Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Fringe science/Proposed decision: Difference between revisions
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Tony Sidaway (talk | contribs) →Encouraged, discouraged and dismayed: Martinphi's campaign against WP:PARITY |
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::::::Coren, you mention a diff which is an edit to Wikipedia:Fringe theories. The Martinphi section of the "Proposed findings of fact" on this page contains Item 11, with five diffs, and item 12, with no diffs. The five diffs in item 11 are edits to pages "Talk:What the Bleep do We Know!?" , "Talk:Psychic" (two diffs), "Paranormal primer", and "Pseudoscience". None of these are policy or guideline pages and they don't include the diff you cited on this talk page. Also, the wordings of those findings of fact say nothing about Martinphi's editing of policy or guideline pages. <span style="color:Orange; font-size:15pt;">☺</span>[[User:Coppertwig|Coppertwig]]([[User talk:Coppertwig|talk]]) 01:06, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
During the course of the case I had become increasingly concerned about Martinphi's seeming ease in interpreting policy and arbitration rulings in an idiosyncratic and self-serving way, no matter what the clear intent of a policy or ruling. I had considered adding this to my evidence, but on reflection decided that the Committee was unlikely to want to address this if Martinphi was, as he claimed, retired. It has come to my attention more recently that Martinphi has edited an article since this case began, and in the light of his extensive involvement on this case I question whether he can be considered to have truly retired, even on the most charitable view.
I welcome the proposed restriction. It is clearly Martinphi's intention to further an ideological crusade against the scientific consensus, and he frequently misreads Wikipedia's policies in order to justify his notion that an adversarial presentation is suitable for topics in fringe science such as [[cold fusion]]. His intention seems to be to water down our science coverage to the extent that the articles tip towards promoting fringe topics in science, at the expense of presenting the topics in a context that conveys to the read ''why'' those topics are presently regarded as dubious.
In particular Martinphi's campaign against [[WP:PARITY]], while not in itself problematic, seems to reveal an underlying commitment to an ideological crusade with the effect, if not the actual intention, of making it difficult to present reasoned opposition to ideas that are not generally accepted but are not extensively investigated by scientists, in the articles about those ideas themselves. It seems to be part and parcel of what Martinphi himself as terms a fight against the legitimacy of reliable sources whom he sees as [[debunker]]s. The scientific method is a tool for exposing poor thinking. Where fringe ideas are debunked using the methods of science, which are testable and reproducible, that is a point which should ''commend'' the source to us, not point towards rejection. --[[User talk:Tony Sidaway|TS]] 10:50, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
== On remedy 7 and stoking fires ==
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