Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/ScienceApologist

Asmodeus on the motivation of this RfAr
This RfAr is ultimately motivated by two related problems facing Wikipedia.

(1) The infusion of various forms of bias into determinations of notability, verifiability, and validity, sometimes by way of association or affiliation, and sometimes with significant administrative assistance through favoritism and selective enforcement. Where validity is attacked from bias and confusion, preconceptions about content tend to be improperly inserted into inclusion/exclusion debates, leading to the exclusion of legitimate content.

This RfAr is nominally about the behavior of a particular user with respect to a certain technical idea and its author. However, it is also about the interpretation of Wikipedia policy with respect to editors sharing this general kind of behavior with respect to notable people and their works. Wikipedia does not need to bargain with the devil in order to improve its science (or other) articles. For every "expert" who spends half his time improving articles in a certain field, and the other half attacking people and ideas he doesn't like or understand, multiple contributors with just as much or more to offer will walk away in disgust. If Wikipedia condones this kind of behavior on the grounds that it is a necessary evil, then it invites evil consequences, and they will eventually find it.

(2) Conflict-of-interest hysteria leading to impertinent speculation on the identities and motivations of editors. Such speculations tend to be wrongly applied as inclusionary or exclusionary criteria in place of notability and verifiability standards. They also tend to be applied preemptively, subjects being accused, censured, and punitively targeted with discriminatory restrictions regardless of their behavior, simply because they are suspected of being notable and/or connected to certain things that they might possibly write about. (Meanwhile, others are largely exempted from COI considerations; e.g., while an ordinary editor suspected of pushing a theoretical POV is accused of violating WP:COI, an academic who is paid to teach a theoretical POV or do research within the context of that POV is implicitly granted the right to attack alternative theoretical viewpoints as "non-notable" simply because they are unknown or unpopular within the closed academic community to which he/she belongs.)

Wikipedia editors inevitably step on each other's toes, sometimes egregiously. But while most have the option to deal with their frustration by walking away in disgust, it is not that easy for others. Why not? In effect, Wikipedia holds some part of them hostage. They are tied down here by the necessity of ensuring that opinionated members of the wikiproletariat, largely unconstrained by any higher power, don't mangle their ideas and reputations beyond all recognition. These are the ones with the most substantial stake in Wikipedia - those whose names and ideas actually comprise its content, and who have the most to lose if Wikipedia is inaccurately edited. That's why they need and deserve a say here.

It is crucial to understand that there are no special obligations associated with that right, or justifiable penalties for being notable or having a notable idea. If editors in general can use pseudonyms, so can the subjects of Wikipedia articles. If editors in general can correct mistakes and remove slurs from articles in which they are interested, then so can the subjects. The only things that notable or invested people cannot do at Wikipedia are the things that nobody else can do either, e.g., violate NPOV. This is the nature of the game, and it makes no difference that Wikipedia has or has not had problems with POV-pushing by the subjects of Wikipedia articles, or with theorists on whose work articles have been written. Wikipedia has problems with POV-pushing in general, and these can only be dealt with according to general rules which apply to everyone. Anything else is clearly discriminatory. [14:31, 25 November]

On the Apparent Administrative Interpretation of this Case

Although these proceedings are technically classified as a part of Wikipedia's "dispute resolution process", I now have reason to believe that they are not entirely true to that description. They can in fact be more plausibly explained in another way. I present the following alternative explanation in the hope that should this case give rise to any significant precedents, this transcript may afford some insight on the means by which they were obtained and the reasoning on which they were actually based.

Although I requested arbitration in good faith as a means of ending various kinds of harassment for which DrL and I have long been targeted here, it quickly became obvious that this is not how it was received. Two ulterior factors seem to be in play. (1) At Wikipedia, the active majority rules even when it is unrepresentative of the community at large. The Arbitration Committee tends to echo the sentiments of groups of activists - its "sqeaky wheels" of preference - and translate their behavior into useful precedents regarding the interpretation of policy. (This applies especially to any group perceived as contributing disproportionately to the success of the project, e.g., those exhibiting or professing concern with the sciences.) (2) Having made or been bound by certain more general policy decisions for which it needs something analogous to case law, the Committee tends to echo the sentiments and behaviors of active pluralities in such a way as to reinforce these decisions. In short, it exists to form precedents which combine the will of exigent groups, particularly those seen as useful to the project, with what it considers important aspects of general policy. Where necessary, it is willing to accomplish this by shearing the evidence placed before it of all meaningful context in order to establish just what it needs to establish for that purpose, e.g., "tendentious editing", "incivility", "COI violations", and so on. The process is entirely mechanical, and where required, inhumane.

Thus, this case seems to have been interpreted not in the way it was originally intended - i.e., as a means of obtaining relief from harassment - but as an opportunity to pointedly apply certain policies that the Arbitration Committee considers important for the smooth functioning of the Wikipedia Project, in a way that echoes the will and behavior of what it sees as its most instrumental activists. In this case, that evidently means exemplifying the sanctions which can be leveled against members of a certain troublesome minority: topically relevant individuals who "violate" WP:COI by their very presence here, take up the time of administrators and arbitrators by asking for their help when attacked, and otherwise occasion "disruption" by qualifying as attractive targets of vandalism (and daring to defend themselves in response). Because I am perceived as a member of this troublesome minority, because those about whom I have been forced to complain are members of what superficially appears to be a useful majority, and because DrL is perceived as my ally, our attempts to obtain relief have been turned into an opportunity to subjugate the troublesome minority to which we belong to an ostensibly more useful apparent plurality including self-reported science experts, self-styled "crank fighters", and avowed enemies of "pseudoscience" (e.g., intelligent design theory, of which we have been questionably identified as active proponents).

Of course, DrL and I are honored to have been chosen for such a prominent role in policy formation here at Wikipedia. But in the final analysis, such stereotypic typecasting is neither fair nor productive. Wikipedia's need for useful precedents regarding the interpretation of general policy does not entitle it to "make examples" of those who have been subjected to defamation and vandalism by other editors and/or administrators, or to scapegoat those who approach its top governing body for relief from ongoing harassment. Thus far, the administrative handling of this case is a clear abrogation of Wikipedia's responsibility not only to me, DrL, and other users in our general predicament, but to the public at large. After all, it is to the public that Wikipedia claims to place veracity, neutrality, and reliability at the top of its list of values, and from which it seeks to obtain maximum credit for doing so. In the end, no organization can build good will and enhance its public image by transgressing basic rules of decency and compassion along with the values it claims to uphold.

At this time, the case remains open. Accordingly, I'll continue to hope that these proceedings can be steered in a more valid and productive direction before coming to an end. [8 December 2006 (UTC)]

Final Decision

The final decision has now been reached. As others have remarked below, it is deficient in several important respects. In particular, it is now clear that administrative bias has played a dominant role in these proceedings and their central disputes from start to finish, and that the arbitrators, far from remaining neutral as they are responsible to do, openly share this bias and have actively prosecuted it at the direct expense of those who naively requested their help.

Although I began to suspect that the ArbCom was mishandling the case several days ago, I did not become reasonably sure of it until I contacted the arbitrators for clarification. (I credit two of the arbitrators, Bauder and Matthews, for conversing with me at all, given that the others failed to do so; the distributed structure and populist values of Wikipedia make it very important for those in charge not to hold themselves aloof from the rank-and-file contributors whose "wikifates" they presume to determine.) As a result of these communications, I gained important insight on how things run here, and why. Here's an essential rundown:

Arbitrator Jayjg refuses and then ignores polite requests [,,] that he recuse himself due to an obvious conflict of interest [; Jayjg is the adminstrator who traded blocking services with involved party FeloniousMonk in an obvious effort to score points against involved party DrL]:, ,

Jayjg ignores a request for explanation after insulting CML:

DrL asks Arbitrator Charles Matthews some questions about this RfAr, to which he responds unsatisfactorily:

Charles Matthews responds threateningly, and finally insultingly, to a request for explanation: 

Charles Matthews points out that nobody, regardless of his or her plight, has any right to question members of the Arbitration Committee or their decisions: , 

Arbitrator Fred Bauder responds unsatisfactorily to a question from DrL: , 

Fred Bauder is informed of vandalism threats against the CML biography, but appears to ignore them: ,

Fred Bauder ignores a request for explanation after insulting CML:

Arbitrator Matthew Brown (Morven) simply ignores all attempts to communicate with him: , , 

None of these people offered me or DrL the slightest relief or recourse, despite the well-verified fact that we have been intensively harassed since July 10, 2006. The CML biography has now been left unprotected despite numerous prior attempts at vandalism and inaccurate POV-driven editing. I must therefore register my personal vote of no confidence in this team of arbitrators, and in the overall administrative structure and composition of Wikipedia. At this time, it appears that personal administrative bias is a stronger determinant of content, and of "dispute resolution", than veracity, neutrality, and reliable sourcing.

If this systematic conflation of personal administrative bias with actual policy continues to occur, and if Wikipedia continues to offer no recourse to those whom it thereby wrongs, then it will at some point begin to lose the battle of public opinion and all of the other battles that inevitably hinge on it. This will be a tragic loss not only to those who have devoted their time and energy to the Wikipedia Project, but also to the world. One can only hope that the Wikipedia community will awaken to these administrative shortcomings...and that if it does not, and Wikipedia thus fails the test of time, the projects that replace it will not repeat the worst and most obvious of its errors.

DrL and I sincerely thank those members of the community who tried to do the right thing here. Best regards, Asmodeus 16:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Statement by FeloniousMonk
Asmodeus' problems here would simply not exist were he to clarify his relationship to the subject mentioned above as others have asked. As Asmodeus mentions above, Byrgenwulf and Hillman prior to ScienceApologist suspected he was violating WP:COI and WP:AUTO and sought clarification from him, which appears justified. Each time editors have sought such clarification from him, it appears Asmodeus has dodged the question by attacking those doing the asking. So doing inflames the situation by worsening the appearance that he is attempting to side-step WP:COI and WP:AUTO by refusing to clarify a possible personal tie to the subject.

This can and should be settled outside of the RFAR venue. If Asmodeus does not want to clarify his relationship and is indeed related to the topic, he need not reveal his identity but could merely limit his participation to those articles' talk pages per policy. This would be a great demonstration of goodwill and lessen the concerns of others to the point where they would eventually evaporate. If he is not related to the topic RFCU should be able to help him out without revealing his identity with no further action necessary since his response to the question is largely the cause of these difficulties. Either way clarification is what is needed, not another disruptive pseudoscience RFAR. FeloniousMonk 19:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Tim Smith
The part of this dispute dealing with the CTMU article is not limited to content, but concerns ScienceApologist's editing and reverting behavior. To summarize the evidence, ScienceApologist arrived at an article about a philosophical theory, concluded that it could be categorized under "pseudoscience", aggressively tried to erase the bulk of the content over the protests of other editors (  ), repeatedly ascribed to Langan a position the opposite of what Langan actually believes, reverted an attempt at compromise, dismissed the mediation process, broke 3RR ( ), made wild accusations of evangelism, POV-pushing, and sockpuppetry, derided other users' efforts as "ridiculous" and "nonsense", pronounced Langan's work "junk", and yet was so uninformed about the theory that he could not even spell its author's name correctly (   ), let alone accurately edit an encyclopedia article about it. Tim Smith 23:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved user Cowman109
I recently blocked User:Haldane Fisher for harassment of Asmodeus, who was clearly harassing Asmodeus by reverting his edits in unrelated articles, using his claimed real name in the edit summary (see contribs). The Haldane account was created only yesterday and seems to exist for the sole purpose of harassing Asmodeus, so I indef blocked it, but I figure this was worth noting in the arbitration case revolving around Asmodeus’ identity. Cowman109 Talk 19:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved user:Ed Poor
I've had similar issues with ScienceApologist before, which led to serious difficulties - both editorial and personal. At the time, I was an admin but wrongly blocked S.A. Mainly I was wrong because I was an "involved admin", and this led to my desysopping around a year ago which I have no gripe about. I took a year off as penance and apologized to S.A. (he graciously accepted my apology, much to my relief!).

But the bigger picture is a lack of clarity about the standards for describing matters of dispute in science articles which treat highly contentious religious and/or political issues. It seems to me that the arbcom has been ruling in favor of a POV which exalts materialism over supernaturalism, in place of maintaining a strict neutrality.

This might therefore not really be a matter for arbitration, as it requires first a clarification. Will Wikipedia exalt current majority scientific opinion as fact or will it stand back and report merely that a certain percentage of scientists in a field accept a theory?

As for civility and/or edit warring, I think it is quite natural for someone to get frustrated with another contributor in the absence of clear standards regarding the portrayal of ideas about scientific topics. I myself have lost patience, and I do not blame S.A. for losing patience.

It is not S.A. who is at fault, but rather the unclarity itself which is the source of the problem. No penalty should be given, but rather we should all direct our attention to resolving a Scientific topics standard. Then protests about whether a contributor is adhering to this standard would have more traction and require less shouting. --Uncle Ed 16:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved user QTJ
I have not been yet named here, but was indeed asked this by ScienceApologist (which I removed due to the speculation it made apparently being a violation of some policy or other), and replied here, and immediately sought neutral-third-party advice here. The neutral-third-party advice I received in reply to my request is here, and flavors my current stance. As CML, the CTMU, and ISCID are all "too close to me" (in that I've known CML personally for some years, reviewed and am listed in the CTMU primary paper's ack., and am a Fellow of ISCID), I absolutely must not be dragged into this except for what I have already stated. Recuse, recuse, recuse. If anyone feels the need to drag it beyond the diff's here provided, please seek an advocate to act as a neutral communicating third-party -- I have no patience to deal with any of this directly -- it's all quite beyond that which with I'm used to in dealing. I appreciate and have indpendently noted the concerns about possible slanting of bios here and here, et cetera, but this particular situation is just too close for me to be able to deal with it directly. I'm putting this statement here only to proactively avoid any further direct involvement. I may be reached directly and in confidence here by any so-willing neutral advocate, and have no desire to discuss details of my friendships, et cetera in full public view -- I find that quite distasteful and the consider such speculation in public quite unsettling.

Much appreciated.

-- QTJ(Talk) 20:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved user Jim62sch
If one is to include the editor responsible for the corrective action, the editor responsible for the corrected action must be included. Thus, if we're going to dot our i's (so to speak), Cowman109 had best be added as a party, as his block did not follow process, an act that was, as near as I can tell, the reason the block was lifted by FM. Failure to do so puts into question FM's inclusion as a party, and creates the perception that Thatcher131 is acting in an extra-clerical capacity. &#0149;Jim 62 sch&#0149; 10:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Disappointing
The case has closed, so I'll offer some final thoughts. To me, both the outcome and the way the outcome was reached are disappointing. According to the case introduction, "Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision." In fact, with the exception of a single comment by Morven, the only arbitrator who participated in the workshop was Fred Bauder. The final decision was reached as follows:

1. Six days into the case, Fred Bauder copied the bulk of the workshop's findings and remedies, most written by Fred Bauder himself or by Felonious Monk, into the proposed decision.

2. The other arbitrators then signed off on the bulk of what was copied.

None of the numerous findings and remedies added to the workshop after the copy-over, some including laboriously assembled compilations of diffs, reached the proposed decision, or even received comment from any arbitrator other than Fred. Also not addressed by the other arbitrators were the responses made to the older findings and remedies, many posted after some arbitrators had already voted. I tried pointing out that the proposed decision reflected a snapshot of the workshop taken six days into the case and not the whole picture, but to no avail.

Asmodeus and DrL are in my opinion good-faith editors, and I'm sorry to see such harsh penalties imposed on them. Asmodeus edited Christopher Michael Langan only two or three times, and not at all in almost the last five months, but his forbearance was returned with a ban from editing the article. DrL, who sticks to the sources and strives for neutrality, was similarly rebuked. Adding insult to injury, the decision classifies Crank (person) as a "related article" to Christopher Michael Langan. No reliable source supports that connection, and its improper addition to the article was part of what sparked this controversy in the first place. I recognize that the arbitrators are volunteers with limited time available for each case, but I hope they will take more care in the future. Tim Smith 05:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Disappointing? It's utterly ridiculous. DrL and Asmodeus get "banned" from editing a BLP and ScienceApologist and FeloniousMonk get "counseled." I rather expect to see that biography go the way of whatever angle anyone wishes to push now. I stood out during the process because of potential for conflict of interest. Too many things might have happened -- I may have hunted down evidence with too much zeal, or whatever, or may have been perceived to do so. Now that the decision is made, I'll say it: what a complete whitewash. It's really not worth hanging around such a place where such things are possible, so I'll be invoking my right to disappear as soon as I figure out what the tag for that is. -- -- QTJ(Talk) 11:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)