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Revision as of 12:34, 17 April 2006

Mediation: 2006-03-19 Talk at Redshift

Please observe Misplaced Pages:Etiquette and Talk Page Etiquette in disputes. If you submit complaints or insults your edits are likely to be removed by the mediator, any other refactoring of the mediation case by anybody but the mediator is likely to be reverted. If you are not satisfied with the mediation procedure please submit your complaints to Misplaced Pages talk:Mediation Cabal.

Request Information

Request made by: Flying Jazz 19:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Where is the issue taking place?

Talk:Redshift

Who's involved?

User:Iantresman, User:ScienceApologist, Me (User:Flying Jazz).

What's going on?

One user, Iantresman, engages in five types of behavior in the talk pages that are disruptive and prevent others from engaging in reasonable debate.

1) Iantresman misrepresents what others have said on Misplaced Pages. This damages the community and the talk space becomes a comedy of misunderstandings rather than maintaining focus on the article.

2) Iantresman misrepresents what others have said off Misplaced Pages. This is damaging to the article because the misrepresentations are believed and sway opinions in content disputes. This happens most often when Ian says "There are 40 (or 100 or 200) articles that support my point" when in actuality, a brief look at a sample of those articles shows that they only use the same keywords that are contained in his point, and often the articles disagree with him.

3) Iantresman replies at length in the talk space to posts that are not addressed to him or to his opinions. This prevents consensus and true conversation from taking place among multiple editors.

4) Iantresman repeats the same arguments and fills the talk page with lengthy lists even after the argument has been concluded and consensus reached. This prevents other editors from focusing on specific issues under discussion about the article. In particular, the arguments he made during a request for comments continue to be made months after the RfC ended.

5) Iantresman and ScienceApologist repeatedly engage in very long and repetitive debate on this talk page that is full of baiting and tangential information. Editors who hope to achieve a compromise or have a point must slog through their debate in order to reach occasional tidbits that focus on the article itself. In recent weeks, ScienceApologist has improved in this regard. Iantresman has gotten worse.

What would you like to change about that?

I would like one or more neutral opinions, not about the content itself or the content dispute, but about the behavior of both editors and Iantresman in particular. Hopefully, when this opinion is expressed, their actions on the talk page will improve and grow more article-focused, and more good editors will actually come and contribute to the disputes taking place there. I would like this talk page to stop being the Iantresman-and-ScienceApologist-show.

If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?

I prefer openness.

Would you be willing to be a mediator yourself, and accept a mediation assignment in a different case?

This is, following the Categorical Imperative, the idea that you might want to do

what you expect others to do. You don't have to, of course, that's why it's a question.

Yes

Mediator response

Evidence

Please report evidence in this section with {{Misplaced Pages:Mediation_Cabal/Evidence}} for misconduct and {{Misplaced Pages:Mediation_Cabal/Evidence3RR}} for 3RR violations. If you need help ask a mediator or an advocate. Evidence is of limited use in mediation as the mediator has no authority. Providing some evidence may, however, be useful in making both sides act more civil.
Misplaced Pages:Etiquette: Although it's understandably difficult in a heated argument, if the other party is not as civil as you'd like them to be, make sure to be more civil than him or her, not less.

The evidence for the behaviors is on the talk page in question and on its archives.

Compromise offers

This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.

Comments by others

While using the talk page of the article in question to solve a dispute is encouraged to involve a larger audience, feel free to discuss the case below if that is not possible. Other mediators are also encouraged to join in on the discussion as Misplaced Pages is based on consensus.

Although Flying Jazz doesn't want to talk about the content, I think considerable understanding of the arcane content is often required to understand which adversary is being unreasonable at the moment. The underlying disagreement is that Ian Tresman advocates nonstandard cosmology, and ScienceApologist advocates standard cosmology, and they and others have fought at least since September. Their arguments devote thousands of words to what seems to be relatively trivial questions such as whether the words "Wolf effect" should be mentioned in the article. Sometimes it seems like they each consider the other to be so awful that they must oppose each other right or wrong. Art LaPella 05:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Intial comment from Ian Tresman

I am quite happy for mediation to go ahead. But I would appreciate a couple of specific example of each point using History Diffs, so that I can try and answer them, which I'd like to try and do in one block of text, rather a little here, a little there.

I would not be happy for Flying Jazz to mediate this particular case. While I respect his opinion, I think there would be a conflict of interest. --Iantresman 20:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps my complaint #1 is supported by this initial comment. I think you misrepresent what people write because you simply don't pay attention to what they write. I will now state this explicitly. I'm not asking to be a mediator between you and ScienceApologist. I am seeking a neutral outside mediator between myself on one side representing a reasonable talk page and mostly you but also ScienceApologist (just to make this perfectly clear: together, on the other side, on the same side as each other, the opposite side from me), representing what I find to be an unreasonable talk page. I'll add specific evidence to the evidence section, if needed, once a mediator is found. Flying Jazz 21:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The question "Would you be willing to be a mediator yourself" is misinterpretable. Art LaPella 04:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Initial comment from ScienceApologist

I am receptive to mediation regarding talkpage reasonability. --ScienceApologist 02:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Well I have been assigned as your mediator. Let's start by trying to find places where we can agree. I would propose that:

• we agree to have civil discourse on this page
• we agree to avoid arguments about semantics
• we agree to be responsive to each other
• we agree that the purpose of the talk page is to work together to improve the article
• we agree that the purpose of the article is to represent factually the state of science in this field
• we agree that this is not the place to determine the correct theory
• we agree that our personal viewpoint is irrelevant
• we agree that not all theories are equally accepted
• we agree that each theory should be represented proportionally to its prevalence and acceptance within the scientific community
• we agree that any single citation is not definitive
• we agree that there are some theories that are not sufficiently prevalent to warrant inclusion
• we agree that there is room to present alternative theories of sufficeint merit (as alternative theories)

Let me see if we can agree on these principles before we proceed. I would very much appreciate your cooperation. I would hope that we would all end up satisfied with the eventual results. Let's start a new era of consensus building.

Are we all agreed on these principles??--Nick Y. 23:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

SA? Yes on talk page

IT? Agreeable but not definitive yes, yet. --Iantresman 08:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

FJ? Thank you for replying to my request. I agree with your bulleted points with one exception. The exception is "we agree to avoid arguments about semantics" because an encyclopedia at its heart is often about the meaning of words and how words are used. These are inherently semantic issues, so arguments about semantics will and should occur, and they can lead to improvements in articles. If you meant to avoid arguments about semantics here on the mediation page then I agree with all your bulleted points. Flying Jazz 01:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to ask that as mediator you allow me to lead the mediation. This is for the benefit of all. From your conversations I think the biggest thing you need is to keep the conversation focused. So, for example at this point I am asking for a yes answer from all. If you have a no answer concisely tell me what you disagree with and why? Do not address each other at this point. That comes later, when it can be productive.--Nick Y. 23:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Alright, my understanding from my observations is that the two of you spend way too much time arguing about subjects that are really tangential to the article. I would like to ask each of you to summarize as concisely as possible (and yes this is an excercise in being concise as well) what the problem is with the article. Do not even refer to each other. Only the article. It seems to me that there may be a few very minor issues with the article. Be very specific AND concise. We will get to eachother's behavior etc. soon, but ignore that for now at all costs. Again do not repsond to each other or address eachother in this exercise. Also don't be afaid of overlooking some minor detail, this isn't binding.--Nick Y. 18:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Problems with the article

Right now, there are no problems with the article in terms of the earlier disputes. --ScienceApologist 22:25, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The article focuses on redshift as applied to astronomy and cosmology, while marginalising redshift in other disciplines, and completely ignoring redshift as theorised in other areas.

For example, we learn in "Redshift mechanism" that there are only three distinct "phonton in a vacuum" mechanisms, but why do we exclude other proposed types of redshift mechanisms?

For example, the Wolf effect is described as a Doppler-like redshift (not a reddening). Not only is this peer-reviewed, it is apparently demonstrated in the laboratory, and there are reportedly over 100 papers on the subject. This is not trivial. And there are many other examples. How about theoretical (Here, Ian means "hypothetical".--ScienceApologist 05:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)) redshifts, such as Intrinsic redshift, or "Redshift quantization"? Again, all peer-reviewed with more than one article and more than one researcher.

Jimbo Wales himself said that "Usually, mainstream and minority views are treated in the main article, with the mainstream view typically getting a bit more ink, but the minority view presented in such a fashion that both sides could agree to it.".( Ian fails to include the next part of the quote becuase it contradicts the very next thing he writes. After this "Jimbo Wales himself" wrote: "Singular views can be moved to a separate page and identified (disclaimed) as such, or in some cases omitted altogether."--ScienceApologist 05:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)) But in some cases, we have NO view, and in other cases minority views are represented inaccurately, or reduced to a link. --Iantresman 23:35, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Response

SA - Although I think your intentions were good. Responding within Ian's statement might offend him. Also I asked you not to repsond to him, yet. With that said I would like your repsonse now. Again about the article not about Ian. Things you should address are proportion, minority views etc. Do not directly respond to Ian but address how much of these particular things should be included and why or why not. Ian be patient with me while I get SA's viewpoint.--Nick Y. 22:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)~

Redshift is a heavily-used term in physics/astronomy meant to describe a sepcific wavelength independent phenomenon associated with frame of reference transformations. There are other phenomena which may mimic superficially redshifts, but are not associated with reference frame transformations. Such phenomena are mentioned in the article as a means to help avoid confusion. Thus, radiative transfer and physical optics effects are relegated to a section which explains that the frequency shifts of these phenomena are not generally considered redshifts by those who study the subjects.

Intrinsic redshifts, redshift quantization, and other suggestions from nonstandard cosmologies are also linked in the article through a link to nonstandard cosmologies. These viewpoints are very fringe and we risk violating undue weight to include detail explanations of them. We do have articles on the individual subjects Ian believes are not represented (which I have encouraged Ian to expand) that are linked from the nonstandard cosmologies page. A curious reader can find them there, but explanations of these out-of-the-way subjects which have an admittedly small but loyal and vocal-on-the-internet following do not belong on a page which is devoted to explaining a concept that is defined and used (for example) in almost every introductory astronomy and introductory physics class without mention of these assertions made by people who are, for whatever reason, upset with the mainstream interpretation of redshift.

--ScienceApologist 12:34, 17 April 2006 (UTC)