Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Lavvu/Issue I

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Issue 1: Table

OK, thanks for accepting me as your mediator. WHat I plan on doing is addressing each issue individually — the first one being the "inclusion of a table with lavvu specifications based on sources from commercial websites".

What I'd like to know is the following:

• What your preference is (table in the article, table out of the article).
• Why you think it should be left in/out (justification based on Wikipedia policies and guidelines) — please try and keep this as short as possible!
• Any suggestions you have which may be appropriate compromises

If you could just list these below in the appropriate section for your username, that'd be great. Cheers, Daniel 04:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Dinkytown

• Preference: Exclude mentioned table.

• Justification:

1) The table describes information that is contrary to the rules of Wikipedia, namely listing of commercial websites and blogs, since such websites have a strong motivation to promote their respective products, they may have a conflict of interest;

2) The citation of companies on this table possibly draws them into controversy with each other, which they were not asked, nor invited to join - and may not want to do so. From Wikipedia's point of view, and possibly legally, a company can be considered a living person. This may open Wikipedia as a possible target of legal action or complications from these companies, which is why Wikipedia wishes editors to "Remove...poorly sourced contentious material immediately..." when seen;

3) The sources cited in the table were non-English sources, which is against Wikipedia policy and are required to be translated, or not used all together as “…this is an English Wikipedia”;

4) The so-called "single-pole lavvu" is in controversy, as it has not been confirmed to fit the definition of a lavvu as described by several historical sources cited in "Definition", but it does fit the historical definition of a bell tent, as described under "Controversy" in the article. The analogy of this would be 'comparing apples to oranges.' Since this "single-pole lavvu" has yet to be proven to be a 'lavvu', it is not a valid comparison (this can be described later);

5) Comparing two or more different types of tents is far beyond the scope of this article, as its aim is to describe the lavvu, rather than a "comparing tents" page. Other similar tents such as the tipi, bell tent, and yurt, do not have such comparisons in their pages, why would the lavvu page need such comparisons?;

6) The table [1] included possibly erroneous information, or requiring more explanation, such as comparing a "40 cm" (15.7 inches) diameter "single-pole lavvu" with a "400 cm" (13 feet, 1 inch) diameter "Traditional" and "Aluminum poles" one;

7) Lastly, to state that: "...lavvu design X light enough to be carried by humans" is to ignore the context of both the historical and modern lavvu usage. Companies would want to promote their 'new and improved' version of a tent, while down playing the historical roots. However, this issue is beyond the scope of the article and mediation (this will not be described or defended here unless called upon to do so).

I can include several other minor reasons but for now will just limit it to just these.

• Possible compromises:

1) Create a separate page called "Comparing similar size tents to each other" (or something like this…) and that all tent designs should be included, not just these three tents, and that;

2) if this were to happen, the "single-pole lavvu" should be called a bell tent (this can be described later). Dinkytown (talk) 05:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Labongo

• Preference: Include table
• Justification: The table was added to end discussions such as: “is lavvu design X light enough to be carried by humans”, by providing facts such as: “the weight of lavvu design X from manufacturer Y is Z kg”. Such facts needs to be referenced, and the easiest way to find the specifications is by consulting “white papers” from the manufacturers. Finally, summarizing the specifications in a table makes it easy for readers to get an overview.
• Possible compromises: The specifications could be based on lavvu reviews in various magazines, but this would require more work and perhaps money (in addition the accuracy of the provided numbers has not been questioned).

Moving forward

The first proposal I want to put to both of you is a slight modification on Dinkytown's suggestion. It is the following:-

• Create a page Comparison of tent attributes or similar, which has both tables and prose
• Use {{further}} in each tent article, at the top of an appropriate section, linking to the comparison list.
• The page will be a combination of some prose and some tables.

Do you both agree with this? Is it an appropriate solution? If so, any other suggestions for names? I look forward to hearing back from you. If not, we'll move on to other compromise ideas. Cheers, Daniel 09:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Labongo

• I think that it would be an impractical solution, since there are probably hundreds of non-lavvu tent designs that would have to be added to the new article. Also, if such a table already existed it would be appropriate to copy the columns and tables with lavvu designs to the lavvu article, and we would be where we started. Finally, I don’t understand why such a table is acceptable in an article with another name, but not the lavvu article. Labongo (talk) 11:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• Dinkytown and Daniel, please note that it is hard for me to reach a compromise if the justification for doing so is based on what I believe is the use of wrong Wikipedia guidelines or misinterpretation of guidelines. I would therefore like to point that :

• Dinkytown’s justification 1) is based on Wikipedia:External links (we are not discussing inclusion of external links), and makes an assumption that all edits about commercial links have a conflict of interest.
• justification 2) is based on the assumption that companies are covered by Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (if this is a new policy, please provide a link)
• justification 3) is clearly in conflict with Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources (note that: “Because this is the English Wikipedia, for the convenience of our readers, English-language sources should be used in preference to foreign-language sources, assuming the availability of an English-language source of equal quality, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly.”).Labongo (talk) 15:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Dinkytown, I find it bizarre that you can claim that the table promotes a product, but in a such way that the company may sue Wikipedia, and all that in a language most readers of the english wikipedia does not even understand!

• External links are links added to a section typically called "External links". The table is not in the external link section.
• The "Biographies of living persons" person is for persons that are alive. Nowhere is it indicated that it applies to companies.
• The table consists of english text and numbers and is hence translated according to policy.

Part two

It seems like you don't have any valid reason for removing the table.

Daniel, could you either comment on, or provide tips for how to get help to verify that the table does not violate WP:EL, WP:LIVING and WP:RSUE.Labongo (talk) 10:40, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not here to make decisions, but rather help you two to reach a compromise which you both agree to :)

At this stage, it seems unlikely that the table can be included in the main article as that is hardly a "compromise". The two options I see is to either convert the text to prose and include it in the article, or creating the split. At the moment, it seems the latter isn't a practical solution, so it's either the former or another suggestion which you can both agree on. I'm not here to decide for you, either the result or whether something meets policy. Cheers, Daniel 11:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I have made a similar suggestion to the former earlier, and provided another possible compromise on the very first talkpage comment about this issue: "Please don't remove the table [...]. If you have problem with the way it is presented you should rather incorporate the information to the article text. Also, it is necessary to provide references for where the specifications are from, even if they are from a commercial vendor. Feel free to add specifications from other vendors to the table, preferably in such a way that it is easy to compare the parameters of the different designs.Labongo 10:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)" Labongo (talk) 12:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC) Lets just end this issue, since I am not willing to compromise if there is no valid reason for doing it.Labongo (talk) 12:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

In that event, we will move on. Daniel 00:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Dinkytown

• I can agree to a “Comparison of tent attributes” page, provided that they don’t link to outside commercial websites, and for the minor conditions that I described above. But it doesn’t look that’s possible because Labongo wants those comparisons in the lavvu page. Tipi, yurt and bell tents won’t have a comparitive table, but the lavvu page will… This doesn’t make sense - so it looks like there’s no agreement.

• Justification #1: That citation that you gave was straight from a company external website. Wiki is very specific about it – don’t do it - for all the reasons described before, but also for the following citations:

”Links to sites with objectionable amounts of advertising”

"Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam.”

Although I am not accusing Labongo of spamming, there is a good article that further explains this commercial external link policy, namely the second paragraph ("Some people spam Wikipedia without meaning to...") and the reason for this policy.

Your links that you cited fall well within the above policies as these companies are trying to promote and sell a tent that is not a historical lavvu structure - hence it is controversial. These are the reasons why those citations were removed.

• Justification #2: Both people and companies are considered ‘entities’, which means they can both sue Wikipedia, which is the intention and spirit of the policy.

• Justification #3: This was not in conflict with Wiki policy. You gave raw un-translated information with no description of your data from those pages. Wikipedia is very specific on that if you read further in the article. You need to translate the material. That’s one of the reasons why I removed my own source several weeks ago because I wouldn’t have the time to translate it.

It looks like we are not going to agree on this simple issue. Maybe we should move on. Dinkytown (talk) 23:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed we will. Daniel 01:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.