Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Restoring Honor rally


 * /Archive

Standards of conduct
Bickering and incivility are not helpful here. The privileged nature of mediation prevents me from asking an administrator to action inappropriate conduct, but if this case fails because one or more bad apples are spoiling the basket, I will have no hesitation in kicking this straight along to ArbCom. Please try to focus on the content and never on the contributors. Remember: as soon as you make a comment that isn't about the text of the article (or peripheral issues) but about your fellow editor, you've probably broken the rules. AGK  10:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

WGFinley's offer to mediate.
Regarding WGFinley's offer on the project page. I do not feel he is involved, and do agree to his mediation; if he still wishes to assume the role. Akerans (talk) 18:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree. AzureCitizen (talk) 18:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 19:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree Hodgson-Burnett&#39;s Secret Garden (talk) 21:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree BS24 (talk) 22:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree 82.135.29.209 (talk) 15:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree Xenophrenic (talk) 18:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree Arzel (talk) 21:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree BritishWatcher (talk) 12:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree Alpha Quadrant    talk
 * Agree Morphh   (talk) 12:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, that's all eleven editors who "accepted" mediation on the project page, so I will let WGFinley know. --AzureCitizen (talk) 16:34, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Example of previous mediation
Media Matters had a pretty contentious mediation over how much weight to give to Hillary Clinton's involvement in the founding of MM. Arguments over sources figured prominently as well as weight and due/undue. More importantly, this mediation link gives us an example of how another mediator proceeded. I have no idea if this process is typical, and Wiki policy links that would illuminate the process post-mediator acceptance seem as scarce as hens teeth. Nonetheless, I think an example would help give us a heads up on what to expect. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 16:52, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Opening Statements

 * 1) Although I have some familiarity with the dispute I have been out of the loop for a bit since I initially came to the article in my admin capacity.
 * 2) Please put a brief statement below if you would like, 300-500 words will do just briefly outlining your position.
 * 3) I took two cases at once to help with some backlog, this case is secondary to the other case which waited longer so please be patient for my input.
 * 4) Please do not critique, respond or counter other statements.  For now just put your position out there and summarize what you think the issues are.

Thanks. --WGFinley (talk) 00:45, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Going to give this a few more days for the others to chime in who haven't. --WGFinley (talk) 16:46, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

As of Nov. 2 2010 BS24 is on indefinite block and unable to participate.
Obviously, crowd sizes are always controversial. I was involved in a rather heated dispute over the Taxpayer March on Washington crowd size section, because I felt the estimates of 75,000 with a crowd that big were ridiculous and believed the higher estimates. However, the majority media view prevails on Wikipedia, and I soon resigned to that fact.

It is the same in this debate. The majority media view prevails. The majority of the media chose not to go with CBS's 87,000. In sources outside of CBS itself and a CNN blog article, the estimate receives weight equal to that of other estimates. So to give a long paragraph to them, when almost all reliable sources do not, seems, to me, to be undue weight.

Also, there has been a minor issue with a certain reference from "On the Media", which claims multiple reliable sources are wrong that NBC News estimated 300,000. These sources include Brian Williams himself, who, as the face of NBC News, said clear as day that "NBC estimated 300,000"; the New York Times, Yahoo News, and others. Putting aside my personal biases against On the Media's claims and basing on Wikipedia policy, the majority view prevails over the minority view, which received no secondary coverage.

I have been involved in this article since the day it was created. That certainly doesn't give me any more credibility than other editors, but I think I speak from experience when I say that throughout the dispute, consensus has been to treat CBS as all other estimates.

I personally support this approach, where all estimates are compiled alphabetically into a simple table. References are provided so that readers can learn more and decide who they think is correct. The estimates are alphabetized so as not to give one estimate credibility over another. A simple lead-in with objective facts, such as the area of the crowd and that the number is disputed, is included. This seems to be the most neutral approach, and while not all editors would be happy with it, I think it would be a fair compromise. (Obviously it would be better looking than that one; that was just the first basic version). However, I am more than willing to agree to other solutions and look forward to hearing ideas from other editors.

In short, Wikipedia's role is not to take sides in a debate and decide who's right, but to present the debate to readers and let them make decisions for themselves. BS24 (talk) 02:03, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

''Comments by indefinitely blocked editor stricken, rather than removed, which is also allowed if anyone cares to do so. Filmfluff (talk) 21:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)''

As a note, going to user talk pages and posting "BS24 has been blocked" everywhere is like is like poking a hornet's nest and is not appropriate.-- Alpha Quadrant   talk    23:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Says you. How else are folks gonna know that a BS24 sock is likely?The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 07:10, 3 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Exactly. It's a common courtesy to notify involved editors of the possibility of sock attacks. The more eyes the better. Filmfluff (talk) 07:19, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I undid the striking out. Being identified as sock has nothing to do with the logical merits of his arguments. 82.135.29.209 (talk) 09:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Morphh
The focus of the dispute is WP:WEIGHT given to CBS. CBS has provided a scientific analysis along with details of the crowd estimation methodology. Personally, I believe this is the more accurate and correct crowd size, but for crowd size comparisons in that location, it's historically and commonly very low. Scientific crowd estimates are rare and differ significantly from the more common estimates based on history and eye witness accounts. Since crowd sizes for a given event are often used as a method of comparison regarding the events "strength", scientific estimates often mislead readers since the common yardstick is not a scientific estimate, but history for that area (the reflecting pool in this case, which is often based on the MLK rally estimates). This crowd size comparison can be clearly seen with the recent One Nation rally, which had no scientific estimate as a base of comparison but claimed equal size. The fact is, weight given (which covers depth of detail and quantity of text) is based in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in reliable sources. CBS is not really any more prominent in reliable sources than many of the other news organizations, it's just more scientific, but it's given 5-6 times more coverage in the article. Like it or not, CBS's scientific estimate is not the mainstream in the general media - it's a minority viewpoint. Giving it significantly more coverage is a violation of WP:NPOV - a non-negotiable fundamental policy of the encyclopedia. Perhaps we could link to the article on crowd counting and generically expand the details of the scientific methodology and history of crowd estimates (this article leads with the general controversy). I'm not sure what the perfect solution is, but we need to agree on something to move forward. Morphh  (talk) 13:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Akerans
I believe the entire Crowd size section is undue and could be trimmed, but the crux of the issue is the weight provided to CBS. There are different estimates between sources, but no single estimate appears to be a majority view. At least, not yet. This is a new event and as time progresses I'm sure one (or more) estimate(s) will become more prominent over time, and the article will be changed accordingly. However, at present, we're treating CBS' estimate more prominent based on how they've written their article than how prevalent they are in reliable sources. Whether or not the material is claimed to be scientific is irrelevant because we don't treat news organizations as academic journals. At the end of the day, CBS is still a news organization and is no more (or less) accurate than any other news organization. Their estimate is of no greater prominence in reliable sources (at least not by the margin of space we've given them). I recognize the fact that people would like to say certain things about CBS' estimate. Unfortunately, we really can't do so without ignoring/violating neutral point of view, and I believe a good compromise would be to link the Crowd counting article in some fashion instead of ignoring/violating neutral point of view. Otherwise, ignoring/violating neutral point of view and giving CBS' estimate the most weight creates a false impression about CBS' estimate and misleads our readers. Akerans (talk) 18:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Xenophrenic
The issue: how to deal with "Crowd size" content in this article in such a way that it won't diminish the significance of the event by showing the event as smaller than some claim it was. Size matters, afterall. Some solutions: The first solution would be to argue that the information doesn't deserve its own section in the article, or that it should be hidden in a completely separate article of its own. Failing that, substantiated information should be randomly mixed together with unsubstantiated speculation, and all identifying details removed so the reader can't tell which is which; claim a need for equal weight. Adjectives describing unflattering information as "scientific" or "accurate" or "produced by experts" should be removed, even if reliably sourced, as they will only confuse the reader; likewise, reliably sourced descriptions of flattering information, such as "vague", "merely repeated" or "unnamed, anonymous source" should be removed as unnecessary detail. It should be stressed, repeatedly, even in the face of obviously contradictory source evidence, that certain unflattering content is not really any more prominent in sources than flattering content; repetition adds strength. We shouldn't use secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement between our estimate numbers from a disinterested viewpoint, as that might complicate things for the reader -- and this article isn't about the crowd size anyway. It's better to leave the reader with as wide a range of conflicting information as possible. Cite WP:NPOV, but skip over this part, and this issue should be easy to resolve. Xenophrenic (talk) 17:02, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by BritishWatcher
Undue Weight and WP:NPOV in general are at the heart of this issue. It is simply not neutral or fair to give undue weight to one news agency (CBS) along with AirPhotosLive/ Stephen Doig by giving these sources extensive coverage whilst only briefly mentioning the other sources with half sentences. I am prepared to accept the present wording in the article, it is not ideal and i believe it still has the same problems, but it is certainly more reasonable and stable than some of the suggestions which gave CBS even more undue weight than the current one. To be more neutral though the detail given about methodology for those specific sources allowing them a whole paragraph is wrong and should be reduced. BritishWatcher (talk) 11:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by AzureCitizen
I think the issue here is the application of WP:WEIGHT to the crowd size estimate by CBS News. The difference between the CBS News estimate and the other estimates lies in it's description of the science, methodologies, and experts involved. The other estimates do not contain such descriptions and are thus shorter in length. I believe some of us are of the opinion that undue weight is therefore being given to CBS News, while some of us are of the opinion that it is not; key to this weight concern is the point that by including the additional CBS estimate details, we might be endorsing it as the authoritative and "correct" estimate, not by explicitly saying so, but by the physical size of the CBS estimate text compared to the other estimates. My take is that we're not talking about views that are competing for space in terms of what their inherent perspectives are, the breath and depth of their argument, etc. Instead, there just isn't much to say about the science of the other estimates because they didn't supply their research, methodology, etc. If they had, those details would be welcome here because they are relevant. Why are they relevant? Because there is a crowd size controversy, and for any readers who are interested in it, the relevant science and methodologies involved facilitate an informed reader who can assess and decide for themselves, whatever that might be. Conversely, stripping out the science and methodology deprives the reader of that relevant information.AzureCitizen (talk) 03:20, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Hodgson-Burnett's Secret Garden
(I don't know if I should recuse myself or simply remind folks I've not even nominally kept up on the nature, let alone particulars, of this dispute.) The controversy seems notable, thus I think it can be, if desired, covered in more detail than just the very briefest of mentions that I myself would probably give it, were I writing about it: (FWIW, something along the lines of, off the top of my head, "A crowd analysis commissioned by CBS estimated attendance as ________; organizers said they believed ________ attended; and various media outlets mentioned estimates in between").--Hodgson-Burnett&#39;s Secret Garden (talk) 01:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous
The controversy over crowd size drew as almost as much attention as the rally with fanciful estimates gaining as much attention as scientific estimates. Glenn Beck made the controversy an introductory focus of his speech at the rally. In other words, the controversy over crowd size estimates has weight.

There is not much to say about many of the estimates because there is not much to say beyond stating the source, if one exists, or the reporting party, and the number offered. It makes no sense to claim that since the Wall Street Journal was too cheap to hire profressionals estimators, that that we are consequently unable to at least briefly that explain that CBS's estimate came from its own aerial photos were looked at by and an experienced analyst. However, because no vaild, substantial critcisms of the CBS number exists: we don't have to go into great detail over the protocols and methods of its comissioned study. If this is agreed to, the section has a chance to be not so lengthy. If instead we have to pick at CBS's estimate, then we have to pick at the challengers. (Beck, for instance, is also noted for coming up a phony source for an estimate of 1.7 millison of the 9/12 rally.) Crowd organizers and supporters are inherently suspect and seemingly without exception, unable to come up with estimates as low as scientific estimates. These interested parties have, according to science writer Lawrence Krause, a long history of "inherent inaccurarcy" and controversial crowd estimates. Krause also characterized Beck's methods as "slipshod."

Some of the other estimates have been questioned with authority. NBC produced four separate estimates, from tens of thousands to a half milllion. On The Media did one of the most in-depth look at the controversy and found Brian Williams wrongly claim during a discussion on Meet The Press, and not reading fact checked copy, that NBC had estimated 300,000. (No citation of NBC declaring it had made such an estimate is locatable.) This was a missattribution, OTM said, of an NBC report about an anonymous "official"-presumably from the Parks Service - estimating 300-325k in atttendance. Interviewed by OTM, Doig, winner of a Pulitzer prize, pointed out that NBC was not the source, though others, including Williams mistakenly missreported it to be so. Separately Joe Scarborough, and his show said 500K were there. Finally A fourth report from NBC Nightly News reported the vague range of " "tens, perhaps hundreds of thousand". There has some mention that NBC produced wildly different estimates that do not agree.

Looking beyond the special case of NBC's multiple numbers, the estimates of other media outlets could be grouped from non-estimates (e.g., there's no way to estimate the crowd) to the vague (10s-100s of thousands) ; then from low to high of the more apparently certain estimates. The table is an excellent way to list all of them from the substantial to the loony: CBS to Bachmann. But in order to have a paragraph be more than an unorganized citation dump, all estimates do not have to be listed in sentence form. The table handles that well enough. The happy result would be a reasonably short and informative section.

Statement by Arzel
This is definately an issue of WP:weight and well as WP:NPOV. There is no real reason to go into the scientific methods behind what AirPhotos did to arrive at their estimate. While the crowd size is an issue of controversy, it is not proper to give so much weight to this one aspect, since this article is not about the crowd size controversy. Perhaps that topic deserves it's own article. CBS did get a lot of attention because the crowd size estimate was so low relative to all/most other esitmates, and lets no fool ourselves, Beck is a political target as well as anything that appears to be related to the Tea Party movement. Which brings up the aspect of NPOV. There appears to be extra weight given to CBS purely because they claim it to be the only scientific estimate. Because of this some feel that the CBS/AirPhotos estimate supercedes the other estimates, but it is not the job of WP to determine which reliable source is more valid. One of the proposals which seemed to be the most neutral was to present a basic background stating the controversy and then including the estimates without giving particular weight to any one estimate. In the crowd size estimate box the estimates were listed in alphabetical order as well to avoid any appearance of a specific POV. I think it is fine to mention that CBS commisioned the estimate, but not go into specifics less we include rebuttals from others that have problems with the way the estimate was made. Arzel (talk) 04:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Alpha Quadrant
I really don't have a opinion of which article version is right. Therefore I abstain making a statement. -- Alpha Quadrant   talk    14:17, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by 82.135.29.209
I think we should change the following:

Overall, I think that the best way for archiving WP:NPOV is by judging and weighting arguments.
 * 1) Fix undue weight: WP:NPOV requires us to present "in rough proportion to their prevalence within the source material". (Note that it says "material". It does not say "number of sources" or "ignoring how much information they provide".) However, currently the weight of the CBS part in the article is much less than the weight in the "source material", see . This should be fixed.
 * 2) Not rely on passing comments: WP:OR says to "not rely [...] on passing comments". Therefore we should remove all crowd size numbers which are just mentioned in passing without any explanations (e.g. NYP, ABC). This gives us space for more important information.
 * 3) Provide methodology: Obviously the crowd size numbers in the press are highly contradictory. WP:NPOV explains that "when reputable sources contradict one another [...], describe both approaches". We must not decide which number is correct. But we have the obligation provide the reader the information about how each number was determined (if known).
 * 4) This includes that we should add the asterisk about the sources to the table again, for example as in.
 * 5) Provide expert information: From WP:SOURCES follows that we should provide expert information about calculating crowd sizes (instead of all this crowd size guesswork of many reporters which are no reliable sources for crowd sizes - just look at the contradicting numbers). Expert information is for example Doig's explanations as in, including describing issues like "looking at it from the edge". And I think nobody doubts that Doig is an expert in crowd size calculation, possibly the only real expert participating the whole debate in person.
 * 6) Fix NBC/Montanaro misrepresentation. As far as I know no source says that NBC or Montanaro made an own estimate, the various sources just quote that number. But we have the information from Steve Doig: He explains that NBC got the number from Montanaro, who himself got it from this mysterious "unnamed Park Service official", see . In other words, these three estimates are in fact only one independent estimate.
 * 7) No selective choice of sources. For example, why was the (low) Fox News estimate deleted, but other (much higher) vague estimates kept? (My preference would be to remove all vague estimates.)
 * 8) Balance Beck's comments. To balance (WP:BALANCE) the quite long Becks comments about the crowd size, Colbert's comments should be put in back again, possibly shortened to this "Shorter proposal integrated in the existing Beck section". Colbert is a TV star similar prominent as Beck, and Wikipedia should balance opposing point of views.
 * 9) Remove pre-rally ABC estimate  (see p.2), currently wrongly presented as post-rally number. Added 82.135.29.209 (talk) 08:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC), changed 82.135.29.209 (talk) 19:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 10)  Rephrase intro to Talk:Restoring_Honor_rally, which is a NPOV summary. Added 82.135.29.209 (talk) 14:40, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 11) Label the CBS number as the only scientific number. CBS says it, and CBS is a WP:RS. WP:NPOV says that we should avoid presenting uncontested assertions as mere opinion. Added 82.135.29.209 (talk) 09:25, 8 November 2010 (UTC), changed 82.135.29.209 (talk) 20:00, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Alternatively we all can meet at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, one party at the left side, another party at the right side of the pool, and then we ask the press to determine the size of each crowd, as described in WP:CROWDSIZE.

82.135.29.209 (talk) 00:03, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Statement by UncleDouggie
For information, this subject has also been discussed at length on Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear because that article has a legitimate reason to reference the crowd size of the Restoring Honor rally. For now, the CBS estimate of 87,000 is being used. Discussion is here and here. I'm an uninvolved party in the past dispute on Restoring Honor rally. However, if it would be useful and appropriate for me to make a statement here duplicating the thoughts I have expressed at Talk:Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, I'm willing to do so. —UncleDouggie (talk) 06:41, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Please do. I'm curious. Filmfluff (talk) 21:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:RS, the context for information provided by a source needs to be considered in determining reliability. When NBC reports that a baseball game had attendance of 37,000 people based on reports from the management of the stadium, that is reliable because there are mechanisms to accurately count the attendees and stadiums have a reputation for accurate reporting. However, it does not follow that a crowd size estimate from a sponsor or participant in a demonstration with no ticket control is equally reliable. Demonstrations are judged largely by the number of people that attend, so the people running the event have a strong interest to give out exaggerated numbers. Those estimates should be thrown out as unreliable and receive zero weight, unless they are mentioned as humor. This means that all reports from Bachmann, Beck and Fox News should be ignored.

For the news outlets unaffiliated with the event, it is important to consider their sources. In many cases, they will just repeat what another news organization has said. This should only be considered in the weighted opinions if they have independently fact checked the information. If ABC News reports Brian Williams' gut estimate from NBC News, the ABC report should not be included because such a report can't be fact checked. On the other hand, if NBC News reports a crowd estimate from a source at the Parks Service and ABC News re-reports the information after checking it, then both reports should be considered. We have seen this problem in the estimates for Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear where sources from the sponsor and their parent companies were reported by otherwise reliable news outlets with no fact checking. Again, for a baseball game this may be OK, but for a demonstration it is unacceptable.

Some editors have discounted the scientific opinions because different analysts have produced different estimates. What they fail to say is that the various estimates are all very close together, ranging from 78,000 to 96,000 people. I would have no problem listing that range in the article because we don't really know the exact count of attendees. However, the current range of 80,000 to 1.6 million is so absurd that readers will think it is the result of vandalism. No reputable encyclopedia would report such a large range. What to do with the 300,000 estimate from NBC News and the New York Post? Just say that "scientific analysis of aerial photographs has shown an attendance of 78,000 to 96,000, however, some reporters said it felt like there were up to 300,000 people present." Nothing more needs to be said, except for the refs of course. As for the Sky News count of 500,000, the site isn't loading so I can't check it. But I'm inclined to toss it out as an outlier being that it's the lone high number after the unreliable sources are dropped.

I'm strongly opposed to what I see as a trend to quote verbatim all sources and "document the controversy" in situations like this just because no one has the guts to make a call on the reliability of a source. That road leads to utter reader confusion and the death of the project. We're editors, not cut and paste automatons.—UncleDouggie (talk) 12:39, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Statement by Soxwon
I was invited to make a statement by User:The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous and quite frankly have only one real problem: the lead should summarize what the article says, and considering that current high number figure (1.6 million) is only supported by Michelle Bachman who admits getting it from some random park police employee, I don't see how that reflects reality. I think that the number should be closer to 300k, but at most should be Beck's claim of 650k. As for the rest of the article, honestly, I feel that Beck's should be thrown out and that the CBS should be considered the most reliable while others are mentioned. Soxwon (talk) 18:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Statement by BoogaLouie
I was only invited by the general invitation on the talk page but would like to point out that the whole issue of conflicting estimates of the rally is itself a public issue, with 242,000 results for a google search of crowd size restoring honor rally. So while I strongly agree that people running political demonstrations have a strong interest to give out exaggerated numbers of attendees and that crowd estimates that provide scientific analysis along with details of the crowd estimation methodology should be given more wieght than estimates that don't, and that the sentences "Event organizers also reported a range of attendance. FreedomWorks suggested between 600,000 to 800,000 participants while National Taxpayers Union said 200,000 to 300,000" should at least be shortened, I think tossing out all the estimates by organizers and participants (at least in the Crowd size section of the article) would be a mistake, if only to point out the unlikelyness of the estimates and their conflict of interest. --BoogaLouie (talk) 22:25, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Status
Thanks for opening statements, I want to take some time to consider them. I'm sorry this hasn't moved faster, work has been brutal for me lately and I've had no time to be on. I will try to get a look at this this weekend and have something for you folks then. Thanks for your patience. --WGFinley (talk) 06:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * WGFinley: Shall I reassign this? AGK  [&bull; ] 12:16, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Let's put it on hold for a few days. We've been making good progress lately on the article talk page. We still have a few items lacking consensus and some editors are having trouble accepting the points on which we do have consensus. So, it could all still explode again, but I'm holding out hope for a little longer. —UncleDouggie (talk) 12:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm very glad we're all working amicably, but mediation isn't reserved just for the heated arguments like we had before. I'm still happy to proceed with mediation on the points we're still having trouble agreeing on. NYyankees51 (talk) 14:43, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm pleased to hear that there has been progress. That mediation is still necessary is, of course, not a reflection on the quality of the efforts of the parties to date. Will I find another mediator for the case, then? AGK  [&bull; ] 09:08, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No need, we have no trouble with consensus, though we are not always unanimous. The Artist AKA Mr Anonymous (talk) 14:37, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hold on, the Artist. Not everybody originally involved is currently working on it. Let's see if they're still interested first. NYyankees51 (talk) 15:16, 10 March 2011 (UTC)