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Case Opened on 11:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Case Closed on 22:37, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Case Amended (by motion) on 21:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Case Amended (by motion) on 11:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Review opened on 21:35, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Review closed on 01:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Case Amended by motion on 23:36, 24 September 2012

Case Amended by motion on 09:07, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Case Amended by motion on 09:00, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Case Amended by motion at 12:48, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Case amended by motion on 02:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Case amended by motion on 15:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Case amended by motion on 21:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Case amended by motion on 10:59, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Case amended by motion on 21:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Please do not edit this page directly unless you are either 1) an Arbitrator, 2) an Arbitration Clerk, or 3) adding yourself to this case. Statements on this page are original comments provided when the Committee was initially requested to Arbitrate this page (at Requests for arbitration), and serve as opening statements; as such, they should not be altered. Any evidence you wish to provide to the Arbitrators should go on the /Evidence subpage.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

Once the case is closed, editors may add to the #Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions as needed, but this page should not be edited otherwise. Please raise any questions at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Requests for clarification, and report violations of remedies at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement.

Involved parties[edit]

List of removed parties
Non-administrators, with little activity

Statement by Rvcx[edit]

There seem to be three major issues here:

  1. If an otherwise reliable secondary source summarizes and interprets a primary source about (or by) a living person, but there is reason to believe that the summary mischaracterizes the primary source, how should that summary be handled? (Most, but not all, of the race and intelligence content disputes take this form.) My concerns are expressed here and here; the two sides ("we can't second-guess secondary sources" vs. "we must exclude secondary sources if we can show that they're wrong") have been talking past each other for months, and it's clear that no consensus will emerge in any forum.
  2. The WP:CPUSH and WP:SPA essays have become excuses to completely disregard one of the five pillars of Wikipedia, to the extent that administrators don't consider dismissal of other editors' input, personal attacks, and assumptions of bad faith to be blockable offenses if they are couched in those essays' terms. Such tolerance of incivility has escalated to truly ridiculous levels.
  3. There seems to be an unwritten rule that particularly skilled and prolific editors are entitled to ignore policy, including all aspects of collaborative editing in terms of civility and explicitly rejecting WP:BITE; admins are reluctant to block valuable editors. While this approach may maintain a steady stream of contributions in the short term, I worry that it will have dire long-term consequences. The sheer number of AN/I threads about Mathsci's behavior ([1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]) demonstrates that the status quo isn't working.

Until some agreement over the use of sources can be established and civility restored (with infringements punished), it seems the race and intelligence articles will continue to be nothing but edit-wars, name-calling, and forum-shopping.

Note on my ignorance (and lack of intent to make accusations) regarding the "involved parties" list here.

Statement by named, but uninvolved, Arthur Rubin[edit]

If the below-mentioned editor is uninvolved, then so am I. However, I'm willing to make a comment and become involved.

I disagree as to the proper scope of the arbitration. I can neither confirm nor deny that the filing party's point 1 is a problem; I recall the content problem as being the question of whether certain individuals are experts, for the purpose of deciding whether their published books (from non-scientific publishers) are reliable. Consensus, there, was possible, but unlikely.

If accepted, I would urge the arbitrators to reconsider the filing party's points 2 and 3, adding the question whether a civil WP:GANG can be allowed to take over an article, to the point of harassing other editors into making uncivil comments or edit warring, and then attacking their credibility or attempting to prevent them from editing in the subject. I quite agree that harassment is not an excuse for uncivil behavior, but the harassment must be sanctioned if competent editors are to be retained in controversial subjects.

It might be pointed out that I don't think I'm involved in editing the article any more, only in noting the attacks of the WP:GANG (including the "mediator") on User:Mathsci and other editors, having driven away all other editors not members of the WP:GANG (including me). and in questioning whether all of the alleged "uncivil" comments by Mathsci really are uncivil.

I should add that I consider the editor who states he is an expert, and is quoting his (published) expert opinions on talk pages, to be blameless, although possibly mistaken in his beliefs. He wasn't named by the filing party, and I would encourage him to be invited to comment, but not named as a party.

(It should also be pointed out that I was opposed to the essay WP:GANG when it was first proposed, but I'm starting to see the reasoning. My apologies to the essay creator.)

To Mathsci:
Although I tend to agree the matter is premature, it might be better to rewrite your contribution as stating what you think might be the subject of an appropriate ARBCOM complaint, as I did. You're better able to comment on the content issues (such as the filing party's point 1) than I am.
To Mathsci's comment about other users
The unnamed editor above seems to now have been added. Sorry about that. I still don't think he's "involved".

Statement by Mathsci[edit]

As already explained on the the page of the last Cambridge wiki meetup, I am heavily involved in marking examinations and essays for Part III of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos between Thursday 3 June and Monday 7 June, so probably will not be able to make detailed comments immediately. I apologize that real life has intervened like this.

For some time now a group of single purpose editors has acted in concert to add material to wikipedia articles overrepresenting the minority point of view that it is a proven scientific fact that the negroid (black) "race" has lower "general inteligence" on average than the caucasoid (white) "race" for genetic reasons connected with "race". The single purpose accounts include Captain Occam (talk · contribs), David.Kane (talk · contribs), Mikemikev (talk · contribs), Distributivejustice (talk · contribs), Varoon Arya (talk · contribs) and Victor Chmara (talk · contribs). Their editing involves tag teaming, to create a false consensus by force of numbers, WP:CPUSH, endlessly to prolong discussion of fairly minor points, as well as misinterpreting editing policy and forum shopping as described in more detail below

Clerk note: the full statement can be found on the talk page here Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 10:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Issues to be clarified. Although I agree with most of Maunus' analysis, I obviously wouldn't agree that I have been removing properly sourced content, if he's suggesting that, and I wouldn't agree that I have been edit warring (in adding seven or eight different short summaries of Jensen's article from as many reliable secondary sources). I do believe that SPAs have been acting in concert in the latest BLP round of disruption to create an impossible editing environment on wikipedia: they refuse even to begin to discuss secondary sources, claiming that if they don't like the material the author is evidentally a malicious critic maligning Arthur Jensen. This absurd and childish claim by a tag team of editors is something of a last straw. When editors, involved in heated off-wiki disputes and activism bring their WP:BATTLEGROUND spirit to wikipedia - albeit very politely phrased, but nevertheless determined by sheer persistence to win the argument by whichever method works - this means that wikipedia editing policies are sacrificed. If David.Kane's attempts to invoke BLP policy were valid, any statement about a particular living individual's academic work appearing in a peer-reviewed published book or academic article could be removed as a claimed BLP violation written by a malicious critic. This is one of the worst abuses of policy I have seen on wikipedia. Jimbo Wales has not yet clarified that this was not the intended interpretation of his remarks. In all of this it is important to remember that editors are not either herditarian or environmentalist, pro-Jensen or ant-Jensen, Marxist/Left Wing or ... There are some of us left who are neutral and just edit articles like Auguste Pavie as another pastime like sudoku. (ArbCom will recognize User:PHG as one of the other editors.) Mathsci (talk) 11:43, 5 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Professor marginalia[edit]

My involvement is comparatively limited given how widespread the disputes appear to be throughout wikipedia. In what I've witnessed on the one involved article that I've edited is a lot of very odd editing behaviors and policy interpretations. I've edited many controversial topics where a lot of hot rhetoric, button pushing, finger-pointing and the rest goes on. So what stands out to me in this case isn't the trash-talking on the talk-page so much as it is the content disputes, which are often so strangely formulated as to be in a league all their own. Any real problem with content, claims, sources or policy is so deeply buried under mischaracterizations of the content, claim, source or policy objection that it's exhaustive work penetrating through the nonsense to find it. And if there isn't calculated tag-teaming, grandstanding, POV pushing, SPA game playing and "support" shopping on the part of some editors then they just may have natural born gift for it, because it's the main source of whatever clout they have in a dispute--it's that kind of momentum that they bring to discussions. I'm no mind reader, and am willing to bend over backwards to AGF, but some of the shenanigans sure feel disingenuous and gamey to me.

If this inquiry is about incivility, I haven't much to bring to this. But in my mind, other behaviors are the main source of the disruption. The disputes appear to go on and on, wasting so much volunteer time on board after board, talk page after talk page, with no end to it. I've been involved in a relatively small number of specific content disputes, and even those few relatively uncomplicated issues have been trafficked all over the place. It just grows and grows, getting less focused and more mischaracterized each step of the way, causing more time and energy to be wasted. I don't see how that problem will resolve itself. Professor marginalia (talk) 20:17, 2 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Adding: Although arb usually avoids policy setting or judging content disputes, there is a unique and perhaps precedent setting element to how policy was applied to these particular content disputes that should be faced squarely. Some other editors here have addressed the idea that there is some underlying conflict between NPOV and the so-called SPOV driving the disputes in this case, and this is how I think it relates and how it doesn’t. I’ve never been warm to the idea Wikipedia should adopt this SPOV to begin with because I think the encyclopedia should be built to the standards that apply to all solid secondary research scholarship and editorship, where SPOV is largely meaningless. But in narrow sense there are some SPOV implications interwoven in to the dispute, especially as it relates to the BLP.

For the first time that I’ve seen, editors have been urged to content sensor criticism of a bona fide scientific study because the study’s author is a BLP. In other words mainstream scientific and professional conclusions of experts critical of probably the most cited (and widely criticized) study ever published relating racial inheritance to IQ---one that caused a major firestorm in multiple spheres, from education, politics, psychology, civil rights…---are being content censored on the basis that the study’s author is a living person. I’m not talking about ad hominem claims or attacks from the fringe, I’m talking about the conclusions, analysis or judgments about the study from experts in spheres most directly impacted by its findings. Such a wide-sweeping application of the BLP would turn the science articles on Wikipedia upside-down. The well-known criticisms of Martin Fleischman’s work, or that of William Dembski or Hwang Woo-Suk, for example, would be censored from the encyclopedia on this basis. And the irony is that in the field of science this kind of published peer scrutiny is par for the course, and at times this scrutiny is scathing.

Somewhere along the line too this newly minted de facto "literalist" requirement was applied to claims made of a scientific study on the basis of BLP: if secondary sources came to conclusions about the findings of the study they could only be included at wikipedia if they were explicitly expressed in the study, no if's and's or but's. Normally any editor here trying to remove solidly referenced secondary sources because they run contrary to his own his own "literalist" read of some controversial study about autism or radiometric dating would be reverted and told to review WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:OR. The roles were the reverse here--BLP was used to say that wikipedians, not secondary references written by relevant professionals, are the proper judges of the quote/unquote "true", legitimate conclusions to be derived from a scientific study. Nothing else would do. It didn't matter how widely shared those sourced conclusions were by peers or among professionals representing the fields where such findings would be put into practice, such as education, social policy, etc., or that these conclusions were reflected here as quotes and attributed to their source by name. The effect being the article would put a revisionist slant in its coverage of this widely public, explosively controversial, hotly criticized paper as if there was nothing controversial in it and all the commentary was sanguine.

Now I suspect it wasn't the BLP that flip-flopped things so dramatically. I think the issue was misleadingly framed initially, and as so often happens in these articles, the edit warring, shouting, hasty conclusion making, and all manner of other noisy confusion were the result. If I'm wrong about that, though I don’t think this is a case of NPOV v. SPOV here, I do think any precedent establishing the application of BLP this way would invite enormous disruption (and disrepute) to wikipedia's coverage of science topics. Professor marginalia (talk) 23:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by (unwillingly) involved Ludwigs2[edit]

Let me begin by offing the opinion that the content issues on this page - while clearly difficult - are perfectly resolvable. The topic has strong overtones of racism and an unpleasant anti-liberal dimension, and so most of the involved editors approach the page from a well-defined (and emotionally charged) ideological stance, but it is a topic that has received a decent amount of coverage from both academic and journalistic sources, and so if editors were willing to abide by wikipedia norms and intentions - basically, if editors were willing to play nice and settle down to writing a good article - the content issues would resolve themselves quickly.

Getting people to 'play nice', however, is a problem.

My own involvement with this article is limited, so a brief history is in order. I had bookmarked the page some long time ago for future work, started to involve myself just shortly before the previous mediator (Xavexgoem) gave up, and then offered to take over the informal mediation without any objections from the participants. The mediation progressed from that time for a month or so, making some advances. At that time I was relying on a structured mediation approach - e.g. create structures which keep discussions contained within limited venues, and allow participants to work out specific points one-by-one without distractions. (That works well for participants who are communicative and at least marginally open-minded, but have difficulty focussing on the trees for the forest; it's slow, but effective - fyi, I know quite a lot about mediation). The two main problems I encountered in the mediation at that time were from (a) Captain_Occam (talk · contribs) and Mikemikev (talk · contribs) and (b) TechnoFaye (talk · contribs). Occam and Mike were not troublesome so much as overbearing: Occam in particular is a pit-bull about defending his position, and at that point in the mediation I think most of the other participants were tired of arguing with him. I was working on that. TechnoFaye, on the other hand, had a very strong ideological stance (she believes that intelligence differs by race, and is convinced that the literature shows that African Americans are significantly less intelligent) and has a self-confessed developmental disorder (autism, or Asperger's maybe) that produced some significant problems in communication: she was consistently rude, lacked a proper sense for social interaction, and would post huge, rambling opinions that sorely needed editing. I was working on that as well (trying to get Faye to rein herself in and helping her edit out the host of irrelevancies that worked their way into her posts), but one of the other participants (Muntuwandi (talk · contribs), going under the name wapondaponda for some reason) went ahead and posted an ANI complaint about her behavior.

That was fine with me, incidentally - a little administrative oversight for her more extreme actions would have been welcome.

This is where the trouble really began, however, because Mathsci (talk · contribs) - who had not participated in the mediation at all for the month or so I was mediating - decided for reasons of his own to hijack the ANI thread about TechnoFaye and turn it into an effort to close the mediation and (for added spice) have me blocked or banned. Now I had a new problem, so I shifted mediation styles (there are a number of mediation techniques for dealing with irrational demands and outbursts from participants). It took me four or five days, but I eventually coerced him into participating on the mediation page. However, he continued with his irrational outbursts, insulting other participants, spawning one ANI thread after another, hell bent on destroying whatever progress the mediation made because (so I assume) he didn't like the consensus that was developing. There is a lot I can do as a mediator, but there is no way to work with someone whose only goal is to disrupt the mediation completely, so I marginalized him as best I could, got the best-consensus version of the page that was available into mainspace, and let the mediation close. That's more ham-handed than I like to be as a mediator, but... <shrug>

Mathsci is the problem here. Content-wise I tend to agree with him - he's better at science then most - but he was never interested in developing content on this page until I coerced him into the act. His goal was to disrupt the mediation using ANI, and if possible to get the people he disagreed with blocked or banned. If it weren't for Mathsci we wouldn't have a problem here at all - given time I could have pulled back Occam and Mike and given reasonable opponents like Muntuwandi, slrubenstein, and AProck the chance to make proper revisions for balance, and all would have been well. Mathsci's irrational and single-minded focus on destroying whatever progress the mediation was making, his excessive use of administrative processes instead of consensus discussion, his adamant defamation of other editors (e.g. the term SPA is something administrators need to consider when making decisions, not a term-of-insult that one editor throws at another), his wildly inappropriate calls for blocking/banning everyone and their mother... every other problem this page has can be dealt with, but there is no way to deal someone who's only purpose is to destroy any and every consensus that might arise.

I recognize that Mathsci is a well-respected and well-liked editor, and I won't begrudge him that, but he's frigging out of control here. Somebody needs to get him back in line, and if his friends won't do it, then ArbCom needs to. Enough said. --Ludwigs2 20:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

response to slrubenstein's comment (recently refactored): slr - I am well aware of the Occam and Mike's tendentious editing practices, and of the exhaustion that can lead to for others. That was already in full effect when I took over the mediation. believe me, I have more intellectual stamina than almost anyone you're likely to find, and I found the two of them draining. plus, I also had (and have) to deal with the dozens upon dozens of instances of Mathsci insulting me, misrepresenting me, trying to get me blocked or banned - you don't think that's exhausting too? I can't tell you how sick I am of his insults and his whining and his threats; he'd never get away with this crap with me face-to-face. frankly, I think the three of them deserve each other.
The difference here is that I can (and do) make clear distinctions between content and behavior. Scholars like Rushton and Jensen are part of the scholarly and historical literature, and they are not going to go away because people find their message distasteful; nor should their (frequently questionable) research be given more than its due. The problem on this article is behavioral: editors like you and Mathsci are trying to skew the article to show how wrong the concept of racially-differentiated intelligence is, while editors like Occam and Mike are trying to skew the article to show how right the concept of racially-differentiated intelligence is, and none of you are willing to write the article the way a scientist would (i.e., present the material in the literature in a balanced and factual manner, note that it is still an unresolved question from the scientific perspective, and leave it up to the reader to make up their own mind). Long before I entered the scene you guys stopped writing a wikipedia article and started fighting a political battle, and I am not surprised that you disliked the mediation process, since my biggest effort in the mediation was to de-politicize the issue, and that is bound to tweak anyone absorbed in a political agenda (which is almost everyone on this article). I didn't take on the mediation because I wanted people to like me; I took it on because I wanted people to get past their crap and write a decent article.
Now, if you're trying to tell me that you would be just as bad as mathsci if you weren't so frustrated, then I will stop referring to you as a reasonable editor. The minute you start trying to win the content debate by insulting, demeaning, or otherwise attacking the people who disagree with you, you've lost it: you're no longer acting like a wikipedia editor. I credit you with enough maturity to avoid that kind of crap for the most part (and my experience with you bears that out - aside from moments of frustration you genuinely try to work and communicate with other editors). But if you want to cast yourself into Mathsci's imperious-grade-school-bully mold that is your choice. I just can't imagine why you'd want to do that. --Ludwigs2 15:45, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Hipocrite[edit]

This topic is the subject of massive disruption from single purpose adgenda driven editors - from far out disruptive racists to merely ignorant, ill-informed "expert in everything" engineer-types, who missed the forest for the trees. When the case is accepted, arbcom will quickly sove this by placing everyone on 0rr and banning the blatant racists.

The problems in the topic area, however, are compounded by what was probably the most mismanaged disruptive "mediation" of all time by Ludwigs2. As opposed to a mediation where everyone came to an agreement assisted by an uninvolved mediatior, Ludwigs2 treated his mediation as an adjudication. His "rulings," were treated by him (and others) as if they had the force of something. MathSci, who was a major participant in the articles, was basically disinvited from the mediation, which meant that one side (the one filled with racists) was given free reign over the articles. At the end of the day, the mediation resulted in nothing but a blessing for one of the disruptive engineer types to rewrite the entire base article from scratch without review or discussion.

In addition to placing everyone on 0rr or probation or whatever, it is imperitive that Arbcom prevent Ludwigs2 from acting as a mediatior.

Having just noticed his statement above mine, Ludwigs2 performance as a mediator is best summed up by thist statement of his -
"...he continued with his irrational outbursts, insulting other participants, spawning one ANI thread after another, hell bent on destroying whatever progress the mediation made because (so I assume) he didn't like the consensus that was developing."
If the mediator thought one of the parties to the mediation didn't "like the consensus that was devloping," how exactly was that consensus developing? It's not consensus if a major party doesn't like it, it's just a false majority. This is why Ludwigs2 desperately needs banning from any future mediation. Hipocrite (talk) 00:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Mikemikev[edit]

I do believe that some clarification of policy is needed here. There are several issues, I think it's proper to consider them all at the same time, since they are intertwined. There is also the matter of how broad or narrow to focus this. I guess the broader the better, for longer term resolution.

The narrowest and most current dispute which could be considered is the current dispute on History of the race and intelligence controversy. There is a content and a conduct issue.

The content issue is the insertion by Mathsci of material from secondary sources which purports to represent the writings of Arthur Jensen. The material is clearly in conflict with Jensen's actual writing, and invariably casts him in a (more) negative light. Jensen wrote that education should be tailored to the innate (genetic) abilities of the child; that eugenics may be the best way to boost IQ by preventing excessive reproduction of those with lower innate IQ's; and that the lower average IQ of racial minorities probably has a genetic etiology. Nowhere does Jensen suggest any policy aimed at any racial group, in fact he has explicitly stated that education should always consider the individual. However, critics have assembled various syntheses of his work, from: "racial minorites should be educated differently", to the most egregious: "racial minorities should be sterilised". Mathsci has endeavored to insert the syntheses, based on the fact that they are found in secondary sources, which he says are preferable for writing articles, and that we cannot reference the original writing, since it is primary. Myself and others have been removing the syntheses, based mainly on the fact that they are a BLP violation, and attempting to assemble an accurate representaion of Jensen's writing. This is a vivid example and the main recent issue, but there are several similar disputes. Some clarification of the correct policy would be appreciated here. The wider policy issue is whether a secondary source saying X wrote Y is acceptable to use when we can see that X wrote Z.

The conduct issue speaks for itself, and Rvcx has illustrated it well. I take issue at being dismissively referred to as an 'SPA', and having my arguments responded to by Mathsci saying that he's more experienced. I hope for clarification of whether this is reasonable, and whether my own conduct is dubious.

This has been going on for months, and shows no signs of abating. AN/I threads are usually fruitless due to a number of editors, some them admins, immediately 'taking sides' with Mathsci.

I don't know if diffs are needed to illustrate all of this. The links provided by Rvcx seem adequate.

If it is felt necessary to broaden the scope and examine the editing/mediation of all Race and Intelligence related articles, I would be happy to cooperate. mikemikev (talk) 20:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Response to statement by User:Maunus
I can only imagine that Maunus' misrepresentation of me is due to his recent involvement here, my tendency to discuss before editing, and our conflict [7] over the tabula rasa paradigm of cultural anthropolgy versus the MRI data of neuroscience. Should arbitrators require a point by point evidence based demonstration of this misrepresentation I will be happy to oblige. mikemikev (talk) 10:09, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Comment on Slrubenstein's response to comment by Bpesta
Whether or not Jensen is racist is exactly what we need to detach ourselves from here. I'm sure we can find people on the left who think he's racist against blacks for supporting a partly genetic explanation for group IQ differences. I'm sure we can find people on the right who think he's racist against whites for supporting desegregation in schools.
This is why we chose a "data-centric" approach, to depoliticise the issue and concentrate on the facts. It seemed to be working, for a while.
Slrubenstein wrote: This is an example of something some major scholars have commented on, namely, that many in our socity are biased to favor biological over sociological explanations.
Well, one could also say This is an example of something some major scholars have commented on, namely, that many in our society are biased to favor sociological over biological explanations. So what? mikemikev (talk) 14:02, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Captain Occam[edit]

As Ludwigs2 already pointed out, this article was under mediation from November 2009 until April 2010. After the first several mediators quit or gave up, Ludwigs2 took on this role, and by most standards under his guidance the mediation was successful. What I mean by that is that as a result of Ludwigs2’s mediation, most of the users who were involved in the article were able to reach a consensus about its structure and content, when they hadn’t been able to reach one about this previously. The article outline which resulted from mediation, and the level of consensus it received, can be found here, while the overall points that were resolved during mediation can be found here. In addition to enabling us to reach consensus about these things, the outcome of the mediation case also made the race and intelligence article stable for around a month, until Mathsci began trying to edit the article against this consensus.

Something I should point out on the second linked page is that one of the things resolved during mediation was that the “hereditarian” viewpoint, that genetics contribute to the difference in average IQ between races, is not a “fringe” view. I can explain the logic that went into that decision if necessary, but hopefully it won’t be necessary since I know Arbcom generally doesn’t rule on content issues. Since a few people seem to be making the argument that I or others have been trying to include a “fringe” viewpoint in these articles, though, I think it’s important to point out that the only decision about this that’s received any amount of consensus is that the hereditarian viewpoint is not a “fringe” theory.

Ludwigs2 has already described the way Mathsci wasn’t willing to accept the outcome of mediation, but the threads in which he tried to get it shut down can be found here, here, and here. (The first two threads were started by other users, but eventually taken over by Mathsci.) As far as I can tell, Mathsci’s disagreement with everyone who accepted the consensus that was reached during mediation is the heart of this dispute.

What Mathsci regards as a “tag team”, I regard as the group of users who wish to edit these articles in accordance with whatever the current consensus is, until and unless a new consensus develops. And when more than one of us ends up reverting Mathsci in succession, it’s usually because he’s attempting to edit the article against consensus, often with little or no attempt at discussion. An example of this was discussed here, and I reported the edit warring this involved from him here. (That was not the only thing he was edit warring over during this 24-hour period, but it was the purpose of two of the six reverts linked there.)

An earlier example of the same thing can be found in the discussion here, here, and in other threads on that page. In these discussions, five different users were raising NPOV concerns about the article, and Mathsci stonewalled the entire discussion, often responding to us with threats (in the first linked thread), dismissing our policy-based points as “nonsense” with no other attempt at a response (in the second thread), or simply not responding to our comments at all (at the end of the first thread). Since consensus is determined both by number of users and the strength of the arguments being presented, since Mathsci had already rejected dispute resolution in the form of mediation, and since he was being opposed by a five-to-one majority without making any attempt to address our points, eventually we went ahead and edited the article over his objections, and he wasn’t able to revert all five of us at once. This resulted in him posting an AN/I complaint about “tag teaming” on this article, but in a situation that was this blatant an example of Wikipedia:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, the only other option would have been to let a single user dictate the content of the article by stonewalling every attempt other users are making at discussion. In addition to seeking bans for other users on the basis of nothing except this, Mathsci frequently responds to these situations with personal attacks such as accusing me of being a holocaust denier, quoting a post from David.Kane’s off-wiki blog in an attempt to discredit him, and threatening the users who disagree with him with blocks. (Also in his edit summaries.)

My level of devotion to articles on this topic probably makes me an SPA, but being an SPA isn’t a policy violation. And in terms of the content of my contributions, nobody has yet been able to support the claim (with diffs or otherwise) that my involvement in these articles is only to push a single (hereditarian) point of view. Several of my edits to these articles have been in order to add information about possible environmental causes of the IQ gap that I thought should be included, such as [8] [9] and [10]. I don’t disagree with Ludwig’s characterization of me as a “pit-bull”, but as far as I know I haven’t been violating WP:CIVIL on any of these articles, and the only thing I’ve been sticking up for is whatever the existing consensus is, as well as the applicable WP policies as best I understand them.

Response to statement by User:Slrubenstein
SLR, I feel that you aren’t accurately representing the nature of the controversy on this topic. Particularly this part: “Therefore (according to Jensen) it is natural that Blacks are inferior to Whites”, and “Jensen is not the first person to claim that some races are naturally inferior to others.” What you’re describing is an inference that some of Jensen’s critics have drawn from his research, but in all of his own writings about this topic, Jensen makes it very clear that he does not believe this. Jensen does not believe that human worth can be judged on the basis of IQ, and other researchers who disagree with him about the cause of the IQ gap (such as James Flynn) have nonetheless pointed out that people who claim this about Jensen are misrepresenting his position. I know that since the viewpoint you’ve described appears in some secondary sources, it’s worth including in articles here, but for the purpose of arbitration I think we need to establish that this view is a synthesis that some of Jensen’s critics have drawn, and not something that Jensen has ever espoused himself. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Response to statement by User:Ramdrake
Arbcom generally doesn’t rule on content issues, so I’m not sure it’s appropriate to be bringing up what you think is and isn’t consistent with NPOV policy on this article. But either way, I think I should mention that the input we’ve received from uninvolved users in noticeboard threads is not likely to be an accurate way of judging this. The reason I say this is because possibly more than in any other topic, accurately judging the balance of viewpoints that exist about race and intelligence requires a familiarity with the academic literature about it. Accounts in the popular media of the research in this area tend to be consistently dismissive of the hereditarian hypothesis, and those few which describe it favorably (such as The Bell Curve) tend to be marginalized pretty quickly for that reason. But anyone who reads a few months’ worth of issues of a respected peer-reviewed psychology journal such as Intelligence or Personality and Individual Differences will find that there’s an ongoing debate in these journals over the cause of the racial IQ gap, in which neither viewpoint can accurately be said to have won out over the other. In these journals, defenders of the herediarian hypothesis also aren’t limited to five or so researchers, the way a few people here have mentioned they think is the case: Jensen, Rushton, Gottfredson and Lynn are just the supporters of this hypothesis that the popular press tends to focus on for some reason, possibly because unlike others they’ve written popular books and articles about it in addition to academic papers. (If I need a source for the assertion that research regarding IQ is not being accurately represented in the popular media, this conclusion was reached by the Snyderman and Rothman study, including about the topic of race and intelligence.) I would hope that most of the users who are actively involved in these articles have put forth the time and effort required to familiarize themselves with the academic literature about the subject matter, but I don’t think this is something that can be expected of uninvolved users who are expressing their opinions in AN/I threads. And for someone whose understanding of this topic is based on only popular-press accounts of it, it will not be possible to accurately judge the balance of viewpoints that exist about it, any more than this would be possible for someone who deliberately only pays attention to the portion of the source literature about it which argues in favor of a single viewpoint. (Which, in practice, is not very different from what reading only the popular literature about it amounts to.) --Captain Occam (talk) 21:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Slrubenstein[edit]

This is not the first time this matter has been taken to ArbCom, nor is it the last. It is true that the matter is brought forward is involving a variety of issues, including CIV and BLP concerns. I know ArbCom generally prefers to decide matters on a narrow range of policy-based facts. My own view is that CIV and BLP here are red-herrings, and the accusations made against MathSci are generally made by people whose views are supported by neither policy nor sources and thus have no recourse but to disruptive editing (which is not to say that MathSci bends over backwards to be charming; it is only to say that he bends over backwards to add well-researched and sourced content to articles). I think the conflicts that bedevil these articles are really over content.

I do not think members of ArbCom cannot understand why these articles are such a constant source of impassioned controversy without knowing the content issue that is at its core. I think making this clear to you is the only service I can provide the committee.

Clerk note: full version moved to talk page here Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 11:05, 7 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Response to comment by User:Captain Occam
Captain, I thought I was clear that this is an inference people make. As to Jensen's own protestations, well, again, it is a matter of interpretation. I think many people take him at his word which is one reason why he is, in general, given more credence than Rushton or Lynn. Others do not. This is because many racists deny being racist. This fact does not make Jensen racist, but it explains why some people do not give a lot of weight to his own assertions. My larger point is that
  • the fact remains that Jensen has written things that many people interpret as racist.
  • NPOV demands that these words of Jensen be included in relevant articles, and that the interpretation that they are racist, when it comes from a significant and reliable source, must also be included.
  • And these articles will therefore always be highly controversial because:
  • some people object to presenting racist views in articles on scientific topics, and
  • other people object to calling Jensen a racist
And I think this is the core of the problem. I think we could replace you, me, MathSci, Mikemikev, all of us, with a dozen new editors and it will become highly contentious because Wikipedia does not know how to satisfactorally manage this kind of conflict, where a view that some people hold to be racist is presented by others as a significant scientific point of view. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

the comment below was refactored from from my section, per the no discussion rules of this page, without prejudice. I will respond in my section. --Ludwigs2 14:41, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

comment regarding Ludwigs2 by user:Slrubenstein
Ludwigs, what I believe is missing from your account is the fact that I was often exhausted by what I saw as tag-team POV-pushing by Captain Occam, Mikemikev, and others, leading me to avoid the mediation pages for stretches of time. I have no idea what there reasons were, but I note that Muntuwandi and Aprock, other editors you identify as reasonable, also often dropped off of the mediation page for long stretches of time. Muntuwandi's concerns and suggestions were almost always ignored by Captain Occam, Mikemikev, and others (if not actively disparaged) so I wonder whether he too felt the same fatigue I did. In fact, many of the editors who were named as parties in the mediation stopped participating. There could be many reasons, although frustration or disappointment with your mediation style is one plausible possibility; I think frustration with Captain Occam, mikemikev and others' dismissal of a lot of social science research, or lumping all opponents to Jensen, rushton, and Lynn, as "environmentalists," is a more likely reason. All of this is salient because it helps explain why MathSci has become such a target of hatred by proponents of Rushton and Lynn: when their attempts to drive editors like me away through exhaustion seemed to be working, MathSci jumped in and refused to back down. You distinguish between me and him by saying I was reasonable and he was not, but I support virtually all of his edits. What you identify as "reasonableness" on my part was really as sign of my own exhaustion in having to raise the same objections time and time again, and defend the same claims, claims either taken for granted or explicitly held by most social scientists, time and time again. The main difference between me (and perhaps other editors you identify as "reasonable") and MathSci is that when I got tired of going in circles and avoided the page, MathSci did research, found reliable secondary sources, and put the material in the draft - and refused to let Captain occam or mikemikev delete content that was fully compliant with our policies, was encyclopedic, attributed, and verified. I do not expect you to change your mind about mathSci but please do not hold me up as an example of the "good" environmentalist. I am no better than MathSci; our motives are the same in that we wish the article to reflect all major scholarly viewpoints proportionately. The only difference is, he has more stamina than I. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:24, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
comment regarding Mikemikev by user:Slrubenstein
I have been involved in the mediation from the start, and fully endorse Maunus's report of Mikemikev's behavior. The above statement by Mikemikev nicely illustrates his contempt for Wikipedia policy in his attempt to disrupt any progress working on an article. SYNTH only applies when an editor does it. Synthetic statements found in secondary sources are permitted. In fact, we are encouraged to go to secondary sources for synthetic statements. BLP also applies to Wikipedians, not their sources. An article violates BLP when it asserts defamatory views about a person that are not found in notable, reliable, verifiable sources. BLP demands that we only add controversial claims about a living person when they are fully supported by secondary sources. Now, in both cases mathSci has carefully complied with policy. But for two weeks he, I and others have had to cease working on articles because Mikemikev deletes work that is fully compliant with policies. We have even explained to him why and how MathSci's edits comply with policies. And now we are in arbitration, and MathSci is painted as the villain. If this ArbCom case is simply about the BLP accusation, Mikemikev's statement should be sufficinet grounds for dismissing the case and topic-banning Mikemikev. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Comment regarding user:David.Kane's statement
In claiming to contrast inefective and effective editing strategies, David Kane is being a little disingenuous. He is really just contrasting MathSci's editing style to ... David Kane's editing style. In my view, David Kane has produced a good deal of content that violates SYNTH and misrepresents sources, and is the real cause of contention and conflict among editors. As a general principle, it is simply a means to put one person in control of editing a page, which is a violation of the very spirit of the wikipedia. For what it is worth, I think Aprock's, Muntuwandi's, and Maunus's statements are the most constructive. Ramdrake hands-down provides the best overall account of the situation (including his reply to Victor C.) Slrubenstein | Talk 08:48, 4 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Response to comment by Bpesta
I am not saying that the claims are inherently racist. I have simply pointed out that the claims have lead to an argument, with some people inferring that Jensent et. al are racists, and others saying that they are not, and that this is a kind of conflict Wikipedia is not good at handling. I stand by that.
Your own statement suggests that there is no evidence to support an environmental explanation. You also state that there is no evidence for a genetic explanation, yet you seen to favor it. This is an example of something some major scholars have commented on, namely, that many in our socity are biased to favor biological over sociological explanations (a point Lewontin made in Biology as Ideology). This is not the same thing as claiming someone is a racist, but it is a point that many editors reject out of hand as being "anti-science" even though it is made by established and credible scientists. Again, my point is that there are some kinds of debates in reliable sources that Wikipedia has for whatver reason consistently found difficult to handle, and I think that this is another reason why conflict and controversy linger over the R&I article evn when the editors working on it change.
Antepenultimately, on a more personal note, I point out that the bias towards biological over sociological explanations has real-world policy consequences: Jensen himself has advocated eugenics, and others have used his arguments to argue against the renewal of programs like "Head Start" in the US. These policies are or would be targeted at different races in different ways, which is another reason why people out in the real world raise the question of racist science.
Finally, and to try to restate my point again: I am not denying your arguments that it is not racist; in fact, your arguments are necessary for there to be a controversy, a conflict (in the real world); controversies require at least two sides each of which believes they have good reasons for being convinced they are right. My point is that this particular kind of controversy (which is almost inevitable when "science" and "race" come together) should be treated like any other conflict, following our NPOV, V, and NOR policies, and yet we editors keep failing to find the appropriate way to write about it. My view is that the weight an encyclopedia, necessarily gives to "science" is clashing with something that the Wiki community ought not to tolerate, namely "racism," and we just do not know how to handle this appropriately. If you read what I have written in this paragraph carefully, you should conclude that I am not taking sides. If you or anyone reading this paragraph believes I am taking a side, I would consider that further evidence of our inability to face this editing challenge squarely. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:30, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Aprock[edit]

The underlying problems with these articles revolve around a certain set of tactics used by a group of editors to advance their point of view and repress points of view that they view as opposing. The essay WP:CPUSH describes some of these behaviors, but to be complete in this context, here is a list of various tactics used:

It's not clear to me how best to deal with these behaviors. All I know is that they are daunting and require eternal vigilance.

Regarding mediation: While I think there were some problems with the mediation process, I don't think Ludwig2 was the primary source of the problems. While he wasn't the perfect mediator, he generally facilitated dialogue, discussion, and consensus building. But more than that, he was a willing and active mediator. Other more experienced mediators were quickly overwhelmed by the dispute and bowed out. His approach was more hands off than it could have been, but I suspect that was a defensive measure against burn out. The failure of the mediation relates more to the ability of one group of editors to drive off editors they viewed as opposing editors than with any active role Ludwig2 took during the mediation. aprock (talk) 17:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by the peripherally involved Xxanthippe[edit]

The root cause of this conflict is, of course, a content dispute on the topic of race and intelligence, one of the hot topics of modern cultural discourse. One of the two factions involved edits from a perspective sometimes associated with Marxist/New Left circles, that environment is the primary determinant of the correlation. The other faction, sometimes associated with more conservative thinkers, holds that heredity is. It should be possible to write an article that reflects both perspectives in a balanced way but such an article has not yet emerged. I have neither the knowledge nor inclination to edit the article myself but I do know when people are trying to pull the wool over my eyes. I find the edits of the environment faction, particularly by editor Mathsci, to be too often slanted and biased, cherry-picking sources to support a particular point of view and rejecting attempts at compromise. Attention has been called to his unacceptable conduct by many editors but he persists. I have attempted to place an NPOV flag on the article but, despite the vast amount of controversy surrounding the article, the flag has been thrown off.

However, the reason why this matter should be considered by Arbcom is the behaviour of some of the editors involved. The attempt by some members of the environment faction to silence their opponents by urging that they should be banned on the grounds that they are SPAs promoting a fringe view is contrary to Wikipedia's ethos. As discussed by several editors on this page, Mathsci's personal conduct in the article and elsewhere is becoming more and more offensive. His claim that a Jewish editor is a holocaust denier is intolerable. I am surprised that this did not lead to an immediate and indefinite ban. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:46, 3 June 2010 (UTC).Reply[reply]

The reply of Mathsci to my statement is given below. The diff for the charge of Holocaust denial is given in the statement of Captain Occam. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:08, 5 June 2010 (UTC).Reply[reply]

Interim comment on Xxanthippe's statement: Could it be that Xxanthippe bears a grudge? She has labelled me as representing a Marxist/New Left POV on wikipedia. Would that not have been apparent already in my 8,220 content edits to wikipedia,[14] particularly in highly visible articles like Europe where I am apparently now the main contributor, particularly in the history section? [15] She provides no diffs to support her claims. So it might perhaps be helpful to provide some diffs to compare our editing styles. Here is a typical content edit by Xxanthippe [16] - unsourced, inaccurate and crufty. Here is my corrected sourced content [17] with sound [18] and then pictures [19]. I first encountered Xxanthippe on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Franco Selleri where she wrote: "There are even some (myself not included) who consider string theory to verge on pseudoscience." Really? String theory has been taught and examined as a Part III course in Cambridge for well over 20 years. Xxanthippe's creations on wikipedia so far have been in fantasy fiction, sometimes written straight out of her head: she continues that tradition below. Mathsci (talk) 07:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Reply to statement of User:Maunus:

The statement by User:Maunus that 'Xxanthippe's allegation that the environmmentalist (sic) explanation of the race IQ gap is associated with Marxist/New Left circles' quotes me selectively and uses faulty logic as can be seen from my statement which can be read above. I said that the environment view was sometimes associated with a left wing political perspective such as Marxist/New Left circles and the herediterian view was sometimes associated with a politically right wing perspective. I believe this to be generally true outside academia whatever the case may be inside academia. Academics are not the only people who are discussing this matter as is clear from the many references in the article. That is one of the reasons that makes the subject so contentious and difficult to deal with. Wikipedia is not an academic journal and is expected to take account of matters outside the academic world. It is an unwarranted distortion of logic to claim that I implied that a person who takes a specific position on environment/heredity issue is ipse facto a member of a particular political persuasion, a claim also made above by Mathsci. This corollary does not follow at all. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:24, 6 June 2010 (UTC).Reply[reply]

General comment:

As a person who is almost uninvolved in editing Race/Intelligence articles and intends to remain that way, my general take on the issue is this:

1. Intelligence (or at least IQ) can be measured reproducibly.
2. Nobody understands what it is that is being measured.
3. Race cannot be measured at all and depends on self-identification. Some people even question that the concept of race can be defined.
4. There is experimentally found to be a correlation between "race" and "intelligence", whatever those things are.
5. Some people believe that the correlation is due to environmental factors, others that it is due to heredity.
6. Agreement has not been reached as to which is predominant.
No doubt the various partisans will quibble with this characterisation.

With a subject containing such vast areas of doubt and uncertainty and questions even about how the issues are to be defined, I think it necessary for Wikipedia articles on the subject to have as their core theme the uncertainty and lack of knowledge in the area. Instead, the articles have turned into faction fights between the environment/heredity contenders, some of whom are trying to push their own POV to the detriment of the POV of the opposition. There is a lot of spiteful infighting, which I accept as part of the Wikipedia experience, but the development that disturbs me most is the attempt by some members of the environment faction to suppress their opponents by administrative force majeure. They advocate topic bans for their opponents as being SPAs and promoters of fringe science. This is so contrary to the values of Wikipedia that I hope that Arbcom will put a stop to it. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC).Reply[reply]

Statement by Muntuwandi[edit]

It seems there are some editors who would like to give the impression that Mathsci is the main problem in this dispute. I think this is inaccurate. Race and intelligence articles go through frequent flare-ups, and this particular dispute is simply the most recent one. The nature of the dispute remains the same but the characters change. Problematic editors sometimes get banned but there is always a new generation of editors who will pick up the dispute where the last ones left off. Mathsci has not always been a participant in previous disputes which demonstrates that disputes can take place in his absence. During the mediation Mathsci did not participate for more than three months, yet there were still numerous problems.

Nature of the problem

We have a prolonged dispute and a somewhat hostile editing environment conducive to incidents

Prolonged dispute

This dispute started in October 2009, mediation started in November 2009 and has continued into June. That is nine calendar months. A prolonged dispute is unproductive because it sucks in several editors who otherwise would have the time and energy to contribute to other areas of the encyclopedia. The prolonged dispute is primarily the result of SPA editing. Some editors feel so strongly about the subject matter that they would appear to spend all of their non-sleeping time editing race and intelligence articles, 7 days a week, month after month. Such a level of hyperactivity is bound to create neutrality problems because it is difficult for non-SPAs to keep up, unless they morph into SPAs. Being an SPA is not a policy violation, but I think most agree that it is a less than ideal form of editing, and if it becomes detrimental to the encyclopedia it is worthy of administrative action.

Hostile editing environment

This mediation had in total four mediators. One experienced mediator, Xavexgoem stated shortly before he gave up [20]:

"I'm having one helluva time figuring out where to go from here. The straw-poll established nothing, and I'm surprised to see the level of anger among some of you. I still have the suspicion that there's an undercurrent here that I'm not aware of. It's fairly obvious to think of what that would be. Anyone care to fill me in?

This hostile atmosphere has persisted throughout the disputes and was resulted in numerous threads on ANI and WQA.

I think it is time that these problems are brought to an end. Wapondaponda (talk) 07:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC) Response to Maunsus. Regarding the desired outcome, one of the problems with a 0RR restriction is that it applies only to articles in mainspace. While a 0RR will reduce edit warring on articles, SPAs will still be able to spam talk pages and noticeboards. The failed mediation has 8 archives, and the Talk:Race and intelligence has over 80 archive pages. Over-discussing is also time consuming, energy sapping and unproductive. The talk page could easily grow 80 more archive pages, even without any new information from academia and we would still have a dispute afterwards. In fact the bulk of this dispute has taken place not in the main article, since for about 5 months the article race and intelligence was not edited by most editors who signed on to Mediation as no article editing was part of the mediation agreement. I would prefer an outcome that introduces stability in mainspace, talk pages and noticeboards. Wapondaponda (talk) 09:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Maunus[edit]

Analysis: The topic of Race and intelligence is particularly prone to problematic editing as even in the scholarly community there is no agreement about the nature of the so called "race IQ gap" and there is considerable animosity between scholars of opposing views. We are fortunate to have editors who are sympathetic to several of the different views espoused by the members of the scholarly community this is a good basis for making a neutral coverage. However that would require that all involved editors follow the rules and edit procedures closely. This could be achieved by imposing stricter rules for all editors editing on the topic, or by imposing restrictions on the editors with the most problematic editing patterns. I generally agree with Aprocks observations of problematic editing patterns in R & I related articles.

Own involvement: I would describe myself as a recently involved editor. I came to the articles in late april towards the end of mediation because of my previous involvement with the tangentially related article Ashkenazi intelligence. I began an investigation and found that the environmentalist paradigm (explaining the Race IQ gap by environmental rather than genetic factors) which is the overwhelming majority viewpoint among anthropologists (my own field) was severely under and misrepresented while the hereditarian paradigm, which I found was apparently somewhat more influential among psychologists than I had thought, was overrepresented. I started reading up on the sources and engaging in the debate on the talk page. My analysis is that the hereditarian viewpoint is mostly espoused by a vocal group of five to ten scholars within psychology - whereas variations on the environmentalist position is prevalent in the fields of anthropology and possibly biology - I understand this to be partly because most environmentalists do not invest them selves in research in race and intelligence - concepts that are not seen as being meaningful research objects for many of them (see e.g. articles by Jonathan Harwood and Jefferson Fish that describe the debate in these terms). Xxanthippe's allegation that the environmmentalist explanation of the race IQ gap is "associated with Marxist/New Left circles" is as preposterous - as I have said one woulkd be hard pressed to find an anthropologist with this viewpoint (some marxists like Lewontin and Kamin have held the viewpoint) but hardly the entire profession is Marxist - it as if I were to say that the psychologists who hold the hereditarian viewpoint are associated with neo-nazi circles (which is to my knowledge only partly true about Rushton and the founders of the Pioneer foundation but not at all about Jensen, Gottfredsson and others). I have been able to edit fairly well with most other editors - at time becoming slightly frustrated with what I have seen as delay tactics and filibustering. The only editor with whom I have been in heated disagreement is Mikemikev, whom I have accused of trolling, an accusation I stand by.

Mathsci : Is not the problem. He is at the most a part of the problem. Mathsci's behavioural problems are real but they should not be seen out of the context of a very tedious editing environment where he has long been the sole representative of one major viewpoint in the debate about the race and IQ gap. Mikemikev : I have not observed Mikemikev make any productive edits apart from a single typo fix. On the contrary he has a habit of obstructing discussion with irrelevant and confrontational comments. When faced with evidence he usually rejects its validity for no apparent reason other than he dislike it or he claims it doesn't mean what it obviously means. When presented with links to sources he refuses to read them himselves saying that ”don't throw paper at me”. I feel that Mike is the single most disruptive editor in the debate at the moment. David.Kane / Captain Occam : While fitting the profiles of the SPA I have observed few conduct problems with these editors. The only ones are a tendency for engaging in tag team editwars with Mathsci. Frequently they have both made edits that I see as misrepresenting the debate and the sources – but assuming good faith I expect that to be because of they read those sources through a different set of eyeglasses than I. I expect that it would be fully possible to eventually see eye to eye with these editors.

Mediation: Mediation failed. It failed to establish consensus - largely because the mediator lacked the support of all involved parties, and because he was seen by some parties as being favorizing certain views. In my opinion the mediator should have stopped mediation as soon as it was clear that he did not have universal support from those involved. The mediation also failed to establish a neutral article - the post mediation version had several serious shortcomings - most severe among them were a subtle tendency of misrepresentation of the claims attributed to the one source which all editors agree is the most neutral, others were a tendency to glibly dismiss views associated with the environmentalist point of view while devoting much space to explain the hereditarian viewpoint in great detail.

Arthur Jensen: It has been claimed that it is a BLP issue when Mathsci and others insist on devoting space to the fact that Jensen's writings have largely been interpreted as arguing in favour of some kind of race based segregation in education. This interpretation is widely attested in secondary sources written by respectable professors and it is certainly a notable view as Jensen has been the victim of persecution by activists who have clearly found Jensen's views to be controversial. Jensen himself has not directly made statements in favour of racial segregation in education and no direct quote can be found of him supporting it (to my knowledge), but the interpretation springs directly from his insistence of arguing in that the race IQ gap is genetic, that low IQ students learn best by other methods than high IQ students, that failure to realize this is the reason for what he perceives as the failure of remedial education programmes and the context of him making these arguments first while desegregation was being discussed in the American supreme court. It is as such a synthesis when scholars attribute those views to him but it is well supported and widely believed to be true. To argue that this is a BLP issue is nonsensical as that would in effect mean that we can never publicize critical remarks about any living person with which they do not themselves agree. Rather NPOV requires us to include all notable viewpoints about persons who have been the center of controversy in the public debate - this is certainly the case for Jensen. The claim that mentioning that Jensen has been interpreted as advocating segregation is BLP violation, no matter how well sourced the POV is has been claimed to be supported by Jimmy Wales in this comment. I don't think this is necessarily what Jimmy Wales meant, and if it was then he was clearly mistaken and his voice counts no more than any other editors in a content dispute.

Questions to be resolved:

Desired outcome: 0RR to Mathsci, Captain Occam and David.Kane - topic ban for Mikemikev – a second attempt at mediation involving arbitrators as mediators.·Maunus·ƛ· 08:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Varoon Arya[edit]

I'm commenting here because I was notified that I have been listed as a participant.

In short, I'm exhausted with this topic, and would be perfectly content to be left out of the discussion. I was involved in the mediation, but have since voluntarily "banned" myself from any future involvement in articles related to the subject. I can no longer assume good faith with many of the participants, and feel outright disgust towards the behaviour of some. What made me decide to leave the discussion, however, had less to do with the behaviour of others than it did with my coming to terms with what I see as a deeper philosophical issue with Wikipedia itself regarding the potential for conflict in the application of WP:NPOV and WP:RS.

Most editors see no conflict between WP:NPOV and WP:RS. That fact is, in itself, quite telling in regards to the natural and largely subconscious POV of the majority of Wikipedia editors. It's not something that can be "fixed", as it is inherent in the way Wikipedia does what it does. It's not really something which needs to be fixed, either, though I think a great many conflicts within the project could be avoided if Wikipedia were to make it clear to its contributing editors as well as to its readers that WP:NPOV really means "the POV taken by most modern western (e.g. secular, liberal, humanistic, etc.) academics". That single statement would eliminate many of the problems with the nationalistic/ethnic/sectarian POV-pushing which plagues the project, and it would go a long way towards clarifying the present dispute.

I do not expect that such an explanatory statement would be consciously accepted by the community, and I fully expect that the inherent POV of Wikipedia will continue to be presented as "neutral" in the global sense, if not denied altogether. I'm not foolish enough to think I can change Wikipedia in this regard, thus I really have nothing "constructive" to say regarding this particular matter. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 14:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Additional comment (The following comment relates one interaction with Mathsci which, in my view, typifies what it is like to deal with him. That it is not related to Race and intelligence is entirely intentional, as I hope the following will make clear.)
On May 29, I noticed that there were several outstanding German-language errors in the article Orgelbüchlein, which I assumed had arisen due to carelessness in transcription. I took it upon myself to correct them, requiring a total of three edits to do so.
On May 30, Mathsci reverted my corrections, citing 5 editions he was using to compose the article. I posted a comment on his talkpage, informing him of my good intentions and offering to request the involvement of another German-speaking editor to assist in improving the article. Mathsci responded by informing me that he raised the issue at AN/I. Somewhat surprised at this, I opened the AN/I discussion to find that Mathsci claimed I am "hounding" him. In his next comment on AN/I, which followed very shortly, he went on to claim that I am trying to provoke an edit war. This is quite odd, as I had edited the article a total of 3 times, none of which was a revert, and I never tried to reinstate my previous corrections once Mathsci reverted them. Please note the chain of events here:
1. I make typographical corrections to the article.
2. Mathsci reverts the corrections.
3. I request discussion on his talkpage, offering to invite another German-language editor to assist.
4. Mathsci goes to AN/I claiming that I'm "trying to provoke an edit war".
Unwilling to get into yet another pointless and silly discussion on AN/I, I let the accusations slide. I did, however, post a response on his talkpage pointing out the errors in the article in greater detail. Mathsci responded by admitting that he hadn't even proofread his own work and giving me permission to correct "obvious typing errors or misreadings". Please note the chain of events here:
1. Mathsci accuses me of "hounding him" and "trying to provoke an edit war" on AN/I.
2. I politely explain to him again that there are real problems with the article.
3. Mathsci admits that he hasn't proofread his work and that he doesn't mind if I correct it.
I responded to Mathsci's comment, explaining that if he did not wish to make the corrections himself, I would be willing to do them for him once he was finished transcribing the entire list. I also provided links to some German-language editions - particularly noting the edition from the Bach Society - which contain the standard German orthography.
At this point, I decided to wait and let him finish transcribing, hoping he would do the corrections himself. He has since finished, but the problems with the spelling remain.
A comparison of Bach Society edition of the Orgelbüchlein with Mathsci's version, which apparently relies heavily upon Anglo-American scholarship, reveals considerable discrepancies. This, in itself, is not so odd, and can be witnessed in nearly every scholarly setting where the source literature is treated in multiple languages. However, upon closer examination, the spelling corrections - ignoring apostrophes - I originally made are actually supported by the same sources Mathsci claims to have used in composing the article (namely Peter F. Williams' The Organ Music of J.S. Bach). Please note the chain of events here:
1. Mathsci makes several considerable errors in his transcription of German-language text.
2. I correct those errors.
3. Mathsci reverts, claiming the support of modern scholarly convention, when in fact he simply hasn't done a good job of transcribing, and he knows it.
4. I check the sources Mathsci lists and find my spelling corrections corroborated.
The next day, Mathsci deleted our discussion from his talkpage, summarizing the discussion as having "no scholarly relevance".
That's where the situation stands to date. I have not and will not undertake any further attempt to discuss the matter with Mathsci, as he has shown that he prefers to turn to AN/I to solve simple editing problems, that he cannot assume good faith with anyone who appears to criticise his work, that he makes unfounded accusations regarding other editors, and that he consistently misrepresents their actions to achieve his goals.
This episode serves to illustrate what it's like to interact with Mathsci in a "normal" editing environment. Some here have tried to excuse (or even applaud) Mathsci's behaviour on the grounds that Race and intelligence is a "touchy" subject, and that it's plagued by "POV-pushing SPA's". Either of those things may or may not be true. But even on a subject which is relatively harmless (e.g. Bach's Orgelbüchlein), Mathsci behaves in an abrasive and offensive manner betraying what would seem to be a strange mixture of egomania and paranoia. Some have praised the quality of his prose. Frankly, I don't care if the man shits gold bricks. He's disruptive as hell. --Aryaman (talk) 15:08, 5 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Ramdrake[edit]

I've been following the protracted disputes around the race and intelligence-related articles for many years now, back when this dispute had for the most part entirely different actors. The same problems have been resurfacing at intervals for several years now, so ascribing the blame for the dispute on Mathsci or Captain Occam or Mikemikev is in my opinion pointless, although I'll agree that all parties in the dispute might not always have been on their best behaviour. I also missed a good part of the mediation due to failing health which kept me in the hospital for over 3 months between December 2009 and April 2010, thus I was unable to give input into the dispute at that time which didn't mean that I was necessarily giving up on the mediation or the article.

From what I see of the situation, there seems to be a growing contingent of editors who believe that the hereditarian viewpoint of the R&I debate either deserves about as much space as the mainstream (environmentalist) viewpoint, or squarely that it should be billed as the mainstream viewpoint. This position, AFAIK, is based on the prolific writings of a small but vocal group of researchers (Rushton, Gottfredson, Jensen, Lynn and a few others) which seem to hold each other in great esteem, but whose research is on the other hand sternly criticized if not outright dismissed by most other researchers. Adding to the problem is the fact that few of those who do not subscribe tp the race & intelligence "hereditarian" hypothesis tend to research race and intelligence (there are a few, though), and you have a situation where most of the noise is made by the proponents, while the opponents stay mostly silent, not for lack of counterarguments (there are many, many of them) but because the subject is not considered worthy of research by a good many (but not all).

For reasons that I can't fathom, something similar to what happens in "the real world" is happening in the article: the proponents of the hereditarian hypothesis have so far been the most vocal and by far, while those who do not subscribe to the idea have been on the whole more discreet, discretion which has been wrongly interpreted at times as tacit assent. Now, after months and even years of trying to keep hereditarian bias out of the article, some of the editors had nearly given up (see Slrubenstein's comment), and others like me were silenced by reasons not under their control (or were otherwise unable to devote enough time to participate). In the last couple of months, Mathsci has thus found himself more or less taking the lead to correct the bias which was creeping in this and other related articles; he's even responsible for an excellent article discussing the history of this scientific-political debate. For all his trouble, he's found himself being hampered in his efforts by other editors who insisted that he discuss ad nauseam every single edit he made to those articles, stretching Wikipedia policy on BLP to dismiss properly referenced, secondary source opinions and a multitude of other objections which behind the smoke screen, smelled more of WP:IDONTLIKEIT than anything else. And yes, at times he lost patience and possibly said things he shouldn't have. However, had I been in his shoes, I'm not convinced I could have done much better. On the other hand, his edits were always impeccably researched and did a lot to restore those articles he edited to some modicum of neutrality.

Now, I cannot really fault most of the "hereditarian" editors for not acting in good faith; I believe they do and I believe they think they have Wikipedia's best interests at heart. They just interpret some points of policy (especially NPOV) differently than I do. However, community input so far seems to point to the fact that their intepretation of policy isn't the one favored by most of the community so far, if I am to judge by the various comments generated by the multiple ANI, WQA, BLPN and other threads over the last few months. They need to accept that their viewpoint isn't what most of the community considers "neutral" and move on. Belaboring the point is now being only disruptive.

I am unsure which points ArbCom wants to explore in this dispute, but I believe a good outcome would be to fine-tune the definitions of NPOV to take into account situations like these where the minority is far more vocal than the majority (both in editing and in real-life representation), so as to ascertain what constitutes proper neutrality in such a case.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Quick comment on Victor Chmara's comment

This is rather typical of some of the editors sharing the "hereditarian" position: they take a single question out of a 48-question survey, survey which is also over 20 years old, and hold it as proof positive that the hereditarian position holds a majority status in the group of "intelligence experts". This question was neither the main aim of the survey (the survey was trying to gauge the credibility of intelligence testing among researchers, mainly). No amount of secondary sources, both more numerous, more recent and more informative than the answers to that lone question in a 48-question survey (out of which about one-third of the surveyees didn't even bother to answer) will convince them otherwise. I believe this creates a real danger of making some sources say more than they are really intending to say (read WP:UNDUE).--Ramdrake (talk) 01:22, 4 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Response to Captain Occam's comment on my comment

Captain Occam's position and comment is the logical conclusion one arrives at if one only takes into consideration the volume that has been written on the race and intelligence subject. As I stated before, there is on the one hand a small but very vocal, very prolific (hereditarian) minority of researchers (one or two handfuls, mostly), and on the other hand a majority of mainstream (environmentalist) researchers who disagree, but most of whom are silent on the subject, as they generally don't believe it worthy of much research with only a minority from the mainstream position actively writing on the subject (see the writings of Lieberman, Niesser, Flynn, etc). However, mainstream isn't decided by sheer volume of paper; one must also seek secondary sources so as to acertain acceptance or not of such ideas. In this case, the vast majority of secondary sources suggest that the hereditarian position is indeed that of a small but particularly vocal minority.--Ramdrake (talk) 01:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Comment by retired Distributivejustice[edit]

I received a notice about this page through an unusual circumstance. I joined in late 2009 to improve a poor use of reference in race and intelligence. I stayed for the mediation to argue for a better article structure. I left last month because of uncivil and inexcusable behavior by Mathsci directed at me. I can't volunteer my time under those circumstances. What I find amazing is that everyone else hasn't quit also.

Aside from that behavioral issue(s), there's a policy related issue that could be addressed. Consider the following situation:

What should be written in the article about J's opinion on X and Y? What if J is a living person and X is damaging to J's character? I strongly suggest that Wikipedia not simply say "J believes X [1]."

I have no desire to contribute anything further. Regards, --DJ (talk) 17:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Victor Chmara[edit]

This issue is so taboo that I'm not optimistic about any true progress in R&I and related articles. However, I want to comment on claims that the hereditarian viewpoint is not mainstream. While it may be true that the environmentalist view is prevalent in, say, sociology or athropology, there is no evidence that this is the case in intelligence research. While it's difficult to gauge what most researchers think about a topic like this, it’s clear that the extreme environmentalist position of the likes of Nisbett does not have widespread support. The Snyderman and Rothman survey from the 1980s indicated that the most widely supported view among IQ experts was that genes account for at least some of the black-white gap. A large minority thought that the data were insufficient to answer the question, while a smaller minority subscribed to the 100 percent environmentalist position. Nowadays, most intelligence researchers that study these matters seem to profess agnosticism about the causes of racial IQ gaps (in public at least), and only a handful of well-known researchers publish strong claims in one direction or the other. As R&I and related articles overwhelmingly deal with psychometric studies, there is no reason to think that hereditarianism would be somehow beyond the pale.--Victor Chmara (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

response to Ramdrake's comment: Ramdrake claims that I think the Snyderman and Rothman survey proves that hereditarianism is prevalent among intelligence reseachers. However, this is not what I claimed. I simply pointed out the 1980s survey as an example of the fact that there is no evidence for the supposition that the extreme environmentalist viewpoint is widely supported. I also said that the majority of reseachers seem to be agnostic about the topic, while only a minority makes strong claims regarding it. This agnosticism was also reflected in the Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns report by the APA.
response to Mathsci's statement: Mathschi identifies mine as a single purpose account. In reality, the majority of my edits do not concern this topic. Among Mathsci's last couple of thousands of edits at least, there are very very few that do not deal with race and intelligence, so perhaps he should identify himself as a single purpose user. --Victor Chmara (talk) 07:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by David.Kane[edit]

I am not an experienced enough editor to know whether or not this matter is ripe for ArbCom involvement. Here are some preliminary thoughts on the topic.

  1. I agree with much of Rvcx's statement. Yet the fact that he highlights three very different topics suggests, to me, that any arbitration should want to focus on very specific issues.
  2. Since ArbCom generally does not dive into content disputes, I won't comment about any of the content claims made by other participants, except to note that there are some I agree with and some I dispute.
  3. I wish that administrators more involved with WP:BLP would work on clarifying that policy. What do we do when reliable source RS makes a contentious claim about the writings of living person P, a claim that (perhaps) is either contradicted by those writings or, at least, not easily confirmed in them? I provide a summary of the issue here. (If you seek to judge what kind of editor I try to be at Wikipedia, that link is a good place to start.)
  4. MathSci is an interesting fellow. On the one hand, his contributions to History of the race and intelligence controversy have been stunning. Indeed, he is responsible for 99% of the article. Kudos! On the other hand, MathSci does not --- How to put this kindly? --- have a great deal of patience in dealing with editors with whom he disagrees. How can Wikipedia harness incredibly productive editors like MathSci while, simultaneously, moderating their behavior? I don't know.
  5. Although it is too early to start talking about solutions, here [21] is my suggestion for a new Wikipedia policy for dealing with extremely contentious article like Race and Intelligence:

Multi-day section-editing only: In Race and Intelligence, the worst edit-warring occurs when editors just add a sentence or two (however well-sourced and WP:NPOV) and then other editors delete that sentence with not unreasonable complaints about WP:UNDUE or other issues. Then the fight begins. The best editing occurs when someone takes an entire section, redrafts it from start to finish, solicits comments from all concerned, incorporates those comments and then iterates. MathSci did a wonderful job of this in fixing (dramatically) the History section and I am doing the same in redoing the Assumptions section. So, dramatic progress on the article is possible. Suggestion: Instead of protecting the entire page (which prevents improvement) why not enforce this procedure on the entire article? We may not edit the article directly. We must take an entire section, redo it (including seeking new/better sources), solicit comments on the talk page, incorporate those comments, and, only then, place the new section in the article. Highlights:

Again, I am involved in this dispute and inexperienced (a dangerous combination!), so feel free to ignore. But, at the same time, I have dived into the topic and recently purchased several books precisely so I could provide better sourcing. Give the committed editors --- meaning those willing to fix entire sections and seriously incorporate comments --- a chance and let us show you what we can do.

Anyway, I look forward to reading the comments of other editors. David.Kane (talk) 23:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Statement by Bpesta22[edit]

Response to comment by slrubenstein

I think Slru is committing something like the ecological fallacy in his 4 point deduction above. Even if it's true that the 15 point / 1 standard deviation gap is real and explained by genetics, it does not follow that whites are superior / blacks are inferior. Though a 1 sd effect size is large using conventional statistical interpretations of effect size, the distributions overlap, so it would be wrong to take a group mean difference and claim it applies always to individuals. Even with a large gap, it would be trivially easy to find millions of blacks smarter than 10s of millions of whites, in the USA alone. That to me is not superiority-- race becomes irrelevant when looking at individuals (all that matters in this area is his/her IQ score-- not his/her race).

Why the topic is very important to human well-being though comes when looking at aggregate level variables. Compare groups of people where 1 group is all 85 IQ and the other group is all 100 IQ and you get strong, compelling outcome differences (at the group level). Given the predictive validity of IQ (i.e., it's the most powerful variable in social science) group differences on the outcome variables it predict will be vast. Given how big an issue race inequality is to humanity, it's important that any source with authority accurately characterize what we know / do not know about this topic. -Bpesta22 (talk) 02:10, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

eta.. Finally, while wiki rules and policy are awesome at creating neutral, informative articles over time, I think they backfire for specific scientific topics-- esp. controversial ones. Reality isn't determined by polling experts. Providing both sides makes sense only if the science is in disagreement over a specific topic. Certainly, there's disagreement over the cause of the difference, but only in some regards. There is no non-fringe view that claims IQ tests cannot reliable measure g, or that g does not predict things "beyond educational achievement," or that the race difference is not a g difference, or that IQ tests are biased, or that factor analysis is a flawed technique, etc., etc. These tired and patently false arguments keep creeping back into the article, which I think greatly diminishes its value. We don't know the cause. The best the field can do is: Environmentalists: provide a long list of environmental variables known to affect the IQ of individuals, without providing data showing that when those variables are controlled, the race gap goes away. Geneticists: describe well-replicated data that's consistent with a genetic interpretation, but in an affirming the consequent sort of way. Some of the effects also seem explainable by an environmentalist position. None of the effects provide direct/smoking gun evidence that it's genetic. That's where the field is right now. Sorry for messing the format up here!-Bpesta22 (talk) 02:20, 6 June 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Preliminary decisions[edit]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/0/1/0)

Temporary injunction (none)

Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision, where vote counts and comments are also available.

Principles[edit]

Pillars

1) Wikipedia articles must be neutral, verifiable and must not contain original research. Those founding principles (the Pillars) are not negotiable and cannot be overruled, even when apparent consensus to do so exists.

Passed 10 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Original research

2) Wikipedia defines "original research" as "facts, allegations, ideas, and stories not already published by reliable sources". In particular, analyses or conclusions not already published in reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy are not appropriate for inclusion in articles.

Passed 10 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Correct use of sources

3.1) Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Mediation

5) Mediation — whether formal or informal — is a voluntary process to help editors who are having a dispute. While it serves the valuable function of facilitating agreement between good faith participants, it cannot make binding decisions on contents or sanction users.

Passed 10 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Advocacy

6) Wikipedia strives towards a neutral point of view. Accordingly, it is not the appropriate venue for advocacy or for advancing a specific point of view. While coverage of all significant points of view is a necessary part of balancing an article, striving to give exposure to minority viewpoints that are not significantly expressed in reliable secondary sources is not.

Passed 10 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Single purpose accounts

7.1) Single purpose accounts are expected to contribute neutrally instead of following their own agenda and, in particular, should take care to avoid creating the impression that their focus on one topic is non-neutral, which could strongly suggest that their editing is not compatible with the goals of this project.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Decorum

8) Wikipedia users are expected to behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other users; to approach even difficult situations in a dignified fashion and with a constructive and collaborative outlook; and to avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Unseemly conduct, such as personal attacks, incivility, assumptions of bad faith, harassment, or disruptive point-making, is prohibited.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Lengthy evidence and sub-pages

9) Longstanding consensus at Miscellany for Deletion is that editors may work up drafts in their userspace for the sole purpose of submitting the material as evidence in arbitration cases. However, after the case closes, the sub-pages should be courtesy-blanked or deleted as they are often perceived as attack pages and serve only to memorialise and perpetuate the dispute. Evidence should properly be submitted only on arbitration pages as it is impossible to ensure that all the parties are aware of all the sub-pages that might have a bearing on them. If the evidence runs over the permitted length, it should not be continued on sub-pages but instead permission should be sought from the drafting arbitrator for an over-length submission.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Tag-team editing

10) Tag teams work in unison to push a particular point of view. Tag-team editing – to thwart core policies (neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research); or to evade procedural restrictions such as the three revert rule or to violate behavioural norms by edit warring; or to attempt to exert ownership over articles; or otherwise to prevent consensus prevailing – is prohibited.

Passed 6 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Findings of fact[edit]

Locus and focus of dispute

1.1) The dispute is focused on articles within the Race and intelligence controversy category. The core issue is whether Intelligence quotient varies significantly between different races and, if so, whether this may be attributed to genetic or environmental factors. The dispute may be characterised as comprising: (i) consistent point-of-view pushing; (ii) persistent edit-warring; and (iii) incessant over-emphasis on certain controversial sources.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Informal mediation

4) During the dispute, some (but not all) of the participants have engaged in informal mediation[24] with the Mediation Cabal. While well-intended, that attempt at mediation was fundamentally flawed because it purported to create a binding decision and proceeded despite major participants having refused mediation.

Passed 10 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci (conduct)

5.1) Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has contributed to a wide range of articles, many focusing on mathematics and baroque music, since he first edited Wikipedia in February 2006. His interest in articles related to race and intelligence appears to have started in autumn 2007. Almost all his content edits to these articles began in April 2010 following a mediation process. Since then, within the area of dispute, the user has acted in good faith in what he perceived as an attempt to protect articles from being skewed by what he perceived as a group of editors pushing a point of view with troubling overtones. In the area of dispute, however, he has engaged in incivility and personal attacks in text, [25][26][27] and in edit summaries;[28][29] once went so far as to accuse one editor of being a "holocaust denier";[30] routinely threatens other editors with blocks,[31][32][33] and has made other, veiled threats.[34] His editing of articles and their talk pages has been unduly aggressive and combative, with borderline edit warring in May [35][36][37][38] and June.[39][40][41][42] This editor was also formally reminded not to edit war in the Abd-William M. Connolley arbitration.

Passed 8 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

David.Kane (conduct)

6) David.Kane (talk · contribs) has edited since June 2006 but has effectively been operating as a single-purpose account in the disputed topic area since October 2009. In essence, this editor has placed undue weight on selected research by A. R. Jensen to promote a point of view. In pursuit of his agenda, he has disruptively removed sourced material (sometimes spuriously claiming BLP violation),[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] has engaged in disruptive forum shopping at the Biographies of Living People Noticeboard,[51][52][53] has tag-teamed with users Mikemikev and Captain Occam.[54][55][56] and has gamed the system with a spurious outing complaint at the Administrators' Noticeboard/Incidents[57]

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam (conduct)

7) Captain Occam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) first edited in November 2006, started contributing regularly in July 2009, and has race and intelligence-related articles as his almost exclusive focus. Of the 306 edits made to date to his ten most-edited articles, only 17 (6%) do not relate to race and intelligence.[58] His disruptive behaviour (primarily edit-warring and wholesale reversion)[59] first attracted sysop attention in October 2009, since when he has been blocked on four occasions.[60] Controversy surrounds the fourth block and associated editing restrictions, which were later rescinded.[61] Nevertheless, this user edit-warred on 9 June 2010,[62][63][64] and returned, on 17 June 2010, to reinstate substantially the same material.[65][66] In addition to the long-term edit-warring, this editor has also tag-team edit-warred alongside Mikemikev and David.Kane,[67][68][69][70][71] and has gamed the system by claiming consensus for article versions which support his point of view.[72][73][74][75][76]

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Mikemikev (conduct)

8) Mikemikev (talk · contribs) has edited as a single-purpose account in the disputed topic area since December 2009. Mikemikev has made less than 700 edits in this time, and has treated the disputed topic area as a battleground,[77][78][79] has imported an "us vs. them" mentality,[80][81] and has repeatedly directed incivility and personal attacks upon those who disagree with him, both in posts [82][83][84][85][86] [87] and in edit summaries.[88] In this time, Mikemikev has also disrupted Wikipedia with frivolous personality-directed requests,[89][90] and has edit-warred in the topic on at least two occasions: in April 2010 [91][92][93][94] and in August 2010 [95][96][97], which is especially remarkable as Mikemikev has only about 100 mainspace edits total.[98]

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Remedies[edit]

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Contentious topic designation

Superseded version
Former title: "Editors reminded and discretionary sanctions".

5.1) Both experienced and new editors contributing to articles within the Category:Race and intelligence controversy are cautioned that this topic has previously been subject to extensive disruption, which created a hostile editing environment. Editors are reminded that when working on highly contentious topics, it is crucial that they adhere strictly to fundamental Wikipedia policies, including but not limited to maintaining a neutral point of view, citing disputed statements to reliable sources, and avoiding edit-warring and uncivil comments.

To enforce the foregoing, Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for "race and intelligence" and all closely related articles.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Amended by motion on 11:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Former title: "Editors reminded and discretionary sanctions (amended).

5.2) Both experienced and new editors contributing to articles relating to the area of conflict (namely, the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed) are reminded that this is a highly contentious subject and are cautioned that to avoid disruption they must adhere strictly to fundamental Wikipedia policies, including but not limited to: maintaining a neutral point of view; avoiding undue weight; carefully citing disputed statements to reliable sources; and avoiding edit-warring and incivility.

To enforce the foregoing, Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for any editor making any edit relating to the area of conflict anywhere on Wikipedia.

Sanctions may not be imposed for edits made prior to the passing of this motion but warnings may be given and should be logged appropriately.

All sanctions imposed under the original remedy shall continue in full force.

Passed 12 to 1 on 11:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Superseded by motion at 21:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

5.3) Both experienced and new editors contributing to articles relating to the area of conflict (namely, the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed) are reminded that this is a highly contentious subject and are cautioned that to avoid disruption they must adhere strictly to fundamental Wikipedia policies, including but not limited to: maintaining a neutral point of view; avoiding undue weight; carefully citing disputed statements to reliable sources; and avoiding edit-warring and incivility.

To enforce the foregoing, the area of conflict is designated as a contentious topic.

All sanctions imposed under the original remedies shall continue in full force.

Amended by motion at 21:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)


Mathsci topic-banned by mutual consent

6) Mathsci (talk · contribs) has consented[99] to a binding topic ban from race and intelligence related articles, broadly construed.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Modified by motion on 21:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

David.Kane topic-banned

7) David.Kane (talk · contribs) is topic-banned from race and intelligence related articles, broadly construed.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam topic-banned

8) Captain Occam (talk · contribs) is topic-banned from race and intelligence related articles, broadly construed.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
Superseded by motion at 15:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Mikemikev site-banned and thereafter topic-banned

9) Mikemikev (talk · contribs) is site-banned for twelve months, and thereafter topic-banned from race and intelligence related articles, broadly construed, and may edit only from one account.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Evidence sub-pages (remedy)

10) Within seven days of this remedy passing, all parties must either (i) courtesy blank any sub-pages they have created relating to this case or (ii) request deletion of them using the ((db-author)) or ((db-self)) templates. Nothing in this remedy prevents at any time any other editor from requesting deletion of the subpages via the Miscellany for deletion process nor any uninvolved adminstrator from deleting them under the applicable Criteria for speedy deletion.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement[edit]

Enforcement of restrictions

0) Should any user subject to a restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year.

In accordance with the procedure for the standard enforcement provision adopted 3 May 2014, this provision did not require a vote.

Appeals and modifications

0) Appeals and modifications

This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee.

Appeals by sanctioned editors

Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may:

  1. ask the enforcing administrator to reconsider their original decision;
  2. request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators’ noticeboard ("AN"); and
  3. submit a request for amendment at "ARCA". If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email through Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee (or, if email access is revoked, to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org).
Modifications by administrators

No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without:

  1. the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or
  2. prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" below).

Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped.

Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied.

Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions.

Important notes:

  1. For a request to succeed, either
(i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or
(ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA
is required. If consensus at AE or AN is unclear, the status quo prevails.
  2. While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.
  3. These provisions apply only to contentious topics placed by administrators and to blocks placed by administrators to enforce arbitration case decisions. They do not apply to sanctions directly authorised by the committee, and enacted either by arbitrators or by arbitration clerks, or to special functionary blocks of whatever nature.
  4. All actions designated as arbitration enforcement actions, including those alleged to be out of process or against existing policy, must first be appealed following arbitration enforcement procedures to establish if such enforcement is inappropriate before the action may be reversed or formally discussed at another venue.
In accordance with the procedure for the standard appeals and modifications provision adopted 3 May 2014, this provision did not require a vote.

Review of topic-bans

3) Editors topic banned under this remedy may apply to have the topic ban lifted after demonstrating their commitment to the goals of Wikipedia and their ability to work constructively with other editors. The Committee will consider each request individually, but will look favourably on participation in the featured content process, including both production of any type of featured content, as well as constructive participation in featured content candidacies and reviews. Applications will be considered no earlier than six months after the close of this case, and further reviews will take place no more frequently than every six months thereafter.

Passed 9 to 0, 22:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Case amendments[edit]

Modified by motion (December 2010)

1) By motion voted upon at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification:

Remedy 6 ("Mathsci topic-banned by mutual consent") of the Race and Intelligence case is terminated, effective immediately.

Passed 6 to 0 on 21:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Modified by motion (April 2011)

2) By motion voted upon at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification:

That the following replace the terms in Remedy 5.1:

Editors reminded and discretionary sanctions (amended)
5.2) Both experienced and new editors contributing to articles relating to the area of conflict (namely, the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed) are reminded that this is a highly contentious subject and are cautioned that to avoid disruption they must adhere strictly to fundamental Wikipedia policies, including but not limited to: maintaining a neutral point of view; avoiding undue weight; carefully citing disputed statements to reliable sources; and avoiding edit-warring and incivility.
To enforce the foregoing, Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for any editor making any edit relating to the area of conflict anywhere on Wikipedia.
Sanctions may not be imposed for edits made prior to the passing of this motion but warnings may be given and should be logged appropriately.
All sanctions imposed under the original remedy shall continue in full force.
Passed 12 to 1 on 11:22, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Modified by motion (September 2012)

3) By motion voted upon at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment:

Banned editors and their sockpuppets have long caused disruption to both the Race and Intelligence topic ("R&I") and editors associated with it.

The Committee notes that the applicable policy provides:

To reduce disruption, the Committee resolves that no editor may restore any reverted edit made by a banned editor:

Standard discretionary sanctions are authorised to enforce the foregoing in respect of any editor restoring any reverted post.

Sanctions may not be imposed for edits made prior to the passing of this motion but warnings may be given for prior activity and should be logged appropriately.

Passed 9 to 0 on 23:36, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Modified by motion (September 2013)

In May 2012 (during the Race and intelligence review), the committee prohibited SightWatcher (talk · contribs) from "participating in any discussion concerning the conduct of editors who have worked in the topic" – and therefore from discussing Mathsci's conduct. In October 2012, The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs) and Cla68 (talk · contribs) were banned (by an administrator acting under discretionary sanctions) from interacting with Mathsci. In December 2012, Mathsci was prohibited (again under discretionary sanctions) by an arbitration enforcement administrator from requesting enforcement of these interaction bans without prior permission. The Arbitration Committee has decided to change these from one-way to two-way interaction bans. Accordingly, Mathsci (talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from:

This motion should be enforced under the enforcement clauses of the Race and intelligence final decision.

Passed 6 to 0, 09:07, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Modified by motion (October 2013)

For posting inappropriate material relating to an editor with whom he is subject to an interaction restriction, Mathsci is indefinitely banned from the English Wikipedia. He may request reconsideration of the ban not less than six months from the date this motion passes.

Passed 11 to 0, 09:00, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
Rescinded 11 to 0, with 1 abstention, by motion, 12:48, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Modified by motion (March 2014)

Ferahgo the Assassin's site-ban in the Race and Intelligence case review is suspended subject to her unconditional acceptance of and continuing compliance with the following restrictions, the purpose of which is to enable her to return to active content work. Failure to comply fully with the letter and spirit of the restrictions may result in the committee revoking the suspension without warning and reinstating the indefinite ban.

Ferahgo the Assassin is restricted to editing articles about the palaeontology of birds and dinosaurs and editing any talk or process pages reasonably and directly associated with improving the quality of those articles. While some tolerance may be given about interpretation of this editing restriction, no tolerance will be shown for edits about, or to any page relating to, race and intelligence, broadly construed.

Ferahgo the Assassin may not

Ferahgo the Assassin is prohibited from commenting directly or indirectly on-wiki about User:Mathsci. If and when Mathsci is unbanned, they will be similarly prohibited from commenting about Ferahgo the Assassin.

Any future appeal will be limited to reconsideration of these restrictions. No request for reconsideration of these restrictions may be made until at least twelve months have elapsed since the date on which the suspension of the ban comes into effect.

Passed 13 to 1, 03:03, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Amended by motion at 02:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Amended by motion at 10:59, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Modified by motion (April 2016)

Following a successful appeal to the Committee the October 2013 amendment to the Race and intelligence case is rescinded and Mathsci (talk · contribs) is unbanned from the English Wikipedia. The unban has been granted on the condition that Mathsci continue to refrain from making any edit about, and from editing any page relating to the race and intelligence topic area, broadly construed. This is to be enforced as a standard topic ban. The following editing restrictions are in force indefinitely:

This motion is to be enforced under the enforcement clauses of the Race and intelligence case.

Passed 11 to 0 with 1 abstention, by motion, 12:48, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Superseded by motion at 21:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Motion: Ferahgo the Assassin editing restrictions modified (September 2016)

Ferahgo the Assassin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was topic-banned from the race and intelligence topic area in October 2010, site-banned in May 2012, and unbanned with editing restrictions in March 2014.

  • The March 2014 requirement that Ferahgo is restricted to "editing articles about the palaeontology of birds and dinosaurs and editing any talk or process pages reasonably and directly associated with improving the quality of those articles" is rescinded. The other restrictions that accompanied the unban remain in force.
  • The 2010 topic ban from the race and intelligence topic, originally issued under discretionary sanctions, remains in force and is adopted by the arbitration committee. This topic ban may be appealed via WP:ARCA.
  • The two-way interaction ban between Ferahgo and Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) remains in force.
Passed 7 to 0 by motion at 02:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
Superseded by motion at 10:59, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Captain Occam (January 2017)

Captain Occam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was topic-banned from race and intelligence related articles in the Race and Intelligence case in 2010. Captain Occam was blocked for one year as an Arbitration Enforcement action in 2011 under the discretionary sanctions authorized in the Abortion case. In the 2012 Review of the R&I case, Occam and Ferahgo the Assassin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who shared an IP and who were found to be proxying for one another, were both site-banned. Ferahgo was unbanned in March 2014. Following a successful appeal, Captain Occam is unbanned under the following restrictions:

  • The scope of his 2010 topic ban is modified from "race and intelligence related articles, broadly construed" to "the race and intelligence topic area, broadly construed".
  • He is subject to a two-way interaction ban with Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).
  • If he behaves disruptively in any discussion, any uninvolved administrator may ban him from further participation in that discussion. Any such restriction must be logged on the R&I case page.

Captain Occam and Ferahgo the Assassin are reminded that tag-team editing, account sharing, and canvassing are not permitted. These restrictions are to be enforced under the standard enforcement and appeals and modifications provisions and may be appealed to the committee after six months.

Passed by motion at 15:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Motion: Mathsci (January 2017)

Mathsci (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was unbanned in April 2016 under the condition that he refrain from making any edit about, and from editing any page relating to the race and intelligence topic area, broadly construed. This restriction is now rescinded. The interaction bans to which Mathsci is a party remain in force.

Passed 8 to 0 by motion at 21:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Motion: Ferahgo the Assassin editing restrictions modified (January 2019)

The editing restrictions placed on Ferahgo the Assassin (talk · contribs) as unban conditions in March 2014 and modified by motion in September 2016 are modified as follows:

  • Ferahgo the Assassin's topic ban from the race and intelligence topic area, broadly construed, is rescinded.
  • All restrictions on Ferahgo the Assassin's participation in dispute resolution are rescinded.
  • The two-way interaction ban between Ferahgo the Assassin and Mathsci (talk · contribs) remains in force.

These modifications will be subject to a probationary period lasting six months from the date this motion is enacted. During this period, any uninvolved administrator may re-impose the former editing restrictions as an arbitration enforcement action, subject to appeal only to the Arbitration Committee. If the probationary period elapses without incident, the above modifications are to be considered permanently enacted.

Passed 8 to 2 by motion at 10:59, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Motion: contentious topic designation (December 2022)

As part of the 2022 adoption of the contentious topics procedure, the Arbitration Committee adopted the following motion to re-designate existing discretionary sanctions remedies as contentious topic designations.

21) Each reference to the prior discretionary sanctions procedure shall be treated as a reference to the contentious topics procedure. The arbitration clerks are directed to amend all existing remedies authorizing discretionary sanctions to instead designate contentious topics.

Passed 10 to 0 with 1 abstention by motion at 21:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)


Review Remedies[edit]

Mathsci: admonished

1.1) Mathsci (talk · contribs) is admonished for engaging in battlefield conduct.

Passed 5 to 3, 01:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Ferahgo the Assassin and Captain Occam site-banned

2.1) Ferahgo the Assassin (talk · contribs) and Captain Occam (talk · contribs) are is site-banned from Wikipedia for a period of no less than one year. After one year has elapsed, a request may be made for the ban to be lifted. Any such request must address all the circumstances which lead to this ban being imposed and demonstrate an understanding of and intention to refrain from similar actions in the future.

Passed 6 to 1, 01:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Amended by motion, 03:03, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Superseded by motion at 15:52, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

SightWatcher topic-banned

6.1) SightWatcher (talk · contribs) is indefinitely banned from editing and/or discussing the topic of Race and Intelligence on any page of Wikipedia, including user talk pages, or from participating in any discussion concerning the conduct of editors who have worked in the topic. This editor may however within reason participate in dispute resolution and noticeboard discussions if their own conduct has been mentioned.

Passed 7 to 0, 01:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

TrevelyanL85A2 topic-banned

7.1) TrevelyanL85A2 (talk · contribs) is indefinitely banned from editing and/or discussing the topic of Race and Intelligence on any page of Wikipedia, including user talk pages, or from participating in any discussion concerning the conduct of editors who have worked in the topic. This editor may however within reason participate in dispute resolution and noticeboard discussions if their own conduct has been mentioned.

Passed 7 to 0, 01:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions[edit]

Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged in this section. Please specify the administrator, date and time, nature of sanction, and basis or context. Unless otherwise specified, the standardised enforcement provision applies to this case. All sanctions issued pursuant to a discretionary sanctions remedy must be logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/Log.

Notifications

On 3 May 2014 Arbcom established a new method of notifying for discretionary sanctions which is explained at WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts. All notices given prior to the May 2014 cutover date will expire on 3 May 2015. New notices are to be given using ((Ds/alert)) and they expire one year after they are given. No new notices should be logged here.

Sanctions

Category