Talk:Reed College/Jan06 Edit War

This is a section of the main talk page started on 13 january 2006 and moved here on 19 January 2006. It's not intended to be an archive, so feel free to contribute if you desire. -- Gnetwerker 06:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Drug Use

And how prescient you were. The overall tone of this article can be summed up as: "Hooray for Reed!" Much could be done to ameliorate this, but I've started by adding some relevant drug info. IronDuke 01:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

See my comment in "NPOV" section on your "Hooray" comment. I reverted your comment "although deaths from heroin overdoses by members of the Reed community were not uncommon in the early to mid 90's." This is completely false. I believe that there may have been one heroin OD at Reed since 1977 - I am checking into it and will post shortly. If you have data otherwise, please post it. Current statistics on drug use show Reed in-line with other colleges. -- Gnetwerker 06:27, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Couple things: please refrain from wholesale reversions of edits when possible. In this case, there were other sentences that I took out, in addition to putting the ones about heroin in. And you took out mention of heroin in the list of drugs. Does that mean there was never heroin at Reed? Extraordinary, if true. And you are in any case quite wrong about the number of heroin deaths among members of the Reed Community. As for "posting my data," if we want to get into that, about 70% of the article is unsourced (and I'm being generous). IronDuke 18:00, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you offering the fact that a majority of the article is already unsourced, as justification for adding even more unsourced and dubious information? Matt Gies 19:28, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

No. IronDuke 19:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr Duke - I am not going to spend my time editing your revertable edits. Of course there has been heroin at Reed. If you would like to add that, go right ahead. The rest of your edit was POV BS. Regarding sourcing, I have the 2003 Reed Drug Use Survey and access to the College's records. What do you have? Something you googled from the Quest to Willy Week? If you have evidence of heroin deaths being "common" -- or even "not uncommon" (what does that mean, exactly?), then please post it here first. -- Gnetwerker 07:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry this issue makes you unhappy. I don't consider the deaths of Reedies from heroin overdoses to be "nonsense," and it puzzles me that you do. A few technical matters: I don't see any sourcing for the binge drinking claim, or that "Reed pursues a drug and alcohol policy focused on internal rather than police intervention." I don't really see any source for the 2003 heroin study except here on the talk page, either, but I'm assuming good faith. It interests me that you have access to Reed's records; you could help me improve this article by looking up Michael Babic , Jeremy Weiner, John Rush, and Nick Fisher. (I think I have these spelled right.) BTW, are you on the Board of Trustees at Reed? IronDuke 14:47, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I have googled for the four names you mentioned above, with no results. (This does not particularly mean much, as their claimed noteritiy (herioin OD's at Reed) hardly guarentees they would show up in a google search) But it's a data point. Duke, please state where you got those names (and all your information) from... JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

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To correct you -- information (fact) does not make me unhappy. Repeated vandalism does. You have presented no evidence that heroin deaths at Reed are (or were) "not uncommon", yet you continue to insert that absurd phrase into the page. I have reverted the edit (again). If you persist, I will ask to have the page protected. On Monday I will check into the cases you have listed -- easier if you provide what years they purportedly died. Student confidentiality will prevent me from saying anythign specific about them, but I may be able to find public sources, if you are correct (which I doubt). If you would like to create a standalone page about your beliefs regarding Reed's history of drug deaths, go right ahead -- see how long it withstands scrutiny.

While I knnow from personal experience that there have been no drug-related deaths at Reed since 1997, I nonetheless went through virtually every copy of The Quest since 1997, and have seen no references to student heroin deaths. Students have been hospitalized for various substance overdoses, usually unspecified but the most common being alchohol, but no deaths. I have also searched the Oregonian archives going back to 1987, and there are also no references to deaths of current Reed students from drug overdoses. Micheal Babich, who died on January 28, 1989, of an apparent heroin overdose, was 22 at the time, and was no longer a Reed student. His death did not take place on campus.

The binge drinking claim (re Reed) is from (currently) internal information. Regarding wider trends: cf Barbarians At the Tailgate? Students Accept Drinking Rules, But the Alumni Strike Back The New York Times; November 19, 2005; Less Diversity, More Booze?: Binge-Drinking Study Looks at College Demographics The Washington Post; Oct 31, 2003; Drinking Lessons: As Alcohol Problems Grow, Colleges Seek New Remedies The Washington Post; Apr 16, 2002; College Towns, School Officials Seek End to Post-Game Rioting; String of Disturbances Part of Growing Trend, Observers Say. Washington Post, 4 April 2001.

However, there is a student (Psych322) Survey that has been done since 1999 (http://academic.reed.edu/psychology/pluralisticignorance/drugsalcohol.html). Regrettably, the 2004 numbers are not posted, but it does abundantly verify one piece of my posting -- students perception of drug use at Reed vastly exceeds the reality. The 2003 survey on substance abuse in general, not heroin specifically) is also a Reed internal document. I will get a full reference for it this coming week.

Regarding the change in policy, a quick perusal of the Reed Drug and Alchohol policy (http://web.reed.edu/academic/gbook/comm_pol/drug_policy.html) confirms this.

My affiliation with Reed (other than that I was a student in the 1970s, and continue to be affiliated with the College today) is none of your business. -- Gnetwerker 08:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

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I'm sorry I don't have time at the moment to address the specific drug issues you bring up, other than to thank you for looking into those names. To the best of my knowledge, none of those people died "at Reed," and yet they were all heroin users there participating in a culture that was at once hostile and yet tolerant of heroin use. As for your affiliation with Reed being none of my business, I would be inclined to agree with you. However, I believe it is the business of Wikipedia. "Creating or editing an article about yourself, your business, your publications, or any of your own achievements is strongly discouraged." [[1]] If you are, for example, a member of the Board of Trustees or are employed by Reed or have a vested financial interest in it, then I would ask you to recuse yourself from further edits to the article, especially ones that involve points of contention or controversy. Your comments on the talk page, however, would be welcome, as long as they are civil. However, referring to my edits as "nonsense" or "vandalism" is also a violation of WP policy. I can point you towards the links for those policies, but I'm running late for work, will try to do it later. IronDuke 16:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

First, I decline to limit my activities on this page, and stipulate that my writing about Reed does not constitute "autobiography", and further that I am not "primarily responsible" for the College sufficient to create a conflict of interest. Further, IMHO excluding every student, staff, faculty member, alumnus, or other affiliate of Reed would be counter-productive. and it is not called for by the Wikipedia guidelines.

Second, as long as we're talking about Wikipedia policy, you need to look up the policy about Verifiability WP:V. Your edits violate this policy. The statement that "heroin deaths were not uncommon" is a complete violation of that policy, as it is utterly unverifiable (even if it were not also false). If you post information that is appropriately sourced, it will not be reverted. Preferably, you will cite it here in 'Talk' first, and let the community discuss it before it gets added. -- Gnetwerker 19:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Recusal

I'm not sure why you put the words "primarily responsible" in quotes. My suggestion is and was that you may have, for example, a fiduciary responsibility to Reed College and, as such, a duty to recuse yourself from this page. Obviously, you are not in and of yourself Reed College, such that your comments could not be strictly speaking considered "autobiography." And yet, the WP policy I quoted remains: "...editing an article about... your business, your publications, or any of your own achievements is strongly discouraged." No one person can be said to "own" Reed and therefore no one person can be accused of promoting his or her own business by boosting Reed in this article. But if, for example, a member of the Board at IBM were to make changes to the IBM article, that would be a violation of WP policy. My suspicion is that this is an analogous case. Although I believe I know who you are I do not wish to name you as 1) you have a right to remain anonymous on these pages and 2) I could be quite wrong about your identity and therefore I would not be inclined to insist on your identifying yourself. However, I ask that you stipulate that you have no financial or fiduciary responsibility for the well-being of Reed College, as that is a clear conflict of interest. If you can honestly do that, I withdraw my request for your recusal. IronDuke 02:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I put the phrase "primarily responsible" in quotes because it is the phrase that appears in the WP policy statement. Reed is not my business and this is not an autoiography. Other than that, I do not accept your interpretation of the guidelines, and will not rise to your bait. Reed has 1300 or so students, tens of thousands of alumni and parents, 200 or more faculty and staff, roughly 40 Trustees, and thousands of substantial donors. Which of them, in your opinion, should be constrained from participation here, and in which class are you? -- Gnetwerker 07:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I had no intention of baiting you. I indicated above what the parameters for participating in the editing of this page were, as per the Wikipedia guidelines. I am taking your refusal to deny that you have a financial/fiduciary relationship with the college as an admission that you do. As for my own connection or lack thereof with Reed, I assure you that I have no such relationship. IronDuke 23:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me add this: I may be in error in my interpretation of the WP policies. Perhaps a way to resolve this might be to seek mediation on the specific issue of whether, for example, trustees may edit articles on institutions they are members of. Is this acceptable to you? IronDuke 23:34, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you should strive to correct or reinforce your understanding of the policy before we undertake anything as heavyweight as mediation. Why don't you post on the discussion page for the policy? My refusal to tell you my relationship with Reed should not be interpreted to mean that I have any particular relationship. As a matter of law, as it turns out, college board members are not always fiduciaries for their institutions, so this in and of itself may not even be dispositive. -- Gnetwerker 01:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not altogether certain how you mean for me to correct my understanding of policy. Posting on the discussion page would not, I think, be a fruitful way to solve the issues that have arisen between us. Perhaps I can simplify my point a bit here: I, myself, have no interest in seeing Reed succeed, nor do I have any interest in seeing Reed fail. Can you say the same? I have no desire to see "positive" or "negative" facts about Reed included in this article, merely notable facts. My suspicion is that you are too close to the institution to edit in a NPOV manner, but I may be wrong in this. I invite you, again, to mediate this dispute with me. IronDuke 02:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Made a pass over the article and tried to weed out the more transparent examples of POV. There were many, so I'm not going to write about each one but summarize and say that the article looked an awful lot like a brochure for Reed. Many of the comments were entirely unsourced, and some of them would not be appropriate even if they were. If anyone has a problem with any of one of those edits, I'd be glad to get specific. IronDuke 02:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

As long as we're removing unsourced material, I removed the entire Social/Polical and Drug Use sections of "Reputation". First, they occur in no other similar college page, second, as noted they are unverifiable, and finally, they seem to meet the same POV test as IronDuke has stipulated above. -- Gnetwerker 07:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Your edit was improper. I had thought that even though you and I appear to disagree on the emphases that are appropriate to place in this article, that together we were actually improving this section, adding sourced and verifiable information. I had left a few things in the section that you had added even though I was uncomfortable with them, even though I believe you ought not to be editing this article at all, as a way of trying to compromise. If you believe the drug section should be removed, perhaps an RfC would be in order. IronDuke 23:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The edit was completely proper. I invited you to discuss your concerns on this Talk page before editing a document that has been largely stable for months. Your edits have been uniformly POV and also not Verifiable, and this one is no exception. I have removed the unverifiable comments and retained those supported by specific citations. The fact that you retained some well-sourced facts that I added only to ameliorate your POV doesn't make it any better. If you want to stop editing and have a discussion here, relying on concensus to determine the outcome, then please do so and stop editing -- that is the Wiki way. In the meantime I will remove any statement that violates WP:V -- Gnetwerker 02:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we're on the right track again. Let's see what we can do to provide relevant, cited information in the drug use section. Although I think we can work together on this, again, I would ask that you not edit the article directly, but simply post suggestions on the talk page. If I am wrong about you, and you have no stake in Reed, please accept my apology in advance for insinuating that you did. IronDuke 02:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I would ask that you not edit the article, especially to remove sourced, relevant information balancing your own POV (which is well-recorded here on these pages). Anyone who makes the claim "heroin deaths at Reed are not uncommon" has a clear POV (see results of my research below). However, I will refrain from further edits if (and only if) you will. -- Gnetwerker 05:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I asked for (and got) temporary page protection. We will unprotect the page when we work this out. You first. -- Gnetwerker 06:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I suppose locking down the page is a reasonable short term step. I'm not sure what it is that we have to work out from your perspective, but I can tell you mine. There are three issues: 1) Your relationship with Reed, which you refuse to divulge. This relationship does not mean that I think, for example, you would be inclined to lie about Reed. I'd liken it, rather, to a doctor diagnosing himself. They are certainly capable of doing so, but are instead supposed to rely on other doctors to diagnose them. 2) You seem to have a problem with the drug section in general. This makes me question how dedicated you are to providing a fully-sourced, verifiable, non-argumentative section (and when I say "argumentative, I mean adding in your own thoughts about Reed's drug use/binge drinking in relation to other colleges. It is akin to writing, "Yeah, sure there are drugs at Reed. There are drugs everywhere. What are you gonna do?") Your multiple edits of the section, then wholesale deletion of the section, are troubling. 3) Tone of talk comments. You have improved greatly in this area over the past few days, and I appreciate it. I hope you (and I) continue in this vein. IronDuke 15:15, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Drug Use Again

I'd love it if people other than Gnetwerker could weigh in here. I'm going to leave the heroin deaths out of this section for now, as Gnetwerker quite rightly points out that I have no verification at hand (other than knowing for a virtual certainty that they happened). But the tone of the drug section as it was before I edited it was defensive and argumentative. Not WP style. IronDuke 02:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how one can definitively rebut a baseless claim such as the one that IronDuke has made, but I went to Reed today and spoke to Mary Catherine Lamb, head of student services there, and someone who has been at Reed for 12 years. I also spoke to Steve McCarthy, a member of the Board of Trustees who has been on the Board since 1988. Reed has not had a heroin death of a current student (or anyone else for that matter) on campus or off campus since at least the mid-1970s (which is not implying that there was one then -- this is as far back as anyone can remember and/or find records). Now of course you can charge this is some kind of cover-up, but either person will speak on the record on the subject. As noted earlier, there are also no local news reports of such deaths in the archives of the local paper, The Oregonian. I can supply contact details for these references if needed. -- Gnetwerker 05:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The people I'm talking about didn't die at Reed. They died after long battles with heroin that were either begun at Reed or exacerbated at Reed. That's why I was really hoping you could help me out and check on the fates of those alums. Does Reed track alum deaths? Manner of death? I would dearly love to research it myself, but I suspect I don't have access to the records that you do. Did you look those names up? But I hope I've made it clear that I've already conceded that verifiability is an issue here, and I won't be readding anything about heroin deaths of members of the Reed community unless and until I have some solid cites. What concerns me, again, is that your edits do not conform to WP policy. But this is why I'm hoping others can contribute. IronDuke 15:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

You won't be happy with the answer, but records confidentiality prevents the College from commenting on individual cases. I did look up all three names in available public records, and only found Babich. No one denies there has been (and occasionally still is) heroin use at Reed -- just like virtually all colleges and universities in the country. Hospitalizations and other interventions for substance abuse certainly occur at Reed. The question at hand is whether this is a distinguishing characteristic. I will stipulate two things: 1) I believe that drug use may have been either above-average or at least more open when I was a Reedie in the 1970s; and 2) Reed has long had the reputation as a place where drug use was more frequent, more blatant, or both.

However, the section of the article that you barged in on was the result of a long-running compromise between current and former Reedies who wear the drug-use reputation as a badge of honor, and the verifiable fact that Reed drug use has moderated to become about average compared to other institutions. This is why the Pluralistic Ignorance page is in fact relevant. Reed's reputation for drug use has now become a self-perpetuating myth (applied to current affairs, that is).

If you lost friends to heroin addiction, you have my most profound sympathy. It is possible that a discussion with Mary Catherine Lamb (503-777-7521, the Dean of Student Affairs at Reed, will shed some light on the status of your friends. But you are the one using WP as a bulletin board for what appears to be a private vendetta against Reed.

If you study my edits on this page over the last 4 years, you will see that I have been striving to create an article that is NPOV and consistent in style and content with the pages for similar colleges and universities. Nonetheless, the Drug Use section (unique to Reed's page) has always been a problem. Should WP be a party to perpetuating a myth as fact? I think not. And your personal tragedy does not change things. -- Gnetwerker 17:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your sympathy, if it is indeed genuine. I have no vendetta against Reed, public or private. I think your use of the phrase "barged in on" is instructive here, implying, as it does, that this was a private space, and that only those who were involved in the discussion ought to have any say, and that of those individuals, it was you who ought to have the final say. I believe this is contrary what we're trying to do here. I took your invitation and studied the edits you made over the last four years. Some were better than others, some pushed POV, but what was most unfortuate were the entries accompanied by hostile summaries or talk page entries. In any case, I hope that work together constructively on this page. IronDuke 02:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll weigh in. My recollection is that the heroin deaths were urban legend, circulated by people who had no idea what they were talking about. It seems that absent any real evidence of such deaths, we acn't possibly include them in the article. Vincent Vecera 18:39, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

(Un-indented) Perhaps the phrase "barged in" was intemperate. However, part of my issue with you and your edits is that you, avowedly, have no specific experience with Reed, and you have provided in your two weeks on this page not a single piece of sourced material that didn't come from a trivial Google search, and that one an out-of-date and hearsay (second-hand) reference to an erroneous and poorly-constructed survey, which is itself not in the public record. One of the biggest challenges that WP faces is the battle between experts and non-experts editing pages. WP does not structurally value expertise. I made a total of four substantive edits before mid-February 2005 (i.e. about a year ago). The page moved forward in fits and starts, but generally improved. Since then, it has been the subject of repeated vandalism and near-vandalism, a category I continue to put your heroin comments into.

I, in the strongest terms, deny any intentional POV in my edits, but then informed minds can differ and one is not the best judge of one's POV or lack thereof. However, it is easier to see in others. The community that has improved this page over time has moved in the direction of allowing a certain amount of unsupport "color" in the article, and I think that is fine. Reed's historical drug use reputation is itself a fact, and I have never tried to delete it, but I think that an NPOV view must place it in an appropriate context -- current school policies as well as actual statistical data. In the meantime, I am appalled at the time and energy spent on this issue -- when people thought the PhD claims were POV, I got the data. When people thought the Admissions information was POV, I got the data. When people made bizarre claims about the buildings, I got the data. And now you made an untrue and outlandish claim about heroin deaths, and I got the data -- you are absolutely, positively, and without a doubt wrong on that issue. And your response? Attack me personally and suggest I recuse myself. No, no, and no again. And you have the temerity to suggest that my talk entries are harsh? At least they are on-topic.

If you have a positive suggestion for the page, make it in the space above. Despite your lack of knowledge of Reed, in Wikipedia everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, I and the others who work on the page will expect it to be supported, verifiable, and NPOV. This is my last entry in the meta-conversation. I look forward to your contribution on the subject. -- Gnetwerker 06:35, 19 January 2006 (UTC)