Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-06-01 Lynn Conway

Wikipedia Mediation Cabal
Article	Lynn Conway
Status	Closed
Request date	16:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Requesting party	Unknown
Parties involved	Dicklyon Andrea Parton BarbaraSue
Mediator(s)	BrownHornet21 (talk · contribs)

[[Category:Wikipedia Medcab closed cases|Lynn Conway]][[Category:Wikipedia medcab maintenance|Lynn Conway]]

Request details

MarionTheLibrarian added to the Lynn Conway page information about Lynn Conway's participation in a controverisal issue. The sources included information published in peer-reviewed journal, the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Dicklyon believes that Archives ought not be considered a useable source, which produced an edit war; Dicklyon believes that the Archives is not neutral and therefore, not useable. The Conway page was protected by Dreadstar. On the talk page, Marion came to what Marion believed was a compromise solution. When the protection expired, Marion edited the page as per the apparent agreement.

Dick changed the content of the text that was suggested and discussed, reverting edits made by the three other editors who were entering information on the Conway page. Marion appealed to Dreadstar, who re-protected the page and recommended mediation processes.

BarbaraSue, a new editor, joined with Marion in similar edits here and at other biographies and related pages.

Who are the involved parties?

• Dicklyon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• MarionTheLibrarian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Andrea Parton (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• BarbaraSue (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

What's going on?

The central issue is whether the Archives of Sexual Behavior, and in particular Dreger's article in it, can be treated as appropriate and/or "neutral" in the way it is presented and cited.

What would you like to change about that?

That an outside opinion be provided and that the Conway page be edited accordingly.

Mediator notes

Hi, I am the BrownHornet and I have taken this case. Let's keep the discussion on this mediation page. I have a few ground rules:

• Refrain from engaging in personal attacks;
• Always assume everyone is acting in good faith;
• No personal attacks are allowed;
• Keep an open mind and a willingness to compromise to a reasonable solution;
• Comments by any and all are welcome;
• Did I mention that no personal attacks are allowed?;
• Don't make assumptions about the person(s) on the other side of the coin, such as "I like your proposal, but the other side will reject it"; too often this starts going down the path to the Dark Side; and you may be surprised by what is an acceptable solution to the other side; and
• I reserve the right to strike out personal attacks and any other general nastiness. BrownHornet21 (talk) 00:24, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Administrative notes

• I have fully protected the Andrea James article for 30 days as a result of edit warring resulting from the parties of this mediation case. I suggest the article be added to this case as well. -MBK₀₀₄ 00:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
  • This article has been unprotected, but remains under my close supervision. See the talk page for more. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:46, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
• BarbaraSue (talk · contribs) has been indef blocked as a checkuser confirmed sockpuppet. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

It's a pleasure to meet you, and your ground rules sound good to me.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 00:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

(Gosh, I'm slow! Marion beat me here.) I'd like to invite all the parties above to provide their thoughts and comments.BrownHornet21 (talk) 00:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• • Before I saw this mediation, I made a comment of the quality of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Its on the article talk page. DGG (talk) 02:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I stumbled upon the big BBL controversy mess via the Lynn Conway article, and tried to temper things there a bit, but gave up. Now I'm just trying to prevent that controversy from spilling over too much onto the Conway bio; I'm into articles on technology and technologists, and care little about all this sexology stuff. It started on May 7, when I removed a weasel-worded allegation from the Conway bio, an item not supported by the cited New York Times article, that had been modified here to turn it into an attack on Conway, when it previously did not appear to be one. After I corrected this I found similar misrepresentations and biases on other pages, and started finding increasingly biased small changes by 99.231.67.224 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), apparently an IP that then became WriteMakesRight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and then MarionTheLibrarian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). From the editing behavior, the POV was very clear, so I alerted the editor that having a POV is OK, but that in articles it is important to suppress it a bit and leave articles more balanced and neutral. I have not had any luck getting such a behavior change. Now, to the current issue: in the bio, Marion wants to cite the Dreger history of the controversy as if it is neutral or unbiased. I have no problem with citing it, but if we provide what Conway's attackers are saying, then we need to give at least equal space to what she is saying about them. I really didn't want to see the article expand in that direction, so I recommended a "main link" to the BBL controversy page, where everyone's views are well represented, and editors with strong POV on both sides are fighting it out. For the bio page of a technologist, trying to cover this messy controversy would require undue weight. I'd rather work on fleshing out her technical history, which I do have more info on if I ever get editing time without the article being locked. I got a bit done in the last few days, working around the repeated addition and removal of Dreger's side of the controversy. If it's not clear to anyone that Dreger is fully aligned with one side of the fight, and can not be used as the only source in a summary, I'll address that later. I've suggested that a short summary based on the New York Times article be included, with a link to the BBL controversy page, but Marian and Barbara seem to think that adding Dreger's rather negative take on Conway improves the article. I disagree. Dicklyon (talk) 04:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

It might be appropriate to extend this mediation to Andrea James and Deirdre McCloskey as well, as these are two other bios of participants in the BBL controversy that Marion is putting personal attacks into. For example, this diff, which I recently cleaned up after, includes Some scholars have likened James to "the Al Sharpton rather than the ML King sort" of activist and The New York Times reported that Bailey engaged in no wrong-doing, despite James' continuing accusations, both with citations to articles that do not in any way support these statements. In the same edit, we again get the famous Dreger citation, cited as if not biased: A comprehensive, documented history of James' role in the controversy concluded that James participated in generating false allegations against Bailey. In this diff and this, she does similarly on the Deirdre McCloskey bio (and had a bit of slip when doing it to Lynn Conway). The violations of WP:BLP to advance one side of a controversial argument by misrepresenting sources seems like way too much to me. Dicklyon (talk) 06:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Dicklyon has not provided one iota of evidence that Dreger is actually biased in the meaningful sense of inaccurate in one direction. If Dreger conducted a good investigation and found that Conway, McCloskey, James et al. conspired to manufacture charges against Bailey, then this is clearly a huge revelation that deserves exposure on all their pages. I think she has conducted such an investigation with such conclusions. The conclusion that Dreger found against Conway et al., by itself, is irrelevant to the accusation of bias. I think that MarionTheLibrarian was being generous by referring to the critical commentaries of Dreger's article. In my opinion, these (including McCloskey's response) are of very low quality. However, it would probably be beyond Wikipedia's mandate to resolve that, so it's a good idea. Referencing the fact that a historian came to the conclusion that Conway et al., manufactured bogus charges (but that others have disputed this) certainly does not entail accepting that this is true. Leaving it out seems like censoring something very important.BarbaraSue (talk) 22:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course I have not presented evidence against Dreger, as I am not accusing her of anything. I have no quarrel with the accuracy of what she says (that doesn't mean I accept it, just that it's not at issue here). My issue is with you, who represents Dreger as neutral, in a dispute that she has obviously joined one side of. If we represent her negative views of Conway and James in their bios, we have to at least give equal space to their side of the story. And a bio is no place for such controversial arguments. My bigger beef is with your constant misrepresentation of sources, like you did with the recent "readily admits" edits on Andrea James. Dreger quoted James with enough context to see what she was saying, at least; you stripped it away to make a bias pointed in the James bio. This is not OK, especially per WP:BLP. Dicklyon (talk) 23:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

For easier reference, here is the text I previously suggested putting on the Conway page:

A history of the controversy was published by Alice Dreger, an historian an intersex activist, in which she concluded that Conway coordinated a smear campaign against Bailey. That history, along with commentaries both agreeing and disagreeing with that allegation, appears in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior.[15]

• I believe this is the most appropriate way to inform readers of the existence of the history, distill its conclusion, direct readers to the original document, and still provide a range of opinions on the issue. It’s the most reputable peer-reviewed journal in that field and entirely complies with WP:BLP. Although Dicklyon has posited that the summary violates WP:BLP[16], he has not as yet indicated how.

Dicklyon prefers citing the New York Times’ coverage of the Dreger history, because he believes that that coverage was more neutral.[17]

I maintain first that Dicklyon’s argument is illogical: He suggests that the NYTimes coverage of Dreger’s history can be cited, but that Dreger’s history cannot itself be cited. This is illogical because Dreger’s history and conclusions are the same, regardless. A secondary source in place of the primary source does nothing but obscure information from readers.

Dicklyon maintains that the Dreger history cannot be cited because Alice Dreger and Ken Zucker (editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior) are not neutral;[18][19] they violate WP:NPOV. I believe Dicklyon misapplies that policy. WP:NPOV does not mean that all sources must come to a neutral conclusion; it means that editors must convey sources’ content without adding their own opinion to it. (Editors may not refer to “Dreger’s brilliant history” or “Dreger’s misinformed history.”)

I cannot find any WP rule, policy, or guideline that indicates that an otherwise reputable peer-reviewed journal can become disqualified as a source because its editor or an author has arrived at an opinion on some topic well within their field of expertise. Nor has Dicklyon referred to such a rule. Moreover, there is no evidence that either Dreger or Zucker were not in fact neutral and had any opinion until after reviewing the relevant evidence. Dicklyon's opinion is based on Dreger's and Zucker's having opinions after reviewing the information, which they are certainly entitled to do.

WP:NPOV requires that for expressions of opinion among sources, all relevant sides be presented. The Conway page already provides Conway’s view, the Dreger article provides a published opinion on that, and by providing readers with the location of 23 commentaries on the Dreger article (pro- and anti- and tangential), my suggested text does as well.

Thus, there is no basis for Dicklyon to remove my suggested text.

• Regarding expanding the scope of this mediation, I think we should stick to the neutrality and appropriateness issues, as we already agreed. The solution we hopefully arrive at here will probably inform what should be done elsewhere.
  • • At 18:14, 1 June 2008, Dicklyon wrote: I made some minor edits at the request, as I felt that it misrepresented the core of the issue substantially. Please let me know if you disagree.
    • At 19:10, 1 June 2008, MarionTheLibrarian wrote: I made more explicit how neutrality and appropriateness (for lack of a better word) are related.
    • At 19:49, 1 June 2008, Dicklyon wrote: Looks good to me.

• I hesitate to respond to Dicklyon’s remaining comments. Unless BrownHornet21 suggests that I should address them, they strike me as posturing rather than advancing the actual issues we’re trying to solve.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 23:25, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Would you kindly link the diffs so that we can follow what you're referring to? Dicklyon (talk) 23:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the diffs"?
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 00:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Each edit is a diff; find the edit in the history, go to it, and copy its URL, and link it in brackets as I have done above. Thanks. Dicklyon (talk) 00:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

In particular, where you quote me with times, I needs the diffs to find those and see what's what. Dicklyon (talk) 00:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Separating WP:RS and WP:BLP issues

It has been represented above that I object to Dreger's history being cited on WP:RS grounds; this is not the case; I think it is a fine reliable source, but that when used to represent what Dreger's conclusions and opinions are, it is a primary source. Marion may not understand that in wikipedia, secondary sources are strongly preferred; the NYT is a secondary source (as to whether it has gotten the facts and balance right in the case, I have no opinion, and it would not be useful to have one). My issues are with respect to WP:BLP, which is a very different standard; I haven't said that Dreger "cannot be cited"; rather, that her opinion cannot be presented in a bio without substantial neutral secondary sourcing and/or balancing with opinion on the other side. To have a cabal of editors with such an obvious strong POV editing bios this way, and not push back hard on them, would be irresponsible of me as a long-time wikipedia editor. As to whether Dreger can be considered neutral, anyone who has looked at her web site, or heard her join with Bailey in attacking Conway and James on the Forum program on NPR radio, could not possibly hold that view. Dicklyon (talk) 00:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I have now re-read WP:BLP and WP:Primary....

• Regarding BLP, if there is a section of BLP I have not followed, I cannot find it. Which rule is it precisely that my suggested text or Dreger's article fails to follow?

• Regarding primary and secondary sources, we both appear to be incorrect. Because Dreger's history was published in a peer-reviewed journal, I simply assumed that it would be treated the way empirical articles are treated. (Empirical articles are primary.) In the case of a history, however, it is the emails, transcripts of conversations, and so on that are the primary sources. (The examples in the above link include diaries and interviews.) Dreger's description and analysis of those documents are is actually a secondary source.

Dreger's article is therefore a valid (secondary) source by exactly the rule you have been advocating all along.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 01:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Marion, you mentioned that the archives issue has a bunch of commentaries on the Dreger piece, too. Can you make those available? Do they support the idea that other scholars in the field regard it as reliable, or neutral, or such? That would be useful to know in this discussion, possibly. My email is open, in case you can send copies. Dicklyon (talk) 15:09, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I have a copy as a .pdf, but I don't see how to attach a file to a wiki-email.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 23:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

If you sent me an email, I could reply, and you could then send direct (my email is pretty broadly available, same id at ACM organization, as I expect you've noticed, so you don't have to use wiki email). Make an anonymous hotmail or yahoo or gmail account first if you want. Or send them via a third-party person or web site. I'm sure you can find a way and still hide your identity. Dicklyon (talk) 00:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Sent.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 15:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Mediator's understanding etc.

I'm still trying to get my arms around the issue. That includes reading some of the sources at issue, including the NY Times article and Dreger article. (Okay, I'll be honest ... I'll peruse the Dreger article. It's 58 pages!) My initial take, in a nutshell: MarionTheLibrarian, Andrea Parton, and BarbaraSue all believe the Dreger article is a reliable source, and a verifiable source that deserves a mention in the article. (BH21 Note: I struck Andrea's name, because, after reviewing her edits, I'm not really sure what her position is on this issue.) BrownHornet21 (talk) 01:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

So Andrea Parton's opinion on the subject is...? BrownHornet21 (talk) 01:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, Dicklyon feels that the Dreger article is biased, would affect the POV of the article, and including it in the article gives undue weight to someone who is primarily notable as a computer scientist. Including it will also lead to "equal space" editing to present contrary views to the Dreger article, which could (or inevitably will) lead to the topic dominating the article. Have I accurately summarized everyone's position? Or have I overstated, understated, simplified, or complicated your respective position? Feel free to correct and clarify. BrownHornet21 (talk) 02:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that's very close. I don't think I would even argue with the belief that "the Dreger article is a reliable source, and a verifiable source that deserves a mention in the article." If the controversy is mentioned, and the Dreger source is cited as one analysis of it, and Conway's own pages as another, that would be fine. What's problematic is to state Dreger's opinions, and to cite them as if that source is not just her opinions. The editors have repeatedly used phrasing like "Scholars found..." and cited Dreger as source; Dreger does not report any such scholars making any such finding, but the thing presented is her own opinion. They have also added negative things citing the NYT article, but not remotely supported by anything in that article (if you want more diffs, let me know). I have been fixing many such things, in the bios and in other articles related to the people and the controversy, and these editors have not been able to modify their editing style based on my attempts to explain this principle. I can accept that they have a strong POV on the underlying issues, but they need to learn to contain that, especially when editing bios. Dicklyon (talk) 03:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I am a bit struck—and rather confused—by Dicklyon's above statement that "If the controversy is mentioned, and the Dreger source is cited as one analysis of it, and Conway's own pages as another, that would be fine." So far as I can see, the is pretty much what was on Conway's page to begin with. That page has pretty much always included the external link to Conway's blog. Indeed, it's the only external link on the page; neither I nor even BarbaraSue have tried to delete it. Although Conway's blog would not be an appropriate source on other pages, it certainly is appropriate on her own bio page, as I understand WP:BLP.

If you think it goes unnoticed where it is, I certainly would have no objection to moving it into the main text. All that would take is an appropriate sentance summarizing her involvement, cite her blog, and follow it by the text I suggested earlier citing Dreger's analysis and all the commentaries published with it. Have I misunderstood something?

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 18:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a possibility. Instead of balancing by removing Dreger as I was doing, we can balance by adding Conway, as you're now proposing. My concern is WP:UNDUE. So make a proposal of some text that you think would be fair and balanced and not undue weight. Dicklyon (talk) 18:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I can refer to Marion in the singular now, since Barbara seems to have dropped out, having been found to be a sockpuppet of an editor previously indefinitely banned for repeated BLP violations of the Andrea James biography. I'm sorry I had confused the two of them earlier. Dicklyon (talk) 15:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I can appreciate that the assumption of good faith is easier in the abstract than in practice.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 23:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed! Dicklyon (talk) 23:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• PS&SS: historians and scientists use the term "primary sources" differently. for a scientist, a primary source is the published journal articles describing the experiments or calculation; for a historian, it's the documents and monuments out of which history is built. The Wikipedia discussions of this use the historian's meaning, and scientific papers in peer reviewed literature are considered reliable secondary sources. But, it turn, they are recognized normally to be concentrated upon specifics, and need interpretation, which is provided by review articles and advanced textbooks and the like, which are usually called "tertiary sources" & it is out of such works that Wikipedia is in general is composed. But for any field, an account of the history of something, in Wikipedia terms, is a secondary source; the documents it cites are primary historical sources. This historical symposium partakes somewhat of the nature of a tertiary sources as well, being a summary of the state of the subject.

• • But if there is a question about which of two published summaries is more accurate--the solution seems obvious: refer to them both. there's no way on earth Wikipedia can decide on something like that. DGG (talk) 17:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you; that's very helpful. Is there a WP page somewhere that says that? I insert many references to (readable) publications in peer-reviewed journals. I am more accustomed to the scientific rather than the history use of primary, so it might be helpful to me in the future to have such a reference on hand.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 18:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The complicating factor here is that, first of all, Dreger is not a historian, and her "history" is not just commentary on her primary sources, but goes way into making opinionated findings about the people involved. It has become a "primary" document in the controversy, and she has continued her attacks in her blogs (which Marion also feels free to cite and has grossly mispresented as shown in the diffs I linked above). I agree with you that we should not be in the business of deciding which analysis is more correct, and we need to cite both sides; a further complication is that Dreger got hers published, but in a journal that includes all the principles of one side on its editorial board (Zucker, Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence, that is), while the commentaries from the other side are only on personal blogs (apparently some others are in the journal, but I haven't seen those, or any citations to them, yet). There's no sensible "peer review" anywhere in sight. How can one treat these as more than primary sources? My objection is treating one as a reliable secondary source while excluding the other as a personal blog; they are much more parallel than that, and need to be treated in a balanced way if the controversy is to be presented neutrally. Dicklyon (talk) 18:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• Dreger holds a PhD in History and the Philosophy of Science from the University of Indiana.
• She was a visiting professor in the History of Biology at the University of Minnesota.
• She is currently on the editorial board for the peer-reviewed journal Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences.[20]
• She is a Guggenheim Fellow in the category History of Science and Technology.[21]
• Her qualifications were sufficient for the Wall Street Journal to refer to her as an historian in the bio to op/ed piece she published there.[22]

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 19:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, she's a historian, too. I should have read past her intro "I'm a medical humanist, writer, speaker, patient advocate, a Guggenheim Fellow, and an Associate Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics..." to what she had a degree in. Dicklyon (talk) 23:14, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

We haven't heard from all the identified participants - namely, Andrea Parton. Feel free to continue participating in the discussion. After a couple of days, I'll start up on a mediator's proposal and invite comment on it. BrownHornet21 (talk) 01:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think she even ever agreed to mediation; she doesn't edit much, and was probably included just because she had one edit in the midst of mine and Marion's. We can probably just leave her out. I can't even tell from her main edit if she meant to oppose my changes, or just bungled an edit conflict; probably the latter. Dicklyon (talk) 02:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I feel fine continuing without her. It was also unclear to me what her view was, and I thought it better to include her than not when writing the list.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 03:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 1

How's this?

Since then, Conway has been involved in transsexual issues. She led a campaign against the controversial 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, Dr. J. Michael Bailey. A history of the controversy was published by Dr. Alice Dreger, an historian and intersex activist, in which Dreger concluded that Conway's campaign amounted to a smear campaign against Bailey. That history, along with mulitple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy appear in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

I rearranged the text a little bit so that Conway's version and Dreger's version are accessible equally to each other (both from websites) and that the commentaries are accessible equally to each other (all requiring actual access to the journal). It cites both the NYTimes and the Archives so as to forstall the (probably inevitable) challenges it will undergo in the future from still more editors.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 19:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Good start. I'm not comfortable with "led a campaign", and don't see where the cited NYT source supports that. And the NYT link can be improved to show the whole article instead of page 1. Use the first paragraph about transgender advocacy and activism more or less as it is in the article now, but better sourced; then this on the BBL controversy, which summarizes Conway's attitude to balance Dreger's opinion:

Proposal 2

She has been involved in the Bailey–Blanchard–Lawrence controversy over the controversial 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author J. Michael Bailey and his supporters. A history of the controversy was published by Alice Dreger, in which she concluded that Conway's actions amounted to a smear campaign against Bailey. That history, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy, appear in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy includes Dreger and the editor of that journal as principals, along with Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence, all also on the editorial board of the journal.

You folks seemed to be headed in a very positive direction! My thoughts, before I saw your proposed revisions, was that it is fine to cite to Dreger's article as her article, as opposed to a group of scholars or as an "investigation." It's not an article by a group of scholars, it's just an article by Dreger. And, in my opinion, the word "investigation" conjures up something akin to the Warren Commission in the average person's mind. It might be overstating things a bit to call Dreger's article an "investigation"; it may be exhaustive, but in the end it's pretty much her opinion, and should be cited as such to be fair. But based on the proposed edits above, I think both of you are fairly close to agreement on that point.BrownHornet21 (talk) 04:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC

I agree, but I'm confused...Did I use the word "investigation" somewhere?

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 15:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought you did, but you're right, you didn't. My apologies. This diff[23] -- the "comprehensive, documented history" with a definitive conclusion -- made the Dreger piece sound like a full-blown investigation or inquiry. BrownHornet21 (talk) 18:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

No problem; I removed even those terms in my suggestion.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 20:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Commentaries

Marion, thanks for the reprint of all the commentaries (that was still you, right, even though you used a different name?). It's a slog, but I think overall it appears that a lot of people agree that her "history" was very one-sided.

I wouldn't assert that the collection of commentaries is a representative survey, but you can see why I recommended citing those commentaries as a WP-valid way of ensuring that disagreements get cited without resorting to people's blogs.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 15:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Chronicle of Higher Education. The standard source for news and controversies in higher education is this weekly magazine. Although privately published, and for-profit (which it makes from its job ads--it's the key place for educational administrators and for some academic disciplines), it's presently the only really good comprehensive source. Most of it is subscription,-only, but I have a subscription. I can't post the articles here, of course, but I can email a few copies. I need people's email addresses to do this, so if you want them, send me the addresses through my email on my talk page. There are 5 articles relevant to the overall topic, though they focus on Bailey, not Conway: excerpts relevant to Conway follow:

1. From the issue dated December 10, 2004 Volume 51, Issue 16, Page A10 [24] "Northwestern U. Will Not Reveal Results of Investigation Into Sex Researcher" By ROBIN WILSON " Northwestern University has concluded its investigation into complaints against J. Michael Bailey, a professor of psychology who has been accused of failing to inform transsexual women that they were research subjects before he wrote about them in a 2003 book. But the university will not reveal its findings or say whether it punished Mr. Bailey. ... The letters infuriated transsexual women who filed complaints about Mr. Bailey during the summer of 2003. "We believe that this cover-up is an incredible slap in the face not only to us transwomen but also to everyone else who has been watching this case and wanting to know the results," said Lynn Conway, a professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor who is among the transsexual women who complained.
2. From the issue dated December 19, 2003 [25] Volume 50, Issue 17, Page A17 "Northwestern U. Psychologist Accused of Having Sex With Research Subject" By ROBIN WILSON (Conway not mentioned in article)
3. From the issue dated June 20, 2003. Volume 49, Issue 41, Page A8 [26] " 'Dr. Sex': A human-sexuality expert creates controversy with a new book on gay men and transsexuals" By ROBIN WILSON "Lynn Conway, a professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says Mr. Bailey is threatening to overturn 40 years of mainstream scientific thought that says men who want to become women are suffering from 'gender-identity disorder. This book seems like a lurid and reactionary attempt to strip us of our hard-won female gender and of our social and legal rights, too, by relabeling us as either homosexual men or male sexual fetishists,' says Ms. Conway. She had a sex-change operation 35 years ago and describes herself as a "nice married gal" who lives in rural Michigan with her husband Charlie, whom she has been with for 15 years. Ms. Conway and other transsexuals say Mr. Bailey never bothered to talk to them, even though many learned about his project and offered their views. Instead, they charge, he focused on the handful of transsexuals he met in Chicago's gay bars. 'He knows, what, nine gals?' asks Ms. Conway. 'I've known hundreds of post-op women, and they're all over the boat. There is no generalization. They are as varied as any gals are.' "
4. From the issue dated July 25, 2003 [27] "Transsexual 'Subjects' Complain About Professor's Research Methods"

By ROBIN WILSON (does not mention Conway)

1. From the issue dated October 7, 2005, Volume 52, Issue 7, Page A10, [28] "Second Sex: Wally Bacon, a popular professor at Nebraska for 29 years, returns from summer vacation as a woman." By ROBIN WILSON "Lynn Conway, who had a sex change nearly 40 years ago and is a professor emerita of engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has done a detailed study of transsexualism in academe, and she says it is not as rare as people might think."

There is nothing in the Chronicle about the part of the controversy involving Archives of Sexual Behavior.

The most problematic Wikipedia article, by the way,seems to be Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory controversy. Some of the material cited there does not appear all that reliable, or is perhaps cited from web sites, not the original published sources. However, some of the references there may prove useful here. DGG (talk) 16:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for finding, summarizing, and quoting those items for us. Could be very useful. For example in the Lynn Conway article, her quote about Northwestern's investigation is a good solid way to mention her viewpoint in her bio.

Agreed about the BBL controversy article; that one's a disaster; there seems to be a consensus to mostly throw it out and start over with a section in Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory; but those articles are pretty well dominated by partisans already, so I've decided to pretty much stay away from them as hopeless. Dicklyon (talk) 16:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Archives of Sexual Behavior

I've also added an even smaller balanced mention on the controversy to the article on the Archives of Sexual Behavior, with a main link. And I've requested the guy who protected Andrea James to unprotect it now that BarbaraSue is out of the picture; he had characterized the problem there as a spillover from this mediation, but it doesn't need to be. See my comments at the talk page there. Dicklyon (talk) 07:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

So why did you just revert it, instead of pointing out what you think is POV, or which refs you think are unreliable, or trying to improve it? What happened to our spirit of cooperation here? I'll give you another chance there... Dicklyon (talk) 15:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

BrownHornet21: Dicklyon and I appear to be in an edit war at WP:Archives of Sexual Behavior. Input (if approrpiate) would be appreciated.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 18:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

YOU MUST START ANOTHER MEDIATION! HA HA! :P I kid, I kid. I'll make my comments here, since this dispute involves the same two people and generally the same issue.

• I don't have a problem with the first sentence saying Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence are embroiled in a controversy, considering that it's named after these three folks, that seems obvious. I don't see how Zucker's tied into it, though, and would leave him out of it (until such time he may step into the fray).
• Second sentence, I agree with MarionTheLibrarian that it is POV to present the Dreger article as "one-sided." Adjectives are very POV things. For instance, calling Bailey's book "controversial" initially struck me as POV...until I saw that everyone *agreed* that the book is controversial. I would remove the phrase "one-sided" from the second sentence; other than that, it reads fine to me.
• Normally I would agree that blogs are inappropriate sources -- has no other journal, newspaper, article, etc. represented Conway's and James' side of this thing? If not, I don't really have a problem with the blog cites in this limited circumstance, given that the only thing they're being cited for is for the viewpoints of the authors. I think that meets the spirit of Wikipedia's policies on citing self-published sources, even though it technically bleeds off of the subject's page and onto related articles. (This article touches on their lives, so I think WP:BLP applies to it.) To be fair, something has to be cited in defense of Conway and James, to help meet WP:BLP. This is an academic feud, it's not going to be resolved anytime soon, if ever. I would rephrase the third sentence that Conway, James, et al. disagree with the Dreger article and its analysis, and cite their blogs, so that a reader has both sides of the issue to review. BrownHornet21 (talk) 19:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

In and of itself, I too have no concern regarding statements that Bailey, Blanchard, and Lawrence are in involved in a controversy. I am concerned about accusations that the Archives, its editor, or its editorial board are guilty of breeching professional ethics. If there existed evidence that there were such breeches, I would stand right along Dicklyon in decrying the journal. That is not the case, however.

I believe you, BrownHornet21, are correct to ask Dicklyon exactly how Zucker or the Archives are allegedly involved. Dicklyon has not presented any evidence that Zucker has ever done anything inappropriate regarding the contents of the journal, yet Dicklyon uses such implicit allegations as his argument that the Archives ought to be disqualified as a reliable source. I believe he is assigning guilt only by association. The only thing that Archives or Zucker are alleged to have have done wrong is to become attacked by Conway and James.

To answer your next question, finding reliable sources that provide Conway's and James' side of things is indeed difficult, and I can certainly appreciate why you would therefore suggest making an exception to WP:RS and using Conway's and James' sites as sources. However, it might first be useful to illustrate the full range of statements that those websites contain:

After Dreger's history was produced and distributed, James' put this page onto her website: http://www.tsroadmap.com/notes/index.php/site/comments/alice_dregers_virtual_facial_feminization_surgery/ James shows two pictures of Dreger and writes, "It’s no secret that sloppy historian Alice Dreger is always good for a laugh when it comes to her appearance. I believe Dreger is fixated on “freaks” because she feels more attractive and normal by comparison."

Previously, James posted on her site photographs of Mike Bailey's children with obscenities. http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-children.html (Although James issued an apology, she doesn't deny that she posted the pictures.)

Now, I am not arguing that all of James' claims are of quite the same character, nor that every statement on those websites are false. I am pointing out that one should hesitate before allowing statements to appear on non-biographical WP site ssolely on the basis of statements made on those personal blogs. To make an analogy, when one is writing about conspiracy theorists, then one would certainly cite the statements made by those theorists; however, one would not include cite the conspiracy theorists on every page about which a conspiracy theorist has made a comment.

The only reliable outlets that contain at least some portion of Conway's/James' views are the commentaries that Zucker published in the Archives. Dicklyon is, of course, free to believe that Dreger's history got a free ride into the Archives because of nepotism among academics. (Indeed, Lynn Conway argues several times on her site that there is a conspiracy of high-placed academics, and James once produced this diagram http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/bailey-chart.html to illustrate it.) Conversely, I am free to believe that Conway's and James' views do not appear in any professional outlets because they do not consistute a professional level of discourse or analysis.

What is important for WP, however, is whether Conway's and James' views meet WP standards for inclusion. The conventional rules say they do not. I would, of course, be disappointed if you, BrownHornet21, recommend making an exception for them. I did, however, agree to this mediation and I will stand by my agreement. I ask only that you appreciate exactly what Pandora's box you are opening and consider very, very carefully if you actually mean to do so. I hope I have convinced you to stick to the existing WP policy.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 22:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to take your concerns into account in my latest change of refs when I restored the edit after your third revert. Dicklyon (talk) 00:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

• I have already pointed out that your description of Dreger's article violates WP:NPOV.[29] BrownHornet21, agreed.[30]. You reinstate it nonetheless.[31]
• Student newspapers do not meet WP:RS.
• The entry you want to include consists entirely of insinuation. It cannot be improved, as you ask me to provide suggestions to do; it does not belong in WP at all.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 01:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I have deleted the paragraph on this controversy that was added to the article on the journal. In the context of the journal as a whole, it is trivial,in the absence of evidence that it is a major controversy, and the paragraph was totally unbalanced and failed NPOV & BLP very decisively. The insertion by dickylon was inappropriate, to use the mildest word I can think of at the moment, as an attempt to spread the unfortunate controversy about this here more widely. It actually contained the sentence "The Archives published a one-sided analysis of the controversy by Alice Dreger" without any sourcing whatsoever that it was considered by RSs to be a one-sided analysis. this is pure opinion, and can be considered a violation of BLP with respect to the named editors of the journal. I have reverted it accordingly. Additional support was suggest from a student newspaper, which I think clearly insufficient. DGG (talk) 05:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think I see your point. What I'd like to do is to link the ASB to the controversy, without bias, so that readers will have a chance to be aware of this stuff that the magazine and at least 6 people on its editorial board are embroiled in on one side (I don't propose to say who or how many in article space, as the sources to support that would likely not be deemed reliable). I can see that the "one-sided" adjective in there probably was interpreted as POV, and that having only the web words of student papers and the other side to specifically tie the editor to the controversy was a bad idea. Now that I've looked at the commentaries, I can see that Zucker has talked about his process of publishing controversial reports along with commentaries on them; so how about a small section "Controversies and commentaries" to talk about that, citing him? That way, we could report just the ASB's and Zucker's position that it is acting as a neutral forum for the controversy, but still say that the controversy exists, and link to the article about it (an article that itself is in terrible shape and should be merged, but nonetheless a story that needs to have a place somewhere in wikipedia given the amount of coverage it gets in the popular press, not to mention in the ASB). Ultimately, I think having some good NPOV coverage in other articles will take some of the pressure off the Lynn Conway article, where she has been under constant attack by one side in this debate (same for Andrea James and Deirdre McCloskey). That's the motivation, not trying to say anything bad about the ASB or Zucker. Dicklyon (talk) 15:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, DGG, the mediator here didn't react to my small addition in anything like the way you did, as you can see in his comments above (if leaving out Zucker as he suggested was what mattered, or the words "one-sided" were at issue, you or someone could have made such a change). As you're a previous praiser of the ASB (above), I think you had already aligned yourself slightly with a POV. That's why I questioned your warning that you could block me for BLP violation; it would be much more wiki-like for you to recuse yourself from any admin action, especially now, after you joined the revert war against me. Of course, that won't restrict you from acting to remove anything you regard as a BLP violation, just as I do, or from getting quick action from an uninvolved admin if you feel a need to. Agreed? While I await your reactions, I will hold off implementing the above suggestion. Dicklyon (talk) 15:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

you mistake my interests. I have no particular knowledge or interest in conway or her opponents, or the controversy, or the subject. I do have some interest in controversies between academics generally, and they tend to be very complicated indeed, because the parties are usually quite skilled at finding each others weaknesses, ingenious at finding arguments, accustomed to going off on obscure tangents, aware of every possible peripheral issue, knowledgeable about skeletons in closets, expert at expressing their views, and not at all modest about the correctness of their opinions. But that's in general. some individual academic controversies I do follow, usually as an amused and interested spectator, but this has not been among them. It was in fact not until late last night after our discussion that i first read much of the actual Wikipedia articles on this. Now, unlike yesterday, I know at least what the controversy is about, even though I remain not particularly interested. When I gave my opinion, I gave it on a technical issue, and when I do so, I quite frankly find I am better off and more objective if I do not know the fundamental context being argued over.

I do claim some degree of expert knowledge in judging the quality of academic journals, for that is my profession. But I do not rely either there or here upon giving an opinion--I gave the facts and the reasoning upon which I have based it. Objectively, as shown by the citation frequency of other scientists,ASB is the journal of highest standing in the world on the subject of human sexuality. I didn't judge it as such, the people who cite it judge it. Bibliometrics is a quantitative science. It measures not exactly the ultimate merit of a journal, but the way in which people in the field make use of it: they rely on it as the journal they use and trust the most. Its analogous in a way to V, not Truth. I could support this by non-quantitative factors of various experts' opinion, but I tend to like numbers, not opinion.

This has no connection with whether this specific special issue is biased. I know how to look for that too, by seeing what others have said about it, but I haven't done so & don't intend to--and even if I did, it would not show whether they are biased, but whether they are perceived in their profession as being biased in this particular regard. . The editorial board of this journal may be right, or maybe wrong in this; I do not know, and I do not care. What I do know is their standing in their subject. I can tell you from experience on other subjects where i do know this that it is possible that they are, for scholars are certainly subject to bias in their subject, along with everyone else. Editorial boards have a tendency to support their own views to a certain extent, and in some fields of study there are in fact competitive scholarly positions that never refer to each other. I have not investigated whether that is the case here.

I also know about the signs of edit warring in Wikipedia, the tendency to adjust articles on sources to strengthen the positions of those who want to cite them, and the tendency of those devoted to a particular point of view to spread the controversy into as many adjacent articles. I give my opinion, and others can equally well give theirs, that this is exactly what you are doing. Your are trying to denigrate the general reputation of a source, because it does not agree with your position on one of the hundreds of subjects it has dealt with. You are trying to add a discussion of this controversy to peripheral articles. You are trying to add back sources other people have removed, without discussing them. You are giving 3RRr warnings to your opponents in the topic, just as you almost simultaneously actually violate 3RR yourself. You consider anyone who may have given an opinion that does not support your own as biased.

Admins who have taken one action in a conflict are not prohibited from taking further actions, nor are we obliged to recuse ourselves over matters as trivial as this--if we were, everyone who did not like an admin decision could and would defeat it with such objections. I almost never block anyone, for it is almost never necessary. Sensible people stop before that point. I consider you a sensible editor--and you are, for you did indeed stop. I have edited with you on other subjects and I greatly respect your skill and your knowledge. I hope to do so harmoniously many times in the future. I ask you quite seriously as a friend and co-worker, though, to consider whether you may not be pursuing this issue too energetically and have possibly come a little too near to losing the objectivity for NPOV editing on it. I am very unhappy about writing all this here, but if someone questions my integrity in public I defend myself. But I dislike the need to do so, and therefore if further admin action on this is needed, I will preferably ask someone else, but if it seems urgent to do it myself, I will then ask for confirmation at AN/I.

And incidentally, the possibility below, of trying to get pro and con opinion on this in a balanced way, seems sensible. Achieving balance, though, it not always that easy. i leave this to the mediator. I just came to offer a single technical opinion. DGG (talk) 05:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, DGG. I won't make it necessary for you to jump in and do admin stuff yourself. But I still think you've way over-reacted here; see the mediator's comments. It will still be necessary for the the ASB article to mention the controversy that they have become embroiled in, as it's the most newsworthy thing they've ever been involved in. We just need to find the right balance. Or, we can decide that the controversy shouldn't be mentioned at all in any article, I guess, but that seems unnecessary. Dicklyon (talk) 06:11, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, as I found some of the same strong POV treatment of the same controversy in the article on J. Michael Bailey, I attempted to make it more balanced. This time I was careful to cite only a published book, and to not use any words that implied a value judgement (except in a quote to balance Dreger a bit). Please comment, Marion, mediator, and DGG? Dicklyon (talk) 06:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, I could not find in the cited NYT article where it said that the Northwestern investigation had cleared Bailey, nor where the quoted "form of harassment" came from; nor any harassment of Bailey by his critics aleged in/by Dreger; so I made the mildest possible changes to make the passages not conflict with the cited sources. If I missed a place where these were verifiable, please let me know. This is about the fourth article where I've had to take out misquotes of Dreger and the NYT. In this case, added by User:Avruch. Dicklyon (talk) 07:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 3

Marion, what about reacting to my proposal above? Let's finalize this thing and move on. Are you saying you'd prefer to cite commentaries in the ASB for the other side? There seem to be a dozen or so that are quite critical of Dreger and supportive of the trans women; do we quote and cite some, or what? Make a proposal? Dicklyon (talk) 04:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

• I have no problem dropping "led a campaign." Personally, I would have guessed that Conway would feel proud to be known to have led a campaign against Bailey, but if you don't like it, that's that.
• I have no problem updating the NYTimes link; I was cutting-and-pasting from prior links. This version uses yours.
• The occurrences of "Dr." remain out.
• The first sentence needed rewording so as to avoid using both the word "controversy" and "controversial."
• The final sentence violated NPOV for all the same reasons as with the Archives. It accused people of wrong-doing and biased the passage, rather than merely making Conway's comments available to readers on par with Dreger's. The version uses the prior language, directing people to Conway's site, which is an appropriate source only on her own bio page.

Since then, Conway has been active in transsexual issues, including involvement in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. A history of the controversy was published by Alice Dreger, in which she concluded that Conway's actions amounted to a smear campaign against Bailey. That history, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy appear in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

I do not believe that citing the individual commentaries nor including all of the people or concepts that Conway dislikes are necessary or particularly relevant. There already exist many pages that address the scientific aspects that appear in Bailey's book. This is a bio page about Conway, and readers interested in the book/theory/controversy rather than in Conway herself can find it by following any of the several links/sources we have already included.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 14:04, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the less said here the better; keep the controversy in the controversy article so the bio can get back to being a bio. However, I thought we also agreed we were trying for balance. I don't see how you can include "she concluded that Conway's actions amounted to a smear campaign against Bailey" without including at least one balancing observation from the commentaries. Would you like to leave it out, or should I pick one? Also, it seems unfair that the Dreger piece is linked to an online copy, but the commentaries are not available except by purchase. Maybe you can ask your colleagues there to fix that. Dicklyon (talk) 15:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing. Conway's involvement in transsexual issues is not limited to this controversy. I'd like to see that sentence split off into a separate small paragraph on that topic, as I mentioned above. Something like what's in the article now; I think that part is outside the topic area that you're passionate about, so shouldn't be a worry. Any objection to leaving that first paragraph as it is? Dicklyon (talk) 15:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 4

Here's how the suggestion above would look:

Since outing herself, Conway has been a transgender rights activist. She has provided direct and indirect assistance to numerous other transsexual women going through transition and maintains a website listing many post-transition transsexual people who she considers successful. Her website also provides current news related to transgender issues and information on sex reassignment surgery for transsexual women, facial feminization surgery, and transgender/transsexual issues in general.

Since then, Conway has been active in transsexual issues, including involvement in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. A history of the controversy, critcal of Conway and other transsexuals who objected to Bailey's book, was published by Alice Dreger. That history, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy appear in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

Proposal 5

• I have no opposition to you or anyone else expanding on Conway's contributions as either engineer or activist that meets WP policies, and the new paragraph about Conway's other activities looks good to me.
• I think the version 3 was more neutral than version 4, but I appreciate your view that there was a short description of Dreger's view but not one for Conway's. So, version 5 retains the language from version 3, includes a short description of Conway's view to be analogous to Dreger's, and includes your new text from version 4.
• I reworded "since then" so the whole passage has a single narrative flow.
• There is a web-link to Conway's view and a web-link to Dreger's.
• Dreger's qualifications are included, analogous to the indications that Conway is a bone fide trans activist.
• Accessibility to the commentaries, in my eye, is zero-sum. Conway's views are as available as are Dreger's, and it is all of the commentaries (both pro and con) which require either a trip to a university library, membership in a university community (faculty, student or whatever), or payment to the publisher. I have no relationship with anyone with the power to alter the copyright or payment policies relevant to free-downloads of published articles in Archives or anywhere else.
• I removed "of the controversy" in one sentence and changed the final occurance of "controversy" to "events" to avoid over-use of the word, but I wouldn't oppose putting them back in, either.

Since outing herself, Conway has been a transgender rights activist. She has provided direct and indirect assistance to numerous other transsexual women going through transition and maintains a website listing many post-transition transsexual people who she considers successful. Her website also provides current news related to transgender issues and information on sex reassignment surgery for transsexual women, facial feminization surgery, and transgender/transsexual issues in general.

Conway was involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey, believing that Bailey was guilty of scientific and professional misconduct. A history of the controversy was published by Alice Dreger, an historian and intersex rights activist, in which Dreger concluded that Conway's actions amounted to a smear campaign against Bailey. That history, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides appear in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the events is available on her personal website.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 16:40, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I was about to say OK, let's go with that, but then DGG just posted a bunch of stuff above that makes it clear that Conway's position is indeed well articulated in reliable published sources. A quote by Conway or by the author that described her position would be a much better balance to Dreger's conclusion than just your "believing that Bailey was guilty of scientific and professional misconduct" (by the way, we can't really attribute beliefs; we need to stick to verifiable actions). I'll study those and make another proposal when I find time. Dicklyon (talk) 17:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

"Believing" can be replaced with "accusing" using the same source. All of the links to those Chronicle articles have been available on Conway's site for several years, and I'm surprised that you would want to use what the Chronicle says that Conway says rather than what Conway herself says. Nonetheless, it is certainly your option.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 17:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The more I look at it, the less I like it. But it's fixable; you've got Conway "believing" or "accusing", and Dreger "concluding." You mention Dreger's inference of "smear campaign", but nothing corresponding to what Conway says about Dreger or BBL or Zucker or the ASB. Of the material published in the ASB, only Dreger's is accessible to wikipedia readers (I know you don't have control over this, but it is material to achieving balance here). I think I'll work on three new proposals to illustrate what balance would look like: (A) minimal change: put in a bit more of Conway's comments to balance Dreger's conclusions; (B) reducing: take out Dreger's conclusion; mention the ASB issue and quote Zucker about publishing "articles on controversial topics" with commentaries, mention the Dreger article (leave "history" in its title, but not call it a history, since Zucker doesn't call it that and it's really not one, as some of the commentators point out), ref the ASB but not linking Dreger's piece of it directly; (c) expanding: add one or more of the longish quotes from the chronicle that DGG pointed out above. I don't know how long it will take to get to this; in the mean time, if you'd like to try one or more yourself, or encourage one of these approaches over the others, please do. Dicklyon (talk) 19:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Moving forward

BrownHornet21: Do Dicklyon's anticipated changes seem to you like a move forward or backward in our effort to produce NPOV text?
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 20:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Forward -- it seems you're both fairly close to a resolution.

I actually think Proposal 4 reads the best, and is the most NPOV. If Conway's view can be cited to a better reference, such as a publication or article, great. But if not, I think citing her blog as a reference for her opinion is fine, per WP:BLP. I know Marion has an issue with citing to Conway's blog, but: (a) it is only cited for her opinion on her biography page (and maybe, perhaps, a few others that discuss this event in her life, which falls under WP:BLP in my opinion); and (b) I think Conway's view must be presented to balance the article and meet WP:BLP. You really can't present one opinion without the other. Keep 'em both, or lose 'em both. If you just keep the Dreger article and exclude Conway/James, et al., the reader is left with the impression that the controversy over Bailey's book is concluded, Bailey was right, Conway was wrong. But that's not accurate; violating the primary point of WP:BLP: "We must get the article right." I could also see removing both the Dreger ref and Conway blog ref, and just cite the reader to the BBL controversy page. I mean, it's seems somewhat beside the point to write that both sides insist that they are right. But if one wants to include the sentence about Dreger's article, one should also include a sentence about the disagreement with Dreger's opinion.

That's my two cents. Out of the options presented above, I think Proposal 4 is the most balanced, conservative, and neutral edit. BrownHornet21 (talk) 23:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree proposal 4 is the best so far. Even though I wrote it, I do have one remaining objection. While it might be OK to single out Dreger as representative of the reaction against Conway, calling her paper "a history" betrays a POV, and is not verifiable in sources about the paper. That is, the editor refers to it as a controversial paper, not as a history; and several of the commentaries take issue with her calling it a history, and point out that it is not one. So, how about we call it a controversial paper, as editor Zucker did? Or, if not that, then just "An article"? The ref of course will still use the article name, which has "history" in it. Dicklyon (talk) 00:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Like this, where I call it "a retrospective article", which is sort of like history but without implying it's historically sensible:

Proposal 6

Since outing herself, Conway has been a transgender rights activist. She has provided direct and indirect assistance to numerous other transsexual women going through transition and maintains a website listing many post-transition transsexual people who she considers successful. Her website also provides current news related to transgender issues and information on sex reassignment surgery for transsexual women, facial feminization surgery, and transgender/transsexual issues in general.

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. A retrospective article on the controversy, critcal of Conway and other transsexuals who objected to Bailey's book, was published by Alice Dreger. That article, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy appear in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

Dreger is an historian, she saw fit to call it a history in its title, and her coverage of the events earned her an award from the Guggenheim Foundation in their history category. What is the objective evidence for saying it's not a history?
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 01:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no intention to attempt to prove it's not a history. But since the commentaries question whether it's a history, and since I've read it, and can't see how anyone could claim with a straight face that it's a history, I think it's rather POV to call it a history. It pretends to be a history, but doesn't really deserve to be dignified by us calling it that. Dreger may be an historian, but it's more NPOV to adopt the editor's words and call it a controversial article. I'm being generous by offering "retrospective article". I haven't heard about the Guggenheim thing you brought up; did they publish something about that?

I pointed out the Guggenheim fellowship in our discussion previously.[32]

The link to them is in that diff.

None of the people you cite below have the qualifications to say what is and is not a history.

Although they are citable in my mind to exemplify the controversy, their comments did not undergo peer review or fact-checking; they are letters to an editor, not peer-reviewed articles.

Finally, your language above is inappropriate to this discussion. You are free to disagree all you like with me, Dreger, or anyone else, but what can do with a straight face, who is being generous, what is being dignified, and what deserves what are all posturing.

MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 14:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's the main problem again: you want to regard Dreger's attack piece as "peer reviewed", but the responses of the attacked as not, even though they're in the same journal, as edited by the same editor; surely you're not suggesting that Dreger's piece went through any normal sort of "peer review or fact-checking" (just because Zucker said he had three peers review it). You work to promote one side and suppress the other. And if there were a guideline against posturing, you'd be out of here already. Dicklyon (talk) 15:58, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

What I want and what you want are irrelevant. The claims that are verifiable by reliable sources are indeed that Dreger's article (however called) was peer reviewed and that the commentaries were not. Whether you or I believe that is not relevant to what claims merit inclusion in WP. To discount Zucker's editorial decisions regarding both Dreger's article and the commentaries on it is to repeat what DDG (and I) believe violates WP policy.

Your remaining comments are best left to BrownHornet21's judgement.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 16:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

"Verifiable" is a concept relevant to article content, and I don't think anyone has proposed discussing the peer review concept in the article. We're just talking about what to call Dreger's attack piece; nobody is proposing that we refer to it as an attack piece, because that would be as POV as referring to it as a history; we just need to keep it neutral. How about "article" as I suggested? Dicklyon (talk) 17:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

This is no longer clear to me. Please write out a complete proposal 6.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 17:32, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I inserted a heading above it, above. Dicklyon (talk) 17:34, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I think Proposal 6 is fine. If it all boils down to what to call Dreger's piece, I think "article" or "self-described 'history'" is fine, with a strong preference to call it an article. That's most NPOV in my opinion. BrownHornet21 (talk) 19:16, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The summary of Dreger's conclusions in Proposal 6 is not accurate. She was not critical of "transsexuals who objected to Bailey's book;" she assessed the individual behaviors of individual people. Some people were transsexual, some were not; she objected to some behaviors of some people who were transsexual and she agreed with others. Moreover, the bio page is about Conway; only Dreger's comments about Conway are relevant. I believe my original summary of Dreger is a more accurate summary of Dreger's view ("...concluded that Conway's actions amounted to a smear campaign"), but I have no reason to think that another accurate summary could not be written.

My willingness to forgo the more precise word "history" for the less precise word "article" depends on the context in which that sentence appears. "Retrospective" makes no sense; there is no such thing as a "prospective" article.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 19:24, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 7

See if this captures the latest comments. I changed "smear campaign" to "anti-Bailey campaign", in quotes since she called it that and since she didn't use the words "smear campaign" in the cited article. I would also be OK with "self-described 'history'" instead of just "article" since that makes it clear who is calling it a history, and it's not us. I moved "appear" to fix a number-agreement ambiguity. Dicklyon (talk) 20:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

(omitting unchanged first paragraph unrelated to the controversy)

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. An article on the controversy, critical of Conway (and others) and her "anti-Bailey campaign", was published by Alice Dreger. That article appears, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy, in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

Proposal 8

• Although it has not been made explicit, you are also removing Dreger's qualifications for having any professional opinion at all.
• I am less given to removing "history" when it is not otherwise indicated that Dreger is a professional historian. It is NPOV to give her view more credit than her qualifications merit, but it is also NPOV to give it less by withholding relevant information from readers.
• "Review" is more precise that "article."
• The other changes I've made here are, I think, merely stylistic (use of active rather than passive voice and corrections of misplaced modifiers).

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. Alice Dreger, an historian and intersex activist, published a review of the controversy, critical of many aspects of Conway's and others' "anti-Bailey campaign." That review, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy, appears in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

I don't understand why you say "it is also NPOV [sic I presume you mean POV] to give it less by withholding relevant information from readers." Many relevant things must generally be withheld; there's so much more we could say if we wanted to be more complete, but I think the goal here was to be brief and balanced. I think we could allow "review", but dignifying Dreger by calling her a historian, especially in relation to this piece, is certainly pushing the POV of one side again; the quotes below clearly illustrate that there is another POV on whether she's a historian; it's also not among the things she describes herself as on her about page:

"I'm a medical humanist, writer, speaker, patient advocate, a Guggenheim Fellow, and an Associate Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics in the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago. (That’s way too many prepositions, I know.)"

Anyway, it is pretty conventional in wikipedia to suppress titles. Let just go with Alice Dreger and "review" and call it a day, shall we? Dicklyon (talk) 04:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, poor typing on my part; I meant to say "a violation of NPOV."
• If you have other relevant information to add to Conway's page that meets WP criteria, I have no objection to you (or anyone else) adding it, as with the information you added regarding Conway's other activist activities.
• Because the description of Dreger's review is verifiably a history, it is NPOV to call it so and POV not to.

As I indicated earlier, statements such as "dignfying Dreger by calling her a historian" are not appropriate in this discussion. If there is language I am using that you feel is not appropriate, feel free always to point out to me which text it is.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 14:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand you here. Why is it inappropriate for me to be up-front about my opinions when we're discussing how to edit an article? I don't think this is related to WP:NPA; I am not attacking you; I'm not even attacking Dreger, just pointing out that calling her a "historian" is a POV way to "dignify" her and thereby her work, and that it's POV to do so. If you were more up-front about yours, instead of trying to claim "verifiably" about something that is so obviously a matter of opinion (not just yours and mine, but opinions published in a journal), then we could maybe make better progress with not so much posturing. Dicklyon (talk) 20:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with you, or anyone, being up front about opinions. I am pointing out that the language you used to express that opinion was, in my mind, inappropriate. For example, the phrase "referring to Dreger as an historian..." would express the same idea did the phrase "dignifying Dreger by calling her a historian...", but in a unvalenced manner that is more appropriate and conducive to progress.

As for whether to identify Dreger as "an historian and intersex activist," perhaps it would be helpful to indicate the range of descriptors that are accurate, verifiable, and admissible in WP. Dreger can legitimately be referred to as "an award-winning historian" and an "internationally recognized intersex activist," and her review of the controversy can legitimately be referred to as "an award-winning account of the events." Unlike referring to her article as "comprehensive," all of those descriptors are demonstrable.

It is not my habit to ask for the sky in order to retain wiggle room for compromising to a desired result. In my opinion, all that is necessary is a simple identification of Dreger that demonstrates only that she is qualified to have an educated opinion on the subject.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 21:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

But "identification of Dreger that demonstrates only that she is qualified to have an educated opinion" would be objected to by persons who claim she is unqualified due to her close prior connection with Bailey, her run-in and campaign against James, etc. People on the other side would argue that she is therefore not qualied to have an opinion. I'm sympathetic to that viewpoint, but I have not studied it in depth. In terms of wikipedia POV avoidance, the safe thing done in these circumstances is usually to just name the person whose work or view is being reported, and avoided saying anything that appears to either bolster or discredit them. By the way, I am not interested in trying to defend or prove the idea that she had a close prior connection with Bailey, or any of that; I just mention that because it seems to one of the ideas that people on the other side of the argument have said (e.g. here). Dicklyon (talk) 01:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• There is no objection that would reduce the accuracy of Dreger being either an historian or an intersex activist.
• Including brief identifiers is the convention in WP and in journalism. For examples, today's featured article in WP identifies Philip J. Klotzbach, Dr. William M. Gray, and their associates as "noted hurricane experts." My description of Dreger is devoid of the evaluative adjectives even in that, despite that Dreger qualifies as "award-winning." The front page of today's NYTimes has an article about same-sex marriages that includes with each mention of a person the identifier that the person is a professor of a relevant field. The NYTimes does not mention that members of NARTH would disagree with their opinions. (I don't mean to compare Conway's supporters with NARTH members; I use them only as examples of a group of people who would likely disagree.)
• If, in the future, there emerges evidence reported in a reliable source, then references to Dreger's review should indeed be updated. Meanwhile, such insinuations are BLP, as has been discussed several times already.
• There exist well over a dozen peer-reviewed journals in sexology, and Conway has recently submitted a manuscript for publication in one of them. She, you, and anyone else has always had and continues to have the option to submit comments for peer review. Should such comments be accepted for publication, then would then meet WP criteria for mention.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 15:33, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, let's go with intersex activist then, since that's a more accurate description than historian. The publication that her paper is in has plenty of other papers questioning her status as an effective or neutral historian, which is why it seems to me that that word seems to lend a biased support to her. Since your own bias is so blatant and clear, having the push from you to include "historian" supports my view that it comes with an implied bias. Or are you going to deny where you're coming from on this? By the way, you've said above that the "commentaries" did not undergo "fact-checking," and implied that the Dreger piece did; is there any evidence for that? Even if there is, what relevance is it when what's in question is not the facts, but rather the opinions and conclusions? By implying that Dreger has had her facts checked, you're trying to bolster the argument that her opinions should be given more weight. This is bullshit. Dicklyon (talk) 17:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Unless BrownHornet21 suggests I should do otherwise, instead of responding to the above, I am responding to DGG's suggestion below.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 12:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• I like DGG's suggestion - which is, essentially, replace "historian" with "Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics...." I would even write "Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University," since I think it begs the question to identify someone as a professor without indicating at which school they're a professor. While Dreger is arguably a historian, my initial concern with the edits here was that Dreger's review was portrayed somewhat as (and I'm paraphrasing, clearly) "History has passed judgment on the whole mess, and decided that Bailey was right, Conway was wrong." And that's not really the case. The debate still rages on, and looks to rage on for quite some time. But I digress. DGG's suggestion is fine with me. BrownHornet21 (talk) 15:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I suppose if we also mention that Bailey is at Northwestern, that could sort of work. But it's much more straightforward to simply point out the relevant point that they're at the same place, at minimum, if we're not going to point out anything else about their long relationship; simpler than mentioning the place twice in expectation that the reader will notice a potential connection, when the real connection is so palpable. Dicklyon (talk) 04:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Content of summaries

The published sources that I have access to (the commentaries; thanks again for sending them) support the idea that Dreger's paper is not universally accepted as a "history", effectively challenging her status as "historian":

She portrays herself repeatedly as writing ‘‘scholarly history’’ (the phrase is used four times, as though by saying that you are doing historical scholarship you can make it so). She needs to write, she says, because misunderstanding of the Bailey controversy ‘‘are adversely affecting many people’s lives and actions.’’ I am a historian. I asked Dreger to send the paper to me. She never did, even when it was finished, though she is proud that she ‘‘solicited responses to drafts from 12 transgender activists.’’ She would not—and she admits she would not— show me her work and allow me to criticize it, one historian to another. So she is able to characterize my views free of critique by the person most involved. ... That is how one might characterize Dreger’s tedious and tendentious ‘‘scholarly history.’’ Lengthy but shallow."

— "Politics in Scholarly Drag: Dreger’s Assault on the Critics of Bailey" by Deirdre McCloskey

Dreger describes herself as an historian, a bioethicist, and a ‘‘queer activist.’’ In this essay, she fails at all three. She has described the Bailey controversy myopically, without placing it in its larger sociocultural context. She ignores the history of queer activism and its relationship to psychiatry. She is particularly oblivious to changes in the emerging transgender movement. The transgender community, and the professionals who work within it, are in the midst of a revolution, but Dreger hasn’t noticed. Under a veneer of neutrality, Dreger has aligned herself with the conservative rearguard of professionals, not realizing that changes in the field are already rendering much of that rearguard obsolete. Bailey’s book has reinforced cultural stereotypes of male-to-female transsexuals, beginning with the demeaning cover. He maintains that transsexuals are motivated by lust, not gender identity issues, that transsexuals lie, and that they are drawn to shoplifting. He asserts that one ‘‘type’’ of transsexualism is in fact a ‘‘paraphilia,’’ linking some MTF transsexuals with ‘‘necrophilia, bestiality, and pedophilia’’ (p. 171) and that the members of the other ‘‘type,’’ homosexual transsexuals, ‘‘might be especially well-suited to prostitution’’ (p. 141). By not acknowledging that Bailey’s book panders to popular prejudice, Dreger shows an appalling lack of understanding...

— "Dreger on the Bailey Controversy: Lost in the Drama, Missing the Big Picture" by Margaret Nichols

Unfortunately, while Dreger describes her article as a ‘‘scholarly history,’’ it fails in this regard for numerous reasons, several of which I will address here. ... Because Dreger overlooks this background and power dynamic, her article is largely an ahistorical ‘‘scholarly history.’’ ... one cannot help but draw parallels between Dreger’s article and Bailey’s book: both are one-sided renditions of issues that critically impact trans people’s lives, both fail to take trans people’s concerns, objections, and differing perspectives seriously, and both are touted as authoritative accounts (Bailey’s as ‘‘science’’ and Dreger’s as ‘‘scholarly history’’), creating the impression that they are necessarily objective, well reasoned, and academi- cally valid, in opposition to the accounts of trans people, which are (by implication) irredeemably subjective, unrea- sonable, and academically invalid.

— "A Matter of Perspective: A Transsexual Woman-Centric Critique of Dreger’s ‘‘Scholarly History’’ of the Bailey Controversy" by Julia Serano

Dreger’s opening remarks gave me hope for someone to succeed where I failed. She suggests that a scholarly history could lessen persistent tensions. I admire interdisciplinary work and hoped for her success at combining psychology with history. But as I read the coming pages, disillusion grew. I realized that I had read it before; it rehashes the pro-autogynephilia side. How could someone with such scholarship in writing history be pulled so much by one side that she misses so much of the other? ... Dreger strings together facts, however circuitously, to incorporate the other side, to frame the history as the almost ‘‘Galileo-like’’ struggling of truth-seeking scientists against seemingly powerful ‘‘fundamentalists.’’ She notes the uniformity of opinion in the peer-reviewed psychology publications that support Blanchard’s model in a way that legitimates Bailey’s lack of serious consideration of alternatives. She does this despite how the ‘‘peers’’ who review (psychologists and psychiatrists) are likely others in the same position of enormous power to diagnosis and authorize HRT/SRS for the other peer group (transgendered persons). Dreger fails to note how this uniformity among peers is strikingly different from the vibrant ongoing debates in nearly every other research area of psychology. She does not consider shared biases by pro-autogynephilia researchers that may lead to their conformity.

— "A Social Psychology of a History of a Snippet in the Psychology of Transgenderism" by Madeline H. Wyndzen

In summary, it may be a history, but there's a widespread disagreement on that point, so it would be POV to present it as one. Dicklyon (talk) 06:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 9 (DGG's suggestion)

• • the obvious thing is refer to her by her official title, Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics. See her current CV: March 28, 2008, I note that on that site, which is quasi-official, she does not refer to herself as an historian. The way a person calls herself in the formal context should determine it. DGG (talk) 01:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

That is an interesting suggestion. It is an accurate identifier. My general habit for people in interdisciplinary fields is to use whichever descriptor is most relevant to a given discussion. For example, a single person would be validly described as an inventor, a consultant, or a Professor of Physics depending on the context. Because Dreger chose the word history for her title and because the document itself won an award in the category of history, the designations "historian"/"history" seemed the most logical.

Nonetheless, "Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics, published a review..." would be acceptable to me.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 12:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

You still haven't produced evidence of this award that it won; are you referring to the Guggenheim fellowship she was given to develop her paper into a full-blown book? Do we know anything about who made that decision?

Perhaps it would be OK if we also made it clear that Dreger has been closely allied with Bailey for years. Minimally, "Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the same University as Bailey, published a review...", or maybe also allude to their prior involvement in the controversies around "intersex" and "DSD" (e.g. [33] [34] [35]). These attempts to dignify Dreger's attack on Conway, but not allowing it to be pointed out that the editor who published it was a frequent co-author of the principals Bailey and Blanchard, and that Dreger has been on the same side of the same controversies with the same people is just an unfair tactic of the academic sex-researcher cabal; it has all the same things wrong with it as what the commentators above point out about the Dreger "history". I'm just trying to find a compromise to allow mentioning it without unfairly dignifying it. I'm sure you understand that, but since you're a member of the same cabal, rather than an NPOV wikipedia editor, you're just going to be stubborn, aren't you? Dicklyon (talk) 15:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• Let's not get off track here . . . deep breaths, count to ten. Let the frustration subside. Regardless of whether Dreger won something or not, "award-winning" isn't going into the Lynn Conway article to describe Dreger's article - it slants what would be an otherwise neutral section about Conway's involvement in this whole controversy. Dick makes some interesting points about illustrating the "alignment of the parties," but I think that might be best reserved for the main BBL controversy page; let's not swamp the Lynn Conway article with it. Mention it, but let's not dignify it or undignify it.

Back to DGG's suggestion - Dick, what are your thoughts on DGG's proposed solution? BrownHornet21 (talk) 18:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 10

My thoughts are that "Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics" is too many words, too much weight; and that if anything we should be pointing out that she is at the same university as Bailey. How about "intersex activist and bioethicist at Bailey's university"? Dicklyon (talk) 21:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 11 (and some commentary on proposal 10

• How about "intersex activist and Northwestern University professor?" It's not going to take much for a reader to figure out Bailey and Dreger teach at the same university; let the reader draw his or her own conclusions about that fact? BrownHornet21 (talk) 04:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Not only is insinuation is not appropriate for WP pages, the evidence suggests the reverse of this particular insinuation: Dreger actually knew Conway for several years before she ever knew Bailey:

The controversy began in 2003, and Dreger and Conway already knew each other through their common activist activities. Dreger did not begin at Northwestern until 2005, and Dreger and Bailey did not meet until 2006. (Dreger discloses all of this in the first few pages of her article, and neither Conway nor anyone else has contested this timeline.) Any insinuation based on prior relationships would actually suggest that Dreger would be biased against Bailey, not for him.

Although it might appear fair to indicate that Dreger and Bailey work at the same place (insinuating a relationship), the insinuation only works when one omits from readers that Dreger and Conway already knew other and lets readers assume (falsely) that Dreger and Conway had no relationship of their own.

The changes Dicklyon suggests appear to side against Bailey only because they are missing certain pieces of information. Any balanced indication of prior relationships would include indications of all the prior relationships, which would actually bias the text towards Dreger's objectivity. My opinion is that none of this belongs in WP at all. However, if the Conway page is going to provide readers with an indication of prior relationships, it should, of course, provide the complete story.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 14:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

How is it insinuation to say that Dreger is at Bailey's university, if it's not insinuation to say that she's a historian or an ethicist? At least the former would not be met with ridicule and derision by people on either side of the controversy. Dicklyon (talk) 14:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• My recommendation remains, with my tweak of DGG's suggestion - i.e., "Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and Northwestern University Professor, published a review..." You two may not be 100% happy with it, but I think it's about as close to meeting WP:NPOV and WP:BLP as we're going to get. I don't like "Bailey's University" because it's overstating things a bit, and tends to show a teensy bit of bias; last time I checked, Bailey doesn't own Northwestern University. But Dreger is a professor at Northwestern; there's nothing offensive about stating her occupation. Neither side in this debate disputes that she's a professor at Northwestern. I added Northwestern because I think it begs the question to mention someone's a professor without mentioning where they teach. (In other words, someone will inevitably add it into the article in the future.) I don't think mentioning Northwestern "slants" the sentences in Conway's favor. I wasn't attempting to insinuate that Dreger's article is biased because she teaches at Northwestern with Bailey. Granted, that's an assumption a reasonable person can make, but so is the assumption Marion makes - that prior history suggests that Dreger would side with Conway. A reader is very likely not to make a conclusion either way unless they really research the issue and jump knee deep into the BBL controversy page and the articles cited by both of you. My point was to leave it up to the reader to decide whether Dreger is biased or not. I don't think mentioning Northwestern tips the edits in Conway's favor.

Conway's article does not need a lengthy dissertation about Dreger's possible bias (or lack of bias). And (I thought) all we're down to is debating what to call Dreger. And I think "intersex activist and Northwestern University Professor" is a concise, neutral description of Dreger. Do you agree? BrownHornet21 (talk) 16:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm fine with BrownHornet21's suggestion. Just to be clear, this is the full version of what BrownHornet21 is suggesting, yes?:

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and Northwestern University Professor, published a review of the controversy, critical of many aspects of Conway's and others' "anti-Bailey campaign." That review, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy, appears in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 18:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep, this is my recommendation. BrownHornet21 (talk) 18:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 12

How about this then:

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey, a Northwestern University professor. Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and Northwestern University professor, published a review of the controversy, critical of many aspects of Conway's and others' "anti-Bailey campaign." That review, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy, appears in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

Persistently inserting insinuations with regard to Zucker was inappropriate, persistently inserting insinuations regarding the Archives editorial board was inappropriate, and persistently inserting insinuations with regard to being at the same university while omitting all other information about prior relationships is inappropriate.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 23:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 13

How about this then:

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and professor, published a review of the controversy, critical of many aspects of Conway's and others' "anti-Bailey campaign." That review, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy, appears in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

comments--just comments--do what you will: 1/the name of the university, Northwestern, is reasonable to include because it is a distinguished university. (though it is also true that some of the most bitter academic controversies do involve people in the same department, let alone the same university,it does not imply either favorable or hostile bias). 2/The subject field in which someone is a professor is highly relevant to their life and work. If she were, say, a professor of archeology, or of clinical psychiatry, it would be relevant to know that. The best description is either the official title or the name of the department, a professor in the department of whatever. A person who calls his or her book a history does not therefore become a historian in any sense that implies either knowledge or authority. A historian (or any other specialist) in an academic sense is someone who is qualified as such by training or professional recognition. These are general observations--I do not wish to check whose views they may support. DGG (talk) 04:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Descriptors of persons are certainly used legitimately to identify what makes those persons' opinions relevant or to identify the persons themselves.

I am fine with Proposal 9 (DGG's suggestion), because is does the former.

I am fine with Proposal 11 (BrownHornet's suggestion), because it does the latter.

Proposal 13 does not accomplish either goal.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 13:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 12 accomplishes that and more. Please keep in mind that I am not opposed to providing the information. Rather, I just don't want to see what appears to be an imbalance, where we provide 'credentials' that appear to reinforce the validity of Dreger's rant that takes Bailey's side in a controversy, unless we balance that with something. It is particularly unfair, also that the Dreger ref includes a link to a full copy at her web site, but the views of the many people who spoke out against her analysis, in the same journal, are generally NOT so easily available. So no matter how we word this short section, I'm still not so sure it conforms to the spirit of WP:BLP, as it leaves the reader access only to a rather unbalanced view of the controversy, via Dreger's so-called "peer-reviewed" hit piece. Dicklyon (talk) 14:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• Dreger's comments are balanced by Conway's own. Conway's personal site has been linked to the WP page since it was created in 2004, Conway's personal site has contained mulitple comments on Dreger since Dreger's article was first made available in 2007, and Conway continues to be free to add to her site whatever she likes whenever she likes.
• The ability of people to access the published commentaries applies equally to positive and negative commentaries; thus, they are zero-sum.
• It is inappropriate to refer to Dreger's article as a "rant" or "hit piece," to diminish her verifiable qualifications with scare-quotes, as well as to refer to a demonstrably peer-reviewed journal as "so-called." This is my third request for the use of more appropriate language in this discussion.
  

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 15:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

A third opinion (solicited by the mediator off-wiki)

For what it's worth, I discussed this with a colleague off-wiki to get another set of eyeballs on this issue. My colleague, like me, didn't know who any of the participants were beforehand. His only comment was that the special issue of the ASB seems to cited as showing both sides of the coin (although neither of us have reviewed the issue at question) - why mention Dreger's review above and beyond all others in the special issue? (In other words, why not just mention the special issue of the ASB and be done with it?) I couldn't really answer that, so I thought I'd present the same question here to Marion. BrownHornet21 (talk) 18:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Two reasons: First, Dreger's article underwent standard peer review, but the commentaries did not. The commentaries are letters-to-the-editor. Second, the WP page we are discussing is about Conway, and the relevant portions of Dreger's article are about Conway; the commentaries, however, are about Dreger's article, not Conway. They remain relevant, of course, but are one step less relevant than is Dreger's article itself.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 19:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Mediator's Thoughts

We're starting to resemble trench warfare here. Proposals 11-13 are all fine with me. I think any of these versions are pretty close to one another in meeting WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. The first sentence indicates that Conway is embroiled in a controversy; the second indicates that there is criticism of Conway's role in the controversy; and the third is the subject's retort to this criticism (which helps meet WP:BLP). If someone told me the decision is mine and mine alone, and I had to choose just one, I'd pick Proposal 11 (...surprised?). If you want additional opinions, maybe a another opinion is in order.BrownHornet21 (talk) 19:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• I'll repeat my willingness to accept Proposal 11.
  
• I would be interested to hear DGG's opinion.
  

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 19:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, I am willing to accept the proposals made not only by myself, but also those made by DGG and by BrownHornet21. Dicklyon has not agreed to any proposal that he did not author himself (for whatever reasons). I do not believe that trench warfare accurately characterizes such a situation.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 20:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I am not willing to accept the biased text by MarionTheLibrarian, a blatant WP:SPA with clear WP:COI, because it lies by not admitting its role as an insider in the cabal that asserts that "Dreger's article underwent standard peer review, but the commentaries did not." I'll make the case on the COI noticeboard when I get around to it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:51, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

• Dick, just so I know what your exact position is, what is the biased text, specifically? BrownHornet21 (talk) 17:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. In proposal 11, M wants to present Dreger as a "Northwestern University Professor", while hiding the very relevant point that so is Bailey. Proposal 9 has lots of big title words that tend to bolster Dreger. Proposals 12 and 13 are more or less OK, but they need to have a ref added to at least one of the commentaries that can be found online, so the reader can get something to balance Dreger besides the subject's own web pages; maybe Politics in Scholarly Drag: Alice Dreger’s Assault on the Critics of Bailey by Deirdre McCloskey would be good, since its an online PDF of a paper on the same journal. Dicklyon (talk) 03:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that my gender-neutral pronoun about might have been ambiguous. "It" was referring to the WP:SPA, not to the text. Dicklyon (talk) 03:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

BrownHornet21: Because Dicklyon has now been blocked for a few days (3RR on the Archives of Sexual Behavior page and what appears to be a consensus that his text there violated BLP), this will likely be my last post until he has the opportunity to respond.

I would, however, like to know if you believe his above response to you is satisfactory to you. You wrote Proposal 11 yourself; after reading Dicklyon's comment, has he convinced you that Proposal is biased? Although Dicklyon keeps saying that "Northwestern University Professor" (or her official departmental title) conveys more weight than "professor" (or other terms he prefers), I believe the relevant question is whether "Northwestern University Professor" etc. conveys more weight than Dreger merits according to verifiable and reliable sources. I believe that it's this latter question that should decide which descriptor is the appropriate one for WP.

On a practical note, how does one most the conversation on ANI to a place where it can continue rather than be frozen and archived?
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 23:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Back to basics

I'm back from my block; I promise not to edit war like that any more. To avoid "leakage" of this conflict onto other articles, we should go ahead and get it solved here, as more than one person has advised me. I had originally proposed that we "extend this mediation to Andrea James and Deirdre McCloskey," but that didn't get picked up; since then, TheLibrarian suggests something similar. So let's think of this problem more generally.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Dreger article is being cited to attack Conway, James, and McCloskey. That may be in retaliation for some other editors attacking the friends of Dreger, before I came on this scene. I responded badly, perhaps, by trying to balance the Dreger attack with information balancing it by calling its authority into question. It might be easier if we just don't talk about Dreger at all; or when we cite it and link it, always also cite and link a few of the commentaries that are accessible online.

As to the professor thing, it appears that Dreger is actually an assistant or associate professor (non-tenured, one would assume), depending on where you read. My concern, as always, is to not present Dreger's attacks on Conway as authoritative, in the face of plenty of evidence that her article was a very biased attack that has drawn a ton of informally published backlash, in addition to the backlash in the Archives. Is there a current/new proposal for how to proceed that addresses this basic BLP issue? If TheLibrarian wants to keep asserting that this controverisal paper is peer-reviewed and fact-checked, and therefore should be mentioned without mention of the other side of the argument, we'll remain stalemated; so let's get beyond that. Dicklyon (talk) 00:27, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that the difficulty on this cluster of pages would be logically addressed by thinking of the issues broadly and letting those broader principles lead to the appropriate text for each page.
• Although I do not agree that Dreger’s article is being used as an attack (nor that revenge was anyone motivation), I do believe we can find a solution for the pages even if we disagree on alleged motivations.
• I am entirely willing to have each citation of Dreger’s article accompanied by citation of the commentaries.
• I am entirely willing also for the references to the commnentaries to include weblinks to whichever commentaries have on-line versions available. (I should add the caveat, however, that copyright issues need to be considered. I know that Dreger’s article obeys the copyright restrictions, but I haven’t checked any of the commentaries.)
• Finally, with regard to what was and what was not peer-reviewed, I believe again that we can final a workable solution regardless of whether we agree on what was peer-reviewed. For emphasis: I am entirely agreeable to citing the commentaries together with each citation of Dreger. When the commentaries are used as commentaries about Dreger’s article rather than used as a basis to impugn the Archives, then I have no need to make any distinction between what was and what not peer reviewed.

If all of the above is agreeable to Dicklyon, then we can return to selecting/producing the most appropriate text, first for Conway’s page, and then for the related pages.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 01:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, let's get back to it. We can cite and link the McCloskey and Serano commentaries (each available from the author's own site, which is probably allowed by their copyright agreements). Or we can just omit all this, this way:

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dicklyon (talk • contribs) 05:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

current thoughts

I've been reading slowly through all the material, which is why you haven't heard from me for a few days. :) Looking at the bio sources on Conway, I know how I would choose to expand the article. The biographical part needs a little expansion, and there is no need to avoid discussing her earlier identity--she has clearly & deliberately very publicly revealed almost all biographical detail that might be worth including. Conway's main notability is in computer science, as first a developer of software architecture, and then a pioneer in VLSI. This whole part seems to need much additional development--I think it will in the long run be considered it her main accomplishment, at least from the point of view of an encyclopedia.. This needs to be done by someone who understands the work better than I. Dicklyon would seem a natural for this, though of course it should be checked by someone else, since he has been associated with some of the work. Her secondary notability, which should not dominate the article, is her transgender activism in general. Her specific involvement in controversies about other people belongs with the discussion of the other people and should just be mentioned here. Trying to get it right in one place is sufficiently difficult.

With respect to the controversy in general, it is highly advisable not to let the controversy spread over into relatively unrelated articles. I consider it a warning signal when people try to bring her comments on other people into every possible relevant article.

There's another problem. The general tone of the controversy is remarkably vitriolic. Peoples' sense of identities are involved, and this is not conducive to dispassionate argumentation. Conway & others have has made extensive and poorly documented allegations of conspiracy and prejudice against a great many people and organisations. Conway is a very notable computer scientist, and her opinions on that subject are quotable. She is a widely respected writer on intersexuality M to F transsexuality, & I would consider her postings in fact usable for some aspects of the development of the subject, but she is not what one would call a dispassionate expert on the motivations and backgrounds and reputations of others. I do not think she can be quoted in this or other articles when she makes what we would normally regard as libellous accusations, unless they have been reported in unquestionably reliable and objective secondary sources--and then they should be quoted from there, not from her blogs or websites. (and similarly of course with others).

As I've said on the page on the journal, unless other good sources have reported it as a controversy, I dont see how we can use it--as for how to cite the journal, yes, BrownHornet21 's expert has it right. with respect to people in general, and specifically with reference to Dreger, it is relevant to say what university someone is a professor of , and of what subject--it's relatively meaningless to just say "professor". To be professor at some community college, means much less than at Northwestern. When one writes on sexuality, it matters what one's subject background is--it gives necessary context.

I might as well say that I have a great deal of sympathy with some of Conway's views, but I think she lacks some perspective about what would have been in the past regarded as nonhomophobic or nontransphobic. But that's my personal view, & I'm hardly an authority, and at any rate is not the issue here. I say it because on this matter I think I must make it clear to what extent I have a personal viewpoint--one can not investigate this without developing one.) I express my appreciation for the opportunity to learn about Conway's fascinating life & career, and I hope to see people here again, but on other subjects entirely. DGG (talk) 02:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I think I am given to agree with many of DGG's observations. But before I come to an opinion: I had the feeling in reading the above that DGG was sometimes referring to Conway and sometimes referring to Dreger. DGG, could you confirm for me which of your above comments refer to whom? Thanks, in advance.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 03:26, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was unclear, so I clarified this above, but for much of this it applies to everyone involved--their accusations published against other people must be used very carefully and preferably cited from secondary sources. Let me respond to one other point--as Conway's notability is not primarily about the controversy with Bailey, the details about criticism of her role in it by Dreger belongs in the article on the controversy -- which is going to be a substantial problem article in its own right--and should just be mentioned here. DGG (talk) 10:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Forgive me if I appear stuck on this, but in the above where you write "Conway is a very notable computer scientist, and her opinions on that subject are quotable. She is a widely respected writer on intersexuality..." are you saying that Conway is a respected writer on intersexuality, or did you mean to switch your subject and say that Dreger is a respected writer on intersexuality?

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 14:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I meant Conway, though not an academic specialist in it. There are other kinds of status and respect. I think her web site is in particular a remarkably good source on the history of sex reassignment surgery. I am only judging as an outsider but it has every indication of high quality. Note what I say about quoting her not quoting her in some other respects. (We arent discussing Dreger here.) DGG (talk) 03:47, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention and thoughts, DGG. It has been my intention to work on the bio from the the technical side. This sexologist stuff creeped in and we got the article locked, so I'm hoping we can resolve this and get back to normal. If TheLibrarian will allow us to minimize the section on the controversy, omitting all mention of the Dreger paper, preferably, we will avoid leakage from the controversy article to the bio. The controversy article itself needs to be flushed, and the controversy addressed in a more concise and encyclopedic way in the BBL theory article, but that's an issue for another day, and another editor. I feel increasingly that the Dreger article is a completely unacceptable BLP violation unless balanced with multiple commentaries; the idea that it being "peer reviewed" makes it acceptable is what has led to so much continuing controversy here, as I've tried to demonstrate how absurd that is; can we get beyond that now? Dicklyon (talk) 05:29, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I wrote the above before noticing that TheLibrarian has agree in the section above to not let the peer-reviewed status of the Dreger article versus the commentaries be an issue here. That's progress. Good. Now we just have to decide if we'd be better off without any of them, or how to get a decent balance. Dicklyon (talk) 05:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 14

• I agree that Conway’s greatest contributions are clearly in computer science. I would encourage Dicklyon or anyone else qualified to expand those areas of her biography fully.
• I believe also that Conway’s involvement in the controversy surrounding Bailey is appropriately kept to only a few sentences. I don’t think that omitting all mention of Dreger is appropriate, however: The issue was large enough to merit mention in the New York Times, a special issue of the highest ranked sexuality journal (acknowledging Dicklyon’s suspicions about it), and a Guggenheim award to Dreger.
• DGG: If you did mean to say "Conway," then perhaps you meant to say she was a respected expert in transsexuality rather than in intersexuality? (Dreger, however, published a great many papers on treatment of intersexual children and was the president of the Intersex Society of North America for several years; hence my confusion.) (my fault, I did type it wrong.) DGG (talk) 16:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC),
• Let me propose the following text.

Conway was involved in a controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and Northwestern University Professor, published a review of the controversy, critical of many aspects of what Dreger called an "anti-Bailey campaign" by Conway and others. Dreger’s review has itself been criticized by some and lauded by others; the review and multiple commentaries about it appear in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy and her response to Dreger’s review are available on her personal website.

Although it is not obvious from reading the above, I have left a place in the reference to the Archives for inserting external links to the available commentaries.

As a side-note, I never opposed citing the commentaries with regard to Dreger; my prior text included them repeatedly. I oppose only using them as evidence of wrong-doing on the part of the Archives itself.

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 14:40, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

• I think Proposal 14 is fine. Dick, what do you think? BrownHornet21 (talk) 22:02, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 15

I think it's still too heavy with the Dreger. Maybe this way will provide enough balance:

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and Northwestern University associate professor, published a review of the controversy, critical of many aspects of what Dreger called an "anti-Bailey campaign" by Conway and others. Dreger’s review has itself been criticized by some (for example, Deirdre McCloskey calls it "Dreger's assault on the critics of Bailey") and lauded by others; the review and multiple commentaries about it appear in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy and her response to Dreger’s review are available on her personal website.

I've placed similar but abbreviated language into J. Michael Bailey#The Man Who Would Be Queen, but without the inline mention of Conway or McCloskey since it's his bio. This is to repair the damage that TheLibrarian shamelessly inflicted on that section as soon as I was blocked. See User talk:Dicklyon#TheLibrarian's rampage, which is hereby included by reference. Dicklyon (talk) 15:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

To my eye, Proposal 15 is less balanced, not more. I appreciate that Dicklyon and I are unlikely to see neutral in the same text. Although he said said, many times, that I have a POV interfering with my edits, it is not difficult to recognize that it is in his personal interest to devalue Dreger in defense of Conway, whom Dicklyon has acknoweldged as being a friend of 30 years. In such a situation, the most logical course is to take more seriously the feedback from editors with no prior exposure to the topic, in this case DGG and BrownHornet21.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 16:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It might help if you would acknowledge your own long-term relationships with the principals. Dicklyon (talk) 17:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

As for balance, I just added a quote "Dreger's assault on the critics of Bailey" from a commentary title, to balance the Dreger quote "anti-Bailey campaign". This goes way back to my original wording "one-sided"; why can't we mention both sides? Dicklyon (talk) 17:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, phrases such as "the damage that TheLibrarian shamelessly inflicted on that section" are incivil. Please use lanugage more conducive to resolution.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 16:48, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Can you suggest a better phrasing for the point that I'm trying to make? I'm referring to content "damage"; maybe "committed" instead of "inflicted"? Or just omit my impression of "shamelessly"? Maybe if you could explain what was going on in your head when you made those edits, I could view it differently? Dicklyon (talk) 17:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I am sincerely unaware of what point you are trying to make, other than to express incivility. If you too are unable to separate the incivility from the point, then one would reasonably hypothesize that incivility was the point.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 21:13, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

By putting back the unverifiable statements that I complained about, instead of trying to justify them, you are just compounding the problem. But thanks for putting in the various different complaints. I've just taken out the unverifiable bits; I don't see why you've suggested bringing it here, when I already had; but I've also put the explanation on the J. Michael Bailey talk page. Dicklyon (talk) 19:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• If there is any text in the J. Michael Bailey page that I left unverified, you have not said what it was. You do appear to have removed claims sourced to Dreger's article, however. Because Dreger's article was peer reviewed, appears in a peer-reviewed journal, and received an award from an entirely external group, it clearly meets WP:V. Your personal suspicions of her article receiving favored treatment does not trump the criterion for inclusion in WP.

Several things I've pointed out at least twice:

• • the quote "Northwestern’s Provost found no basis for pursuing the complaint" was not verifiable in the cited source.
  • the quote "did not merit further investigation" was sourced through Dreger to Lynn Conway's site, where it was the recollection of an unnamed person.
  • the "Guggenheim fellowship award" interpretation I think you've back off on already.

Dicklyon (talk) 21:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• The header you added to the J. Michael Bailey talk page and on your personal talk page accuse me of violating COI, once again. As I have pointed out to you previously, WP:COI policy states that "Using COI allegations to harass an editor or to gain the upper hand in a content dispute is prohibited, and can result in a block or ban." This is now my third request that you retract such allegations, the other two being here and here. I was satisfied last time with your simple deleting those statements; this time, I believe it would be appropriate instead for to you to strike them out.
  

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 21:13, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. Dicklyon (talk) 21:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Mediator's Proposal

The parties have gone from arguing over a relatively minor distinction -- what to call Dreger (professor versus Northwestern University professor) -- to filing dueling complaints on the ANI and COI noticeboards, resulting in the editors focusing on each other rather than the content of the article.

I'll give this one more try and present a mediator's proposal to resolve dispute over the Lynn Conway article. The dispute initally centered on whether mentioning Dreger's article without mentioning a counterpoint would slant the article. We seemed to work past that, only to start getting derailed on relatively minor points. As I've said before, I doubt either editor will be 100% happy with the proposal. Wikipedia is not here to decide who is right and who is wrong in the Conway-Bailey dispute.

My disinterested take on this issue is this: (1) Conway is, first and foremost, a notable computer scientist and professor; (2) Conway took issue with Bailey's The Man Who Would Be Queen book; (3) Conway criticized Bailey; (4) Bailey cried foul, claiming that some of his critics (which may or may not include Conway) went overboard; (5) Conway disagreed with Bailey; (6) Bailey disagreed with Conway; and (7) the two sides have been fighting each other ever since.

I think several of the proposals above convey this sentiment. But for purposes of the mediator's proposal, I (still) suggest the following:

Conway has been involved in the controversy surrounding the 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, and its author, J. Michael Bailey. Alice Dreger, an intersex activist and Northwestern University Professor, published a review of the controversy, critical of many aspects of Conway's and others' "anti-Bailey campaign." That review, along with multiple commentaries regarding both sides of the controversy, appears in a special issue of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Conway's own account of the controversy is available on her personal website.

If you accept the mediator's proposal, please write the word Yes and sign your name. If you do not accept the mediator's proposal, please write the word No and sign your name. That's it. Thanks, BrownHornet21 (talk) 04:57, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

1. No. I agree completely with your 7-point summary of the story, and I wouldn't mind tellling it that way. What I mind is giving voice to Dreger's opinion as if it's sort of a neutral analysis; mentioning "both sides" when it is not clear that Dreger has taken one side and the other side is very anti-Dreger makes the passage misleading. That why I wanted to mention a title like "Dreger's Assault on the Critics of Bailey". Dicklyon (talk) 06:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

2. Yes. (I think BrownHornet21 wanted no commentary.)

I'm open to suggestion for what to do from here.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 13:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's a suggestion: write a version that addresses my complaint above. Either leave out Dreger, or present Dreger more clearly as being on one side and balance better with a brief snippet from the other side. My objection, as represented in the original "What's going on?" section, is representing Dreger as if neutral. We've made a tiny progress in that direction by citing title and linking some of the commentaries in a footnote, but I think that's not enough to help the casual reader see how Dreger, who is prominently featured in Conway's biography, fits the picture. Dreger is, after all, just one more principal in the dispute, not a third-party reporter of it; she goes on radio talk shows with Bailey to argue against the other side; she spends years cooking up a big defense of Bailey and "assault on the Critics of Bailey"; I still think she's misrepresented in the way she's handled here (I have no problem with what she writes about Conway and ohters, just about giving it too much weight compared to the other side). Dicklyon (talk) 15:09, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's another suggestion: disclose your conflict of interest, instead of pretending you don't have one. Do you deny that you have published in favor of Bailey and his book, and have been attacked in return by Conway for that, before bringing your campaign to wikipedia? Do you deny that you have disclosed your identity to me via email, such that I can't help but know of your close professional affiliations with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health/Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and the Archives of Sexual Behavior? Why not just get this out in the open a bit? You don't need to say your name, just be honest about where you're coming from. Dicklyon (talk) 17:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll neither confirm nor deny any such thing, and WP:COI does not require that one does. WP:COI requires that an editor be mindful of good faith feedback from uninterested editors. Thus far, I have accepted every suggestion made by BrownHornet21 and by DGG. Even when BrownHornet21 suggested that tsroadmap.com be treated as an RS, I indicated my willingness to go along with his suggestion despite my belief that it would be an error to break with WP policy to do so. Dicklyon, however, has disagreed with the proposals from our mediator, from DGG, and from the admin who warned Dicklyon that he was violating BLP (and 3RR), finally winding up blocked (for the third time) for edit warring. This suggests that it is Dicklyon who is unable to put WP's good above his own, not me.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 17:51, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, we could get along better if you would own up to your COI. Dicklyon (talk) 01:20, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me be sure I understand you correctly: You are saying that, even though WP:COI does not require that I disclose my identity, that you will engage in more disruptive editing if I do not reveal my identity? Is that actually what you are telling me?
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 02:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Apparently you don't understand me correctly. I haven't even asked that you disclose your identity; just that you disclose your conflict of interest. I intend to just keep on editing -- most editors don't find my contributions disruptive. You would probably also find me less disruptive if you weren't trying to carry on a charade to push your POV on these articles related to your buddies. Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

You can say that as many times as you like. WP:COI does not support you, however. To the extent that uninterested editors have expressed any opinion, they have agreed with my edits (and I theirs). You, however, have not endorsed any edit suggested by our mediator or by anyone else. That indicates that it is you who meets the WP:COI definition of COI, not I.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 14:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I will: if you admit your conflict in the dispute, admit that you are one of the principals who has been attacked by Conway for supporting Bailey, then it would be easier for us to come to terms. Dicklyon (talk) 15:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Questions for Both Sides

1. Do you think the "Dreger criticizes Conway/Dreger is a biased participant due to her affiliation with Bailey" specifically belongs on the Lynn Conway page, or on a page more devoted to the entire controversy, such as the BBL page (to which the Conway article links)?

2. Would you agree or disagree with the thought of the Dreger article itself as a "controversy-within-a-controversy?" The initial controversy revolved around Conway's criticism of Bailey's book. The sub-controversy is when Dreger published a self-described history of the controversy, which criticizes many folks' actions, inlcuding Conway; Dreger's review was met with numerous criticism and accusations of bias.

Just throwing these out there for discussion. I'm not giving up on you two just yet. BrownHornet21 (talk) 03:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

1. I pretty much agree with 1; we don't need to claim any particular connection with Bailey, just need to let the commentary titles by mentioned if we're going to quote Dreger's assessment at all. Or omit Dreger altogether and just link to an article on the controversy, as the article does currently.

2. The initial controversy revolved around Bailey's book, which was criticized from many quarters, including Conway. Dreger turned that to make a controversy revolve around his critics; many of the commentaries criticized her for that. At least that's how I read it. If you look in books, you find 19 talking about TMWWBQ and transsexual; if you add Conway to the search, you only get 2, both quite recent. Some criticize, some speak of the controversy, some seem to treat it as science; it definitely provoked a wide range of reactions, and Conway was just one part of that.

By the way, Hornet, thanks for your help. DGG has also made a good proposal that we've both agreed to in principle, though not yet on final details: User talk:DGG#Dicklyon/Marion case at WP:COIN. If TheLibrarian agrees to his latest, I think we're done. Dicklyon (talk) 05:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Done.

I believe we have settled, at User talk:DGG#Dicklyon/Marion case at WP:COIN. Neither of us will touch the section at issue in the Conway bio, or lots of other related articles. Agreed? Dicklyon (talk) 14:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to have it handy, I am pasting the following list from the above link.

No direct editing of controversy in:

• Autogynephilia
• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
• Archives of Sexual Behavior
• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (College St. Site)
• Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
• Transsexualism
• Gender identity disorder
• Ray Blanchard, Lynn Conway, J. Michael Bailey, Andrea James, Deirdre McCloskey

No direct editing of:

• Blanchard, Bailey, and Lawrence theory controversy
• The Man Who Would Be Queen

—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 14:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, then we're agreed. Hornet, if you would wrap up and request unprotect of Lynn Conway, we thank you. Dicklyon (talk) 14:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Resolved

Based on the parties' agreement in the above section, consider this mediation completed. Thanks to both of you for your efforts and patience. BrownHornet21 (talk) 18:08, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the request to unprotect the article, I noticed the block ends on July 1. Since the clock is about to run out anyway on page protection, is there a reason to immediately request unprotection? BrownHornet21 (talk) 18:23, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Makes no difference to me.
—MarionTheLibrarian (talk) 18:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like PhilKnight has already unprotected the page. I suppose it doesn't take much beyond a few mouse clicks!  :) BrownHornet21 (talk) 18:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)