Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 99

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Talk:2014 Israel–Gaza_conflict#Hamas_began_firing_rockets_on_June_29_or_June_30 

Users involved

• Nishidani (talk · contribs)
• Kingsindian (talk · contribs)
• Shrike (talk · contribs)
• -sche (talk · contribs)
• IRISZOOM (talk · contribs)
• TheTimesAreAChanging (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Reliable sources--including news reports describing the attacks, official statements by the Israeli PM, and secondary analyses--state that Hamas began directly firing rockets at Israel on June 29 or June 30. Other reliable sources state that Hamas only began taking formal "responsibility" for rocket attacks after a July 6 Israeli attack on Khan Yunis killed Hamas members. Even though all of those sources explicitly attribute the latter claim to Hamas, and my opponents acknowledge the ambiguity of the "responsibility" language, outspoken anti-Israel activist editors have deleted the Israeli claims on the grounds that the sources are somehow less than reliable. The discussion on the talk page speaks for itself.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Talk page discussion.

How do you think we can help?

You can examine the sources in a neutral manner and suggest a proposed wording.

Nothing to say here, because the report falsifies the evidence (all sources do not attribute to Hamas a claim that they took responsibility on the 7th. (b)'outspoken anti-Israel activist editors' is the editor's way of writing 'people who disagree with me', and implies the editor has already profiled people who do not agree with him as animated by some pathological hostility to a state. It's a smearing caricature.Nishidani (talk) 09:19, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

The issue here is when Hamas rocket fire started. There is a long discussion here. The basic source here is Nathan Thrall. The full quote by Thrall is given here.

Several points now:

• The lead is a summary, and it was agreed to keep it as short as possible.
• Thrall is a neutral, highly respected analyst at the International Crisis Group. The source is eminently WP:RS. There is no "Hamas claim" which he is reporting.
• Thrall makes it clear that the rockets before July 6 were fired by non-Hamas groups. The last sentence by Thrall is slightly ambiguous, which can be read as Hamas taking responsibility for rocket fire after 6 July, or Hamas taking responsibility for rockets before 6 July.
• Other sources detailed in the section speak less ambiguously and each points to July 6 raid as the date when Hamas started firing rockets. There is only one exception cited there, J.J. Goldberg, who repeats the Israeli claim that the rocket fire started on June 30.
• There are some news reports, cited here by TheTimesAreAChanging which (mostly) report the Netanyahu claim, or cite the IDF that Hamas rockets started on June 30 or "Hamas involvement" in the rockets. A typical example is the Reuters report, which makes it clear (even in the title) that it is reporting Netanyahu's claims. Most of the other news reports either quote the IDF or Netanyahu. As far as I can see, there is exactly one report by Ynet, an Israeli newspaper, which states this in its own voice, but a cursory look at that article will show that it is based on IDF sources.
• Newspapers are meant to report real-time things and often they just report, "he said, she said" (often they don't bother about "she said"). The Thrall source (and others cited in the section) are neutral, third party analysts, some of them could be accused of bias for sure.
• I have offered earlier to include the Thrall quote with its slight ambiguity and with attribution. That was not commented upon, and I assume, rejected.

This is not the venue to be discussing conduct, so any accusation of "anti-Israel activist editors" is out of place. Needless to say, it is false, TheTimesAreAChanging has already made up his mind about me and nothing will shake it. Kingsindian (talk) 12:53, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

We should stick to what sources say pretty simple .Thrall source its only one source and we may use it but there are other sources like analysis by Goldenberg that are too important and as TheTimesAreAChanging said we shouldn't advance one POV that rockets that where fired before was not by Hamas while other sources clearly say that where fired by Hamas member.We should definitely include this information.--Shrike (talk) 04:01, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Since someone in the discussion section has noted my silence, I suppose I'll comment out loud: meh. My main interest is keeping the article well-copyedited, I don't have strong feelings about whether or not the "30 June" claim should be included. On the talk page, someone discussed changing "which Hamas itself began following an Israeli airstrike on 6 July which killed seven Hamas militants in Khan Yunis" to "which Hamas itself began on either June 30 (according to Israel) or July 7 (according to Hamas)". This was shot down (ugh, did I just make a missile pun?) because the July 7 date was not "according to Hamas", but "according to several sources independent of either Hamas or the IDF". Perhaps the solution is just to say that, i.e. to say something to the effect of "which Hamas itself began either (according to several sources) on 7 July after an Israeli airstrike on 6 July killed seven Hamas militants in Khan Yunis, or (according to Israel) on 30 June". -sche (talk) 06:28, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

As others have explained here, the problem is not correctly described here. The claim is not made by Hamas but neutral authors. --IRISZOOM (talk) 17:38, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

It's not only one source, it's several of them. One more was noted by me yesterday, an article written by Noam Chomsky. See this. --IRISZOOM (talk) 08:56, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

If I may interject: Z Communications is fringe. Chomsky is a notable polemicist. Nishidani favors keeping the Goldberg claim with attribution, but it is not clear why Thrall or Chomsky do not need attribution, or why the lead should not summarize that part of the article.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:18, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Chomsky is a respected person.

Goldberg's claim can be there but it doesn't change many more sources say the opposite of what he says. --IRISZOOM (talk) 14:37, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The BBC source says "On 7 July, Hamas claimed responsibility." Thrall says "[On 7 July,] Hamas began taking responsibility for the rockets." (Which may include the rockets fired before.) Both of those claims are explicitly attributed to Hamas. By contrast, Goldberg says "On June 29, an Israeli air attack on a rocket squad [emphasis added] killed a Hamas operative. Hamas protested. The next day [Hamas] unleashed a rocket barrage, its first since 2012. The cease-fire was over. Israel was forced to retaliate for the rockets with air raids." Ynet reported: "For the first time since the end of the IDF Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, the Hamas military wing is behind rocket strikes on Israel, with a wave of attacks overnight Sunday (June 29) and early Monday emanating from central Gaza refugee camps completely under Hamas control. There a number of Palestinian factions active in Gaza and though Israel views Hamas as responsible for any rockets fired from the Gaza territory, the group generally avoids such direct attacks on Israel. In the past 24 hours, however, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades have been launching rockets from the Dir al Balach, Bureij and Muasi refugee camps...Monday's rockets were of an older make known to be in the Hamas arsenal...The IDF said Mohammed Zaid Abid was killed after the army launched a targeted attack against his rocket launching cell minutes before they planned to fire at Israel. Abid was identified by Palestinian media as a member of the Hamas military wing." So Ynet cites the IDF and Palestinian media for information on Abid, but neither Ynet nor the later analysis by Goldberg directly attribute the claim of Hamas rocket fire on June 30 to Israel. Even if the Reuters article quoting Netanyahu were the only source, and this was an "Israeli government POV", it would be grossly misleading to suppress it in favor of the official Hamas POV. Nishidani and Kingsindian appear to believe, because they are fans of Thrall's work and have praised it on Nishidani's talk page, that Thrall had some mechanism for determining the earlier reports of Hamas rocket fire were false and for verifying the official Hamas claims. That is sheer nonsense.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 08:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Thrall says it in his own voice, and is not quoting Hamas claims. He also says in his own voice, that the pre-July 6 rockets were fired by non-Hamas factions. The fact that Thrall did not repeat the Israeli claim, while he stated the facts in his own voice is operative. Your opinion about his methods is irrelevant here. I will take Thrall's analysis over a WP editor's. If you feel his last sentence is ambiguous, I have already made the offer to quote it directly, with attribution. Kingsindian (talk) 09:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Thrall and BBC are no more reliable than Goldberg or Ynet. I was not aware of any proposal to quote Thrall prior to this DRN discussion, but since we are here I welcome volunteer input on this matter.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:27, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

• Hello, I am MrScorch6200, the DRN coordinator. Please remember to keep discussion to a minimum until this case is opened by a volunteer. Thanks and regards, MrScorch6200 (talk | ctrb) 04:01, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I am not opening this case but I have a procedural question: Three of the five editors invited by the filing party appear to have chosen not to participate here. One has removed the DRN notice from their talk page. The other two have edited WP since the DRN notice was placed on their page. Is it useful to continue with this case in spite of their absence? What do the participants think?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 04:41, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is useful to continue. I would appreciate a neutral observer's take on the sources.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 10:11, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

24 hour closing notice: I don't see any indication of meaningful participation here by the named parties. DRN participation is optional and if editors to not want to engage in moderated discussion we cannot force them to. So far only the filing party has said they feel that partial consensus would be valuable in moving the issue forward. If you want "a neutral observer's take on the sources" then I suggest a WP:3O as DRN is for moderated discussion not outside opinions.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 20:23, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

As a possibly unusual step I left notes for Shrike and IRISZOOM encouraging them to actively participate. It would be unfortunate if the DRN had to close due to their absence. DRN is one of our better methods of resolving disputes. EdJohnston (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Everyone has commented except Shrike, who only left a sentence on the talk page in the first place. You previously told us to limit our discussion before a volunteer got involved. There is no reason why an impartial opinion should be this difficult to obtain. Thank you for the suggestion on 3O; I will try that if Shrike's absence is really so crucial.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:56, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I have not used WP:DRN before, so I am puzzled about the procedure. The talk page discussion is already listed, and we were told not to discuss more without volunteer input. Now there is a 24-hour closing notice (on the heels of a 48-hour closing notice, which I was equally puzzled by, and which was withdrawn after I clarified matters). As to the statement by IRISZOOM, they can speak for themselves, but my feeling is simply that they didn't elaborate because it would simply repeat the talk page discussion. Kingsindian (talk) 06:13, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Four days ago I asked the participants if they felt a discussion by a limited portion of the parties listed would be useful and beneficial. Only the filing party responded. There was no other support or input. That created doubt in my mind about the will of the participants to continue. As a few others have now responded and indicated they want a moderated discussion. So I'll allow the case to stay open a bit longer in the hopes that a volunteer will take the case soon. Thanks for your patience.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:54, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Attn: Nishidani,Kingsindian, Shrike,-sche, IRISZOOM and TheTimesAreAChanging

• My time is limited so it is with reluctance that I take this case. However, since no one else has come forward or responded to my plea on the DRN talk page, I am opening this discussion. All participants have faithfully come to the discussion table and posted summaries and deserve to work out this issue in a neutral forum such as DRN so I will do my best to serve in that role.
• Please be reminded that we are here to discuss content only. I understand emotions sometimes run high but please refrain from personalizing the discussion by making comments about bad faith, bias etc. Let's focus solely on the content.
• First we need to agree on the core of the dispute. Am I correct in stating that the core of the dispute is over how to characterize the media reports sources regarding Hamas' involvement (or non-involvement) in the rockets fired at Israel in late June? Is this correct?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 21:39, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Not media reports. That is just one source. For instance, the Nathan Thrall source is not a media report. The issue is how to describe the situation in the lead. Kingsindian (talk) 21:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Since both conflicting claims are in the body, both should be mentioned in the lead, with wording we can all accept.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, I"ve changed my statement to read "sources" instead of "media reports".-- — Keithbob • Talk • 03:59, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

That is still imprecise. The nuances are already discussed in the background section. The issue is how to describe it in the lead. Kingsindian (talk) 04:11, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok then please propose [here] your own succinct version of the core of the dispute and we'll see if we can get it ratified by the other participants. Identifying and agreeing on the boundaries of the dispute is the first step in the resolution process.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 21:42, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The core of the dispute is how to describe the chronology of the rocket fire in the lead. Currently, it states the following (paraphrasing). "Non-Hamas factions in Gaza started rocket fire in response to various events (crackdown in the West Bank, itself in response to kidnapping/murder of three teenagers). On 6 July, an air strike killed 7 Hamas militants. After this, Hamas began taking responsibility for rocket fire." TheTimesAreAChanging wishes to add the statement (properly attributed) that Hamas actually started rocket fire on 30 June, which is the Israeli claim. My view is that the neutral sources describe the chronology as currently stated. In my view, the nuances should be described in the Background section, as is the case now. Kingsindian (talk) 11:49, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that Ynet or Goldberg are truly less neutral than Thrall or Chomsky, or that the Israeli position is irrelevant to this war between Israel and Gaza.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:29, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, let's take on thing at a time. We are not discussing proposed changes yet. What we are doing is gaining consensus on what the core of the dispute is. This should be easy, let's not make it complicated. The proposed 'core of the dispute' is:

• How to describe the chronology, of this summer's rocket fire on Israel, in the lead of the article.

Can we all agree on that? -- — Keithbob • Talk • 17:03, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Certainly.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 17:04, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Kingsindian (talk) 11:08, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes.--Shrike (talk) 11:20, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes. --IRISZOOM (talk) 13:26, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Great, thanks everyone. Now let's move on. Can someone ID the section of the exact sentences in the article that we are trying to summarize in the lead?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:44, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

2014_Israel–Gaza_conflict#Immediate_events. Starting from "On 29 June, an Israeli airstrike..." to "Early on 8 July..." Kingsindian (talk) 17:29, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

OK. So this is the content we want to summarize in the lead:

• • On 29 June, an Israeli airstrike on a rocket crew killed a Hamas operative, while at least 18 rockets were launched from Gaza through the next day by Hamas according to J.J. Goldberg, who states that it was the first time Hamas itself had launched rockets since the conflict in 2012.[84] Overnight, on 30 June – 1 July, Israeli airstrikes struck 34 Gaza targets in what officials stated was a response to the Sunday rocketry,[138] while Stuart Greer reported the strikes were revenge for the deaths of the three youths.[139] From the day of the abductions on 12 June through 5 July 117 rockets were launched from Gaza and there were approximately 80 Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.[140][141] On 4 July, Hamas declared it was prepared to halt the rocket fire in exchange for an agreement by Israel to stop airstrikes.[142] Israel issued a warning that it "would only be able to sustain militant rocket fire for another 24, or maximum 48, hours before undertaking a major military offensive."[143] On the night of 6 July, an Israeli air raid on the house of a Hamas operative in Khan Yunis killed seven people.[93][144][145] The following day, Hamas referred to the incident as a "massacre against women and children [and] a horrendous war crime" and claimed "all Israelis have now become legitimate targets"; it then assumed formal responsibility for launching rocket attacks on Israel.[32][85][144][145] Hamas increased rocket attacks on Israel,[85] and by 7 July had fired 100 rockets from Gaza at Israeli territory; at the same time, the Israeli Air Force had bombed several sites in Gaza.[146][147][148]

Which sentences in the lead currently summarize this content?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:19, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

"The aim of the Israeli operation was to stop rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, which non-Hamas factions began following an Israeli crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank after the kidnapping and murder of 3 Israeli teenagers by two Hamas members, and which Hamas took responsibility for on 7 July (launching 40 rockets) after an Israeli airstrike on Khan Yunis killed seven of its members.

• TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:13, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately that is a slightly unfortunate version, which was made in copyediting the passage: which rendered it ambiguous. This has not been fixed due to the mass of other edits I had to attend to. The earlier version was the following. Kingsindian (talk) 19:50, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

The stated aim of the Israeli operation was to stop rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, which non-Hamas factions began following an Israeli crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank after the kidnapping and murder of 3 Israeli teenagers by two Hamas members.^[1] Hamas in turn on July 7, after seven of its militants died in an Israeli airstrike on Khan Yunis the day before, assumed responsibility for missiles fired from Gaza and launched a barrage of 40 rockets.^[2][1][3][4]

What are the proposed changes to the section of the lead cited above?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 13:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the paragraph as quoted is fine, though it is awkwardly phrased. This is perhaps unavoidable, but cogency is a small price to pay for NPOV in this topic area. TheTimesAreAChanging can speak for himself, but my impression is that he wants the claim by Goldberg, that Hamas started rocket fire on June 30 to be included in the lead. I oppose this, per WP:UNDUE and WP:SS. Kingsindian (talk) 14:08, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Good points, let's see what others have to say.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

The claim by Goldberg, Ynet, and the Israeli government that Hamas began direct rocket fire on June 30 (after attempted Hamas rocket fire on June 29) is a salient counterpoint to the Hamas claim that the rocket attacks were a response to the July 6 Israeli attack on Khan Yunis (which was itself a response to Hamas' refusal to abide by Israel's July 4 warning that it could only sustain rocket fire for another 48 hours). Most of the rockets from "non-Hamas factions", incidentally, are launched by Hamas' allies in Islamic Jihad, who Hamas allows to operate freely and many of whose attacks have been launched under Hamas' direct control and supervision--not by fringe al Qaeda affiliates. While Hamas' ability to control rocket fire from Gaza has been demonstrated by their ability to adhere to ceasefires in the past, the quadrupling of rocket fire following the Hamas takeover of the territory, and the upsurge in rocket attacks publicly supported by Hamas in "protest" of the arrest of Hamas members, the article also fails to emphasize what even lefties like Goldberg and Thrall plainly say: That Hamas allowed the massive upsurge in rocket fire against Israel. Goldberg says Hamas merely gave up on law enforcement, adding that many Hamas members went into hiding because they feared an "inevitable" Israeli attack over the deaths of the three teenagers, while Thrall says Hamas wanted to demonstrate their credibility to the Arab Street by calling for a Third Intifada, and thus could not "sell out" by adhering to the 2012 ceasefire. I think it's more likely that jihadists are in a perpetual struggle to be holier than thou by making war against the infidels, and that Hamas' repeated ceasefire violations during the war demonstrate the falsity of attributing their fundamental motivation to tragically misread signals with both sides equally at fault for escalating rhetoric. However, even Thrall and Goldberg support the claim that Hamas stopped enforcing the 2012 ceasefire among "non-Hamas factions", a point Wikipedia does not make regarding the increase in rocket fire anywhere in the entire article. My suggestion that we at least include the Israeli claim of direct Hamas rocket fire on June 30 was thus the bare minimum proposal for a neutral lead that I could possibly abide.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Any comments from other participants?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:11, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

A gentle ping to Shrike, IRISZOOM and Nishidani, who might have forgotten that this is going on. I have my own thoughts on TheTimesAreAChanging's comments, but I will wait before others have weighed in, or till asked by the moderator. I did not ping -sche because he said his only interest is in copyediting, not content. Kingsindian (talk) 19:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I support the analysis of TTAG per NPOV policy as we should give view of all the POVs on this matter.--Shrike (talk) 19:51, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Can you and a few other editors stop 'voting'. This is about reasoned argument, and 'votes' devoid of intelligent reflection risk being read as support flags on partisan grounds.

It's actually much more complex than this. Israel and non-Hamas affiliated groups exchanged fire through June as any date+airstrike search for June will show. The TimesAreAChanging's WP:OR version of history in which he imputes some hidden complicity between Hamas and these groups is denied by numerous sources, including, authoritatively, the Israeli gov. at the time. Neither Thrall and Goldberg are 'lefties' which is cant used to smear opinions by authoritative journalists, scholars and area specialists some highly partisans sources dislike. Fourth. If you like, you can find journalistic sources reporting that a Senior Southern Command (Gaza) officer said the IDF had knowledge Hamas planned a "July War" since either late 2013 or 2014. This was later dismissed as nonsense, but much of the other nonsense taken by the press from IDF and other sources is repeated in newspapers, and that is why one must exercise extreme care with the Ynet et al. articles cited. They attribute to IDF sources an attribution to Hamas. It is still not clear. Fifth, TTAAC is waving for a putative Hamas rocket attempt on June 29, and then the beginning (i.e. it never stopped from thereone in) of rocket fire on June 30, to Goldberg. In a latter piece Goldberg revises this picture:

J.J. Goldberg Kidnap Plotter Indicted: Still Looks Like 'Lone Cell' The Forward 5 September 2014, now reads:

Meshaal, in fact, stated explicitly that Hamas hadn’t known, as he said to Al Jazeera June 24 and to Sky News on July 3. Sky News reported at the time, citing unnamed Hamas officials, that Hamas had asked Turkey to tell Israel the organization wanted to restore calm and avoid escalation. This was in the immediate aftermath after several rounds of escalating exchanges — several barrages of radical jihadi rockets that Hamas failed to interdict in June, Israel’s accidental killing of a Hamas operative during a retaliatory strike on a jihadi rockets squad June 30 and a Hamas rocket barrage July 1 in retaliation for the killing — were leading the two sides to the brink of war.

This has Goldberg saying Israel and Gazan non-affiliated groups were shooting at each other through late June (as newspapers report). Hamas failed to stop the jihadis, one Hamas official was accidentally killed by Israel as Israel fired back at a group. Hamas, doing what Israel does, fired back in retaliation on July 1 at Israel (not June 30), and as escalation loomed, informed Israel two days later via Turkey that, Hamas desired a return of calm to avoid escalation. What happened through 4-7 (Israel's response is another interesting tale, not told in those sources).

So Goldberg (1) from which TTAAC had made his huge WP:OR tract is revised, retracted or finessed by a narrative (Goldberg (2)) that, rather than permit the hasbara POV meme which invariably has it, on each an every occasion that, 'Israel was attacked' and 'responded to the aggression', now reads:'non-Hamas forces and Israel exchanged fire. A Hamas official was killed by Israeli firing at the latter, and Hamas retaliated, and then sought through diplomatic channels to restore calm with Israel. This selective use of sources, compounded by WP:OR, has produced the travesty above, which tries to use Goldberg (1) to undermine the authority of 7 other sources listed on my page, which concentrate on the key period 7 July for the moment in which Hamas decided, after an Israeli strike killed several of its members, to respond in kind. (Nishidani 23:44 my time. my computer won't allow me to sign this page)Nishidani (talk) 21:49, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The public stance taken by Israeli officials, which you less charitably describe as the "hasbara POV meme", should be included in the article because Israel is a party to the conflict.

Why do we only present the Hamas view on the "Khan Yunis massacre", their official pretext for attacking Israel? Israel denied responsibility for killing the 6 Hamas members: "Hamas has vowed revenge for what it saw as Israel's deadliest attacks in which six Palestinian militants died, though Israel denied any involvement...The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted "terror sites and concealed rocket launchers" in the enclave, but had not hit the southern Gaza area of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where the Hamas gunmen died. Military spokesman Lerner said the militants had died when explosives went off in a tunnel that Israel had bombed several days ago, fearing gunmen planned to use it to try and penetrate into Israel."

On a related note, why doesn't the lead also mention that the killing of the three Israeli teenagers was funded by Hamas, not merely committed by "Hamas members"? Even (an unapologetic) lefty as eager to absolve Hamas of responsibility as Goldberg, in the very article you linked to above, makes this same point--although he hastens to add "It's not clear whether Mahmoud got the money from a source closer to the Hamas leadership or somehow finagled it from the foundation. Either way... Hussam merely told him it would be used for an unspecified 'military operation'." (Hamas deliberately has a separate "military wing" so that Meshaal can always disavow direct involvement in any Hamas terror attacks.)TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:07, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, and this point, I'm out. You're 'constructions' are fantasies, and I haven't the time to dismantle more than one, per above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs)

I am not sure of the DRN procedure. As far as I understand, this is not like a regular talk page discussion. If the moderator agrees, I will make a short reply to TTAAC. Kingsindian (talk) 16:35, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Nishidani These persistent criticisms and commands to other editors are personal attacks:

• Can you and a few other editors stop 'voting'. This is about reasoned argument, and 'votes' devoid of intelligent reflection
• TimesAreAChanging's WP:OR version of history in which he imputes some hidden complicity
• You're 'constructions' are fantasies

They will not be tolerated here. Stop personalizing the discussion and limit your comments to issues concerning content and sources. Do not mention other editors or speculate about their intelligence, motivations or behavior. This is your only warning. If you continue, you will be asked to leave this discussion.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:48, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Meanwhile, User:Kingsindian you are welcome to comment.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:57, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll do you a favour and preempt your imminent invitation. I will note that you utterly failed to read to the WP:BLP implications of TTAAC's attack on distinguished independent-minded analysts as "lefties", when they fit perfectly our WP:RS criteria's stringency tests, who happen not to share his personal interpretation of the history (WP:OR ('I think it's more likely that jihadists are in a perpetual struggle to be holier than thou by making war against the infidels,'), not to speak of his attack on WP:NPOV, since his outline, which we were invited to comment, is a plea for the 'truth' of his personal views on the subject, which have no place in an encyclopedia. I'm busy on more important wiki work, and am pleased at your suggestion my detailed technical reply and its style is unwelcome here. It relieves me of one more noisome duty. Good luck with the mediation though Bob. I have had occasion to admire parts of your work in the past.Nishidani (talk) 19:18, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) TTAAC's point is that Israel is one party to the conflict, so its narrative should be presented. By that logic, we should be putting Hamas's claim that there were 1000 Israeli soldiers killed in the lead (it is, rightly, being kept out). One is not supposed to give equal weight to all points of view, one is supposed to give WP:DUE weight.
• Everybody recognizes (I mean everybody, including Israel), that the major point of escalation of the conflict was July 6. I was in favour of keeping the background out of the lead altogether, but people kept insisting on putting it there. So the kidnapping of the three teenagers is being mentioned, as is the subsequent crackdown on the West Bank, and the rocket fire.
• This discrediting of sources like Thrall by calling them "leftists" is neither here nor there. Firstly, Thrall is not a leftist. Secondly, even if he was, the International Crisis Group is impeccably neutral and mainstream and London Review of Books is WP:RS. Thirdly, if one does not like Thrall, consider the other sources I mentioned, David C. Hendrickson, writing in The National Interest, founded by Irving Kristol. If Irving Kristol was a leftist, I am a monkey's uncle. Hendrickson gives three sources as authoritative timelines. Each of them fingers 6 July as the point of departure. I have given all the quotes here.

• @Keithbob: I find your comments regarding Nishidani strange. His comments are not directed against the person, but the edit. His view of Shrike's edit was that he was "voting", not arguing. Whether that is right or wrong, is not a personal attack. Similar is the comment regarding TTAAC's supposed WP:OR, again, addressing the content. The last comment was indeed a bit intemperate and should not have been made. Kingsindian (talk) 19:26, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Shrike probably felt he had to comment because of how progress here was initially stalled until everyone commented. I have not argued that any source is unreliable for political reasons, nor denied the massive escalation after July 6. A completely neutral editor might still wonder why the only POV presented by Wikipedia is that of Hamas retaliating to an airstrike on Khan Yunis, when Israel says Hamas started firing well before and the Hamas members in Khan Yunis accidentally blew themselves up.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:35, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Goldberg's new account, mentioned by Nishidani, weakens the argument made by TTAAC. We are left with Ynet who says Hamas started shooting on 30 June but, as mentioned by Kingsindian before, they seem to report the view of Israel. The same day, Times of Israel reported the same thing but mentioned it was reported by Israeli officials. See Hamas fires rockets for first time since 2012, Israeli officials say. Compare with Hamas behind rocket barrage on Israel for first time since 2012 by Ynetnews. Both also mention the rockets came after a member of Hamas military wing was killed and several injured. ToL also says "The security sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, assessed that Hamas had probably launched the barrage in revenge for an Israeli airstrike several hours earlier which killed one person and injured three more".

Anyway, there are plenty of sources (linked above by Kingsindian plus Noam Chomsky as I reported here earlier, who TTAAC also dismissed) who say that Hamas responded by starting shooting rockets when several of their members got killed on 6/7 July. --IRISZOOM (talk) 21:40, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, Nishidani's tone was aggressive and derogatory and his comments personalized the discussion, which I do not allow when I am moderating a discussion. Since some participants seem to doubt my judgement, and my ability to constructively lead this discussion and gain resolution, I am now withdrawing myself from the case. I posted a notice on the DRN talk page asking if another volunteer would like to pick up the case. If things don't work out there, I suggest you all explore other options such as WP:RFC or WP:MEDIATION. Best, -- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:44, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think anyone doubts your judgement, even Nishidani. I wish you would reconsider.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:01, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

@Keithbob: I did not question your judgement, I merely asked for clarification on a peripheral point. Moderating a discussion is hard enough, and it is up to you, of course, if you wish to continue. From my understanding, Nishidani has given his views, and does not intend to participate further in this discussion. I have no issue with you so far. Kingsindian (talk) 20:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but I've already stepped aside. Good luck to all of you. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 20:36, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Keithbob has indicated his withdrawing. If it is of interest to move this issue toward resolution, I can offer to look at this under my interest in Interwiki project cooperation. I have read and have familiarity with both the Hebrew version and the Persian version of this Page. As a non-editor of any of these pages, including the English version, my viewpoint would be neutral, though all participants would need to accept that this be done under very strict adherence to WP:MoS and WP:Lede for all policy and guidelines. If this is agreeable then it would help to have the representative statements for the SUPPORT and OPPOSE clearly restated here below by at least one representative from each side. Otherwise, no response within twenty-four hours shall be a strong indication that the matter has become stale and suitable for being closed. FelixRosch (talk) 16:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I have no issues with any neutral mediator, but I am unclear about a couple of points. Firstly, I assume that the Interwiki cooperation simply refers to your point of departure, and we are not required to align the lead based on other wikis? Secondly, do you require a statement by me detailing the arguments, or simply a version of the lead which I prefer? If it's the latter, I have already indicated that the version currently present is fine. Kingsindian (talk) 17:00, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's correct. On the first question, the other Interwiki pages provide a point of departure for further comparison as needed. Second, if you are endorsing the current version then all that's needed for neutrality at this point would be for someone representing the OPPOSE viewpoint to state the form of the Lede which they prefer. @Kingsindian; If you could ping the interested parties to state their version of it this would be useful. Otherwise, no response within twenty-four hours shall be a strong indication that the matter has become stale and suitable for being closed. FelixRosch (talk) 19:47, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, pinging Shrike and TheTimesAreAChanging to give their preferred version of this part of the lead. Kingsindian (talk) 21:31, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I already attempted to edit the lead, and was immediately reverted, with no counter-proposal. The dispute is not merely over phrasing, but whether the information I wish to include is so undue as to be unworthy of inclusion. The current lead implies Israeli aggression against Hamas by stating that Israel killed several Hamas members in Khan Yunis on July 6, and Hamas retaliated with rockets. However, Israeli officials have stated that Hamas started firing rockets circa June 30, while the Hamas members killed in Khan Yunis accidentally blew themselves up in one of their tunnels. (Of course, the urgency of eradicating the tunnel structure built by Hamas with the aim of sending thousands of terrorists to massacre/kidnap tens of thousands of Israeli civilians far outweighed the importance of stopping the rockets, but the media did focus on the latter threat.)TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:15, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

It is important for me to stress the importance that you place the full version of the paragraph for the Lede you wish to place immediately below this comment. @TheTimesAreAChanging; A neutral review shall require that I see the two versions side by side. Also, I have asked that before my agreeing to follow-up on this resolution that all participants to the process agree to a very strict application of all guidelines and policies for WP:MoS and WP:Lede. @Kingsindian has already, I think, affirmed this and I ask the same for yourself. Unless there is a side by side version for comparison placed within twenty-four hours, its absence shall be a strong indication that this matter has become stale and suitable for being closed. FelixRosch (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

While TheTimesAreAChanging can answer for himself, I can perhaps post the diff which was the initial subject of dispute. Perhaps that can be taken as the version which he prefers. Kingsindian (talk) 14:58, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: "The stated aim of the Israeli operation was to stop rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, which non-Hamas factions began after an Israeli crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank following the kidnapping and murder of 3 Israeli teenagers by two Hamas members. Hamas assumed formal responsibility for firing rockets at Israel after denouncing a "massacre" of Hamas members during a July 6 Israeli airstrike on Khan Yunis. Israeli officials stated that Hamas began firing rockets on June 30, and denied launching any airstrike on Khan Yunis on July 6."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

To both editors; There is a basis for a side by side comparison. The matter is limited to the second paragraph of the current Lede, and appears to state that there is no issue with the first sentence of the second paragraph in the current Lede. Second, that there is no issue with the second sentence in the second paragraph in the current Lede either. The issue being resolved is the proposal of one editor to insert two new sentences directly after the first sentence of the second paragraph of the current Lede followed by the rest of the paragraph in its current form, and another editor who wishes to exclude these two sentences from addition to the Lede. If that is a fair summary then each of the editors should affirm this, along with your agreement to my request that very strict guidelines for WP:MoS and WP:Lede apply throughout. @Kingsindian, if you could indicate your best reason for why this material should not be placed in the Lede along with any cites you have for your reason. @TheTimesAreAChanging, if you could indicate your best reason for why this material should be added to the Lede along your cites from the main body of the article being used to support your proposed addition in the Lede. If this is not possible, then indicate your concerns below within twenty-four hours, otherwise the matter shall be taken as stale and suitable for being closed. FelixRosch (talk) 20:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I repeat: "The current lead implies Israeli aggression against Hamas by stating that Israel killed several Hamas members in Khan Yunis on July 6, and Hamas retaliated with rockets. However, Israeli officials have stated that Hamas started firing rockets circa June 30, while the Hamas members killed in Khan Yunis accidentally blew themselves up in one of their tunnels." The Israeli claims should be included to achieve NPOV.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:23, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

An Israeli airstrike on Khan Yunis was not the cause of the escalation after July 6. The New York Times reported: "When Hamas militants entered the damaged tunnel a day or so later, they apparently set off explosives there...Hamas blamed Israel, escalating the hostilities that grew into the current confrontation."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

To FelixRosch

• I have given multiple reasons, but the best reason is that the lead is supposed to be a summary of the events. Multiple neutral, reliable sources confirm that the rockets before 6 July were fired by non-Hamas groups. After an Israeli airstrike (one among among 80 or so in a week) on 6 July, when about 7 Hamas militants were killed, Hamas started fire. Virtually all sources consider 6 July as the important date. I have collected some of them here. TTAAC wishes to add the Israeli claim that Hamas started fire on 30 June without any regard for WP:UNDUE or WP:SS.
• The second claim he wishes to add is a new one: Israel didn't kill the militants, but it bombed a tunnel but nobody was present inside is (a) totally left-field, and (b) undue to introduce in the lead. The NYT article which he is quoting, is relaying the Israeli claim, as it makes clear. Wars often result in war propaganda, we don't have to include the claims by either side in the lead, or indeed the article.
• Some of these issues are discussed in the background section. I also reject any claim that the current lead implies "Israeli aggression" in a POV manner. The rocket fire is present (whether by Hamas or non-Hamas), as is the kidnapping of three teenagers. Kingsindian (talk) 09:24, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The sources repeating the Hamas narrative about an Israeli massacre on July 6 are as susceptible to war propaganda as alternative accounts. The notion that the lead is "balanced" by "acknowledging" facts such as the kidnapping is laughable. I should emphasize that there are significant differences between reliable sources on this matter, and that these contradictions should not be suppressed. The lead cites four sources for the claim that an Israeli airstrike on Khan Yunis caused the escalation. One, The Christian Science Monitor, says the opposite: "But the death of six Hamas operatives when a tunnel collapsed last night...may have been the final straw for the Islamist movement." The BBC article does not specifically mention an airstrike on Khan Yunis, while The Jewish Press source says nothing of the kind. The highly partisan Arabists in The London Review of Books repeat the Hamas narrative, but omit the false claim (repeated in the body of this article) that the airstrike was on a house. While there is no evidence the NYT piece on an unrelated matter well after the fact was based on Israeli war propaganda, sources such as this are quite obviously regurgitating Hamas assertions taken at face value.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 12:16, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I was responding to the moderator, and will answer if (s)he wishes it. Kingsindian (talk) 13:03, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

To both editors; Your material presented is of use in this matter. There is some short clarification which is needed at this time. @Kingsindian; The first sentence of your response appears to need a slight adjustment to accurately reflect Wikipedia WP:MoS policy, since your phrase "to be a summary of the events" must be supplemented by adding the phrase "as developed in the main body of the article". If you could acknowledge this by adding the phrase to your original post above either in parenthesis or in your own preferred wording, since WP:MoS requires that the events covered must first be established in the main body of the article. @TheTimesAreAChanging; You are presenting 4 (four) references for the two sentence addition you propose to make to the current 2nd paragraph of the Lede section. If you could identify which section and which paragraph within the sections which you are using to identify where in the article your 4 (four) cites have been taken from. This information for each one of your cites is needed for this discussion to continue following guidelines and policies for resolution, and your attention within 24 hours is helpful. Otherwise the matter shall be taken as stale and suitable for being closed. FelixRosch (talk) 14:31, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Reuters, first paragraph; Ynet, first and second paragraphs; Yahoo, paragraph four and "Lieberman Dissent", paragraphs three through eight; NYT, paragraph fifteen.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:20, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

To FelixRosch My comments were in line with Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Relative_emphasis. I don't want to paste the whole section here, but I can state that I agree with the guidelines there. Kingsindian (talk) 15:36, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

To both editors; Still on the issue of clarification. @Kingsindian, If you agree with the statement, "the lead is supposed to be a summary of the events as developed in the main body of the article," then you may simply state agree or disagree. @TheTimesAreAChanging, Yes that is useful and I also need the exact location in the Wikipedia article from which each one of the 4 (four) citations were taken (I assume they are mostly from Section 1.4 but it would be useful for you to tell me precisely). FelixRosch (talk) 16:03, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

To FelixRosch In general, I agree. However, I want to make one thing clear, as the MoS states: "This admonition should not be taken as a reason to exclude information from the lead, but rather to harmonize coverage in the lead with material in the body of the article." The article is a mess, and there are many things I want to change in the article, not least the background section. I do not want to be "fouled" because of some technicality. It takes time to make even the smallest change in the article because it is contested from all sides. Kingsindian (talk) 17:13, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

To @Kingsindian, Yes, that's fine for now in terms of WP:MoS. The current review process needs to hear from the other side to continue, so another 24 hours is possible. In order to be neutral at this point and for the process to continue there needs to be a full identification of the footnotes in the current article which use the 4 (four) footnotes which @TheTimesAreAChanging wishes to bring into the Lede. If you can identify where these are in the main body of the article then this would be useful. Otherwise the matter shall be taken as stale and suitable for being closed. FelixRosch (talk) 20:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The sources are not currently in the article. If I try to add them, I will doubtless be reverted again. The issue goes beyond the lead--Kingsindian is arguing that this material is not merely undue for the opening, but so fringe it must not be allowed anywhere in the entire body. I find that position untenable based on the sources, but Nishidani viciously attacked me for questioning the official Hamas narrative, so I came here after being reverted. I apologize for not making that clear.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:14, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

'Nishidani viciously attacked me for questioning the official Hamas narrative, so I came here after being reverted.'

Read:'Nishidani questioned my use of WP:OR and WP:Undue to rewrite, using one of 7 sources, a narrative which gave due weight to the consonance of the other 6 sources (none of which was by Hamas), and later showed that the author of that one divergent source modified his original statement a month later.'Nishidani (talk) 12:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Some clarification: There are two claims in the sentence which TTAAC wishes to add. First is that Hamas started the rocket fire on June 30. For that, there is the Goldberg source in the article. The Ynet source is not currently in the article, but it says essentially the same thing. For the other claim (Israel denies air-bombing the tunnel on July 6) that was not in the article before, and as I said above, this is a new issue which was not part of the original dispute. My suggestion is that the DRN concentrate on the first claim, and the let the second claim be discussed on the article talk page. Kingsindian ♝♚ 12:13, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

To all three editors; The clarifications were all useful. @Nishidani; It has been requested that all editors joining the discussion at this point confirm that they agree to follow a strict reading of WP:MoS and WP:Lede in order for me accept the further moderation here, if you could confirm this or your concerns otherwise at this time. @TheTimesAreAChanging; Your clarification requires there be an acknowledgement at this time concerning WP:Lede policy and guidelines which clearly state that anything which is placed into the Lede must be a summary of settled material already existing in the main body of the article. This is not to say that you cannot develop your material in the main body of the article first in order to establish it following regular Wikipedia rules for editing and verifiability, however, WP:Mos and WP:Lede are very clear that the Lede must contain only information which is first settled in the main body of the article. @Kingsindian; As you are likely aware, any editor is allowed to edit the main body of the article following the policies and guidelines for verifiability. This applies the all edits, and if an edit is documented with a reliable and verifiable source, this should be acknowledged as such following Wikipedia policy for verifiability. Unless any of the editors state their concerns plainly against Wikipedia policy for WP:MoS, WP:Lede, and WP:Verify as I have quoted it in the above text, my inclination is to recommend that the question as it relates to the Lede section can be considered as addressed and to close this matter as resolved given a 24 hour period for any return responses below. If you could acknowledge your concerns and-or confirmation in the space immediately below. FelixRosch (talk) 15:01, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Administrative Note: 1) I've marked this case as Open for Discussion because moderated discussion is ongoing. 2) DRN is "an informal place to resolve small content disputes". This case was filed 28 days ago and there has been 8,000+ words of discussion with no resolution and in my opinion already falls outside of the criteria for a DRN case. However, I support Felix in moderating this case if some resolution is possible. If for any reason Felix's moderation falters or fails in anyway I want participants to know that I feel confident that this case will be quickly closed and referred to WP:MEDIATION. So if participants want to attempt resolution in this forum I urge them to give Felix their full trust, support and cooperation as well as their willingness to compromise and reach a resolution. Best, -- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@FelixRosch: To your concern that lead should only include stuff from the body, as I said, the Goldberg source is already present in the body. All it requires is to decide whether to include it in the lead. I am a bit confused by your statement that this matter can be considered addressed. As far as I can see, we are still at the beginning, with none of the parties having budged an inch from the original position. Kingsindian ♝♚ 18:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Kingsindian; The comment which was made was in reference to the 4 cites which @TheTimesAreAChanging said were being used for the 2 sentence edit which was proposed. If an editor wishes to rewrite the proposed change based on the Goldberg cite alone and without the 3 cites which are not in the main body of the article then this proposal has to be put forward by that editor (see the post above at TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:23, 23 September 2014 (UTC)). I suggest to allow another 24 hours if an editor wishes to do so, however, using cites in the Lede which have not been established in the main body of the article is not supported by WP:Mos and WP:Lede. Without a version of the edit based on Goldberg alone, there shall be a strong indication that this matter be closed as stale. FelixRosch (talk) 20:32, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Just close it. Clearly DRN was the wrong route. I will propose an Rfc when I find the time, and abide by the result.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:20, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• User talk:Nikebrand#2014.E2.80.9315 RB Leipzig season (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• MbahGondrong (talk · contribs)
• Nikebrand (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Nikebrand keeps on adding contentsthat are nonsense and notin a proper way. He seems to tranlate directly from German without taking into consideration grammars and proper English writing.

This is the page in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_RB_Leipzig_season

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I tried to talk to Nikebrand about how the article contents should be for team season articles and how proper English should be used, but Nikebrand does not seem to want to make a discussion.

How do you think we can help?

I need the opinion of others.

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Talk:Environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing#WP:WEIGHT of new study: .22Proximity to Natural Gas Wells and Reported Health Status.22 .282014.29 (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• EllenCT (talk · contribs)
• Alexbrn (talk · contribs)
• Jytdog (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Some editors claim that the question of the environmental impact of fracking is still unknown, and some recent WP:MEDRS reviews say that. However, several recent and well-cited MEDRS sources say that there are very serious risks. There are no MEDRS sources which say fracking is safe. I believe the correct course of action is to summarize the conclusive MEDRSs, and quote the inconclusive MEDRS reviews

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Health_effects_of_fracking, however, I have since been repeatedly accused of edit warring, without diffs, at User_talk:EllenCT#September_2014

How do you think we can help?

I believe moderated discussion with help from intermediary editors will be productive in resolution.

Decline DR. There are recent/active threads on this topic at WT:MED and WP:RS/N, where the consensus is already established. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 07:29, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

While this board is for content disputes, not user behavior, in my view this is primarily a user behavior issue. Turning to content:

The key content issues have to do with sourcing and WP:CRIT.

• There are two open threads on the sourcing issues, namely whether certain sources comply with our sourcing guidelines WP:RS and WP:MEDRS. As EllenCT noted there is an open thread at RSN (which she linked to above). There is also an open thread at Project Medicine asking about the same sources, where she was advised about what MEDRS actually says. Per the instructions, because there are open threads, the coordinator may not want to address those issues here.
• more recently, EllenCT has raised concerns that a section on different policy approaches to risk management and risk assessment should be blended into the rest of the article per WP:CRIT but these sections are legitimately their own topic. Some sections of the article describe what is known about actual and potential environmental effects of fracking; this section describes various approaches to managing those known and potential effects. There is no other thread about this, that I am aware of. Jytdog (talk) 12:57, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

This is false. No one with the IP 50.59.109.37 has discussed anything on the Martine Rothblatt or BINA48 talk pages.-12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Location of dispute

• Talk:Martine Rothblatt (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• RothRep (talk · contribs)
• 66.151.103.11 (talk · contribs)
• 50.59.109.37 (talk · contribs) the IP that filed this complaint
• 66.151.103.15 (talk · contribs)
• 12.30.109.2 (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

An editor on this site is using a name for a subject that is no longer the person's legal name. The person in question has requested that their legal name be used. An offer has been made to provide the legal sources for this name change (which has been in effect for more than 20 years). After several attempts to get the editor to comply, even presenting a new sources for that shows the legal name.

An arbitrator is requested, in order to resolve this issue. Thank you.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I have tried to calmly explain the situation, and provide legal sources for the article, however, the editor refuses to accept the legal documents, and is accepting an erroneous getty images caption as their proof, only.

How do you think we can help?

I would like someone who can step in and help us resolve this matter, as a legal document is a more accurate source than a photo caption.

Please see my comments at the Martine Rothblatt talk page and the BINA48 talk page. -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC) and edited: -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:02, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

A connected contributor, RothRep (and IP 66.151.103.11), has reverted for no legitimate reason and deleted valid sources, such as the New York Magazine article. RothRep deleted that Bina's real name is Beverlee (see source below) and that Martine & Bina have two children together and adopted one another's children from prior relationships (see source below).

What RothRep has reverted/deleted:
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Martine_Rothblatt&diff=626157219&oldid=626155374
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Martine_Rothblatt&diff=prev&oldid=626278992

My source is a New York Magazine article that clearly states that Bina Aspen's given name is Beverlee. Period.

• "The Rothblatts, now married, legally adopted each other’s children, and would soon have two more. Bina started her conversion to Judaism (her given name is actually Beverlee)." http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender-ceo/index2.html

• "Bina, who is African-American, grew up in Compton and was working as a real-estate agent. But they had much in common—starting with the fact that they were both single parents. Martin had met a woman in Kenya on his way home from the Seychelles; the relationship had not worked out, but had produced a son, Eli, who was 3. Bina’s daughter, Sunee, was about the same age." http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender-ceo/index1.html

Also, the IP that filed this dispute resolution noticeboard thing, 50.59.109.37, has never commented on any talk page on Wikipedia, contrary to what he/she has written above. This DRnoticeboard claim is the only thing she/he has ever posted to Wikipedia. See here: Special:Contributions/50.59.109.37. -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:08, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

RothRep / 66.151.103.11 / 50.59.109.37 doesn't own the Martine Rothblatt or BINA48 articles. -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC) -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:24, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Martine_Rothblatt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Administrative note: Another [option] for the participants is to take this issue to the WP:BLPN notice board where editors are very familiar with the policies that cover this kind of a situation. (but you can't do both, it's either here or BLPN, one or the other)-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:54, 26 September 2014 (UTC)-- — Keithbob • Talk • 13:35, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Another administrative note: Just a suggestion, not a requirement or demand: There are at least three different IP addresses showing up at the article talk page, at RothRep's talk page, and here, 12.30.109.2, 66.151.103.11, and 50.59.109.37, which makes it unclear who's who and whether or not everyone who needs notice of this filing has received it. It would be well if everyone who wants to participate here would create an account, identify which of those edits belong to them, and thereafter only edit when signed into that account. I've given notice to RothRep and to those IP addresses, but if they are dynamic IP's the notices may never be seen. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:44, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I am only using this IP. The other person/side is using all of those other ones.-12.30.109.2 (talk) 19:57, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

24 hour closing notice-- Some of the IP's listed as participants have edited as recently as today. One of them edited the Martine Rothblatt article and yet they have not submitted a summary or comment here. If they don't show up soon this case will be closed.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 23:26, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Gospel of Matthew (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Andrevan (talk · contribs)
• Ret.Prof (talk · contribs)
• PiCo (talk · contribs)
• StAnselm (talk · contribs)
• Ignocrates (talk · contribs)
• Rbreen (talk · contribs)
• In ictu oculi (talk · contribs)
• John Carter (talk · contribs)
• Evensteven (talk · contribs)
• JudeccaXIII (talk · contribs)
• Tgeorgescu (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

The dispute is about how Due and Undue Weight policy is to be understood.

Andrevan, who is a new editor on the article, wishes to add material about the date and composition-history of the gospel of Matthew, and other editors regard the additions as unnecessary because they over-represent minority views - undue weight, in other words.

In a nutshell: the majority of scholars believe that Gospel of Matthew (GM) was composed after 70 AD, a minority argue strongly for a pre-70 date. This isn't in dispute between editors. We mention it in the lead and again in the "setting and date" section, with RS.

Andrevan wants to add more on the minority viewpoint, specifically from a scholar named Maurice Casey (note that nobody denies Casey is RS). Other editors almost unanimously (one exception) feel: (a) the question of date is already adequately covered, and (b) adding more about the minority view would unbalance coverage of the topic.

There's an important extra point: Casey's idea isn't just for an early (pre-70 AD) date, but for a very early one, about 50-60 AD. So far as I know he's the only scholar who holds this view. It's been pointed out to Andrevan that Casey's view has failed to gain traction in the academic community, but Andrevan's reply was that "academic traction" isn't a policy. My answer was that "traction" is indeed a policy, it's how we tell how much weight to give to different views.

Given that neither side has managed to convince the other, it seems that an edit war is looming - quite unnecessarily in my view.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Extensive discussion on article talk page, otherwise no action - but Andrevan has now made a charge that all those who take a view opposite to his is a sock puppet/meat puppet (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PiCo) I don't mind saying I find this worrying if it means an escalation from a looming edit-war into warfare through wiki-lawyering.

How do you think we can help?

Can someone please look at the talk page and give us an opinion on how the Due Weight policy applies to the question of coverage of a minority viewpoint in general and the Casey viewpoint in particular.

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Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC) (Incidentally, I'm fine with the current sock-puppet investigation, but it's a sign of escalation and that's a concern).

I was introduced to this issue through the Mediation Committee as a mediator assigned to it. I am an atheist software engineer with no particular interest or knowledge of the subject area, but have since learned quite a bit about it.

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Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC) Many of the other editors have WP:COI as Christians and haven't fully disclosed their involvement with academia, missionary and/or clergy as far as I know.

We closed the mediation as successful but it appears that it is not resolved. Ret.Prof is the user who is pushing to include the minority theories in the article.

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Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC) He has a tendency to communicate through walls of text which are unclear, and is ignorant of policy and etiquette.

However, he persists in raising his complaint due to what I see as, at its root, a valid WP:NPOV issue with this article.

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Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:30, 21 September 2014 (UTC) At the kernel of this is the idea that a group of orthodox Christian editors are cherry-picking a POV, and excluding others, which conforms with their idea of the academic consensus in

[This is a] violation of WP:RS/AC and WP:RNPOV. It is true that these minority theories should probably not appear in the lead section of the article as Ret.Prof has requested. However, his opponents claim that including these reliably-sourced minority theories with significant adherents in the main article AT ALL, violates WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT. There are a number of theories which pertain to the subject and are not linked at all from the main article: the Augustinian hypothesis, Griesbach hypothesis, Q+/Papias hypothesis, and Hebrew Gospel hypothesis. Including no reference at all for the theories is not proportional to the fact that they do regularly appear in reliable sources about this topic. It has been suggested by Ret.Prof,

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Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC) who also claims to be a non-Christian,

that these theories are associated with Jewish, non-religious and Eastern Orthodox perspectives into Western Christianity, leading to this incidence of bias. Maurice Casey, an academic with notable peer-reviewed publications, was a lapsed or non-Christian. Therefore this is an instance of systemic bias masquerading as a consensus, and reliable sources are being excluded at the expense of NPOV. Andrevan@ 02:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Please note I do not think there is a conspiracy. Systemic bias could arise simply by the self-reinforcing lack of NPOV on the part of a group of editors with blind spots. Andrevan@ 03:08, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Fringe: 50-60 CE date for Matthew WP:Fringe theories: "A Wikipedia article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is". Casey 2014. p 96 is as follows:

I conclude that the Gospel of Matthew is a major source for our knowledge of the life and teaching of Jesus, written c. 50–60 ce.

WP:Fringe theories:To be notable, at least one reliable secondary source must have commented on it, disparaged it, or discussed it. Here again WP is clear! Such a topic is not fringe

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There is nothing "new" about the 50 CE date. "Christian scholars" have argued in favor of it for years. What is new is a heavyweight Non-Christian historian now supporting it! Maurice Casey is a respected non-Christian scholar and for him come out in support of a 50-60 date for Matthew is notable. Such material MUST be written from a NPOV. This policy cannot be overruled even by a very large number of user accounts. Therefore the early 50 ce date must be included in the article on the Gospel of Matthew. As far as I am concerned, this is the only outstanding issue that has yet to be resolved...but it is an important one. IE Only ONE issue not TWO! Thanks!

• For the record, my POV is that the Oral Tradition was both strong and accurate. The reason the Gospels and Talmud came into being was that this oral tradition Glenn 2014 of Jews and Christians was no longer viable after the destruction of the Temple 70 CE. Therefore I tend to believe in a later date. Still my trip to the library has shown many, many sources either support or make mention of the 50 CE proposed by Casey.
• Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses! Casey is therefore a reliable source. Thanks
• It is truly time to let go of our Hebrew /Aramaic Gospel debate and move on to the topic at hand. The issue before us is the earliest possible date for the Greek Gospel of Matthew. I have produced 7 reliable sources that state that that date was 50 CE. Therefore it must be given at least some weight and included in the article. I can produce many more RS if required.
• The statement "with a pre-70 date having little support among secular scholars. [3]", is original research that misrepresents France who said, "A pre-70 date for Matthew remains a minority view, but one which has been strongly supported". See also France Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher pp 82-91. See also Williams I think you will agree he helps my case as he supports a date while the Temple is still standing (like Casey!). - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Just restate and also expand on what I wrote above. There are two issues, not one as I stated previously, the two being the date of GM and its composition history. For both the relevant policy is NPOV, which says that NPOV means "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." So does the existing article represent "all significant views"? It says, re the date, that most scholars believe GM was composed after 70 CE and that a minority opinion holds it was before. This is supported by a RS and several others could be cited as well. Re composition history, there's an entire paragraph on authorship and another on sources, both thoroughly sourced.

Andrevan needs to demonstrate that Casey's opinion regarding the date (50 CE) is so significant that it can't be subsumed under a general statement. He also needs to demonstrate that the Augustinian and other hypotheses on the sources behind Matthew are equally significant. He also needs to demonstrate that any scholar at all supports the idea of an Aramaic or Hebrew original version of GM (he notes Casey and another scholar named Edwards, but has misunderstood what both are saying). PiCo (talk) 04:29, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

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Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC) I identify as a Christian, but I reject Andrevan's claim that this disqualifies me from editing the article. In fact,

I personally hold to a pre-70 date for Matthew, but I acknowledge that it is a minority position. The early date in itself is not fringe, but a date of 50 possibly is. The connections made between Casey and an Aramaic gospel seem to be dubious, but in any case it would be better to quote someone like R. T. France, whose commentary has received more coverage in secondary sources. I don't think it would necessarily be undue weight to discuss the usual reasons for a pre-70 date: the dating of Luke-Acts and the lack of mention of the temple's destruction. However, a discussion of these reasons should be accompanied by a discussion of the reasons for the majority view. In other words, I would like to see the whole section expanded. StAnselm (talk) 06:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Andrevan is attempting to enforce what he sees as a WP:NPOV violation by shoehorning a tiny minority view into the article. The dispute began over an early date for the Gospel of Matthew proposed by Maurice Casey. Casey, while a notable scholar, has an idiosyncratic view of the Aramaic origins of Matthew. The majority of editors on the page consider an early date based on that unique conjecture to be WP:UNDUE. More seriously, Andrevan, who has admitted to knowing nothing about the subject, has recently introduced a number of new topics to include in the article, which he claims are being deliberately suppressed due to systemic bias. Ignocrates (talk) 02:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused by some of the recent edits, so just to clarify: This dispute is not about an early date for the composition of the Gospel of Matthew as a minority view; we already have excellent sources that can provide that information (e.g., Dale Allison, R.T. France). The dispute is about assigning an early date to Matthew based on the unique conjecture advanced by Maurice Casey. Therefore, an early date as a minority view is not WP:UNDUE, but an early date based on Casey as a source is undue weight. That is the consensus position and the locus of the dispute. Ignocrates (talk) 16:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC) I am not impressed with the claim that "a group of orthodox Christian editors" are trying to dominate the discussion. From what I see, we have a fairly diverse group of editors who take the content very seriously. I don't think people's religious beliefs are relevant here, nor do I see that as influencing the dispute. (For what it's worth, I am an atheist, and I don't think any editors should feel compelled to disclose their religious views - it's clear we have a variety of views here) And what does "these theories are associated with Jewish, non-religious and Eastern Orthodox perspectives into Western Christianity" even mean? As far as I can see this is part of a long-running dispute in which Ret.Prof has attempted to have his own personal views - constructed by original research out of a selection of valid sources - included in the article.

There have traditionally been New Testament writers, usually very conservative ones, who have argued for a pre-70 date for Matthew, largely because it supported the view of apostolic authorship. That idea died a death a generation ago - the consensus is now pretty much the one in the current article. The fact that a scholar like Casey can advance the idea of pre-70 authorship, completely separate from the traditional standpoint, is a sign of the maturity of the discussion. But so far it's just Casey, in a popular book, and until we find out whether the idea is taken seriously by academic writers we cannot pretend that this an academic running an idea up the flagpole. Personally, I have nothing against a pre-70 date - the consensus is a bit stale now, and could do with being challenged - but we can't predict where scholarship will go, and must stick with the picture as it is now. --Rbreen (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC) Seriously? - it will take me time to get up to date with this and then give a reading, but if it is the case as stated above that an new contributor - Andrevan has been supporting RetProf's perennial attempts to add WP:SYNTHESIS re Papias and Hebrew Matthew then does it need Dispute resolution, shouldn't it be sufficient to notify projects and get experienced WP Religion editors returning to the page to maintain the article's quality? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:36, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Guy Macon, that was my summary of the root of the dispute. The root of dispute is not that 1 New Testament scholar has a theory which has not gained any peer support. 1 scholar theories that fail to attract peer support belong in the scholar's bio article, not in article space competing for weight with views which have at least a minority of scholars. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I believe there is a very real chance that one of the central problems here is very likely behavioral but that this is not necessarily the correct forum to deal with that.

One of the basic and more obvious ways to determine whether or not a source is reliable is to determine what other academic sources say on the work in question regarding the subject at hand. One of the easiest ways to determine that is through reviews of the work. I haven't seen any reviews of this book in academic journals yet, although I think I have seen some listings of it in "Books Received" sections indicating reviews are likely in the future. I cannot see any real reason to rush to judgment regarding the academic views regarding this particular matter before we have seen the reviews. I said before that I thought the best way to proceed would be to first start an article on the book itself, and then try to determine how much space to give material regarding it elsewhere. I still think that would probably be the best way to go. There is of course another question regarding how many other single academics have presented other views on this topic, and whether they deserve the same amount of weight and consideration in the article. Given the number of subtopics of this article, it is very easy to see that it might potentially become just a set of short single sentences of the "X says Y" nature regarding many of the topics covered. When there are almost certainly literally hundreds of recent academic works on a given topic, "at least one" stated opinion on any issue will probably include dozens maybe hundreds of different ideas, and I don't think we can necessarily list them all.

Another major concern which I have regarding the status of our biblical material in general is the comparative lack of articles in wikipedia relative to the lengthy articles and subarticles in reference sources on biblical subjects. Having looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bible/Encyclopedic articles, there is at least one substantively long named subsection on the date and authorship of the Gospel in one of the leading recent reference sources, and I have to say that I think it almost certain that a standalone article in wikipedia on the topic would be found to meet basic notability requirements, and that it would make much more sense to try to establish such a subarticle and develop it before attempting to effectively write the summary section of the article here. We do ourselves no favors by trying to shoehorn short mentions of every sub-subtopic related to Biblical subjects in one article, as doing so tends to make the articles lack any sort of desirable narrative flow and ultimately makes the articles less appealing to the readers it is supposed to serve. Sorry about the lengtht. John Carter (talk) 15:12, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Traveling, no internet (almost), cannot respond effectively for indeterminate time. Evensteven (talk) 03:33, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't involved as much in the Matthew debate. Maybe like three or four responses from me. I did not support Ret.Prof on Casey's views. Simply this, Casey is just one scholar. It wasn't enough to convince me, and I did some research; And there was little suggestion from other sources that agree or mentioned such similar ideals like Matthew first being written in Hebrew. The date of composition is arguable. There are many dates of composition online. A good average timeline of composition based on online sources would between 50 through 100 or 110 CE. It was rare though that I saw 50 CE being the actual date of composition in agreement with scholars. -- That's all -- JudeccaXIII (talk) 00:40, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

At DRN we only talk about article content, never user conduct. Do not talk about other editors.
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Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC) Note: As I said before, I don't agree with Ret.Prof, and the user seemed not to keep on with the discussion. After that, I just ignored the discussion page. -- JudeccaXIII (talk) 01:25, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

At DRN we only talk about article content, never user conduct. Do not talk about other editors.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC) Ret.Prof claimed to be non-Christian? Seriously? Has he deconverted?<ref>{{diff|User:Ret.Prof|625309544|623662624}}</ref> By his clothing<ref>[[:en:File:User Ret.Prof.jpg]]</ref> he must be a clergyman. His take on the Gospel of Matthew is somewhere between conservative evangelical and Christian fundamentalist. I was once a Christian, but I have deconverted many years ago. I am now a pandeist. These being said, I do not know what our own religious opinions have to do with rendering the majority viewpoint of Bible scholars.

Western scholarship against Eastern-Orthodox scholarship is a false dichotomy, since Bible scholars are not employed in the main US and European universities for their religious faith commitments, but for their historical expertise. I agree with PiCo's comments from the talk page of the article

At DRN we only talk about article content, never user conduct. Do not talk about other editors.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC) and as a non-Christian I do not see PiCo's take as religiously biased. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:47, 18 September 2014 (UTC) To answer the request made by Ret.Prof: we don't discuss here the behavior of other users, but we do discuss about other users, their views, their religion (as far as we can know it), since Andrevan stated more or less that a bunch of Christian editors would be biased against atheist scholarship of the Bible and they would violate the neutrality of the article with their Christian bias. As other users indicated, it is a fable, on a par with the fable that Ret.Prof isn't Christian. We can't debunk these fables any other way, so we have to discuss about other users.

Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:32, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Clarification: Talking about other users is strictly forbidden. After the DRN case is closed, anyone involved may bring up user conduct issues in a venue where they are allowed. WP:DRR is a good starting place. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:29, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Although I am not directly involved in this specific discussion, it raises issues which have been concerning me for some time and the following comments may be helpful.

1. The condition that "to be be notable a theory must be supported by at least one RS" seems to be a necessary condition, but not of itself sufficient. For example, John Allegro produced an theory about sacred mushrooms and the Eucharist. He was technically RS, but the idea met with total rejection from other academics and quickly became past history. Therefore, information about it was removed from the Wikipedia article.
2. Editors should beware of "Phd-itis" (the need to produce some new and original ideas in order to make an academic name/career). It is only when theories are seriously discussed by other RS's, if only to be refuted, that they can be said to become notable. In the 1960-70s, if there was one agreed academic opinion on the Gospels, it was that "they were NOT biographies". In 1989 Richard A. Burridge produced a Ph.D. thesis that argued that they were ancient-style biographies. By about 1995 the thesis had been extensively discussed and was well on the way to becoming "a lasting contribution to scholarship" (Graham Stanton) (See What are the Gospels - 2nd Ed Eerdmans 2002, Cap 11 and Foreword) In short, academic impact or traction is necessary for a particular minority view of this type to qualify as worthy of "due attention". Jpacobb (talk) 19:05, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

(Not involved either, have some knowledge of the subject having studied Biblical criticism as a topic of interest, but I am not Christian.) NPOV guide us to include all significant viewpoints that have been reported in sources that can be verified, and that are reliable. A minority viewpoint can be presented as such (that is explaining in the text that it is a novel or not widely held viewpoint if there are sources that describe it as such), but extra care should be applied not to use Wikipedia to "promote" a minority view above its current standing in the domain in which that viewpoint is being expressed. Minority viewpoints are easy to spot using a number of available metrics, in this case one could use metrics related to the number of sources available, the number of citations in Google scholar, and other such. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Another point to remember, for those of us that are passionate about our views and want Wikipedia to reflect “the truth” is that Wikipedia does not need you - Cwobeel (talk) 19:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I was watching this dispute from the sidelines for a while. One-person theories can only be discussed if the contrary views of EVERY OTHER SCHOLAR of similar stature is given equal weight. Unless User:Ret.Prof and User:Andrevan are willing to go out of their way to include citations of all the other scholars who disagree with them, this would essentially place the burden on good-faith Wikipedians who don't want to emphasize fringe views. This is completely inappropriate, and should not be allowed. There's also the practicality problem of listing hundreds of scholars who all say the same thing, just to make room for a fringe viewpoint. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:26, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello. I am a dispute resolution volunteer here at the Wikipedia Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. This does not imply that I have any special authority or that my opinions should carry any extra weight; it just means that I have not been previously involved in this dispute and that I have some experience helping other people to resolve their disputes. Right now I am waiting for everyone to make their statements before opening this up for discussion. in the meantime, I encourage everyone involved to review our Wikipedia:Dispute resolution and Wikipedia:Consensus pages. Thanks! There is one thing that I need everyone involved to understand right from the start; DRN is not a place to keep doing the same things that did not work on the article talk page. In particular, we only discuss article content, never user conduct. Many times, solving the content dispute also solves the user conduct issue. Do not talk about other editors. If anyone has a problem with this, let me know and we can discuss whether I should turn the case over to another dispute resolution volunteer. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I believe that everyone who is going to make an initial statement has done so by now. I am putting together a plan of attack for attempting to resolve this dispute and will open it up for discussion within a day.

Also, I have started using https://tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/editorinteract.py to check whether I have had any previous involvement in DRN cases I am involved in. I have never edited Gospel of Matthew, and I have had two minor interactions with editors named in this case. Please note that this it is not at all unusual for busy editors to have had some interactions.

Interaction with User:StAnselm: [1]

Interaction with User:In ictu oculi: [2]

I don't believe that either of these will cause me to be biased, but if anyone disagrees we should discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

To give everyone an idea of where I am going with this before I open it up for discussion, I plan to start by looking at how the pages for the other three gospels handle dates of origin (including what is in the lead and what is in a lower section), with the door open to looking at other books of the Bible and possibly other religious and historical documents where only a range of dates is known. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:21, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

In the spirit of cutting a big problem into several smaller problems, I would like to start out by opening up the discussion with the question "should we put the date in the lead paragraph at all?" Note that we are deferring for the moment the questions of what date or how we should handle dates later in the article.

I did a review of how some other Wikipedia pages handle the question of dating:

1. Gospel of Matthew: "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90;[2] a pre-70 date remains a minority view."
   
2. Gospel of Mark: "most contemporary scholars now regard it as the earliest of the gospels."
   
3. Gospel of Luke: "The most probable date for Luke-Acts is around 80-100CE"
   
4. Gospel of John: No mention of date in lead.
   
5. Acts of the Apostles: "usually dated to around 80-90 CE."
   
6. Epistle to the Romans: No mention of date in lead.
   
7. First Epistle to the Corinthians: No mention of date in lead.
   
8. Second Epistle to the Corinthians: No mention of date in lead.
   
9. Epistle to the Galatians: No mention of date in lead.
   
10. Epistle to the Ephesians: "written in Paul's name by a later author strongly influenced by Paul's thought."
    
11. Epistle to the Philippians: "Biblical scholars are in general agreement that it was written by St. Paul to the church of Philippi, an early center of Christianity in Greece around 62 AD. Other scholars argue for an earlier date, c. 50–60 AD."
    
12. Epistle to the Colossians: No mention of date in lead.
    
13. First Epistle to the Thessalonians: "The first letter to the Thessalonians was probably the first of Paul's letters, probably written by the end of AD 52, making it the first written book in the New Testament."
    
14. Second Epistle to the Thessalonians: "The book is believed by many scholars to be written between 52–54 AD, shortly after the First Epistle to the Thessalonians was written"
    
15. First Epistle to Timothy: No mention of date in lead.
    
16. Second Epistle to Timothy: No mention of date in lead.
    
17. Epistle to Titus: No mention of date in lead.
    
18. Epistle to Philemon: No mention of date in lead.
    
19. Epistle to the Hebrews: No mention of date in lead.
    
20. Epistle of James: "There are four views concerning the Epistle of James:, that the letter was written by James before the Pauline Epistles, that the letter was written by James after the Pauline Epistles, that the letter is pseudonymous, that the letter comprises material originally from James but reworked by a later editor."
    
21. First Epistle of Peter: "The author presents himself as Peter the Apostle, and the epistle was traditionally held to have been written during his time as bishop of Rome or Bishop of Antioch"
    
22. Second Epistle of Peter: "written in the name of Saint Peter, although the vast majority of modern scholars regard it as pseudepigraphical."
    
23. First Epistle of John: "This Epistle was probably written in Ephesus between the years 95–110"
    
24. Second Epistle of John: No mention of date in lead.
    
25. Third Epistle of John: "The language of 3 John echoes that of the Gospel of John, which is conventionally dated to around AD 90, so the epistle was likely written near the end of the first century. Others contest this view such as the scholar John A. T. Robinson who dates 3 John to c. AD 60–65."
    
26. Epistle of Jude: No mention of date in lead.
    
27. Book of Revelation: "The bulk of traditional sources date the book to the reign of the emperor Domitian (81-96 CE), and the external and internal evidence tends to confirm this."
    

So we have:

9 pages that give specific dates. Of these, 2 mention minority viewpoints.

5 pages with text that could be construed as giving some sort of date information.

13 pages that do not mention dates.

I also found Dating the Bible#The New Testament, which attempts to date them all.

Consider for a moment the target audience for these 27 pages. How many of them meet the following criteria?

• Not someone who already has a firm opinion on the date in question.
• Someone who has a need to know the date, but is unwilling to look for it farther down in the article.

OK, those are my thoughts, but of course my opinion doesn't matter. What matters is the consensus of those who edit the page. So, should we mention specific dates or ranges of dates in the lead paragraph? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I think we should mention the majority view in the lead and leave it at that. StAnselm described it well on the article talk page. Summarizing: 80 to 90 - most probable; 70 to 100 - certainly possible; outside this range - improbable to fantastic. We already have highly regarded sources in the article to support the majority view, so why not use them? Ignocrates (talk) 04:17, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't much care personally, but I'd always assumed readers wanted to know this - I was surprised to see that only a minority of articles include it. If you do have the majority view, I think you need to to mention the minority one as well, because (a) if you don't, someone will add it anyway; and (b) France seems to say that the minority view is a significant one, and certainly I get that same impression from the wider literature. (Note that I mean the minority view is pre-70, not specifically 50, which I don't get the impression is significant). (I should confess to being personally responsible for the articles on Mark, Matthew, Luke and Acts, with some input into revelation - maybe that reduces the number of un-PiCoised articles even further).PiCo (talk) 11:31, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Fwiw, I have no problem with this. If we do, we should also mention post-100. There are a small number of competent scholars working on Matthean posteriority. We don't need to be more specific about minority views in the lead. Ignocrates (talk) 16:31, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, how about this for a proposal: Make the lead paragraph say "first century" and create a section on the dating lower down in the article -- content of that section to be discussed next. Does anyone object? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:48, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Works for me. - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:01, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

"First century" is too vague. The reason scholars put effort into dating a gospel or epistle is to help establish the community it was written for (it's audience). Then they use that to understand its theology. It makes a great deal of difference to the interpretation of Matthew if we think it was written in 50 AD or 90 AD, or in Rome or Antioch. PiCo (talk) 03:11, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Sure it has some meaning, but what kind of argument is "it's too vague?" It's complicated and murky. Better to leave the detailed explanation for a later point which seems like a meaningful compromise. I feel we have an issue with wanting to own the article's structure at the expense of other contributions simply because of personal preference or desire to squash minority positions. Andrevan@ 03:19, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Remember, the Gospel of Matthew is undated. All we can know for sure is that it was written in the First century. The rest is scholarly speculation. - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:26, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, we don't know for sure that it was written in the 1st century, and there are scholars who hold that it comes from the early 2nd. But that, like 50 AD, is considered highly unlikely by the majority. It would be more productive for you both to give your own views rather than opening a commentary on mine.PiCo (talk) 03:40, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I just said I agreed with Guy Macon's suggestion to not mention the date in the lead at all, which is what we were discussing. As to my "view" of when Matthew was composed, I don't have one. What you are doing now is synthesis which flies in the face of WP:RS/AC. You need to give sources that explicitly say that 50 AD is considered highly unlikely. What I think we should do is a review of the literature in depth, giving appropriate time to the various opinions that exist. Andrevan@ 05:35, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Your response to Guy Macon is 64 words, of which 48 are addressed to me. I'm flattered, but it would be better not to waste words. PiCo (talk) 10:23, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with PiCo - "first century" is far too vague, since it goes back to 1 AD. "Second half of the first century" would be better, but I would still oppose the change. StAnselm (talk) 03:56, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Would no mention of the date in the lead be acceptable to you? Or is there some other compromise regarding the lead only that everyone can live with? My idea here is to make it easier to resolve the dispute move the date information out of the lead and into a separate section where we have room to do a better job of explaining nuances such as what most scholars think (and why they think it) vs. minority views. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:33, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm okay with dropping the date from the lead, but not so happy about creating a section on it in the body - just a sentence of the majority position is enough, with a mention of the minority view. That's because the date really isn't important in its own right, it's just a means of establishing setting and community.PiCo (talk) 08:04, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

To be clear, I am only asking for an agreement on the lead, at which time I will open a discussion as to what, if anything, to put in the body. The separate section seems like a good idea to me, but as a DRN volunteer my opinions carry zero weight -- the decisions need to come from the people who have been working on the page. So, does anyone object to no date in the lead? --Guy Macon (talk) 10:54, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I think I do. As it stands, the rest of the paragraph ("The anonymous author was probably a highly educated Jew...") would be weakened as a result. But maybe the whole second paragraph of the lead could be discarded. As it stands, it is not neutral: "The author drew on three main sources to compose his gospel" should not be in WP voice. I have edited the article accordingly. StAnselm (talk) 11:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

PiCo has a good point. 99% of the reliable sources date Matthew sometime between 50 and 100 CE. There is very, very little support for a date before 50 CE (I found only two sources referring to the 40s) and the same is true for a date in the second century. Therefore would this compromise work: Although the Gospel of Matthew is undated, most scholars speculate it was written in the last half of the First Century." Nobody can disagree with this???? Cheers Ret.Prof (talk) 13:29, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I've looked at three of the longer articles on this topic in recent reference works and found the following:

Anchor Bible Dictionary, older but maybe the longest article out there where the article runs to 20 pages. Of those pages about 3/4 of a page is on sources, 1/2 a page on literary genre, 3/4 page on time and place of composition, 1/2 a page on the occasion of the gospel, less than one column on Matthew's church and the synagogue, about one page on whether the author was a Jew or Gentile, over 10 pages on the structure and content, about about 3 pages on theological concerns, with a one page bibliography.

The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible article runs to about 14 pages of which around 3/4 a page is on structure, a bit over a page on sources, 3/4 page on time and place of composition, over two pages on it being the "teaching" gospel, over a page on Matthew in the history of interpretation, and about 3-1/2 pages on the important theological considerations.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Books of the Bible article runs to around 20 pages, with about 1/2 page on its canonical status and place in the canon, a page on its authorship, a page on its date and historical context, 1-1/2 page on its literary history, 1/4 page on interpretation, 1-1/2 pages on its reception history, and 2-1/2 pages on bibliography.

Given the high opinion these works have in the academic community, I would tend to think that an averaging of them and other similar sources would be the best way to determine weight, adding as well any other high-quality sources I didn't mention. I would assume that the articles in James Hastings' older reference books and others would be useful as well for any information on questions such as those presented here which may have been more obviously held earlier but not so prominent today, as well as some sources like the recent Zondervan dictionary which tends to have a more obvious Christian bias. John Carter (talk) 15:04, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks John! Good points. I agree that Zondervan Encyclopedia is Christian, indeed its market is mainly priests and pastors of all denominations. Therefore it deals with our topic from a NPOV. - Ret.Prof (talk) 15:18, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

So far we have two possible compromises for the lead (with any date-related changes to the rest of the article to be discussed after we agree on the lead). One possibility is to delete "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90; a pre-70 date remains a minority view", and the other possibility is to replace it with "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed in the second half of the 1st century". I am assuming that the deletion option would lead to more about dates lower in the article, but we have not discussed that yet. Are either of those a compromise (for the lead only) that everyone can live with? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

"Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90; a pre-70 date remains a minority view" is supported by an extremely reliable source (two in fact); "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed in the second half of the 1st century" is both unsupported and untrue (most believe it was composed after 70). So no, I can't support this. PiCo (talk) 16:43, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Has someone checked the discussions of dating from the Marcan hypothesis. According to the Marcan hypothesis, Matthew had to be composed after Mark according to the majority weight in the scholarly community. Perhaps it is enough to state that the date for Matthew must be consistent with the dating of Mark and that is must come after it. FelixRosch (talk) 17:05, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

This comment by uninvolved user touches on what I think is a very important part of this issue. The dating and composition of Matthew is following a majority hypothesis about something which also has significant minority hypotheses. This isn't discussed at all. The article needs to explain that it largely follows the Marcan hypothesis since that is the predominant view, while acknowledging that other views exist. Andrevan@ 20:21, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

PiCo, 80 and 90 are both dates within the second half of the first century, so your "unsupported and untrue" claim is simply wrong. The worst you can say is that it is imprecise. Also, We can cover dating in more detail later in the article; why must those dates be in the lead? How does insisting on that benefit the reader? Please consider compromising with the other editors who object to your preferred wording. Both side will have to give a little to reach an acceptable compromise. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:51, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

@Guy Macon, the second para in the lead begins "Most scholars believe..." This is sourced to Dennis Duling's entry on Matthew in the Blackwell Companion to the New Testament, which is a collection of miniature commentaries on each of the NT books. In other words, its a RS explicitly giving 80-90 as the majority position on the date. There's no room there for including the period 50-70 as part of that majority position, and to suggest that most scholars would accept a date in the 50-70 range as probable is therefore unsupported and, so far as we can tell, untrue. Compromise is a means to an end, not an end in itself. PiCo (talk) 00:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

This is only scientific to a limited degree of certainty, so really minority positions have nearly as good a stake to claim on the truth, and exist in reliable sources in proportion significant enough to mention. It's like if you know your data is kind of lossy, so you reduce precision, i.e. I measure the amount of a 134.67 mL solution with a volumetric container that only has labels for every 1 mL. I might want to say 130 or 135 mL -- this is less precise, but more accurate in that it represents the amount of uncertainty. Calling out 70 specifically when really 50-110 is the range is too precise, therefore less accurate. Andrevan@ 20:21, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

PiCo, you have made some good points. I personally agree with you. But could you list the 3 most recent references that state the 50 to 60 CE date is in the minority. Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 21:09, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the point of 50 to 100 being "unsupported" is that it's a synthesis. The implication is that all of the dates within a 50 year span have an equal weight. I don't know of any individual scholar that believes such an assertion. Use a recent encyclopedic source for the lead or a high quality secondary source like Allison and Davies that reviews the ranges of dates favored by various scholars. Ignocrates (talk) 21:11, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Now you have lost me. Why is the 50 CE date synthesis?? Is it because Zondervan is a Christian source and Casey is a non Christian source?? - Ret.Prof (talk) 21:18, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Please don't do this. As I already explained, the range of dates is overly broad, in the sense that no scholar would advocate for a 50 year span of uncertainty. Averaging a bunch of scholar's opinions together and concluding their overall average spans a range of 50 years is original research. Ignocrates (talk) 21:25, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

The material in Casey 2014 and Zondervan is original research?? Please explain?? - Ret.Prof (talk) 21:34, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I have already tried to explain this twice. I'll let someone else give it a try. The fact that you can't understand the concept of synthesizing a range from the dates of individual scholars is why we are here. Ignocrates (talk) 21:39, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Here I think you are mistaken. ie When Casey 2014 or Zondervan state a specific date, that is not synthesis! Maybe Andrevan orGuy Macon can get me back on track! Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 21:48, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Andrevan, I'm surprised that you seem unaware of what a synthesis is. The synthesis lies in taking Casey's minority position of 50 CE and combing it with the majority position of 80-90 to support 50-100 as the majority position, which it plainly is not. However, since RetProf seems to hold R.T. France in high esteem (as he should), may I suggest France's conclusion on the majority position, i.e., the last quarter of the 1st century. I could accept this as the basis of a compromise.PiCo (talk) 00:28, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Guy Macon, Your original suggestion was that we drop all mention of the date from the lead. I've already said I have no problem with that. What I'm arguing against here is altering, rather than removing, what's in the lead. PiCo (talk) 03:40, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Does anyone else object to dropping the dating from the lead paragraph and opening a discussion about whether we want to make any changes to the body of the article? --Guy Macon (talk) 08:59, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

You keep on asking that question. But I don't quite understand why we are discussing this. Why should it be removed from the lead? StAnselm (talk) 09:12, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Because the editors who have been working on the page cannot agree on the wording, and because presenting the information in the body gives us more space to explain why there are different opinions among scholars. Do you oppose the removal of dating information from the lead paragraph? --Guy Macon (talk) 11:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I see your points, Guy, but this info is in the lead for the intro material in many Bibles I've seen. Seems ripe as lead material for an encyclopedia too. One sentence is enough to cover majority view, and minority ones as well. All that's needed is sources for backing. This is an editorial problem. I do not think the article should suffer because of any disputes. It is our business to see to it that it doesn't. But having said so, I cede to the rest of the community. I can't stay engaged at the moment. (This is my small window of Internet presently.) Evensteven (talk) 12:53, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

If nobody is all that keen on dropping the material from the lead, let's move on to discussing the body. PiCo (talk) 13:12, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The lead is fine as it is for now. Let's move to a discussion of the body. The lead will probably be adjusted later anyway, depending on how the discussion of the body turns out. Ignocrates (talk) 14:14, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. We can come back to it later. - Ret.Prof (talk) 18:59, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

There appears to be no consensus as to what to do with the lead, so I am opening up a discussion as to what, if anything, should be done with the body.

I would encourage everyone to avoid digging in your heels and try to find some sort of compromise that everyone can live with. If we cannot reach an agreement here at DRN, this is likely to end up being decided by an RFC, with the likely result being that one side gets pretty much everything they want and the other side ends up getting pretty much nothing that they want. If that happens some of you may end up wishing that you had been more willing to try to find a compromise that makes both sides equally unhappy. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:23, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Also I have carefully read the above and agree with most of what has been said. My only suggestion is that we back up what we say with Wikipedia Policy or Reliable Sources. For example is there any reliable source published in the past three years that maintains the 50 CE date is still a minority position? - Ret.Prof (talk) 19:06, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't know, can you find a secondary source describing it as a minority position? That is, not someone holding to a date of 50 AD, but someone else saying that this is a minority position. You see, "minority" can mean different things. Obviously, one person can constitute a minority, but we would not normally include one person's idiosyncratic views in an article. In this case, it seems the "minority position" is usually described as "pre-70". There seems no good reason to distinguish between particular pre-70 positions. StAnselm (talk) 21:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I think I completely misinterpreted what Ret.Prof was saying. I was thinking of the 50 AD dating as being less than a minority position. StAnselm (talk) 00:23, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Ret.Prof, if you are now arguing that 50 AD is the majority position (sounds like you are), the WP:BURDEN is on you to prove it, not on everyone else to prove that it's not. Citing a few sources, as you have done, doesn't prove anything other than a few scholars hold to that view. Ignocrates (talk) 23:07, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Guy Macon, Andrevan stated in his opening remarks (the few that haven't been deleted) that inclusion of this material is a matter of policy; therefore, it outweighs any consensus. Similar arguments can be found on the article talk page. If that's the case, does trying to reach a consensus mean anything here, or is this just a mechanism to wear everyone down until they agree to include the material. I'm asking, for the record, what your thoughts are as the mediator. Ignocrates (talk) 23:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Excellent question. Andrevan said the following:

It is true that these minority theories should probably not appear in the lead section of the article as Ret.Prof has requested. However, his opponents claim that including these reliably-sourced minority theories with significant adherents in the main article AT ALL, violates WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT.

I do pay careful attention to claims of policy violations, and when needed I call in uninvolved admins to give an opinion on whether the claims hold water. There are several admins who are happy to jump in to a DRN case when asked and rule on a specific issue.

For me to do that, the following two things have to happen:

1. There would have to be a consensus that the minority theories in question should not by included in the article at all. No point asking if something is against policy if the consensus is against it.
2. Someone (presumably Andrevan, but I would check to see if his position has changed) would have to claim that the specific consensus arrived at here on DRN is against policy. If that happens, I will get a ruling from at least two uninvolved admins on the policy issue.

Right now I am still hoping that we can arrive at a compromise. I personally would really like to see language that describes the various dates, how much support each has, and explains why the scholars in question thinks that their dates are correct. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

This statement is very helpful for everyone here. Thank you. Ignocrates (talk) 00:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I also would like to that sort of material included. I would be happy to lean on France, p. 18 for this: the majority view is based on (a) the gospel reflecting the final separation of church and synagogue, (b) the gospel is written in light of the destruction of the temple, and (c) Markan priority. The minority view (best represented by France, same page) is based on (a) the gospel is actually written as if the temple is still standing, (b) it seems to be written before the Book of Acts, which appears to be written before Paul's death in c. 67, and (c) [among some scholars], Matthean priority. StAnselm (talk) 00:34, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

For Ret.Prof, majority opinion on the date of Matthew remains c.70-100 (see Tomás Joseph Surlis, "The Presence of the Risen Christ in the Community of Disciples", 2011). PiCo (talk) 00:45, 29 September 2014 (UTC) For @St.Anselm, I agree with your summary of France. PiCo (talk) 00:47, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

And significantly, the book you linked to uses France as a representative of the minority position. StAnselm (talk) 01:47, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Good points. Markan priority relies on the observation that 90% of the material contained in Mark is also found in Matthew. However, all arguments in NT scholarship are reversible. Thus, the traditional Augustinian hypothesis and Two Gospel hypothesis have to be explained. Scholars that adhere to one or the other of these hypotheses will tend to gravitate to different ranges of dates that are consistent with the hypothesis they most favor. That's a big reason why the 80 to 90 range is the majority view: assuming Markan priority, it took time for Mark and Q to be written and circulate widely before Matthew had the opportunity to combine them. Ignocrates (talk) 00:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

As someone who never even thought about this issue before this DRN case, I would really have liked to have learned most of the above when reading the article for the first time. I think it would improve the article to explain (properly sourced, of course) the reasons why various scholars chose the dates they chose. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:39, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

There's no quick fix for this. That's one reason why the Gospel of Matthew article in the Anchor Bible Dictionary is 20 pages long. The best we can probably do without undertaking a major expansion is point out that the assigned date is dependent on prior assumptions, and give examples of the most pertinent assumptions according to modern scholars. There's also a historiographical aspect to this topic that could be mentioned, e.g., the Augustinian hypothesis is the product of Church dogma and assumes apostolic authorship. That hypothesis was widely favored prior to the 19th century, and gradually fell out of favor until it became a minority view post-WWII. How and why that happened could be the subject of its own article. Ignocrates (talk) 01:58, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like exactly what needs to be done. Andrevan@ 02:15, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Correct! This is what needs to be done. Are we getting close to an agreement? - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:21, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

We are agreeing, like any good bunch of bureaucrats, to reach an agreement on an understanding relating to an undertaking to agree on a way, means or method to proceed. PiCo (talk) 05:19, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

The best place to start, imo, is to look at review articles. They describe the state of the field. This can be a secondary or tertiary source published for that expressed purpose with an extensive review of the literature, or a least a high quality source with a good review in the introduction. What we don't want at this stage is an aggregation of authors that advocate for their preferred date without mentioning any other views, even by way of review. Grouping single date authors together to find an average and a range creates a potential OR/SYNTH problem. Ignocrates (talk) 07:40, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Just thumbing through Davies & Allison, they have 11 pages on the date, along with a list of various scholars that favor various dates. They also agree with R.T. France that the majority view is last quarter of the 1st century, but describe why a significant minority of scholars advocate for a pre-70 date, just as France does. They also have a nice review of Markan priority. Davies & Allison favors the majority view, France favors the minority view, but they both give essentially the same reasons why scholars lean toward one view or the other. We already use these sources in the article. This is not that hard guys. Ignocrates (talk) 08:25, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Fwiw, Matthew, Gospel of Oxford Dictionary of the Bible (2004) assumes Markan priority and is consistent with the two sources above. Obviously, this is an abbreviated summary of the consensus according to Oxford. Ignocrates (talk) 08:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Markan priority is the overwhelming majority position. This counts for us because Mark is one of the sources for Matthew. That, in turn, means we don't need to go into the synoptic question - a link in See Also is enough.PiCo (talk) 08:59, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. The Augustinian hypothesis, while of historical interest, is essentially a dead hypothesis. The Griesbach hypothesis, which was resurrected by William R. Farmer as the 2GH, has gone dormant again because his students could not convincingly demonstrate how it could be done in practice. Markan priority is almost canonical at this point. The question has moved on to which form of Mark was used, but that question is getting too deep into the text-critical weeds for this article. Ignocrates (talk) 09:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

(Undent - maybe someone could add one of those line-things for me?) That being the feeling, I propose as follows:

• Under SOURCES the article already says "[t]he majority view of modern scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be composed and that Matthew (who includes some 600 of Mark's 661 verses) and Luke both drew upon it as a major source for their works." (Sources given on the page). This sentence being factual, and the only relevance of the synoptic question to out article being that Mark was a source for it, there's no need to expand on this, although we should have a link to the synoptic problem in the See Also section.
• Under SETTING AND DATE we state that "[t]he majority view among scholars is that Matthew was a product of the last quarter of the 1st century." Again this is sourced. Since there seems to be a feeling that we should say why scholars believe this, let's add a precise of France's words, which are, in summary, that (a) the gospel reflects the final separation of church and synagogue, late 1st century; (b) it's written in light of the destruction of the temple, 70 CE; and (c) Markan priority. I see no need to discuss the minority view, although it can be noted that it exists. PiCo (talk) 10:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Ive added this to the existing section on Setting and Date as a discussion piece - it appears as a note, like the one we already have on Papias:

This view [i.e., that Matthew was written in the last quarter of the century] is based on three arguments: (a) [Matthew's] setting reflects the final separation of Church and Synagogue, about 85 CE; (b) it reflects the capture of Rome and destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE; (c) it uses Mark, usually dated around 70 CE, as a source. (See R.T France (2007), "The Gospel of Matthew", p. 18)PiCo (talk) 10:49, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Good Stuff! So far we are in agreement. Mark was the first written. Once we finish working though the "majority" position, then we will discuss why Casey 2014 challenges this date. I will be able to produce about 20 reliable sources that support Casey and his 50 CE date. Areas of disagreement: Pico's statement, " I see no need to discuss the minority view" is not supported. Indeed it goes against Wikipedia Policy which states, "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." In addition to those reliable sources that put forward the 50 CE date I will produce other sources that say the 50 CE date is significant even though they support a latter date! - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:47, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Pico, would you be willing to compromise on discussing the minority view? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:10, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

It's a bit early to say, let's see what others say. Put it this way, I'm willing to be swayed, but I don't like compromise merely for the sake of compromise.PiCo (talk) 14:19, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I think we should explain why France is not persuaded by the majority view and why he prefers his earlier date. That's all we need to do here. Ignocrates (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I tried to do that but found it impossible to explain his reasons succinctly, so I expanded the existing note with this sentence: "France himself is not convinced by the majority – see his Commentary, pages 18-19." PiCo (talk) 04:59, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

France bases his reasoning on two arguments: (1) he is unpersuaded by the internal evidence pointing to the destruction of the temple, and (2) his early dating of Luke-Acts, which he believes was written after Matthew. The so-called "Doom Oracle" in Mt Chp 23, where Jesus looks back on the destruction of Jerusalem, is the most persuasive piece of evidence for a late date. France counters this with evidence from other verses which suggest to him the temple is still standing. His argument about the dating of Luke-Acts is based on an indirect chain of transitive logic: Paul died in 62 AD (assumption #1) + Acts doesn't mention Paul's death; therefore, it was written even earlier (assumption #2) + Matthew was written before Luke-Acts (assumption #3), therefore, the date of composition of Matthew was even earlier. Those are his two main arguments: passages from Matthew and his dating of Luke-Acts based on the death of Paul. Ignocrates (talk) 10:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Temporarily withdrawing from the dispute resolution process: Ignocrates has notified me on the ANI that he is taking me to Arbitration to be banned from Wikipedia. Therefore, I will be withdrawing from the process to work on my defense. He has made it clear that content is not the issue ... he wants me GONE. If I survive. I will be back. For the time being I will support what ever the consensus arrived at. Thanks to Guy. Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 14:15, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I already made it clear that I am filing a case on your talk page, when you accused me of threatening you to try and gain leverage here at DRN. One thing has nothing to do with the other (as I already explained). I encourage you to reconsider and stick with the DRN process until there is a resolution to the content part of this dispute. Ignocrates (talk) 14:27, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I am going to request that we set aside all discussion of arbcom (here or on user talk pages) and continue here until we either resolve the content issue or I close it as being unresolvable. Can we agree to do that? At the end of this I will give you all some unbiased advice as to where to go if someone feels that there is a user conduct issue (a question that we will not discuss here!). There are multiple options listed at WP:DRR, none of which we are going to discuss at this time.

I feel that we are getting close to a general agreement about the content. Can we please try to hammer out any remaining disagreements? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:03, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree completely. I only responded here because I felt the wording of Ret.Prof's notice of withdrawal was a bit hyperbolic. I'm truly sorry he chose to do that. We should continue as though it never happened and push toward a solution to the content part of this dispute. Ignocrates (talk) 01:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Guy, if you want to minimize parts or all the content of this section and keep going, I'm fine with that. Ignocrates (talk) 02:07, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Guy, can you minimise this and we'll either continue with discussion#4 or, better, start #6 with a summary of what's on the table, since we seem to be making progress. I'll ask RetProf to come back.PiCo (talk) 07:30, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I see that a lot of progress has been made, both here and at the article. Does anyone have any issues we need to discuss? I don't want anyone to feel that their voice isn't being heard. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:39, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't object to what PiCo and Ignocrates agreed to. If I had something important to add, I would have added it. Now I get the feeling of déjà vu and for me it is becoming boring (no offense meant). Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Agree. I suggest if there's no substantive input in the next 24 hours or whatever this discussion can be closed.PiCo (talk) 01:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree, with one caveat. We need to hear from Andrevan. This DRN was filed because he tagged the article. If he's good to go, we can leave it open for an additional 24 hours and close it as a successfully resolved dispute. Ignocrates (talk) 02:04, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Was Guy Macon looking to close the DRN case here, or was he trying to get a mediation that seemed to be making progress, back on track? Indeed, the article still appears not to explain the various minority and majority positions, so why would we remove the NPOV tag; the word "priority" does not appear in the text. Some articles have neutrality tags on them for years, so what exactly is the rush here? In what way have we come to a compromise or addressed the issue? How does the Gospel of Matthew explain that this is a nuanced topic which has existed for hundreds of years, with a number of scholars and writers, learned and otherwise, taking part in the story, the role played by actors who are affiliated with various factions, and so on.

At DRN we only talk about article content, never user conduct. Do not talk about other editors.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Note: the person who posted this is free to delete it. If you do, please delete the hidden archive top and bottom templates as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC) In fact 2 additional people started edit warring on the article just today.

Andrevan@ 02:20, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry if I misunderstood, but I thought the whole point of this DRN was to address your objections. If you are unsatisfied with the compromise we worked out, please offer suggestions that are specific and actionable. Btw, I didn't say anything about removing the tags, I said we are here because you added them. Ignocrates (talk) 02:32, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Andrevan has been given ample opportunity to participate in this DRN, but has hardly done so at all - very few interventions, and no concrete proposals. I would suggest that if he/she doesn't "offer suggestions that are specific and actionable" in the next 24 hours, we close this discussion. PiCo (talk) 04:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I am in no hurry to close this, and I advise not getting hung up on discussing whether a tag should be removed. When all agree on the content, all will agree on removing the tag. Let me try this: First, Andrevan says "the article still appears not to explain the various minority and majority positions" I was under the impression that everyone agreed to do that, that it hasn't been completed, but is being worked on on the article talk page. Would it be helpful to have that discussion here, where I can mediate? Second, is the rough consensus now a WP:1AM situation. or are there editors who support Andrevan's position but are not making a lot of noise about it? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

As I said above, it's hard to accommodate Andrevan when she fails to put forward concrete proposals. As for one-against-many, there aren't many left, just me and Ignocrates and Andrevan. PiCo (talk) 08:44, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Guy, this gets back to the points Andrevan made in his opening statement: essentially that policy triumphs over consensus. This is the bureaucrats dream. It won't matter if two editors are in agreement here, or 10, or 100. That's also why it's pointless to have an RfC. Whatever result comes of it will simply be dismissed as violating policy. How do you want to proceed? Ignocrates (talk) 13:22, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Fwiw, Ret.Prof left a note on his talk page saying he considers all content issues to be resolved. diff Therefore, I don't think we can expect him to return to DRN. Of course, that doesn't mean it should be stopped. Ignocrates (talk) 16:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

It seems that we agreed on a general compromise but when push came to shove, the position of PiCo and Ignocrates was that the article is largely OK as-is. That's not really a compromise. One thing I would like to see is an explanation of the term Markan priority, what it means, how it impacts Matthew, and what are the alternatives to it. We should also explicitly mention which scholars are advocating this in the text. E.g. Davies and Allison like Markan priority, but some church father in 1806 didn't like it. Obviously chronological is better. I'm happy to be BOLD and add this material, but last time I did that I was reverted promptly. Andrevan@ 14:00, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

One thing I would like to see is an explanation of the term Markan priority,

(1)In English 'Markan priority' means Mark precedes the other gospels. The way this impacts Matthew is mentioned three times on the page.

(a:Lead)According to the majority of modern scholars, the author drew on three main sources to compose his gospel: the Gospel of Mark,'...

(b: Source section)The majority view of modern scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be composed and that Matthew (who includes some 600 of Mark's 661 verses) and Luke both drew upon it as a major source for their works.[11][12] If so, the author of Matthew did not, however, simply copy Mark, but edited his source freely, emphasizing Jesus' place in the Jewish tradition and adding large blocks of teaching

(c:Christological development)Matthew is a creative reinterpretation of Mark

We should also explicitly mention which scholars are advocating this in the text.

I don't think a list of 7al thousand people working in scholarship over the last century would be appropriate.Nishidani (talk) 14:16, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I just reviewed the article, article talk page, and the talk pages of everyone involved. It doesn't look like there is going to be an agreement, so unless anyone objects I am going to close this case as being unresolved and recommend that the content dispute be resolved though an WP:RFC on the article talk page. This will also open the door for anyone who wishes to pursue one of the user conduct venues listed at WP:DRR -- those can go on at the same time as an RFC. I will be available to give technical guidance regarding where to go with any further content or conduct disputes, but it would not be appropriate for me to take sides. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree. This is no longer a productive use of your time. If Ret.Prof now agrees that the content issue is resolved, per his talk page comment, this comes down to a one-person dispute with Andrevan. An RfC is certainly an option to be considered, and we should discuss that on the article talk page. Thanks for all your hard work! Ignocrates (talk) 21:54, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Hm, I must say I'm disappointed with the outcome here. I'm not sure why Ret. Prof fled the encyclopedia, but clearly I am not the only individual who sees the issue here, since Felix Bosch was just reverted in an edit war with Nishidani yesterday. How we solve the issue is certainly subject to consensus, and I don't appreciate the characterization by Ignocrates. Nonetheless, thank you for your help Guy Macon, and I certainly see how you might see this as an intractable problem. I think it is solvable, but let's wait and see if my latest edit to the article will be reverted by PiCo, StAnselm, et al. Andrevan@ 00:52, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

If anyone has an alternative wording concerning the date of the book, as opposed to the current wording, which is that the majority view is 80-90 AD, with a minority supporting earlier authorship, please propose the alternative wording on the talk page, and an RFC can be published. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

• I am closing this as "failed". There are other venues that can help: WP:DRR is a good guide for that. For the content dispute, a WP:RFC seems like the best choice.

For the conduct disputes that I have been ignoring the details of, I advise choosing the venue with care -- it might be a good idea to run an issue past WP:ANI before going to Arbcom.

Finally, I want to than everyone involved for being so cooperative and agreeable. It has been a pleasure working with you on this. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Talk:Natural number (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• I don't know who keeps reverting it. (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

The other editor does not talk or discuss, but just reverts the page.

The issue is fairly simple, today in mathematics we define natural numbers as 0,1,2, .. and counting numbers as 1,2,3, ... In fact this already appeared lower down in the article. This isn't a matter of opinion, it is just the modern convention as taught at universities and found in most all modern references, some mentioned on the talk pages, some at the bottom of the article.

However, the other editor would like to use the wikipedia page as a tool to end the current convention in favor or his or her own preference of not including zero with natural numbers. Some people just have it in for zero, and this has been the case for centuries ;-)

On the talk page I invited this other editor to add a paragraph describing a modern school of mathematics that defines natural numbers without 0, but he did not reply, and just reverted the article again.

I speculate that the other editor has a more serious vested interest, perhaps having been involved in an erroneous didactic publication and is now using wikipedia to lend false credibility to that other work. This is why he can not discuss the issue on the talk pages. I do not know him or her, this is just speculation of a consistent interpretation.

It is true that a convention is not the same as universal adoption, but it is wrong to keep the convention hidden to as to falsely create the impression that the convention does not exist. This is a an encyclopedia article giving information, not a springboard for new ideas. Because a convention is not universal, there is room in the article for a description of natural numbers without zero, indeed the article has a long section on this already, too long perhaps.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I've tried to start a conversation on the talk page, but it is ignored.

How do you think we can help?

Beats me, what can you do? ;-) Surely there is a point to this dispute process. We are probably all busy people, surely there is a better way than daily page updates. ... (I took an interest in this after my junior school aged son had difficulty with a math lesson after not understanding the current page. We shouldn't be including such people in an esoteric debate - rather just giving the direct information. It is an encyclopedia article after all.)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Gamergate controversy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• NorthBySouthBaranof (talk · contribs)
• Ryulong (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Multiple users have requested that NorthBySouthBaranof and Ryulong cease editing the "Gamergate controversy" page due to heated statements they have made against supporters of Gamergate. They are the two most frequent editors of the Gamergate page and the common denominator of the edit wars which always occur before the article is blocked. NorthBySouthBaranof has suggested he is protecting the page against "single purpose accounts", though according to an analysis only one of the accounts which made edits within 500 pages was created after July (the first events which triggered this controversy occurred in August of this year). When I requested Ryulong allow other users take a more prominent role editing the article, he deleted my comment and requested I "leave [him] alone". Since he seems uninterested in conversing with me, I will request another user notify him of this dispute.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I, and others, have suggested that both users either stop editing the article or tone down the frequency of their edits. In the spirit of this I have also recused myself from any further edits to the article.

How do you think we can help?

Providing a neutral ground where we can reach an agreement on this matter.

Decline to participate. The requesting user has 87 total edits on en.wiki, fewer than 1/3 of which are in articlespace and all of which are related to Gamergate since returning to active editing a week ago. The user is not remotely uninvolved and has no business requesting that I cease editing anything. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:38, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• User talk:Djbutala93 (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Djbutala93 (talk · contribs)
• Alansohn (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

There is a disagreement on whether or not the position of deputy mayor should be added to the article Galloway Township, NJ.

The other user, Alansohn states that since no other articles pertaining to municipalities in New Jersey have the position listed and that the position bears no relevance. My argument is that the deputy mayor serves numerous important function in Galloway Township, NJ and that every article on related topics on Wikipedia do not have to follow the same format. Overall, I feel that the above mentioned article is entitled to have the position listed above due to the numerous important functions of that position and that every article on Wikipedia is entitled to be unique in terms of content.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I have tried to work out a consensus with the other user on this and other previous disagreements. However, the other user has returned every few months and reverted my edits without notice despite reaching a consensus on our edits to the article.

How do you think we can help?

To request that the page and content stand that I added, remain in the article, in exchange for me not reverting his edits on other content that I do not agree with.

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Talk:Gonzalo Lira (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Lfrankbalm (talk · contribs)
• MILH (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Minor edits are required in regards to the biography of Gonzalo Lira as described extensively in the talk page. Any edit, minor or otherwise, will be deleted including calls for discussion or consensus. Have listed the reasons why some of the details within the biography need to be changed. The biography entry has been "owned" since 2006.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Posted to Biographies of Living Persons Notice Board to have the entry deleted. Posted request for input regarding NPOV to have that request deleted. Provided chronology of attempts at resolution on talk. Suggested to MILH that we find some common ground as to the changes. Attempted to have a dialog with the user.

How do you think we can help?

I think we need to address the ownership issue by making it evident. Second, we need to agree to have any notice posted on the Lira Biography or other notice boards stay intact. Third, we need to ask MILH to review the concerns listed in talk on a factual basis. Forth, minor changes do need to be made to the biography.

Hi all. Okay, I'll be happy to try to mediate this. JacobiJonesJr (talk) 05:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

So what exactly are the minor edits you wish to add, LFRANK? let's just get it out there— there is a lot of emotion on the talk on the talk page, let's look at the data bit by bit here, the data is all we are going talk about. JacobiJonesJr (talk) 05:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Administrative Note: Generally cases are not opened until most or all of the participants have submitted a summary of what they perceive the dispute to be. In this case there are only two participants and only one of them (the filing party) has posted any comments. A mediation requires the participation of at least two parties who are in dispute with one another.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 23:33, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see the other editor has begun to participate. Very good. Please carry on with your moderation and let me know if I can be of any assistance.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:21, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. JacobiJonesJr (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

the edits are in fact minor - I will illustrate the issues and concerns from easy to hard.

1)-St Georges College is an elementary, high school, or preparatory school ^[1] The issue and concern is not listing the school in and of itself. The issue is that it is presented in a way whereby US readers might falsely assume that Lira has a primary degree from St. Georges College with postgraduate education then following at Dartmouth. Does a high school belong? What about the pedigree obtained by attending an elite or private kindergarten?^[2]

Yes this is a frequent issue between other countries and the US; It's actually more of a confusion between British English and American English, with the word 'college.' I agree. But a minor edit is not defined as this in Wikipedia. JacobiJonesJr (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

2)-In re Dartmouth College, I cannot find a graduation date of any kind. I think he graduated in 1995 with a BA in history and philosophy ^[3] A date has to be requested in regards to Dartmouth or a degree listed; or the entry needs to be changed to "attended Dartmouth"

at the moment there is no mention of graduation. JacobiJonesJr (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

3)-"His eponymous blog was consistently ranked in the top ten business and economic websites during 2011.[7]" We have had three editors take issue with entry for a variety of reasons. "-Owner deleted edits from ‎Ravensfire -Owner deleted edits from Ebyabe" In any regards this is not a credible source being a hobby site of a pump product salesmen^[4], not having been updated for over a year, with the statistics being both of low numerical quantity for the period selected 16K and subjective. If this was not a living person the standards might be lower. The best solution is to omit this entry to the consensus finding.

Also, what does the "top ten" mean here? It doesn't mean best, it means most visited. This needs to be changed, and the other editors are right.JacobiJonesJr (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

-Lira's Alexa Rank is 1,531,111^[5]

4)-"in the 2010–12 period," this date range is factually incorrect (see 2014 below) and all that is needed to correct is to omit. He made numerous appearances as a pundit".... I would replace pundit with guest but that is a fine point.

5)-Harder: What is the vocation? 3 books, 2 films (both self produced one listed), english tutor, TV Writer, blIgging. The Tarpley example is very good for a variety of reasons. ^[6] We have concise and clear eduction, we have a resume-chronology, and guest appearances on various outlets with a summary of what his opinions are in each case, then we have a Bibliography of the books he authored. What is good about this is that the reader gets to decide. I suggest with Lira that since we don't know what his vocation is that it be omitted with the appearances and Bibliography speaking for themselves.

What are the things that are relevent, I don't think things like English tutor are necessary. He is without a doubt a blogger, and a filmmaker.

6)-Appearances as a guest or as a writer. The most important opinion piece for Lira as a blogger was his prediction of hyper-inflation^[7] In 2010 with 96,000 hits. What is important is the prediction, which has not so far occurred. What is important is that he reiterated that prediction in January 2014 on a TV media outlet called Russia Today ^[8] Popularity of a single article (measured to 96K views) is not as important today as is the track record. It is even more important that the readers know that he still has confidence in the opinion given it can never be disproved.

These are 'subjunctive' ideas. Wikipedia is not a place to point out flaws, unless those flaws are notable and the consensus is that the information is relevant. Perhaps he was wrong in his prediction, it is not our place to say that- it is our place to present the facts, the reader will draw the conclusions. This is the whole 'nuetrality' idea.

---In this venue there seems to be a confusion between facts and opinion; Opinion pieces they are being provided by a full spectrum of people credentialed or not.

7)-Generally I would put more weight on his blogging, it being more current activity, by listing a key appearance with references for each one; Lira appeared on XXXX on x and suggested that xxxxxx <reference> and have a list of only the most important opinions. I would add a section called Bibliography where films (of which one is missing), video games, and books are presented. In each case the ISBN would let readers find out more about the book/movie if they wanted to.

8)- Somewhere, I would also include a link from "The Dartmouth" ^[9] either in the bibliography or in the appearance section because he has mentioned it many many times. ^[10] Ironically the reference I just found (self authored) confirms "high school" in Chile.

9)- Is Genealogy in any way relevant here? Lira is not Chelsea Clinton

10)-Is popularity relevant here? Lira is not Kim Kardashian

-Lira speaks in a venue that is not mainstream, and thus he is not really popular.

I would call him notable.JacobiJonesJr (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

11)-A key feature to present a list of neutral things that let the reader decide. Res Ipsa Loquitur - Let it speak for itself.

Yes, my point exactly. JacobiJonesJr (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

PS: I don't hate Lira. Nor do I have any animosity towards MILH who wrote the initial entry in 2006, and I understand that it would be hard to have what held for a very long time be challenged by a random outsider. It would be great if MILH could find four or five key appearances or articles. It would certainly be less effort than maintaining the status quo, an unproductive conflict. BTW, Goaltending "the violation of interfering"^[11]

Lfrankbalm (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2014 (UTC)lfrankbalmLfrankbalm (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, but Wikipedia cannot be helped. As a reader I did not realize the pervasive lack of fact that became quite evident when you started to edit a few entries. So Bye! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lfrankbalm (talk • contribs) 13:12, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Before either of you do any reverts or additions(I am adding disclaimers to your talk pages), we'll put them here. Everything out in the open, short and sweet. JacobiJonesJr (talk) 05:55, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

From MILH — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lfrankbalm (talk • contribs) 10:23, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

First off, and most relevant, LFrankbalm has been sock-puppeting and vandalizing the entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gonzalo_Lira#Troll_Using_Sock_Puppets_Vandalizing_This_Entry. He/She seems to have a personal grudge with the subject of the piece.

Second, LFrank's changes consistently try to belittle Lira. Not only that, in the talk page, LFrank goes on and on about his personal feelings towards Lira. Is this the kind of crap we want on Wikipedia?

Lastly, others have been editing the entry, and I haven't been goaltending them. I'm only reverting LFrank's (and his sock-puppets) because of his clear animus towards the subject.

—MILH (talk) 12:25, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Question to MILH, why do you think the Ivy League information should be added? JacobiJonesJr (talk) 23:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Note from volunteer moderator: I am helping MILH edit the page to standards, but the discussion has become confusing because of poor formatting, and with interjection of messages between other messages; I don't know if DR is going to help—I'll keep an eye on the Gonzalo Lira page, but perhaps this discussion should be closed.JacobiJonesJr (talk) 22:29, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Administrative note: Hi Jacobi, you are in control of the format of this thread. If editors have not followed proper formatting then you may move comments and instruct the participants not to place comments within the comments of others. I would also suggest you remind MILH that DRN (just like article talk pages) is a place for discussion of content only and he/she should not be making comments about other editors, especially comments of bad faith or accusations such a: " I'm only reverting LFrank's (and his sock-puppets) because of his clear animus towards the subject."

At the same time, if you feel the discussion has stalled or is no longer productive you may declare the case as "Failed" and close it. If you need assistance let me know. Best, -- — Keithbob • Talk • 17:05, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

And to add to what KB says, you might want to take note that the Control of mediation section of the Mediation Policy is broad enough to apply to DRN cases, though I'd strongly recommend that it be used only rarely and only after telling the parties that you're invoking it. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:31, 3 October 2014 (UTC) (current DRN coordinator)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.