Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Strider12/Evidence

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Evidence presented by MastCell

Strider12 is a single-purpose account dedicated to promoting a specific agenda

Virtually all of Strider12's edits, over the 6 months of her account life, deal with abortion and mental health and David Reardon, a controversial researcher/advocate on the subject ([1]). There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with being a single-purpose account—some of our best articles are written by SPA's. However, an account which exists for the sole purpose of using Wikipedia to advocate a specific agenda at the expense of policy and the encyclopedia is a different kettle of fish.

Edit-warring

• 3RR block, described by Strider12 as "just another misleading, manufactured complaint intended to harrass me" by "a hard core of abortion defending editors who insist on censoring material that does not conform with their few sources denying a link between abortion and mental health."
• Subsequently, 5 reverts in 27 hours (no action taken as the letter of 3RR was not broken)
• Shortly followed by 4 reverts on abortion and mental health in less than 1 hour ([2], [3], [4], [5]), not reported

More recently, the issue has been "slow" edit-warring; Strider12 pops in to reinsert the same disputed text every few days, without attempts to address concerns raised on the talk page or to seek outside input. See example.

Early on, Strider12 described her understanding of WP:3RR as follows: "I have a right to edit this article and post it -- up to three times a day if I have the stamina for it."

Canvassing

Early on, Strider12 canvassed aggressively for support from potentially like-minded editors, writing that they were needed to "jump in and help me out" in a "revert war... and bring some friends". See [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]. Even after being directed to WP:CANVASS, Strider12 maintained that her actions were appropriate since she issued only 7 "limited invites" ([12]).

Much later, after I had opened an RfC on Strider12's conduct, she canvassed participation from NCdave ([13]) and Ferrylodge ([14], [15]), two editors with whom I'd had conflicts in the past.

"Purging"

Strider12 repeatedly accuses other editors of "purging" material for purely biased reasons.

• See litany of examples from RfC

• "Yes, it's a good study and I understand why many of you are looking for excuses to purge it."

Uncollaborative attitude

• Retitles others' talk page threads to attack them: [16], [17]

• Turns her usertalk page into a content fork of the article, explicitly disinviting those who disagree with her POV: "I do not want any of the POV pushers who are into purging verifiable information to alter this draft. This draft is only for those who truly wish to collaborate on an objective article... I have mostly concentrated to date on inserting missing material rather than cleaning up some of the nonsensical inferences which appear to have been inserted by high school students or Planned Parenthood interns." Still up at User:Strider12/Draft.

• "At least I give you guys credit for being unrelenting in promoting your bias... You are the antithesis of encyclopdia editors. You are candidates for George Orwell's thought police."

• Knee-jerk and misplaced accusations of bad faith and "disruptive blanking of relevent information", regardless of the actual situation. Relevant talk page threads include: 1, 2...

• Insists that "her" version is the only appropriate starting point from which to improve the article ([18], [19], [20])

• Describes content disputes as "vandalism" (e.g [21]), compares me to a Holocaust denier deleting a list of death camps ([22]), and suggests that the consensus against her proposed edits is like a "consensus of 400 Holocaust deniers". Her attempts at soliciting outside input have been partisan, to say the least ([23]).

Misrepresentation of sources

A canonical example (a bit long, but useful reading). Also:

• Dismisses PBS as a partisan "pro-choice" source: [24]
• Dismisses pieces from PBS, Boston Globe, and New York Times Magazine on David Reardon as unreliable sources because the correspondents did not interview Reardon: [25]. (Reardon actually refused requests for an interview [26], as Strider12 was aware).
• Dismisses New York Times Magazine as a partisan "pro-choice" source: [27], [28]
• Dismisses review article from Annals of Internal Medicine as the "biased" work of "an aging abortionist trying to encourage other doctors to join the club."
• Dismisses Boston Globe piece on David Reardon ([29]) as an unreliable source: "It is not as if the author had researched and written a 300 page biography or Reardon. For all we know it was written in a day, and there is no evidence he ever even interviewed Reardon, much less friends and associates. So really, the only reliable information we have are the works or Reardon himself."

Possible conflict of interest

Moved to subpage.

Rewriting Foundation-level policy

Proposes to amend WP:NPOV to further her position in content disputes ([30])

Wikipedia as a battleground

• "Don't expect me to limp away quietly when there is a 'vigilient' campaign as 131 described it to 'purge' information that runs counter to the DENIAL GROUP's 'politically correct' effort to prevent Wikipedia readers from seeing all the evidence."
• Editors who disagree with Strider12's edits constitute the "DENIAL CAMP": [31]
• "So far those in the denial camp continue to refuse to bring forward any fresh evidence..."
• To Ferrylodge (among others): "Though I have lots of expertise in the area, the 'abortion is benign and anyone who disagrees is untrustworthy' crowd are in a revert war with me. I need more voices in there... I'd appreciate you adding post-abortion syndrome to your watch page and some periodic comments of support."
• "I will not accept or yield to purgers...or those who empathize with them."
• Her ArbCom evidence descibres a battle between "DENIERS" and "Believers" and notes that "For four months I was nearly the only editor trying to include material related to the Believer's position."

Refusal to "get the point"

The talk pages bear witness to 6 months of the same arguments, which fail to convince other editors and then are repeated a few days later without modification per WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. The most recent example: [32].

Other editors notice the problem:

• [33], [34]
• [35]
• [36]
• [37]
• [38]
• [39]
• [40]

Wikilawyering and abuse of policies/guidelines

Strider12 claims that anyone disputing her edits is "disrupting" Wikipedia ([41], [42], [43], [44], [45]). She cites a prior ArbCom principle: "It is disruptive to remove statements that are sourced reliably, written in a neutral narrative, and pertain to the subject at hand." In Strider12's hands, the principle applies thus: "If you feel any of these materials should be moved to another section, I am quite open to your recommendations. But any deletion is, according to ArbCom standards, disruption." Of course, the very dispute is over the lack of neutrality in Strider12's narrative.

Typical sequence:

• Strider12 makes a contentious edit without talk-page discussion, claiming that the ArbCom principle means that everyone else is being disruptive: [46]
• The edit is reverted based on prior discussion/consensus: [47]
• Strider12 reverts back ([48]) and adds the offending editor to her "disruption log" ([49])

As of 20:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC), Strider12 continues to maintain a "disruption log" in her userspace: User:Strider12/Disruption. I asked that this log be deleted as a violation of WP:UP#NOT, after it became evident that Strider12 was not interested in pursuing dispute resolution. She responded by copying it to her usertalk page ([50]).

Summary

Wikipedia is not a venue for advocacy, nor a battleground for "DENIERS" and "Believers". Strider12 is an account devoted solely to advocating as forcefully as possible for a single agenda on a single controversial article, violating policy along the way.

Should anyone be brave enough, wade through the talk pages and archives at Talk:Abortion and mental health and Talk:David Reardon. The above is an incomplete summary of the problems. These articles have been rendered largely uneditable as a result of this advocacy, which is a shame because there's a good article in there trying desperately to get out. MastCell ^Talk 21:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Response to Sbowers: "Old" evidence

Yes, some of the evidence refers to events more than 1-2 months old. The point is Strider12's behavior has consistently fit the same pattern. It has not improved. After the RfC, which Strider12 dismissed, she continued to do exactly the same thing she'd been doing for the previous 5 months. As I said, the slow edit-warring and reinsertion for the 8th or 9th time of the same old disputed text with zero attempt to gain consensus was the straw that broke the camel's back. This is tendentious editing. Am I supposed to wait for a whole new set of 5 months' worth of new egregious diffs to accrue after the RfC, or is evidence of incorrigibility in the face of all lesser means of dispute resolution enough to land here? MastCell ^Talk 04:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. In the past 6 weeks, as Sbowers suggests that anything prior falls under the statute of limitations for tendentious editing and disruption:

A small sample from the past 6 weeks

• March 16: More accusations that Reardon's studies are being actively "purged" by biased editors.
• March 18: Experts who assert that abortion is not linked to psychiatric harm are analagous to "OJ's lawyers saying there is no evidence he committed murder".
• March 18: Ongoing mischaracterization of my argument on primary/secondary sources: "MastCell has consistently insisted that we should not look at the original document but only news reports of it."
• March 18: More insistence on treating the article as a battleground: "... until you agree to chuck your claims of what the majority view is, it is clear that the TIMES article is a counterweight to bloated claims that there are no pscyhological risks associated with abortion." Response.
• March 19: Incessant spinning: suggests "ignoring the newspaper articles like those from Bazelon and Mooney which all involve selective reporting and spin." (Bazelon's article was published in the New York Times Magazine).
• March 19: Strider12 claims that it's well-known that a prominent researcher in the field has stated that pro-choice politics come first and "the evidence doesn't matter." I request a source for this somewhat remarkable claim. After some hemming and hawing, it turns out that the actual quote in the newspaper is quite different; the only source for the quote attributed by Strider12 to this living person is a page on a pro-life website written by (drumroll...) David Reardon.
• March 19: This diff summarizes the problem with Strider12 as a Wikipedia editor in a nutshell: "Statements like 'most women do not suffer significant mental illness after an abortion' really admit that a minority of women do, and perhaps even the majority experience negative feelings, just not illness." So a source clearly stating that most women don't suffer mental illness after abortion becomes, in Strider12's hands, a source claiming that many women do suffer such consequences. 'Cause if the source says "most don't", it follows that "some" do, so the article should cast this as an admission of the harms of abortion... repeat x 6 months.
• March 20: Repeats the "youthful error" of dismissing an article from Annals of Internal Medicine as a source because she dislikes it and finds it biased: "Very selective. A totally useless 'review.'"
• March 21: Knee-jerk accusation of "clearly disruptive blanking of relevant information" in response to good-faith edit
• March 22: Yet again abuses ArbCom finding to accuse me of disruptive editing for daring to dispute or remove one of her edits: "Try ADDING material instead of cutting it as suggested in the ArbCom ruling on disruptive editing."

I could go on. The essence of tendentiousness is repeating the same arguments endlessly and circularly without acknowledging responses, concerns, outside input, etc. I find it challenging to be asked both to demonstrate a pattern of tendentiousness and to observe some sort of 4-6 week statute of limitations on what diffs are "relevant". The point is that the above issues are the same ones that have surrounded this editor from day one. They are the hallmarks of a tendentious editor. MastCell ^Talk 06:20, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Strider12's "chart" purporting to show that my evidence is dated is inaccurate. My edit-warring section contains evidence dating to mid-March (under "slow edit-warring"), yet her chart would make it seem that all of my diffs are from February and before. That's just in the first row; I haven't gone further because it's an obvious misrepresentation. It also leaves out the above list which I compiled in response to Sbowers3 from just a few days in March, taken largely at random, which demonstrate that this is very much an active behavioral issue. MastCell ^Talk 03:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Strider12

MastCell has been steadily engaged in "biting a newbie" with a different POV and now continues to use my early mistakes as an excuse to portray an ongoing content dispute as a conduct complaint, as the following distribution of MastCell's diffs shows. MastCell's only prior attempt at conflict resolution, an RfC against me, was begun in late February.

Date Distribution for MastCell's Evidence

MastCell's Evidence	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr
Edit-warring	-	1	2	9	-	-
Canvassing		7	-	3	-	-
Complaints about past purge	-	1	-	1	-	-
Uncollaborative attitude	3	7		1	1	-
Misrepresentation of sources	-	3	4	-	-	-
Possible conflict of interest	-	-	-	-	-	-
Rewriting Foundation-level policy	-	1	-	-	-
Wikipedia as a battleground	-	2	3	-	-
Refusal to "get the point"		4	4	-	-	-
Wikilawyering	-	-	10	2	-	-

Intro to Content Dispute

The issue of abortion and mental health is divisive. For abbreviation, DENIERS deny any significant negative mental health effects associated with abortion. BELIEVERS believe in negative reactions.

Deniers and Believers do NOT cleanly split down pro-choice / pro-life lines. While many pro-choice experts are Deniers,[51] many pro-choice experts are Believers.[52][53][54][55][56]

Many editors favoring the Denier's view have expressed hold the extreme position that ALL studies supporting the Believer's position are "quackery" or "pseudoscience."[57]

This article has been largely dominated by editors favoring the Denier's position. The resulting bias has long been criticized.[58] [59]

Unbalanced

Balance was completely tossed aside in August of 2007 when 131.216.41.16 (aka IronAngelAlice)[60] and Saranghae_honey(aka mirageinred and миражinred) agreed to "purge all references from the Elliot Institute and David Reardon."[61] Reardon's studies are peer reviewed and reliable[62], but are still excluded[63].

Other editors followed this lead[64] and even promoted excluding studies for simply citing Reardon.[65][66]

My first talk entry (November) argued that 'purging' violated policy.[67]

To avoid conflict in the article, I've focused on introducing material from pro-choice Believers who could not be accused of a pro-life bias[68] but discovered that nearly ANY material that did not support the Denier's thesis is unwelcome and subject to almost immediate deletion.

This 'closed system' has been noted by others[69] and driven them away.[70] Persistence in the face of such a non-collaborative spirit is difficult.[71]

As Denier's love citing Stotland, I imagined they could not oppose a quote from a subsequent paper in which she described treating a patient with post-abortion sequelae[72]. It was was immediately deleted [73]. I replaced it with other reliably sourced material, MastCell deleted all. [74]

Canvassing

After unproductive struggles, I became increasingly sarcastic. A mistake. I apologize. Am trying harder. Being the subject of much abuse, it's difficult not to reply in-kind.

In December I made the newbie mistake of inviting seven experienced editors to weigh in to mentor me and the "blocking" editors on this contentious article. I sought editors who I expected would not be politically hostile to the Believer's viewpoint. Only one responded. While critical of my newbie mistakes, Evil Spartan agreed that the article was a "hatchet job" and made many good recommendations [75] most of which were reverted.

MastCell's Behavior

• MastCell refuses to grant good faith to my edits and constantly characterizes me as a problem editor.

• MastCell "wikistalked" me here (where I had carefully avoided any mention of the subject matter or editors involved to discuss secondary sources) and launched an ad hominum attack.

• Among my first edits in November I added a link to an online copy of Koop's letter. As the text was difficult to find, I had used a PriestsForLife link to a copy of the text with minimal comment.[76] MastCell has repeatedly distorted this ONE use of a pro-life link to Koop's letter!! to imply that I am constantly using biased sources [77][78]. I would have no objection to her finding a different link, but blocking readers from reading the primary source served no purpose other than to prevent readers from judging whether the articles coverage of Koop was accurate. (It wasn't.)

• MastCell never forgives newbie mistakes and draws most of her charges from my first 2-3 months.[79]

• MastCell acts as if she is final arbiter of content decisions,[80], perhaps because she can count on three editors guarding the Denier's "slant" of the article to agree with every block of my edits.

• MastCell seldom corrects (much less reverts) the obviously biased edits of the most aggressive Denier editors. Her leadership encourages reckless & biased edits:[81][82][83][84][85]

[86][87][88][89][90][91] [92]

• She and others complain when I mention the August "purge" but refuse to denounce it as a mistake.[93][94][95][96]

Misrepresentation

• MastCell frequently misrepresents my statements and behavior and attributes bad motives.[97][98]

• As stated above, the Deniers position rests on just two dated sources. When I repeatedly ask for other sources upon which they base the claim that "most scientists and physicians" hold the Denier's viewpoint, the best they can offer are advocacy journalism articles in magazines[99][100] or newspapers[101]) which simply cite these same two sources. SeeTwo Kinds of Evidence and[102]

• In the absence of academic sources supporting her WEIGHT, MastCell repeatedly misrepresents[103][104] an article by David Grimes, a noted abortion provider and board member of National Abortion Federation[105], as a "recent" review of abortion and mental health which has examined and dismissed Reardon's findings. Examining Grime's full article: here irrefutably shows:
  • It is NOT a systematic review article of abortion and mental health issue. And even Grimes admits it is not[106]
  • It is a general overview of abortion with only one paragraph touching on mental health, citing only three sources, including both the overused 1990 APA review and Stotland 1992. It gives no updated perspective.
  • Grimes doesn't mention Reardon, much less dismiss his studies.
  • Grimes doesn't even claim a consensus of medical opinion.

Clearly, it is MastCell, not I, who is guilty of misrepresention. Similar misrepresenations of evidence, policy, WEIGHT, and opinions of myself and others can also be found.

Disruptiveness

MastCell hates my pointing out that ArbCom has defined deletion of well sourced, neutrally stated, verifiable material as disruptive[107] because she frequently does just that.[108][109][110][111][112][113][114]

Her complaint is not that I DELETE her material (even if I dislike it), because I very rarely do, if only to avoid conflict. She only complains that I keep trying to insert material that she has vetoed. She resists letting facts speak for themselves.

Weight & Secondary Sources

• For four months I was nearly the only editor trying to include material related to the Believer's position. Edit warring on this article is caused by those working to reflect almost exclusively the viewpoint of only two key sources.[115][116]

• Insisting her view of WEIGHT is correct, she consistently deletes reliable sources.[117][118][119][120][121][122][123]

• MastCell's arguments on secondary sources and weight turn Wikipedia policy upside down and would be harmful if generally applied.[124] [125][126][127]

Conclusion

I have constructively encouraged respect for peer reviewed materials and identification of WEIGHT per established policy. [128][129][130][131][132][133]

My contributions to the balance of these articles can be seen by comparing this version with my latest edit and this old with this new.

Evidence presented by NCdave

First, I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to work, so if I do something wrong here please let me know.

Single-purpose account? Mostly true.

New users acting in good-faith often begin to edit topics in which they have an interest. Strider12 has concentrated her edits on an area in which she has expertise. That’s good. Traditional encyclopedias have articles written by experts with expertise relevant to the articles. If that were more common on Wikipedia, the quality here would doubtless improve.

Promoting a POV? False.

Strider12 has consistently sought balance in the articles that she edits. In contrast, the complainant & some other editors whose POV he shares very frequently blank well-sourced material that conflicts with their POV.

The effects of abortion on maternal mental health is a contentious topic, in which a major (~$500 million) industry has a big financial interest. There are support groups[134][135] for women suffering from the aftereffects of abortion, and thousands of counseling centers which offer post-abortion counseling services. The former surgeon general of the United States has acknowledged that the effects are in some cases devastating, even while arguing that an overall effect on public health hadn’t been scientifically demonstrated. Many peer-reviewed scientific studies have found that abortion is associated with negative mental health consequences, such as suicide and depression, yet many others studies have failed to find such an association.

An NPOV article must give balanced treatment to both POVs. Strider12 has consistently worked to bring that kind of balance to the article. Unfortunately, the complainant and editors who share his POV repeatedly blank information about studies which have found links between abortion and adverse mental health consequences.

Edit warring? False.

What do you call it when someone on one side of a difference of opinion discusses her edits on the Talk page, seeks consensus and compromise, and makes no effort to delete the other POV from the article, but person(s) on the other side of the issue repeatedly revert her work, often with little or no discussion of the merits, and frequently accompanied by personal attacks? Only if you believe that describes a situation in which both parties are edit-warring can Strider12 be deemed to have edit warred. But that isn’t what I call a two-sided edit war. The edit warriors are those who repeatedly revert her efforts at achieving balance and compromise, and heap personal abuse on her. Strider12 isn’t an edit warrior.

Patience? Amazing, actually.

That abuse that Strider has endured is appalling, yet, remarkably, she has largely refrained from responding in kind. Her hard work is often instantly reverted, she has been subjected to many personal attacks, and she's even had to endure insults to her religion and the invention of words falsely attributed to her for the purpose of ridiculing her.

For instance, in this diff you can see where мirаgeinred (an editor closely allied with the complainant) accused Strider12 of saying that "gays are God's abominations who will burn in hell one day:"

Just quote James Dobson to verify your claim that gays are God's abominations who will burn in hell one day.

Actually, Strider12 never said any such thing. (Neither did Dobson.) мirаgeinred just made it up.

The complainant in this case, who is so exercised about Strider12's rare expressions of exasperation, is apparently unbothered by attacks on Strider12.

Canvasing

It is ironic that part of the RfC complaint against Strider12 is that she engaged in "inappropriate canvassing for support." In particular, she was faulted for notifying two other editors (including me) that the RfC had been filed against her (though in my case she was actually replying to a note from me). The reason that’s ironic is that both of the other editors who certified the basis for the dispute (i.e., that they had tried and failed to resolve the dispute) did so as the result of being explicitly canvassed to do so by the complainant (as was one of the endorsers, too).[136][137][138]

What’s more, one of the complaint certifiers was the same editor who fabricated that fake "claim" by Strider12, to accuse her of homophobia. That isn’t attempting to resolve a dispute, that’s just fanning the flames.

Purging.

Strider12 is correct that the editors of one POV have repeatedly purged the article of well-sourced balancing material, contrary to WP:NPOV.

What's more, the effect of the complainant's efforts to oust Strider12 and Ferrylodge would be to purge the articles even of the main editors who don’t share the complainant's POV. In fact, though I am only a minor editor, whose contributions have been nowhere near as good as those of Strider12, the complainant has even sought administrative action against me.

Now, I ask you, how is it possible to arrive at a balanced article if the editors who hold one of the two POVs are banished?

Conflict of Interest? False.

A conflict of interest occurs when someone's own personal (esp. pecuniary) interest conflicts with his duty or obligations[139]. For example, someone employed in the tobacco industry couldn’t be a neutral arbiter over issues related to health effects of tobacco, because he would have a conflict of interest: his duty to be a neutral arbiter would conflict with his need to protect his livelihood.

However, a volunteer like Strider12 has no personal interest at stake. If someone who does volunteer post-abortion counseling is deemed to have a conflict of interest, then someone who volunteers at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen must have a conflict of interest that should prevent him from weighing in on homelessness.

Rather than representing a conflict of interest, Strider12’s experience with post-abortion counseling makes her especially well qualified to contribute to the articles in question, just as a homeless shelter volunteer would be especially well qualified to contribute to an article on homelessness.

Length of complaint

I thought a complaint was supposed to be at most 1000 words. But this one is ~2500
(as of 13:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC) it is now down to 1264 words).

Conclusion

The complaints against Strider12 are meritless. She’s a relative newcomer to Wikipedia, and the more experienced editors here mostly showed her appallingly poor examples of how Wikipedia editors should behave. Nevertheless, she has consistently made high quality, encyclopedic contributions to the articles on which she has chosen to work, and diligently sought balance, with a spirit of compromise. Her contributions should be welcomed here, with gratitude, in the hope that she can be encouraged to similarly contribute to other articles. It would be a shame if she were driven away, as so many other excellent editors have been. NCdave (talk) 18:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Credo From Start

Baiting, perhaps?

I'm not very happy to see User:MastCell/DYK, which is displayed on MastCell's userpage, points out a number of Strider12's edits in a fairly sarcastic way. Strider may have made his/her own bed on some of these edits, but posting links to them to make some kind of point is, in my opinion, pretty bad form for an administrator who's taking someone they have an editing dispute with to ArbCom - perhaps MastCell is aggravating Strider12. CredoFromStart ^talk 16:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've discussed this with MastCell, and I regret posting it here. I withdraw it. CredoFromStart ^talk 14:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Sbowers3

Evidence should be recent

The purpose of ArbCom remedies is to prevent future damage to the project, not to punish past bad behavior. For that reason, evidence should be recent; it should indicate an ongoing problem that is likely to continue. Most of MastCell's evidence is several months old. At Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Strider12/Evidence/Dated I have made a copy of that evidence with dates added and then with strikeouts through evidence from November, December, and January. Evidence that old should be irrelevant for this arbitration. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Observations from an independent editor

I have been editing with both Stider12 and MastCell for about six weeks. With a single exception noted below I have not noticed any bothersome behavior from either one. Strider12 has occasionally been repetitive and I have been advising her (e.g. [140], [141]) to try a different approach.

I hope the committee will find a way for both of them to continue to contribute. The Abortion and mental health article needs lots of work and it will be even harder if either of them is absent. Strider12 and MastCell have both provided lots of information to help me learn about the topic. Those two are the most active editors on this topic. I think the three of us with occasional help from other editors can produce a decent article. The occasional and mild contention doesn't bother me; it helps to have multiple opinions shaping the article. It will be difficult to produce a neutral article if one significant POV is missing.

Both MastCell and Strider12 quite apparently are frustrated with each other. Lately they have been contending over one section of text that Strider12 wants to include and MastCell wants to exclude. (I don't yet have an opinion on the item or the rationales for inclusion/exclusion.) The edit-warring was low-level and not bothersome until the sequence of edits starting here and continuing through here.

Strider12 made a sequence of non-controversial edits but also re-included the section that MastCell wants to exclude. MastCell reverted the whole sequence of edits including the non-controversial parts. Strider12 reverted; MastCell reverted; Strider12 reverted; then another editor stepped in and reverted. The next day I reinserted the non-controversial edits that Strider12 had made, with the agreement of MastCell.

I hold both editors at fault for this episode. Strider12 could have sequenced her edits to more clearly separate the non-controversial parts from the controversial part. MastCell could have reverted only the controversial part instead of reverting all of Strider12's edits, including reverting the non-controversial parts.

In my six weeks that is the only objectionable editing I have seen from either and it was fairly mild and quickly stopped. By no means does it warrant any kind of further action. Sbowers3 (talk) 00:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Strider12 is pushing a neutral POV

The Abortion and mental health article is non-neutral. That is the opinion not just of Strider12 but of many other editors, e.g. [142] [143] [144] [145] [146] [147]. (I don't yet know the article well enough to have my own opinion as to neutrality.) Searching through the Talk pages I did not find a single instance of an editor complaining about bias in the opposite direction. On a contentious topic, it is not surprising to see complaints of bias but when all of them point in the same direction, that is good evidence that the article is biased.

Strider12 is pushing for a neutral tone in the article. She has tried to add material supporting her POV - not to push her POV but to balance the article and make it more neutral. She has not sought to delete opposite material, only to add verifiable, well-sourced material for balance.

Her draft article shows an attempt to be neutral. Her proposed intro describes both sides of the coin. The body includes expert opinions from the other side. (I have only scanned her draft and I don't claim that it is neutral, only that at first glance it appears to include both sides.)

She has suggested that "Instead of deleting material, editors should seek to find relevant material they can ADD."[148] and "cutting verifiable material does not demonstrate a good faith effort to collaborate. Try ADDING material instead of cutting it."[149]

On the Workshop page, she asked MastCell:

Why does my persistent desire to introduce relevant peer reviewed findings to a highly unbalanced article have to be characterized as advocacy of "a narrow agenda"? You may recall that I pointed you to the literature showing that teens who abort are significantly more likely to finish high school. I did not try to hide that benefit. Also, when you brought up relief after an abortion, I agreed wholeheartedly, that the common finding in the literature that feelings of "relief" are common and should not only be included but should be given prime position in the introduction. ... I've NEVER objected to the inclusion of a source denying a link between abortion and mental health. Look at the record. Doesn't the lack of objections to material from the opposite viewpoint help to demonstrate that I am not as agenda driven as you think?[150]

The evidence indicates that she is trying to make an unbalanced article more neutral - not to make it a vehicle for her own POV. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Ferrylodge

Strider12 has a short block log and she's trying to learn the rules

Here is Strider12's block log. It's very short, and does not indicate that any 1RR or other intermediate measure has been taken.

On 29 March, Strider12 asked for someone to show her "the Wikipedia policy saying that reliable material can and should be deleted if a contributing editor has not first obtained a consensus of other editors that the fact cited should be allowed into the article." I replied by pointing her to WP:Consensus.[151]

She's obviously trying to learn and follow the rules. Why not give her 1RR for awhile?Ferrylodge (talk) 21:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

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