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Initiated by ~ Adjwilley ( talk) at 06:56, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I recently stumbled across a dispute centered around Chiropractic, and became aware that the article and subject area are under discretionary sanctions under the Pseudoscience case. My question is: how does the pseudoscience case apply to alternative medicine generally? Where do alt-med (and chiropractic specifically) fall on the spectrum of "obvious pseudoscience", "generally considered pseduoscience", "questionable science", and "alternative theoretical formulations" that is outlined in the case? The case file doesn't seem to mention alternative medicine specifically, but apparently discretionary sanctions are being issued in the area, which is why I am asking for clarification. ~ Adjwilley ( talk) 06:56, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Chiropractic is covered because it has has pseudoscientific elements. And it's doubly covered because the sanctions were expanded to cover fringe science, and chiropractic is fringe medicine (fringe medicine being a subset of fringe science). The arbitration case doesn't need to mention alternative medicine.
Sourced proof:
A significant and continuing barrier to scientific progress within chiropractic are the anti-scientific and pseudo-scientific ideas (Keating 1997b) which have sustained the profession throughout a century of intense struggle with political medicine.
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@Neuraxis. These two sources talk about the current state of chiropractic. They are not "used in a historical context". -- Enric Naval ( talk) 23:30, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
If a topic is reliably-sourced as being a Pseudoscience / fringe science, then it should be under discretionary sanctions. The Arbcom only needs to clarify that.
The rest are content disputes, using reliable sources to establish / deny the pseudoscience in each separate article. Arbcom shouldn't decide content disputes in a given article, unless the community has shown that it can't solve the matter. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 23:44, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Enric has decided to cherry pick a sentence, used in a historical context. This is a common tactic. However, it ignores the fundamental question: Are manual and manipulative therapy for MSK conditions pseudoscientific and fringe? This impacts chiropractic since it is the largest purveyor of manipulative services, but also impacts on osteopathic medicine, physical therapy who also use manipulation as a means of relieving MSK pain. So, the findings here apply equally to all health professions who use manipulative therapy as a clinical intervention for dealing with MSK pain. While I do agree that the non-musculoskeletal use of manipulative therapies isn't mainstream, given that its only 10% of practice this should not be disproportionately weighed against the fact that 90% of manipulative treatment is directly towards spinal/MSK issues. Given that the mainstream of the chiropractic profession has evolved with a common identity focusing on conservative spine care, the notion that chiropractic practice (and spinal manipulation by extension) is 100% pseudoscientific does not reflect the current reality. This ongoing discussion [5] specifically discusses this very topic and is relevant here. Lastly, we need use a global focus and not just a US-centric POV.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but rather a starting point to show evidence that scientific practice and research is not uncommon, but reflects the mainstream of the profession currently. Regards, Neuraxis ( talk) 18:02, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
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I don't even see why this is a question. Chiropractic practices are firmly rooted in pseudoscience. That some small subset of their treatments have beneficial effects doesn't mean that the foundation is solid, it's simply an an example of the "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" principle. The same reasoning applies to the various alternative medicines.
In a very real sense, these are more important topics than the more esoteric pseudosciences. No one is going to hurt themselves because they believe in cold fusion. They can hurt themselves by forgoing legitimate medical treatment in favour of quackery.— Kww( talk) 16:03, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
This is a not unreasonable question regarding the definition of pseudoscience for our purposes, and it might help to have some clear lines of demarkation on this point. One possibility is to go by what people involved in the field of pseudoscience consider pseudoscience. Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Encyclopedic articles is a list I generated some time ago based on articles included in one Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, and I find that one of its longer articles specifically is about chiropractic, which would I think be a reasonable indicator of how that particular topic might qualify. I also would believe that, in all likelihood, anything with a separate article or section in that source or other reference-type overview works on pseudoscience would probably qualify under the sanctions. But there is a very big gray area of where pseudoscience, parapsychology, paranormal and occult do and do not overlap, and it might be beneficial if we could have some sort of specific indicator of where the topics do and do not overlap here. So, for instance, some "occult"-ish topics make some sort of claims to being "scientific" in some way, like maybe Taoism's registers, which are effectively theological equivalents of the Tennessee Blue Book and the Official Manual State of Missouri, among others, might qualify as "pseudoscientific" or might not. Other potential gray areas of possible overlap exist between these topics as well. John Carter ( talk) 18:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Reply to Adjwilley's Reply to Kww, Enric Naval:
Reply to Neuraxis:
Reply to Newyorkbrad
Reply to Thryduulf
Reply to Neuraxis
Reply to John Carter
Reply to Neuraxis
The discretionary sanctions apply to "articles relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted". I understand this to include pages related to any topic that has been discussed in reliable sources as constituting or being related to pseudoscience and fringe science, or which is described in its Wikipedia article or categories as such (including, in either case, situations where the classification as pseudoscience or fringe science is disputed). What the terms pseudoscience and fringe science mean is described in their articles. On this basis, each case would need to be examined individually. I don't think that the entirety of the topics grouped under alternative medicine are within the scope of the sanctions, because our article about this topic says that alternative medicine is defined as being "not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method", which can be understood to mean that it is thought to be outside of the concept of science altogether. For instance, practices such as faith healing do not claim to be and are not normally discussed as scientific practices, and the scientific study of their practice is normally ordinary science (theology, sociology etc.) rather than a fringe science itself. However, I imagine that there are many "alternative" medicinal practices which are discussed in terms of their scientific validity, and these can fall within the scope of the sanctions under the conditions described above.
Also, as a practical matter, the enforcement log shows that editors have in the past been sanctioned in relation to the alternative medicine topics chiropractic, homeopathy (both many times), mucoid plaque and orthomolecular medicine. Past practice, therefore, indicates that administrators have readily accepted these topics as being subject to discretionary sanctions. However, the majority of sanctions seem to focus on issues related to cosmology, energy (cold fusion, etc.) and the ideas of one Rupert Sheldrake, rather than on alternative medicine. Sandstein 16:16, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
I think the most productive use of people's time here is not to determine whether Chiropractic is within the scope or not, but rather to work out how to determine whether Topic X is within the scope or not. The suggestion of "if a reliable source about pseudoscience considers it pseudoscientific then it is within the scope" seems like a good starting point for that discussion. Thryduulf ( talk) 22:43, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
@ Kww: That is indeed my point, but I'm really not interested in which topics actually fall under the classification or not, nor which of those are actually pseudoscience because that doesn't matter. I aim only to provide a test that can be applied to any dispute to determine whether it is eligible for DS under the provisions of this case or not. As Newyorkbrd points out, whether something is actually pseudoscience or not can be a matter of opinion, so it seems best to make the categorisation "things that are called pseudoscience" rather than "things that are pseudoscience" so that the actual status becomes irrelevant and people can get on with settling the dispute at hand rather than arguing about something else as well. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:10, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
See diff. QuackGuru ( talk) 19:24, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
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23:21, 9 June 2014 (UTC)The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Clarification request: Cold Fusion is/isn't Pseudoscience
Initiated by 84.106.11.117 ( talk) at 03:47, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
While supported by article content at the time the pseudoscience label was dropped from the Cold Fusion article some time before October 2011.
In the wild it looks like this. Any admin may now ban the Nobel laureate? This is how it should be? It makes no sense to me. What is this doing on my talk page? What does it even mean? Is this the new welcome message?
I've posted one on User_talk:Sandstein talk page to see what happens. Surely he needs such helpful information as much as I do?
Sandstein, a remarkably productive editor I should add, just demonstrated how the sanctions are being used to ban non-skeptical editors, applicable in one direction only.
Sandstein did not read my deletion review request. My request talks about the one sided nature of these Discretionary Sanctions [58], he responds by posting an info box on my user talk page [59] informing me about these same sanctions. He used imaginary guidelines and retaliates with victim blaming.
I am not the topic of this Request for clarification, is about cold fusion not being pseudoscience while still subjected to pseudoscience sanction.
If the Sanction would work both ways, Sandstein should now be topic banned. This strikes me as a completely idiotic way of doing things, typical skeptic methodology. I would argue the Sanctions themselves are not useful to the project.
My split request was disposed of by skeptical consensus, rather than edit guidelines. I ignored this consensus per Notability guidelines. Notability is the only type of guideline that skeptic teams can not kill by consensus.
Rather than so much as lift a finger to help split the article team skeptic used every possible method and every excuse other than the split criteria to troll the process while crying about the way I avoided "scrutiny". Of course I did! If we look at Sandsteins edit log he has soooooo many contributions he effectively avoids scrutiny himself. I cant possibly read all that? Or can I?
AFD is suppose to be the point where the team of anti-pseudoscience crusaders have to use edit guidelines. In stead the admin deleted by consensus. (he was trying to clean up the backlog we should add) Asking for clarification, from the closing admin (we used irc), and by means of a deletion review is entirely sensible. Not reading it and requiring an account is not. Specially not in that order.
This is not to defend myself but to illustrate the victim blaming routine. How can Sandstein, being an administrator, need further tools to dispose of IP editors? Look how his argument is that I edited fringe topics, as if this should be sufficient evidence of my wrong doings?
If this is how the sanctions are being used, then it is not worth having them in general, in this specific case, using them outside the scope of pseudoscience seems even less useful.
note: It strikes me as odd for the committee to try to rule if something is pseudoscience or not. I think, if you have some precognition about a topic you should use the article talk page and provide reliable sources that make your vision evident.
Thanks for your time.
Sandstein explained why he mistakenly (but understandably) assumed I have an account, AFTER THAT you write this: [60]
I repeat: I don't have an account. This is not what the article talk page is for and not what this request for clarification is about.
In the comment before that you write: [61]
You are trying to have it both ways.
Staged by skeptics?
It is argued that the 400 skeptics, with watchlist and forum shopping is not enough to protect a locked article from lone newbies. Skeptics who evidently don't even read what the editor writes anymore and refuse all outsider contributions. I'm not here to be persecuted without reason, neither is anyone else. That is why I request clarification.
84.106.11.117 ( talk) 19:08, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
84.106.11.117 is an IP address active since 16 June 2014 with few contributions, mostly relating to fringe-y topics such as alien abduction. On 11 July, they requested a deletion review of the article Fleischmann-Pons experiment, which relates to Cold fusion, which is in my layperson's understanding a fringe science topic. In the review request, 84.106.11.117 wrote that "I should note I'm not a new user, I just edit from my ip." As an administrator working at WP:DRV, I summarily closed the review request, suggesting that in discretionary sanctions topic areas where sanctions such as topic bans have been imposed, in view of WP:SCRUTINY, established editors should not make undeletion requests while logged out. I also alerted 84.106.11.117 about the discretionary sanctions applying to pseudo- and fringe science topics. In response, 84.106.11.117 copied the same alert notice onto my talk page and made this request for clarification, the point of which I don't quite see. In view of subsequent statements by 84.106.11.117 such as [62], it appears likely to me that we are being trolled by a returning, possibly previously sanctioned editor. Sandstein 07:14, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
I watch Cold fusion and there is often commentary at Talk:Cold fusion regarding a possible new development—something which in the future may validate CF as a new energy source. Wikiversity was mentioned and I had a very quick look and found recently-edited pages like these:
Wikiversity is nothing to do with Wikipedia, but the activity suggests to me that discretionary sanctions in the CF area need to continue. Whether of not CF should properly be called "pseudoscience" can be debated elsewhere as that is not relevant to whether the topic should be subject to discretionary sanctions. Any new energy source with many enthusiastic supporters but no usable power should be treated as if it were pseudoscience at Wikipedia. Johnuniq ( talk) 09:38, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
I oppose any request for the ArbCom to intervene and remove the pseudoscience discretionary sanctions from cold fusion. The article has been under semi-protection due to disruptive editing by unregistered editors for a long term. The talk page has been also disruptively edited, including personal attacks on skeptical editors, by unregistered editors. (There was also an edit war on the talk page, something unusual, where an unregistered editor began adding archived material, which was removed, and a revert war ensued.) I have also been watching the article and its talk page, and it has been more civil since editors have been templating the participants as to discretionary sanctions. The unregistered editors have been repeatedly asked if there is a reason why they choose not to create accounts. The usual response is either no response or incivility. This is to the point where the requirement to assume good faith is stretched, and there is reason to think that the unregistered editors are editing logged out either to create the appearance of greater numbers or because they are sockpuppets of a blocked or banned user. Robert McClenon ( talk) 14:45, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
There is a Request for Comments at Talk:Cold fusion in process to determine consensus as to which of the four ArbCom-defined categories cold fusion should be categorized as. This request, to ask the ArbCom to intervene, may be an attempts to bypass the consensus process, which is going against the unregistered editors who are proponents of cold fusion. Robert McClenon ( talk) 14:45, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I request that this clarification request be denied, because the RFC is the proper way to determine whether cold fusion is pseudoscience, but that the incoming boomerang be allowed to return, and that the filing party, who has been properly notified, be either topic-banned from cold fusion, or blocked, or both. Robert McClenon ( talk) 14:45, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
84.106.11.117 is likely the same individual as 84.104.135.141, 84.106.9.95, 84.106.26.81, 84.107.128.52, and possibly others, going back to at least 2009. I notice 84.104.135.141 was blocked [63] in December, 2009, and that 84.106.26.81 has two blocks [64].
This series of IPs has POV - pushed on a number of fringe topics, including on Cold fusion since April, 2009. Cardamon ( talk) 21:01, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I notice that the IP, as 84.107.128.52, was warned of the existence of discretionary sanctions on fringe/pseudoscience subjects by Robert McClenon [65], on June 23, 2014. This was a few weeks before the warning by Sandstein of which the IP complains above. Cardamon ( talk) 23:25, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm not following the full case or what has preceded this, but I gently remind the arbitrators that I already brought up the ambiguities in an older wording of the text 2 years ago, and the text was clarified by motion after that [66]. Arbitration enforcement in the area of WP:FRINGE does not in any way hinge on something being viewed as pseudoscience rather than fringe science (or pathological science in the case of cold fusion), Second Quantization ( talk) 21:23, 14 July 2014 (UTC) (formerly IRWolfie-)
The same basic dispute as to what extent the prior Pseudoscience case applied (along with some other issues) was heard in 2009, and the Committee decided that "1) The cold fusion article, and parts of any other articles that are substantially about cold fusion, are subject to discretionary sanctions." It no longer matters whether Cold Fusion is included in the Pseudoscience case as the committee has ruled separately that Cold Fusion is subject to discretionary sanctions without regard to the Pseudoscience case. The committee later decided to merge the logging of that case with the pseudoscience case, but to my knowledge has not declared the 2009 ruling void.-- Noren ( talk) 06:51, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
While I share Robert's concerns about the editing patterns of IP users on that talk page, I think that we do have to make some effort to distinguish between IP users. The IP who filed this request and was banned geolocates to the Netherlands and appears to have a static IP. There is also a more prolific, longer term IP user(s) from Romania who uses a dynamic IP. That was the IP user who has been edit warring to dearchive stale discussions over the last six months or so. The Romanian IP as 188.27.144.144 asked about this filing on Talk:Cold Fusion, I don't think he's the same person as the filing IP. Other recent IP addresses that geolocate to Romania
include 94.53.199.249, 82.137.14.68, 82.137.14.162, 193.254.231.34, 82.137.9.180, 82.137.9.236, 82.137.8.198, 5.15.53.36, 5.15.181.68, 86.125.186.149, 86.125.167.74, 5.15.53.167, 5.15.37.240, and 5.15.35.32. From April 1 to June 20, all the but one of the IPs who edited the Talk:Cold Fusion page geolocated to Romania. A country location is, of course, not proof that all of these IPs are the same person, but there does appear to be some quacking involved.--
Noren (
talk)
20:13, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I've blocked 84.106.11.117 for 48 hours for edit-warring at Talk:Cold fusion. The block is solely due to the edit-warring by 84, I was led here afterwards by a review of their contributions. It is not intended to prejudice or pre-empt AE, but communication with them will have to take place on their talkpage. Acroterion (talk) 00:49, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
14) Standard discretionary sanctions are authorised for all articles relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted. Any uninvolved administrator may levy restrictions as an arbitration enforcement action on users editing in this topic area, after an initial warning.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by jps ( talk) at 15:54, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I have never liked the fact that ArbCom included content rulings in WP:ARBPSCI, but we have, in the past, simply let this slide as it never seemed to be problematic. However, now it does seem to be problematic in a conversation I'm having about a proposed name-chase for a list: [67], [68].
I respect John Carter's position, and I think he has a point with regards to how Wikipedia tends to enforce jurisprudence in practice, but I also think I have a point that ArbCom is not supposed to make content decisions. There is no other way, in my opinion, that these principles can be interpreted except as content decisions.
The easiest thing would be for ArbCom to vacate the offending Principles as outside of ArbCom remit. Alternatively, a statement that these principles should not be used to trump discussion about content could be done.
jps ( talk) 15:54, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@ User:Newyorkbrad: Glad you think so. Now, whenever I see comments like this, should I just refer them to your talkpage and you can hash it out with them? jps ( talk) 03:15, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
This rather dovetails with recent discussion at Talk:Intelligent design, which I asked @ Adjwilley: to review and summarize. He summarized it in the following table
When an article's subject is generally considered to be pseudoscience in reliable sources... | Example 1 | Example 2 |
---|---|---|
Must the word pseudoscience be used in describing the article's subject, or are alternate wordings acceptable? | "<Subject> is pseudoscience" | "<Subject> is rejected by mainstream scientists" |
If the label pseudoscience is used, how prominent should it be? Does it need to be in the first sentence of the Lead, or should the first sentence be a general definition of the subject? | "<Subject> is a pseudoscientific idea that <definition of subject>." | "<Subject> is <definition of subject>...<Subject> is regarded as pseudoscience by mainstream scholars." |
Should the assertion that a subject is pseudoscience be attributed, or can it be stated in Wikipedia's voice? | "<Subject> is pseudoscience." | "<Subject> is considered pseudoscience by a majority of scholars." |
He went on to say, “I think the clause that needs clarification would be: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Generally_considered_pseudoscience. In my opinion, some good questions to ask the committee would be:
These suggestions were made here. As can be seen in the recent request for clarification regarding chiropractic, I personally have had no reservations about wikipedia using the word, and it was only after a comment by NYB that I saw "pseud-" words are specifically included in WP:WTW. I do believe it would be very useful for this to be addressed. Also, with the possibly annoying (to you arbs anyway) regularity that this particular decision gets brought up here and elsewhere, maybe it might be useful to ask for some guidelines specific to pseudoscience be prepared.
Other points perhaps worth addressing are how to, if at all, differentiate between philosophical hypotheses and the generally woo theories based on them, and maybe specific indications as to how this might be relevant to the social sciences. John Carter ( talk) 16:40, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Re iantresman's comments below, Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Encyclopedic articles lists the articles and named subarticles in the encycopedic parts of two encyclopedias of pseudoscience. John Carter ( talk) 17:14, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Arbs: I think one question which perhaps is in some way actionable here is Adjwilley's question "Does Intelligent design fall into the category of Obvious pseudoscience (obviously bogus) or Generally considered pseudoscience (theories that have a following but generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, like Astrology)?”" If as is perhaps understandable ArbCom believes they should not be the ones to determine this perhaps they could request community input in clarifying guidelines in this matter. I would think such a clarification or revision might merit such a request of the community. John Carter ( talk) 18:56, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
The problem as I see it, is as follows:
-- Iantresman ( talk) 16:47, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience identified four groups, two of which could apply to intelligent design (ID):
In talk page discussions there has been clear consensus that ID is pseudoscience, but continuing wrangling over wording in relation to sources determining that ID is not science without specifically using the word "pseudoscience". I therefore propose the following additional group:
Once a topic has been categorised as pseudoscience, the article should conform to WP:PSCI policy including "The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such. An explanation of how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories should be prominently included." This is policy. . . . dave souza, talk 21:52, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
I am uninvolved, practically; just came here to greet jps's (was known as scienceapologist previously) allusion to one of my comments. @ QTxVi4bEMRbrNqOorWBV: I suppose you can safely refer confused ones to this. Logos5557 ( talk) 12:36, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
With respect to John Carter's concern about surface contradictions with the WP:LABEL section of WP:WTW, last night I proposed an amendment to deal with the term "pseudoscience" and after a series of only-approving comments, tonight I implemented it. To save clicking, here is what I added:
"With regard to the term, "pseudoscience": per the policy Neutral point of view, pseudoscientific views "should be clearly described as such." Per the content guideline, Fringe theories, the term "pseudoscience" may be used to distinguish fringe theories from mainstream science, supported by reliable sources.
In addition, there is an Arbcom ruling on pseudoscience topics that explicitly authorizes use of the term "pseudoscience" in specified contexts."
There is no more surface contradiction (if that amendment sticks). Jytdog ( talk) 01:22, 23 July 2014 (UTC) (struck the reference to Arbcom "authorizing" any content. Jytdog ( talk) 01:59, 23 July 2014 (UTC))
With regard to the request for clarification, I support the request of jps to vacate the 4 principles. It is not clear to me on what policy or guideline each of those principles were based, and the Finding of Fact #9 that "Wikipedia contains articles on pseudoscientific ideas which, while notable, have little or no following in the scientific community, often being so little regarded that there is no serious criticism of them by scientific critics." seems to me, to be all Arbcom needed to define the field in which DS may be applied. In light of thinking through this more, I have changed the amendment above at WP:LABEL Jytdog ( talk) 01:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
iantresman the amendment to the guideline, WP:WTW (which itself is a fork of the WP:MOS guideline) simply brings it in line with a) the WP:NPOV policy (specifically the WP:PSCI section) which is quoted in the amendment and specifically says that pseudoscientific views "should be clearly described as such"; and b) the guideline, WP:FRINGE, which explains WP:PSCI. Your argument is with NPOV policy and with FRINGE, not with me or this amendment clarifying the style guideline; WP:WTW was simply out of step. Thanks to John Carter for pointing it out. Jytdog ( talk) 21:11, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
iantresman the statement that you now oppose from WP:FRINGE/PS, namely "Proposals which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification", is based directly on one of the four principles that are the very subject of jps's original post, seeking clarification. Jytdog ( talk) 02:40, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Meh. I think the article is unretrievably biased, mitigated by it's obviously so, but for arbitration consideration I will say that the relatively recent (April) add of "pseudoscience" to Intelligent Design seems just phrasing difficulty resolvable on existing wiki principles and revisit bullets I said in Talk:
Hope this helps pull discussion back to better sources and some edits ... Markbassett ( talk) 03:03, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
More precisely, it does not counterbalance the significant arguments in favour of the committee keeping an intact record of its previous decisions. In fact, I imagine I would not even strike through the text of the principles, which would make it clear to readers that they are no longer in force, because that would disturb this old case and its actors. Given that the associated topic area will always be contentious, to do so is to invite trouble. Decline. AGK [•] 23:20, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Squeamish Ossifrage ( talk) at 16:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
My apologies in advance if I've botched the maze of templates involved with this process in any way.
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience establishes standard discretionary sanctions as its final remedy. It has, shall we say, an interesting history of amendments. Its current form authorizes sanctions "for all articles relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted" (emphasis mine). Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions lists the areas to which discretionary sanctions currently apply, including "Pages relating to Pseudoscience and Fringe science" (emphasis mine); this wording is also used in the discretionary sanction alert template for the associated case.
It is my assumption that this is a distinction without a difference, and that the sanctions apply regardless of namespace. I inquired with Sandstein to ensure I was correct in my reading, as he appears to be among the more active arbitration enforcement administrators. He suggested that I refer the issue here for more explicit clarification. And so, I have.
The reason why I recommended that Squeamish Ossifrage ask here is that I'm not so sure that the answer is all that obvious. As Salvio giuliano writes, discretionary sanctions apply to all pages, not only articles, "unless clearly and unambiguously specified otherwise", but – it seems to me – that is precisely what the remedy in question does by specifying that sanctions apply to ""all articles relating to pseudoscience", underlining mine. If that is (as I suspect) not what the Committee intended, I recommend that the remedy and others like it are amended to read "for the topic of pseudoscience" or similar. Sandstein 18:40, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
With the exception of the Falun Gong case, these are all simple clarifications that do not affect the scope of the remedies' intent and I struggle to think of any way they could be controversial.
The Falun Gong case is slightly different, in that it changes from affecting articles that are "closely related" to pages "related [...], broadly construed". I don't know if this broadening of the scope is either significant or relevant? There are no recent sanctions listed on the case page, but that's the extent of my knowledge of the current state of the topic area. The change is probably immaterial but arbs should be aware that it is a change. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:41, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Changing (ex post facto) rulings by motion is a bad idea. There should be wider community input and and RFC about such matters.
Why? Because the Arbitration process is set up to at least have an appearance of inviting community input. Using motions to change the results subverts the community. Arguably amendment of one ruling through motions though this has always seemed a clunky and ill-conceived technique) where at least the motion is sufficiently similar to the amendment requested is reasonable. But essentially the use of motions outside a very limited scope in terms of the Arbitration Committee's power to make changes to purely procedural aspects of the arbitration process itself is ulta vires.
Moreover in this case the amendment request pertains to the "Pseudoscience" case, and, one assumes, that at least the parties to the case, and those under warnings within the last 12 months have been advised that an amendment has been tabled (or in American parlance, proposed). Those affected by the other eleven cases, which the motion proposed to change, have presumably not been notified, so no due process has been followed. (Again for American members, there are US laws relating to quasi-judicial processes, which may be relevant, no doubt NYB can advise.)
However if the committee is determined on this path, the phraseology of the motion might at least repay a little careful thought. For example do we really want to apply discretionary sanctions to a user over a page they are developing in their user-space? Might we, perhaps, wish to include the Pseudoscience ruling itself in the motion?
I refer the committee to the a previous example where the then committee instructed that administrators must place a "Arbitration sanctions" template on all talk pages of articles related to, I think it was, "Abortion, broadly construed", and only when I had scoped this task and reported on the enormity and non-necessity of it did they reword it to making the placing of the sanction notice optional. (They also had no business attempting to compel administrators to perform actions.) It is better, where possible to get these things right the first time.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 19:03, 22 October 2014 (UTC).
Looking at previous cases, I see "standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all articles dealing with X", "pages related to the Y, broadly construed, are placed under discretionary sanctions" and "standard discretionary sanctions are authorised for any edit about, and for all pages relating to, Z"; however, I don't doubt that, irrespective of the different formulations, all these mean the same thing: all edits concerning X, Y and Z are subject to discretionary sanctions, regardless of namespace.
Then again, we could pass a motion amending all provisions authorising DS to read "for all edits" rather than "all articles or pages", but, if I can be honest, this looks like a waste of time to me. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
This motion amends the wording of existing discretionary sanction remedies to make clear that they apply to all pages related to the topic, regardless of namespace.
1) The following remedies are amended by striking the word "articles" and inserting the word "pages" in its place:
2) Remedy 5 of the Monty Hall problem case is amended to read as follows:
Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to the Monty Hall problem, broadly interpreted.
3) Remedy 10 of the Gibraltar case is amended to read as follows:
Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to Gibraltar and its history, people, and political status, broadly interpreted.
4) Clause (b) of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Falun_Gong#Motions is amended to read as follows:
Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to Falun Gong, broadly interpreted.
Any existing sanctions and restrictions remain in force and are not affected by this motion.
Principle 5 states "While it may be that paradigm shifts occur from time to time, it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture projections regarding them"
In its context, the above principle seems to be implying that there is some sort of equivalence between paradigm subservience and pseudoscience. But this doesn't seem to be appropriate since Thomas Kuhn in 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' described paradigm dominance as a function of political power within the scientific community rather than any epistemological power held by the dominant paradigm. But a pseudoscience as I understand it, is a belief system that suffers from some inherent epistemological flaw that prevents that belief system from achieving the categorization of being a science.
The question then arises, is the purpose of Wikipedia to determine which way the political winds are blowing within the scientific community and then act as a "yes man" and report as being clearly true whatever theory happens to pop out of that community bearing their royal stamp of approval, no matter how far fetched and absurd it might be? Quarky Gluon ( talk) 08:27, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by ~ Adjwilley ( talk) at 06:56, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I recently stumbled across a dispute centered around Chiropractic, and became aware that the article and subject area are under discretionary sanctions under the Pseudoscience case. My question is: how does the pseudoscience case apply to alternative medicine generally? Where do alt-med (and chiropractic specifically) fall on the spectrum of "obvious pseudoscience", "generally considered pseduoscience", "questionable science", and "alternative theoretical formulations" that is outlined in the case? The case file doesn't seem to mention alternative medicine specifically, but apparently discretionary sanctions are being issued in the area, which is why I am asking for clarification. ~ Adjwilley ( talk) 06:56, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Chiropractic is covered because it has has pseudoscientific elements. And it's doubly covered because the sanctions were expanded to cover fringe science, and chiropractic is fringe medicine (fringe medicine being a subset of fringe science). The arbitration case doesn't need to mention alternative medicine.
Sourced proof:
A significant and continuing barrier to scientific progress within chiropractic are the anti-scientific and pseudo-scientific ideas (Keating 1997b) which have sustained the profession throughout a century of intense struggle with political medicine.
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link) (this source is already in the article!)-- Enric Naval ( talk) 15:54, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
@Neuraxis. These two sources talk about the current state of chiropractic. They are not "used in a historical context". -- Enric Naval ( talk) 23:30, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
If a topic is reliably-sourced as being a Pseudoscience / fringe science, then it should be under discretionary sanctions. The Arbcom only needs to clarify that.
The rest are content disputes, using reliable sources to establish / deny the pseudoscience in each separate article. Arbcom shouldn't decide content disputes in a given article, unless the community has shown that it can't solve the matter. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 23:44, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Enric has decided to cherry pick a sentence, used in a historical context. This is a common tactic. However, it ignores the fundamental question: Are manual and manipulative therapy for MSK conditions pseudoscientific and fringe? This impacts chiropractic since it is the largest purveyor of manipulative services, but also impacts on osteopathic medicine, physical therapy who also use manipulation as a means of relieving MSK pain. So, the findings here apply equally to all health professions who use manipulative therapy as a clinical intervention for dealing with MSK pain. While I do agree that the non-musculoskeletal use of manipulative therapies isn't mainstream, given that its only 10% of practice this should not be disproportionately weighed against the fact that 90% of manipulative treatment is directly towards spinal/MSK issues. Given that the mainstream of the chiropractic profession has evolved with a common identity focusing on conservative spine care, the notion that chiropractic practice (and spinal manipulation by extension) is 100% pseudoscientific does not reflect the current reality. This ongoing discussion [5] specifically discusses this very topic and is relevant here. Lastly, we need use a global focus and not just a US-centric POV.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but rather a starting point to show evidence that scientific practice and research is not uncommon, but reflects the mainstream of the profession currently. Regards, Neuraxis ( talk) 18:02, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
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I don't even see why this is a question. Chiropractic practices are firmly rooted in pseudoscience. That some small subset of their treatments have beneficial effects doesn't mean that the foundation is solid, it's simply an an example of the "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" principle. The same reasoning applies to the various alternative medicines.
In a very real sense, these are more important topics than the more esoteric pseudosciences. No one is going to hurt themselves because they believe in cold fusion. They can hurt themselves by forgoing legitimate medical treatment in favour of quackery.— Kww( talk) 16:03, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
This is a not unreasonable question regarding the definition of pseudoscience for our purposes, and it might help to have some clear lines of demarkation on this point. One possibility is to go by what people involved in the field of pseudoscience consider pseudoscience. Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Encyclopedic articles is a list I generated some time ago based on articles included in one Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, and I find that one of its longer articles specifically is about chiropractic, which would I think be a reasonable indicator of how that particular topic might qualify. I also would believe that, in all likelihood, anything with a separate article or section in that source or other reference-type overview works on pseudoscience would probably qualify under the sanctions. But there is a very big gray area of where pseudoscience, parapsychology, paranormal and occult do and do not overlap, and it might be beneficial if we could have some sort of specific indicator of where the topics do and do not overlap here. So, for instance, some "occult"-ish topics make some sort of claims to being "scientific" in some way, like maybe Taoism's registers, which are effectively theological equivalents of the Tennessee Blue Book and the Official Manual State of Missouri, among others, might qualify as "pseudoscientific" or might not. Other potential gray areas of possible overlap exist between these topics as well. John Carter ( talk) 18:42, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Reply to Adjwilley's Reply to Kww, Enric Naval:
Reply to Neuraxis:
Reply to Newyorkbrad
Reply to Thryduulf
Reply to Neuraxis
Reply to John Carter
Reply to Neuraxis
The discretionary sanctions apply to "articles relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted". I understand this to include pages related to any topic that has been discussed in reliable sources as constituting or being related to pseudoscience and fringe science, or which is described in its Wikipedia article or categories as such (including, in either case, situations where the classification as pseudoscience or fringe science is disputed). What the terms pseudoscience and fringe science mean is described in their articles. On this basis, each case would need to be examined individually. I don't think that the entirety of the topics grouped under alternative medicine are within the scope of the sanctions, because our article about this topic says that alternative medicine is defined as being "not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method", which can be understood to mean that it is thought to be outside of the concept of science altogether. For instance, practices such as faith healing do not claim to be and are not normally discussed as scientific practices, and the scientific study of their practice is normally ordinary science (theology, sociology etc.) rather than a fringe science itself. However, I imagine that there are many "alternative" medicinal practices which are discussed in terms of their scientific validity, and these can fall within the scope of the sanctions under the conditions described above.
Also, as a practical matter, the enforcement log shows that editors have in the past been sanctioned in relation to the alternative medicine topics chiropractic, homeopathy (both many times), mucoid plaque and orthomolecular medicine. Past practice, therefore, indicates that administrators have readily accepted these topics as being subject to discretionary sanctions. However, the majority of sanctions seem to focus on issues related to cosmology, energy (cold fusion, etc.) and the ideas of one Rupert Sheldrake, rather than on alternative medicine. Sandstein 16:16, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
I think the most productive use of people's time here is not to determine whether Chiropractic is within the scope or not, but rather to work out how to determine whether Topic X is within the scope or not. The suggestion of "if a reliable source about pseudoscience considers it pseudoscientific then it is within the scope" seems like a good starting point for that discussion. Thryduulf ( talk) 22:43, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
@ Kww: That is indeed my point, but I'm really not interested in which topics actually fall under the classification or not, nor which of those are actually pseudoscience because that doesn't matter. I aim only to provide a test that can be applied to any dispute to determine whether it is eligible for DS under the provisions of this case or not. As Newyorkbrd points out, whether something is actually pseudoscience or not can be a matter of opinion, so it seems best to make the categorisation "things that are called pseudoscience" rather than "things that are pseudoscience" so that the actual status becomes irrelevant and people can get on with settling the dispute at hand rather than arguing about something else as well. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:10, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
See diff. QuackGuru ( talk) 19:24, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
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23:21, 9 June 2014 (UTC)The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Clarification request: Cold Fusion is/isn't Pseudoscience
Initiated by 84.106.11.117 ( talk) at 03:47, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
While supported by article content at the time the pseudoscience label was dropped from the Cold Fusion article some time before October 2011.
In the wild it looks like this. Any admin may now ban the Nobel laureate? This is how it should be? It makes no sense to me. What is this doing on my talk page? What does it even mean? Is this the new welcome message?
I've posted one on User_talk:Sandstein talk page to see what happens. Surely he needs such helpful information as much as I do?
Sandstein, a remarkably productive editor I should add, just demonstrated how the sanctions are being used to ban non-skeptical editors, applicable in one direction only.
Sandstein did not read my deletion review request. My request talks about the one sided nature of these Discretionary Sanctions [58], he responds by posting an info box on my user talk page [59] informing me about these same sanctions. He used imaginary guidelines and retaliates with victim blaming.
I am not the topic of this Request for clarification, is about cold fusion not being pseudoscience while still subjected to pseudoscience sanction.
If the Sanction would work both ways, Sandstein should now be topic banned. This strikes me as a completely idiotic way of doing things, typical skeptic methodology. I would argue the Sanctions themselves are not useful to the project.
My split request was disposed of by skeptical consensus, rather than edit guidelines. I ignored this consensus per Notability guidelines. Notability is the only type of guideline that skeptic teams can not kill by consensus.
Rather than so much as lift a finger to help split the article team skeptic used every possible method and every excuse other than the split criteria to troll the process while crying about the way I avoided "scrutiny". Of course I did! If we look at Sandsteins edit log he has soooooo many contributions he effectively avoids scrutiny himself. I cant possibly read all that? Or can I?
AFD is suppose to be the point where the team of anti-pseudoscience crusaders have to use edit guidelines. In stead the admin deleted by consensus. (he was trying to clean up the backlog we should add) Asking for clarification, from the closing admin (we used irc), and by means of a deletion review is entirely sensible. Not reading it and requiring an account is not. Specially not in that order.
This is not to defend myself but to illustrate the victim blaming routine. How can Sandstein, being an administrator, need further tools to dispose of IP editors? Look how his argument is that I edited fringe topics, as if this should be sufficient evidence of my wrong doings?
If this is how the sanctions are being used, then it is not worth having them in general, in this specific case, using them outside the scope of pseudoscience seems even less useful.
note: It strikes me as odd for the committee to try to rule if something is pseudoscience or not. I think, if you have some precognition about a topic you should use the article talk page and provide reliable sources that make your vision evident.
Thanks for your time.
Sandstein explained why he mistakenly (but understandably) assumed I have an account, AFTER THAT you write this: [60]
I repeat: I don't have an account. This is not what the article talk page is for and not what this request for clarification is about.
In the comment before that you write: [61]
You are trying to have it both ways.
Staged by skeptics?
It is argued that the 400 skeptics, with watchlist and forum shopping is not enough to protect a locked article from lone newbies. Skeptics who evidently don't even read what the editor writes anymore and refuse all outsider contributions. I'm not here to be persecuted without reason, neither is anyone else. That is why I request clarification.
84.106.11.117 ( talk) 19:08, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
84.106.11.117 is an IP address active since 16 June 2014 with few contributions, mostly relating to fringe-y topics such as alien abduction. On 11 July, they requested a deletion review of the article Fleischmann-Pons experiment, which relates to Cold fusion, which is in my layperson's understanding a fringe science topic. In the review request, 84.106.11.117 wrote that "I should note I'm not a new user, I just edit from my ip." As an administrator working at WP:DRV, I summarily closed the review request, suggesting that in discretionary sanctions topic areas where sanctions such as topic bans have been imposed, in view of WP:SCRUTINY, established editors should not make undeletion requests while logged out. I also alerted 84.106.11.117 about the discretionary sanctions applying to pseudo- and fringe science topics. In response, 84.106.11.117 copied the same alert notice onto my talk page and made this request for clarification, the point of which I don't quite see. In view of subsequent statements by 84.106.11.117 such as [62], it appears likely to me that we are being trolled by a returning, possibly previously sanctioned editor. Sandstein 07:14, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
I watch Cold fusion and there is often commentary at Talk:Cold fusion regarding a possible new development—something which in the future may validate CF as a new energy source. Wikiversity was mentioned and I had a very quick look and found recently-edited pages like these:
Wikiversity is nothing to do with Wikipedia, but the activity suggests to me that discretionary sanctions in the CF area need to continue. Whether of not CF should properly be called "pseudoscience" can be debated elsewhere as that is not relevant to whether the topic should be subject to discretionary sanctions. Any new energy source with many enthusiastic supporters but no usable power should be treated as if it were pseudoscience at Wikipedia. Johnuniq ( talk) 09:38, 13 July 2014 (UTC)
I oppose any request for the ArbCom to intervene and remove the pseudoscience discretionary sanctions from cold fusion. The article has been under semi-protection due to disruptive editing by unregistered editors for a long term. The talk page has been also disruptively edited, including personal attacks on skeptical editors, by unregistered editors. (There was also an edit war on the talk page, something unusual, where an unregistered editor began adding archived material, which was removed, and a revert war ensued.) I have also been watching the article and its talk page, and it has been more civil since editors have been templating the participants as to discretionary sanctions. The unregistered editors have been repeatedly asked if there is a reason why they choose not to create accounts. The usual response is either no response or incivility. This is to the point where the requirement to assume good faith is stretched, and there is reason to think that the unregistered editors are editing logged out either to create the appearance of greater numbers or because they are sockpuppets of a blocked or banned user. Robert McClenon ( talk) 14:45, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
There is a Request for Comments at Talk:Cold fusion in process to determine consensus as to which of the four ArbCom-defined categories cold fusion should be categorized as. This request, to ask the ArbCom to intervene, may be an attempts to bypass the consensus process, which is going against the unregistered editors who are proponents of cold fusion. Robert McClenon ( talk) 14:45, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I request that this clarification request be denied, because the RFC is the proper way to determine whether cold fusion is pseudoscience, but that the incoming boomerang be allowed to return, and that the filing party, who has been properly notified, be either topic-banned from cold fusion, or blocked, or both. Robert McClenon ( talk) 14:45, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
84.106.11.117 is likely the same individual as 84.104.135.141, 84.106.9.95, 84.106.26.81, 84.107.128.52, and possibly others, going back to at least 2009. I notice 84.104.135.141 was blocked [63] in December, 2009, and that 84.106.26.81 has two blocks [64].
This series of IPs has POV - pushed on a number of fringe topics, including on Cold fusion since April, 2009. Cardamon ( talk) 21:01, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I notice that the IP, as 84.107.128.52, was warned of the existence of discretionary sanctions on fringe/pseudoscience subjects by Robert McClenon [65], on June 23, 2014. This was a few weeks before the warning by Sandstein of which the IP complains above. Cardamon ( talk) 23:25, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm not following the full case or what has preceded this, but I gently remind the arbitrators that I already brought up the ambiguities in an older wording of the text 2 years ago, and the text was clarified by motion after that [66]. Arbitration enforcement in the area of WP:FRINGE does not in any way hinge on something being viewed as pseudoscience rather than fringe science (or pathological science in the case of cold fusion), Second Quantization ( talk) 21:23, 14 July 2014 (UTC) (formerly IRWolfie-)
The same basic dispute as to what extent the prior Pseudoscience case applied (along with some other issues) was heard in 2009, and the Committee decided that "1) The cold fusion article, and parts of any other articles that are substantially about cold fusion, are subject to discretionary sanctions." It no longer matters whether Cold Fusion is included in the Pseudoscience case as the committee has ruled separately that Cold Fusion is subject to discretionary sanctions without regard to the Pseudoscience case. The committee later decided to merge the logging of that case with the pseudoscience case, but to my knowledge has not declared the 2009 ruling void.-- Noren ( talk) 06:51, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
While I share Robert's concerns about the editing patterns of IP users on that talk page, I think that we do have to make some effort to distinguish between IP users. The IP who filed this request and was banned geolocates to the Netherlands and appears to have a static IP. There is also a more prolific, longer term IP user(s) from Romania who uses a dynamic IP. That was the IP user who has been edit warring to dearchive stale discussions over the last six months or so. The Romanian IP as 188.27.144.144 asked about this filing on Talk:Cold Fusion, I don't think he's the same person as the filing IP. Other recent IP addresses that geolocate to Romania
include 94.53.199.249, 82.137.14.68, 82.137.14.162, 193.254.231.34, 82.137.9.180, 82.137.9.236, 82.137.8.198, 5.15.53.36, 5.15.181.68, 86.125.186.149, 86.125.167.74, 5.15.53.167, 5.15.37.240, and 5.15.35.32. From April 1 to June 20, all the but one of the IPs who edited the Talk:Cold Fusion page geolocated to Romania. A country location is, of course, not proof that all of these IPs are the same person, but there does appear to be some quacking involved.--
Noren (
talk)
20:13, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I've blocked 84.106.11.117 for 48 hours for edit-warring at Talk:Cold fusion. The block is solely due to the edit-warring by 84, I was led here afterwards by a review of their contributions. It is not intended to prejudice or pre-empt AE, but communication with them will have to take place on their talkpage. Acroterion (talk) 00:49, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
14) Standard discretionary sanctions are authorised for all articles relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted. Any uninvolved administrator may levy restrictions as an arbitration enforcement action on users editing in this topic area, after an initial warning.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by jps ( talk) at 15:54, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
I have never liked the fact that ArbCom included content rulings in WP:ARBPSCI, but we have, in the past, simply let this slide as it never seemed to be problematic. However, now it does seem to be problematic in a conversation I'm having about a proposed name-chase for a list: [67], [68].
I respect John Carter's position, and I think he has a point with regards to how Wikipedia tends to enforce jurisprudence in practice, but I also think I have a point that ArbCom is not supposed to make content decisions. There is no other way, in my opinion, that these principles can be interpreted except as content decisions.
The easiest thing would be for ArbCom to vacate the offending Principles as outside of ArbCom remit. Alternatively, a statement that these principles should not be used to trump discussion about content could be done.
jps ( talk) 15:54, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@ User:Newyorkbrad: Glad you think so. Now, whenever I see comments like this, should I just refer them to your talkpage and you can hash it out with them? jps ( talk) 03:15, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
This rather dovetails with recent discussion at Talk:Intelligent design, which I asked @ Adjwilley: to review and summarize. He summarized it in the following table
When an article's subject is generally considered to be pseudoscience in reliable sources... | Example 1 | Example 2 |
---|---|---|
Must the word pseudoscience be used in describing the article's subject, or are alternate wordings acceptable? | "<Subject> is pseudoscience" | "<Subject> is rejected by mainstream scientists" |
If the label pseudoscience is used, how prominent should it be? Does it need to be in the first sentence of the Lead, or should the first sentence be a general definition of the subject? | "<Subject> is a pseudoscientific idea that <definition of subject>." | "<Subject> is <definition of subject>...<Subject> is regarded as pseudoscience by mainstream scholars." |
Should the assertion that a subject is pseudoscience be attributed, or can it be stated in Wikipedia's voice? | "<Subject> is pseudoscience." | "<Subject> is considered pseudoscience by a majority of scholars." |
He went on to say, “I think the clause that needs clarification would be: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Generally_considered_pseudoscience. In my opinion, some good questions to ask the committee would be:
These suggestions were made here. As can be seen in the recent request for clarification regarding chiropractic, I personally have had no reservations about wikipedia using the word, and it was only after a comment by NYB that I saw "pseud-" words are specifically included in WP:WTW. I do believe it would be very useful for this to be addressed. Also, with the possibly annoying (to you arbs anyway) regularity that this particular decision gets brought up here and elsewhere, maybe it might be useful to ask for some guidelines specific to pseudoscience be prepared.
Other points perhaps worth addressing are how to, if at all, differentiate between philosophical hypotheses and the generally woo theories based on them, and maybe specific indications as to how this might be relevant to the social sciences. John Carter ( talk) 16:40, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Re iantresman's comments below, Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Encyclopedic articles lists the articles and named subarticles in the encycopedic parts of two encyclopedias of pseudoscience. John Carter ( talk) 17:14, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
@Arbs: I think one question which perhaps is in some way actionable here is Adjwilley's question "Does Intelligent design fall into the category of Obvious pseudoscience (obviously bogus) or Generally considered pseudoscience (theories that have a following but generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, like Astrology)?”" If as is perhaps understandable ArbCom believes they should not be the ones to determine this perhaps they could request community input in clarifying guidelines in this matter. I would think such a clarification or revision might merit such a request of the community. John Carter ( talk) 18:56, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
The problem as I see it, is as follows:
-- Iantresman ( talk) 16:47, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience identified four groups, two of which could apply to intelligent design (ID):
In talk page discussions there has been clear consensus that ID is pseudoscience, but continuing wrangling over wording in relation to sources determining that ID is not science without specifically using the word "pseudoscience". I therefore propose the following additional group:
Once a topic has been categorised as pseudoscience, the article should conform to WP:PSCI policy including "The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such. An explanation of how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories should be prominently included." This is policy. . . . dave souza, talk 21:52, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
I am uninvolved, practically; just came here to greet jps's (was known as scienceapologist previously) allusion to one of my comments. @ QTxVi4bEMRbrNqOorWBV: I suppose you can safely refer confused ones to this. Logos5557 ( talk) 12:36, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
With respect to John Carter's concern about surface contradictions with the WP:LABEL section of WP:WTW, last night I proposed an amendment to deal with the term "pseudoscience" and after a series of only-approving comments, tonight I implemented it. To save clicking, here is what I added:
"With regard to the term, "pseudoscience": per the policy Neutral point of view, pseudoscientific views "should be clearly described as such." Per the content guideline, Fringe theories, the term "pseudoscience" may be used to distinguish fringe theories from mainstream science, supported by reliable sources.
In addition, there is an Arbcom ruling on pseudoscience topics that explicitly authorizes use of the term "pseudoscience" in specified contexts."
There is no more surface contradiction (if that amendment sticks). Jytdog ( talk) 01:22, 23 July 2014 (UTC) (struck the reference to Arbcom "authorizing" any content. Jytdog ( talk) 01:59, 23 July 2014 (UTC))
With regard to the request for clarification, I support the request of jps to vacate the 4 principles. It is not clear to me on what policy or guideline each of those principles were based, and the Finding of Fact #9 that "Wikipedia contains articles on pseudoscientific ideas which, while notable, have little or no following in the scientific community, often being so little regarded that there is no serious criticism of them by scientific critics." seems to me, to be all Arbcom needed to define the field in which DS may be applied. In light of thinking through this more, I have changed the amendment above at WP:LABEL Jytdog ( talk) 01:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
iantresman the amendment to the guideline, WP:WTW (which itself is a fork of the WP:MOS guideline) simply brings it in line with a) the WP:NPOV policy (specifically the WP:PSCI section) which is quoted in the amendment and specifically says that pseudoscientific views "should be clearly described as such"; and b) the guideline, WP:FRINGE, which explains WP:PSCI. Your argument is with NPOV policy and with FRINGE, not with me or this amendment clarifying the style guideline; WP:WTW was simply out of step. Thanks to John Carter for pointing it out. Jytdog ( talk) 21:11, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
iantresman the statement that you now oppose from WP:FRINGE/PS, namely "Proposals which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification", is based directly on one of the four principles that are the very subject of jps's original post, seeking clarification. Jytdog ( talk) 02:40, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Meh. I think the article is unretrievably biased, mitigated by it's obviously so, but for arbitration consideration I will say that the relatively recent (April) add of "pseudoscience" to Intelligent Design seems just phrasing difficulty resolvable on existing wiki principles and revisit bullets I said in Talk:
Hope this helps pull discussion back to better sources and some edits ... Markbassett ( talk) 03:03, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
More precisely, it does not counterbalance the significant arguments in favour of the committee keeping an intact record of its previous decisions. In fact, I imagine I would not even strike through the text of the principles, which would make it clear to readers that they are no longer in force, because that would disturb this old case and its actors. Given that the associated topic area will always be contentious, to do so is to invite trouble. Decline. AGK [•] 23:20, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Initiated by Squeamish Ossifrage ( talk) at 16:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:
My apologies in advance if I've botched the maze of templates involved with this process in any way.
Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience establishes standard discretionary sanctions as its final remedy. It has, shall we say, an interesting history of amendments. Its current form authorizes sanctions "for all articles relating to pseudoscience and fringe science, broadly interpreted" (emphasis mine). Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions lists the areas to which discretionary sanctions currently apply, including "Pages relating to Pseudoscience and Fringe science" (emphasis mine); this wording is also used in the discretionary sanction alert template for the associated case.
It is my assumption that this is a distinction without a difference, and that the sanctions apply regardless of namespace. I inquired with Sandstein to ensure I was correct in my reading, as he appears to be among the more active arbitration enforcement administrators. He suggested that I refer the issue here for more explicit clarification. And so, I have.
The reason why I recommended that Squeamish Ossifrage ask here is that I'm not so sure that the answer is all that obvious. As Salvio giuliano writes, discretionary sanctions apply to all pages, not only articles, "unless clearly and unambiguously specified otherwise", but – it seems to me – that is precisely what the remedy in question does by specifying that sanctions apply to ""all articles relating to pseudoscience", underlining mine. If that is (as I suspect) not what the Committee intended, I recommend that the remedy and others like it are amended to read "for the topic of pseudoscience" or similar. Sandstein 18:40, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
With the exception of the Falun Gong case, these are all simple clarifications that do not affect the scope of the remedies' intent and I struggle to think of any way they could be controversial.
The Falun Gong case is slightly different, in that it changes from affecting articles that are "closely related" to pages "related [...], broadly construed". I don't know if this broadening of the scope is either significant or relevant? There are no recent sanctions listed on the case page, but that's the extent of my knowledge of the current state of the topic area. The change is probably immaterial but arbs should be aware that it is a change. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:41, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Changing (ex post facto) rulings by motion is a bad idea. There should be wider community input and and RFC about such matters.
Why? Because the Arbitration process is set up to at least have an appearance of inviting community input. Using motions to change the results subverts the community. Arguably amendment of one ruling through motions though this has always seemed a clunky and ill-conceived technique) where at least the motion is sufficiently similar to the amendment requested is reasonable. But essentially the use of motions outside a very limited scope in terms of the Arbitration Committee's power to make changes to purely procedural aspects of the arbitration process itself is ulta vires.
Moreover in this case the amendment request pertains to the "Pseudoscience" case, and, one assumes, that at least the parties to the case, and those under warnings within the last 12 months have been advised that an amendment has been tabled (or in American parlance, proposed). Those affected by the other eleven cases, which the motion proposed to change, have presumably not been notified, so no due process has been followed. (Again for American members, there are US laws relating to quasi-judicial processes, which may be relevant, no doubt NYB can advise.)
However if the committee is determined on this path, the phraseology of the motion might at least repay a little careful thought. For example do we really want to apply discretionary sanctions to a user over a page they are developing in their user-space? Might we, perhaps, wish to include the Pseudoscience ruling itself in the motion?
I refer the committee to the a previous example where the then committee instructed that administrators must place a "Arbitration sanctions" template on all talk pages of articles related to, I think it was, "Abortion, broadly construed", and only when I had scoped this task and reported on the enormity and non-necessity of it did they reword it to making the placing of the sanction notice optional. (They also had no business attempting to compel administrators to perform actions.) It is better, where possible to get these things right the first time.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 19:03, 22 October 2014 (UTC).
Looking at previous cases, I see "standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all articles dealing with X", "pages related to the Y, broadly construed, are placed under discretionary sanctions" and "standard discretionary sanctions are authorised for any edit about, and for all pages relating to, Z"; however, I don't doubt that, irrespective of the different formulations, all these mean the same thing: all edits concerning X, Y and Z are subject to discretionary sanctions, regardless of namespace.
Then again, we could pass a motion amending all provisions authorising DS to read "for all edits" rather than "all articles or pages", but, if I can be honest, this looks like a waste of time to me. Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
This motion amends the wording of existing discretionary sanction remedies to make clear that they apply to all pages related to the topic, regardless of namespace.
1) The following remedies are amended by striking the word "articles" and inserting the word "pages" in its place:
2) Remedy 5 of the Monty Hall problem case is amended to read as follows:
Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to the Monty Hall problem, broadly interpreted.
3) Remedy 10 of the Gibraltar case is amended to read as follows:
Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to Gibraltar and its history, people, and political status, broadly interpreted.
4) Clause (b) of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Falun_Gong#Motions is amended to read as follows:
Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to Falun Gong, broadly interpreted.
Any existing sanctions and restrictions remain in force and are not affected by this motion.
Principle 5 states "While it may be that paradigm shifts occur from time to time, it is not the place of Wikipedia to venture projections regarding them"
In its context, the above principle seems to be implying that there is some sort of equivalence between paradigm subservience and pseudoscience. But this doesn't seem to be appropriate since Thomas Kuhn in 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' described paradigm dominance as a function of political power within the scientific community rather than any epistemological power held by the dominant paradigm. But a pseudoscience as I understand it, is a belief system that suffers from some inherent epistemological flaw that prevents that belief system from achieving the categorization of being a science.
The question then arises, is the purpose of Wikipedia to determine which way the political winds are blowing within the scientific community and then act as a "yes man" and report as being clearly true whatever theory happens to pop out of that community bearing their royal stamp of approval, no matter how far fetched and absurd it might be? Quarky Gluon ( talk) 08:27, 13 February 2015 (UTC)