Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2

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[edit] Comment by Cyde Weys

I've seen Ed Poor's work for awhile now and I've often seen him as pushing a pro-fundamentalist, anti-science POV, whether it's on evolution, intelligent design, global warming, et al. Ed will vehemently deny this, of course, and he will try to Wikilawyer his way out of it. He's pretty good at wikilawyering, especially because he's been around for so long, but the edits will speak for themselves. Ed has a long history of POV problems, whether it was forking off a POV version of an evolution-related article so he could make it more anti-evolution, or creating non-encyclopedic articles on "evolution polls" to try to use the populist argument to "refute" evolution, or constantly over the period of months trying to bend the wording on Intelligent design. Ed is editing on his faith rather than the facts; for a neutral encyclopedia, this is untenable. I urge the ArbCom to accept this case so that we can write out a full evidence section detailing all of Ed's history of POV-pushing. --Cyde Weys 14:28, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rebuttal by Ed Poor

Fundamentalism rejects all scientific findings which contradicts its faith; thus, Young Earth Creationists reject the authenticity of scientific consensus about the Fossil record (i.e., "God put the fossils there to fool us!"). I support the labeling of this "scientific theory" as Pseudoscience.

Science has two meanings: (1) the process of finding out reliable knowledge, and (2) the body of knowledge currently held to be reliable. I have added points of view from published sources who dispute both the process and the body.

A tiny minority of advocates wants science to expand its scope of inquiry to include non-material causes. I have added information about this minority's leaders, motives and ideas. I have NEVER changed an article so as to give the impression that this minority is "correct" or "prominent". Rather I have stressed that they number less than 2 in 1,000, far below my personal definition of a tiny minority: under 5 percent.

The only faith I edit on, is that people working together for a common goal can produce excellent results, even if they are not experts. My only goal for the controversial articles on science is a fair treatment of both sides of the controversy. The mainstream view should continue to be described as "mainstream", and the views of the minority should be included -- strictly labeled as "minority", and preferably with an estimate of how many or few adherents those views have.

For example, in evolution, 99.8% of biologists accept the Theory of Evolution. So the views of minority biologists hardly merit any mention at all, except in sidebar articles like Intelligent Design (ID). The ID series of articles are dominated by anti-ID POV, which is fine with me. All I ask is that pro-ID arguments be permitted in articles about ID, rather than deleted out of hand because they "advance a POV". --Uncle Ed 14:18, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by JoshuaZ

It isn't clear to me why all of this discussion is occuring on this page. As I understand it the normal thing to do is to present evidence on the evidence page at this stage. However, one part of Ed's comments bears noting. While I think Cyde's claim that Ed support "fundamentalism" is inaccurate (Ed seems to support a more general anti-evolutionary viewpoint) the above does once again illustrate one of Ed's problems: editing and pontificating on matters which he knows little or nothing about. The vast majority of young earth creationists do not reject the Fossil record but claim that they are interpreting the record differently. This is an important distinction. JoshuaZ 14:43, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you please tell me how I can make it clear that I do not think they are "rejecting the fossil record" but are rejecting "its authenticity"? --Uncle Ed 20:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, "reject the scientific consensus about the fossil record" or "reject the consensus interpretation of the fossil record" or "reject the mainstream interpretation of the fossil record" might do it although they all have slightly different meanings. The first one seems to be the most accurate. JoshuaZ 20:27, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for helping me to explain what I meant. :-) --Uncle Ed 21:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by user:Ladlergo

When I first started looking at this group of articles, I didn't know of Ed's history with the community of editors and attempted to mediate. Right now, my feeling is that he's attempting to game the system. In my opinion, Ed's main problem is that he attempts to give WP:NPOV#Undue_weight to ideas that are properly discussed on other pages. In addition, when he makes edits, he fails to concretely address why his edits are better than the previous version. Ladlergo 15:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response by Ed Poor

Please give an example of an edit which "fails to address" why it improves the article. (I try to remember to fill out the Help:Edit summary, but in a long series of edits I might forget to do this. After being reverted, I usually attempt to begin a discussion on the article talk page.

I do concede, however, that occasionally when reverted for no given reason, I have "reverted back". I regret this and promise to limit myself to 1RR/day. --Uncle Ed 14:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Karwynn (talk)

I'm involved in one article with these two editors. My limited experience wth JoshuaZ has shown me that he seems to think that he need only declare an edit NPOV and that's that. Afterwards, further discussion from him is generally in the form of "It's NPOV, why can't you respect policy?" Sometimes I feel like he's not considering "I may be wrong about this" enough. Not in a sinister "I AM THE LAW" manner, just kind of a lack of enthusiasm for disagreement. So I think very careful evaluation of JoshuaZ's claims on Ed Poor's inability/refusal to grasp NPOV is necessary. All in all, Ed Poor seems to be acting in good faith, cautioning me on edit warring over an article where we disagreed with JoshuaZ (Godless:_The_Church_of_Liberalism) and being very open to discussion and rational on the talk page, where JoshuaZ's comments were at times notably absent until we I guess made enough fuss to encourage him to reply. Ed Poor's comments specifically related to NPOV and verifiability issues on that article, and seemed very oriented towards achieving a fair, objective and relevant-to-the-specific-subject article. His motives, to me anyway, seemed geared towards neutrality, not a pro-creationism agenda. Poor judgement of NPOV and non-neutral motives are not the same thing. It seems like this is more a wide-scale content dispute than a conduct dispute, and further discussion would be a more productive venue for this I think. Perhaps a content-based RfC or something?

[edit] Comment by User:ScienceApologist

Ed has a problem in believing that he is a paragon of neutrality here at Wikipedia. He prides himself on being able to "balance" articles he perceives to be unbalanced. He does this not through research, verifiable citations, or making factual additions, but rather by changing the wording, introducing equivocation, and occasionally majorly disrupting articles in order so that his version of the NPOV policy is realized. When people dispute his behavior, he usually balks. He has claimed that there is a de facto cabal of Wikipedians who are surpressing what he has termed a "conservative political view" in science controversy articles. The big problem is that Ed doesn't engage in the normal activities of consensus building, occasionally acts spitefully against individuals and seems to hold personal grudges, and instead of appealing to research or literature cited by his fellow Wikipedians, Ed prefers to fall-back on a prefunctory "Uncle Ed knows neutrality" attitude that implicitly accuses everyone but himself of being biased. Ed does not think that there has ever been any evidence presented that he is biased in his approach to editting despite the growing list on his RfC. I have tried to discuss these issues with him to limited success. Ed's a valuable member of the Wikipedia community, having been here for quite some time, but he is doing a great disservice to his years here by being so tendentious in so-called "science controversy" articles. --ScienceApologist 21:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I wonder what SA means by "equivocation". My favorite dictionary (Merriam-Webster) gives two radically different definitions:
  1. to use equivocal language especially with intent to deceive
  2. to avoid committing oneself in what one says
If he's accusing me of the first, I plead innocent. I have never used language "to mislead or confuse" - not intentionally, at least. If there is even a single phrase in any of my 30,000 edits which seems misleading or confusing to SA, I hope he will ask me about it first, instead of making damaging and baseless accusations. Failing that would violate the guideline on assuming good faith.
If he's complaining about the second, then I plead guilty. Nearly everything I do with the controversial articles about science, is to change them from:
  • stating that a certain hypothesis or theory is an undisputed fact; to,
  • stating that it is supported by the mainstream (or particular groups and/or individuals) but is opposed by a minority (whom I also name)
Of course, I don't do this with fringe theories like flat earth, which faded from public attention centuries ago. Only with prominent issues with widespread political support for the minority view: the Theory of Evolution and the Global Warming theory.
I do not misrepresent the proportion of the disagreement. 99.8% of biologists (and 95% of scientists in general) support the Theory of Evolution. No one disputes these figures (although SA voted with other to delete the Evolution Poll article which documents this fact; not on the grounds that it's untrue but that it might enable our readers to realize that more scientists disagree with evolution than is commonly known.) See the vfd discussion on this [here].
SA worked very hard to suppress any mention of the distinction between the naturalistic evolution accepted by around 11% of Americans (but rejected 8 to 1 by others) and the "gradual apperance of species" which most people accept. When he asked me if I had a source for the percentages of people who accept or reject various aspects of evolution, I referred him to the Evolution poll page, which he then promptly nominated for deletion. The information it contained then is now permanently hidden from non-admins. It has not been merged into other articles.
The dispute arose when Joshua (SA) repeatedly added into Creationism-related articles, the idea the "evolution is considered consistent with religious belief" by the majority of people. This was OR on his part, since Gallup polls [1] show just the opposite. 85% of people oppose evolution because it contradicts their religion.
But this depends on how "evolution" is defined, which brings us back to the issue of 'equivation' (first meaning, i.e., to use words that mean two different things with intent to deceive)
If "evolution" is defined so as to include the intervention of God, then 37% of those polled, agree with it:
  • "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process"
But if "evolution" is defined so as to exclude the intervention of God (or consideration of ANY non-material couse), then only 16% agree with it:
  • "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process."
SA wants to violate OR (and also undue weight) by adding 16% to 37% and asserting that 53% of people support "evolution". When I tried to distinguish between Naturalistic evolution (i.e, Unguided evolution) and Guided evolution, he voted with others to deleted the articles I created to address this distinction; and has consistently worked to keep this distinction out of Wikipedia anywhere.
Global Warming is harder to characterize, because polls, surveys, statements and literature searches give widely varying results. Anywhere from just over 50% of scientists regard the theory as uncertain (i.e., that it's not the mainstream view after all) to 99.9% of peer-reviewed journal articles actively support (or passively go along with) the theory (not just a mainstream, but an overwhelming flood).
Balance (or neutrality) on an issue means not committing Wikipedia to endorsement of any point of view on the issue. I "plead guilty" to trying to make Wikipedia articles on public controversies over science issues "to avoid committing us" to saying that the mainstream POV is true. Rather, I want these articles to label this POV as mainstream, and also to discribe (at least minimally) the minority point of view.
Let's point out a few things:
1)Polls can be reported on in Wikipedia, but they are not the arbiter of what is and isn't verifiable and factual. The majority of Americans cannot find Iraq on a map of the world. That does not mean that the location of Iraq is controversial.
2)Ed has a habit of dismissing, out-of-hand, references which contradict his opinion of "NPOV". When confronted with the fact that he has poor research tactics, he admitted that his research comes mostly from google searches. I have asked him to consider that this may not be the most reliable way to research.
3)Evolution poll was not deleted because Ed used it as a source (by the way, Wikipedia articles do not count asverifiable sources for obvious reasons). It was deleted because it was an article unworthy of inclusion in Wikipedia and the subject was already discussed on the creation-evolution controversy page. It was clear in discussions of deleting this article that Ed did not read the controversy article as he kept insisting that he couldn't find the information he wanted to include in the Evolution poll article anywhere else in Wikipedia. At this time, Ed had sysop privileges which he blatantly abused by undeleting his pet article. When it was re-deleted, Ed created nearly a dozen forks with the intent on describing his own idea of what the controversy entailed. When I continued offering these forks up for AfD, Ed blocked me, which was almost immediately reversed. It was this kind of behavior that resulted, in part, in Ed losing sysop privileges and leaving the project for a few months. Now that he's back, he seems to want to rewrite history.
--ScienceApologist 14:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response to user:Ed Poor

You said: Far too many articles are unbalanced, emphasizing a mainstream point of view and neglecting minority viewpoints.

WP:NPOV#Undue_weight says:: NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each.

and

We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views.

and

Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties.

Ed, can you please explain why you believe your edits to create "balanced" articles are not directly in opposition to WP policy? Ladlergo 20:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by User:Schlafly

I don't know about Ed Poor, but I've battled JoshuaZ on the Kansas evolution hearings page. He repeatedly insists on name-calling witnesses as creationists and other epithets, even tho many of the witnesses deny being creationists. I say that a NPOV requires that a Wikipedia article on the hearings first describe what actually happened at the hearings in a fair and neutral way. Criticism can come afterward.

JoshuaZ's complaint is surprising weak. He fails to give an example of one of Ed's edits that shows a biased POV. Given JoshuaZ's history of an anti-creationist POV, I think that it is odd for him to complain. Roger 21:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Show me the evidence

I am very skeptical of the case against Ed Poor. Why is it that no one seems to be able to give any examples of bad edits? I have seen a few reasonable edits, but no bad ones. If JoshuaZ really has a case against him, then there should be some examples. This case is lame. Roger 02:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ed_Poor_2/Evidence, take your pick. David D. (Talk) 21:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by CBD

I would just point out that while this RfAr is ostensibly about POV pushing there has been exactly one diff link purporting to show such... but which really doesn't seem to. The only possible 'POV bias' I can detect there is that Ed changed it from saying that the 'global warming controversy is about whether humans have an impact on the climate' to 'about how much human action is responsible for the existence of global warming'. The original suggested the possibility of climate change and that there might be some human contribution to it... the latter states flat out that global warming exists and humans have been part of it, with only the degree of such in question. Clearly Ed's version might be less palatable to opponents of 'global warming' who don't believe it exists at all or that humans have any impact on it, but it does match my understanding of the current scope of the debate... even scientists who oppose the theory now acknowledge that warming has occured and that people inevitably contribute to it, but hold that what we are seeing is primarily a natural cycle with minimal human impact. Very few now argue that there has been no increase in average temperature. All of which is covered in the article and unaffected by Ed's changes. If this is the best available example of his 'POV pushing'... it seems to me extremely weak. Likewise, the link on 'edit warring' and the 'game of Go' clearly appears to be an apology for misunderstanding the policy on partial reverts (which I see admins interpret differently all the time) and a promise not to do so again. This is evidence against him? For the record, my only significant interaction with Ed was when we more or less simultaneously came up with a series of date computing templates using completely different naming structures and methodologies. I found him very reaonable and flexible in working out those differences for consistency. --CBD 22:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Doc

I really think I agree with the above. Ed notoriously has some unpopular beliefs - no-doubt they influence his editing. Mine do me. No doubt they'll get his into heated debates. People with minority perspectives often throw up questions about what NPOV really means in an article. But NPOV =! 'what most liberal wikipedians believe, so to hell with the pseudo-scientists'. Ed has an 'anti-Science' POV (what the hell is that?)? Perhaps. But should wikipedia have a 'pro-science POV' (whatever that might be). As long as Ed is being civil, explains his perspective, and isn't edit waring - there should be no major problem. Some of the diffs above arn't great - but they are hardly a matter for arbcom. Where is the evidence of disruption? --Doc 23:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response to Schlafly, CBD, and Doc

The purpose of this stage of the request is merely to, as it says, request arbitration. This is not the evidentiary phase -- that occurs once the case is accepted and the clerk begins the project page for the RfAr proper. (see comments by CydeWeys) At that point I would assume that Doc's and CBD's concerns regarding civility, POV-pushing, edit-warring, etc., will be satisfactorilly addressed by the evidence. Jim62sch 10:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence

Roger, you have to go to the evidence page.•Jim62sch• 09:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Davril2020

My experience of Ed's habits on the Evolution and Intelligent Design pages have been quite disturbing. The tendency to pov-push is worrying, particularly since he has a tendency to repeatedly come back to the exact same issue, re-presenting the same evidence again and again against the consensus version, despite repeated requests for documented evidence to support his proposed changes. He has a tendency to react to collective criticism as though there were a cabal and typically responds to the failure of his changes to be implemented not with agreement to the community consensus, or even a decision to agree to disagree, but often with a good deal of frustration. In particular, he seems to believe his changes fail to succeed because his edits are blocked by pov-pushers, and does not accept that the community consensus is deserving as respect. Indeed, where this consensus exists and is in opposition to him he typically dismisses it altogether, showing a disappointing level of disrespect to his fellow editors. --Davril2020 04:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by i kan reed

I think ed has gotten the short end of the stick here. He probably was in violation of 3RR on a few occasions, but I have seen instances where his changes were reverted simply because he made them. And edits that change multiple things being reverted for one of the parts changed containing POV. Reverting simply because a change contains POV is not a policy favored by most users, and I beleive meaningful content has been removed in this fashion occasionally, and while Mr. Poor does have a strong Point of View that he may overdefend, I beleive there have been violations of WP:AGF against him. None of this excuses edit warring, but I think Ed has been slightly abused here. i kan reed 14:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Dragons flight

I only really know Ed's actions as they relate to the global warming areas of Wikipedia. My impression is that Ed legitimately believes he is working for the greater good of Wikipedia. In practice, he often introduces POV issues and pushes against the consensus of editors at these pages.

Some examples:

Ed knows the system very well, and doesn't generally break the hard and fast rules (e.g. 3RR or NPA), but at times he does seem to try and work the system in attempts to incorporate the POV he favors in spite of the wishes of the consensus of editors involved. His actions around global warming issues can be disruptive, but considerably less so than many more aggressive POV advocates. Ed also tends to transitory. When he tries to make controversial changes that are rejected he often argues for a little while and then moves on to other things. However over the long run he has been very persistent. Talk page archives, show controversy at global warming regarding Ed's edits at least as early as Jan. 2003, to say nothing of the "Ed Poor wars" of 2004.

I don't know how Ed's behavior has been in other areas, but with respect to global warming he has been something of a persistent moderate nuisance. He is usually not intractable or strongly disruptive, but at the same time, his actions can be annoying and in my opinion a substantial fraction tend to be deleterious.

Whether this is enough to justify arbitration (and whether it can help), I don't know. I'll leave that to people with a more complete picture of Ed's behavior to decide. Dragons flight 20:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Friendly response by Ed Poor

Of all the descriptions of my editing patterns from those who think I'm "pushing a POV", this one comes closest to the truth. Although I disagree with the slant of some points, I appreciate the tone of this comment from an actual climate scientist.

I invite suggestions on how on can be "less of a nuisance". --Uncle Ed 14:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Lou Sander

I've encountered Ed Poor and his critics a few times in connection with editing articles on Ann Coulter and her book Godless. I've had one or two conversations with Ed via talk pages. In all cases, Ed Poor has been a calm voice of wisdom and reason. (I don't know how to cite the edits required in the more "official" parts of the arbitration procedure, but if I did cite them, I believe there would be widespread agreement with this assertion.)

In the case of the book Godless, I've seen Ed try to include one or two of the reasoned points that the author makes about weaknesses in the work of evolution theorists. This has been met with reverts and inclusion of long harangues about her lack of qualifications to make those points, the assumed religious basis for her doing so, etc., none of it very much related to the reasoned points themselves. (And of course, since the reasoned points are quickly removed from the article, readers aren't able to evaluate the harangues.)

My observation of Ed Poor is that he is working for the benefit of the encyclopedia and its readers. Also, in my opinion (based on limited observation), those who disparage him seem to be working to suppress the inclusion of material with which they disagree. Lou Sander 02:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Addition

I don't have a dog in this fight, and I haven't had any dealings with Ed Poor since my first comment above. All I do is occasionally look at the updates to this thread. I'm also neutral/agnostic on all aspects of the origins of life.

It seems that a lot of Ed's troubles are with outspoken proponents of the theory of evolution. In my observation, using Wikipedia to express doubts about that theory, or even to discuss such doubts, is like publishing cartoons of important religious figures -- it can bring an immediate hot response that doesn't die down for a long time; the respondents are numerous, highly agitated, and not very open to discussion. If I were judging Ed Poor, I'd consider the matters in this paragraph. Lou Sander 14:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Facethefacts

Just looking at the hopelessly unbalanced article on Michael Mann (scientist): Ed Poor put a POV flag in [5] and raised the issue in the talk page [6] only to see the flag removed and his comment dismissed.

A month later he did something similar [7] [8], which seems to suggest he is playing by the rules. --Facethefacts 01:42, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Consumed Crustacean

I do agree that many of his edits seem to be for the best for the Wikipedia. However, he does let his personal feelings affect his editing a little too much, and does engage in silly edit wars and overdrawn debates. Some of his "NPOV corrections" step just a little too far over the line as well. I don't think he has any ill wishes towards the Wikipedia, but as Dragons flight pointed out, he can be somewhat distruptive when he decides to increase the weight given to his chosen points of view. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 09:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Kenosis

Ed Poor quite unfortunately has been conducting a disruptive POV campaign across a number of science-related articles, particularly those related to global warming, and other articles where science has implications related to creationism. "Uncle Ed", as he has traditionally signed his posts until a few days ago, has openly admitted at least part of his agenda, stating he is motivated to counteract what he claims is a "Liberal bias [that] has too much of a grip on Wikipedia." [9] [10]. My observation has been that it is not a liberal bias he opposes, but a rational examination of the evidence and reasonable, balanced, honest summaries thereof in keeping with WP:VER and WP:NPOV#Undue weight, attempting instead to impose a distinctly creationist point of view wherever scientific research arrives at conclusions unsupportive of that point of view.

In my observation the main problem is not what his particular POV is, but rather the method he uses to attempt to impose it against clear consensus in many, many articles. His method has been to rewrite content that has broad support by consensus from long-term contributors as being well-sourced and accurate, twisting it to mean almost the opposite, followed by posts to the talk page asking others for clarify what the original passage meant. When his changes fail to achieve consensus UncleEd then edit wars and follows up with baseless, ill-informed and often tendentious objections. When that fails he commonly resorts to misuse of the NPOV tag or a WP:POINT violation to stir the pot. And when that fails he appears at WP:NPOV to try to rewrite the rules. This has repeatedly resulted, and continues to result, in a very substantial amount of time and energy wasted in fruitless and wholly unncessary debate by a significant number of editors in various articles. A large amount of additional time and energy is wasted by many editors tracking down the actual substantive content of Mr. Poor's edits, which are very often found to be re-hashings of issues already well known by Mr. Poor to be thoroughly consensused by participating editors.

Evidence of this pattern is given at Evidence presented by User:Kenosis ... Kenosis 16:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment by Jeandré

If there is agreement that Ed's edits show recklessness and a lack of common sense which is doing the encyclopedia harm, the progression from the first 2 RfAs would suggest a page where he proposes page moves and edits which can then be approved/rejected by a neutral party (acceptable to Ed and those involved here). -- Jeandré, 2006-09-06t21:14z

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