Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Jnc and Barberio

message: Since this is a content dispute, I assume both of you are happy to keep this discussion here on the wiki. If either would prefer, however, we can move this to email. I'd also like to ask both of you to avoid editing contentious sections of the article for the time being, and to keep the discussions on this page. Please note also that I am not here to agree or disagree with any specific fact related to the article — the purpose of this is to see if you two can agree with each other on any of the points. The best way to prove or disprove any specific fact will be through appropriate citations.
There are a number of debates that seem to have sprung up in the edits of History of the Internet, the talk page and related archives. In the interests of fire fighting I'd like to first collect the specific disagreements here in one place. These should be disputes related to the current version (approximate) of the article: this mediation is not about past disagreements.  This should also help satisfy John's desire to see Noel's objections written out formally.
In the following section, please list your disagreements with current version as signed, individual, concise points. The other party can then respond to any point with their own, concise rebuttal. Please do not turn this section into a discussion, however: we can leave that for later.
— Asbestos | Talk  (RFC) 19:49, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Next week I'll be heading to Ireland for my grandmothers 80th birthday, so will be away from Internet connections. I hope we can have this wraped up, or at least progress a little before then. --John R. Barberio  talk, contribs  00:33, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediation 

message: # Only told the American Internet's history. No mention of how the Internet was spread internationaly. Same cites referencing X.25/IPSS, since X.25/IPSS was the underlying technology used to spread international internetworking. --John R. Barberio  talk, contribs  23:52, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputes (still outstanding) 

message: Copied from above for the first part of this point.
My major objection with the 'old version' is that it lacked substantial information, and gave incorect impresions about the origin of the Internet. ... --John R. Barberio  talk, contribs  23:52, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't respond to this one without knowing more of what you think the correct "origin of the Internet is". Can you please provide more specifics? Noel (talk) 03:12, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Those have been listed in the other objectins above. --John R. Barberio  talk, contribs  09:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The origin of the Internet 

message: I think another important difference between the two versions of the article is the that of the article's top-level structure. Here are the different structures that were originally up:
From 
     * 1 Before the Internet
     * 2 Motivation for the Internet
     * 3 Early Internet work
     * 4 Early growth
     * 5 Commercialization and privatization
     * 6 Early applications
     * 7 Standards and control
     * 8 World Wide Web
     * 9 See also
     * 10 Further reading
     * 11 External links
From 
     * 1 Before the Internet
     * 2 The networks that would become the Internet
     * 3 Merging the Networks, and creating the Internet
     * 4 Use and Culture
     * 5 External Links
     * 6 References
I believe that within these structures there is a fair bit of room for compromise. For instance, John, do you think that there is no need for a "Motivation" section? And if the references are complete enough, is there need for a "Further reading" section?
I think it might be worth a lot to try to come up with a top-level structure that keeps the strengths of both. I'm going to put a rough possibility below based on the information that was originally in each section: can an adequate structure be reached by editing it? — Asbestos | Talk  (RFC) 19:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Structure of the article 

message: * 1 Before the Internet
     * 2 Motivation for the Internet
     * 3 The networks that would become the Internet
     * 4 Merging the Networks, and creating the Internet
     * 5 Standards and control
     * 7 Use and Culture
     * 7.a Early use and applications
     * 7.b Commercialization
     * 7.c E-Mail and Usenet
     * 7.d World Wide Web
     * 7.e Search Engines
     * 7.f ...
     * 9 See also
     * 10 References
     * 11 External links
It's tricky to keep a linear readable history of this, since it's actualy several histories combined. I'd prefer to keep it a seperate sub-history of the Networks joining up, the Standards organisations, and the way the Internet is used. I think Comercialization of the internet might belong under a subheading of Use and Culture, seperating out the change in use from the history of the networks. --John R. Barberio  talk, contribs  21:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please edit: 

message: This mediation has clearly stalled. It looks like John, you're still interested in continuing, but Noel, you've gone on an extended wiki-break with no intention of coming back mediation to this if/when you come back to the project.
Obviously you're both free to go back to editing the History of the Internet article. However, although Noel is not here, I want to remind John that there were others who supported Noel's point of view, and so would like to make sure revert wars don't spark up again. Please make sure that reasonable citations are made for as much information as possible, preferably using the Wikipedia:Footnotes structure within the article. It's usually much easier to compare the relative authority of different footnotes than it is to compare the authorities of different editors.
I'm sorry that we didn't get to make as much progress here as we would have liked,</br>
— Asbestos | Talk  (RFC) 20:59, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ending Mediation