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| Unassigned | |||||
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| Adi Da | 15 February 2010 | ||||
| Assigned | |||||
| Diablada |
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3 December 2009 | |||
| Monty Hall problem |
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22 January 2010 | |||
| Zeno's paradoxes |
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1 January 2010 | |||
| On Hold | |||||
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Formal mediation is an advanced stage of Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. Requests for mediation is used by a party to a complex dispute to propose to the Committee and to the other parties of the disagreement that formal mediation be attempted. The Mediation Committee will only consider disagreements over encyclopedia content—rather than user conduct or actions—and that have remained unresolved after undergoing earlier processes of dispute resolution. (Further guidance is given later.)
Mediation is a formal but voluntary process which does not impose resolutions to a dispute on the parties (arbitrates or adjudicates) but rather guides the parties through discussions towards a remedy acceptable to all (facilitates). To file a request for mediation, please skip to #To file a request. Mediation is a process which is only workable with a willingness on the part of all involved to participate; as such, after filing a request, every party must indicate his acceptance within seven days on the case page in order for the dispute to be eligible for mediation.
For a guide to filing a request for mediation, see this page.
File a request
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- To file a request for mediation
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- Go to Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/File, and use the request creation box.
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- Before filing a request
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- Please read the guide to filing a case and list of common reasons cases are rejected before filing a request.
- Check that the dispute has already been through prior informal dispute resolution (e.g., an article request for comment, a Mediation Cabal case, or similar) before requesting formal mediation.
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- After filing the request
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- Notify all the parties to the case of the Request for mediation (using the text {{Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/OpenNote}} or this utility). All parties must agree to the mediation within seven days or it will not be accepted.
- Please consider watchlisting the case page, as a member of the Mediation Committee may put queries to the parties or submit further suggestions.
New requests
| New requests are listed in this section automatically by MediationBot. |
| Please don't list your case by hand; the Committee has provided a Mediation request box for convenient listing above. (Even trivial changes to this page are liable to break the case management bot.) |
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Involved parties
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- Filing party: you must serve all of these editors with notifications. See here for instructions.
Articles involved
Other steps in dispute resolution that have been attempted
- Request for comment
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- Filing party: Please ensure you have fully read this guide before filing.
Issues to be mediated
- The party filing this request uses this section to list the issues for mediation. Other parties can list additional issues in the section below.
- Issue 1: What the lead should reflect: its, mission, activities, and board, or ties and comparisons to AIPAC?
- Issue 2: If part of a sentence should should be repeated twice in the article.
- Issue 3: If criticism from The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy should be in the criticism section or as a part of the article's neutral text.
- Issue 4: If a commentator's comparison of WINEP's activities to AIPAC's should be included even if the content is potentially erroneous.
- Issue 5: If the group should be labeled "pro-Israel" in the lead or if details of policy orientation on a given issue of theirs should be described in the policy orientation section of the article.
Additional issues to be mediated
- Other parties can use this section to list any others issues they wish to include in the mediation. Please do not modify or remove any other party's listing. Please sign all additions to this section if there are more than two parties involved in this case.
- Additional issue 1.
- Additional issue 2.
Parties' agreement to mediate
- All parties should sign below, indicating that they agree to mediate the issue. If any party fails to sign within seven days, or if a party indicates they do not agree, then the mediation will be rejected. Only "Agree" or "Disagree" and signatures should appear here; any comments will be removed, but can be made at the talk page.
Decision of the Mediation Committee
- A member of the Mediation Committee will indicate acceptance/rejection/other relevant notes in this section. Non-Committee members should not edit this section; all comments should go on the talk page, unless a party is specifically requested to reply here by a Committee member.
Bethel Lutheran Church (Manassas, VA)
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(After a reasonable period, this page will be deleted by an administrator.) |
Involved parties
- User:K1Goalie, filing party
- User:Ttonyb1
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- Filing party: you must serve all of these editors with notifications. See here for instructions.
Articles involved
Other steps in dispute resolution that have been attempted
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- Filing party: Please ensure you have fully read this guide before filing.
Issues to be mediated
- The party filing this request uses this section to list the issues for mediation. Other parties can list additional issues in the section below.
- Ttonyb1 is asserting that the history is copyrighted, it is not, I am on the church council and we assert no copyright of the obvious history of the church Ttonyb1 will not accept that.
- Ttonyb1 instantly marked the page for deletion when it was less than 15 minutes old, I don't get that in the wiki culture, he deletes first asks question second.
- Ttonyb1 marked the article as a conflict of interest just because I was involved, there is no text whatsoever that issues opinion or is non-factual. —Preceding unsigned comment added by K1goalie (talk • contribs) 01:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Additional issues to be mediated
- Other parties can use this section to list any others issues they wish to include in the mediation. Please do not modify or remove any other party's listing. Please sign all additions to this section if there are more than two parties involved in this case.
- Issue 1
- Issue 2
Parties' agreement to mediate
- All parties should sign below, indicating that they agree to mediate the issue. If any party fails to sign within seven days, or if a party indicates they do not agree, then the mediation will be rejected. Only "Agree" or "Disagree" and signatures should appear here; any comments will be removed, but can be made at the talk page.
- Agree. K1goalie (talk) 01:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- Disagree ttonyb (talk) 03:23, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
Decision of the Mediation Committee
- A member of the Mediation Committee will indicate acceptance/rejection/other relevant notes in this section. Non-Committee members should not edit this section; all comments should go on the talk page, unless a party is specifically requested to reply here by a Committee member.
Adi Da
Involved parties
- tao2911 (talk · contribs), filing party
- David Starr 1 (talk · contribs)
- Jason Riverdale (talk · contribs)
- Devanagari108 (talk · contribs)
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- Filing party: you must serve all of these editors with notifications. See here for instructions.
Articles involved
Other steps in dispute resolution that have been attempted
- Example link 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Adi_Da/ see "third party dispute"
- Example link 2.
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- Filing party: Please ensure you have fully read this guide before filing.
Issues to be mediated
- The party filing this request uses this section to list the issues for mediation. Other parties can list additional issues in the section below.
- Issue 1. David Starr 1 was not involved in editing for some months during which a lot of editing took place, with editors with differing viewpoints reaching consensus. Starr 1 appeared without comment or stating position and placed a POV alert tag on page, and has since been uncooperative in making consensual edits in order to remove POV label. David Starr 1 is a follower of controversial religious leader profiled in page, and is unwilling to allow proportionate material explaining reasons for this figure's controversial reputation, as reflected in dozens of tertiary sources.
- Issue 2. Tao2911 will not allow Starr 1 to remove cited information regarding profiled figure, and there is a disagreement regarding "proportionality" of sources re: "controversial" info; also dispute re: viability of sources, with Tao2911 generally fighting to maintain sources, and Starr 1 trying to remove those he sees as negative toward subject, despite contextualization of source info.
Additional issues to be mediated
- Other parties can use this section to list any others issues they wish to include in the mediation. Please do not modify or remove any other party's listing. Please sign all additions to this section if there are more than two parties involved in this case.
- Additional issue 1.
- Tao 2911 misrepresents my position with regards to Adi Da. My statement regarding this has been posted at my user page [[1]] since August 2008.
- Adi Da founded the new religious movement called Adidam. He also became a critically acclaimed artist and writer. There are many things to cover about his life and work. A part of his story has to do with public controversy that arose in 1985.
- It is alleged that in January 1985, disgruntled former members of the Adi Da church sent the church a letter demanding $5.2 million dollars. They said that if their demands were not met, they might "undertake to destroy" the church. (Source: MIll Valley Record, April 17th, 1985, "Da Free John Sect Sues Ex-Members on Extortion Charge") In April of 1985, a local media campaign that lasted a few weeks announced the filing of a lawsuit that the media was calling the "sex-slave suit". The lawsuit affadavit was the source of many salacious claims and asked for 5.2 million dollars. The Sausalito attorney who wrote the affadavit , David Cunningham, who resigned from the bar in 2001 in the face of misconduct violations , later died broke, a transient, and before Marin County authorities could bring Fraud charges against him in April of 2006. (Source: Marin Independent Journal , May 2 2006, "New Twists in Case of Tiburon Bleeding Death" ) The lawsuit was later thrown out of court due to lack of evidence, but a settlement was also reached. So there are two sides to this rather complex story.
- This lawsuit and the media campaign associated with it is the only event in the history of the church where mainstream sources have printed allegations of "Adi Da forcing members to engage in psychologically, sexually and physically abusive and humiliating behavior, as well accusing the church of committing tax fraud." And for it's part the Adi Da church did admit to sexual experimentation, but said no one was forced, and no laws were broken.
- Since that time however, an Anti-Adi Da, hate based website appeared that posted all of the negative coverage from 1985 and included a chat-room where anonymous posters could post their comments on Adi Da. From this process many more salacious claims surfaced. This website has since changed it's format and removed the articles. [2] However it was used as a source for some fringe print sources and another website emerged more recently that archived many of the anonymous posts from the chat-room still giving new life to the controversy, [3]. This site carries a heavy disclaimer: [4] Many of these posts are highly inflammatory and if one believes them, could become very upset.
- From my POV, the Adi Da article should cover the 1985 controversy, but with proper weight and neutrality considering not only prominence criterion, per WP:UNDUE, but also considering event importance to the subject. From WP:UNDUE: "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and neutral, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic."
- I find that in it's current form the article is full of injected bias that uses mainstream sources from the 1985 media campaign and then fringe sources to repeatedly bring up negative assertions about Adi Da as though in each instance they were separate events. It's a sort of shotgun effect using one shell to make many holes.
- Instead I feel that it is up to Wikipedians to use the Wiki process to sort this all out and present a well-sourced, neutral article that is a service to people looking for information on this subject. As such we must purge ourselves from representing any bias either way.
- Tao2911 states that in his opinion "90%, of the independent tertiary information available on Adi Da concerns the controversy surrounding him" [[5]] and I believe this opinion drives him to feel that the entire article should be peppered with references that support the claim that this controversy and the behaviors alleged were true, proven, and on-going throughout Adi Da's life. But in fact there are no reliable sources to support such a claim.
- The most recent somewhat mainstream media account (alternative newspaper but with editorial staff) focusing on Adi Da was in 1999 from Humboldt Counties North Coast Journal, in which I count 8 critical paragraphs and 50 neutral ones. [6] While they do bring up the 1985 controversy right away, they do not focus on it, nor do they make the inference that these allegations were ongoing, as the current WP article seems to infer. David Starr 1 (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- Additional issue 2.
- Sourcing and "source stacking" has become an issue. When I have brought a challenge to a particular passage with NPOV concerns regarding weight and proportionality, the response from Tao2911 has been instead of seeking consensus, he stacks multiple sources next to the challenged statement, even though each source does not verify the statement in full, but perhaps instead, some aspect of the statement. Such as in the lead section, "In later years, while he continued to garner praise for his ideas, he was also criticized for what some perceived as his increased isolation, eccentric behavior, and cult-like community.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]" "
- Who are the some who perceive this? And the sourcing is either questionable sources, or sources from 1985. When you review the sources, some may express the opinion that Adi Da was isolated, but most if any do not say that he was eccentric or that his community was a cult. So in this instance I believe that the whole edit is pushing a POV and may be engaging in synthesis . There was already a summary of the controversies section in the lead. So now we have the lead saying that Adi Da was eccentric, isolated, cult-like, and was accused of financial, sexual and emotional abuses. I think the lead now is biased due to this inclusion. David Starr 1 (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- Additional issue 3.
- "Beginning during a phase known as the "Garbage and the Goddess" in 1974 (the underlying philosophy of which was documented in a book of his lectures by the same title), Bubba Free John began employing a method of teaching he called "crazy wisdom", including directing his followers in "spiritual theater", a form of "psychodrama" that often involved public and group sex, the making of pornographic movies and other intensified sexual practices. Drug and alcohol use were often encouraged. These techniques were said to be used in order to help "shock" students into insights regarding neurotic patterns and attachments.[41][42][43][44][45]"
- Once again there is the stacking of sources even though the majority of these sources do not mention anything about " public and group sex, the making of pornographic movies". The only mainstream sources are from the 1985 controversy, the rest are fringe or questionable. The overuse of quotation marks lend a non-neutral tone. The amount of detail could be a way of injecting bias as well. Once again the 1985 controversy is being treated as another separate event within the article. I believe this is a violation of NPOV. David Starr 1 (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- Additional issue 4.
- Recently, without consensus, Tao2911 merged the controversies section with the biography section. [[7]] He then amplified the contentious claims, used source stacking, and without consensus, removed information regarding the churches counter-claim of extortion. [[8]]
- These edits are a clear example of POV pushing in my opinion. Removing well sourced information thereby making it impossible for the reader to make up his own mind. David Starr 1 (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- I hope that Tao2911 does not now, having seen this argument, make changes to the article. We have an agreement not to do this as it undermines our ability to determine these issues as set forth. Thanks for your time and effort. I appreciate your making this process available. David Starr 1 (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
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- Note: Since filing this request for mediation, Tao2911 has made over 130 edits to the Adi Da article. [[9]] He ignores requests for consensus while demanding it of others. This makes it very difficult to have a consideration regarding content since he is always changing content on his own, while denying this right to others. David Starr 1 (talk) 21:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I simply find so much of this to be useless hearsay (we are not retrying the case on Adi Da in 1985, so the paragraph about the lawyer is especially perplexing), and simply not born out by the page, that I am reluctant to respond to each point. I will only say that I have recently been moving some citations to more specific locations in passages in question, cleaned up some citations that were left from previous versions/edits and needed to be culled, have added footnotes in many cases to show source passage, and in a couple of cases have removed sources Starr found unacceptable because I have gained access to better root source texts that provide no room for dispute.
The primary texts for the page are now:
-New Religions in America, a 3 editor, two-dozen writer, 5 volume encyclopedia of the kind recommended as ideal by WP.
-Holy Madness, by Georg Feuerstein, 1992. Feuerstein is the preeminent scholar of yoga/Hindu traditions in the US, with many dozens of books in print. he was a one time admirer of Adi Da, and this 1992 book reflects a balanced admiration while explaining that his "crazy wisdom" teachings are radical by nature, and controversial. Many of the passages contested above by Starr are virtual quotes from this book. He had inside access to Adi Da, and the seeming tacit approval of the community for his chapter on Adi Da. GF changed his opinion years later, and a 2006 edition is more critical as he admits in the introduction to it. This is discussed in the entry in 'reception' section. 2006 entry is used not at all or sparingly, and then contextualized as such.
-Different editions of Da's own autobio, the early editions of which contain much info excised from later versions.
-News stories, the bulk of which are from 1985 sex abuse allegations and exposes on the community. These again are contextualized to deal with the periods in question, and are not used to provide general info on Adi Da's bio or philosophy etc. Much of the material in stories deals with a period spanning a decade ('74-86), and all of it relates to the practice of the religion, so there is some overlap. It is not compartmentalized into "a couple disgruntled followers sued the guru." Allegations were widespread, as were admissions of sexual experimentation by the church, and controversy was devastating to the community and guru, as other source accounts report (Holy Madness, New Religions.)
There are a few others, including Da books often recommended by a follower in 'talk' who knows the lit well, and we have worked together to include passages to clarify teachings. but these other sources are not heavily relied upon. Those listed above are primary.
There is not a single citation or allegation that comes from these websites Starr speaks of, and I have spent little time wasted looking there, as I want this entry to work per WP standards.
I have made changes in order to actually address some of Starr's concerns (like condensing 'allegations' section into bio to remove needless repetition of said allegations - before this mediation request). Recent edits are of the kind I explain above - citations, footnotes, clarifying language in line with tertiary sources acquired, etc.
I maintain the entry reflects available information in much the same proportion it is presented in an overview of that info - most of which I have read in researching this entry. The majority of news stories of course deal with controversy - but that info is presented as such, and is not more than 25% of total entry. Adi Da was controversial, as the first line states, and the entry must say why. it does so in a balanced an neutral fashion - everything is cited, and sources are within standards.
I really have nothing more to say than that. I think it will take review by outside parties to resolve this. Tao2911 (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Parties' agreement to mediate
- All parties should sign below, indicating that they agree to mediate the issue. If any party fails to sign within seven days, or if a party indicates they do not agree, then the mediation will be rejected. Only "Agree" or "Disagree" and signatures should appear here; any comments will be removed, but can be made at the talk page.
- Agree. Tao2911 (talk) 02:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Agree. Devanagari108 (talk) 22:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
- Agree. David Starr 1 (talk) 21:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
- AgreeJason Riverdale (talk) 01:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Decision of the Mediation Committee
- A member of the Mediation Committee will indicate acceptance/rejection/other relevant notes in this section. Non-Committee members should not edit this section; all comments should go on the talk page, unless a party is specifically requested to reply here by a Committee member.
Accept I will get a mediator onto this ASAP.
For the Mediation Committee. Seddon talk|WikimediaUK 01:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Recently rejected requests
- Requests that have been recently rejected by the Committee will be linked below. All rejected cases are eventually moved to a separate archive, which can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Archives (under "Rejected requests").
1st Armoured Division (Poland)
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- Rejected 7 January 2010
Orgasmic meditation
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- Rejected 17 January 2010
Israel
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- Rejected 29 January 2010
Kate Winslet
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- Rejected 5 February 2010
Raza blanca
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- Rejected 15 February 2010
Nayar – a caste from the South Indian state of Kerala
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- Rejected 15 February 2010
Editors deleting appropriate content under news and media sources for Caribbean
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- Rejected 15 February 2010
Avraham Debresser Newman Luke
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- Rejected 25 February 2010
Nayar-content dispute-3O and consensus failed
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- Rejected 2 March 2010
Bethel Lutheran Church (Manassas, VA)
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- Rejected 2 March 2010
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Previous requests for mediation are indexed on the box on the right.
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