Wiki143:Requests for arbitration/Depleted uranium/Workshop/Withdrawn

Withdrawn motions, principles, findings of fact, and remedies

Motions and requests by the parties

Are warnings of violations of law personal attacks or legal threats?

1) Is pointing out a potential violation of a law which could harm the Wikimedia Foundation allowed? Could doing so be construed as a personal attack or a legal threat?

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I believe such warnings are not only allowed, but have been repeatedly encouraged by the highest Foundation officials, including in terms indicating that the Foundation legal staff approve of such warnings. I do not believe that such a warning amounts to a personal attack, especially against any user who declares a continuing desire to remain pseudonymous. There are jurisdictions where the medical disclaimer may not apply, e.g., any common law court where the jury is sufficiently swayed. Therefore, my behavior in this matter has been exemplary, and I should be commended for the extent to which I have added sources supporting Wikipedia in defense of the Foundation. --James S. 18:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The content and the tone of the exchange here [1] is not framed as a warning of a potential violation of a law which could harm the Wikimedia Foundation. It is framed as an attack on User:Dr U. I quote a statement made by James:

"I am not surprised that you refuse to reveal your identity, because if you did, your attempt at disclaiming diagnostic activities would not keep the gross scientific, medical, and ethical misconduct apparent in your edits from reflecting directly on you and potentially endangering your professional standing. If you can not own up to your credentials, then you have no business claiming the benefit of them. There is no way to distinguish you from a pretender, and the slant of your edits suggests worse."

(Emphasis added by James S. 04:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC))

Attempting at this stage to claim that he only had the best interests of the Project in mind is transparently false. --DV8 2XL 20:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. The tone of the warning is commensurate with the potential for damage from misinformation. It is diffcult for me to see how DV8 2XL's opinion is reasonable. As another pseudonymous author who claims credentials but refuses to allow them to be verified or to take personal responsibility for his edits, he or she has repeatedly removed peer reviewed references from Uranium trioxide. --James S. 21:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

There was no mention of the vulnerability of Wikimedia Foundations potential legal exposure anywhere in James tirade against Dr U.; an oversight that makes it difficult to support the contention that this was any part of the motivation behind this attack. Note too that above he brings up the issue of verifying an editors credentials, as he did on my talk page here: [2] at the same time he was engaging with Dr U.. This demand cuts to the very core of Wikipedia's ideology and is not supported by any policy at all, and in and of itself can be construed as a personal attack. --DV8 2XL 01:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I see very few mentions of the Foundation in requests to correct copyright violations, either. Does DV8 2XL claim that such demands also cut to the very core of Wikipedia's ideology? Personal responsibility to abide by society's laws, copyright, slander, libel, medical malpractice, or otherwise, is something that everyone should take seriously, but DV8 2XL repeatedly refuses to associate his or her name with his or her edits, so I see no evidence that he or she will ever take any personal responsibility for them. --James S. 01:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The above is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to deflect criticism and obscure the question at hand. Wikipedia does not require that editors present credentials or identify themselves at all, and no policy exists that requires that anyone answer to another editor when challenged. Also the charge of copyright infringement is a simple one to prove as a simple comparison of texts will determine if this is occurring; malpractice, or other forms of ethical misconduct are vastly more complex and cannot be judged that simply. A violation of copyright can be repaired by a simple delete; if that was done in error (if permission is found to use the material) a simple revert repairs the damage. Any attempt to compare the two is disingenuous at best. --DV8 2XL 01:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

DV8 2XL suggests that there are two classes of laws, those which should be obeyed while editing Wikipedia, and those which need not be. I contend that editors must strive to find the truth, and point out potential violations of law which might harm the Wikimedia Foundation, because the truth is an absolute defense against all tort claims based on the content of speech, including difficult cases of slander and libel with which the Foundation Office must contend regularly, and because without the Foundation, Wikipedia would be in danger. --James S. 01:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Again I ask why is this sudden concern for the legal vulnerability not a part of the attack on Dr U? Any unbiased reading of that passage [3] clearly demonstrates that James was attempting to execute a thinly veiled threat against Dr U and was not concerned with Wikipedia, which may well have been drawn into litigation as a co-respondent had this been actioned. --DV8 2XL 02:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Asked and answered, above. We need not mention the Foundation every time we point out potential violations of law which may harm it. I made no threat against Dr U; my request for information with which to verify his claimed medical doctorate is explained in full: He signs "Dr U" and claims an M.D. on his user page, and any common law jury might reasonably draw an unfortunate inference if some future plaintiff against the Foundation were to argue that his edits were representative of his claimed professional standing. I have never made a legal threat, and it is easy to prove that I have read and understand the medical disclaimer because I have commented on it. If Dr U felt genuinely threatened by my request to verify his M.D., then that can only be because he is ashamed of what he has written while claiming to be a medical authority. Aren't physicians required to take an oath which specifically limits their use of poisons? --James S. 02:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I have the right to free speech. That right did not disappear the day I graduated from medical school. I am not rendering medical advice. If I made a hypothetical statement like "I advise everyone to put depleted uranium on your cornflakes because it is healthy," then that might qualify as medical advice. I haven't told anyone what they should or shouldn't do. The most absurd part of this whole affair is that when User:Nrcprm2026 launched his tirade against me, it was because I reverted to a prior version created by User:TDC. Before the change, the current version had at least 14 references to the toxicity of uranium. After I reverted to TDC's version, the current version had at least 13 references to the toxicity of uranium. He then accused me of saying that uranium wasn't toxic! I am under no obligation to HIDE my background, just as I am under no obligation to SHARE it in its entirety. I started out on wiki editing non-health related articles. My user page and signature predate my involvement in this topic. I would guestimate that 90% of my 3000+ edits have been on non-health related topics, so clearly it was not designed to give me any special standing or advantage on editing health-related topics. Even if my user page is fake, and I am not an MD, but really a consoratorium of five 13 year olds with computers, that doesn't matter, as I am not giving medical advice. Even a 13 year old is entitled to post an online essay on the "dangers of smoking", or "why guns are not as dangerous as critics claim." Dr U 07:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

James' claim that he was acting in the Foundation's best interest is ludicrous on its face. This was transparently an attempt to leverage the spectre of legal sanction into an advantage in a content dispute; I have introduced his diffs into evidence and added findings of fact and remedies to address this misbehavior. Nandesuka 12:27, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no evidence that I have been editing in anything but support of the truth, and in support of the Wikipedia community. A wider glance at my contribution history will make that plainly clear to anyone who cares enough to check. --James S. 12:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Trends

2) When is it appropriate to display trend information on a graph?

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

If a trend is the best known available from a reasonably large set of fitted mathematical models, and is displayed with goodness-of-fit information and prediction confidence intervals, then that added information properly address concerns about graphic extrapolation. --James S. 18:47, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Extrapolation of any data regardless of how it is presented violates both the the letter and the spirit of WP:NOR.It is by definition a synthesis and thus violates the terms of this section: "An edit counts as original research if it proposes ideas or arguments. That is it introduces a synthesis of established facts in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing the synthesis to a reputable source."--DV8 2XL 20:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I have made no syntheses without direct support from cited references; if there is a counter-example, I would like to see it. On the issue of the graphs, I selected from the three different versions of the extreme weather costs graphs after the 2005 data point became available, and the second one, which I selected, was produced entitrely from suggestions and comments I received after posting the first. The graph produced from the suggestions of others was selected because it precisely matched the 2005 preliminary data. --James S. 22:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The absurdity of the argument against my edits is easily shown with an example readily at hand. We know that uranium is teratogenic, i.e., it causes congenital malformations or birth defects. So are we prohibited from saying that uranium causes congenital malformations because some of them may be a future event? Of course not. Any reasonable person may reasonably extrapolate that a poison may cause harm if people are exposed to it in the future. Such descriptions of future events are not the same as an extrapolation without prediction confidence intervals or goodness-of-fit statistics. Just as we should hold the graphs we choose to include to a high standard, we should not allow those who may wish to suppress information about dangerous substances from hiding that information just because it involves future events. --James S. 23:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The only question at hand is if these represent OR under the terms of the policy. Again I quote from the policy itself: "The fact that we exclude something does not necessarily mean the material is bad – Wikipedia is simply not the proper venue for it. We would have to turn away even Pulitzer-level journalism and Nobel-level science if its authors tried to publish it first on Wikipedia." That the extrapolation has predictive confidence is not germaine - the fact that is a synthesis is. --DV8 2XL 00:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

What is DV8 2XL calling a synthesis? If reference A says men are mortal and reference B says that Socrates is a man, are we prohibited from writing "Socrates is mortal (A, B)" in an article? DV8 2XL's insistence on obfusticating this issue and his or her removal of several peer-reviewed articles in support of my position after having found none in support of his or hers has become tiresome. --James S. 00:42, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is original research to reach and present conclusions based on data. If the conclusion you are reaching is not a crackpot theory, it will be trivial to find a reputable source that presents it, rather than having to present the deduction yourself. Nandesuka 01:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, concluding "Socrates is mortal" is entirely supported by syllogism from existing sources A and B above, and is thus unlikely to be accepted as new or original research in any publication. Original research involves finding new data, not simply deducing facts from existing data:

"[R]esearch that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not 'original research'; it is 'source-based research,' and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." (emphasis added) --WP:NOR

If source A says x implies y, and source B says x, then the deduction y is a legitimate organization of the underlying facts through deduction. In fact, the root of the word "organizing" is the Latin organum, meaning tool or instrument, which was in turn taken from Aristotle's Organon, in which the first surviving princples of logical inference were written. --James S. 01:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Beyond the fact that he is trying to compare apples with oranges here, any drawing of novel conclusions is synthesis NOT 'reorganizing' data. To the best of my knowledge Aristotle's Organon does not form part of Wikipedia policy. Invoking it in this context and claiming that synthesis via deduction is permitted because the title of this text finds its roots in a Latin term shared by a term in policy is an error in logic of the highest order. --DV8 2XL 02:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone seriously contend that Wikipedia editors are not allowed to organize facts by logical deduction? If we find a table of numbers in a reference book, may we deduce that the numbers in the columns below the headings pertain to their headings? If we find a number in English units, may we deduce its metric equivalent? May we deduce that a city on a map exists in a region within which it is drawn? A firm opposition to logic is all too apparent in the edits of DV8 2XL and those who have opposed the inclusion of trend information. --James S. 02:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Responsibility for verifiability

3) Is the responsibility for Wikipedia:Verifiability that of contributing editors, editors challeging the veracity of contributions, or both?

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Both. --James S. 10:36, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Include teratogenicity?

5) Should those interested in incendiary DU munitions know that uranium combustion products are teratogenic?

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Yes. This content dispute is the subject of ongoing mediation. --James S. 18:47, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Issues of content are not relevant to this case and should not be addresses here. --DV8 2XL 20:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Include slow poison of civilians?

6) Should those interested in weapons know which of them poison civilians off of the battlefield, after the battle is over?

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Yes, especially if the evidence exists in easily available literature. --James S. 18:47, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Issues of content are not relevant to this case and should not be addresses here. --DV8 2XL 20:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Comment by others: