Wikimedia Ethics/Moulton, JWSchmidt's investigation

Note: this page began at User:JWSchmidt/Moulton as a personal study project. Now that it is in the main namespace, it exists as a workshop where everyone can help study what Moulton did at Wikipedia and how Moulton was treated at Wikipedia. Feel free to create a page section that holds your views or use the general discussion section of this page.

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This section is for research by JWSchmidt

Here is my proximal starting point: "Perhaps Jimbo could just suggest that Wikipedians establish a better practice of Fair Play than has thus far been afforded to outcasts such as myself."

The first thing that comes to mind is that Wikipedia could have a page for "block review". Wikipedia has many pages for review of actions such as page deletions (Wikipedia:Deletion review), so why not a similar organized system for the review of blocks? Currently there is Wikipedia:Appealing a block and Wikipedia:Guide to appealing blocks.

Study question. Should editors of biographical pages be required to reveal their real world identity?

I want to write a very short account of how Moulton got into the mess he is in. First I need to make sure I have the facts clear.

John orders his thoughts

How I came to know Moulton. I have been busy in the real world and only became aware of User:Moulton on or about 4 August 2008, even though he came to Wikiversity on 9 July 2008. Since then I have been gradually learning about Moulton's editing history at Wikipedia. When I first saw Ethical Management of the English Language Wikipedia I linked it to an existing Wikiversity topic, Topic:Wikipedia studies. At that time I did not have any knowledge of Moulton's editing history at Wikipedia. As someone who has been learning about that editing history during the past few weeks, I hope to be able to help construct a short narrative of events. This exercise is important because Wikipedia has a problem with biographies of living persons and Moulton's editing history at Wikipedia is an interesting case study related to that larger problem. By understanding what happened to Moulton we might be able to improve Wikipedia. The basic problem is that anyone can start a biographical Wikipedia article and write it in a biased way that does not follow the Wikipedia rules that are designed to lead to the creation of fair and balanced biographies of notable people. The additional problem is that some of Wikipedia's biased biographies are created and owned by editors who are pushing a particular agenda. Moulton crossed paths with some dedicated editors who behaved as if they owned a set of biographical articles and could use those articles as part of a protracted edit war that is roughly centered on the Creation-evolution controversy.

Study questions:

1) Has the Wikipedia:WikiProject intelligent design attracted a group of editors who damage Wikipedia by trying too zealously to defend Wikipedia against creationists and other editors who question evolution by natural selection?

2) Is Moulton an example of a Wikipedia editor who was unfairly treated by editors associated with the Wikipedia:WikiProject intelligent design?

3) Is there something we can do to prevent this kind of problem in the future?

Timeline of events

2005. Wikipedia:WikiProject intelligent design was started 13 July 2005 by User:Dbergan.

2006. The Rosalind Picard article was made (7 March 2006) by copying her online Faculty Profile and adding a section called, "Intelligent Design Support". It is clear that the purpose of User:Tempb was to create an article that labels Dr. Picard as a supporter of Intelligent design and as "anti-evolution". Page section title changed from "Anti-Evolution Petition Signatory" to "Darwin dissenter" by Filll.

24 March. Some corrections to the blatant POV of the originator of the article were made from IP 136.167.158.77 (Boston College). Someone from IP 209.6.126.244 also tried to make similar clarifications. Someone from IP 65.96.63.33 reverted to the POV formulation (8 April). May 10: first talk page comment is about the reverts of the article (section heading, "anti-evolution").

August 2007. Before 21 August 2007, User:Moulton was a typical Wikipedia editor, having made several dozen edits to various articles over the course of a year and a half. When Moulton followed a link from Affective computing to Rosalind Picard he found a biographical Wikipedia article that was in a particularly bad state. The Wikipedia article about Rosalind Picard is in some ways a "typical" Wikipedia biographical article. The subject of the article, Dr. Picard, is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wikipedia has many other biographical articles about university professors, many of which are autobiographical, having been started by the subject. The Rosalind Picard article is unusual in that it was started by an editor who had an ax to grind.

Is there an "anti-Intelligent Design Cabal"?

Study questions:
1) was there an organized effort to create biographical articles for signers of the petition that was released under the title, "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism"?
2) was there an organized effort to prevent those articles from being made more balanced and accurate?
3) is there a coordinated group of rude and abusive anti-Intelligent design editors who prevent the creation of more balanced articles related to intelligent design and creationism?
4) Is this a good summary: "a group of editors was so caught up in their crusade against ID-on-Wikipedia that they couldn't recognize valid criticism, and moreover, that many of those editors resorted to despicable tactics in order to get their way"?

terminology. "IDiots" used to refer to creationists in edit summary by User:General Nolledge, creator of Granville Sewell (8 October 2006 ), an early "single purpose" biographical article linked to from A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism....example of creating a biography just to make connections to the person's stance on ID.

single purpose biographies. Just how many "single purpose" biographies like Rosalind Picard were created? By who? For what purpose?

• long list of biographies towards the bottom
• discussion of creation of a "Signers Category", (ConfuciusOrnis 15:08, 20 June 2007 (diff) (deletion log) (Restore) . . m Category:Signatory of "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" (creating Cat)), the category was deleted and replaced by a list: List of signatories to "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism"
  • Is this good wording? Looks like the list was built before each person on the list was tagged.

A recent list of problematical biographies from Moulton lists:

• James Tour - fairly normal short biography, then added to category [Signatory of "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism"] by ConfuciusOrnis on 20 June 2007. Then a page section Anti-Evolution Petition Controversy was added by User:Filll on 26 August 2007, doubling the size of the article in order to make the single point that he was a signatory to the petition. Is this an example of Undue weight?
• David Berlinski - is this the start of excessive biography weighting by FeloniousMonk on 8 March 2006?
• Guillermo Gonzalez (astronomer) this article was subject to a discussion about deletion soon after its creation (26 February 2006). This short discussion provides an interesting window into the give-and-take at Wikipedia over biographical articles related to evolution/creationism. The article was originally created by User:King aardvark and called Guillermo Gonzalez (CSC), making explicit reference to the Center for Science and Culture. Category:Intelligent design advocates

Blocking Moulton at WikiPedia

block log

repeated personal attacks

24 August 2007 JoshuaZ (Talk | contribs) blocked "Moulton (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 24 hours ‎ (repeated personal attacks) at Talk:A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism/Archive 2 <-- this really has to be read in its entirety to understand the dispute between Moulton and Hrafn.

Pages I (JoshuaZ) have made: 1. TalkOrigins Archive (Conflict of interest?)

User:Hrafn states that he believes anyone who says, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged" is "anti-science". Why is it anti-science? "they knew that they were expressing an opinion in contradiction to the scientific consensus". (see)

User:SheffieldSteel raises the issue of "personal attacks". (13:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC))

Is the truth a "Disruptive POV"?

11 September 2007 KillerChihuahua (Talk | contribs) blocked "Moulton (Talk | contribs)" (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Disruptive POV OR warrior with no interest in writing an encyclopedia. See Rfc.)

blocked for vandalism - Why did KillerChihuahua not post the real reason for the block? Why was User:Yamla so willing to support this bad block?

User:MastCell's participation

KillerChihuahua - preparation for the block

Moulton's talk; see User:Baegis

Requests for comment

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct (4 September 2007 , by Filll] "Personal attacks, Disruptive editing, conflict of interest, failure to understand NPOV"

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Intelligent Design

Requests for arbitration

Statement by Moulton

FeloniousMonk/Arbcom evidence (note: see how this page was deleted (red link) after being placed in an Arbitration Committee case by FeloniousMonk)

Conflict of interest

Study question: Does Moulton have a conflict of interest? (as claimed here?) "incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor" (source: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest). Documentation of the claim that Mouton's aims as a Wikipedia editor are in any way contrary to or incompatible with producing a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia:
1) Evaluate User talk:Moulton#One change
2) Evaluate [1]
3)Alternative hypothesis: Moulton's actions were correct and explicitly protected by Wikipedia policy, "In a few cases, outside interests coincide with Wikipedia’s interests. An important example is that unsupported defamatory material appearing in articles may be removed at once. Anyone may do this, and should do this, and this guideline applies widely to any unsourced or poorly sourced, potentially libelous postings. In this case it is unproblematic to defend the interest of the person or institution involved."

Note on Semantics: "Conflict of interest" is used in three senses. All of which have, at times, been Wikipedia's "official" definition as stated at w:WP:COI. The first sense is that there exists a potential for an actual COI behavior. E.g. he is writing about his employer. If the information is known, this is the most objective of the senses to use. The second, quoted above, is that the potential has risen to the level of a goal. Distinguishing between conscious and unconscious goal would yield four senses. He may consciously wish to say something nice about his company, but unconsciously resent it. Asserting statements about another's goals seems not the best way to discuss the issue. The third is that a COI is in fact the COI behavior itself and short of that behavior a COI is said to not exist. Absent knowledge about a contributor's identity, this last is functionally equivalent to saying someone is POV pushing against NPOV policy and perhaps should have their real life identity investigated, e.g is the IP address from that company. Any clear discussion of whether someone has a COI must be clear about what sense is being used.

How do we clean things up?

• Ottava Rima: expand the biased biographies into balanced articles

study question: what if the only published information is biased and misleading, leaving Wikipedia editors with no way to produce a balanced Wikipedia article?

In the specific case of the Rosalind Picard article, might it be possible to find a journalist who would investigate, document and publish in a reliable source an account of the events (exactly what Rosalind "signed", when she signed it, what she was thinking when she signed it)? Wikipedia could then cite this article.

• Ethical Management of the English Language Wikipedia/Change BLP policy

Participate at Talk:Rosalind Picard

There had been long discussion about how to describe Picard's views in the context with her agreement with the statement: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged". Picard's Wikipedia biography article has a section called "Religion and science".

study question: What is the best way for Wikipedia to include in her biography the fact that Picard has made public statements about natural selection?

• My first suggestion.

Participate at Rosalind Picard

In this edit by User:Guettarda, a description of some content from the "A scientist who embraces God" article (cited in the Picard article) was replaced by "She is dismissive of scientific reductionism". Scientific reductionism is not mentioned in the article called "A scientist who embraces God". At w:Talk:Rosalind Picard#Limits of science you can see the "reasoning" by which Guettarda tried to justify the use of "She is dismissive of scientific reductionism" even thought Picard never actually dismissed scientific reductionism. So "She is dismissive of scientific reductionism" is Guettarda's imagined interpretation of Picard's thinking. It looks like an orchestrated move to depict Picard as anti-science. My request before I found the thread at w:Talk:Rosalind Picard#Limits of science.

This edit by User:dave souza again failed to create an accurate and coherent summary of what Picard said. User:dave souza states on his user page that he has an "unhealthy fascination with the great intelligent design con", an interesting bit of self-reflection. User:Ottava Rima then fixed the problem by actually giving an unbiased account of what Picard said.

Moulton responds here

I first began editing in the bailiwick of the WikiClique on Intelligent Design ("IDCab" or Intelligent Design Cabal) exactly one year ago today. During this time of year, when everyone is on vacation and nothing much is happening, it occurred to me to look at Wikipedia to see if it had an article on Affective Computing, and whether it was up to date. Whilst reviewing that article, I noticed it included a blue link to Rosalind Picard, the author of the textbook of that same name, the founder of the academic discipline of the same name, and the MIT Media Lab faculty member who had established the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab, and who, in 1999, had brought me into her group as a Visiting Scientist on the occasion of winning an NSF grant.

The Wikipedia biography of Rosalind Picard, as it stood a year ago today, was atrocious. So I fixed it. Immediately it was reverted by User:Hrafn, a card-carrying member of IDCab.

There then ensued a brief edit war followed by a contentious talk page discussion on the Picard BLP and related IDCab-controlled articles that lasted two weeks. On September 4th, User:ConfuciusOrnis and User:Filll (both IDCab charter members) filed RfC/Moulton, which lasted another week. On 9/11 of last year, User:KillerChihuahua (also an IDCab charter member) unilaterally closed RfC/Moulton by executing an Indef-Block, at which point I could only edit on my own Wikipedia talk page.

IDCab slams into Moulton's Tower on 9/11

After I was Indef-Blocked on 9/11 of last year by KillerChihuahua, the only page I could edit was my own en:WP talk page. My primary correspondent there, as of 9/11, was w:User:Baegis, who had registered just the day before. It was apparent to me (and also to Dave Souza and KillerChihuahua) that Baegis was there to troll and bait me, so as to provide a pretext to locking my talk page (which he requested the next day):

User talk:Moulton

full-protect: Banned user who has exhausted the community's patience, see his RFC and the Noticeboard. Continues to use his talk page as a platform for his grievances against those that disagree with him. His page should be protected in order to prevent him from continuing to post his complaints and to prevent others from feeding the troll. Baegis 01:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Fixed to reflect request. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 02:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thereafter, I took up residence at the diaspora of Wikipedia Review.

Travesties of the Intelligent Design Cabal

Last week, I sent to Jimbo Wales (at his request) a list of problematic BLP's and related articles and non-article pages produced by members of the Intelligent Design Cabal. Here is a summary of the items in that list.

Rosalind Picard Biography, as I found it, exactly a year ago. It's still not fully cleaned up.

Affective Computing, which the IDCab trashed up in a childish act of revenge.

James Tour Biography, a similar battleground for accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media.

David Berlinski Biography, an utter travesty if I ever saw one.

Guillermo Gonzalez Biography, another IDCcab hatchet job.

A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, which I fear the IDCab will never bring into compliance with reasonable standards of objectivity and professionalism.

List of Signatories to the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism, which for two years contained libelous and defamatory claims about many scientists and academics whose names were emblazoned there.

Icons of Evolution, which can't even cite a bibliographic entry correctly without a protracted edit war on how best to write a hatchet job.

Moulton's User Page, which FeloniousMonk egregiously vandalized, necessitating an MfD by gobsmacked admins.

FeloniousMonk's scathing indictment of Moulton, which he and User:Filll cite in three administrative proceedings: RfAr/C68-FM-SV, RfAr#Moulton, and RfC/ID#Questions.

Filll's non-article space biographical sketch of me (referenced in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Moulton WP:AN/Moulton)

IDCab's Spammish Inquisition of a year ago which Sam Korn (and others) found to be a sham.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Timeline of events

24 March. Some corrections to the blatant POV of the originator of the article were made from IP 136.167.158.77 (Boston College). Someone from IP 209.6.126.244 also tried to make similar clarifications. Someone from IP 65.96.63.33 reverted to the POV formulation (8 April). May 10: first talk page comment is about the reverts of the article (section heading, "anti-evolution").

In March of 2006, Rosalind Picard was on Sabbatical from MIT and spending the year at Boston College, a Jesuit University a few miles down the road from where she lives in Newton MA. The IP edit from Boston College is her edit. IP 209.6.126.244 is 209-6-126-244.c3-0.nwt-ubr1.sbo-nwt.ma.cable.rcn.com, which is the IP of the Picard residence in Newton MA, as confirmed by an exact match to E-Mail headers on contemporaneous messages from Picard's husband, Len, to me. Examining all the edit summaries known to be Picard's own IP edits confirms Picard's annoyance with the errors in her BLP:

Picard IP Edit Summaries

* 23:20, February 4, 2007 (hist) (diff) Rosalind Picard ‎ (focus on the entry)
* 23:19, February 4, 2007 (hist) (diff) Rosalind Picard ‎ (the deleted material has nothing to do with the person in the entry)
* 22:35, June 29, 2006 (hist) (diff) Rosalind Picard ‎ ("anti-evol" is POV of the writer. the organizers of the petition support many aspects of evolution such as microevolution so to label it anti-evolution is an attempt to sell more newspapers)
* 23:29, April 27, 2006 (hist) (diff) Rosalind Picard ‎ (Read the petition. Calling it anti-evolution is not accurate, even if the NYT tried to label it that way.)
* 23:24, April 27, 2006 (hist) (diff) Rosalind Picard ‎ (→Intelligent Design Support: The petition does NOT say anything about intelligent design. Read the petition.)
* 00:21, March 31, 2006 (hist) (diff) Rosalind Picard ‎ (→Showing Skepticism and Asking for Critical Examination of Evidence)
15:28, March 13, 2006 (hist) (diff) Rosalind Picard ‎ (→Showing Skepticism and Asking for More Critical Examination of the Evidence)

The above edit summaries make it abundantly clear that Picard's complaint coincides with my complaint, that the Picard BLP erroneously connects her (and the petition) to Intelligent Design, and fails to apprehend the text of the petition to be a call for rigorous adherence to the protocols of the Scientific Method when examining the evidence for any theory.

IP 65.96.63.33, which resolves to c-65-96-63-33.hsd1.ma.comcast.net, is an unknown Massachusetts Comcast subscriber.

How do we clean things up?

“ In the specific case of the Rosalind Picard article, might it be possible to find a journalist who would investigate, document and publish in a reliable source an account of the events (exactly what Rosalind "signed", when she signed it, what she was thinking when she signed it)? Wikipedia could then cite this article. ”

When User:Filll first suggested this, I responded by writing my own account on the Media Ethics blog, with additional details and on my personal blog. The senior faculty editor of the award-winning online newspaper, the Hard News Cafe at Utah State University, republished the account from the Media Ethics blog as an Op-Ed column. This publication remains the only vetted media publication by an online newspaper whose content is reviewed annually by the Society of Professional Journalists. That publication is dated August 31, 2007, four days before User:Filll, User:ConfuciusOrnis, and 12 other allied editors of IDcab filed the RfC and collectively voted me off their island.

At w:Talk:Rosalind_Picard

One of the curious things about this issue is that Picard and 102 other scientists expressed their agreement with the two sentences in E-Mail messages which to this day have never been publicly exhibited. While no one is denying that such E-Mail messages did indeed circulate in academia prior to first publication (in the anti-PBS ad), no one (including Picard) who actually saw those messages has produced a copy or otherwise clarified what was in them besides the two quoted sentences. One of the ironies of the case is that the IDCab editors have also taken vigorous exception to the publication of E-Mail from Picard to one of them (who had written her seeking clarification of her beliefs.

At w:Rosalind_Picard

The inability of the IDCab editors to construct an accurate, objective, and ethical account of published remarks of Picard, Tour, Berlinski, and others is compounded by their utter intransigence and stubborn rejection of any scientific or journalistic peer review by editors critical of their erratic portrayal of the desires, beliefs, intentions, or pretensions of knowledge of the subjects of the BLPs.

Other editors comment here

You're starting the story in the middle. Moulton has also gone through this same behavior pattern at Slashdot ([2]) and at Worldcrossing ([3]) and has numerous complaints about this kind of behavior on his own site ([4]). Salmon of Doubt 20:42, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Please tell the story of what happened at Slashdot and in the Soap Opera Forum at World Crossing. —Moulton 22:09, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. Does this help us to improve Wikipedia? --JWSchmidt 21:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I do think it is useful to point out that among Moulton's behavior patterns that are consistent over time include being both obsessive and persistent which can be frustrating to work with. Add his being "part aspie" and you have a recipe for people perceiving him as a trouble-maker. Also note that Moulton has a w:WP:COI on his good friend Rosalind Picard and the subject of their project - Affective Computing, so his point of view can not be trusted to be neutral with regard to the article he was trying to get changed when he was initially banned. IDcab sees a constant stream of people coming to articles they protect from creationists trying to push their point of view and it was perhaps inevitable that they would mistake Moulton for one of these. Unfortunately, they seem incapable of changing their minds based on new information. All in all, it made for a typical newbie-biting scenario at Wikipedia. Which could have been resolved, if the IDcab did not behave as it does. And the IDcab problem could be fixed if Arbcom would act as it should. But they have not so far been willing to halt abuse by long standing contributors who mostly help the encyclopedia, so the problems fester. WAS 4.250 19:16, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

WAS, you state "Unfortunately, they seem incapable of changing their minds based on new information." How many times has Moulton/Picard been asked to publish a clear statement that they do not believe in Intelligent Design as professed by the Discovery Institute and find Evolution to be the most likely explanation for current life? How many times have they been totally unwilling to answer with a clear and unambiguous statement? You say there is "new information." What is it? Salmon of Doubt 23:46, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

to "Salmon of Doubt". I do not understand how your desire for such a statement relates to Wikipedia or this page. "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." You might not like it, but many rational people are skeptical about the ability of natural selection to account for everything. If this bothers you so much, to the extent that you imagine it is your place to demand that Picard publish something to satisfy you, then you have a clear (and I would say irrational) bias and should not edit Wikipedia articles related to this subject. I think I understand why you hide your identity. --JWSchmidt 03:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with their "nuanced" statement supporting intelligent design. There is consensus in the scientific community that you are wrong - there is additional consensus in the polemical community that using "Darwinian theory" means you're not actually "skeptical" but rather "polemical." I have no bias, in that I don't especially care about Evolution on Wikipedia, but WAS 4250 says there was new evidence that supporters of accuracy in science-related pages could trust Moulton not to push ID. I'm wondering what that new evidence was. Salmon of Doubt 10:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

What is your evidence and reasoning to support the notion (long published by IDCab in the pages of Wikipedia) that the first 103 signatories of the 2-sentence, 32-statement which IDCab has elected to label and refer to as "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" (from the headline of an anti-PBS ad in which the statement first appeared in print) are either pro-ID or anti-evolution? Is that notion WP:OR? Is it a misconception and a logical fallacy? —Moulton 12:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

(<---)Salmon of Doubt, you seem to under the impression that Moulton has made a pro-ID statement somewhere. As near as I can tell you are wrong on that. As near as I can tell, it is a case of you and IDcab folks not understanding that there are non-Darwinian non-ID processes that are a part of evolution. You guys see the ID people conflate Darwinian-ism and Evolution so you think everyone does. Scientists investigating evolution distinguish Darwin's ideas and post-Darwin ideas. They do not want their ideas credited to Darwin. They want that credit for themselves. So they restrict the meaning of "Darwinism" to ideas Darwin actually had. I have read many statements Moulton has provided that indicate some of the signers were merely saying that other newer evolution ideas like evolutionary drift needed to get more attention. WAS 4.250 14:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I was once asked to comment on Intelligent Design. I did so here and here. —Moulton 20:44, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Links? Salmon of Doubt 14:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

PS - I am well aware that "Darwinism" is a slur advanced by push groups in an attempt to denigrate the scientific fact of Evolutions as a religious belief. Salmon of Doubt 15:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Links to what? To "many statements Moulton has provided"? I don't have them handy. Perhaps Moulton does. Ask him. WAS 4.250 16:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is one, for example. There are many more on that page. —Moulton 20:44, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Related resources

• Ethical Management of the English Language Wikipedia/Change BLP policy
• a BLP talk thread
• evolution thread
• Ethical Management of the English Language Wikipedia/List of questions/JWSchmidt answers