation between "pro-life" and pro-death-penalty political stances to demonstrate that the label is nonsense, and incidentally to illustrate that it's all about that whole segment of the American population's obsession with forcing other people to emulate their lifestyle at gunpoint. So what?  "Pro-choice" is a propagandist label too, but Wikipedia isn't the place to make either argument.  Wikipedia is driven by what sources say and is not the place to right great wrongs. —chaos5023 (talk) 19:06, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's the fundamental problem. The sources don't just use pro-life/pro-choice, in fact especially the high end sources use other names. If the sources all used pro-life/pro-choice then those would be the obvious titles per WP:POVTITLE. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 19:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Well, I'm on record as supporting Anti-abortion movement / Abortion-rights movement as a valid parallel naming scheme. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have never heard anyone object before to the term 'People's Republic before. I suppose it is in the same boat as pro-life, which would be OK if noone had an issue with it per WP:POVTITLE. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 19:36, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Self-appellation usually applies to specific entities, not to a wide variety of people united by a political belief. Pro-life is often applied by people claiming the description to more than simply anti-abortion activism. It is also used with regard to stem-cell research, euthanasia and the death penalty.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 07:30, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The same can be said of the Temperance movement. It was for all intents and purposes the Anti-alcohol consumption movement but they referred to themselves as the Temperance movement so we do as well. Lovok Sovok also makes a good point about it appears activists editing here on Wikipedia wanting to rename the opposite side. It's really hard to assume good faith when that's the case. PeRshGo (talk) 14:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Temperance movement is not a useful comparison, because it's non-controversial; it's therefore not a case of "self-appellation" because that's what RS in general calls it too. It is much like "communism", which while causing controversy and opposition, is not a disputed appellation in itself. The principle of self-appellation or self-description is invoked where a large but not overwhelming proportion of RS uses a name that is derogatory, usually to the subject. As for renaming both "sides" at the same time, that's peculiar to this debate. Pro-life and pro-choice clearly form a pair in the American discourse, and it's difficult to discuss the merits of one without the other (which seems to be why major American newspapers generally don't use either if they can help it). It's not a great situation for wikipedia to be in - but as with quite a few disputes I've seen over the past couple of years, the highly fractured nature of contemporary American political debate is spilling onto the pages of the encyclopedia. I note that very little text has been spent on what is wrong with the proposed names - which I would have thought was pretty important to people opposing.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We have an old saying: if it ain't broke, don't fix it! "Opposition to legalized abortion" isn't comprehensive enough to describe the pro-life movement.  And it's inaccurate, as Haymaker pointed out:  prolife people oppose abortion whether it's legal or not.  --  Kenatipo    speak! 17:09, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It is broke however, that's why there are widespread complaints about the POV'ness of the name and that's why we are having this discussion. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 17:26, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * When the New York Times and many other liberal news outlets decide IDONTLIKEIT, their followers begin to think the same way, and those are the folks who are campaigning for the change, along with a few non-Americans who don't use the terms in their countries. What we have here is an attempt to enforce the "politically correct" POV of the NYT, et al, in violation of our own policies.  STATUS QUO plus 12 month lockdown.  --  Kenatipo    speak! 18:12, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Stop trying to make it more political than it needs to be. The New York Times are far from the only ones with an issue. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 18:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I know. It's sad, isn't it?  --  Kenatipo    speak! 18:26, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Not really, its perfectly legitimate to have an issue with an organisations chosen name. You don't even really know whether the New York Times didn't have more of an issue with pro-choice anyway, which also has large POV connotations. What would be productive is that if you don't like Stevens suggestion would be to suggest something else instead that meets your criteria and isn't 'pro-life'. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 18:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * But I can't do that because prolife is the commonname and supported by policy. --  Kenatipo    speak! 18:43, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * (You must be really sorry by now that you even invited me to this discussion. LOL.) --  Kenatipo    speak! 18:43, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It isn't the clear WP:COMMONNAME, it isn't used significantly more than anti-abortion/abortion-rights, and as the Freeloader points out above high profile sources count more than others. -- Eraserhead1 &lt;talk&gt; 18:58, 13 July 2011 (UTC)