Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2/Evidence

POV Pushing and Refusal to follow WP:NPOV
Ed has in general repeatedly POV pushed and seems to especially not understand/choose to ignore the section of NPOV dealing with undue weight.


 * Joshua fails to show even one example of POV pushing on my part. He doesn't even define it. (I propose using the definition in the essay, POV pushing.)
 * He fails to show how my statement about "articles emphasizing one POV to the neglect of another" opposes WP:NPOV (even indirectly)

This will be demonstrated with forthcoming diffs but also note Ed's own claim in the RfAr response "Much of what interests me at Wikipedia is the opportunity to add information which explains the opposing point of view to articles on controversial topics which are dominated by a single POV. Far too many articles are unbalanced, emphasizing a mainstream point of view and neglecting minority viewpoints." As Ladlergo observed in his comments in the RfAr WP:NPOV says that "the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each" and "We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views." Ed's statement is in direct contradiction to these policies it shows in Ed's edit patterns.


 * Perhaps I should have said "overemphasizes". Anyway, all I ever do is try to add a tiny bit about tiny minorities. I'm always satisfied to have 90-95 percent about the mainstream. But if the minority says something like "We feel the mainstream is being dogmatic", that single sentence (with a ref tag) should be in the article. I ask no more than that.

In response to attempts to deal with his POV pushing, accuses other editors of POV pushing, threatens them with an RfAr. He then admits that on the article he has been repeatedly POV pushing and arguing he hasn't any familiarity with the any of the relevant material or documents.


 * Joshua here refers to alleged POV pushing which he has not demonstrated.
 * His first ref is (I assume) supposed to be an example of POV pushing on my part. It concerns the intro to "Teach the Controversy", which describes the campaign's intent. I attempted to change the passage (see below) by adding a statement of the campaign's intent as described in the words of a campaign supporter.   Here is my attempted change:
 * The campaign is intended to undermine the teaching of evolution
 * to
 * The campaign is intended to counter a "dogmatic approach" to classroom instruction about evolution
 * In retrospect, this was an error on my part. I should not have replaced the unattributed claim with the opposing side's counter-claim, but rather attributed the claim to opponents and added the attributed counterclaim of supporters. The ideal would have been for the reader to see a claim by opponents (that TTC wants to "undermine evolution") with a counterclaim by supporters (that TTC opposes "dogmatic teaching").
 * It was not my intent to leave an unbalanced assertion about a controversial aspect of the campaign in the article, but attempts to discuss the dispute over whether campaign supporters intended to "undermine education" broke down when FM simply insisted his version was correct; Duncharris reverted to FM's version twice; FM declared the matter settled; and the intro continues to omit any statement by TTC supporters about their intent to "counter dogmatism".
 * His second reference shows me countering FM's charge of POV pushing with a reciprocal charge against him. This is not an improper response, since (1) FM does engage in pushing the pro-evolution POV and routinely deletes any anti-evolution information; and (2) FM's accusation against me is false.
 * His third ref also disproves his main point. Far from being an admission of anything, it shows me thanking them for providing me with a source of references, so that I could "argue for the enemy", i.e., add well-referenced information about the intentions and tactics of ID supporters. (This supports NPOV by, i.e., helping my fellow contributors make the very point they accuse me of "pushing" against. How ironic that they interpret my attempts to bolster the majority side as an attempt to "push" the minority side!)

POV removal of material claiming it is "redundant".
 * Here is the text I removed from the intro to Intelligent designer:
 * The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist campaign that arose out of the previous Christian fundamentalist and evangelistic creation science movement.
 * Here is the intro to Intelligent design movement:
 * The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist campaign that arose out of the previous Christian fundamentalist and evangelistic creation science movement in the United States that calls for broad social, academic and political changes derived from the notion of "intelligent design."
 * Everything in the first sentence is one click away, in case a reader needs to know it. Joshua fails to show how removing a redundancy in any way affects the neutrality of the article.

An excellent example of Ed violating undue weight:
 * The formatting obscures the diff, so please look at this reconstruction.
 * Joshua fails to show how this violates undue weight. It merely attributes to ID opponents the point of view that "ID advocates are sneaking the concept of God into science education." At worst, one might argue that the point of view of ID opponents not sufficiently well-known and thus requires a CITE; but if this is an error on my part, it's easily correctable by giving a ref.

POV pushing on Scientific Consensus attempting to among other things emphasize his global warming skepticism POV, and claims without any reference that the notion of of consensus is important to the philosophy of science. Note that Ed makes no justification on the talk page other than to demand that his tags not be reverted. Note also this response by Fastfission:. More global warming related edit warring with multiple other editors  and in the processes accuses the other editors of trying to enforce their POV  Here are similar edits at a related article:   note also the use of the marked as minor edit in this last edit and surrounding edits.

On August 10th, makes a POV page move about global warming: More examples of Ed edit warring over global warming:

Edit wars over including a minor POV in Animal, a classic example of undue weight:  Note further edit warring that day, as well as refusal to cite claiming that his POV is "common knowledge." 

Ed also created additional POV forks and POV redirects. For example, Ed created on August 1st Good scientific practice(see also the AfD an article which is both copyvio and a POV fork. Ed had been an editor for long enough that he should know not to do either of these things. Ed also created the now deleted redirect Criticism of intelligent design with the edit summary "#redirect intelligent design which is 90% criticicsm" This edit seems to be attempting to make a point and one of the odd shorts of POV forks I've seen, a POV redirect.  Ed also tried WP:POINT by making Mass revert which he then attempted lable a policy and then a guideline. See the deleted history of that page as well as here. For additional examples of deleted POV forks see Articles_for_deletion/Anthropogenic_global_warming,Articles_for_deletion/Guided_evolution,Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aspects_of_evolution, Articles_for_deletion/Gallup_poll_on_creationism_and_evolution, Articles_for_deletion/Religious_views_of_evolution, Articles_for_deletion/Intelligent_Design_and_Creationism, Articles for deletion/Biological evolution (disambiguation), Articles_for_deletion/Unguided_evolution, Wikipedia:Miscellaneous_deletion/Wikipedia:Competence, Articles_for_deletion/Evolution_controversy.

Ed also frequently makes an edit, then what it is reverted reverts the editor and claims that their reversion should be justified. A recent example occurs here. Another example occurs here where Ed makes a comment on talk for his edit and then uses that as a reason to immediately revert back to his version. Ed also insists that his versions stay up until other people have justified it on talk, even if his version is the new version. Examples, are and  here.

More difs forthcoming,

Copied Uncle Ed 13:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

All * remarks by Ed Poor. --Uncle Ed 13:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with balancing an article?
I read in the community newspaper that I "haven't given any evidence" in this matter. That is ridiculous, for two reasons.

First, I created an evidence section on this project page. Second, a person should be considered innocent until proven guilty: the burden of proof should be on the accusers.

Anyway, if anyone's still bothering to read these pages, here's my final say:


 * tendentious: marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view

None of my edits (and certainly none cited as "evidence" by others) has resulted in an article that favors a particular point of view. I simply add balance to articles which ALREADY have a tendency in one direction, by adding material that goes in the other direction.

Would someone please explain how balancing an article by adding information which counters another POV in a controversial article or section is a policy violation. The last time I emailed Jimbo about this, he said wasn't. --Uncle Ed 15:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)