Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence/Evidence

I started on Wikipedia in June 2006 and first became involved with race and intelligence related controversies in the fall of 2009. A mediation started in November 2009. Over the next 6 months, significant progress was made: compare the version toward the start of mediation with one near the end. Note how the new version was less then 1/2 the length (and now consistent with WP:SIZE) and how numerous formatting problems, incorrect citations, spelling errors, poor grammar, lousy writing and so on were fixed. Of course, the new version is not perfect, but uninvolved editors thought that it was an improvement over the old one. Important issues that had been the source of much conflict over the years were resolved. For example, "Research into race and intelligence is not "fringe", some of the conclusions drawn from that research are highly contentious and need to be presented as such in the article." This was extremely helpful since it obviates the need for fruitless and repetitive debates about whether or not WP:FRINGE applies to the work of Arthur Jensen and others. I think that Ludwigs2 deserves a great deal of credit for the success of the mediation. Note, importantly, that no other editor volunteered to do the mediation after the first two mediators left the process. Critics of Ludwigs2 should recognize that the choice we faced was not between Ludwigs2 and some hypothetical perfect mediator but between Ludwigs2 and nothing. We all owe him our thanks.

True progress on Race and Intelligence and related articles seems to require a different editing procedure. Consider three concrete examples of such progress: the History section (here and here), the Debate Assumptions section (here and here) and the Lead here. All these cases resulted in significant improvements to the article and featured widespread consensus among editors of very different viewpoints. Common factors: 1) Drafting was done on the Talk page, not in the article itself. Only after the section was complete was it moved into article space. 2) Drafting occurred over many days, allowing all editors time to register their opinions. 3) Comments from all were repeatedly solicited and incorporated. 4) The entire section was edited at once, thus allowing compromise over what to include, what to exclude and the relative proportions devoted to different material. Standard editing procedures have produced seemingly endless conflict and edit wars at this article for years. I think that this new procedure --- which I call multi-day section-editing --- should be required going forward.

I suspect that many complaints about my behavior will center around recent disputes about material related to Arthur Jensen. The original debate is here. Several similar debates have followed, summarized here. Throughout, my behavior has been guided by my understanding of WP:BLP: "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." The critical question, obviously, is just what "poorly sourced" means in this context. If a reliable source reports that person X says that Arthur Jensen wrote Extreme Claim A, do we just report that fact? Or should we demand to see evidence from Jensen's actual writings that he did, in fact, make Extreme Claim A? I would appreciate guidance from Arb Com on this situation. I argue that my interpretation has been made in good faith and, as evidence, cite the fact that uninvolved editors like Jimbo Wales, Off2riorob, and Rvcx were supportive of my position. (They may have changed their minds since then. See the full discussion for context.) Whether or not my deletions were right or wrong, it would be helpful if Arb Con were to provide guidance on this topic so that the policy is more clear going forward.

This is the only point I'm absolutely sure of. On March 29, I questioned the expertise of Dr. Pesta, an "expert" quoted frequently on the article talk page. Ludwigs2 responded by accusing me of attacking the editor Bpesta22, and then refactored my comment.

At that point, I decided there was little point in participating in the article as long as it was under mediation; questioning the expertise of proposed experts is required to determine whether a concept is WP:FRINGE.

I am specifically not alleging that he only redacted the comments of the "environmentalist" editors, although those would be the only ones to attack Dr. Pesta's credentials.

In this edit, he stated I was bound by (his) rules for the mediation. This is a complete violation of WP:MEDCAB rules. If I objected, the mediation would be void. I didn't object, but I believe Mathsci did in a an edit which Ludwigs2 redacted. There were also a number of AN and ANI threads which objected to the mediation, but I don't recall any which decided the mediation was invalid, although one result suggested that the issue could be discussed after the mediation closed.

This was expressed, better, by Hipocrite, in #Mediation without all parties, below. Mathsci did object to the mediation, and Ludwigs2 stated he should have objected earlier. Any party (to the mediation) who feels the mediation is not working can withdraw from it, and it becomes void.

I looked forward to David.Kane's examples of "progress", but I don't really see any.

Mediators are not judges - they are obligated to get the parties to reach agreement, not to rule in favor of one party. Ludwigs2 failed miserably in his role as mediator - he turned himself into a judge quite early in the process, did not dispel perceptions that he had some sort of authority, and, when he realized major participants in the dispute were not participating in his flawed mediation, continued on without those participants, using his perceived (but false) power as a judge to steamroll their later objections.

17:40, 10 February 2010, (diff forthcoming) Ludwigs2 wrote - "I am going to decide by fiat that the page will remain exactly as it is right now for the duration of the mediation, pending some good argument for changing it."

On the request for this case, Ludwigs2 wrote "...[Mathsci] continued with his irrational outbursts, insulting other participants, spawning one ANI thread after another, hell bent on destroying whatever progress the mediation made because (so I assume) he didn't like the consensus that was developing." How could Mathsci, a major contributor to the article, not like the consensus that was developing? If he wasn't on board, how could there be consensus?

See also Wikipedia_talk:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race_and_Intelligence/Archive_6#Concerns for more concerns about excluding an entire side from the mediation

Multiple people opposed a one-sided rewrite of the article by David Kane in article space, proposing instead it be done in talk or mediation space and commented on (see Wikipedia_talk:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race_and_Intelligence/Archive_6#Rewriting_Article_from_March_30_to_April_1) This was dismissed out of hand (even after a member of MedCab said it was pretty much the right way to do things) by Ludwigs2 - "I think at this point the best thing to do is allow David.Kane to finish what he's doing. if there's a serious worry at the end, it is a matter of a couple of minutes' work to move the page to a subpage and reassert the old version." However, when the rewrite was objected to, the draft was protected by single purpose editors with a series of reversions to the draft, as opposed to the promised subpaging. Was Ludwigs2 not paying attention? - ([1])

Later the article was again rewritten by David.Kane, again in article space. Having been alerted to the disaster ongoing by a posting on ANI, I reverted the article to a pre-rewrite version ([2], and David.Kane reverted wholesale, stating please bring it up on the talk page before doing a massive revert like this. Where was the subpaging at this point? When this was brought to Ludwigs2's attention, as opposed to doing the promised reversion and subpaging, Ludwigs2 instead demanding that we "build a good article from this base" (Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 76). In that section you can find several other objections to the total rewrite - see sections "Lead discussion", "Neutrality", "Controversial claims treated as facts" and "Numbers do not speak for themselves." Why was the massive rewrite not undone and discussed in a subpage? Because Ludwigs2 failed as a mediator and picked a side, and just joined that side as a co-POV pusher.

It is imperative that ArbCom retract Ludwigs2 ability to mediate. For precedent, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Coolcat,_Davenbelle_and_Stereotek, specifically the sections on "Competence", and "Coolcat's status as a mediator."

Evidence to submitted privately to avoid outing. Hipocrite (talk) 13:41, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to statements made by Captain Occam, Ferrago the Assassin did not at any point admit an off-wiki knowledge of Captain Occam - in fact, questions about why Captain Occam was contacting Ferrago the Assassin about an article Ferrago the Assassin has never edited was dodged by both of them. Hipocrite (talk) 13:49, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Outside of his edits to Race and Intelligence, David Kane has used wikipedia to host poorly source possibly defamatory information about living persons. In a userspace draft of his ephblog article, [3], David Kane included negative facts sourced only to Ephblog about the following living persons - naming a Williams faculty member who used a racial slur, negatively summarizing a speach by David Halberstam, naming professors turned down for tenure, naming college students and alums who hung posters of Adolph Hitler, naming a coach who was fired.

One of these incidents, the naming of a graudate, was denied by the subject, and resulted in legal action against Ephblog. [4]

David Kane has now branched out into wikistalking - having not !voted in any afds except for:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? May 2010
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/EphBlog October 2009
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Edwards paternity allegations August 2009
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Williams Record (second nomination) March 2007,

he all of a sudden shows up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hide the Decline to !vote in opposition to me. Hipocrite (talk) 13:10, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In ANI I made a request to topic ban several SPAs from the R&I topic, and User:Ludwigs2 adviced one of them to assume bad faith from my actions:

David, don't let this get to you. This is all bluster designed to make you feel paranoid, more than an actual threat. Standard hazing from the pseudoscientists; don't sweat it too much. (emphasis added) [5]

I told him that it was a bad faith assumption, and he replied:

Oh my heavens, that is hilarious. Look, Eric, let me point out what should be an obvious fact that you (and Mathsci, and Hipocrite, and several others I could name) seem not to get. People who indulge in name-calling and labeling in order to invoke prejudicial reactions from others - i.e. people who act like spoiled, pugnacious children - these people do not get to claim the moral high ground. Not ever. (...) this is a mater of whether one acts like an adult, or whether one doesn't. (...)[6].

and kept making the same assumptions:

"(...)the expectation here is that if enough pressure is put on you, you'll act out in some stupid way and do something that will give an admin a real reason to block you. It's pure (if nasty) emotional politics, so just relax and keep your head on straight" [7]

He also repeated in ANI that the only explanation for our actions is that were are acting in bad faith[8][9]

In this discussion in his talk page not only he refused to refactor anything, but he tried to justify his description in a comment ending with "Or are you trying to tell me that this whole ANI thing is something more than mere showmanship (drama-trauma to enrage and befuddle the masses)?"[10].

He also said "I don't believe I specifically pointed you out (...), so there's no reason for you to personalize it.", "I have nothing particular against you. If you want to personalize this, I can't stop you, (...)" even although he had posted his comment right below my comment and making a reference to my actions. And even although he had already posted in that same discussion:

I suggest that it is impossible to improve the encyclopedia when articles devolve in the manner of Lord of the Flies. Eric and Mathsci (and others) have decided to resort to playground warfare tactics to achieve their ends, and it has (unfortunately) worked well for them as a matter of practice. It doesn't fly with me, though, and I do know how to deal with it.[11]

Cue massive bad faith assumptions against Mathsci[12] and implying that editors disagreeing with him don't have any valid rational reasons [13]. Aprock points out that Ludwigs2 and the SPSa on R&I are engaging in the same behaviours, but that at least Mathsci's edits are backed by solid edits[14] and Ludwig2s's reply is that Mathsci behaved uncivilly first, and that this justifies the incivility of people who reply to him [15].

These smears, this advicing editors to assume bad faith of others, this refusal to accept that people disagreeing with him could right, and this WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, all of this is inadequate for a mediator, and Ludwigs2 should be barred from mediating anything and be admonished for assuming bad faith.(As Ken says here, this seems to be a long term problem) .

Additionally, Ludwig2 needs to be topic banned from the R&I topic, where his main contribution has been the enablement of POV-pushing editors and the obstruction of any actions against them:

"(...) my main goal here [in the topic ban requests at ANI] has been to get you guys to bluster at me for a while so he [David.Kane] has some breathing space. I think that has pretty much been a success, so please continue.".[16].

As a general note, Ludwigs2's goal in wikipedia seems to be the protection of editors of fringe viewpoints, even when those editors are POV pushing, all in order to protect them from the "hazing" of editors who hold a "mainstream" point of view.

Link to previous version of evidence

Captain Occam has made a number of 3RR reports related to R&I articles, mostly prior to the GWH/ArbCom 1RR restriction.

• Slrubenstein
• Ramdrake
• Mathsci 1
• Mathsci 2

Both sets of diffs in the proposed decision have been taken from Captain Occam's evidence.

THE FIRST SET OF DIFFS FROM MAY These were dismissed by Black Kite at WP:AN3 (Mathsci 2). Captain Occam failed to mention Mustihussain and the Belgian IP warrior in his report, already on 7RR by that stage. Here is a recap of what happened.

Between May 24 and 25 there were three separate types of content being added to race and intelligence. The account of R.O.C (talk · contribs) was adding lmages illustrating SAT scores, claiming that these were equivalent to IQ scores with no source for the claim. It is known that there is a correlation between the two. The second strand of content was the removal of BLP-violating material on psychologists who were incorrectly described as researchers into race and intelligence, without any source. In particular this applied to the scientists Nisbett, Ceci and Williams. During this period I had made the worries of BLP violations clear on the talk page and had added rags to the article. In a large edit I chnaged the offending section "debate assumptions" to "current debate", incorporating and adapting most of the previous material in the correct context, restoring WP:NPOV and adding for the first time a summary from secondary sources of the 2005 paper of Rushton and Jensen. In adding that material by copy pasting [17] I made a careless mistake in duplicating old and new material, so that Nisbett and Ceci & Williams are mentioned twice. Once spotted the old material, that had been rewritten, was removed. The third strand was a returning Belgian IP who had already been blocked on May 23 by Asterion for edit warring and adding highly contentious material to the article. I reverted the fifth revert of this editor, having identified him from his behaviour on the talk page. He was subsequently blocked for 31 hours by Black Kite. (I am using the French time stamp below.)

• 23:04 May 24 [18] revert unsourced SAT images of R.O.C
• 04:26 May 25 [19] revert unsourced SAT images of R.O.C
• 05:35 May 25 [20] revert unsourced SAT images of R.O.C
• 06:12 May 25 [21] remove BLP violating material as per discussion on article talk page [22] and later BLP tags
• 18:02 May 25 [23] correction to complete rewrite of section by removing BLP violating that had accidently been left in place
• 19:56 May 25 [24] reverting Belgian IP edit warrior (19:37 [25] 19:25 [26] 19:27 [27] 19:33 [28] 19:36 [29] 19:40 [30] 19:48 [31]) recognized as returning previously blocked disruptive user (discussion on article talk page preceding this edit 19:23 [32] [IP explains edit] 19:28 [33] [I ask IP if he is the same as the editor from May 23] 19:32 [34] [I say page should probably be semiprotected] 19:39 [35] [IP says Mustihussain disagrees with him because he is an arab] 19:44 [36] [IP makes remarks about Marxists] 19:48 [37] [Mustihussain calls IP a "racist turd"])) Warning to editor at 19:42 on talk page about edit-warring; blocked by Black Kite at 20:14 ([38]); Captain Occam reports me for edit warring at 20:02, apparently unconcerned with the Belgian IP warrior's 7 reverts by that stage.

THE SECOND SET OF DIFFS FROM JUNE Here is the what Captain Occam wrote in his evidence:

More recently he’s also made six reverts in 24 hours on the History of the race and intelligence controversy article: [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44], and reverted it twice more within four hours after that: [45] [46]. This case is a little more complex, because he was not restoring the exact same material each time, but in each case it was undoing some or all of a change made by another editor. When I attempted to warn him about this behavior in his user talk, he reverted my edit five minutes later with the edit summary “rv trolling”. Apparently he not only considers himself entitled to disregard 3RR; he also does not think other editors should have the audacity to bring it up with him when he does.

There was no report at the time and the second, third and fourth diffs were not reverts at all, as explained below. Here is my analysis of the diffs.

Image blanking by IP warrior

A user using within three different related IPs became active on History of the race and intelligence controversy in early June. The three accounts were 99.141.254.167 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), 99.141.250.125 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (first account 99.142.7.232 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)). Their edts were devoted to removing images of individuals on the grounds that they were not notable, They removed all but four images in their first edit, which I reverted. A week later the user returned and continued blanking images, were reported on ANI where they became uncivil calling me a "lying scumbag Troll". They were blocked by Black Kite on June 11 for disruptive editing (for more details please see User:Mathsci/subpage9).

• (a) 16:34 June 1 [47] restore images blanked by IP (revert)

• (b) 18:04 June 2 [48] Diff between (a) and (b) [49] (not a revert)

• (c) 19:53 June 2 [50] (simple revert to (b)) (revert)

Victor Chmara adds his own selection of quotes from a primary source (WSJ)

• 15:09 June 2 [51] (revert)
• 15:15 June 2 [52] (revert)

There are four reverts but they are not within a consecutive 24 hour period.

Material on Webster

The diffs that were not reverts were as follows:

• 17:39 June 1 [53] (addition of new material as direct quotation of Webster - not a revert)
• 13:25 June 2 [54] (paraphrase of Webster - not a revert)
• 13;37 June 2 [55] (further paraphrase of Webster plus new material on impact of Jensen's theory of levels, incorporating Captain Occam's ref to Flynn - not a revert)

Captain Occam is aware that had he reported this at the time, his complaint would have been thrown out for three reasons: (a) only four of the diffs were reverts and they did not fall within a period of 24 hours (b) he would have probably been countered with using WP:AN3 to win a content dispute (c) the editing was being reported at ANI at the time. This concerned material by Yehudi Webster, but it's probably worth following through the history. On the 31 May, on the talk page of HR&IC Professor marginalia introduced yet another commentary of Jensen's 1969 paper by Yehudi Webster, carefully explaining its context and Webster's neutrality, with the quote

The discussion happened [Talk:History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy/Archive_3#Another_suspect_claim_about_Jensen_.281969.29|here]. Neither David.Kane nor Captain Occam made any comment on the material from Webster. Slrubenstein liked the quote as did I, so I included the whol quote directly in the article the next day.[56][57][58] (vlacks -> blacks) The material is reverted 6 minutes later by Captain Occam with no comment on the talk page.[59] His edit summary reads: This wording is pretty heavily slanted. I doubt it's NPOV to refer to Jensen believing in the "inferior genetic attributes of vlacks". (vlacks?) If you disagree, please justify this in talk. His edit was started before the spelling correction, i.e. as soon as the second edit was made, without having noted the previous talk page discussion. Professor marginalia restores the Webster material.[60] Now David.Kane copy edits the material, but then removes it as a BLP violation.[61] Professor marginalia says BLP does not apply and restores material again.[62] Professor marginalia starts a discussion on the talk page [Talk:History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy/Archive_3#Webster_revert|here]. Captain Occam replaces the material with his summary.[63]

I object to this summary of Webster as unsourced POV ("highly critical interpretation") and as misrepresenting the source, and give a paraphrase of the Webster quote, sticking closely to the original.[64] Captain Occam reverts to his version. [65] Building on Captain Occam's edit, include a new version of Webster's statement plus a new sourced passage, incorporating Occams's ref to Flynn, concerning the later impact of Jensen's level I / level II theories, citing Nicholas Mackintosh and James R. Flynn. [66] I followed with some tweaking and reordering of content. [67][68][69] [70][71] [72] [73] I make copy edits to the whole article. [74][75] Later an P warrior (blocked on June 10 for similar behaviour) started blanking images, I requested semi-protection and the page was fully protected for a week.

In his diffs Captain Occam includes the first insertion of the new Webster material which is as far from a revert as is possible. The next is a paraphrase and the third is a further paraphrase plus an addition and amplification of material added by Captain Occam. On the other hand Captain Occam in the same period sought to remove Webster's phrase, "because a certain level of underachievement was due to the inferior genetic attributes of blacks, compensatory and enrichment programs are bound to be ineffective in closing the racial gap in educational achievements", the content of the last phrase.

Assuming good faith goes out of the window as Mathsci assumes the worst possible motives for his "opponents"; dismisses their points, seemingly due only to his own high opinion of himself; and edits accordingly. [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81]

• Arguing that secondary sources should be attributed when they praise Jensen, using this as an excuse to completely remove the content. [82]

• Unattributed use of secondary sources to libel Jensen. [83] [84] [85] [86]

This represents the typical pattern of Mathsci's editing in which he tries to use questionably applicable policy details to trump the spirit of Wikipedia policy: neutrality and fair representation. Mathsci will tend to describe sources he doesn't like as primary (for example the analyses of data in the Race and Intelligence article, clearly secondary). He seems to think that finding a secondary source stating something is an acceptable reason to violate BLP and neutrality. [87] [88] [89] [90]

Bizarrely, Mathsci often makes the argument that since he edits a wide range of articles, his opinion carries more weight, typified by his relentless and irrelevant "SPA" perjorative. However, if this [91] is an example of his work, I would be tempted to reach the opposite conclusion.

A phrase often written by Mathsci (and those who share his POV) is that "Wikipedia is not about the truth". The implication is that they are comfortable with inserting clear lies into Wikipedia if we cannot find "secondary sources" expressing the contrary. I wonder if Wikipedia is improved in this way?

• Hereditarianism is the position that genetic factors explain 50-80% of the racial IQ gap, and cultural and environmental factors the rest.
• Environmentalism is the position that cultural and environmental factors explain close to 100% of the racial IQ gap.

The 'environmentalist' faction often like to state that the 'hereditarian' hypothesis is minority. The implication is that 'environmentalism' is the mainstream position. There is simply no evidence for this. As was established here [92]:

The only academic study to be conducted on the popularity of environmental and hereditarian models for explaining the difference in IQ between races concluded that 45% of polled experts believed that the difference is a product of both genetic and environmental factors while 15% believed that the difference is due to environmental factors alone. 24% believed that there is insufficient data for coming to a conclusion, and only 1% believed it is due to genetic factors only.

The claim that environmentalism is 'mainstream', at least in academia, is pulled straight out of thin air.

I'm involved with editing this article because it has been hijacked by a group of extreme environmentalists. I freely admit to slightly favoring the hereditarian hypothesis (actually I'm agnostic, to be precise). Prior to mediation the article was an environmentalist coatrack which did a very poor job of representing the current state of the academic debate on this subject, by minimizing and ridiculing one side.

For example, Slrubenstein, who has been involved with the article for years, made this statement [93], 'genetic hypothesis' here refering to the hereditarian hypothesis [94]. Coming from somebody one would expect to be familiar with the literature, this should set alarm bells ringing.

Re: Some Questions.

• Nobody has claimed hereditarianism is mainstream to my knowledge.
• Criticism is not the issue. The issue is misrepresentation of writing.
• I'm saddened that Maunus is still going on about the fact that I used the phrase 'fringe nitwits' [95]. It was slightly tongue in cheek, and actually intended to parody the attitude of Slrubenstein and others (how many times has Rushton been called fringe by Slrubenstein?). I agree it was a little over the mark, but nothing major. I was only referring to Nisbett's 'invalidation' of Rushton's brain size data, I think it could fairly be called fringe, but that's just my opinion. It's a rather egregious cherry pick of data (one sample). Crucially, you'll notice I didn't base any argument on this incidental personal opinion, as opposed to Slrubenstein, who often attempts to use the 'fringe' argument to influence the article. I immediately clarified that my use of the phrase 'fringe nitwits' was not the point [96]. Maunus exaggerates by claiming that I refer to anyone who criticizes Rushton as a 'fringe nitwit'. Maunus seems to be grasping at straws here in an attempt to pin some impropriety on me. The focus on and repetition of this extremely minor issue is a prime example of the diversionary tactics used. My arguments in this area went unaddressed, and remain unaddressed. I was prepared to compromise and include Rushton's data as well Nisbett's refutation, summarized as Maunus wished (this seems standard wiki practice). However, Maunus is apparently so convinced by Nisbett's refutation that we have to leave Rushton out. This seems rather high-handed.

Re: @Mikemikev: I don't think we need to re-open the content argument here. Maunus has already dismissed my attempt to discuss. The brain size data is not 'fringe', Maunus failed to demonstrate this. A few dissenting voices sure, but nothing to justify censorship.

I won't waste my time dignifying this too much. These people have their POV that "biological race does not exist" and think that sociologists and New York Times reporters are a better source for this than biologists. Apparently they are more "secondary". If this is the case I will be happy and proud to be banned from WP. Also I called WBB an idiot becasue of his repeated false accusations of vandalism. mikemikev (talk) 13:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More diffs to be added if and as I see a need. However, I'm more interested in the bigger picture, and don't really want to engage any small-scale crapulence.

While the difficulties on the R&I page have been ongoing, the current spate of problems begins with Mathsci's return (after what he claims was a wikibreak). Prior to his (re-)appearance, the mediation was - whatever you might think of its value - plugging along slowly, reasonably, and more-or-less appropriately. Mathsci obviously had concerns with the mediation, concerns which (I think) were perfectly reasonable points for discussion. He also had several choices for action, the two most obvious being:

1. He could have entered the ongoing debate in the mediation and started arguing for a different direction for the page, something I would have welcomed, and which I encouraged him numerous times to do.
2. He could have used the mediation page to suggest that the mediation was not progressing correctly, and therefore needed to be closed or changed to a different venue. Had he done so, I would probably have argued for closure of the mediation at that time, if only to see what effect that would have on the ongoing discussion.

(4 diffs of my requests to Mathsci to participate in the mediation; there are probably 10-12 I made in total, but this gives the idea [97], [98],[99], [100])

Instead, Mathsci [hijacked a thread] about a valid concern (TechnoFaye's tendency towards incivility, which could have used some attention from an administrator) to create an entirely fictional and overblown claim about the need for administrator action to close the mediation, and further, to suggest that I be [blocked] and later banned for mediating. His explicit and tendentious preference for political drama over civil communication continued for the remainder of the mediation and beyond, through numerous ANI threads and copious attacks on other editors, even after I manipulated him into contributing to actual content discussions on the mediation page.

Effectively, Mathsci saw the beginnings of a consensus in the mediation which he disagreed with, and rather than enter the mediation to try and change the consensus through discussion (his right as participant), he decided that he would destroy the consensus externally by applying administrative pressure. I understand the 'Darwinistic' advantage of this: political machinations of this sort can effectively dictate article content with much less time and effort than constructive discussion, and serve to rid the page of unwanted competitors. However, I find it distasteful

Mathsci, as noted, is the proximal cause for the problems on R&I, but the actual cause goes beyond both him and this article. It is a system-wide and growing tendency for editors to use political drama and administrative action as the primary means of controlling page content and article semantics (article semantics -> what a page implies, which is as, if not more, important than what a page actually says; a vastly under-considered issue on wikipedia). This kind of behavior effectively neuters consensus discussions, it leaves pages stuck in squabbling quagmires that exclude any possibility of article improvement and can only be resolved when someone gives up in frustration or gets penalized administratively. Worst of all, convinces new editors that tendentious political behavior is both an effective tool and an accepted practice on wikipedia, encouraging the behavior to spread to other pages.

Note, for instance, that I (first as mediator, and later by avoiding the page) have contributed relatively little to the article or to its problems, and yet I am gathering a disproportionate share of criticism from editors on Mathsci's side of the debate. This is because I have been explicitly attacking their political machinations (criticizing them for labeling and stereotyping other editors, for focusing on blocks and topic bans and avoiding content discussions, for attacking new editors - this is clearly evident in Enric's complaints about me, above). A hostile, polarized environment gives them (as long-term editors) a home field advantage in ANI - administrators will be inclined to think that hostility stems from newer editors, and newer editors are less likely to manage the hostile situations with as much aplomb. Drama-ridden, hostile discussions favor experienced editors, and experienced editors like those involved in this debate foster hostile environements and put them to good use.

Do I need to point out what a gross distortion of Wikipedia's core principles and editing policies this is? This behavior is as unhealthy for a collaborative encyclopedia as political purges are for democratic systems, and for precisely the same reasons.

I understand the belief on Wikipedia (shared by old-school journalists, idealistic liberals, dewey-eyed Marxists, and 'intellectual' conservatives  ), that "in the final analysis," calm, reasoned discussion will win out over emotionally-heated political rhetoric. In fact, there's more than a grain of truth in that ideal: almost everyone responds to reasoned discussion if they encounter it in the proper context and circumstances. Most of the pages on Wikipedia manage to fall into those conditions. The problem is that it is not the 'first-choice' approach for the vast majority of people in the world (as a rule, people begin with declarative claims and back them up initially with simple normative statements - it takes a significant effort to shift from a declarative to a communicative style of reasoning). No contentious topic will ever arrive at reasoned discussion unless efforts are made to protect the sanctity of the discourse. After Mathsci began his program to cleans the mediation and the article of editors he disagreed with, I began a strict protocol designed to defend the discussion itself - excising destructive, unproductive, and uncivil comments inline, extracting promises from participants to maintain specific standards of behavior, and etc (again, actions which Arthur and Hipocrite complain about above) - and the mediation progressed rapidly, even as the ANI furor mounted. If I had had sysop powers to back up the process, we would not be here. We would have a stable page at R&I: the problem would have been resolved through discussion, because I would have pruned off all the political drama and left discussion as the only viable means of resolving it.

When the project decides to take the concept of consensus discussion seriously, and ceases to tolerate this kind of political free-for-all, then these problems will resolve themselves. Not before.

Mathsci has misrepresented the closure of the mediation. I have made him aware of this mistake in talk, but (to date) he has not corrected his statement. so:

• Xavexgoem did close the mediation, but had no standing to do so, so I reopened it. As I had already said to Mathsci at several points by that time, mediation is a voluntary process which could be closed by the participants should he raise the issue on the mediation page. As mediator, I could not in good conscience allow the mediation to be closed without discussion and against the wishes of the majority of the active participants.
• I offered the two-week time frame to Xavexgoem as a reasonable period in which to finish up current discussions and solidify what progress we had made [101]. There was no 'granting of an extension' or anything like that - Xavexgoem and I merely agreed that that would be best. Mathsci has a fixation on authority that I do not share, and that (IMO) flies in the face of wikipedia norms.
• I did not create "an editing environment favouring fringe theories," I created an editing environment favoring discussion. The fact that Mathsci steadfastly refused to participate in discussion towards consensus is hardly a failure of the mediation.

--Ludwigs2 04:13, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just as an observation, there are two distinct threads in this dispute.

1. The actual R&I conflict (involving Mathsci, Occam, Mikemikev, AProck, and the other mediation participants). This involves the core content dispute, and various forms of bad behavior from different participants. I am involved in this thread, but not really a participant: I mediated, caught fire from unhappy people on both sides, and generally did my best to make what good I could out of a bad situation. My only content contributions to the article were a mild rewrite of Mathsci's lead after mediation closure and a restructuring and clarification to the "regression to the mean" concept, because it had been handled in an unscientific manner.
2. The subsidiary ANI conflict. This is the ongoing warfare in ANI, which attracted otherwise uninvolved editors like Enric Navel and Hipocrite. Hipocrite, in fact, only entered into the dispute as the mediation was closing, with the express purpose of fighting a political battle (as he shows in [this edit] he was extremely belligerent despite his own claim that he knows 'fuck all' about the content).

In my opinion, editors who decide to jump into an already dysfunctional situation purely to stir things up politically need a good bit more than a stout trouting. --Ludwigs2 04:34, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note this page (currently with 67 diffs) offered by Mathsci as "evidence." This page is perhaps the best example mathsci could have provided of his own political, tendentious behavior. observe, first, the following gross errors committed on that page - the information is for (for the most part) either completely inaccurate, deeply misrepresentative, or heavily biased. a handful of quick examples (first, last, and a couple chosen randomly from the center):

• First point: this link does not (as Mathsci claims) state that I have had a dispute with him before. It asks Mathsci to bring the matter up in mediation, and tells him that I will ignore further requests for mediation closure in ANI.
• Last point: this communication with User:YellowMonkey had nothing to do with me digging into Mathsci's past. in fact, I was made aware of this issue by User:Varoon Arya here, didn't find out it had anything to do with Mathsci until here, and specifically asked YellowMonkey to exercise oversight on it because I did not want it to muddy the issue here in arbitration.
• random point (7): Mathsci cites this diff as my being "Eager to be in control" and that I claim that "The mediation can go on indefinitely". In fact what this diff does is correct a mistaken impression that Mathsci had about the 2 week time limit (which I corrected him again on here in the arbitration). His continued efforts to use this point, even after I have explicitly refuted in multiple times, is telling.
• random point (25): Mathsci claims this diff shows me making an "undue comment as Arbiter", when in fact what I said was a very reasonable suggestion to another editor not to edit war
• random point (17): Matschi claims this diff is a "belligerent response to Xavegoem" - again, I defy anyone to read this response and identify anything particularly beligerent in it.

I'm sure there might be one or two reasonable claims against me buried in that mess, but since the first, last, and three random selections are all entirely specious, I don't suppose there are more than one or two.

So, the problems with this thing are as follows:

1. Mathsci is obviously counting on the fact that people will only read the commentary he's provided, and avoid digging through the mass of text in the links because of sheer volume, and therefore no one will realize that the commentary he's provided is utterly false and misleading.
2. Mathsci is putting me in the position where I am forced to
   1. Ignore him, and allow all of the false misleading claims that he has made to go unanswered
   2. Respond to him in a point by point fashion, which means that I would have to double the volume of text produced on the issue and obscure it even further
3. Even if I were to refute him on every single point, the general impression he has made with this long, slanderous list of mis-labeled diffs will stick with people, and remain as an attack on my character.

In other words, what Mathsci has done here is create a long list of lies in order to attack my character, in the hope that (a) no one will read far enough to notice that they are lies, and (b) people will remember the bad statements, even if the lies are later uncovered. This is a purely Machiavellian attempt at politics designed to make me look bad, without any actual reference to factual events; it serves no purpose for the encyclopedia, and in fact destroys the discussion process that might otherwise resolve these issues.

Mathsci engages in this same kind of behavior in ANI and on article talk pages - he begins labeling and insulting other participants, and continues with those efforts for an extended a period of time, as needed to damage the credibility of his opponents. He does not care whether the accusations are meaningful or true, only whether they can be used to bring political pressure on his opponents. Behavior like this, given the extent to which Mathsci engages in it, might actually call for a site-ban. --Ludwigs2 16:06, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mathsci has entered User:Mathsci/AC20 as evidence against me, but please note the following:

• There is no evidence presented on this page - no diffs of my supposed behavior, no discussion of the issue - this is merely libel, with vague links to other pages and discussion.
• There is nothing on this page that relates to the R&I debate at all, even if there was any valid evidence presented.
• I offered to speak with Mathsci using anonymous forms of communication, but he refused, insisting on email. However, since Mathsci has used off-line personal information to attack at least five editors in this mediation alone, I am unwilling to provide him with my own personal information. I'm not stupid. --Ludwigs2 15:12, 6 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It should be possible to write an article on intelligence/race that reflects the environment/heredity perspectives in a balanced way despite the controversy of the subject. My own perspective on the topic is here [102]. Unfortunately such an article has not emerged, only squabbling. I find the edits of the vociferous environment faction to be too often slanted and biased, cherry-picking sources to support a particular point of view and rejecting attempts at compromise. Their claim of team tagging looks to me like the pot calling the kettle black. Team tagging, if any, by the hereditist faction, is no worse than the team tagging by the environmentist faction.

I was disturbed that a major participant on the heredity side of the dispute Captain Occam has been blocked by administrator 2over0 right in the middle of this Arbcom case for no good reason that I could see. 2over0 was asked to explain his reasons for the block. He still has not responded. I have struck this request out following the ruling by uninvolved admin Georgewilliamherbert here[103] Xxanthippe (talk) 08:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

The attempt by some members of the environment faction to silence their opponents by urging that they be banned on the grounds that they are SPAs promoting views that are allegedly fringe theories/non-mainstream is contrary to Wikipedia's ethos. As has been discussed before [104] the personal conduct of prominent editor Mathsci is becoming more and more offensive. His claim [105] that a Jewish editor is a holocaust denier, for which he produced no evidence, is intolerable. In his evidence presented above [106] Mathsci claims "a group of single purpose editors has acted in concert to add material to Wikipedia articles overrepresenting the minority point of view that it is a proven scientific fact that the negroid (black) "race" has lower "general intelligence" on average than the caucasoid (white) "race" for genetic reasons connected with "race"." He includes my name at the bottom of the list. These allegations are utterly untrue. An examination of my edit record will show that I am not an SPA. I have never expressed any of the views above and I find it deeply offensive for it to be claimed that I am associated with them.

If behavior of this nature is not reined in then decent editors will disengage from Wikipedia and leave the field to those with the shriller voices. Wikipedia's reputation of objectivity will be damaged and a ban on a Wikipedia editor may come to be regarded as a badge of honor. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:34, 13 June 2010 (UTC).[reply]

I make the following recommendations for action by Arbcom:

1) An indefinite ban on editing be placed on Mathsci as being a focus of disruption on Wikipedia both here and elsewhere [107]. Although many of the previous edits by Mathsci have been useful to Wikipedia, no one is indispensable if their personal conduct causes such disturbance to the enterprise.

2) Require 2over0 to provide in full his reasons for blocking Captain Occam. If these reasons prove not to be satisfactory then the block should be lifted.

3) The present state of the article is grossly unsatisfactory, being, to my perception, full of bias and POV. It does not deserve the imprimatur of Wikipedia. Following the suggestion of Maunus below, it should be removed from mainspace on these grounds. It could be hosted on somebody's user space if they were prepared to invite others to edit it. If, after editing, the article became stable, then it could be re-released to mainspace. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:14, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that as an involved editor I should present some kind of evidence here, but i don't really have anything I feel I need to prove. It looks like most other editors are also content with posting opinions and statements instead of evidence, so I'll also just make a brief statement. I really thing this is a problematic area of editing and I can't say that I am impressed by the way most editors are handling their participation here. I am fairly sure that it is possible to write a neutral article about the general subject (I would like to believe for example that I'd be able to write such a one), but I don't see it happening at this point as the debate is completely polarized and degenerated into drama and debacle on all sides. I really don't know what to do here - maybe the best thing would be to not have an article about this topic at all? ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:06, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Many of the hereditarian researchers claim that they're being "silenced by the political correctness of the establishment" - several editors here claim that the hereditarian paradigm is mainstream and that the environmentalist one is fringe. Which is it then?

• Several editors here claim that it is a blp violation to quote secondary sources criticism of Jensen and others - and they try to apply WP:SYNTH to authors of reliable secondary sources in order to write articles from primary sources. Since we cannot expect authors or scholars to ever criticize their own theories or to agree with those who criticize them, then how is wikipedia supposed to describe when the work of particular scholars have been subject to extremely harsh criticism without violating blp?

@Mikemikev But who is supposed to decide what is a mischaracterisation? You and Captain Occam or the editors and reviewers of the publishing houses and journals in which the negative descriptions of Jensens research is published? The wikipedia I know has a strict policy to rely on published sources and not on editors WP:OR when deciding which claims are right or wrong about subject matter.

• Mikemikev claims to be agnostic - a wise stance since the only thing both groups of researchers seem to agree about is that we need to know more in order to determine the cause of the race iq gap. However in article talk space he has repeatedly defended Rushton and claimed that those criticising him and his antiquated theories and approaches are "fringe nitwits". Rushton's conclusions and research methods have been claimed to be invalid by multiple scholars (Richard Nisbett 2001, Leonard Lieberman 2001[108], Alexander Alland Jr.[109] 2004, Robert Sussman [110] ^[1], Jane H. Hill[111] ). And when he first published them in 1988 the dean of his own faculty Emőke Szathmáry stated that "Rushton had lost all scientific credibility".(Barry R. Gross the Case of Philippe Rushton - Academic Questions fall 1990). If these are fringe nitwits and Rushton is an example of a great scientist in mike's mind then what does agnosticism even mean to him?

@Mikemikev: the difference is that we have several reliable sources that clearly describe Rushton as working on the scientific fringe. There are none such describing Nisbett, Alland Jr., Sussman or Lieberman as "having lost all scientific credibility" or "trash" (in peer reviewed publications). And Mike is mistaken when he assumes that wikipedia works by prresenting invalid data and invalid conclusions and then mentioning en passant that most scholars working in that field find them to be invalid. Luckily, again the wikipedia I know has the policies of WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE to make sure that articles aren't written as Mike suggests.

Since David.Kane and Ludwigs2 have covered the topic of the mediation pretty well (I largely concur with them about this), I'm going to focus on what I view as the main sources of instability for these articles. At Roger Davies' request, I've moved everything back here from the subpages it had been on.

Mathsci’s disruptive behavior on these articles over the past few months has included personal attacks, edit warring, forum shopping, threats/intimidation, and likely outing. (“Likely” meaning according to the standard of what constitutes outing that Cool Hand Luke provided here.) In addition to doing something about Mathsci’s behavior in general, I would like it if ArbCom could offer an official ruling about this aspect of the policy regarding outing; see my proposal on the workshop page here.

[112]

[113] Note what I said in my initial statement about Mathsci regarding this dismissive comment as being sufficient justification to revert any efforts we made to improve the article based on these complaints, despite his being opposed by a five-to-one majority about whether these NPOV problems existed. The threads in which Mathsci stonewalled this discussion are here, here, here, and here.

[114] [115] [116] [117]

[118] In which Mathsci brings up irrelevant information about Vecrumba in a report he filed about Vecrumba violating 1RR. Bringing up information about editors’ pasts like this is something Mathsci does pretty often, but I think it’s especially a problem for him to be trying to prove that someone is “not an editor in good standing” this way in order to try and influence whether or not they get blocked for edit warring, which should have nothing to do with their number of edits or their involvement in past ArbCom cases about unrelated articles. Also note Mathsci’s claim that he’s only made two AN/I reports in the past four months (he later edited his post to say “in 2010”. In the “forum shopping” section below, I’ve linked to six separate AN/I complaints from Mathsci since March of this year. Even though it’s technically correct that four of these six reports were the result of him hijacking reports started by other users, I think Mathsci is aware that it’s misleading to claim that he was therefore responsible for only two AN/I reports this year, in the context of trying to prove to WeijiBaikeBianji that he’s not quick to complain to administrators about users that he disagrees with.

Examples of uncivil edit summaries from Mathsci (not including threatening edit summaries, which are listed below): [119] [120] [121]

Mathsci has a habit of trying to discredit the editors with which he disagrees by bringing up things they’ve written outside Wikipedia, which they’ve never quoted or linked to on-Wiki and which have little or no relevance to the current discussion. In most cases he’s offered an explanation of how this information could be researched or synthesized on the basis of things the other users have disclosed, but Cool Hand Luke has stated here that this still can probably be considered outing: “I think that gratuitously referencing another's blog posts during content debates on talk pages, for example, would be the sort of harassment that falls under OUT.”

[122] In which Mathsci accuses me of being a holocaust denier. Since it’s stated on my userpage that I’m of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, I think Mathsci could have predicted how offensive I’d find this. Apparently this is based on something I wrote in my blog before I became a Wikipedian, which I’ve never linked to on-Wiki, and an admin has told him here that the contents of my blog do not support this accusation against me. He’s nonetheless continued to defend this accusation, in comments such as this one.

[123] In which Mathsci quotes a post from David.Kane’s (off-wiki) blog in an attempt to discredit him. Although David.Kane had apparently stated that this blog belonged to him sometime last year, he had never linked to this particular entry, and it had no relevance to the discussion where Mathsci brought it up.

A few more examples of bringing up of irrelevant off-wiki writings from David.Kane in the arbitration case itself, in order to try and prove something about David’s personal point of view about this topic: [124] [125] [126] Note the past ArbCom finding about these accusations’ lack of relevance: "A strong point of view expressed elsewhere on a subject does not necessarily mean POV-pushing editing on Wikipedia; that can only be determined by the edits to Wikipedia."

User:Ferahgo the Assassin's evidence provides several more examples of Mathsci doing the same thing to them, so rather than duplicating the same material here I'll just provide a link to it. In this user's case, this includes Mathsci re-posting links to my off-Wiki personal accounts which were not currently linked to on-Wiki, since the page revisions containing these links had been deleted. The admin who deleted these page revisions did so precisely to prevent Mathsci from continuing to bring up personal information about other users that he’s inferred from the linked pages, but apparently just knowing their URLs is enough for him to continue engaging in the same behavior that the admin who removed the links was trying to prevent.

People who are more familiar with Mathsci than I am have pointed out that he’s engaged in blatant outing in the past, and never had any action taken against him for it. This may explain why he feels that there’s no reason to fear any consequences for his current behavior.

Mathsci's first recent attempt at this was started by Muntuwandi as a complaint about TechnoFaye, but hijacked into a complaint by Mathsci about Ludwigs2. His second is here, started by Ludwigs2 and hijacked by Mathsci; his third attempt at this in Ludwigs2’s case was here. He then began to do this in my own case, hijacking an unrelated complaint I had made about Slrubenstein here, then posting a new complaint about me when the one he’d hijacked didn’t produce his desired result. Most recently, he’s made a new complaint about this regarding David.Kane, which contains a collection of several complaints about all of the users he disagrees with. While this was going on, he also made two complaints about these users at WQA here and here, where he was admonished by several other users for his forum shopping and WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude. This is a good example of how uninvolved editors have reacted to Mathsci’s behavior in this context.

During this arbitration case, Mathsci has filed yet another AN/I complaint against Ludwigs2, this time about a comment that was nothing but Ludwigs2 using sarcasm to illustrate a point. This is probably Mathsci's most frivolous AN/I complaint thus far, and was closed by Future Perfect less than 20 minutes after Mathsci posted it.

I think links are more appropriate than diffs to demonstrate the forum shopping problem, since linking to the entire threads is able to demonstrate both Mathsci’s persistence in seeking topic bans for the editors that he disagrees with, and how when hijacking threads he's cut off all discussion about their original topics.

Mathsci has violated 3RR on these articles twice in the three weeks leading up to this arbitration case. The first time involved six reverts in under 24 hours: [127] [128] [129] [130] [131] [132]. When I reported this at AN3, Mathsci modified my report in order to evade consequences for this, which had the desired effect—before I could react to his change, an administrator closed the report based on the assumption that Mathsci was correct to claim that one of these edits wasn’t a revert. (The edit that Mathsci claims wasn’t a revert was removing content from the article that he’d previously removed less than an hour earlier, after it had been added back.) Also note Mathsci’s personal attacks in his modification to my report.

More recently he’s also made six reverts in 24 hours on the History of the race and intelligence controversy article: [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138], and reverted it twice more within four hours after that: [139] [140]. This case is a little more complex, because he was not restoring the exact same material each time, but in each case it was undoing some or all of a change made by another editor. When I attempted to warn him about this behavior in his user talk, he reverted my edit five minutes later with the edit summary “rv trolling”. Apparently he not only considers himself entitled to disregard 3RR; he also does not think other editors should have the audacity to bring it up with him when he does.

Some of the earlier diffs I linked to earlier also contain examples of this, but here are a few more: [141] [142] [143] [144]

[145] In which Mathsci threatens Keegan, an uninvolved administrator, with an ArbCom case because Keegan had the audacity to criticize Mathsci for his claim that I’m a holocaust denier.

A few examples of threatening edit summaries from Mathsci: [146] [147] [148]

I recently discovered that there’s a past arbitration case in which Mathsci has engaged in some questionable behavior, namely edit warring on the arbitration pages with at least one uncivil edit summary. As a result of this, one decision in that case was “Mathsci is reminded not to edit war — especially not on arbitration pages — and to avoid personal attacks at all times.” In determining how to handle Mathsci’s current personal attacks and edit warring, I think ArbCom should consider the fact that they have already advised him about this previously.

I’m aware of three editors who used to be involved in these articles, but have stated that they stopped participating because they couldn’t tolerate Mathsci’s behavior.

• DistributiveJustice mentioned this in his initial statement for this case. “I left last month because of uncivil and inexcusable behavior by Mathsci directed at me. I can't volunteer my time under those circumstances. What I find amazing is that everyone else hasn't quit also.”
• Varoon Arya has mentioned this at AN/I: “Other than that, I've decided to leave this article alone, and have done for some time now, as Mathsci's antics literally turn my stomach.”
• Ludwigs2 has also stated this at AN/I: “Mathsci, please leave me out of your mudslinging. How can I support anything through silence? Frankly, I've been avoiding the page(s) because you are being such an inveterate ass it give me a headache dealing with you.”

Whether this is Mathsci’s intended goal or not, it’s a very effective way for him to win content disputes: by causing the editors who disagree with him to quit the articles out of frustration. (Or to quit Wikipedia entirely, as in DJ’s case.) Can it be good for Wikipedia to allow content disputes to be won in this manner? If this behavior is allowed to continue unchecked, it can only be a matter of time before other editors begin to notice what an effective method it is to win content disputes, and begin making use of the same tactic themselves.

Although I agree with Ludwigs2 that most of the problems with these articles relate to Mathsci’s behavior, there are a few other users whose behavior I’d like to have ArbCom’s attention. The main examples are Muntuwandi and Slrubenstein, but there also has recently been an example of possible misuse of Sysop powers from 2over0, and edit warring from several other users. I have also made a proposal on the workshop page here which relates to the conduct from Muntuwandi that I think is problematic.

Examples here: [149] [150] [151] [152] [153]

[154] In which he states that he is unable to assume good faith about me at Mikemikev: “I cannot assume good faith on their behalf. I just cannot. They are charlatans. And if this is how I feel about them, I cannot interact with them or work with them on the same article, you know how important AGF is.”

A recurring problem from Muntuwandi is his assumption that if an editor has a personal viewpoint about this topic, that in itself is sufficient to discredit their contributions to these articles, even if there’s no evidence that their contributions are in any way contrary to NPOV. Here are some examples of this which were directed at Varoon Arya: [155] [156] [157]. In addition to trying to prove that Varoon Arya has a personal point of view about this topic, Muntuwandi claimed that this should be enough to stop Varoon Arya from contributing to articles about it, even if "his actual contributions comply with NPOV".

Muntuwandi has removed this image from the Race and genetics article five separate times ([158] [159] [160] [161] [162]), violating his 1RR restriction in the process, while providing a different reason for removing it each time he did so. This also included a frivolous copyright violation report at Wikimedia commons. The one explanation he consistently gave as his real reason for wanting to remove the image was not based on whether it actually belonged in the article, but based on what he perceived as my motives for adding it, which in turn is based on something I had written outside Wikipedia: [163] [164] [165] [166]. In this AN/I thread, which contains numerous additional assumptions of bad faith from Muntuwandi, he was placed under one month of 0RR on race and genetics because of this. (And so was I.) Despite having been sanctioned for this assumption of bad faith, however, Muntuwand is continuing to repeat it: [167]

A few more recent assumption of bad faith from Muntuwandi:

[168], which misrepresents what I said in the comment from me that his own comment was referring to, as I pointed out in my reply.

[169]: "It seems that Captain Occam and David Kane are just trolling, trying to cause an unnecessary ruckus."

[170] In which Muntuwandi refers to other editors’ support of overturning my block from 2over0 (which was eventually overturned by GWH) as “the COI of meatpuppets”.

Muntuwandi is currently under probation due to his past history of sockpuppet abuse. I would like ArbCom to evaluate whether these assumptions of bad faith ought to be considered allowable within the terms of his probation, or a violation of it.

On June 10th, I was blocked for two weeks by the admin 2over0 with the explanation “for repeated edit warring, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, disruptive editing, and assumptions of bad faith”. (A few hours later, this block was replaced with an editing restriction that allowed me to participate in the arbitration case and appeal the restriction, but nothing else.) This block was not in response to any report or community discussion about me, and 2over0 did not provide any diffs of the the specific behavior for which I was blocked. Several other users have asked him in his user talk if he could please explain the specific justification for this block, and although it’s apparent from his contributions that he was online and editing other articles while being asked about this, he never responded to anyone’s questions about it. Shortly after this he became idle for several days, and lacking any specific justification for the editing restriction, GeorgeWilliamHerbert overturned the restrictions earlier today.

Although the restrictions on my account are removed now, I would still like ArbCom to evaluate whether or not 2over0 acted inappropriately by implementing a block that was not in response to any report or community discussion, and by failing to provide any diffs of the behavior he listed as a block reason, despite requests for this from multiple users. ImperfectlyInformed’s comment in his user talk might be the best explanation of the possible problems with 2over0’s actions. Relevant issues are the fact that this block appears to have been a discretionary sanction, which is not allowed on articles where ArbCom has not specifically authorized this; as well as point three of Wikipedia:ADMIN#Accountability, which states that admins have a responsibility to clearly communicate the basis for their actions. This is cited to a past Arbitration case:

Due to the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, proper communication is extremely important, and all editors are expected to respond to messages intended for them in a timely manner and to constructively discuss controversial issues. This is especially true for administrators in regard to administrative actions. Such expected communication includes: giving appropriate (as guided by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines) warnings prior to, and notification messages following, their actions; using accurate and descriptive edit and administrative action summaries; and responding promptly and fully to all good-faith concerns raised about their administrative actions.

2over0 does not appear to have followed this principle in the case of my block. Could ArbCom please evaluate whether or not he’s acted inappropriately here?

In addition to the problems I’ve pointed out involving some of the long-time contributors to these articles, there’s one other recent cause of instability there that I’d like to see addressed. Several times recently, editors have attempted to make major changes to the article without attempting to discuss them beforehand, and they (or other editors) have edit warred to add them back when these edits have been reverted. This problem arises most often with editors who are new to the articles, but some of the “regulars” have been guilty of this also. It’s been done both by editors who take pro-environmental and pro-hereditarian perspectives, and I consider it equally disruptive in both cases.

One recent example of this is these edits from an anonymous IP: [171] [172] [173] [174] [175], repeatedly adding several (pro-hereditarian) paragraphs that virtually everyone on the talk page agreed was WP:UNDUE, while completely disregarding 3RR and making barely any attempt at discussion. Another more recent example of something similar is Arthur Rubin’s attempt to revert the entire article to a version from five months earlier without discussing it beforehand. This revert was undone by WavePart around two hours later, after which Verbal added it back, even though there was obviously no consensus for it. A third example is AnwarSadatFan’s repeated removal of this image from the article, whose inclusion is supported by consensus, without making any attempt to justify this removal on the article talk page: [176] [177] [178].

I don’t know what the solution is to this problem, but if ArbCom could come up with one it would definitely improve the stability of the article. I have made a proposal on the workshop page about one potential policy regarding this.

See also this thread for my comments about the findings of fact which have been based on the evidence presented against me.

I think it’s important to point out that I haven’t violated 3RR since January. I admit that I used to have a problem with edit warring, because I was relatively new to Wikipedia and didn’t yet have an accurate understanding of what sort of behavior was and wasn’t tolerated, but I don’t think there’s any evidence that this is still a problem currently. I only reverted the FAQ twice, two other users have done the same thing at around the same time, and Georgewilliamherbert’s 1-revert restriction applies only to article space rather than to extensions of the talk page. (At least I think it does, and that seems to also be the opinion of the other editors who’ve reverted the FAQ multiple times.)

Also note that the admin who placed my account under this restriction specifically gave me permission to bring it up in Jimbo Wales' user talk, as part of the process of appealing it.

There are a few other misrepresentations here, but the rest of them should be self-explanatory so I don’t think I need to go into detail about them. (Such as whether 2 reverts and 1 edit is sufficient to violate 3RR, whether the discussion in 2over0’s user talk can be considered consensus, and whether I was attempting to cite something to a blog when the quote of what I’d added to the article includes a link to the NYT article at Pulitzer.org that I was using a source.)

I think Ramdrake’s accusation of me being a civil POV-pusher is based almost entirely on a content dispute. Ramdrake weights the source material differently from how I do, as we discussed in our initial statements for this case, so what I view as an attempt to bring the article more into compliance with NPOV, he views as an attempt to slant the article in a particular direction. Since he has attempted to weight the article in a way that I disagree with just as much as I have in a way that he disagrees with, and he’s justified this based on consensus formed in discussions that DJ, Varoon Arya and Ludwigs2 had all been driven away from (as they pointed out in the comments that I quoted above), I could just as easily accuse Ramdrake of being a POV-pusher with the exact same reasoning that he’s used in my own case. However, in his case I’m willing to assume good faith about what may well be nothing but an honest content disagreement. It’s unfortunate that he isn’t willing to do likewise.

Something that goes against Ramdrake’s claim about me is that while I may be of the opinion that the hereditarian hypothesis deserves more coverage in the article than he thinks it does, my edits are not by any means limited to trying to add as much information about it to the article as possible, as would be the case if the purpose of my involvement here were to advocate this point of view. When I’ve been of the opinion that the 100%-environmental view on the cause of the IQ gap has been under-represented in the article, or the hereditarian hypothesis has been over-represented, I’ve attempted to change that also. Examples of this are these three edits adding information about possible environmental causes of the IQ gap [179] [180] [181], my re-adding of this image which demonstrates how high heritability of IQ within each race does not prove that between-group IQ differences are heritable also, my adding of information about non-racial views about human variation in brain size (specifically at Ramdrake’s suggestion), and my reducing an excessively long paragraph about a pro-hereditarian paper down to a single sentence. Since Ramdrake has been involved in this article for considerably longer than I have, I can’t speak to what his participation there was like before I became involved in it, but during the time that I’ve been interacting with him I have not seen any examples of him writing for the opponent in this manner.

Regarding the assertion that Mathsci’s behavior is an inevitable (or even excusable) result of the editing environment in these articles: I think it’s important to remember what Varoon Arya mentioned about this in his initial statement. VA has also attempted to edit non-controversial articles in which Mathsci is involved, such as the article on Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. However, as VA explained in his statement, Mathsci’s behavior in these articles has been just as disruptive as it is in articles related to race and intelligence.

I think it’s important to point out that even though the edits from me that you’ve linked here were soon reverted by Mathsci, all of the wording which I was attempting to change in these edits was eventually determined to be in violation of NPOV, BLP, or both. The first two examples, claiming that William Shockley specifically advocated racial discrimination, have now been removed from the article because the most neutral perspective found in reliable sources is that Shockley advocated treating people differently on the basis of IQ, not race. In the case of the claim that Shockley influenced Jensen to become a hereditarian, Mathsci eventually determined himself that this wording was inaccurate, and changed it in this edit and this one. Is it POV-pushing for me to attempt to rewrite text written by Mathsci that I regarded as non-neutral, when Mathsci has eventually reached the same conclusion about this text for himself, and changed it for the same reason?

In response to the claim that I was inferring a "novel conclusion" from a primary source for this edit: I’ve pointed out before that this material is actually from Eysenck 1971, which is a secondary source about Jensen’s theories, and which is quoting a 1970 article by Jensen in order to describe the basis for them. The quote from Jensen, which begins in page 17 of Eysenck’s book, is as follows:

First, I reviewed some of the evidence and the conclusions of a nationwide survey and evaluation of the large, federally-funded compensatory education programs made by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which concluded that these special programs had produced no significant improvement in the measured intelligence or scholastic performance of the disadvantaged children whose educational achievements these programs were specifically intended to improve. The massive evidence presented by the Civil Rights Commission suggests to me that merely applying more of the same approach to compensatory education on a still larger scale is not all likely to lead to the desired results, namely increasing the benefits of public education to the disadvantaged. The well-documented fruitlessness of these well-intentioned compensatory programs indicates the importance of now questioning the assumptions, theories and practices on which they were based.

These assumptions, theories and practices—espoused over the past decade by the majority of educators, social and behavioral scientists—are bankrupt. I do not blame the children who fail to benefit from these programs. A large part of the failure, I believe, has resulted from the failure and reluctance of the vast majority of the educational establishment, aided and abetted by social scientists, to take seriously the problems of individual differences in development rates, patterns of ability, and learning styles.

Eysenck’s quote from Jensen then goes on to explain how on the basis of the apparent failure of compensatory education programs, Jensen concludes that heredity is more important than environment in determining IQ. This is pretty explicit, and it’s being presented by a secondary source (Eysenck’s book) in order to demonstrate what Jensen’s opinions are based on. Professor Marginalia is claiming that I’ve been misrepresenting the source material in these articles, but the way it looks to me is that he isn’t familiar enough with the source material to determine whether I have been or not.

Since Mathsci’s evidence against me is largely diff-free, most of it is more rhetoric than actual evidence, so I don’t feel that it’s necessary to reply to most of it. However, there is one point from him that I think needs a response.

“An extreme example of POV-pushing on Rushton's work by Captain Occam can be found here [182] where he removes large quantities of mostly well-sourced criticism.”

It’s important to note the actual sequence of events regarding these edits. Based on earlier comments on the article’s talk page such as this one, I suspected the article to be unbalanced, but being a fairly new editor I also felt that I lacked the experience to know what (if anything) I should do about this. As a result, I asked about this at the NPOV noticeboard. TheSeeker4, an experienced an uninvolved editor, responded to my post there with the following advice: “The article is a horrible quotefarm of criticism which is non-encyclopedic. Re-write the article to paraphrase the notable claims/sections of the book and then have a relatively short (certainly no longer than the summary section) section of criticism, including only the most notable critiques and maybe one or two quotes of a sentence or two each.”

Still wanting to make sure that I didn’t step on any toes, I raised the issue on the article talk page, quoting TheSeeker4’s comment and asking if anyone had any objections to my following her advice. After waiting around 24 hours without any response, I went ahead and followed her advice to the best of my ability. As of almost a year later, there still has not been any attempt on this article’s talk page to dispute the advice I received about it on the NPOV noticeboard, and Mathsci is the first user who’s objected to my change to this article at all.

I have been absolutely as cautious with this change as it’s possible for anyone to be, in terms of both not attempting to change the article until I received clear instructions to do so on the NPOV noticeboard, and also first making sure that there were no objections from anyone on the article talk page to my following these instructions. If anyone thinks my changes to this article were inappropriate, I would challenge them to tell me what I should have done differently. Should I have just ignored the instructions that I was given at the NPOV noticeboard?

Incidentally, the part of the article he was edit warring over is the same part over which he was making most of his personal attacks. He made six reverts of this material in under two days: [183] [184] [185] [186] [187] [188] In this sequence of edits he was not restoring the exact same material every time, but each of them had the same effect of removing the explanation of regression to the mean having any relevance to genetics.

Slrubenstein's personal attacks and incivility are also now the topic of a user conduct RFC.

Since the beginning of this year, Muntuwandi’s only involvement in this article has been to remove content and revert other editors’ changes, always with the effect of reducing the article’s coverage of the hereditarian perspective. This pattern has existed since he first became involved in the article in 2007, apart from the year during which he was blocked for sockpuppetry, but for the purpose of this arbitration case his contributions since the beginning of the year should be sufficient to demonstrate what his involvement there is like. Keep in mind that these edits are not cherry-picked; this is every substantial change he’s made to the article this year. It includes every edit he’s made to the article this year except two of them, one of which was tagging a section as unreferenced, and the other of which was renaming a section.

[189] In which he reverts several edits from me, with no explanation except that they didn’t have consensus.

[190] Removal of information about the hereditarian hypothesis.

[191] In which he reverts the article back several months; something for which there was clearly no consensus.

[192] Removal of information about the hereditarian hypothesis.

[193] In which he reverts several changes from me, with no explanation except that the article is in arbitration.

[194] Another revert with no content-based justification, this time to changes made by WavePart.

[195] Removal of information about the hereditarian hypothesis.

Every editor makes reverts or removes content occasionally, so if this were only a small selection of Muntuwandi’s edits this year, it wouldn’t demonstrate anything significant. But considering this is the only thing he does, and every example of it has had the effect of skewing the article in the same direction, it’s a near-perfect example of what constitutes POV-pushing. All ten of Muntuwandi's most edited articles involve either race or Afrocentrism, so this may even be the entire purpose of his involvement in Wikipedia.

Example of solo edit warring from Ramdrake: [196] [197] [198] [199] (Re-adding a tag that Mikemikev removed) [200]

Example of (mostly) solo edit warring from Aprock: [201] [202] [203] (In which Aprock removes the entire article, without moving it anywhere) [204]

An example of the three editors tag-teaming, after Ramdrake decided with no prior discussion to revert the article to a version from two months earlier: Ramdrake Wobble Verbal Ramdrake Ramdrake Aprock Aprock. When I attempted to challenge Ramdrake about this here, he stated that he believed no consensus was necessary for this. The other three editors reinstating Ramdrake’s reverts did not comment in this discussion at all.

Another example of the three users tag-teaming: Verbal Verbal Arthur Rubin Aprock Aprock (Reverting Arthur Rubin) Aprock Aprock Aprock Verbal (removing this entire section of the FAQ) Ramdrake. As in the previous example, the initial change was made with no prior discussion, and the users began reinstating one another’s reverts before there was anything resembling a consensus for this on the talk page.

I notice that the first example of tag-teaming is also discussed the new evidence presented by Aprock. Describing this situation, he states: “Any plausible evidence for possible consensus is presented as true consensus, and instead of discussing the content, significant energy is invested in debating whether or not Occam's claims of consensus are valid.”

If you read the discussion in which I tried to get Ramdrake, Aprock, and Verbal to justify their two-month revert, you will see that Aprock did not participate in it. Of the editors reinstating this revert, the only one who bothered trying to justify it was Ramdrake, and not even Ramdrake was willing to discuss content when I was trying to get him to do so. A pretty large portion of the discussion was me trying to get the editors making these reverts to engage in discussion about them, but my comment here is probably the example that's most demonstrative of the situation I was faced with while this was going on.

(End of new evidence)

Allegations of off-wiki collaboration have been made [205],[206],[207]. I would like to state that I have never knowingly communicated with "IP editor from Illinois" and support them only with respect to challenging the improperly sourced statements about the SDS. I have no view on the other images. These repeated allegations are unfounded and untrue. 94.196.155.19 (talk) 20:10, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A summary of some the problematic edits that have contributed to this controversy. Many are not obvious policy violations. However a long term pattern of such edits can be disruptive and unproductive.

Pattern of Edit warring, particularly by Captain Occam. According to this report from the 3RR noticeboard, Captain Occam made 10 reverts within about 24 hours, and continued edit warring 3 days later.

Captain Occam was also edit warring during the mediation, even though the mediation groundrules that he and everyone else signed on to specifically stated that no edits were to be made that did not have the consensus of the involved parties. This pattern of edit warring has continued until the present, [208], [209] and even as recently as 9th June 2010 A full discussion is found [[210]]. In short Captain Occam was blocked, but this block was amended to a conditional block to allow Occam to participate in the arbitration. Occam violated the arbcom only restriction by posting to Talk:Jimbo Wales. Mr Wales suggested clemency and later Occam had his restrictions vacated. But this doesn't change the fact that Occam violated his initial editing restriction. Within less than 24 hours of his unblock Occam was edit warring again per this thread.

Captain Occam has a tendency to exaggerate or misrepresent information in ways that support his preferred POV. For example, Captain Occam included this statement in the R/I article [211]

However, in 2007 the New York Times reported preliminary results suggesting that some genes which influence IQ may be distributed unequally between races [212].

The preliminary results that Occam refers to were actually from a, blog. These preliminary results were not from a peer reviewed scientific study, nor were they done by scientists. Rather they were done by bloggers. Captain Occam insisted that this material be placed in the article, edit warring to include it. There was a long drawn out discussion on the talk page and Reliable sources noticeboard. These are links to RS archive and talk page archive. Interestingly the blogger has now admitted that his analysis was flawed, stating

"I already admitted I was just over-exuberantly playing around with the HapMap project and I’m now aware that the method was flawed."[213]

This is evidence that what would otherwise be straightforward can be prolonged due to the actions of determined POV pushers.

Captain Occam and David Kane edit warred in concert on (eg [214], [215] to keep this image, in the article race and genetics.

Captain Occam's editing history is primarily restricted to a handful of race related subjects. As of today he has edited about 36 articles in mainspace [216], though he has over 2000 edits and has been a wikipedian since 2006 [217]. Captain Occam states he has no interest in editing articles other than race and intelligence or race and crime because he believes they are the only biased articles on Wikipedia [218].

A discussion of David.Kane's editing pattern is found here. David Kane created the article Between-group differences in IQ [219]. Material from the race and intelligence article was cut and pasted into Between-group differences in IQ [220]. Since the material in the article was almost exclusively from race and intelligence, it would appear that there was never any intention to discuss group differences in general, that is groupings other than race. This would make the article a POV fork. This demonstrates that some of these editors have little interest in improving the encyclopedia as a whole,if they did they might have researched other group differences in IQ when creating the article.

Captain Occam has a tendency to exaggerate or falsify consensus to justify his edit warring. Examples include:

• Captain Occam: "Ramdrake and Alun’s concerns ... have been addressed at this point[221],
• Response: "I don't see that it is appropriate to assume that my concerns have been addressed without asking me"[222]

• Captain Occam: "This question has been discussed and resolved. The decision was that the article should take a “data-centric” structure"[223]
• Response: "I don't think there is any consensus that the article should be a "data driven" article"[224]

• Captain Occam:"I think it’s time for us to begin discussing the last major change to this article that we agreed on during mediation, but haven’t actually made to it yet." [225]
• Response: "This was not agreed to in mediation. "[226]

Regarding the addition of the "significance section" Captain Occam states

"I think we’ve finally come to enough agreement about what this section should contain that it’s ready to be added to the article

However Captain Occam also states

"The article’s under 1RR right now anyway, so trying to edit war over this section probably isn’t a good idea.[227]

Well if there is agreement over this section, why does Captain Occam believe that some editors would try to "edit war over this section".

Ludwigs has already discussed this and this, so I won't go into great detail. Only a bit disappointed that some editors such as Varoon Arya seem to applaud such behavior, [228]. Whatever one's opinions on the matter, I would assume most editors would agree that such edits do not result in the best editing environment. See also this thread for more details on how a tense editing atmosphere may have emerged.

Primarily involving Captain Occam, David Kane and Mikemikev. This strategy can be seen from as far back as October 2009. David Kane and Captain Occam apply the "good cop, bad cop" strategy quite well. DK gives the impression of being a reasonable cooperative editor, but wherever Captain Occam is edit warring, DK is always nearby appearing to soothe the concerns of other editors on one hand, but cleverly advancing Occam's POV with the other.

Responses to other editors

Wapondaponda (talk) 20:47, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would first like to note that I have been intermittently absent from part of the mediation and some of the goings-on related to this case due to serious health reasons. Specifically, I was absent for the whole month of December 2009, was slightly active for most of January 2010, and ended up absent again from February to April 2010, and somewhat less active from April 2010 to this month (June 2010). Nevertheless, I would like to contribute some of my observations. Additional diffs as needed will be added as soon as I get the chance

As his block log will testify, Captain Occam has been blocked several times during the mediation for edit-warring against a plurality of editors. While his tone has overall remained civil throughout, he has persistently claimed that th changes he made were "supported by consensus", even when it was pointed out to him by several editors that no such consensus existed and/or that consensus can indeed change. Time and over, it has been demonstrated that the "consensus" he was referring to went back to a moment in time when Occam and a group of like-minded editors had in effect driven away several editors who disagreed with them (what they call "the opposite faction" or "the environmentalists"), leaving these editors free reign to reshape the article in their POV. While apart from edit-warring, it is hard to find definite breaches of WP policy (as is typically the case for civil POV-pushers, one example, his insistence to add a section on the policy implications of the B-W IQ gap, even after he was told of problems with it (which he claimed to fix on hos own) and reinsert it without asking if the material was any more appropriate (reasoning went: "there were objections, I addressed them so let's put the section back in"), without heeding the objections of undue weight, primary sources and misrepresentation of sourcesin general is just another example of his modus operandi.

The best and only way I can describe Mikemikev's behaviour is usually confrontational. He holds certain opinions as fact despite scientific mainstream opinion to the contrary (i.e. that "races" are meaningful biological divisions of humankind and not at best some kind of proxy for biogeographic ancestry. Also, his insistence on relying an sources which have been described in the secondary literature as flawed and dubious (e.g. Rushton and Lynn) flies in the face of Wikipedia's NPOV policy, which demands that we treat each opinion in accordance to its importance in the real world. More abut this later.

Several editors, to different degrees: Captain Occam, Mikemikev, David.Kane, Distributive Justice, to name but a few, seem to hold dear the notion that the hereditarian hypothesis (i.e. that the B-W IQ gap is due in some significant part to genetic reasons having to do with the "biology of races" is a valid hypothesis that deserves comparable footing with other explanations, mostly that the differential has to do with some combination of environmental factors. A review of the available secondary sources literature demonstrates rather amply that the genetic hypothesis is the brainchild of a small but very active group of like-minded researchers. Few of those who do not subscribe to the hypothesis don't even bother to write on the subject. The few that do bother to do so usually write analyses which demonstrate that the hypothesis is based on numerous flaws. Nevertheless these editors seem intent on writing the article as if both hypotheses were basically on equal footing.

Through his edits, it has become obvious that Mathsci has the best interests of Wikipedia at heart, especially as far as NPOV is involved. His edits are well-researched and well-sourced, and go a long way in giving a picture in the article which is more reflective of mainstream thought in that subject area. For all his trouble, he gets attacked on trivial points of his edits (such as insisting that the reliable secondary sources he uses wilfully malign an already conroversial author). While Mathsci may at times have a short fuse (nobody's perfect), the onslaught of civil POV-pushers may at times have had the better of him and he may have said things that are not in keeping with the best practices of conviviality at Wikipedia, but that's only after repeated episodes of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Let's be honest: how many instances of usch obfuscation behaviour does it take to make one lose his cool? As I've said when the case first got presented, I've been around this article for a few years now, and Mathsci's behaviour is IMHO normal for someonw who's had to suffer the onslaught of a horde of civil POV-pushers (for those who've been there awhile, I'm thinking of other pushers such as the now-banned Jagz, Fourdee, etc.) The fact that such POV-pushers are now gone buth that people such as Mathsci, Slrubenstein and myself remain should speak volumes.

I will add diffs as time permits.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:25, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK then, prove Slrubenstein wrong. So far, your comments seem to demonstrate that your interpretation of some widely-used sources is at odds with those of most other editors and secondary source authors. I think that, in better terms, this is what Slrubenstein is trying to convey (and he should feel free to correct me if I misinterpret his intentions). Also, please be advised that it's usually considered bad form to edit other editors' comments directly. If you objected to my responding to your comment, you should have just asked me to move my comment to my on section; I would have gladly done so.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:53, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure what I should say here. My main interest in this case is the impact and behavior of 'accounts with an agenda' on wikipedia articles and my main concern is that these accounts are beginning to dominate the point of view in the areas in which they edit (this Race and intelligence and related articles or, from the opposite end of the spectrum, United States and state terrorism and related articles). These purposeful accounts all appear to share certain characteristics:

1. Their interests are typically limited to the area they edit in and they have little interest in the broader wikipedia project
2. They tend to cluster - there are typically several such editors editing at the same time
3. They tend to divide editors into two 'us' and 'them' groups - either an editor is with them or he/she is against them - and they actively campaign for each other
4. They tend to miscount or misstate the views of others in a way that is favorable to them
5. They tend to create articles on fringe topics and repeat the same view, at length, in each of those articles
6. They are careful to provide sources for their views, and
7. They are careful not to cross any 'red flag' boundaries

It is hard, if not impossible, to directly deal with these purpose driven accounts because they conform to the letter of the rules and policies that have begun to govern every aspect of editing on wikipedia. This can be very frustrating for editors, such as mathsci, who have a long history of encyclopedia building at wikipedia. They arrive at these articles with clean-up in mind and instead find themselves kicked around both by these purpose driven editors as well as by well meaning wikipedians who, because they focus only on the rules, are unable to understand that frustration. Unless some action is taken to deal with these purpose driven accounts, once the narrowness of their interests is apparent, I fear that we will continue to present a view to the world which indicates that black people are genetically less intelligent than most other people and that it is a generally accepted view that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States was an act of state terrorism. Whether these are true or not, neither view is accepted by their respective academic communities as anything other than minor or fringe, but that is not what wikipedia presents to the world. --RegentsPark (talk) 19:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My first two assertions are not meant as an indictment of User:Mathsci or as the last word on any particular content dispute, but rather as evidence that reversion and discussion of a handful of controversial sentences amid Mathsci's huge rewrites are often entirely appropriate:

There are three specific examples I've been involved with:

• On an article about a letter signed by 52 intelligence researchers, a response from Donald Campbell is included, but instead of focusing on the bulk of Campbell's well-documented methodological critique, Mathsci edit-warred to summarize Campbell's response largely in terms of one tiny quote mentioned in neither Campbell's abstract nor conclusions...an ad hominem attack on one of the 52 signatories, and a potentially libelous mischaracterization of his work. [229]
• The fact that the journal "Mankind Quarterly" is mentioned in passing in the article text is used as sufficient excuse to add a photo of one of the editors (who is not named in the article text) with a caption pointing out that he once worked with an assistant who was a physician at Auschwitz. [230]
• Students for a Democratic Society staged protests over race and intelligence research. Mathsci illustrates this with an FBI wanted poster of the Weather Underground, a later offshoot of SDS (and, in fact, the half of the organization that did not address race research). This is the equivalent of illustrating a mention of "NFL quarterbacks" with a mug shot of OJ Simpson (who was not even a quarterback). [231]

Even when factually accurate, such unnecessary attacks seem particularly un-encyclopedic, and clarification on when matters of undue weight stray into BLP territory would be appreciated.

The interesting question here concerns the latter type of synth: Campbell's criticism, mentioned above, does not appear to be an accurate summary of the views held by Jensen (who has repeatedly and explicitly argued against making decisions purely on the basis of race; see [232]; full archive at [233]).

But there's also more mundane WP:SYNTH going on. The contention that Jensen advocated eugenics "particularly in the black population" is a synthesis of the fact that Jensen discussed eugenics for those with low IQs, and that he also noted statistical differences in IQ between whites and blacks. More nuanced synth happens when secondary sources discuss differences in the context of statistical distributions (that the bell curve for blacks is centered at 85, compared to 100 for the bell curve for whites) and these sources are summarized to say that blacks have lower intelligence than whites, which outside of a statistical context implies that all blacks are less intelligent than all whites. There is a big difference between those two statements, and the temptation to blur the distinction (or even using sloppy secondary sources as excuses to blur the distinction) needs to be resisted.

A typical example of (faulty) synthesis of sources to support that assertion that Jensen "has recommended separate curricula for Blacks and Whites" is found here (and expanded, in typically insulting fashion, here). Noting differential impact of policy is not the same thing as recommending different policies for different groups. Rvcx (talk) 16:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Again, the above two problems suggest only that Mathsci can sometimes lapse into writing more appropriate to an essay (using sources to make a point) than an encyclopedia (using sources to decide what point to make). That's fine—it just means that such writing can require copyediting and redaction to restore NPOV.

Beyond the concerted efforts to use AN/I to get rid of anyone with other views, even on content pages personal attacks and ad hominem have become the norm. While some are blatant, the general tendency is for these editors to offer "civil" ad hominem which ignores any questions of content. I can only imagine that there is explicit intent to goad other editors into incivility; the editors who have remained involved have superhuman self-control, and I know I wouldn't be able to to edit with Mathsci given blatantly disruptive non-sequiturs such as this. There's also a long history of personal attacks that no administrator seems to have ever acted upon. Frankly, if there's a case of WP:CPUSH it's Mathsci and cohorts.

The arguments that these editors were baited into their behavior and that they're only reacting just doesn't hold up to scrutiny: I had never been involved in this debate before I saw something on BLPN. I spent several hours looking through sources and it only took two content-focused comments before Mathsci started denigrating me as an "amateur wikipedian" commenting in a "silly way", accusing me of not reading the article and "playing wikipedia like some kind of teenage video game" [234], telling me to "get some grip on reality" and threatening me with ArbCom [235]. If David.Kane, Captain Occam, or Ludwig2 treated any newcomer in this way I hope they would receive an immediate (and long) block, but it's not them driving away new editors who voluntarily invest a lot of time trying to help and bending over backwards to try to brush off aggressive behavior. It's Mathsci doing it. Rvcx (talk) 21:26, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This (and now this), part of the workshop discussion, is entirely typical of Mathsci's approach: name-calling, condescension, ad hominem, ididnthearthat to secondary source citations that he doesn't like, accusations of ignorance and incompetence, and a complete dismissal of contributions from anyone who disagrees. Rvcx (talk) 21:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's no sign of this pattern of behavior letting up: "Who is ths Rvcx who has never contributed to the article? Just another googler who thinks this is a discussion forum?" [236]; "you've had very little experience in editing serious wikipedia articles"; "Your comments...display no intellectual grasp of what is in the reliable secondary sources"; etc. [237]. This focus on ad hominem rhetoric is...unhelpful. Rvcx (talk) 23:43, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping not to comment as I have only recently come to the article and am not particularly interested in past conflicts at R&I, but as these proceedings persist in being more a log jam than a jam-breaker where progress is concerned... there is clearly enough recrimination to go around to cover just about any long-standing participant at the R&I article. As these proceedings can't rule on content, my suggestion is to work on expanding participation at the article and to move on. The sturm und drang over R&I (and history of R&I) is not a debate which pits facts against baseless opinions as can be the case; rather, it is a reflection of having gone down the black hole of arguments over conclusions regarding intelligence (not in scope) versus focusing on portrayal of the debate over the means by which "intelligence" is measured and quantified, and what the results have been interpreted as indicating about the methods, participants/subjects, or both (in scope). The longer this is open and the more "evidence" presented, the deeper the bad blood will flow, resolving nothing. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 19:46, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I also find the attempt to guide the discussion here and elsewhere toward denouncing editorial opposition as (let's cut the WP:ACRONYM nonsense) single-purpose accounts, meat-puppets and all in an attempt to polarize the discussion as much as possible extremely discouraging. There is no impediment to representing all viewpoints appropriately at R&I. Unfortunately, my experience has been that the more I see someone invoke WP:ACRONYMS the more it looks like attempting to squelch the opposition. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:33, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am tending to agree with Rvcx's characterization, above. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 13:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Mathcsi's "In the past Race and intelligence and related articles have attracted largely WP:SPAs pushing the POV that as a "race" African Americans or blacks are genetically inferior to whites." I see no one pushing such a POV at the article, and Mathsci denouncing all his editorial opposition as WP:SPAs creates the clear association, however syllogistic. I suggest such comments, which can be taken to mean current editors at the article may be racists, be admonished and stricken. Denouncing one's opposition as meatpuppets and WP:SPAs is a common tactic to attack opposition while not needing to provide evidence. I've been baselessly attacked as an WP:SPA myself only because I have a predominant interest in editing WP (as opposed to my larger interests).

• I see no reason editors should attend to Peas and Carrots to avoid being labeled WP:SPAs.
• There is no place in the dialog here implying guilt by association by bringing up WP:SPAs and racists in the same breath. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 00:36, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am totally gobsmacked (not the first time) by Mathsci's "Involved participants under EE restrictions Vecrumba and more recently Biophys have started editing these articles or their talk pages well after the ArbCom case started; both started editing after having been placed under ArbCom restrictions in EE related matters. Vecrumba has stated that he has had a "life interest" in the subject."
  I've "stated" I have an interest? That is innuendo that I'm lying, plain and simple. Mathsci also suggests that Biophys (who is a scientist) couldn't possibly have a legitimate interest in the subject after my happening to mention it as a life-long subject of interest for myself; rather, Mathsci would contend Biophys is joining me in a mini-EEML cabal to assault the Race and intelligence article. This sort of underhanded personal attack introduced as "evidence" proves the "evidence is the evidence." PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mathsci has already seen fit to denounce me as an "editor not in good standing." I will grant I am a veteran to some conflicts—but also note there's not a shred of evidence anywhere I've done other than represent reputable sources fairly and accurately when the same cannot be said of my detractors.

Given the turn of Mathsci's evidence adding innuendo to prior muck-raking, I'm obliged to point out a disturbing pattern in his conduct beyond the derisiveness he has exhibited at these proceedings. It has been my experience that when an editor pushing a POV is contacted on their talk page, they keep the atta-boys and summarily delete contact from editors regarding issues of content or conduct, throwing in the occasional barb. I submit the following:

• [238], [239], [240] ("it was a typo, sorry" would have nipped completely unneeded subsquent sturm und drang in the bud),
• [241],
• [242] (regarding {{attack|User:Mathsci/AC20}}),
• [243] (regarding editor Abd, see also below),
• [244],
• [245] (what starts as a conversation deteriorates into Mathsci's ANI accusing Varoon_Arya of "hounding" when they continue to disagree),
• [246],
• [247]

But when Mathsci steps over the line and a non-combatant admonishes, then Mathsci responds appropriately, per this interchange regarding Mathsci stating Ludwigs2 was "lying" et al.:

• [248]
• [249]

Lastly, I ran across this tidbit when Mathsci was informed of a deletion nomination on his page given his prior involvement. I had not realized Mathsci and EE topics/EEML had crossed prior, per this AFD comment:

• Delete Subject of BLP seems unnotable. Mathsci (talk) 05:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

One might think Mathsci was stalking his nemesis Abd (note diffs above) as the very prior edit at the deletion nomination was:

• Abd's response to a post by Triplestop.

Mathsci evidences a consistent attitude of dismissive contempt, viewing anyone who disagrees with him more than once as irrelevant at best. In no way is this collegial behavior. It is this precisely this attitude of superiority (including repetitive self-congratulation on irrelevant content) coupled with disdainful contempt which breeds frustration, then anger, then conflict. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 17:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I'll just observe that it doesn't have to be this way. I'll accept a striking of prior inappropriate commentary as a nolo contendere that past conflicts may have led to clouding perceptions of other editors. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 02:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The quality of debate continues to decline. I'm unwatching the proceedings. If anyone has any questions or comments regarding any of my participation here, please contact me on my talk page. Thank you. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:25, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because the body of evidence is so large, and because I have limited time to devote to this, I will focus on a single (yet broad) ongoing issue. I won't be able to cover all aspects, so the presentation of evidence will likely be incomplete.

At the heart of this thread of activity is the goal of promoting primary sources, and suppressing secondary sources. A clear illustration of this approach can be seen at the article Race and crime in the United States, a page primary redeveloped by User:Varoon Arya and User:Captain Occam. After a brief introduction and history, the article leaps into a 2200 word presentation of raw data, including seven tables and little discussion from secondary sources. This approach has been referred to as the "data driven" approach by several of the SPA editors.

While this "data driven" approach may (or may not) be appropriate for an article on race and crime, it's clear that the data sources for crime statistics are at least standardized, and published on a regular schedule by governmnet agencies and represent a majority of all criminal activity in the United states.

One problem with using this sort of "data driven" approach with race and intelligence is that there is no source for standardized data. Additionally, there is no source which represents more than a small sample of any given raical population group. Finally, there is the danger that data from primary sources will be misused in such a way as to misrepresent broader understanding.

The most egregious case of claiming false consensus revolves around the Significance section and various attempts to insert raw data into the article based on false consensus. This content was resurrected from a 2006 version of the article. I'm not sure which one, but here is a link to a similar section [250]. The content from Race and intelligence was then redeveloped on the page Between-group differences in IQ during mediation by a group of like minded editors. Unfortunately, that page has been deleted.

Then in January of this year, Occam made several attempt to insert this redeveloped content into the article using several different pretenses. I'm including a link to the revision history from January 2010, which should be stable. [251]. Below are some Occam's sample edit summaries, but please review the other edit summaries on that page for more context.

• "You can't just get rid of this article without moving it somewhere else."
• "You can't just roll back more than a month's worth of edits like this without any discussion. Please discuss first."
• "If you want to revert a month's worth of edits, you need to discuss first."
• "Verbal, this principle applies to individual edits, not a month of edits from multiple users. I've brought this issue up on the mediation talk page; please discuss there before making major changes."
• "Consensus goes against this change--see discussion on mediation talk page. Please don't reinstate this change without first justifying it there."
• "Ramdrake, you can't just keep restoring your preferred version while refusing to discuss it. If you want to avoid an edit war, you'll need to participate in the discussion about your edits."
• "Unfortunately, there WAS a consensus to move BGDIQ here, even if you aren't willing to accept this. Please don't edit war over this the way you did when the article was first moved."

Captain Occam was eventually blocked by MastCell over this edit war: [252].

Bear in mind that what being warred over here is reverting Race and intelligence to the redeveloped Between-group differences in IQ content, not any previous version ofRace and intelligence. Of course, once the BGDIQ content has been copied into R/I, it becomes a previous version of R/I. In this diff [253] Captain Occam acknowledges that this is what he is trying to do. Based on this edit, the set of like minded editors who redeveloped R/I content on BGDIQ included Distributivejustice, David.Kane, mikemikev, Varoon Arya, and Captain Occam. The entire conversation surrounding the diff above may be useful to review [254].

I think this incident goes a long way towards illuminating the subtle nature of the methods used by Captain Occam to introduce POV material. One of the key methods used here is the use of false consensus to leverage material into the article. Any plausible evidence for possible consensus is presented as true consensus, and instead of discussing the content, significant energy is invested in debating whether or not Occam's claims of consensus are valid.

Even though I'm not directly involved in this dispute, my name has been brought up by a few users here and I feel like I should say something about it. Race & intelligence is a topic that interests me, but so far I've steered clear of it because of the tendency for editing disputes to devolve into drama-mongering. As a result, my involvement in them has been just to express my displeasure at the politics and drama that's gone on in various noticeboards about them. I don't think I've edited the articles themselves.

Captain Occam and I know each other outside of Wikipedia, and because of this I've been very careful to follow Wikpedia's policies described here. We've both been completely open about the fact that we know each other off-Wiki, and we've never attempted to revert the same article or do anything else that would be a policy violation if done by a single user. (In response to Hipocrite’s claim that we’ve been evasive about knowing each other off-Wiki: Occam disclosed this almost immediately after I first became involved in this article, and I’ve disclosed it again more recently here. The second comment was in response to Hipocrite, so he should know this.) My contributions show that my main involvement in Wikipedia is in a completely separate group of articles from what Occam is involved in, so I'm obviously not a friend who joined just to support him. The policy pages related to this make it clear that there's nothing inherently wrong with users knowing each other off-Wiki, as long as the relevant policies have been followed. Rather than anyone appreciating my adherence to policy, though, what I've gotten instead is a near-constant stream of claims that I'm a meatpuppet, as well as a few users who can't even bring this up with me without making accusations of being his girlfriend.

There are a couple of problems with this. First of all, it's completely irrelevant to any of the discussions in which it's brought up. If anyone wants to provide a reminder that we know each other outside of Wikipedia in a discussion where it matters, it's fine being mentioned, but anything about the personal details of how we know each other is just a personal attack. This has become such a problem than any of the actual arguments I make are completely ignored in favor of providing these irrelevant ad hominems. Pointing out that this is a problem usually just results in more of the same, such as the recent exchange between me, Aprock, and Hipocrite: here. Note that Hipocrite had already asked me about whether I knew Occam off-wiki only three days earlier, and I answered him honestly, so his additional question about whether he and I are in a romantic relationship serves no useful purpose whatsoever. Also note what Hipocrite regards as "proof" of me being a meatpuppet - the fact that Occam asked me twice on-Wiki if I could become more directly involved in the same articles as him, and both times I declined the request.

The second problem about this is that I simply don't want these kinds of personal details about my life being speculated about on Wikipedia, and neither does Occam. We've never disclosed them on Wikipedia or any external page we've linked to here, as Occam pointed out in his response to Aprock in the AN/I thread: Mathsci apparently reached this conclusion by piecing together information on several DeviantArt pages, none of which specifically state this is the case, and after Mathsci brought it up other users started repeating it. According to Occam, he’s tried to get oversight to remove this information, but they weren’t able to. He also removed the DeviantArt links from his userpage, and an admin deleted the past revisions of it in an effort to stop Mathsci from continuing to bring this up, but now that these links are no longer accessible on-Wiki Mathsci is re-posting them.

In addition to the current examples of this, past examples of Mathsci bringing this up are [255] [256] and [257]. Since the instructions at Wikipedia:OUTING state “Any edit that "outs" someone must be reverted promptly,” Occam attempted to remove this information, but each time Mathsci added it back, the third time threatening Occam with a block for edit warring if he tried to remove it again. The fact that Mathsci would not allow him to remove this material is probably the reason why oversight was unable to suppress it, since this caused it to be on every subsequent revision of the page, and the more versions of a page something is on the more difficult it is for oversight to remove it.

I would appreciate it if ArbCom could evaluate whether I've been treated fairly in this respect. I think it would be unreasonable for me to be prevented from being involved in a topic that interests me just because I know one of the users off-Wiki. Does the fact that I know other users off-Wiki justify my being treated this way if I'm following all of the relevant policies that address closely-related accounts? And is it reasonable for Mathsci to ensure that my comments are never replied to with anything other than irrelevant ad hominem attacks, by preventing Occam from removing this information about me so that it can’t be oversighted, and by re-posting the personal links after an admin has deleted the page revisions containing them? -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 23:11, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many problem"behaviors" have been re-enacted in full living color in arbitration pages so I’ll let them speak for themselves. I'll focus on one small piece-the time wasted babysitting editors who play games with policy to further a particular pov.

David.Kane and Captain Occam were obviously personally invested, and didn't seem to have much wp experience before coming to the articles. What they've learned since seems motivated towards one goal: to craft strategies and play policy angles to bolster the credibility of the hereditarian pov. Just a few examples:

David.Kane games with WP:BLP beginning shortly before this. During discussions about whether or not Campbell's biases were significant, David.Kane tried to piggy-back on the Campbell/bias issue to justify wholesale deletions re Jensen in other articles which weren't sourced to Campbell--but to other reliable secondary sources.

Eruption begins on Mainstream Science on Intelligence and shows more of the "follow the leader" pattern often seen among some of the involved editors (probably tracking via users contributions). Editors currently involved in arb who edited this article were:
VaroonArya (first edit 11/5/2009) [258] With David.Kane soon on his heels[259]
Mathsci - (first edit 5/17/2010)[260]; Captain Occam trailing on (5/23/2010) [261]; soon joined by David.Kane[262]

BLP "episode" begins here: mathsci [263] Captain Occam recruits VictorChmara[264] and VictorChmara reverts mathsci[265] VictorChmara and mathsci volley reverts and twks[266][267][268][269][270]
and VictorChmara raises "BLP" [271], asking it be primary sourced[272][273];backup from David.Kane[274]. (Note-David.Kane has not familiarized himself with BLP yet-instead his objection is that the claim about Jensen isn't "accurate".)
More VictorChmara[275] and only now David.Kane on the BLP.[276]
David.Kane posts BLPN notice[277] and within one minute removes claim.[278]

In his opening remarks here[279] on 17 August 2010 David.Kane writes: "All these diffs refer to the same specific conflict" and "I claim a BLP violation on all these diffs. It would be one thing if I removed sourced content X and gave reason NPOV, and then removed sourced content Y, and gave reason UNDUE and then removed source content Z for some other reason." Yet he had earlier removed or watered down several of these very claims, prior to his BLPN on 28-5-2010, using a variety of justifications their removal[280][281][282][283]

On the BLPN David.Kane disputes Campbell's analysis of Jensen emphasizing the claim is "(potentially) false", "biased", and the fact that Campbell "does not like Jensen".[284] On 17-Aug-2010 he quotes BLPN replies he says supported his challenge. Besides those claiming to require primary sourcing on this (one of them an IP with a highly dubious contributions history[285]) he quotes: "claim like that attributed to his opponent that has not been cited to any other location and is appearing to be an isolated opinion unsupported at any other reliable locations in independent reports, yes I would say without looking under those conditions it would be a WP:BLP violation" and "Seems like an obvious no for this article unless there are plenty of other reliable sources that pick out one (possible) view of one of the 52 signatories far more prominently." But as described above he earlier knew that the same claim had plentiful sources besides a cherry-picking to Campbell.Tucker, Laosa, Wooldridge,Byrd and Clayton, Jones

David.Kane's BLP removal here[286] is especially illustrative. He writes, "You can't claim that Jensen made eugenics claim relating to the black population without clear evidence that he did so. Tucker saying so is not enough." Yet this concern was satisfied weeks before this only to be further resolved with Jensen's own words[287][288][289][290] David.Kane still refused to allow it[291].

-end new evidence-

(I offer further evidence of gaming here.)

My edit here to fix a real blp problem triggered a gamey response from him here, another offered here.

David.Kane-more games: This is a rundown of the "gaming" against this latest source, where David.Kane zigzags editors around in a purely rhetorical exercise questioning its accuracy, its alleged undue weight, its context, its suitability compared to other sources, and strawmanning 'all blacks should be treated differently than all whites’. Note what the article text David.Kane was reverting at this time actually read here - nothing whatsoever there said about treating "all blacks differently than all whites", thus just another distraction.

Captain Occam's gaming npov to spindoctor sourced claims: This euphemism to disguise what's an extensive discussion given in the source about justifications of segregation and discrimination against blacks; this which misrepresents the source, and this misapplication of a primary source to contradict a secondary source (misapplication because the primary source is making a different claim-that from a key study Jensen concluded the compensatory Head Start program was ineffective-and Captain Occam infers a "novel conclusion" from it-that the Head Start study's outcomes motivated Jensen to became a hereditarian).[292]

Noting my 1000 word limit, further examples listed here.

In "fairness" what you've shown is Mathsci is relenting not because he was wrong, or because it was a non-npov claim. It looks more like a case of finding a work-around rather than edit warring with you until the end of time. And you're spinning your second example as well-it wasn't "inaccuracy" of the claim in Mathsci's reason given, but "fairness" to include Jensen's comment as well. What you did was to simply alter a sourced claim to say something other than what the source said. And for the third example, you still aren't "getting it" Any documented "failure" of a two or three year old Head Start Program on its face may suggest "the compensatory efforts like Head Start won't work", and that's the essence of Jensen's own conclusion you've quoted. It doesn't imply, nor did Jensen say, "thus proving to me intelligence is genetic." You've inferred it somehow, but that's not what it says in the source.(Interjecting 2nd note about trying to shift this off now to an Eysenck claim about Jensen, not Jensen's own claim.) If you are attributing this claim now to Eysenck rather than Jensen, explain why at the time you claimed and sourced it as Jensen's? Here, here, and in the "isn’t it obvious that when he disagrees with Jensen about Jensen’s own opinion, Tucker’s assertion about this is not neutral?" you wrote here ? Furthermore, because yours was reverted as primary sourced, DistributiveJustice backed you up-because you'd identified the claim as appearing in Jensen's own work.[293]

Revised for the second time by ImperfectlyInformed on July 5th, based partially on concerns raised by Mathsci above and on talk.

I'm coming late to this party, although I've been involved for a while adding small facts supporting the anti-hereditarian ("environmentalist" is too confusing) position (example adding Tizard). My edits have not led to real conflict with the "pro-hereditarian" crowd, suggesting that the assumptions of bad faith and POV pushing are overblown - collaborative work can be done. There are issues with editor behavior on both sides: incivility on the anti side, and POV-pushing on the pro-side. Although I am concerned about the impact of pro-hereditarian editors distorting the page and impact it could have on an entire ethnic group's reputation, I think the behavior by Mathsci has been inexcusable particularly considering his experience and the behavior by Slrubenstein has not been much better. I'm reluctant to advocate punishing the pro-side and not Mathsci.

• Anti-hereditarian group: The main anti-hereditarian editors, Mathsci and Slrubenstein, are extremely problematic because they tend to derail the talkpage into personal attacks (Mathsci) and forumish, ad-nauseum back-and-forths (Slrubenstein, see example), generally asserting that the research is fringe science without stepping up to add the view to the article backed with refs. These editors are also quick to make accusations and broad statements, typically without diffs and solid support. What's worse is that they do not seem to do a lot of bold work of reading the sources which support their beliefs and adding the arguments to the page, but have apparently willingly left a lot of work to "the SPAs". Mathsci has apparently staked out a long battle on trying to paint Jensen as a racist based on an old paper - which is really something of questionable significance in the scheme of things. The bad faith assumptions of these editors have been extremely disruptive to productive discussion. These people need to be sternly admonished. If Mathsci can't get a handle on his temper, he needs to directed to leave the room. Slrubenstein is only moderately better. Admins have also behaved poorly - notably, User:2over0 blocked Captain Occam for 3 weeks without even presenting any specific reason except for the alphabet soup. User:2over0 should be admonished to communicate when doing sanctions, and ArbCom needs to look into the practice of essentially random blocks and ignoring the minimum standards (Wikipedia:ADMIN#Administrator_conduct) of administrator conduct. I should note that Captain Occam sent me an email requesting that I comment on 2over0, but it did not influence my decision to comment.

• Pro-hereditarian group: The most active pro-hereditarian editors, Captain Occam and David.Kane, are bold, basically civil, apparently well-meaning (in presenting ethically dubious research which is readable/understandable but based on peer-reviewed research), and have not (flagrantly) added a lot of overtly unreliable sources or removed obviously reliable sources. Like the other group, they have a tendency to use the talk page as a forum. However, they have drastically overhauled the page without real consensus (they point to mediation, but the applicable thread does not indicate consensus - see "Rewriting Article from March 30 to April 1") and without transparency (see discussion Talk:Race_and_intelligence#Plugging_my_old_ground_rules_thread_and_looking_at_the_old_article, where I asked for a summary and was referred to the mediation page, where no summary exists). In a set of 211 edits without a single edit summary (diff of versions), David.Kane removed dozens of references and sections without any summary explanation as to what or why. Suspiciously, two images supporting anti-hereditarian hypotheses were removed; all content related to questioning the motives and funding of the proponents was removed; and commentary suggesting that the social impact of this research was not high was replaced by a pro-hereditarian defense of the research. While I don't think the trimming was all bad and I'm not sure that there was a malicious intent here, the process was terrible and good information may have been lost. Compare the old version David linked above with the updated version he linked and notice that the entire section entitled "Criticism of hereditarian arguments" is gone and is not replaced as far as I can see. The images removed are on the side here. David's "trimming" was followed by a substantial amount of addition by Captain Occam (comparing start and finish) in which Occam added 14k to the page, again with no real edit summaries. This came after I chimed in on the talk page urging the editors to note when refs were removed or deleted and why as a ground rule. To be fair, Captain apparently missed my thread while David.Kane expressed agreement about ground rules.

• • Transparency and ground rules My personal rule, which I think should be endorsed by the ArbCom, is that established editors should recognize and adopt a best practice in which every edit which removes a prima facie reliable source or adds a source should be noted as such in the edit summary. If many are added/removed, mention the number of refs added/removed and if necessary refer to the thread where this is discussed on the talkpage. I don't think you always need to make a talkpage post, but you should be providing documentation for people to watch out for important edits. Also, edits which remove and re-add sections should be done in a single edit - David did a lot of removing sections entirely and then re-adding them several edits later. Despite my disappointment on the transparency of the changes, I think that the lack of documentation was to a large degree due to David and Captain Occam being newbies: I also didn't use edit summaries for my first few hundred edits. The changes made, however, seem disturbingly skewed to remove dissent and support their view, and they have falsely claimed consensus many times. Captain Occam has even reverted changes by pointing to the old "mediation consensus", essentially stonewalling changes and asking that the editor solicit the support of everyone prior to changes without even raising objections of his own (diff). This is clearly wrong, but could be put down as a newbie mistake.

As of now, the forum has 83 archives. In response to a comment made by Slrubenstein, David.Kane recently opened yet another forumish thread asking everyone to opine on whether intelligence research is "fringe science". This was not directed at any sort of change in the article, which is probably partially why is generated a lot of excited commentary. This sort of thing occurs over and over - much of the mediation discussion was hardly focused on the article - and it serves as a deterrent to participating in the page (participants get inevitably drawn into the nonsense) and does not improve the article. When I tried to close the thread, it was reopened. Both groups need to think about taking their offtopic meandering discussions to user talk. They should return when they've hashed out their petty differences and and spent their name-calling fuel. Then they can come up with specific proposals.

I do not agree with this idea that ArbCom can't rule on content, particularly as it relates to conduct. ArbCom is an intelligent group which should be able to distinguish between obvious POV-pushing content edits and legitimate disputes. Sure, ArbCom will get things wrong, but the worst they'll do is unjustly punish a user, and such injustice could more easily occur at one of those random ANI threads. Content-related misconduct can be categorized to some degree. It includes in order of significance: (1) intentionally misrepresenting sources, (2) lying about sources in discussion, and (3) removing reliable sources for significant perspectives or facts, particularly when these sources disagree with the editor's POV, (4) adding poorly-supported or unsourced content. Of course, most people commit misconduct sometimes, but the overtness and extent determines sanctions. People will try to use WP:UNDUE, WP:SIZE, WP:FRINGE, or whatever else to justify these types of changes, but I tend to think that most perspectives can be neatly summarized in a line or two. This does not mean we have to have tons of sources: most sources present duplicate arguments, rehashing the same facts over and over. It seems to me that David.Kane has committed (3) but I'm inclined to assume good faith and put it down as a rookie mistake. I'm also reluctant to expect that everyone adopt a purely neutral perspective right off the bat, since that high scholarly standard is something that even scholars have trouble reaching.

In regard to lying about sources, ArbCom should look into the dispute over Jensen's writings, discussed Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence/Evidence#Primary_sources, and see if one side is being misleading about what's being said here.

Bad faith has abounded from the anti-hereditarian side "protecting" the race and intelligence article. Enric Naval (talk · contribs) above is a case in point. Rather than documenting illustrative diffs of problematic actions by editors they dislike, they throw unsupported dirt around at ANI and continually drum up drama. These people should be sternly admonished to construct a case or collect diffs prior to making accusations. Since there are several people who are concerned about Captain Occam's behavior, why doesn't one of them create a userpage where they can all contribute diffs? I realize that this may be discouraged based upon a misguided Wikipedia policy on collecting dirt on other users, but collecting diffs of misbehavior in a userpage would be far superior to the current approach. Even at ArbCom, the group has not constructed a really well-supported case.

This sort of drama-mongering should be dealt with very harshly as it is extremely disruptive and distracting.

The article has struggled with size. After reviewing the comparisons to the two sections, David.Kane improved it in that respect by adopting more a summary style while retaining a lot of information. There's a tendency to treat the article as a literature bibliography rather than as an article, adding tons of unnecessary sources stacked on top of other sources. This complicates the review and verification of the article's content. Also, certain editors will have books which others don't, making it difficult for independent observers to verify content. This is particularly problematic because there are plenty of freely-accessible, high-quality sources which could be used, which cover the entire spread of evidence. Focusing on these high-quality sources and conveying all significant perspectives, as WP:NPOV guides, is the way forward, and there is no real barrier to moving forward constructively.

I noticed this case and decided to check if some of the related articles were in a poor condition. Yes, some of them needed improvements [294]. It seems there is a genuine misunderstanding here. I just had a conversation with Slrubenstein [295], and that is what he said: "there are no human races in a meaningful sense when one is studying humans biologically. That is pretty straightforward." [296]. Not so. He was apparently misled by statements like that by Craig Venter: "Race is a social concept. It's not a scientific one.". In fact, such statements only disprove the popular misconception of race: the existence of near-uniform groups of individuals that can be identified by a few externally visible traits such as skin color.

The critics of the popular misconception of race correctly state that "all human populations derive from a common ancestral group, that there is great genetic diversity within all human populations, and that the geographic pattern of variation is complex and presents no major discontinuity." No one disputes this. But the relative proportion of variation within and among the groups has nothing to do with disproving the biological concept of race, which is perfectly applicable to humans. For example, according to creators of evolutionary genetics Theodosius Dobzhansky or Ernst W. Mayr, races are simply genetically distinct Mendelian populations, and no one ever disputed this [297].

I guess that's the main contention point on the human races. Editing race as something that does not exist "in a meaningful sense when one is studying humans biologically" is a problem.Biophys (talk) 15:12, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An update. That was apparently a response to my evidence on this page [298]. Let me just say for a record that I never made a single edit in article Race and Intelligence, and I never mentioned User:Mathsci anywhere before.Biophys (talk) 19:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Update: I thought I was done after posting evidence about mikemikev. But I see Captain Occam is asking questions of Roger Davies on the proposed decision talk page, so I am now (17 August 2010) adding evidence about Captain Occam below. This evidence is presented by uninvolved editor WeijiBaikeBianji in response to the suggestion by arbitrator Roger Davies.

• Mikemikev

1. POV-pushing by reverting content sourced to reliable sources or by misrepresenting sources: taking quotation out of context (I have the source at hand) revert of reliable secondary sources with addition of minority primary sources against talk page consensus blatantly misrepresenting a source by living authors reverting sourced statements by New York Times science reporter trained as a biologist and others
2. Edit-warring: edit contrary to talk page discussion just after page was semiprotected rapid reverts to lede while other editor found source repeated revert 9 August 2010 to page since protected from edit-warring
3. Incivility: insult of Mathsci on ANI post to my user talk page edit summary of edit to article now protected more incivility on 10 August 2010

As a reality check on my observation of Mikemikev's overt editing behavior, I note that other editors have described his edits as appearing to be SPA POV-pushing [299] [300] [301] or contentious without consensus [302], administrators have protected pages just after his edits to prevent edit-warring, and Captain Occam is concerned about his incivility. I note for the record that I agree with Mike's rationale for supporting the presence of Bpesta22 as an editor of articles on these topics. I don't disagree with him on all issues, but simply think he is not inclined, even when on notice that his behavior is being watched, to work collaboratively according to Wikipedia policies to edit an encyclopedia with reliable sources and neutral point of view. I have worked as an editor in three different editorial offices—governmental, commercial, and academic—in two different countries. I know what it takes to keep a group of editors on task and producing a quality edited publication. Mikemikev may be able to maintain a rollicking unedited blog elsewhere in cyberspace, but Wikipedia doesn't appear to be his cup of tea. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 21:19, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Captain Occam

1. POV-pushing by overly broad claims of consensus contrary to WP:BOLD. diff that Captain Occam himself pointed to in this case showing his definition of consensus CO's edit and my response edit with edit summaries showing differing views of consensus

Captain Occam's consistent pattern of behavior throughout my involvement on Wikipedia has been to invoke "consensus" to push his point of view. I was just searching for diffs in article talk pages, and I am astonished at how often the word "consensus" comes from the keyboard of Captain Occam. Back on 26 June 2010, I quoted John Broughton on the encyclopedia-harming effects of hasty claims of consensus on the case workshop page: "Among the worst defenders of the status quo are those who believe that consensus needs to be established before any change to an article. That's a total misreading of Wikipedia rules, especially Be bold (shortcut: WP:BB), which encourages editors to make changes whenever there seems to be a good reason to do so." I followed up the quotation from Broughton with my own observation that "Right now, the article talk page evidences dozens of attempts to slow or undo sourced improvements of the article based on a claim of consensus. That's point-of-view pushing." I cannot fault Captain Occam for lack of civility. He has even reminded fellow members of his tag team to be more civil. But he has formed a tag team, and the way he counts, the members of the tag team are more equal than other Wikipedians. Captain Occam keeps using that word "consensus." I do not think it means what he thinks it means. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 16:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Up until now I have refrained from providing any evidence, largely because others have done such a good job of providing evidence.

But this just happened, and that it happened during this ArbCom case illustrates how singular and determined Mikemikev is in pushing his narrow POV.

For a very long time - at least five maybe six years - the Race article has stated the following:

the rise of population genetics provided scientists with a new understanding of the sources of phenotypic variation. This new science has led many mainstream evolutionary scientists in anthropology and biology to question the very validity of race as a scientific concept describing an objectively real phenomenon

Needless to say this claim undermines Mikemikev's POV-pushing at the R&I related articles. So while both obvious and tasteless, it is understandable that he has set it upon himself to rewrite the Race article.

My principal evidence is the last fity or so edits to the article: [303] You will see Mikemikev making a string of deletions which are usually reverted by another editor.

This has been going on some for time and I would rather not provide virtually every edit dif.from the past month. I will provide some illustrative examples. My comments in italics

First, the introduction: the introduction as you know introduces the article as a whole. It in cludes unsourced statements, because those statements sum up enitre sections of the article that are fully sourced. One such section is on research on race in Brazil, where there is compelling evidence that racial categories are based on economic status and education. The introduction therefore says that racial classifications can be based on biological and social factors. Mike deleted this, leading to this exchange on the talk page:

The ArbCom decision in the Race and Intelligence case should clarify some of the editor conduct issues here soon, but meanwhile let's use the article talk page to lay out sources, and calmly discuss those before making substantive changes in the text of the lede. Wikipedia must rely on reliable sources by policy, so changes in article text not based on sources will have to stay out of this contentious article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:35, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a serious accusation Weiji. Can you substantiate it? My edit was made in good faith. Also, do you think racial classification is based on "cultural and social" factors? It's BS and you know it. The first sentence was already unsourced. mikemikev (talk) 15:21, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not see how one can say the edit was made in good faith when mike did not take the time to (1) read the article (2) see the sources that were provided and (3) says any view other than his own is bullshit.

Yet this dragged on and on:

Yes I agree. But the first sentence "Race refers to the classification of humans into populations or groups based on various factors such as culture, social practice or heritable characteristics" is unsourced. It seems obvious to me that racial classification is based on heritable characteristics alone (ie. it can be done with photographs). I'm pretty sure that in the absence of sourcing "various factors such as culture, social practice or" should be left out as the default position. We already have "Conceptions of race, as well as specific ways of grouping races, vary by culture and over time, effectively functioning as folk taxonomies" as the second sentence to clarify the matter. mikemikev (talk) 20:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Your "pretty obvious to me" editing is causing everyone trouble. Gimme five minutes and I'll source it. Professor marginalia (talk) 21:08, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm really sorry about all the trouble. It just seems like absolutely obvious BS to me. Perhaps I'm just a dumbass. mikemikev (talk) 21:26, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I tell you what, I'll change it, and when you get a source, you can change it back. mikemikev (talk) 21:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Since when do we change consensus versions of introductions based n what one editor considers "pretty obvious?" Note: Mikemikev never rpovided any sources. And he continues to ignore the sources that are already IN the article At least he admits to being a dumbass. But this is a highly disruptive pattern of editing.

Then this exchange:

@Marginalia, Subspecies status is not decided by genome diversity accounting. It can't be since we don't know what most of the genome is doing. 'Subspecies' is a vague but informative term, much like 'race'. Subspecies applies to non-interbreeding but potentially interbreeding populations, with some noticeable difference (undefined). Race can be applied to clinally varied populations. I mean what do we call clinal genetic variation among humans? Race. It's not precise, but it can be informative. mikemikev (talk) 10:45, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you sharing more of your "pretty obvious to me" insights here? Because it continues to strike me odd how little correlation there is between your arguments and the claims in mainstream secondary sources, including ones you've cited in support of your edits. If scientists are studying genome differences it is in a sense irrelevant what the genome is "doing". So there's fairly strong consensus on this-as reflected in EB: most scientists seek to apply the same criteria to humans as the rest of the animal kingdom--the majority haven't agreed to apply some ad hocish exemption for humans for the interim while they try and dig up a novel justification to consider them distinct taxonomically. For example, though they find there to be geographic clines in human populations, known correlations such as between skin color and latitude tend to show relatively little co-variance with other traits, and it's not a meaningful stand-in for racial taxonomy. (Most population geneticists prefer to measure neutral genetic differences from multiple loci for this kind of taxonomic analysis for similar reasons--selected traits can be distorted measures of distance.) There's a good discussion of the various analyses evolutionists apply comparing populations in Fish's Race and Intelligence cited in the Race and intelligence article. Professor marginalia (talk) 15:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Utter crap. mikemikev (talk) 18:12, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Remember, all this is going on while Mikemike ve is deleting whatever content he can find in the actual article that does not fit with is POV "Utter crap" I'd say is a good sign we just have a POV awarrior here.

A final example, from yesterday:

As I said at the beginning, for over five years the article said, "This new science has led many mainstream evolutionary scientists in anthropology and biology to question the very validity of race as a scientific concept describing an objectively real phenomenon." This was supported with an account of their reasons, which Mikemikev delete [304]. I restored, Mikemikev deleted: [305].

Then Mikemikev went aftef the sources. The claim in the article was suppoted by four secondary sources.

Please note: these secondary sources arenot themselves evolutionary biologists - they are not primary sources. They are secondary sources writing about evolutionary biologists.

Mikemikeve deleted them, and wrote this on the talk page:

[306] [307]

Mainstream evolutionary scientists:

Baum, Bruce David.

Angier, Natalie.

Amundson, Ron.

Reardon, Jenny.

Also false allegation of vandalism. mikemikev (talk) 19:11, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"LA!LA!LA!LA!LA!LA!..." you're not hearing that major changes with nary a comment directly prior or after on a topic in an area of contention are quite likely to be regarded as vandalism. Nor are you hearing why sometimes more is more and less is meaningless. Chill. You want to bring up allegations rightly or wrongly please take it up elsewhere. There's no train leaving the station here. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 20:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be so childish. This is a ridiculous addition. These are not "mainstream evolutionary scientists", they're not even evolutionary scientists. Why don't you address the content instead of giving condescending procedural lectures. mikemikev (talk) 21:12, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked Baum, he's source cited in studies on race. Perhaps you'd like to offer your categorization, along with your criteria, of these individuals instead of offering sarcasm and calling me childish. I suggest trying this again as a discussion instead of sneering. As for "condescending" I rather suspect you are projecting your conflicts with other editors on me. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 00:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Drmies restored the deleted material. Mikemikev deleted it again. Weiji restored the delted material, Mikemikev deleted it again, this time calling another editor an "idiot." [308]

There is a clear pattern here: Mikemikev is on a campaign to remove any material that expresses a POV on race othe than the one he holds. If an article explains why biologists have changed their views on race, he removes the explanation. If it has sources, he removes the sources. Then he removes anything left, since it is unsourced or unexplained.

His manner of discussion on talk pages is outrageous. He shows no respect to editors who seem to know more than him or at least are willing to do more research and be congenial in the meantime.

I admit an SPA could be a good editor. But with Mikemikev we have an SPA who wishes to use Wikipedia as his own propaganda machine. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An accurate narrative summary of the fundamental problem here. It is completely laughable to refer to Natalie Angier as someone not qualified to write on these issues. She is certainly much better trained in biology and much more up to date with the relevant facts than any of the POV-pushing editors. It's regrettable when editors decline opportunities to learn from sources. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 21:44, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In any case Angier was merely reporting the conclusion of Craig Venter. ·Maunus·ƛ· 17:57, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.