Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Aesthetic Realism

Aesthetic Realism and users Aperey, Samivel, Michaelbluejay, et al.

Resolved:

inactivity

This mediation case is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this case page.

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Some of the principal editors of this article have agreed to mediation. It has undergone contentious editing for many months. -Willmcw 23:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm willing to mediate this one, if the parties are open to me as a mediator. -- Essjay · Talk 23:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Yup, Essjay's perfect for this. Redwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?) 23:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Essjay, I'm fine with you as a mediator, though I feel guilty about bringing anyone into this mess. I hope you have aspirin. :) Michaelbluejay 17:03, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Samivel has also replied (on the article talk page) that he accepts Essjay as mediator. I now step back and leave it up to you three (four if Aperey ever returns). Thanks for helping out, Essjay. I hope the mediation is fruitful and let me know if I cna help in any way. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Essjay, I am glad you're helping with this. Lux et Veritas is what we'll need. I am personally withdrawing from this project because whenever my username "Aperey" or my IP appeared (both were well known to the participants) I was met with an outpouring of objections, contradictions, and verbal abuse, as you'll see in the talk pages. This impeded any possibility of agreement among the parties and hurt rather than helped the editing. I did make a correction a moment ago but it's the last for this article until further notice.--Aperey 21:33, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, let's hit the floor running. There are a couple of things I'd like to do first:

• If each of the parties would please watchlist this page, that would be a big help.

• I'm going to go over the history of the article, as well as the talk page, to get a grasp of what has gone on. For my benefit, I ask that each of the parties prepare a short summary of what has gone on, including a statement of the dispute.

• I would appreciate, along with the summary, a short statement of what each of the parties expects to/would like to achive via mediation. This will help me direct the focus of our efforts. Please provide both this and the summary to me via email (my email is listed on my user/talk pages). I think it would be best for this to be confidential, as that will prevent us from devolving into immediate "he said, she said."

• We need to determine a method for mediation. We can do it here, we can do it via email, or we can do it via IRC. If each party would indicate their preference here, I'd appreciate it.

• Once I have your summaries, I'll provide a short list of rules for the mediation that I'd like everyone to abide by. I'll customize it to what I believe will be most helpful, and will post it here.

• If there are any other involved parties, please let them know about the mediation so they can be involved. It will not help for us to come to a resolution only to have a new dispute break out because a third party (or fourth party, as the case may be) was not involved.

My apologies for the long post, but I hope this will help us get off to a good start. -- Essjay · Talk 02:05, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

What's the next step?

I submitted the statements you asked for on 17 Oct. What's the next step? Thanks, Michaelbluejay 14:19, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

The next step? The poor, overworked meditor reads everything that's been provided, along with reviwing the history of the article and the talk page, and we get moving. ;-) Give me another day or so to get up to speed with what's going on, and we'll be ready to go. -- Essjay · Talk 14:24, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Request for reassignment

I'd like to request the Chair to reassign this mediation as I've decided to take a sabattical from the committee for a while. My apologies to the parties. -- Essjay · Talk 02:55, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

New mediator, reporting for duty

Hi, everyone. Michael Bluejay has already filled me in on his side of the disagreement, so will the other side please identify itself and do the same? My contact information can be found on my user page. Andre (talk) 21:39, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Any news?

Any news on where we're at, what happens next, when, etc? Thanky-poo, Michaelbluejay 18:16, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Limits & facts

Hi, everyone. Sorry for the delay - real life takes up a lot of my time.

Anyway, I'd like to now establish the limits of this mediation - or lack thereof. Generally, I think it's a good idea to not limit mediation to one section of an article and exclude others. However, Samivel has expressed to me that he would like to limit the mediation to "the first (introductory) section and the section titled 'Aesthetic Realism and Homosexuality'." Are there in fact disputes outside of these limits? If so, they should be addressed as well.

Next, I'd like to establish some facts. Essentially, facts are items in the article that everyone agrees on. This isn't about whether that item should be included in the article, but just that the item is true beyond reasonable doubt. The way I'd like to do this is have you both list as many items as you can in the "Facts" column (below) and remove those you disagree with. You can revert an addition, but don't revert a removal - this defeats the purpose. In the end, we should have a list of things you both agree on, and we can work from there.

I'm looking forward to helping you guys with this article. Andre (talk) 23:16, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I oppose limiting the scope of the article. Otherwise B.S. gets inserted such as, "Bluejay, whose relation to Aesthetic Realism is that his mother once studied it when he was an infant...".

Since I was the person requesting mediation for those particular sections--the only ones in dispute--I think we should limit it to them. I will not insert "B.S." and in fact will oppose it. By the way, TS, who wrote that tiny bit of misinformation, was corrected and it never appeared. Bluejay had an Aesthetic Realism lesson about age 2 1/2 which I was present at.--samivel 20:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Facts about Aesthetic Realism

• Aesthetic Realism is the philosophy founded by poet and critic Eli Siegel in 1941.
• Aesthetic Realism teaches that a person’s greatest, deepest desire is to like the world honestly, and that another desire opposes it: to have unjust contempt for the world and people. Contempt can be defined as "the difference between what a thing deserves and what one gives it."

The following facts are from the Timeline about Aesthetic Realism:

list removed - see Timeline of Aesthetic Realism. -Willmcw 22:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

This is absurd

• As soon as I added my own facts Arnold Perey immediately censors *every single last one of them*, with no discussion. Predictable, but ridiculous. Arnold Perey evidently has no interest in mediating in good faith.
• Perey then adds a truckload of irrelevant items ("Dorothy Koopelman receives an award") as though that kind of stuff is somehow more important than the fact that the founder of AR killed himself.
• Perey takes it upon himself to say that only certain sections are in dispute and that we should therefore limit the discussion to them. Hello? The fact that Perey comes in and immediately censors everything he doesn't like (both here and in the article) is *definitely* relevant to the dispute, and is much broader than the two sections he mentions.
• Perey is trying to blame the B.S. example on someone else and said that it never reappeared, but not only did it reappear but he was one of the ones who brought it back, or at least a variation of it.

It's clear to me that Perey has no interest in a fair mediation. Mediation only works when the people involved are willing to play fair and be reasonable. I think the only way we'll get this resolved is through arbitration. Before I request that I'd like to get Andrevan's thoughts on that. Michaelbluejay 21:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I think we have a shot at resolving this in mediation, but I can't stop you from entering arbitration if you so choose.

Meanwhile, let the mediation continue. Mr. Perey: you removed a great deal of stuff but I think you missed the point somewhat. Inclusion in the article is not a factor for inclusion in the Facts section - it's supposed to be about things about which the truth is not in question. Am I to take your removal to mean that you disagree with the truth of the statement "Noted cult expert Steve Hassan believes Aesthetic Realism to be a cult."? Andrevan 23:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I am indeed interested in fair mediation. If Michael Bluejay wants to put in Mr. Hassan, fine. Meanwhile, the greater part of scholars today do not recognize anyone as a cult expert. Rather, the whole field of "cult" study was, from 1987 on, shown to be unscientific. Further, since Aesthetic Realism is not a cult, it is hard to imagine anyone actually "believing" it is.--samivel 21:49, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

As to the other points, I regard them as inflammatory. Mr. Bluejay knew I would and so he led with some of the most hideous misinformation and outright lies I have seen. As to his own acquaintance with Aesthetic Realism, it was very, very minimal. His lying on this point is remarkable. And of course he know I could not agree to it. Much more can be said but I suppose this is enough for now. I tried writing more extensively but cancelled it.--samivel 21:52, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

As to how Eli Siegel died, Mr. Bluejay wants to come forth with something that can at best be regarded as conjecture. Mr. Siegel (1902-1978) died in the presence of one person only, his wife, Martha Baird Siegel, who is no longer alive herself. Mr. Bluejay's stock in trade includes the vilification of those who can no longer defend themselves. Why, after all, should I object to that?--samivel 21:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

This statement by Michaelbluejay is misleading--not indisputable at all: "Michael Bluejay studied AR both in New York and Texas, including multiple consultations at the AR headquarters in NYC when he was 12. His family did not completely discontinue its study of AR until he was a teenager." See the statement of Alice Bernstein, his aunt.

The ACLU etc. state that mind control as described by the "anti-cult movement" does not exist in America. Since "mind control" is the fundamental tenet of the "anti-cult" movement, the ACLU and the vast majority of reputable scholars in the legal and behavioral fields since 1987 have shown that Bluejay has no case at all and the whole matter should be ditched. Aesthetic Realism cannot by any stretch of the imagination--without lying--be called a cult.--samivel 22:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

The use of such horrible language as "deprogramming" etc in relation to a scholarly philosophy which has put kindness and the study of value FIRST, is akin to Bluejay's saying, "I never said you beat your wife" to a generally kind person. It raises a subject which BY THE VERY FACT OF ITS BEING RAISED PUTS FORTH AN UNTRUE PICTURE. In other words, the use of language by Bluejay in a good number of his points is in itself a form of lying. The points are in the History page so there's no mystery about what he said.

I rather doubt that a good arbitrator would fail to see this kind of propagandistic language in Bluejay's writing. It is highly POV. Can anything with a POV spin put on it be regarded as strictly true? I didn't see a single statment of Bluejay without that spin and so I deleted them--as falsehoods--and this cannot be considered censorship. It was doing what I was asked to do, as far as I can see. If I'm wrong, there is room for discussion.--samivel 22:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Consider the statement of Bluejay that begins..."Aesthetic Realism claimed..." This statement is already POV from the third word, "claimed." (See weasel words etc. in Wikipedia manual of style) At least 2 more assertions in that one point are false and misleading, quite deliberately. Mr. Bluejay knew I would think this. He loves to instigate fights. See the reasoning already in Margot Carpenter's statement in "Friends of Aesthetic Realism--Countering the Lies"--samivel 22:28, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, removing almost all of what Mr. Bluejay was fine if you disagree, I'm not asking you to defend those items. I was specifically talking about the statement about Mr. Hassan, and that's what I'd like to address for the moment, as well as this statement: Further, since Aesthetic Realism is not a cult, it is hard to imagine anyone actually "believing" it is. An important part of working on Wikipedia and writing articles is realizing that not everyone shares your view, or the majority view. NPOV means putting in all validly represented POVs, and it seems fairly clear to me that a sizable amount of people believe AR is a cult. There is of course the "undue weight" clause of NPOV, and that is something we will hopefully address in this mediation.

Also, "claim" itself is not a weasel word, it only becomes a weasel word when used vaguely, i.e. the unsourced "some claim that Aesthetic Realism is a cult."

Next question, please answer in an affirmative or negative so that I can tell which is which: Did Eli Siegel kill himself? Andrevan 22:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

As to yes or no, there is no way I can be sure. I can surmise but I was not there. I do know that Eli Siegel died with dignity at the age of 76 after an agonizing illness following an operation. What death with dignity means to people today, thanks to the Hemlock Society and other Death with Dignity organizations, is that one has died by his own hand. As I said, I was not there and am not in a position to say definitely what happened. One can only look at the available sources and try to see what is true. If Mr. Bluejay has his own sources perhaps he should say so. He acts very sure; and he also uses objectionable language.

Let us take these points. Does Mr. Bluejay agree with these?

• Aesthetic Realism teaches that every person’s deepest desire is to like the world honestly, while there is also a contrary desire to have contempt for the world and people.

• Many persons studying Aesthetic Realism have described this philosophy as improving their relationships with other people and encouraging both kindness and creativity.

• 35 years ago, a number of students who changed from homosexuality to heterosexuality succeeded in being interviewed by the media and subsequently did what they could to have this known and educate others as to this possibility.

• Aesthetic Realism as an ethical philosophy has studied both poverty and racism as arising from the way people have been contemptuously lessened for their skin tone or used for their labor without being respected.

• Authorities in their fields have praised the Aesthetic Realism explanations of poetry, literature, music, art & art history, and the human self--explanations taught by the faculty of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation today--as meeting the highest academic standards of scholarship and critical analysis.

• Although the great majority of scholarly and legal organizations have stated that cult accusations, so popular in American today, have no basis in fact, a few individuals have nevertheless called the students of Aesthetic Realism cultists and publicized their views in two newspapers.

• Many persons have written that there is no truth to the accusation of cult; to the contrary, the Aesthetic Realism education is deeply philosophic and practical.

• The Siegel Theory of Opposites is regarded by numerous persons knowledgeable in the arts as an explanation of beauty in painting, the dance, poetry and literature, as important for our time as Aristotle's Poetics was in its time.

We could reinstate Mr. Bluejay's points and then comment on them one by one, either before or after he has commented on mine:

Added by Michael Bluejay. These are true beyond any reasonable doubt:

• Students of Aesthetic Realism has assigned nearly god-like status to the founder, Eli Siegel, saying that he is the greatest person ever to live and that his writings are more important than the Bible or Shakespeare. source
• Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism, killed himself.
• AR students have never openly admitted this, as originally reported in the New York Times. The fact that Eli Siegel killed himself does not appear on any of the group's numerous websites or any of its voluminous publications (despite their claims to the contrary).
• Siegel's wife also killed herself, as did at least one other practicing AR student.
• Aesthetic Realism students believe they are being persecuted by the rest of the world. source
• Aesthetic Realism students have lashed out angrily at their critics, calling them liars, and saying that their motivation is simply to make themselves feel more important.
• Noted cult expert Steve Hassan believes Aesthetic Realism to be a cult.
• Criticism of the cult aspects of Aesthetic Realism has been published in the New York Post and Jewish Times.
• Aesthetic Realism claimed to have a cure for homosexuality, although they carefully avoided using the word "cure". This is overwhelmingly documented by their two books, film, television interviews, and expensive newspaper advertisements in which AR students publicized this "beautiful news". source
• The ACLU has never spoken out against "the anti-cult movement" in general, and certainly has never defended Aesthetic Realism specifically. What the ACLU has actually decried is the *forcible removal* of cult members from cults in order to deprogram them.
• Critics of AR have never advocated forcible removal and deprogramming of AR members anyway.
• Michael Bluejay studied AR both in New York and Texas, including multiple consultations at the AR headquarters in NYC when he was 12. His family did not completely discontinue its study of AR until he was a teenager.
• It is not appropriate to use Wikipedia as a platform to advocate for and promote Aesthetic Realism, nor is it appropriate to remove criticism from the article about it. Michaelbluejay 23:08, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm out. Proceeding to arbitration.

I'm rather tired of Arnold Perey/Samivel repeatedly calling me a liar, as well as his constant, paranoid feelings of persecution, as well as his denying what he knows to be true (e.g., that Eli Siegel killed himself), as well as his repeatedly citing sources that do not say what he claims they say (e.g., that the ACLU says that cult accusations have no scientific basis -- since when does the ACLU even weigh in on science)? And I just saw this by Samivel in the history while looking for an edit I made which didn't make it onto this page:

"I imagine that by this time [Bluejay] has cultivated allies in the Wikipedia power structure who will sustain his position and he is eager to mobilize them."

JESUS H. CHRIST! Perey, I don't think you could have made my point any better that one attribute of cultists is their PARANOID FEELING OF PERSECUTION! Though this is certainly not the first example. You've also worried and/or outright alleged that I was behind the recent change in mediator, that the various editors of the article are all me, that my website is Ellen Mali's idea and work, etc. And let's not forget the vast media conspiracy to not report about Aesthetic Realism because all the writers are furious about their great respect for Eli Siegel. Your belief in all these things is just sad, but I'm not going to humor you any more about them. I was going to suggest letting you try to pick the arbitrator (if they allow that sort of thing), but whatever, you'd probably just allege (or at least think) that I've somehow gotten through to ALL of them. Yes, that's right, Arnold Perey, I've secretly made alliances with all of the powerful people in the Wikipedia hierarchy who will now do my bidding to be completely unfair to Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel! Now you can go report back to the group about this great Wikipedia conspiracy against you! Write it up in TRO. Have a ball.

Since Perey would rather (1) call me a liar, (2) censor my contributions, and (3) worry that I'm conspiring against him, instead of MEDIATING THE ARTICLE, I withdraw. I'll request arbitration as soon as I have a chance. If that doesn't work then I'll start editing the article again myself, and appeal to independent Wikipedians for assistance, since the independents have always edited on the side of reason rather than the side of cultist delusions.

Oh by the way, Andrevan, the edit I was looking for of mine that somehow didn't get saved was that I had to laugh when I saw you asking Perey/Samivel whether Eli Siegel killed himself, as though he would give you a straight answer, because I knew he wouldn't. He's entirely too predictable this way. And his failure to admit this because there is supposedly some question about it, while on the other hand he confidently asserts things as facts about which he has zero evidence of (e.g., that Ellen Mali is behind my website) is a little hypocritical, to say the least -- and one of the reasons why mediation is pointless.

I will not consider mediation again unless Perey/Samivel shows good faith by admitting that ELI SIEGEL KILLED HIMSELF. Let me quote Samivel/Perey himself on his Countering the Lies website:

"And Michael Bluejay adds more lying of his own. He claims that there has been 'deception, since AR members have refused to reveal how Siegel died.' For two decades, Ellen Reiss and others have described publicly, in print, the cause of Mr. Siegel’s death. In 1978, surgery was performed on Mr. Siegel for a benign prostatic condition by a doctor who admitted later he had been angry at his respect for Mr. Siegel. This operation damaged him irreparably and ruined his life. It was the reason for his death later that year, on November 8, 1978: it is apparent that Mr. Siegel chose to die with dignity, as other courageous persons have done, including, it seems clear, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and George Harrison. About Harrison, his friend Eric Idle wrote, “He passed away—here in LA—with beauty and dignity surrounded by people he loved.”

Okay, Perey, if I'm LYING by saying that AR members have refused to reveal how Siegel died, then HOW DID THEY SAY HE DIED?! You say I'm lying by saying that you've refused to say how he died? Oh, I'm so sorry, please show me EXACTLY WHERE you or the others say EXACTLY HOW he died. I'm waiting.

Now you're saying, "I was not there and am not in a position to say definitely what happened." Geez, will you decide which side of this debate you're going to take? You're trying to take so many different positions to refute me that they're contradicting each other.

You bandy about the word "liar" like it was candy. But you know how Eli Siegel died. You know this because it was planned for a long time, and that the plan was discussed intensely within the group, and that prescription drugs were procured expessly for this purpose. (Do you deny any of these things?) Can you admit to Siegel's plan to take his life and his obvious success in doing so? If not, then stop saying I'm a liar for pointing out that you and the AR people won't come clean about Siegel's death. And don't expect me to mediate unil you do. Michaelbluejay 05:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Bluejay is trying to obscure the fact that, on the whole, he is presenting a Big Lie. Aesthetic Realism is a kind and scientific philosophy that brings out strength and perception in people who study it and often in those to whom they are related. Like the dual response to the poetry of Keats and the thought of Darwin, there have also been those angry at the new and Mr. Bluejay is among them. William Carlos Williams has called this "the fixed sclerotic mind." Students of history may realize that such a dual response goes back a long way. I can give further parallels.

Meanwhile, what is Mr. Bluejay's attitude to mediation? I think his desire to subvert the mediation procedure is obvious because the points he has listed are not things we could all agree on, as preparation for getting into more controversial subjects. I did begin with two points that are easy to agree with, and their truth was not denied by Mr. Bluejay or any other editor. But Mr. Bluejay, I am sorry to say, began with the most inflammatory things he could say, starting with some putative "worship" of Eli Siegel which is simply untrue. Of course I could not say it was just fine, let's go ahead. As to how Eli Siegel died, as I said, I was not there; nor was I in on any "plan discussed intensely within the group." Mr. Bluejay has been told some things by an unidentified source, but seems to have some misinformation. He too was not there. Mr. Siegel died with dignity at an advanced age and after a long illness. I have said this on "Countering the Lies" as clearly as I know. I think everyone who speaks English knows what this means. I do not choose to use the exact language Mr. Bluejay insists on because I think his use of language lacks respect. One cannot be "mathematically sure" of the way this great person died, because the one who was present at his dying, his wife, is no longer alive.

As to what I did say on the History page when I too rapidly, it seems, deleted his points, it is this: "since we are deleting whatever we disagree with, I have deleted the points made by Michael Bluejay which are vicious."

Mr. Bluejay is quite right, I do not trust him. I think any ordinary observer who has looked at his writing would know this mistrust is hardly paranoia. He has been attacking gratuituosly for some time now. I would say that his very insistence on certain points that are either stated with ill will or fantastically exaggerated (or both) or are so far from the truth that the term Big Lie is quite appropriate, is evidence for this. In http://www.counteringthelies.com a large number of eyewitnesses show he is lying, as they give first-hand accounts of what really goes on in Aesthetic Realism classes, etc.

Although it may be tiresome to the reader for me to do this, once again let me point out that I began, in response to the mediator's request, with two statements that anyone could agree on. I hoped that Mr. Bluejay would continue with other statements that anyone could agree with so we would have some mutually-agreed on basis to begin with.

Whatever the details may be, he is set on attacking a philosophy that can do, and does do, much good in this world on issues that really matter; a scientific philosophy that has a logical basis and has been tested for its truth for many decades. I am confident that in the long run the truth will win out over the lies. All it takes is patience, scientific method, and the desire to be clear about what really happened. Even in public life these days many untruths are coming forth which once were believed impregnable. As a social scientist I am in a position to know first hand the utter falsity of this liar's misrepresentation of Aesthetic Realism, which is philosophy, thoroughly, and belongs to American culture.--samivel 17:31, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

"I hoped that Mr. Bluejay would continue with other statements that anyone could agree with..." That you expect me to calmly sit still while you repeatedly call me a liar is incredible. Perey, nobody on the face of this planet calls me a liar besides you and the other Eli Siegel sycophants. That ought to tell you something, but I know it won't. As for my "lie" that AR students nearly worship Eli Siegel, I've provided numerous examples, quotes from both current and former students. How the holy hell am I lying about this when I'm relying on published accounts? As for Siegel's suicide, nobody denies it except current AR devotees. Period. I could take your other issues point by point, but it's obvious at this point that it's fruitless. You can't expect me to mediate when you (1) repeatedly call me a liar, (2) lunge to censor anything you disagree with, and (3) won't agree to the obvious fact that Eli Siegel killed himself. And don't think I didn't notice that your recent "I wasn't there, I don't know," defense is a NEW excuse that you've only recently presented. It's a stark contrast from your earlier defense. How the hell do you think Eli Siegel DID die if he didn't overdose on the prescription drugs he procured for that purpose, at the time he set aside to do so? Michaelbluejay 20:25, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Once again, I can't prevent you from proceeding to arbitration, but I urge you to calm down, take a step back, and try to resolve this in a civil fashion. Andre (talk) 20:54, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

If Arnold Perey will (1) Stop calling me a liar every other sentence, (2) stop leaping to delete and censor everything he doesn't like, (3) admit that Eli Siegel killed himself (or at least admit that he PLANNED to, procured prescription drugs for that purpose, and died during the time he'd set aside to overdose on those meds), then I'll be happy to mediate. Otherwise, I don't feel obligated to mediate when the other side won't be civil and reasonable. Michaelbluejay 22:10, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I am for calming down. Meanwhile I hope that what I wrote earlier will be read carefully. It is true, I think, that I have been called many more names in Wikipedia than simply liar. They include sycophant, devotee, brainwashed, and a few other choice terms. Mr. Bluejay in his web pages has called me a cultist, though I think the reference has been deleted since then. I will not pretend it makes for good feeling. I have studied many subjects, including cross-cultural sociology, and would like to feel I've got a little dignity as this procedure goes on. So I insist that the name-calling will have to stop. I can refrain using the term liar if Mr. Bluejay can restrain himself as well. I should like him to say that he will have good will for Aesthetic Realism and the persons who study and teach it. This doesn't mean agreeing with anything. It does mean not saying things that don't have adequate scientific basis. It also means being interested in whether one is right or not, rather than insisting on it without all the facts being presented and accounted for. I'm aware that Mr. Bluejay says that I am insisting on my own version of truth and have no right to ask for this. I think, though, that I can satisfy him otherwise if enough time is taken and there are no insults. I am willing to try. How can one mediate honestly otherwise?--samivel 21:00, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

No deal. I've spelled out repeatedly what it would take for me to continue mediation, and you're not even *close* to there yet. I'm going to stop repeating myself on this and other topics. And I'm going to start editing the article again. Michaelbluejay 00:36, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Mr. Bluejay, I understand what you are saying, but Mr. Perey's is not an unreasonable request. Can we both agree to stop the ad hominem and concentrate on the mediation? Andre (talk) 03:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but until Perey stops pussy-footing around Eli Siegel's suicide then I can't believe that he's willing to discuss things honestly. Also, he's had so, so, so many chances to work with the editors on the article responsibly but he prefers to just shout LIAR LIAR LIAR at every opportunity. I've finally exceeded my tolerance for that particular insult/smear. It's a point of personal pride for me that among those who know me and my work my honesty and integrity are well-known. I'm just no longer willing to sit still (much less cooperate) with someone who calls me a liar every other sentence. Maybe he's promising not to do so now, but it's too late for that, he missed the last several dozen chances he had, since my tolerance is all used up. That plus his unwillingness to come clean about Siegel's suicide (plus his long history of unreasonable and irresponsible edits and argumentation) tells me that mediation is beyond fruitless. I'm going to just start editing the article again, and I trust that the other responsible editors here will support a proper article rather than Perey's AR propaganda. In the unlikely event that that doesn't work, then I'll seek arbitration. Michaelbluejay 03:36, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I think Mr. Bluejay is a bit unreasonable. When it comes to how Eli Siegel died, he has a buzzword, suicide, to which I object. I think it conveys the wrong impression. There is no reason to presume that my disagreement with him on that point disables me when it comes to honest discussion. ...Yes, Mr. Bluejay has started editing again in the introduction to the article on Aesthetic Realism.

Update: I have written a few paragraphs of critiqe of that introduction and did some revising of it so that, I hope, it is acceptable to both parties.--samivel 23:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, people...

Apparently my modest mediation skills have been fairly ineffective thus far. I thought a brief hiatus might give me more insight into the matter, but it has not done. May I suggest an IRC/otherwise live mediation? I think it may be productive. Andre (talk) 00:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

So far I think the Wikipedia community is doing a good job of countering Perey/Samivel's cheerleading for AR and his neutering/censoring of criticism. It's telling that no one is taking his side. For all the reasons I've mentioned above, I can't believe that continuing to attempt mediation is of any value, and in any event, Samivel doesn't deserve it. He's been given so many chances but instead of making a good faith effort he still calls those who disagree with him LIARS at every turn, and won't come clean on things about which there should be no dispute, such as Siegel's suicide. Samivel made his own bed here and lost the opportunity for mediation -- it's time for him to lie in it. Michael Bluejay 23:44, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's be clear. The Wikipedia community has not "countered" anything. Four or five persons have come together to serve a little agenda of their own. I shall soon give a few additional references to counter the fantastic misrepresentations fostered by Bluejay and his associates.--samivel 22:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Samivel, when four or five people on Wikipedia who don't know each other independently decide to combat your AR-cheerleading and censorship of criticism, that's *precisely* the definition of a community response. How many independent Wikipedians who are backing *your* position? As for agendas, yeah, you've been an AR devotee for the better part of four decades but you don't have any kind of agenda yourself, do you? Yeah, that would just be preposterous, wouldn't it? Finally, who exactly are you addressing with your comments? Who exactly are you trying to convince? The mediator? For what purpose? Anyone else? Do you think anyone else is looking at this page, and if so do you think you have even a remote chance of convincing them? With the AR group rapidly dwindling in numbers doesn't that suggest to you that your group has somewhat failed to convince the world of your position? Michael Bluejay 00:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.