Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race and Intelligence/Archive 1

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Request

Please simply post your statement with a brief explaination of your opinion. I am trying to work out an agenda for issues to be discussed that would lead us to resolution. Please make your own statement - responces to others is not needed. If you hold a major disagreement with what someone said, simply inform me on my talk page rather than making this page impossible to read.

As some parties have suggested, page protection is an option, however I wish not to use that as I am confident you can follow this simple request.

I will sadly be off for a large part of the day, so please don't give me an essay to read when I come back. I need time to DIGEST your comments, please allow me to do that Reubzz (talk) 12:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Nah, that's not necessary. You end up getting into litmus territory - where everyone feels they're being dipped in a vat of heredity to see if they come out green... uhh... what I mean is, in mediation, it's best not to explicitly figure out why someone believes what they do in an open forum if the subject matter is contentious.

Gotta come to some understanding, first. Right now we're stuck between folks who want an adequate summary of some length, and folks who want one or two paragraphs. Quick! What do you do? Xavexgoem (talk) 13:30, 17 November 2009 (UTC) Half the job of a mediator is to figure out things like what's between 2 paragraphs and 25%

(although I would set an agenda. I'm just saying not to worry overmuch about why some folks think this or other folks think that in an atmosphere of (potential) distrust). Xavexgoem (talk) 17:37, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to concur with Xavexgoem. What you as a mediator need to do is clarify exactly what specific issues need to be mediated, and then pick one to start with. I would suggest picking the easiest one, to build momentum. This way, everyone knows exactly where we're going. The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:52, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, all that is happening here is people are slowly reproducing the conflict that is already on the talk page of the article. Trust me, we can keep going and it won't be very long before this talk page is 100 kb. Is this the mediation process - simply to create a second talk page for people to debate the same issues? For my part, I will no longer post anything to this mainpage or talk page. The mediator asked for my view of the conflict and I provided it. What is the point of our debating anything here? That is what the article talk page is for. I am done until the mediator comes up with the next stage. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think there is a marked difference in these discussions when compared with our past discussions on the article's talkpage. Yes, we still disagree on quite a few things, but I think we've made real progress on the "minority vs. fringe" issue, and I think concrete and workable solutions have been proposed which could overcome the question of proportions. Asking the question "How much is enough?" was a good move in my opinion, and if the mediators can bear with us and continue to guide the discussion through posing important questions and indicating areas where consensus seems to be emerging and requesting confirmation, I think we can make solid progress. I apologize to the mediators for the volume of my own comments. I try to keep it to the bare essentials, but as this group has a very poor track record in WP:AGF, making sure one doesn't leave any room for imaginative assumptions has become something of a survival strategy. :) --Aryaman (talk) 18:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

A lot of the re-hashing is essential to us. I think most of that is over. What it gives us is a more concise overview of what's going on. Article talk page discussions have a fairly low signal-to-noise ratio. Xavexgoem (talk) 18:37, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

My concrete suggestion (see above) is to switch the perceived roles of editors. Ramdrake or T34CH should prepare a careful summary of the hereditarian point of view based on the 2005 review of Rushton and Jensen and the references therein. Then Captain Occam or Varoon Arya should write a summary of representative criticisms from all disciplines. The summaries can then be massaged into a form agreeable to all. Mathsci (talk) 23:12, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci's proposal - thoughts?

Mathsci's proposal is intriguing. What are other parties' feelings on it? Reubzz (talk) 00:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, it seems like an interesting exercise, but doesn't it miss the central issue? Recall that Mathsci argued that "I think that only a short summary of one or two paragraphs is required for this minority [hereditarian] view." I believe that this is the heart of the dispute. Either you believe that the hereditarian view merits no more than 1 or 2 paragraphs or you believe that it should be a substantial portion of the article. What point is there in having Ramdrake or T34CH write a "careful summary" (which would surely be several paragraphs long) if you don't think such a summary belongs, even in theory, in the article? (I apologize if I have misunderstood Mathsci's viewpoint on this.) David.Kane (talk) 00:50, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci, what specifically would your proposal entail? What would be the content of the sumarries? Reubzz (talk) 00:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

It would involve locating two sets of principal sources. Then a presentation of the hereditarian view would be prepared; after that a section would be written on the criticisms. Then all parties could discuss whether the material has been presented accurately and appropriately.

@David.Kane: you missed my comment above on not making a priori requirements on percentages or number of paragraphs.

@Reubzz: wikipedia articles are always summaries/paraphrasings of what can be found in sources.

@Captain Occam: writing dispassionately is how wikipedia works, whether the editor personally agrees with the content or not.

The new material could be prepared in userspace or here, as people see fit. Mathsci (talk) 08:46, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Varoon Arya

I see no problem with it, provided that we go through with compiling a list of representative literature and form some kind of consensus on whether we should (a) group the article's presentation around pieces of literature (as per Mathsci's suggestion, provided I understood it correctly), or (b) group the article's presentation around core issues which are discussed in multiple reliable sources taken from our representative list. After that, I have no problem taking whichever "side" is necessary as long as all sides are fairly presented. I've written neutrally on several conflicting points of view before, and I don't see how this article is any different. In short: I'm game. --Aryaman (talk) 00:53, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

PS: For the record: Before becoming involved in the articles Race and crime in the United States and Race and intelligence, I had no personal interest in anything to do with "race", and had not edited any articles dealing with the issue. My real areas of interest are comparative linguistics, comparative mythology and pre-modern philosophies. Through my involvement in this article, I've somehow been put in a category of personally "promoting" one view, though my original intent was simply to introduce some sorely needed neutrality to the discussion. One view was heavily represented, while another was being unfairly marginalized. I would like to request that other editors please not confuse my defending one point of view with actually holding the point of view myself. "Race" is something which interests me very little in real life, and has nothing to do with my real areas of interest. --Aryaman (talk) 15:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Ramdrake

No problem with it.--Ramdrake (talk) 04:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Captain Occam

I’ll accept this proposal if it’s what other people want, but I’m concerned that a person who strongly disagrees with a particular position might have trouble summarizing it without subconsciously emphasizing what they consider to be its weak points. As someone who’s been involved in the creationism/evolution controversy for around ten years, I’ve become very accustomed to this problem when either side in that debate tries to summarize the other side’s position. It’s quite rare to find an explanation of creationism written by a supporter of evolution which doesn’t involve some type of strawman, and it’s even rarer to find an accurate explanation of evolution written by a creationist.

It seems like having the explanation of each position be written by someone who disagrees with it might end up leading to unnecessary difficulties for this reason. My preference would be for the people who agree with each position to be in charge of writing it, although as I said, it’s not such a strong preference that I wouldn’t be willing to capitulate to others’ opinions on this. I also approve of the suggestion that the article should discuss this topic issue-by-issue. It was pointed out earlier that Flynn and Nisbett disagree with each other about as much as either of them does with Jensen, and this suggestion seems like it would be a better way of representing the many differing viewpoints about each issue, rather than lumping everything into “pro-hereditarian” and “anti-hereditarian” viewpoints. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein

That someone who disagrees with a position may not represent it fairly is the reason Wikipedia encourages people to work on articles in which they have no interest. Obviously here people are not only working on an article in which they feel they have an interest; they are working only on those parts they agree with. I understand Captain Occam's fear but in this case the challenge of mediation is to get people to see things from someone else's point of view. "Good faith" in a mediation includes a willingness to try this.

It is an appealing suggesting, and echoes a common formula in dispute resolution. If two people fight over who is getting the bigger slice of pie, you have one person slice the pie and the other get first pick. In other words, instead of each person's primary interest being, to represent the view they favor most strongly, their interest is now in having each view represented most fairly. Worth a try. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

David.Kane

No objection, but I personally won't have time to write anything. -- David.Kane (talk) 12:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

futurebird

I have not been active but I put a lot of work in to this article about two years ago. (Look at the edit history.) I think MathSci's idea is both fair and reasonable. Undue weight was an issue two years ago and it is now. A guideline would be wise and might bring this article in to a stable form. (At last.) futurebird (talk)

Statement Deadline + Mediator Agenda

Parties, I would like to thank everyone for your cooperation in this process so far. I believe we are making progress especially in the most preliminary of steps - the ability to communicate with each other. Now that we can focus on content issues fully and that we understand each other's points, I would like to set a timetable/timeline for this weekend which will include a proposed deadline.

Let me first make clear that the following schedule is not a set rule, but rather a stressed timeline for everyone to follow. It will greatly help me read all material and make a list of issues to discuss if I have time to let the discussion sink in and to let it be evaulated. (someone I know once used the interesting term "marinated" for this process :O )

Mediator Timeline Deadline of all comments on pending discussions - Midnight EST/05:00 WP time on Nov.20 Thursday night

Mediator publishes agenda which includes 1) list of things to be discussed and the order they will be discussed, 2) thoughts on objective ways to resolve mediation, central/essential questions - by 11:59pm Saturday night EST/5:00 WP time on Nov.22 Saturday night

I will ask that all comments be published by that deadline. I believe this is a more than reasonable amount of time for all final statements to be issued. Cheers! -- Reubzz (talk) 03:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

EXTRA NOTE - At the point I begin this new phase, I will likely archieve the discussions on this page into a seperate one for historical use. --Reubzz (talk) 20:41, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

EXTRA EXTRA NOTE - I will be seeking page protection when the new deadline comes. Reubzz (talk) 02:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Request to help in determing issues to discuss

To help me make a listing of the issues to be discussed, please leave a BRIEF (please!) comment on my talk page on the one issue you think should be evaulated first. This will give me a very good perception of where all parties think this is so far. Reubzz (talk) 21:55, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Page protection

I will seek page protection per the deadline above in the next few hours. Reubzz (talk) 21:03, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Protected. This is a different approach. Let's see how it works :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 23:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I've unprotected. Lemme see where I can pick up. Xavexgoem (talk) 00:52, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

---

Seem's Mathschi's proposal has consensus. Occam has a few worries, but that can be fixed through the editorial process. Sound alright? Xavexgoem (talk) 00:55, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the first thing which needs to be determined is the scope. I think most if not all the participating editors would agree that the scope is a central issue here, and that it needs to be resolved before any constructive work with lasting value can be accomplished - including Mathsci's proposal. --Aryaman (talk) 01:55, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

In my eyes, MathSci's proposal is a small step towards determining consensus of the scope. By reaching agreements over how to articulate the view points and what the best sources for determining consensus are, maybe we can build common ground for discussing the scope. Also, it's the only proposal on the table for the next step. T34CH (talk) 02:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Scope is important, but a general rule for mediation is to get some agreement first. Otherwise we'll get into a talk, talk, talk loop. Xavexgoem (talk) 02:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't rightly see how we can proceed with Mathsci's proposal without knowing the scope, which will play a significant role in determining which literature is to be used and how (e.g. in what depth) it is to be summarized. I'll defer to those who think this is possible, however. --Aryaman (talk) 03:23, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The whole point of the proposal is that it forces people to pick the scope and depth, creating a starting point and context for future discussion. That's kind of what was already said about it. T34CH (talk) 04:12, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Step 1 is presenting the hereditarian view neutrally. If the primary concern of us as editors and the project as a whole is to have a neutral point of view, we should work on that immediately. Remember that lots of people are viewing this page; we're only a few editors. Xavexgoem (talk) 06:33, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

As I said, I’m all right with this idea if it’s what other people want.

Something else I think we ought to discuss here, which is closely-related to Mathsci’s proposal, is DJ’s proposal here: for us to structure the article based on the various lines of data, rather than grouping everything into the “hereditarian” and “environmental” camps. I think this is a very good idea, and might also help improve the neutrality issue. It would mean there are no longer entire sections of the article devoted to one hypothesis or the other, so there might not be such an issue over determining how much space each should be given.

Either way, I imagine that if we’ll be going with Mathsci’s suggestion, it’s going to be my job to explain the environmental perspective. VA, a little while ago you recommended a new book by James Flynn as a source to use about this perspective, but I’m not sure which of his new books you were referring to. His newest books appear to be What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect and Where Have All the Liberals Gone?: Race, Class, and Ideals in America, both of which relate to this topic. I don’t currently have access to either of these books, but I’m willing to buy whichever of them you were recommending in order to use as a source for the environmentalist perspective, if you can tell me which of them you had in mind. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not quite accurate to say that there are two camps - hereditarian and environmentalist - as Captain Occam suggests. As we have already established, there is a clearcut hereditarian theory, most extensively articulated in the recent 2005 survey of Rushton and Jensen, which explicitly suggests a relation between "race" and "intelligence". Then there are the published criticisms of this theory, most recently one of the appendices in Nisbett's 2009 book. Somebody on the R&I talk page has mentioned that they've read it (User:ImperfectlyInformed). I think it's best to narrow the scope in this way as Xavexgoem has suggested. After the presentation and criticism sections have been written, we can proceed from there. Mathsci (talk) 15:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I agree that the range of viewpoints on this topic can’t easily be divided into two categories like this. As was pointed out earlier, Flynn and Sternberg disagree with each other about as much as either of them does with Jensen. My point is just that dividing everything into “hereditarian” and “anti-hereditarian” viewpoints is how the article currently describes this topic. The fact that there are so many different environmental perspectives is another reason why I think DJ’s proposal would be an improvement over this structure. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:24, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Nisbett (2009) and Ruston and Jensen (2005) only disagree on the cause of the Black-White IQ gap, not it's meaning meaning or suitability for study. See also Nisbett (2005) doi:10.1037/1076-8971.11.2.302 for details on the data Nisbett thinks confirms an environmental cause. --DJ (talk) 19:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Let's not get ahead of ourselves :-)

What needs to be written per Mathschi's proposal? Right now, we need a neutral description of the hereditarian viewpoint. This is the locus of the dispute, after all. Is there any way to make this fit into the article now? Xavexgoem (talk) 19:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

If I may offer just one thing to keep and mind and then we can continue with this line of discussion -- there seem to be 3 ways of organizing the hypotheses section: (a) environmentalist vs hereditarian section, (b) topic-centric, (c) scholar-centric. Each has benefits and weaknesses, and it seems that we must choose one. I think we currently now have a mostly (b) topic-centric approach, and what's being discussed is a more of (a). --DJ (talk) 19:45, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... well, I'll wait for Mathsci to clarify on how to write. In the meantime, all suggestions are welcome. Xavexgoem (talk) 19:48, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The proposal is procedural in nature, and does not clarify the central problem as noted in nearly all the opening statements, i.e.: How much coverage can the so-called "hereditarian" position receive without violating WP:UNDUE? Going ahead with this proposal jumps the gun on two counts: (1) We have not decided whether this article is to focus on the results of psychometrics and behavioral genetics or whether is it to include more coverage of views from other sciences beyond a simple summary as would be expected from WP:MNA; (2) We have not decided whether a theoretical, topical or a literature/scholar-based organization is to be preferred. We have to decide these two issues beforehand, as #1 tells us how much depth is justified when summarizing, and #2 tells us whether we even need a summary of the "hereditarian" position. Or am I the only one who sees that the hereditarian position could be summarized in a few sentences, a few paragraphs, or several large sections, all depending upon the scope of the article? --Aryaman (talk) 20:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Varoon, do you object to having a summary written, and then discussing the issues that the summary as written raises? It seems to lead right into addressing your concerns. T34CH (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how a "proper" summary can be written unless we know what propriety dictates in this case. If we go with a wide scope as per Slrubenstein/Ramdrake's suggestion, then we only need a paragraph or so, as there are only a handful of psychometricians studying this issue. If we go with a narrow scope, however, we will need a much more detailed summary, both of individual arguments and data sets as well as competing interpretations of that data. We also don't know if that summary should cover the Jensen & Rushton paper as a single piece of literature, or whether it should cover the individual arguments, allowing for criticism and counter-arguments to be fit in later. This isn't something for Mathsci or any single editor to decide, either. Proposing to write a summary before deciding what kind of summary is needed is only going to lead to more unnecessary argumentation, and I'd rather not see this devolve into another round of needless bickering. --Aryaman (talk) 22:02, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

If we have editors willing to write those two summaries (and we do), why not just let them write them? This article has been little more than "needless bickering" for at least 2 years. Could MathSci's suggestion, having been endorsed by Xavexgoem, possible lead to anything worse than what we now have? I doubt it. David.Kane (talk) 23:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I really don’t think a summary of each perspective is the way to go with this. When I was discussing my proposed edits to the article with Ramdrake, you might remember that even though he approved in theory of explaining the hereditarian position, he opposed each individual line of data that I wanted to add related to it as being WP:UNDUE. Almost every example of something like this that’s been added to the article in the past has eventually been removed for a similar reason. I think if we want to get the article into a stable state while still describing the data that’s most relevant to the hereditarian perspective, we ought to use DJ’s data-centric approach, since this would enable us to describe this data without having to present it specifically in the context of evidence for the hereditarian view.

Adding his earlier suggestions to what’s already in the article, we would have something like this:

• Socioeconomic factors
• Stereotype threat
• The Flynn effect
• Black and biracial children raised by white parents
• African ancestry and IQ
• Molecular genetic studies
• Health
• Quality of education
• Racial discrimination in education
• Caste-like minorities
• the implications of within group heritability for between group heritability
• Spearman's hypothesis and reaction time data
• adoption and early intervention programs
• structural equation modeling of between group differences
• regression equations among siblings
• brain size and other biological correlates
• evolutionary models (see the January issue of PAID)

In addition to helping address the concerns of people such as Ramdrake, describing all of the perspectives about each of these lines of data would also enable us to describe how proponents of the environmental view differ in their opinions, which is also valuable. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeeehh... all of that, in one take? I have to show some results soon ;-) Xavexgoem (talk) 00:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

(outdent: Re: David Kane's comment) I have no problems with Mathsci's proposal per se, as I indicated earlier. It seems that some are worried that certain editors would not be capable of neutrally summarizing sources which might contradict their personal beliefs or opinions. In light of such worries, this proposal is one way to help overcome those obstacles. And as soon as the scope and organization are agreed upon, I think we could go ahead with it. If people have such summaries prepared already, then of course they could be put up for discussion. But the very first question - from me, at least - will be in regards to how, i.e. by what standard, we are to determine whether the summaries are adequate in terms of coverage. It just seems logical to get that question out of the way before moving forward with any writing. --Aryaman (talk) 02:18, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Xavexgoem, are you going to make a decision about in what order these issues should be resolved? In any mediation case, figuring out the best process for resolving issues like these is the job of the mediator, so this will need to be done by either you or one of the other two mediators. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what's happened with Ramdrake. Too much turkey - I'm not sure what happens in Canada. I had confit de canard ... Mathsci (talk) 00:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

What I need – more than anything – is a summary of the hereditarian view per Mathschi's proposal. Whether this includes some things and not other things can be worked out later. I just need something tangible to work with. Xavexgoem (talk) 01:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I realize I might well be testing Xavexgoem's nerves with this, but: Would there be strong opposition to taking a simple, non-binding straw poll on the scope? (Of course, keeping WP:VOTE in mind at all times.) I think we can lay out both options which have been discussed earlier in a brief and fair manner, and I'm interested to see where everyone stands as far as that particular issue is concerned. If at least one other editor is willing to give it a shot, we could put up a short and neutral blurb on each of the proposals regarding scope, and then give everyone the opportunity to either support one or the other (with reasons, preferably) or to propose some as yet unheard of additional possibility. The moderators could referee the decision based upon the quality of the supporting arguments and a fair application of WP policy, if it comes down to it. I don't want to use the straw poll as a substitute for consensus, but rather as a means of working towards establishing consensus. Anyone game? --Aryaman (talk) 01:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I’d be OK with voting about the scope if it’s what other editors want. However, determining the answer this particular question isn’t quite as important to me as resolving some of the other issues that have been discussed here (such as structure and weight), because the article’s scope is one of the few things about it that I don’t think needs to be changed. Right now it’s focused primarily on psychometrics, with only a small amount of space given to viewpoints from other fields, which is approximately the same as what you’ve suggested. (And with which I agree.) As long as nobody changes this about the article, the article’s scope is one topic that I don’t think needs to be mediated. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

A straw-poll sounds good. But I insist that we start with something that will produce a result, if only an inkling. Xavexgoem (talk) 02:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC) I'll review all the points later and come up with something tomorrow for a straw-poll. In the meantime: I encourage anyone to write a summary per Mathsci's proposal, as that at least has some consensus. It doesn't have to be perfect.

I suppose there are several ways to present the options. I'll wait for the mediator to suggest the options, but I would summarize the two positions by formulating their core questions, only one of which this article should attempt to answer:

• How important are racial differences in the discussion regarding intelligence?

Answering this question would result in a narrow scope, and the article would be focused primarily upon the results of psychometry. The views of other sciences would be mentioned, but they would not dominate the discussion (WP:MNA).

• How important are differences in intelligence in the discussion regarding race?

Answering this question would result in a wide scope, and the article would be focused upon the views of a multitude of disciplines. The results of psychometry would be mentioned, but they would not dominate the discussion (WP:UNDUE).

A good deal of the past conflict, I believe, stems from the fact that there is uncertainty regarding which of these two questions the article should be treating. If we could clarify this point, I think we would save a lot of trouble in any future work on the article. --Aryaman (talk) 03:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I’ve probably expressed this opinion before, but I think the first option would be preferable. Going with the second option would result in a large amount of space being devoted to the question of whether human races have a basis in biology, which is already discussed by Race (classification of human beings) and Race and genetics. On the other hand, Wikipedia does not have any other articles about the debate over race and intelligence in psychometrics. I think it would make the article much more valuable for it to focus on the psychometric debate, rather than also covering topics that are covered by other articles here.

Let’s wait a few days to see if anyone disagrees with this idea about the article’s scope. If nobody does, then we can move on to the next step of the mediation, since Xavexgoem seems to want to begin discussing content here as soon as possible. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, Xavexgoem said a straw poll would be posted soon on this. I just wanted to give my views on what I see to be a good way to characterize the two positions/options. I also think that it makes better sense to focus this article on the first of the two as presented above. But let's see what Xavexgoem comes up with. --Aryaman (talk) 00:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

He said on December 1st that he was going to post the straw poll the following day (that is, on the 2nd), and it’s now the fourth. This is the same kind of problem we were having with Reubzz. How long do you think we should wait for him to do this? --Captain Occam (talk) 09:04, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

One section down Xavexgoem said s/he'd be back on the 6th. Let's wait until then. --Aryaman (talk) 13:23, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The 7th... I should've said Monday. I'm around but of very little use until then. Xavexgoem (talk) 18:51, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Reubzz

Just dropping a note here that I sent an email to Reubzz, asking about his absence. He has IRL issues that are currently preventing him from participating, but he intends to rejoin soon. Until then, Xavexgoem and I are here to help. The Wordsmith^Communicate 01:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Xavexgoem and The Wordsmith for keeping an eye on this mediation. I think that we have a real chance to solve a multi-year logjam on this article. Your help is much appreciated! David.Kane (talk) 02:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I raised this question with Xavexgoem and The Wordsmith on their user talk pages yesterday, with no response except here. Reubzz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has not edited WP now for over a week. He edited prior to that from Nov 5 until Nov 22. I have no idea why excuses are being made for his unhelpful behaviour. Even if RL issues had intervened, he was surely perfectly capable of explaining this here, having made some kind of commitment to this process. I am unwilling to continue with mediation if it might involve Reubzz at any future date: he is a newbie who has indelibly blotted his copybook. Provided the established mediators now ditch Reubzz and completely take over the mediation process, I am happy to continue. Mathsci (talk) 00:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Being that your involvement is contingent on this effort going forward, I will drop Reubzz from this mediation. Xavexgoem (talk) 01:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Twas a bad idea in the first place. Wapondaponda (talk) 02:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Some of our best mediators started as newbies on the project. Just fyi. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Every editor was once a newbie, even the established ones, and yes it is possible for a newbie to be a good mediator, and I believe Reubzz was given the benefit of doubt. But overall the reliability of a newbie anywhere is always lower than those of who have an established a track record. It seems that Mathsci saw this coming, it is disappointing that this was so predictable and avoidable, and yet it still happened. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

RL always comes first, and nothing can be done about that. Let's WP:AGF that this is something out of Reubzz's control. --Aryaman (talk) 12:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that RL comes first, and will AGF. But this isn't so much about Reubzz, but rather our decision to accept someone without a track-record. If someone with an established track record of completing projects disappeared in the middle of a mediation process, it would be a lot easier to assume good faith, because it would be out of character. There is nothing in Reubzz's history, so all we can do is AGF. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of RL, I'll probably be gone until Sunday. My family has historically had a more floating concept of what makes Thanksgiving Day. Xavexgoem (talk) 01:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Moving on

Alright, I hope your holidays have been enjoyable. We've now had sufficient time off, and I think we can look at this with fresh eyes. As I recall, we were looking at ways to organize this article. Is somebody willing to write a proposal that we can discuss, to gain consensus for a general structure? The Wordsmith^Communicate 09:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest that the following points be discussed in this order:

• Scope: It is unclear whether the focus of this article is to be upon race as it applies to the subject of intelligence or intelligence as it applies to the subject of race. How this question is answered has a significant effect upon things such as how the article should be organized and which literature should be covered, and answering it first seems like the best course of action. Doing so may require nothing more than a straw-poll. On the other hand, and especially in light of the past track-record, it may require some discussion. Either way, I think it needs to be clarified first before moving on to anything else.
• Organization: It is also unclear whether the article is to be organized around positions (e.g. "hereditarian" vs. "non-hereditarian" views) or around arguments/data sets and the interpretation of that data by various scholars.
• Literature: Once the scope and the organization have been agreed upon, we can begin deciding which literature should be reviewed, and, as suggested by Mathsci, who should be "allowed" to write which summaries.

Once these three things are determined, I think we will be past the point of requiring further mediation, and can return to editing the article in a normal fashion. --Aryaman (talk) 13:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That seems like a very reasonable proposal. Is there any objection to doing things in this order? The Wordsmith^Communicate 15:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No objection from me. I think this proposal sounds like a good idea. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm rather torn here. I agree that determining the scope of this particular article is paramount to actually solving all our problems here (indeed, I think the article needs a totally new title to avoid the very situation Varoon is describing in saying "as it is inevitable that someone will eventually show up and complain - in perfectly good faith - that the article is unbalanced because they've assumed the title implies a different scope"). However I'm worried that it's not an issue we can address directly without first coming to an agreement on how to accurately describe the debate (NPOV issues) and what literature we feel is representative of the academic consensus. This is why we had agreed to come up with descriptions of various view points above, giving a starting point for solving the long standing NPOV issue. I'd want to know more about what options for the scope Varoon has in mind before I commit to debating that issue first. I definitely think agreeing on representative literature should come before the organization issue. T34CH (talk) 23:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Describing various POVs might be the a good way to start the discussion, but I think we'd need to decide scope before we can decide on suitable references. I'm inclined to think this way because any reliable, notable source can go in *some* article, but not necessarily this one. My underlying concern is long-term sustainability of a readable article. Whatever structures are put in place should work with rather than fight against the natural inclinations of the multitude of editors that work on this article over time. For example, changing the name of the article might be needed to support the proper scope. Purely by way of example, consider how "Racial differences in intelligence" (the title of Loehlin, Lindzey, and Spuhler's 1975 book) might help achieve the desired scope. --DJ (talk) 00:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, I meant deciding which literature is representative of academic consensus, not compiling a restrictive list of literature for the article. Depending on the scope, even refs to old eugenics sources might be used, but they certainly don't demonstrate consensus. T34CH (talk) 02:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect to Arya, I was actually hoping for something more from the mediators (Xavexgoem and The Wordsmith now?) at this point. Many people have issued thoughtful statements and there was some contentious but thoughtful discussion already on this page. I provided Rebuzz with links to specific moments in the history of the article talk (archived pages) that illustrate the pattern of conflict and failed mediation over the course of several years, that shows that this conflict has deeper roots than the individuals participating in this mediation, and I would have thought that the current mediators would have benefited from reading that sample of archived talk, too. I was hoping the mediators might first make some considered and non-partisan observations, perhaps based on their sammpling of archived talk, or of the differences among the statements above, observations about whaat they see as the principle sticking points that need to be worked through, before moving on to more specific proposals. I know Arya provided an interesting outline in good faith and don't quesion that, I was just expecting a perspective on the dispute from the mediators, first. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That's just the thing, though. Mediators are here to help the parties discuss an issue, not to make judgments or findings of fact. Every mediator is different, but my philosophy is that the parties know what needs to be mediated and should have input on what the agenda is. The discussions above have been confused by issues related to the mediator(s), not the mediation. My reboot here is to try and get back on the path to solving these issues, without further distractions. The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I read through the bulk of the archived pages Slrubenstein linked to, and I agree: though (some of) the faces have changed, the basic points of contention remain. Regardless, I think they can be resolved. From my reading of the archives, it has never been determined just what the scope of the article is supposed to be, and that fact has exacerbated the problem enormously. Once we come to a conclusion on this, we need to place a template at the top of the talkpage which clearly states the scope of the article, and we need to closely monitor any future discussion so that it remains strictly on-topic (i.e. related to the relevant scope), as it is inevitable that someone will eventually show up and complain - in perfectly good faith - that the article is unbalanced because they've assumed the title implies a different scope. If we can prevent that, I think we can stabilize the article. --Aryaman (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely that the core issue is scope. Here is my own proposal, I know it will be controversion:

• keep our current article on the Heritability of IQ
• keep our current article on Environment and intelligence
• create a new article on Race and education that specifically covers public and policy debates
• beef up articles on Rushton and others to provide full accounts of their research. I consider Rushton's research to be fringe and difficult to include in any other article, but it would be fully appropriate to develop an account of his views in the article on him.
• delete the article on Race and intelligence. The concept of race means so many things, and is a surrogate for concepts that are very different. All the issues that this article addresses that is covered by mainstream science easily fits in either of the first to articles I listed, and the public controversy and any piolicy debates are better served by their own article. Fringe views of scientists who are notable because they are controversial can be fully developed in articles on those peoples (or, articles on books written by those people00.

Slrubenstein | Talk 14:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Most of this seems like a workable proposal. The first four can certainly be done. The fifth, deleting Race and Intelligence, might be more difficult. I would suggest merging usable content into the other articles, and turning it into a disambiguation page to direct readers to the other articles you mention. The article, as it stands now, is a magnet for fringe scientists and POV pushing. I think breaking it into smaller, more amnageable and focused pieces might work. The Wordsmith^Communicate 15:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - your suggestion definitely improves the proposal. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the suggestion of a disambiguation page, though the issue is what exactly would go into such a page. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain Slrubenstein understands that this suggestion goes against everything that all the participating editors said in their opening statements - including his/her own. Deleting an article with supposedly controversial and/or contentious content is not a legitimate way to resolve a conflict. Neither is suggesting a content fork to replace it. In fact, the suggestion itself circumvents the entire mediation process. How are the other editors supposed to accept this in good faith? --Aryaman (talk) 15:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course it goes against the opening statements. The purpose of them is to gauge where editors initially are. The purpose of mediation is to get them to agree on a compromise, and see points of view that may not be 100% in line with their own. Regarding the forking, its not really a content fork. It is taking one article that is huge, sprawling and unwieldy (and on a poorly defined topic), and breaking it into pieces that actually have a cohesive topic. Since its being proposed during mediation, I fail to see how the idea is circumventing the mediation process. We would continue to hammer out the content of those articles. The Wordsmith^Communicate 15:48, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I really don't see a situation where all parties agree on what percentage of the article should be devoted to the environmental or hereditarian positions. It is too subjective and arbitrary. However a discussion of the hereditarian position in an article about The Bell Curve or The g factor is unlikely to be controversial if it accurately represents what is in these publications. Some kind of disambiguation page might be workable. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. This is too large and contrived for a significant number of editors to agree on the content. Splitting it into an article on heredity and an article on environment might be the best solution available, as it would eliminate the need to argue over proportion and scope. The Wordsmith^Communicate 16:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, to some extent, Europe is "too large and contrived" but there is an excellent Wikipedia article about it. A simple Google search for "race and intelligence" shows that this is an important topic that a lot of people write about and are interested in. So, I would vote strongly against deleting the entire article. That said, I agree that splitting out the two main positions (environment and heredity) might solve a lot of problems, just as Wordsmith claims. So, in that plan, there would still be a Race and Intelligence article but it would be brief, with sections to (at least) three separate pages (history, heredity, and environment) and then summary paragraphs for each at the main page. Is that what you have in mind? David.Kane (talk) 03:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It circumvents the mediation process because of its inherent assumption regarding the treatment of so-called "fringe views", which is the very thing we came here to resolve. Rather than moving towards any kind of compromise or agreement both parties could agree upon, this suggestion represents the most extreme possible result of one POV. Though I would be surprised if Mathsci and Ramdrake did not agree with Slrubenstein's suggestion, I would be equally surprised if DJ, Occam and David Kane did not object to it. End result: no "mediation" whatsoever, simply a reformulation of the original problem. I don't think this is going to get us anywhere. --Aryaman (talk) 16:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not see how my participating in mediation can be a circumvention of mediation. I am not suggesting a POV fork, which is a bad idea, I am suggesting a content fork, which we do all the time and for good reason. The page is a mess because it has not clear focus - on this we all agree, in fact I was taking my lead from Arya. There is little controversy among scientists, but there is a big controversy among the general public, which is why I suggest an article on the public controversy. But let us not confuse the public controversy with the controversy on the talk page of the article. Race does not have a stable meaning; it is used to refer to genetics, which is covered in the heritability of IQ. It is also used to refer to self-identified ethnic groups, which are studied by anthropologists and sociologists, and discussion of this research - which is not in conflict with or arguing against any mainstream work by geneticists - belongs in the article on environment and intelligence (I'd be happy changing it to SES and IQ or something like that by the way). A lot of the controversy on the talk pages comes from people who are concerned with one area of research talking past people who are concerned with the other area of research. This is just a muddle, and a content fork is one way to ensure that the best scientific research is presented in a coherent way, for whichever topic.

About fringe views, I am not sure what the "inherent assumption" is. I am writing very much in the spirit of compromise because I am suggesting a good way that fringe views can nevertheless be covered in Wikipedia. Fringe views in science can and often are popular views in the public (one example is creationism, and Arya, I am not equating Rushton to creationism, I am equating the content fork I am proposing here to the content fork we have between evolution and creationism, one by the way which has satisfied both advocates of evolution and advocates of creationism for many years). When a view that is fringe among scientists is notable among the general public, it certainly deserves coverage in Wikipedia and I have suggested several weays: article on the exponent of the view, article on notable books, and an article on the public controversy. How is this not in the spirit of compromise? Slrubenstein | Talk 16:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess there's no point in trying to explain it, Slrubenstein. If you don't see it already, you won't see it with any amount of discussion. Best to simply move on, as to do otherwise makes things unnecessarily personal. Thus:

If even the mediator is going to give tacit approval of this suggestion, then I think the only thing which can be done which would satisfy those of us who are interested in seeing the results of psychometrics and behavioural genetics on the role of race in intelligence research sufficiently covered is to propose the creation of a new article which deals specifically and solely with this issue. If those who support Slrubenstein's suggestion could grant that, and agree to a fair naming of the newly proposed article, then I think we could support the deletion of the current article. Of course, this is my own suggestion, and I will certainly wait until DJ, Occam, David Kane and others have voiced their opinions and/or made suggestions of their own. --Aryaman (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Since i'm not involved in this sort of research, I don't know what "the results of psychometrics and behavioural genetics on the role of race in intelligence research" entails. However, if you feel that there is (verifiable) content in the current article that would not be covered under the split, then the obvious solution is to create a new article for that topic, as you suggest. The intended outcome of this proposal is to better organize the content we have, not to prevent it from being represented on Wikipedia. So yes, I think your counterproposal is also reasonable. The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:02, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There is certainly enough verifiable information from reliable sources to justify such an article, and I'm confident it could be put together in rather short order. Even if we expand the articles on individual researchers, none of those will be able to cover the general issue, the debate within the psychometric community, or give anything resembling an overview of the studies conducted, the data discussed, the arguments involved, etc. The point of a separate article would be to do just this in a balanced and coherent fashion. --Aryaman (talk) 17:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that is certainly compatible with the proposed split, it just means we add one (or a few) more articles linked from the disambig page. The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I have nothing against psychometric research on intelligence. I would think that the most current psychometric research would be relevant to any article on intelligence, whether it be genetics and intelligence or SES or environment and intelligence. I am not sure that it would need a special article, I would suggest that the article Intelligence include, if it does not already, a discussion of "G" including the controversy ofver G, i.e. both sides, and of course a discussion of how g or whatever general intelligence or IQ claims to stand for is measured. That is, any discussion of how intelligence is measured, including debates concerning method, seem to fit in the intelligence article. The results of IQ tests would seem to fit into the already exiting articles on heritability of IQ and on environment and intelligence.

As for behavioral genetics, I would think that this would be a section of the article on genetics. Is this research not done by people with PhDs in biology? Why shouldn't it go in the genetics article? Or in the article on "heritability of IQ" if we are talking about the results of twin studies. I do not see why any material on psychometrics and any branch of genetics cannot fit into the heritability of IQ; we can always rename it "Genetics and IQ" Slrubenstein | Talk 17:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

My concern about mixing up race and genetics remains. Race is a term referring to social groups, not breeding populations. The only biological meaning it can have in reference to humans is to mean sub-species. Biologists studiying other species use race in just this way. But the consensus among biologists is that the only subspecies of humans (H. sapiens sapiens) is what we otherwise call the human race; H. sapiens sapiens is not itself further divided into sub (or sub sub) species, so biologists do not apply the word race to humans this way. Nothing I am saying suggests any conflict with any branch of genetics, or with the study of the heritability of IQ. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If Arya thinks I am being dismissive of his points, or rejects what I write here, then I would say that we have reached one of the critical points requiring mediation. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

No, I think we agree more than you may think, Slrubenstein. You make several valid points. For example, the debate regarding what IQ measures, how it is measured, and what it means, if anything, certainly belongs at Intelligence. Equally, the debate regarding the heritability of IQ belongs at Heritability of IQ, and the most current psychometric research is probably relevant at Psychometrics or some other more specific article. But - and this may surprise you - I've never argued for anything else. I am in favour of narrowing the scope of this article considerably, and none of this material belongs in the article as I conceive it other than a short mention for the sake of context. Hence my harping on WP:MNA. I could easily imagine the article doing well under a new title such as "Race in intelligence research" or perhaps simply "Intelligence and race", as this makes it clear that we're discussing race as a variable in intelligence research, not the other way around.

Regarding your concerns about "mixing up race and genetics": You don't have to worry about us confusing the two any more than they are "confused" in the source literature itself. I've seen too many editors take it upon themselves to "debunk" otherwise valid research because the fundamental assumptions upon which the research in question is based is, in their opinion, flawed. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. That's not for us to decide. Behavioural genetics is a highly interdisciplinary field with just as many psychologists as geneticists, so asking that we ignore the results of qualified psychologists in preference of those of biologists is not likely to get us very far. The fact is, although most sciences have abandoned "race" as a meaningful concept, not all have followed suit. Psychometrics is one such field where - in the opinion of some of its experts - "race" can and does provide us with a scientifically meaningful distinction.

It's too soon to say without input from the other editors, but the more I think about it, the more I like this as a workable compromise. It fully addresses my concerns regarding scope, and it eliminates a bunch of the "questionable" content which other editors have expressed concerns over. NPOV becomes a non-issue, because we can make it clear that we're only discussing a very limited field of research in the introduction, and no longer need to weight every single sentence in an attempted appeal to some "global" scope. If others support it, I say we give it a shot. --Aryaman (talk) 21:31, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

One issue that needs to be addressed is the stability of the article. I believe the disambiguation proposal has a better chance of being stable than the current status-quo. Anything else, and the same cycle of events is likely to be repeated again and again. As has been mentioned above, this is not the first time this controversy has been addressed. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) You will have to wait a few days for me to contribute since (a) a conference is running this week, for which I am one the organizers and where I am residing on-site (b) my student is conducting his Ph.D. defence tomorrow and (c) I have an official report to write tonight before midnight. User:the Wordsmith should not suggest that users are "on holiday". I am extremely busy in RL at the moment and very short of time. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 19:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

VA, could you please be a little more specific about what compromise you’re suggesting here? Is it just the same idea you mentioned previously, about narrowing the scope of this article, or are you also incorporating some of the ideas that Slrubenstein suggested?

You’re correct to assume that I don’t approve of Slrubenstein’s suggestion as he originally phrased it, for the same reasons that you’ve already described. If your suggested compromise is to keep the current article (with a narrowed scope) while also creating his proposed new article about Race and education, I’m not necessarily averse to that idea, but a great deal or care would need to be taken in order to prevent it from becoming a POV fork. Differences in quality of education are one of the proposed explanations for the difference in average IQ between races, and an article about Race and education could easily become an argument for education being the primary causal factor, while the Race and intelligence would be arguing for other factors. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

We could either see it as eliminating the current article and creating a new one with a more clearly defined, narrow scope, or we could see it as renaming the current article and rewriting it with that narrow scope in mind. The end result remains the same. I see this as a workable compromise because the issues which Slrubenstein and Ramdrake raised about the relative importance of the psychometric debate (i.e. WP:FRINGE) can be resolved while also resolving my concerns regarding scope. With a narrow scope, we don't have to rehash the heritability debate, the IQ debate, or the race debate in this article any more than is absolutely necessary as per WP:MNA. We also don't give the impression that the subject carries any more weight in academia than it actually does as per WP:UNDUE without ignoring that a very real and legitimate academic debate exists within the psychometric community. --Aryaman (talk) 23:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein's proposal

• support Moving relevant info to other articles solves earlier debates on wp:MNA, simplifies questions of wp:WEIGHT, solves the problems with scope and deciding what to rename the article, and allows us to more accurately define future discussions. Slrubinstein's proposal, with Wordsmith's addendum to leave R&I as a redirect, and Varoon's point of making sure all information is accounted for, seems to me the most progressive and elegant solution thus far. T34CH (talk) 22:14, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
• (tentative) support: Provided that the information which falls within the "narrow" scope (i.e. race as a variable in intelligence research) is covered in its own article, I support the elimination of the current article. I personally doubt whether a disambiguation page will be necessary, as it seems to me that the relevant links would best be located at either the intelligence section of the Race article (for the "wide" scope information) or in the "narrow" scope article under its new title, whatever that ends up being. My support remains tentative until these points are sufficiently clarified, but on the whole, I think it's a viable solution. --Aryaman (talk) 22:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

comment: There needs to be an agreement that the psychometric research on racial differences in intelligence is complex and diverse enough that it warrants being covered in an article devoted to the subject. And this needs to be agreed upon regardless of what happens to this article. If Slrubenstein, Ramdrake, T34CH and Muntuwandi can agree on that point, then I think we can move forward in good faith. --Aryaman (talk) 14:48, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

comment I have been advocating all along that there be an article devoted exclusively (or almost) to race and psychomentric results, it is the article on Environment and intelligence, it already exists, just needs more expansion. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

You're suggesting "race and intelligence" be covered at Environment and intelligence? We have a category "Category:Race and intelligence controversy" with 82 articles, and yet we are to have no article on "race and intelligence"? I'm baffled. --Aryaman (talk) 12:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Arya, I really do not understand your point. I have been trying to follow your lead. You have pointed out, repeatedly, forcefully, and in my view correctly, that the problem with the article is that it has no clear focus. I believe this is because people are asking it to cover too many different things that some amateurs believe are related but which in the scholarly literature are not. Race is a sociological term, and the psychometric differences between races is addressed by sociologists and other scholars (psychologists, anthropologists) looking at social history, social relations, social environment. Heritability is a term from genetics and many geneticists, including behavioral geneticists dooing twin studies, look at IQ and inheritance. These are clearly different articles. There is a public, and public policy debate concerning race and IQ that has much to do with education and as I proposed we should have an article on the public/public policy debates. Each of these articles has a very clear focus and thus solves the problem you pinpointed, quite constructively, of lack of a coherent focus. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:56, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the scope is a problem. The article should be about "race and intelligence", specifically as those two terms are used in conjunction in psychometric research. Criticism - say, from sociologists or anthropologists - of how "race" and "intelligence" are used/understood in psychometric research is perhaps interesting but of only tangential relevance to the topic at hand. Failure (or adamant unwillingness) on the part of several key editors to grasp this point has plagued the article since long before I ever became involved in it, and has resulted in a steady decline in the article's quality.

Your latest suggestion would be worth considering if we were dealing with a SYNTH violation, and editors were simply dragging together information on two unrelated topics and synthesizing new conclusions. But that's not the case here. Jensen, Lynn, Rushton, Gottfredson and others bring the two things together in their research, and no amount of social positivism is going to make them go away.

The results of psychometric research on racial differences in intelligence stands in need of an article. As you well know, "social history", "social relations" and "social environment" do not satisfactorily explain these differences, and suggesting that they do is simply advocacy of one POV. The more you elaborate your suggestion, the more it seems you really are suggesting a POV-fork - with the slight difference that you really don't want the other POV represented at all. --Aryaman (talk) 16:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Arya, here you show your bias. You write The article should be about "race and intelligence" and as such I have no argument. The problem is, as I have said several times, these terms and the issues raised by putting them together touch on distinct bodies of research, calling for content forks, not POV forks. I have stated several times that I agree that work by psychometricians, specifically on IQ tests, belongs in any article on "intelligence." But I simplay cannot accept your narrow one-sided bias: specifically as those two terms are used in psychometric research. Why, I ask you? Why restrict it solely to research by psychometricians? Is it because psychometricians are the experts on IQ? Well, fine, I can accept that reasoning. But sociologists and anthropologists are the experts on race. If one term of the title leads you to think one body of scholarship belongs in, how can you deny that the other term of the title should lead us to incorporate other scholarship? Sorry Arya, you simply cannot dismiss the work of two major social sciences that specialize on race as being irrelevant to an article on race.

In fact, I believe that attempting to accommodate the research of sociologists, anthropologists, geneticists, and psychologists as well as a public policy debate that occurs outside of the academy has led to this article being a mess for many years. It leads to multiple and unclear focii. I have proposed a disambiguation strategy to sort out the different focii for different articles, including one on heritability and IQ to accomodate work by psychometricians and geneticists of all sorts, and one on SES and IQ (or we could just say "race and IQ") that would discuss work by psychometricians in relation to work by sociologists and anthropologists on race. I still fail to see your problem, but if you persist I'd say we have reached a core issue requiring mediation. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

You're getting very close to seeing my point, which is this: You say (and have said numerous times before) that "this is an article on race", when in fact, it's an article on "race and intelligence". It's not a case of synthesis, where we're dragging the views of experts on "race" and experts on "intelligence" together in one article, and seeing how well they get along. It's an article on those two things as they are discussed in conjunction with one another in reliable sources. To make that more precise: it should be focused on discussing race as a variable in intelligence research, because that it exactly how it's treated in the literature.

I'm glad we agree that attempting to accommodate research which is off-topic has caused numerous problem for this article. But the obvious solution is to simply remove the unnecessary admixture by clearly defining a narrow scope, not to delete the article. I can hardly take your suggestion regarding Heritability of IQ seriously, as you well know that it would never be able to cover "race and intelligence" as it needs to be covered. Unless, of course, you're open to a title change on that article. Then we have something we could consider further. --Aryaman (talk) 17:13, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

• No opinion (yet): While I agree with Varoon Arya that this idea (as he described it in his reply to me above) could potentially be a viable solution, I’m not able to support it until more of our concerns about it have been addressed. Other than what he mentioned about making sure we keep an article about the debate in psychometrics, I’d want some assurance that the multiple articles on this topic won’t result in a POV fork, which seems like a danger if we have a separate article called “Race and education”. When and if all of these concerns are addressed, I’ll support this idea, but not until then. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
• Confused: I do not understand precisely what Slrubenstein's proposal is. Could someone clarify? Here is what I would suggest (and perhaps this has already been stated): 1) Maintain a Race and Intelligence article, make it very short, but more than a simple disambiguation page. 2) Create a new article called Race and Intelligence History which would cover the history of the research and debate. 3) Create a new article called Hereditarian Views on Race and Intelligence. This would summarize the current research from RS that argue the hereditarian position. (Good introduction is THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH ON RACE DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE ABILITY.) This article could be as long or as short as the editors associated with it wanted to make it without concerns about UNDUE. 4) Create a new article called Environmental Views on Race and Intelligence. (Needless to say, I am completely flexible on the naming scheme.) Again, this could be as long or as short as the associated editors wanted it to be. In each case, there would be a summary/intro paragraph from each of these sub-articles that would appear on the main Race and Intelligence page. There is probably more to be done in terms of an article that compares and contrasts these views. Perhaps there should be articles on other views. But, if we could all agree on this basic outline, then I think great progress could be made. If this proposal has no connection to Slrubenstein's proposal, then I apologize for my confusion. David.Kane (talk) 04:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Your proposals 3 and 4 create a POV fork, which is precisely what I wish to avoid. My approach is to use a content fork, not a POV fork, if the difference is not clear to you perhaps this is why you are confused. We have an article on genetics research on intelligence, it is Heritability of IQ. Differences among races is covered in the Environmental article, which includes research by sociologists. That is a content fork. Fringe views I am proposing should be handled through articles on books or the authors of those books. Any public controversy (as opposed to among scientists) should be in a new article on the public controversy. This is often driven by policy concerns and politics rather than science, and is highly notable. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:32, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that my proposals 3 and 4 are a problematic POV fork. Or, even if they are, this still seems the best (only?) way forward. Could you clarify what you mean by "Fringe views?" For example, is THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH ON RACE DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE ABILITY by Rushton and Jensen an example of a fringe view? I think that a great deal of our dispute boils down to the fact that you (and others) consider this "fringe" and while I (and others) do not. David.Kane (talk) 15:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I did not say they are a "problematic POV fork," I simply said they are a POV fork, which is explicitly the case. And Wikipedia doesn't allow POV forks. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

The article you link above is in a public policy journal. As I stated, several times, a debate that is not notable in scholarly circles is notable in public policy circles which is why I propose an article on the public and policy controversy over race and intelligence to accomodate just such work, on public opinion or in this case on public policy. But this is a content fork, it is a different arena than research by geneticists on heritability or by sociologists on race. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:46, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, please be specific. Would you agree that this article (Rushton and Jenson (2005)) is a) from a reliabable source WP:RS and b) not fringe WP:FRINGE? I think that you agree with this claim, but I want to clarify this before moving forward. (Also, does anyone involved in this mediation disagree?) David.Kane (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Dude, tell me what word in my 15:46 post is "unspecific" or "unclear?" Why are you just playing games with me? your attitude does not suggest good faith. Mediator can you step in here please - what is wrong with what i just wrote? Why ust I keep repeating myself? If I have to repeat myself five times every time I make a post I will drop out of mediation, is that what you are trying to do, drive me away? So much for good faith. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Please, assume good faith. Your opening statement makes it clear that you think establishing what is fringe and what is not is a critical part of the mediation process. I agree! Do you think that Jensen and Rushton (2005) is fringe? (We all agree that fringe views do not belong in Wikipedia.) To be specific, assume that, after mediation, the decision is to keep a single article entitled Race and Intelligence. In that case, would you object to the inclusion of a NPOV description of Jensen and Rushton (2005) being in the article? David.Kane (talk) 03:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I am so sorry, I was not specific enough. I will try to be specific. The article you link above is in a public policy journal. As I stated, several times, a debate that is not notable in scholarly circles is notable in public policy circles which is why I propose an article on the public and policy controversy over race and intelligence to accomodate just such work, on public opinion or in this case on public policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

• • In essence, the proposal would turn the current article into a central hub for the other ones, while pushing the detailed content onto separate (and more manageable/focused) articles. If you believe that more than a simple disambig page is needed, it might be a good idea to take a look at WP:SUMMARY and try to make valid summaries for the articles. The Wordsmith^Communicate 04:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
• support Thanks for the explanation. I would support this proposal, conditional on my understanding that the separate articles include things like Hereditarian Views on Race and Intelligence, or whatever phrasing people like. I would be strongly opposed if this information was restricted to the articles about specific researchers, as I understand Muntuwandi's proposal to require. I agree with Distributivejustice's arguments below. David.Kane (talk) 13:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

• Move. Do not delete. Whatever it's titled, there should be an article with the same topic and scope as, by way of example, Loehlin et al. (1975) "Racial differences in intelligence" but up-to-date. The scope of such an article should probably extend as far as what's discussed in doi:10.1038/457788a and doi:10.1038/457786a, as another example. Moving the current article to a new more specific title (e.g. "Race in intelligence research", "Intelligence and race") would be fine. Putting a disambiguation page at Race and intelligence pointing to a variety of other articles at the union of "race" and "intelligence" would be fine. Achievement gap already exists, for example. --DJ (talk) 05:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment Moving content into biographies isn't tenable. Consider just this list of additional authors with related work: Flynn, Lynn, Wicherts, Dolan, Murray, Loehlin, Hunt, Rowe, Roth, Ogbu, Gottfredson, Nisbett, Ceci, Rose, Lewontin, Sternberg, Neisser, etc. There would also be no ability to talk about the work of others in the same context. It would be like moving the article on utilitarianism into the biographies of Mill and Bentham. --DJ (talk) 07:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

• comment. . SLR's proposal with a disambiguation page is the only "new proposal". Everything else has been tried before in one way or another. This article was once divided into several sub-articles that had narrow scopes, but these sub-articles were later re-merged into the current article. The idea of creating another article with a different scope would be POV forking. The current disputes would simply migrate to this "new article". I therefore agree with T34CH that SLR's proposal results in no loss of information. Theories by Rushton, Jensen and Flynn would be covered in articles about Rushton, Jensen and Flynn or their books. This completely eliminates the need for discussing scope and weight. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Query on POV Fork Issue

I am not an experienced editor and so I would like some feedback from others (both the mediators or the other editors involved in this mediation) about the POV fork issue that Slrubenstein raises above. See WP:POVFORK for background. Assume for a second that we decided on a plan for 4 articles: The top level "Race and Intelligence" article and then 3 sub-articles which the top level would point to and summarize ("History of Debate Over Race and Intelligence," "Environmental Views on Race and Intelligence", "Heriditarian Views on Race and Intelligence"). Needless to say, all these articles would use only reliable sources, adhere to WP:NPOV and so on.

Question: Does anything in WP:POVFORK prevent us for using this plan? Not that I can see, but other opinions welcome. Specifically, this seems to me to be clearly a case of Article spinouts – "Summary style" articles. See also Point of view (POV) and content forks. I would especially appreciate hearing from Wordsmith on this point.

Needless to say, just because we can use this scheme does not mean that we should or that we will. There is more discussion to have. Other schemes, like Slrubenstein's above, might very well be better. But if there is something in WP:POVFORK that forbids this 4 part division, I need to understand it so I can make more informed votes going forward. Apologies in advance if this is a stupid question. David.Kane (talk) 13:30, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually one version of this was tried in the past and undone. It could be done in a way that confuses readers, or it could be done in a way that helps them... it really depends. I think that the article R&I is a POV fork from Heritability of IQ. Whatever the outcome, there needs to be some central article which describes the overall picture in NPOV terms. As Araya has pointed out, the intended scope of R&I is not discernible from the title, so it is not a good candidate for the central/hub article. I think a section of H&IQ would be a much better place for this, allowing the existance of any sub-articles to be much less contentious. The main issue with forks is that we need to avoid creating forums where neutrality is ignored. It is often the case that spinoff articles are used as wp:COATRACKs rather than anything else. For now we should focus on the bare bones of the proposal (turn R&I into a DAB page, move relevant information to existing articles), and then deal with other issues later... remember, this isn't type setting; it's very easy to change things around. PS: From now, I'm out of town for the weekend. T34CH (talk) 15:58, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

The Heritability of IQ article and Environment and IQ are not POV forks, because they address different research questions and draw on different bodies of scientific research. Within each article, multiple points of view are provided.

It is hard for me to understand what David Kane is doing. I assumed good faith when this process began but recent evidence suggests to me that he is acting in bad faith. This thread seems to me to be mocking the whole process. How anyone can serious propose two different articles for two different views and claim not to see how this is a POV fork is beyond me. Dedicating an article to expounding a point of view is the very definition of a point of view fork. David Kane says he is not an experienced editor, but now I have to wonder what experience he has with research on heritability or race. I do not see how wither of the articles he proposes would do any justice to the vast scientific research on these different topics. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:51, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein: Did you read the links that I provided? Here is Point of view (POV) and content forks

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such should cover the entire range of notable discussions on a topic. Some topics are so large however that one article cannot reasonably cover all facets of the topic. For example, Evolution, Evolution as theory and fact, Creationism, and Creationism-evolution controversy are all in separate articles. This is called a content fork and it helps prevent wasted effort and unnecessary debates: by covering related topics in different articles, we do not have to argue over covering everything in one article.

It is critical to understand the difference between point of view forks and content forks; the former are forbidden, while the latter are often necessary and encouraged.

I think that our current problem is exactly the same. Racial groups differ in measured IQ. One explanation is genetic. One explanation is environmental. The proponents of these different views have --- like the proponents of creationism and evolution --- have had trouble working on a single article together cooperatively in the past. The article is also (now) too long. The obvious solution is a content fork which separates them. (And again, the separate articles must be NPOV, rely on RS and so on. Can you understand why I might, in good faith, view my proposal as a content fork and not a POV fork? David.Kane (talk) 17:55, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to make a general comment, interpret it as you will: forks can really screw an editor up if done for the wrong reasons. When I was working on the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis we decided to content fork the article into four separate entities: the umbrella article (that I've linked), an article on the events of the coup, an article on the regime that replaced it, and one I've totally forgotten about. My point is that we traded a dispute (over the scope of the article) for ease in editing (since now we have four articles, it's hard to tell what goes where, and there's a sense that all we really need to do is cut and paste from the umbrella article over to the more specific entities). In the end, we entirely stalled the article's development. Granted, it's a current event, so it might not translate well to this. It might be something to consider. On the other hand, most of the arguments are already laid out here, so this might be a good thing. Xavexgoem (talk) 06:36, 12 December 2009 (UTC) That fork I described was also fairly political, since there were some folks who were more-or-less advocating that it wasn't a coup, or that it was, blahblahblah...

a tl;dr: my concern is that a subtle dispute is going on that we are not entirely aware of, and that you may end up spreading it across a bunch of articles and making it worse. If this is not a concern (that is, there isn't any merely tacit dispute) then the fork is a good idea. But if it is, consider the consequences. Xavexgoem (talk) 06:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that this is a concern. The main dispute here is, I think, much more open than it is "tacit." (Contrary opinions welcome!) The issue is: How, if at all, to include/summarize the peer-reviewed literature which argues that there is a significant genetic component to differences in measured IQ between different racial groups in Wikipedia? There are several plausible answers to that question and editors of good faith will disagree. The purpose of this mediation is to come up with something that we can reach consensus on and allow us to go back to working on substantive additions to Wikipedia. David.Kane (talk) 17:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

After thinking a little about David.Kane’s suggestion, I think it might be a good idea. It would help resolve the issues of weight, article scope, and also the fact that it might not be possible for the article to cover its topic adequately without being too long. However, I’d like to wait and see what other editors (particularly DJ and Varoon Arya) have to say about this idea. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Occam that it would be useful to hear from other editors (especially Ramdrake and T34CH) both about whether or not this idea represents an (unacceptable) POV fork and, assuming it doesn't, the merits of the idea itself. David.Kane (talk) 17:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

One difficulty I see is what may be an unnecessary dichotomy between "hereditarian" and "non-hereditarian" research. I don't mean to say there isn't such a dichotomy, but that, as far as writing an encyclopaedia goes, it may pose some difficulties for us as editors. As we all know, researchers on both sides of the debate often comment on the same studies, providing either different interpretations or different supporting arguments and/or criticisms. With "Hereditarian views on race and intelligence" and "Environmental views on race and intelligence", a good deal of overlap will be unavoidable. How much is acceptable/justifiable? Also, would we be putting certain researchers in a "category" without their consent? Hans Eysenck, for example, was a psychologist of no small stature who deserves more than to be stuck in a "hereditarian" camp. With that being said, however, I can appreciate how splitting the two could be a way around this dispute. I might be more open to the idea if we could see some outline suggestions for the daughter articles. Does anyone have anything particular in mind? --Aryaman (talk) 16:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Arya, I agree with almost all of this. Some points: First, I think of these two articles as being about specific arguments/view and not about specific researchers. I could certainly imagine that work by, say, James Flynn would be referenced in both articles with no need to claim that Flynn himself is clearly in one campr or the other. Second, I would be happy to work on some "outline suggestions" if we can, first, come to consensus that these articles would not represent a POV fork. (It makes no sense to work on them if they would be a POV fork.) Of course, agreeing on this point does not bind us to using this approach, but the whole reason that I started this section was to clarify this point. Third, one way to handle the "both sides of the debate often comment on the same studies" is to have a fourth article (or to do this in the main Race and Intelligence article) which broght such cases together. Needless to say, that might lead to trouble but given that each "side" has been fairly and thoroughly discussed in their separate articles, I think it would be OK. Fourth, as I tried to explain in my opening statement, this is not my preferred solution, but it seems to me the one most likely to achieve consensus. David.Kane (talk) 17:11, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. To whom do we need to go to get this answered? Is there a fork-guru around here somewhere? :-) --Aryaman (talk) 17:21, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe that, if done right, it would be a legitimate content fork as opposed to a POV fork. Separating it into the types of research, such as one one nature (heredetarian) and one on nurture (education), it would be acceptable. A POV fork would be splitting it into articles that are something like Support for heredetarian views on intelligence and Opposition to heredetarian views on intelligence. So, now that the consensus seems to be that it is possible to do it legitimately, can somebody who knows the topic better than I propose exactly which articles to break it into? The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:48, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Dacid, some time ago I said that I accept content forks, but that POV forks are forbidden at Wikipedia. There is no question about this, our policy states,

POV forks usually arise when contributors disagree about the content of an article or other page. Instead of resolving that disagreement by consensus, another version of the article (or another article on the same subject) is created to be developed according to a particular point of view. This second article is known as a "POV fork" of the first, and is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major points of view on a certain subject should be treated in one article. As Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be merged, or nominated for deletion.

Now here you are quoting policy that content forks are okay. Well, thank you David. I am glad to learn that David has swung around and now is on my side. David now agrees with me that content forks are okay. Great! We now agree that content forks can help us resolve this discpute.

But David is also proposing POV forks and POV forks violate our policy. I will not accept any compromise that involves a POV fork. It violates policy and damages the project. David, now that you have agreed with me that content forks are okay, I am guessing you are retracting your proposal for POV forks. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:46, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein: Perhaps I am missing something, but, as best I can tell, Wordsmith and every editor involved in this dispute who has offered an opinion (other than you), agrees with me that my proposal is a content fork and not a POV fork. It may be a bad idea for other reasons, but it is still a content fork. Again, I am not an experienced editor, but I believe your dispute is worth Wordsmith rather than with me. David.Kane (talk) 04:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, this may be another one of those specific moments where mediation is needed. My view is that any article that an article that is about multiple views on one question, problem, or topic, might represent a content fork. But anytime an article is about a particular view, it is a POV fork. You are proposing one article on hereditarian views and one article on environmental views. That is two articles, and it is the two that makes it a "fork" (like the forked tongue of a snake). The difference between the two articles is that one is about one kind of view and the other is about another kind of view. View = Point of View = POV fork. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree that two points of view over explanations of the observed differences in IQ would be a POV fork. Content forks would be spinning out unrelated information from a very large article (such as giving Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet separate articles from William Shakespeare). Making one article about the view that Romeo and J. is strictly a love story and another about the view that R. and J. is only a tragedy is a POV fork. T34CH (talk) 20:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein and T34CH: Just so I can understand your position better, would you also argue that the fact that Wikipedia has two separate articles --- Evolution and Creationism --- which are "two points of view over explanations of" the story of human origins is also a POV fork? (Of course, just because it is does not mean that we should do a POV fork here.) If not, then what is the distinction between that case and ours? (I don't want to necessarily argue about this, I just want to understand your position better.) I would also be curious to know what other editors think this is a POV fork. David.Kane (talk) 20:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

That's like asking whether Science and Religion are POV splits. If you'll read the articles, you'll see that they are framed completely differently. They are not presented as equally plausible alternatives to the same question. T34CH (talk) 20:33, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for 5-way split

I propose splitting the article into five parts. (I am completely flexible on the names for these parts. The main idea here is that we need to separate out hereditarian views from environmental views to at least some extent.)

1) Race and Intelligence. This is the main article, just as it is now. It would still have a lede and feature forks/summaries to the sub-articles listed below. It would, as now, relevant WP:MNA discussion about the meaning of race and intelligence. It might also include background data on measured IQ differences between races.

2) History of Views on Race and Intelligence would include all the historical information that is now in the main article. It would not include discussion of the contemporary scientific literature.

3) Environmental Views on Race and Intelligence. This would summarize in a WP:NPOV manner the published, peer-reviewed literature about environmental (non-genetic) explanations of measured IQ differences.

4) Hereditarian Views on Race and Intelligence. This would summarize in a WP:NPOV manner the published, peer-reviewed literature about hereditarian (genetic) explanations of measured IQ differences.

5) Current Controversy on Race and Intelligence. This is the section that I am most agnostic about. Do we need it? I don't know. Idea is that sections 3) and 4) would feature straight explanations of the different points of view without any direct interaction. In an ideal world, it might not be necessary to do things this way, but our endless previous debates over scope, WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. By creating a separate sections, we avoid these problems. This allows editors to summarize the academic literature to whatever extent they feel useful. But, at the same time, we want to bring the material in these two sections together somehow. This section will be controversial, no doubt, but it will focus the controversy into one well-defined location. I predict that this will work much better than our current approach.

If we can reach consensus that this is at least a plausible plan (no need to precommit to accepting it), I would be ready to take a shot at taking some bold steps in that direction. We can always revert if it turns out to be a bad idea. Or, if someone else wanted to do so, that would be fine as well. Again, the main point of this plan is to provide a well-defined location at which the two major streams in the academic literature might be summarized separately. Long experience suggests that we are unable to summarize them together. David.Kane (talk) 21:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

This seems like a good start. Its possible that the fifth article you propose may be covered better as a section of the History article, since such articles often include section about current developments/research. Does anyone have opinions on this? The Wordsmith^Communicate 22:01, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I do think this plan is at least plausible, but I’m not sure we need the fifth article. What would go in that article which wouldn’t also belong in either the first or second article?

Something else that I think one of the articles will need to cover is the practical significance of the IQ difference, along the lines of what was here in an earlier version of the article. We have an article on the Achievement gap in the United States, but nothing about the way that race and intelligence relates to this, even though this is probably the aspect of the IQ difference which receives the most public attention. And we don’t have to worry about this being a WP:SYNTH problem, since there’s a lot of research in this area which is specifically about the relationship between the IQ difference and the racial achievement gap; this is the aspect of race and intelligence that Linda Gottfredson has written about the most.

Assuming we go with your proposal, which of the articles do you think should cover this aspect of the topic? --Captain Occam (talk) 22:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this material is important and am completely flexible as to where it is placed. I don't see much conflict arising in that material, so my first proposal would be to place it in the main Race and Intelligence article directly. David.Kane (talk) 23:30, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I suggested adding this material to the article around a month ago, and other editors opposed it because they felt that it provided undue weight to the hereditarian hypothesis. I’m not sure why they thought this, since the practical effects of the IQ difference would be the same regardless of whether it’s caused by genetic or environmental factors, and this section of the article isn’t specific about its cause. None of the people who opposed this material explained why they thought it was favoring one hypothesis over the other. But in any case, it appears that for one reason or other this material is contentious, so it’s probably worth discussing it here. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

David, I am still concerned that an article that is explicitly about a specific view or set of views violates NPOV. However, I am interested in your article on the controversy. It seems to me that there are three separate conversations going on: a conversation among scientists; a conversation among policy analysts (e.g. scientists who work for think-tanks or for the Federal government, or lobbies, as well as other employees of think-tanks and lobbies including lawyers and former legislative aids, or who work for teacher's unions or the PTA); and a controversy in the general public. I think people involved in one conversation are aware of the other conversations, but it is my sense that these are still separate conversations. I also think that the degree of controversy varies depending on the conversation. What is your sense? I ask because your answer can clarify your proposal #5. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:40, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I have similar concerns to Slrubenstein. Normatively, I dislike the idea of breaking this topic into multiple articles rather than forcing a single consistent NPOV presentation. However, I'm inclined to endorse this proposal as an experiment worth attempting. My reasoning is that in truth the actual structure of published reliable sources tends to reflect this breakdown of topics. That said, the content of #5 does need to exist in a separate article or in #1 because there is a literature that attempts to engage this question (e.g. Hunt and Carlson 2007, and others). We can attempt this experiment now and then reject it later if we find that it failed. --DJ (talk) 02:39, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with both Slrubenstein and DJ. My sense of the different conversations among different audiences is similar to Slrubenstein's description. I don't think that there is clearly a best way to handle that difficulty and I agree with section 5) of my proposal is the least well-specified. My initial guess would be to follow Slrubenstein's distinction about different audiences arguing about different topics. Perhaps the article could be organized with exactly the three levels that he describes? I am very open to different approaches on this regard. I also agree with DJ that this represents a second-best answer. I just don't see away, given past experience, to a "single consistent NPOV presentation" in one article. (And the raw length of the article makes this impractical as well.) I agree that this proposal is best thought of as "experiment" which might work or might fail. I am ready to make a bold attempt at this, but only once we have reached consensus to do so, of course. David.Kane (talk) 04:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose similar splits have been tried in the past and failed (see many of the redirects to the article [1]). It exacerbates the current problem rather than solves it. Instead of merging lots of material that fits squarely into heritability of IQ (which incidentally would solve the problem some editors have with too little weight given to geneticists and psychometricians), it spreads the confusion around. It also completely ignores our issue with the scope and non-descriptive title. T34CH (talk) 20:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

First, I don't think that similar splits have been tried in the past in conjunction with a thorough and accepted mediation process. I think that this time could be different precisely because so many of the key editors have bought into the process. Second, even if it fails, we can always go back. Third, I disagree about your claim that the central issue involves "lots of material that fits squarely into heritability of IQ." Consider Jenson and Rushton (2005) and the scores of peer-reviewed articles that it references. I think that only a tiny portion (less than 5%?) of that material belongs in heritability of IQ and, more importantly, that article is also getting too long. Fourth, I am flexible on titles. What title would you prefer? Fifth, I am not sure I understand your complaint about "scope." Does some of this material not belong in Wikipedia? Does this structure prevent other material that does belong from being included? Please explain. Sixth, perhaps one problem with this discussion is that we do not have an example to work with. Unless anyone objects, I will take a try at making the hereditarian article in my user space. Perhaps that will help to focus the discussion. I certainly won't go forward with any bold editing of the main article until other editors and the moderator have spoken. David.Kane (talk) 20:42, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Results of discussion

It’s been around three days since the last time anyone has commented on David.Kane’s proposal, so I don’t think anyone is going to express an opinion about it who hasn’t already. What do the mediators think about whether this proposal can be considered to have consensus? --Captain Occam (talk) 14:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Be bold. This is a wiki, after all, and everything can be reverted. I don't think it hurts to try. Xavexgoem (talk) 15:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Would you suggest that we create these articles now, or do we need to wait until the mediation is finished first? --Captain Occam (talk) 16:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The mediation is finished only when things get done. Xavexgoem (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not see any consensus on David Kane's proposal, I certainly do not agree with it as I have explained, consistently, since it was proposed. I say we go with my proposal, which seemed to have more support especially after Arya and I cleared up a misunderstanding on the relevance of psychometrics. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Would it bother anyone else if we go with Slrubenstein's proposal? Or are we just gonna, y'know, talk endlessly? I'm not sure if competing proposals are because editor A doesn't like editor B's idea so obfuscates with a new proposal. I'm just looking for a smidgen of consensus. At least who people who go: yeah, that's a good idea. Otherwise... <shrug> Something needs to be done. It isn't my decision to make. If you want to make it my decision, then everyone needs to agree. Xavexgoem (talk) 21:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Could someone please give a very precise description of the current format of Slrubenstein's proposal? Which new pages (if any) would be created? Which pages would be deleted? What material would be moved where? (I realize that Slrubenstein provided an initial proposal but I would like to see some clarification about how "relevance of psychometrics" affected it.) There was a fair amount of confusion about it the first time through. (Or at least I was confused.) To use a concrete example, under Slrubenstein's proposal, assume that I wanted to add several paragraphs to Wikipedia about hereditarian views on race and intelligence, views published in the peer reviewed literature and held by people like Jensen, Rushton, Herrnstein, Gottfredson, Murray, Cattell, Eysenck and Lynn. I plan on writing, with the help of other editors, a page or two about this material. Where would it go under Slrubenstein's proposal? (Heritability of IQ is already so long that it needs to be broken up already.) David.Kane (talk) 21:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate all the effort people are putting into these new proposals, but I haven't been able to convince myself they are needed. I don't think a fork is necessary, and I don't think it's warranted when viewed apart from the chronic problems this article has faced. Slrubenstein seems to think we reached some kind of agreement in our earlier discussion. We didn't. S/he just stopped responding when it came to the critical point. I requested more mediator involvement in this issue, but no action followed. Earlier, I had requested for one of the mediators to post a straw poll on the scope issue, and was told this would be done, but again, no action followed. Instead we've allowed the discussion to derail from the original issue of the mediation, and are now entertaining proposals which sidestep the dispute instead of resolving it. With that being said, I'm not going to stand in the way of consensus if it can be gained for anything which gets us back to editing in a halfway normal fashion. --Aryaman (talk) 21:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Archived: fresh start

ok, this is part of the problem I see in this discussion. there are certain key 'trigger' ideas that seem to call out for response from everyone, and so all discussions end up in a morass of competing ideas. I'd ask you all to try very hard not to give in to that urge. once I get this page set up, I'll try to make it so that there is a section for every point to be discussed, and I will probably get heavy-handed archiving comments land in the wrong section, just because we need to keep the conversations focussed if we want to have any hope of resolving this issue. so I'd ask you all, when you feel that urge to make a response, stop and consider whether you're responding to the right question in the right section, and resist the urge if you aren't. it will make things go much smoother.

we don't need or want to discuss these kinds of details here - this is a general setup section. let's save the debate for where it will do some good. --Ludwigs2 19:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

---

I am going to use a todo template in this section to write an outline of the structure of the article. we can edit it as we change consensus. it's probably best if you guys refrain from editing it directly - I'll change it as you all come to agreements about it. --Ludwigs2 22:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC) I just grabbed the current outline of the current page - FYI. --Ludwigs2 22:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I need some clarification, this mediation talk page is archived or not. I still see about 350kb of threads in this talk page. Most wikipedians have access to high speed connections, so 350kb isn't a problem, but a few are still in the internet stone age, and pages above 100 kb cannot be downloaded at such speeds. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:54, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll manually archive the above section today - sorry, I hadn't realized the page size had climbed that much. --Ludwigs2 18:12, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Proposed: data-centric model for article

I think you should stick around to give DJ's data-centric proposal a try. It would be a pity for you to drop out now, especially since you put the idea back on the table most recently. We've wasted a lot of time on unworkable proposals, but I see that as a positive, because now we know what not to do. If we can't get a workable idea together using this approach, I will agree mediation has failed. mikemikev (talk) 13:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The basic problem with a data-centric proposal is that there is no real data on genetic race and how it relates to IQ. As far as I can tell, every study relies on self reported "race" and uses no genetic measure at all. If this is to be an article on sociological race and intelligence, a data centric approach would be fine, but then the hereditarian hypothesis would be a very small part of the article. This is one of the main issues with the article. Some people want it to be about the data, which has nothing to do with genetic race, and others want extended discussions of how race and intelligence are related from a hereditary standpoint, something for which there is little hard data. Until we decide what the article is actually supposed to be about, the inherit conflict of data vs genetics will continue to plague the article. A.Prock 18:21, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You don't consider trans-racial adoption, twin-studies (within and between groups), regression to the mean, inbreeding depression, brain size, racial mixture, g-loading, and the correlations between them, to be 'hard data' for R&I? If you don't it's fine, just vote for whatever it is you want to do with the article. I think we aren't going to get consensus, we'll have to go for majority. mikemikev (talk) 18:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Certainly they are hard data. But they are hard data about sociological race, not genetic race. I think an article about sociological race is a perfectly fine topic for the article. A.Prock 22:44, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Aprock, please read the Jensen & Rushton report to get an idea of what is actually being discussed in the literature in the way of data. Of course, Jensen & Rushton ultimately evaluate things from their perspective, and it's not a 100% neutral presentation. But it is a peer-reviewed and professional piece of academic literature which summarizes all the major studies which have been conducted over the last three decades.

It's time to put these editorial metadiscussions to bed. As Mike pointed out, and as several other editors have pointed out before him, there is more than enough to flesh out a solid, well-written and highly informative article if we stick to the data-centric approach and keep quasi-"doctrinal" interpretation of that data relegated to its appropriate section in the article. The main thrust of the present article should be that, despite the amount of research that has gone into the subject, we are not much wiser than we were before we started (which is, more or less, the same thing the Niesser et al. report tells us). In the interpretations section, the "100% Environment", the "100% Genetic" and the "50/50 Environment and Genetic" groups can be allowed to present their reasons for why they think the body of research supports their claims. That's fair to everyone, not least of all to the reader. --Aryaman (talk) 20:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

As I said above, any data driven article is going to have to be about sociological race, and not genetic race because that is the nature of the data. A.Prock 21:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

for clarity: what would a data-centric version of the article look like? just so that were all sure that we're not talking past each other.--Ludwigs2 23:02, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

To give a concrete example of what I have in mind, please review the article Race and crime in the United States. It used to suffer from the same problems as this one, and was hotly debated on the talk page, even being put up for AfD a few times. The main problems were the scope and the fact that several editors were not willing to split the data and the interpretations into separate sections. Once this was done, however - which was a small Wiki-miracle in itself -, the long-standing conflict over the article evaporated, and it has been dead stable since those changes were made, with nothing but a note of disapproval from a White-pride IP and a note of praise from a former contributor on the talk page since October.

The data has been sectioned off (sections 2 & 3) and presented in an interpretation-neutral fashion. Some time has been spent describing the data collecting methods, and those methods have been criticised where appropriate. The interpretations (section 4) are presented subsequently in the order of their prominence in the literature and the presentation is weighted according to support. The theories of causation have been presented in their historical context to provide the reader with the necessary background information.

I think taking a similar approach to Race and intelligence would go a long way in diffusing the editorial conflict over the article. If we can present the data neutrally (this is generally the rubbing point, as folks just love to caveat things they don't like, arguing on the grounds of some "responsibility to the reader" that said caveat is necessary), then I think weighting the interpretations section will be much easier and can be done to everyone's satisfaction. --Aryaman (talk) 03:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I commend you for the work you've done on that article. It looks like the strategy that worked there was for everyone but you to stop editing the article. It may be that a similar strategy would work here, but I expect since this is a more prominent article, that approach isn't feasible. A.Prock 03:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I honestly don't know how that happened. You can check through the archives for my numerous requests for other editors to become involved in actually editing the article instead of wasting time debating on the talkpage, but it seems that several of them were really only interested in arguing. The more edits I made to the page, all of which were solidly sourced and neutrally phrased, the quieter the debates became, eventually dropping off completely.

If it were possible, I would nominate DJ to do the rough draft of this article on the basis of community consensus. It's not really feasible for all of us to do it simultaneously, and he's proven himself to be both knowledgeable and dependably neutral. But that's getting ahead of were we're at in the mediation. The issue at hand is whether or not separating the data and the interpretations in the article will help to diffuse the editorial problems. For my part, I would be satisfied to see this happen - and, perhaps most importantly, I would not object to a much smaller sub-section on the "hereditarian" position provided the two are separated. Is it clear how those two things are related, or need I elaborate? --Aryaman (talk) 04:14, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

well, actually, that might be feasible, if it comes to it. I can imagine us all explicitly agreeing to let one person edit the article for a couple of days, on the condition that if anyone has serious objections with the result the entire couple of days work would be reverted. that can work: the one person editing has a strong incentive to write a version everyone will like, and it gives a chance for the big picture to develop without a lot of argument and cross-currents. but let's save that as an idea for the future.

I like the structure of the linked article as well - quick straw poll to see if that would be generally acceptable?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closed as No consensus. Specific points addresses in other sections.

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quick straw poll

Would you support modeling the Race and Intelligence article after the Race and crime in the United States article? use {{tick}} or {{cross}}, with brief comments.

— Ludwigs2

Y I think it encourages strict neutrality and will solve the WP:UNDUE issue for good. Aryaman (talk) 04:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Y It would be a step in the right direction. R&I is much more complicated than crime, for example where do we put inbreeding depression data, it's only really relevant to the hereditarian position. But we can cross these bridges when we come to them. We can focus on data common to both positions for now, and I think this will produce a decent article. mikemikev (talk) 12:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Y Sounds like a reasonable plan. But, given the two No votes below, perhaps you should consider re-starting the mediation by focusing on much smaller items that folks currently disagree on but which might be amenable to consensus? David.Kane (talk) 21:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

David, yes. I'm just letting this poll play out for a day so that I can mine it for discussion points. later this evening or tomorrow morning I'll close it as 'no consensus' and set up sections to discuss the problems, but I really want to get as many responses as I can to map out the lay of the land. --Ludwigs2 22:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

N WP:POV fork, clearly an attempt to cherry pick data that supports a certain POV or ideology. Secondly, it is not immediately apparent who initiated this straw poll. I would think that the mediator should be responsible for initiating straw polls to ensure that there is some fairness. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The mediator did initiate it. A.Prock 17:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

He didn't sign, so it looks like Aryaman, as he is the next user to sign. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

my mistake, sorry. I'll be clearer in the future. --Ludwigs2 20:03, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

N It's not clear that imposing structure will solve the content problem. We tried that exact solution last year[2][3][4]. In the case of R&C/US, what worked is that most everyone stepped aside to allow one writer to recraft the article. I might favor a similar approach of selecting a primary writer and an set of editors charged with pointing out problems, but not with actually editing the article. But at the core of it all are content issues, and until we can decide how to deal with those, I expect any large scale edits will not be successful. A.Prock 17:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Y The structure that VA came up with did an excellent job of stabilizing Race and crime in the United States. I think a similar approach would be useful here also, with the caveat that we should work out the structure a little more specifically before we begin editing. One reason for this is that presenting the data about race and intelligence neutrally will probably be more challenging than it was for race and crime, because in the latter case there were several college textbooks and at least one encyclopedia devoted to a neutral presentation of the data on that topic, while in this case the only thing we have that comes close to a neutral presentation from a reliable source is the two collective statements from the 1990s. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:57, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

interim page state

Q - What state should the page be in while we discuss this issue?

I'll see if I can find (or make) a template to the effect: 'This page is undergoing major revisions involving mediation'. that being said, we should make a choice about which state the page should be in for the duration of the mediation, with an understanding that it may be completely dispensed with at the end of mediation. --Ludwigs2 19:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Aryaman: I'm completely open on this, for, as Ludwigs points out, whichever version it is, it can be changed at the drop of a hat. With that being said, I really do think it would be helpful to put the 2006 version of the article up for the duration of the mediation. My main reason for suggesting this is I think that version of the article contains a good deal of material and some creative solutions which could be of use as reference material while we're figuring out what to do. Aryaman (talk) 20:14, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The current page is fine with me. The 2006 version you suggest requires the creation of several new articles which currently redirect to R&I. I don't think creating a network of articles as a placeholder is the way to go. A.Prock 20:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Varoon Arya has persuaded me to not give up here quite yet, but the rest of you probably shouldn’t expect me to devote quite as much time to the discussions here as I sometimes have in the past.

Aprock, if you read the 2006 version of the article closely, you’ll see that even though it links to several sub-articles that elaborate on specific aspects of this topic, the main article still contains everything that’s necessary to provide an overview of it, so the sub-articles aren’t actually required if we’re going to use this version. The only thing that’s really missing from it are the references (which are in another sub-article), but it shouldn’t be a lot of trouble to copy those over to the main article.

In any case, I also approve of re-using the 2006 version of the article, at least for the time being. This is something that I suggested once before in October, and at the time Aprock appeared to approve of this suggestion. His own comment about it was, “Let me just say that I sympathize with this perspective, and might even be for reverting to the 2006 version you display here as a basis for improvement. The current article is a cluster-mess of blech.” --Captain Occam (talk) 23:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If the suggestion is to move back to that article as a place to start redeveloping from, I'll happily support that. That's a separate issue from what we should used as the interim page until mediation is done. A.Prock 23:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the 2006 version could do with some modifications if we’re going to re-use it, although Varoon Arya and I would probably be satisfied with fewer changes to it than what you would require. It should be possible to reach a compromise here, though.

Ludwig, what’s the best way forward here? Aprock, VA and I appear to all agree that there are aspects of the 2006 version which could be re-used; we just need to determine what things about it do and don’t need to be updated. How would you suggest that we determine what the interim article state should be? --Captain Occam (talk) 01:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to be patient and wait for other people in the mediation to voice their concerns. Moving quickly on this sort of stuff only causes friction. A.Prock 03:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with aprock on the patience thing, but I'll make this suggestion - if you want to grab the todo template I added above (for establishing a page outline), move it down here, and then edit in the headings outline of the 2006 version, you can shuffle them around in virtuo, and discuss it as you go. that will solidify the ideas and give other people a visual reference for what you have in mind, which should stimulate conversation. once you have that outline ironed out, it will be child's play to go and do the actual shuffling around. --Ludwigs2 05:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

After seeing how much effort it’s requiring to try and resolve the mediation, I don’t think I have the time to devote to coming up with an interim version of the page that’s different from something which exists already. I guess that probably rules out the 2006 version, since that one would require some modifications before it can be used. Would it be a problem if we just used the version that DJ came up with in December, that we were using until Ramdrake reverted the article back two months on January 22nd? --Captain Occam (talk) 05:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It's been around a day since I proposed this, and so far nobody has commented on it. I'd like to make sure nobody objects to this edit before I make it, though. If anyone does, now's the time to mention it. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:35, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I've already spoken to why content from another article should not be used as interim content here. Again, I'd like to advise you avoid rushing to consensus, and especially inferring consensus from lack of comments. I'm about to leave for a week long vacation. I think you should avoid taking major action while the mediation process is ongoing. A.Prock 17:12, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Aprock, the purpose of this discussion was to come up with a temporary state for the page while the mediation is in progress. If you’re going to demand that no action be taken until mediation is concluded, then you’re rejecting the entire premise of the discussion that Ludwig started about this. Part of accepting mediation is that you accept the mediator’s way of handling issues like this, and in this case that includes accepting Ludwig’s decision that we can create an interim page state while we wait for the mediation to be resolved.

It also annoys me that you’re continuing to claim that Between-group differences in IQ was a different article from this one. As I pointed out before, you appear to be literally the only user here who thinks this, and there was a stronger consensus for moving this article back to its original title (Race and intelligence) than for anything else we’ve discussed in the mediation thus far. While you were edit warring with other users over this on January 11th-20th, three separate users were reverting your edits about it, and several more than that expressed disagreement with you about this issue on the talk page. I’m not sure what it will take to get you to accept what was decided about this, but when your unwillingness to accept it also makes you unwilling to accept proposals from the mediator, I think it’s pretty clear that you’re going too far.

Ludwig, I would appreciate your input about this. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

well, I don't want to impose a particular version of the page. If we can't come to some consensus about the temporary version that should go there, I think the best solution is to throw up some kind of 'In Mediation' template so that no one feels like the given version has some particular value over any other. let me do that now, and if we can come to some decision about an interim version later we can act on it then.

My main concern is that I don't want this issue to distract from the more important task of reaching consensus on the final version. --Ludwigs2 07:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Closing a personal dispute that has few discussion merits
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I don't have a strong feeling about any particular version. I do feel that using content developed on another page is inappropriate. I've also said that if Occam wants to introduce the edits on R/I, that's fine. The issue is the process. I'm not at all clear why Occam feels so strongly about using a version from B/G and is resistant to selecting some version from R/I. With respect to the consensus, it was to restore the article, not to move the B/G content to R/I. If we need to see the edits, I can show supply them. Regarding edit warring, it's Captain Occam who has been blocked three times over his edit warring on R/I, not me. A.Prock 07:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC) Eh, let's stay away from the personal comments. I've added a mediation tag to the page (had to make one from scratch, dang it),so things are ok for the moment. My main concern with this (I'm tempted to say my only concern) is that we settle on a version that will not produce any contentions - The interim page should be something that everyone is comfortable with so that no one worries about it. let me make a suggestion: could we pick a relatively good version of the page, and then simply delete just the sections that are in contention? the page won't be accurate or complete, but what is there will have fairly broad consensus, and we can work the difficult sections back into the final version. what do you all think? --Ludwigs2 07:50, 10 February 2010 (UTC) Aprock, who’s been blocked over edit warring about other aspects of the article isn’t relevant here. The question is who’s edit warred over this particular issue—refusing to accept the fact that Between-group differences in IQ was the same article as Race and intelligence, under a different name. You obviously weren’t willing to accept what consensus determined about this back then, and it looks like you still aren’t, but the number of users who reverted your edits about this shows how many users disagreed with you about it. So if your claim that Between-group differences in IQ was a different article is the only reason why you aren’t willing to accept a version of he article that existed under that name, then that’s not a valid argument, because you appear to be the only user involved in this article who still believes them to have not been the same article. “I've also said that if you want to introduce the edits on R/I, that's fine.” Introducing these edits on Race and intelligence is what I’m trying to do now. Is there some particular way that you require this to be done in order for you to accept it? The way I’m introducing them now is the way that’s been suggested by the mediator, so I also don’t think you have a valid reason to refect this process. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC) You're the one who brought up edit warring, not me. Over this particular issue, you're the one who was blocked for edit warring. If there was consensus to move to the B/G content, would you please supply the edits. All the edits I found were for restoring the R/I article. Using the version as is from the B/G article won't do as it removes all the tags. Beyond that I don't know what else is in it. But if you add the edits section by section I'm sure you'll get constructive feedback. With respect to a specific version, I'm generally open to any version from the R/I history from 2009. In short, I'm very very flexible with respect to what version is used, and am open to introducing individual edits from B/G. I can only ask that you try and be a little flexible yourself. A.Prock 08:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC) Every time I make this point, you respond to something different from what I’m actually saying. I know that there was not very much discussion about whether to move the BGD content back to Race and Intelligence, and only five users expressed agreement with this: Me, Mikemikev, DJ, Varoon Arya, and David.Kane. Now listen carefully: the consensus was not specifically to move the BGD content, it was that BGD and R/I are the same article. This is what you keep refusing to accept, but when I discuss this with you, your only argument against it is there wasn’t an especially strong consensus to move the content back to this article. This is not the consensus I’m talking about. The relevant thing here is that consensus has determined that BGD and R/I are the same article, so all of the changes which DJ made to the BGD article can be considered part of R/I’s history also. Therefore, the fact that certain edits were made to this article under a different name is not a valid reason to reject them. What you’re suggesting about introducing and discussing individual sections one at a time isn’t a possibility, since that would require the type of involved discussion that Ludwig is trying to avoid because of how it would distract from the mediation. What we need to do is find a version of the article that can be put back without requiring something like this. My suggestion is to put back the version that DJ wrote in December under the BGD name. The only valid objection you’re raising to this version is that it’s missing the tags, but those can be put back fairly easily. Will you feel any differently about this version if I put the tags back in it? --Captain Occam (talk) 08:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC) You wrote: "As I pointed out before, you appear to be literally the only user here who thinks this, and there was a stronger consensus for moving this article back to its original title". So maybe you can see why I thought you were talking about consensus for the move, and not consensus that they were the same article. Maybe it would help if you could point me to the consensus, preferably the edits. And again, it might also help if you allowed yourself to be a little more flexible. My main objection is that you are tring to replace content from one article with another article. But if you can produce edits for a consensus the the December B/G article represented content that was meant for R/I, I'll happily review them. A.Prock 08:52, 10 February 2010 (UTC) I’m pretty sure I pointed this out before, but here we are again. The three places this were discussed were here here, and here. And here are the opinions that other users have expressed about this: David.Kane: BGDIQ can hopefully stand on its own, but what matters most is that DJ’s edits to the article under that name should be preserved. Muntuwandi: BGDIQ is a replacement for R/I, and an unacceptable one because its new title makes it a POV fork. Victor Chmra: BGDIQ is the same article under a new title. Varoon Arya: agreed with Victor Chmra, and also expressed agreement on the mediation page with keeping DJ’s edits. Ludwigs2: suggested “moving things back to this page” (that is, Race and intelligence) from the BGDIQ article. Mikemikev: agreed with me on the mediation page that DJ’s edits under the article’s new name should be kept. Obviously DJ approves of his own edits, and I think they should be kept also. I consider the discussion I linked to on the race and intelligence talk page to be the most relevant one, because that’s the exact place where edits to that article should be discussed, and there’s no question what conclusion was reached by the four users discussing it there. All of them agreed either that the two articles were the same, that the BGDIQ content should be moved back to R/I, or some combination of these two. Since the two articles being the same would mean that the edits to BGDIQ should be considered part of R/I’s history, for the purpose of what we’re discussing both of these views can be considered to amount to the same thing. If you aren’t willing to accept this conclusion, I guess I’d recommend Ludwig posting a poll about whether Between-group differences in IQ should be considered to have been the same article as Race and intelligence. I’m pretty sure that almost everyone else here will agree that it should. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC) On the R/I talk page discussion the apparent consensus is that major edits should not be made during mediation with David.Kane, Slrubenstein, T34CH, Mathsc, agreeing. Even you implicitly agree by indicating that you think DJs edits should be allowed since they aren't major. I think that's a pretty reasonable position to take. The changes in the B/G article look like major edits, and as such seem to run against that consensus. FWIW, I don't see any sort of consensus on either the R/I talk page, or the mediation page, that the continued development of content on the B/G page represents the R/I content while the redirection page was in place. Finally, I'll point you to ground rule #5 above which you signed on to on November 14, 2009. A.Prock 10:44, 10 February 2010 (UTC) Aprock, the purpose of this discussion is to come up with an interim state for the page while we wait for mediation to conclude, and it was the mediator who initiated the discussion about this. By definition, what he’s suggested is probably going to involve making major changes to the page. I find it pretty strange that in a discussion started by the mediator, you’re claiming that it’s unacceptable to do what he’s suggested because this goes against the terms of the mediation. And if you really have a problem with this, shouldn’t your complaints about it be directed at Ludwig rather than me? If your argument here is just that we should avoid making major changes to the article while mediation is in progress (which means not coming up with an interim page state at all) because this goes against the mediation rules that we agreed to, then I think it needs to be up to Ludwig whether or not the mediation rules apply to this also. Since he’s the mediator, whether this would violate the terms of the mediation is his decision. He’s the one who suggested we do this, so it seems pretty clear to me that he doesn’t have a problem with it, but I’ll let him address your concerns about whether doing this would violate them or not. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:51, 10 February 2010 (UTC) It's possible to use a version from before mediation began. You're the only one who is proposing major changes to the article while mediation is occurring, not Ludwig. A.Prock 15:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC) Wait, you’re not making sense about this anymore. Any interim state we introduce to the article right now would be a “major change while mediation is occurring.” Why would returning the article to a state that existed before mediation began, sometime in November or earlier, be any less of a major change than returning it to the state that it had before January 22nd? If your answer is going to be that the state it existed in before mediation was supported by consensus, I think you know that isn’t true. That version of the article had a lot of edits from T34CH which were made without discussion or consensus, and which stayed in the article only because he wouldn’t allow us to revert them unless we could convince him of what was wrong with each individual one of them. His changes to the article weren’t completely undone until DJ made his edits to it while it existed as Between-group differences in IQ. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

This question has gotten too personal and too contentious. I am going to decide by fiat that the page will remain exactly as it is right now for the duration of the mediation, pending some good argument for changing it. If you have such an argument, leave it here and I will take it under advisement, but I don't want any further effort wasted debating this (non-)issue. --Ludwigs2 17:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)