Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Bcrowell and Eclecticology

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I'm involved in a disagreement wirh User:eclecticology concerning the astrology article. The article has a long history of edit wars concerning NPOV. I put an NPOV dispute marker on the article yesterday, and explained my reasons on the article's talk page, and eclecticology then deleted the NPOV marker, which I've now put back in. Since we seem to be getting in an edit war over something as simple as the NPOV marker, it really seems like it might be helpful to get mediation. --Bcrowell 15:24, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've contacted User:eclecticology via his talk page to ask him if he's willing to do mediation. --Bcrowell 15:02, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't think that mediation is yet the appropriate way of dealing with this disagreement. User:Bcrowell did confront each other in this article in December 2002. Events since then have allowed the article to arrive at a delicate NPOV balance; adding the notice now does not recognize anyone's efforts to achieve that balance. My adversary has failed to mention that I fully responded to his comments on the talk page, and his only response to my comments was to request mediation The issue is much, much bigger than what is on the astrology page. See my comments at Category talk:Pseudoscience. To me the term "pseudoscience" is a pejorative, just as the term "dictator" would be in other contexts. Bcrowell is only one person in that bigger dispute, but his attitude and style of argument is representative of a very common one among "scientists". Thus to view this as a simple dispute between two individual users does not settle anything.

I agree that pseudoscience is POV and therefore not ideal. What do you suggest, and would this fit under style or a new kind of "NPOV terms policy," that lists these terms among various topics? I like the more macroscopic approach, perhaps using a subtle 'category:POV terms' way of listing pages that have subjective, term-based arguments. But then what argument isnt term/context based? By the way, are you refusing mediation, or are you accepting that someone here can help you guys deal with your concerns.? -SV

It is difficult to suggest an alternative term. I've considered "anomalous studies", but I have not yet convinced myself that that is the best. A "POV terms" category has a certain attraction, and it would deal with more than mere style. With matters of style, any of the available alternatives could have been adopted; the motivation is based more in uniformity than NPOV. I suspect that any attempt to have a list of unacceptable POV terms will be a wonderful source of arguments. I am not refusing mediation if the mediators should feel that this is a suitable issue for mediation. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Should others consider that mediation is the appropriate avenue to take, there is only one member of the committee whose sometimes eccentric views on science matters would raise my objections. One other member participated in the astrology article in November, 2002 but his edits at that time do not appear to be problematical. Eclecticology 20:49, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thus to view this as a simple dispute between two individual users does not settle anything.
True, but that's the way the mediation process seems to be defined.

If there is any one thing that I would hope to accopmplish with this process it's a consensus on how to deal with issues where "pseudoscience" is an issue. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Events since then have allowed the article to arrive at a delicate NPOV balance
I think it would be more accurate to say that Eclecticology has tried to wear down the resistance of anyone who attempted to introduce NPOV into this article.

If there was ever a good case for mediation, I think this is it. --Bcrowell 06:02, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The argument cuts both ways. It wasn't just one of us who was editing this article in December, 2002. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If mediation occurs, I would say that the page should be protected, and that your concerns be dealt with on balance. For the record, Ec has stated a very good case, while Bcrowell - you need to explain your criticism beyong simply claiming that hes wearing "down the resistance of anyone who attempted to introduce NPOV" - this is a clever jab, and an inversely self-contratulatory one at that, but doesnt cut it. What is your objection to removing the term as Ec describes? -SV 01:52, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if page protection is absolutely necessary; I'm certainly not intent on taking a ballistic approach to the article. I would be more concerned with the possible activities of third parties who may want to inject their POV.

Hi, Stevertigo -- I was confused by your posts here until I noticed that you said on the article's talk page that you were offering to mediate. I'm sorry, but based on your comments so far, I'd really prefer a different mediator. It sounds as though you're already making decisions on the outcome (re the pseudoscience categorization), before it's even clear that mediation is going to happen, and before I've even had a chance to make my case. I'd be happy with any of the following as a mediator: User:Angela, User:Bcorr, User:Ed Poor. Eclecticology, are you willing to accept mediation, and if so, would any of these people be acceptable mediators?

Based on my previous comments Ed is the only person whom I would not accept as mediator in this subject area. I am rejecting no other person on the entire mediator list. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What is your objection to removing the term as Ec describes?

When you say 'term,' do you mean the disputed NPOV marker? Fundamentally, the problem with the article is that rather than describing astrology, it attempts to justify it using science. That won't wash, because there is no scientific justification for astrology. The way the article reads right now, it's as though someone wrote an article on Christianity, and the whole thing was devoted to using the theory of prime numbers to prove Christianity was the one true religion, without mentioning the Bible, the Trinity, the Catholic Church, or Christianity's relationship to Judaism.

The NPOV marker is an incidental issue, and not a substantive one. I have no ballistic intentions toward SV's adding the shorter version. The term in question is "pseudoscience". I don't think that the relation of Christianity to prime numbers is helpful. As the article now stands it contains no claim that astrology is a science or scientific. Few astrologers today would say that it is. Bcrowell is expending a lot of energy attempting to refute a claim that is not made. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

For the record, Ec has stated a very good case, while Bcrowell - you need to explain your criticism.
Sorry, I'm confused. As far as stating a case, has the mediation process actually started? I was under the impression that it hadn't yet, and that we were still waiting to hear whether Eclecticology would accept it. His statements so far have been ambiguous. Anyway, as a random example of what I'm talking about, Eclecticology made an edit on 05:25, 24 Jul 2004 in which he changed the sentence

Scientists dismiss astrology as pseudoscience because astrology does not follow the scientific method.

to

Scientists dismiss astrology as pseudoscience with the claim that astrology does not follow the scientific method.

This edit is one example of Eclecticology's attempts to use slanted language to turn the whole article into a non-NPOV attack on science and the scientific method. The edit history of the article also does not support his claim that he is merely protecting an NPOV that has been painstakingly hammered out in a collaborative manner. This particular edit, for example, was apropos of nothing. I could go into a lot more detail, but I don't see the point, if Eclecticology isn't even accepting mediation. --Bcrowell 03:48, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

So what is closer to NPOV - a categorical statement that astrology does not follow the scientific method, or one that says that scientists make that claim. (Reviewing the statement now I would probably now change "astrology" to "astrologers".) To say that I have made any attack on science or the scientific method is an outright lie. I am far more concerned with "scientists" who go about distorting these concepts in the pursuit of their own agendas. They often abandon all semblance of belief in the scientific method when they want to show contempt for topics that are supported by others. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would like to make some specific suggestions for what I would like to see accomplished by going through mediation regarding the astrology article:

(1) This article has been a bone of contention for a long time, and I think it's only honest to retain the NPOV-dispute marker for the forseeable future. The article is in much worse shape than some others that have the marker, e.g., Ronald Reagan.

I will not be in a hurry to remove the simple marker. Despite Nancy's reputed consultations with astrologers, the Reagan article is not somewhere that I would like to go. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(2) The article is lacking in substantial content. In particular, there is a lot of useful historical information that could be provided there, and isn't. This article, for instance, is public domain, and I'd suggest lifting large parts of its historical material. (It needs substantial proofreading, because it was obviously done with an OCR. I'd be happy to do the proofreading and whip the text into shape.) There are precedents for this on Wikipedia, e.g., Andes.

I agree that the article is lacking substantial content, but Has Bcrowell forgotten that he was the one who moved a large segment of the content to western astrology. I downloaded the 1911 article, and printed it on seven pages of fairly fine print. This has got to be one of their worst jobs of proofreeding an OCR product. Much of it is completely unreadable before even getting into any evaluation of the contents. It would see me supporting a complete inclusion of the 1911 encyclopedia into Wikisource if we have people willing to to the proofreadintg.

Using these 1911 articles as a starting point is an established practice. In this case fixing the text without recourse to the original would involve a lot of speculation about some readings. The article appears to have a lot of useful historical material, but because of the OCR problems I have been unable to reach conclusions about their POV. I suspect that it does contain much outdated material that would need improvement. I would recomment putting that text into Wikisource so that we can first come to an agreement about what the text says. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(3) The article has been edited into a kind of word salad by people trying make particular sentences lean the way they want them to. A lot of the sentences read like gibberish at this point. (a) Let's use footnote references to external links to show the arguments on both sides as much as possible, and let those external links speak for themselves more. Right now, there are a lot of statements in the article like "astrologers maintain..." or "scientists say..." that are very vague. They could be made more specific, informative, and accurate by making them point to the external links. (b) Rather than making each sentence into a maze of qualifiers, let's separate some pros into one paragraph and some cons into another paragraph. And honestly, two paragraphs plus some external links are all that is really needed on the question of whether astrology is doubleplusgood or doubleplusungood. That kind of argumentative stuff is really not going to be that useful to most readers.

--Bcrowell 06:03, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I understand the word salad problem; that's life on the Wiki. (a) I have no general problem with footnotes. (b) I also have no problem with generally limiting the pros and cons to two pragraphs. Eclecticology 20:53, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It actually sounds like we've reached agreement here without even having to choose a moderator. Shall we just go ahead and implement what we've discussed?

Has Bcrowell forgotten that he was the one who moved a large segment of the content to western astrology

Oops -- yes, I had forgotten. Sorry. I suppose the 1911 article is nearly all on western astrology, in which case there may be no point in using text from it in the general astrology article. If you think it would be helpful to include some of it in either astrology or western astrology, I'd be happy to help with correcting the horrible OCR. Or if you'd rather do it yourself, I'd be even happier not to have the work :-)

(b) I also have no problem with generally limiting the pros and cons to two pragraphs.

Great. Is it OK if you write the pro and I write the con?

--Bcrowell 00:10, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Maybe this page is an electronic equivalent of working it out over a beer.

I'm disappointed enough with the 1911 EB project that I've started searching for a paper copy on which to base proofreading. (I expect that I can get one for $50.00 + shipping.) Eventually, the whole article should be imported into Wikisource, but I'm not going to be taking any significant steps in that direction until I receive my paper copy.

I think that your proposed division of labour for the two sections is fair. I would be very pleased if we could end up with something that can be a model for other articles that are often labeled "pseudoscience". I'm still looking for an acceptable and NPOV term to replace that. It needs to be fairly broadly applicable, and have reasonable support from both sides of the divide. Eclecticology 01:52, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good, Eclecticology. I'm glad we were able to agree on an outline for a solution, and I'm optimistic that we'll be able to make progress now. Re the pseudoscience label, Open Directory has this: http://dmoz.org/Science/Anomalies_and_Alternative_Science/

Do we just leave the mediation discussion here and wait for someone to archive it or something? --Bcrowell 16:41, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)