Talk:Mission Mountain School

Untitled

This article seems to be written as a critique of the Mission Mountain School, not as a neutral description of the school. Please see Wikipedia:Neutral_Point_of_View for clarification on writing neutral point of view articles. It also needs to be copyedited and wikified. Crunch 03:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• I quite agree, and I think 6 months is sufficient time to rectify the issue. I am going to remove all the unsources critiques and turn this into a neutral (albeit much shorter) article. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 19:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Removed NPOV content

ChinadogDebates are described, represented, and characterized, but not engaged in, this has been done. Background is provided on who believes what and why... although I believe the alumni viewpoint could use some work, that is elaboration on child labor and work (as in the instance where kids did the work of the school to become accredited, what that accredidation actually means- not mental health related, the absence of accredidation by health care orgs,etc- with proper citations, of course) etc etc etc... please explain in what way you find these edits in error and explain your continuous deletion of text. As you may be aware, presenting the facts means that this is not a place for the sole use of advertising a product.CAFETY 22:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

This facility belongs in the behavior modification category

If you watch the latest GAO hearings about the behavior modification industry this facility is mentioned and much of the text of the proposed bill H.R. 5876 aka Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008. are based on the torment suffered from former detainees at this very facility.

Why was the category removed?

Covergaard (talk) 10:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Mission Mountain School is a Therapeutic Boarding School. It is not a behavior modification school. Personal opinions about how to categorize a professional school are not acceptable.

Wildrock (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I would agree. Classifying what it does as "Therapy" would indeed by a personal opinion. Clearly it was intended to modify behaviour. If it wasn't, what was the purpose?sinneed (talk) 18:42, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Behavior modification has a specific meaning that goes beyond the dictionary definitions of "changing behavior." To identify this school as a "behavior modification facility" requires original research, because no reliable source has classified it in that manner. (A similar issue exists for many other articles that Covergaard has attempted to categorize in this manner.) Similarly, "therapeutic boarding school" has a specific meaning in relation to a the classification of schools -- and there are reliable third-party sources that identify this and other schools as TBSs. --Orlady (talk) 19:25, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, thus the wikilink. I am confident that if an editor feels that "therapy" belongs there, the editor can find one of those reliable third-party sources and cite it. My thinking was and remains that since there is nothing in the body to support that what the school did was therapy, it should not be in the lead-in, since clearly there is dispute about whether it was therapy or abuse. I'll be happy to take out the BM wording. But the therapy wording would need a source, IMO, and that should be in the body.sinneed (talk) 19:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I won't leave the unsourced statement long. This is an old dispute.sinneed (talk) 19:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The term therapeutic boarding school is an "industry" term for institutions that attempt to address educational needs and behavioral issues of children and adolescents in a residential setting. The word "therapeutic" refers to the purpose, and is not an indication of the quality of the results. This is not POV; clearly I need to find the time to write an article about the topic. --Orlady (talk) 20:55, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

"therapeutic" - "an article about the topic" - Perhaps. Or perhaps just let it go at boarding school in the lead-in sentence, and let the rest of the article say whatever it says. Or, any of many other options. Even as an industry term, unless some RS out there says this is one... it isn't, as far as Wikipedia knows. And yes I know you know that far better than I, you have YEARS and THOUSANDS of edits more experience than I.sinneed (talk) 21:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I put a note on the talk page at Family Foundation School pointing to your new article. I don't know if it will help there, but one can always hope. :)sinneed (talk) 05:56, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I remain dubious... the "Therapeutic" vs "Behaviour Modification" thing seems to me to be a bit specious *by the industry, not the editor*... but that could just be lack of knowledge coupled with natural skepticism. I defer to the more knowledgeable. No matter what, the new article is a good reference and this article is STAGGERINGLY better now.sinneed (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It is not only a personal opinion. The GAO hearing was not for fun. It was for held to uncover child abuse and this particular "school" as some choose to call it became attention for this hearing and provided a foundation for the H.R. 5876

A more european description can be found here. It does not look like the advertice published here, but of course all the countries in Europe have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, so children are regarded as humans overthere.

What is this page going to present? An American point of view or the rest of the world point of view?

Covergaard (talk) 21:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The european description of MMS you are linking to is inaccurate. Thus your categorization of MMS as a behavioral modification facility is incorrect.

Wildrock (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

You have not answered why this "school" was chosen among properly hundred of similar places where abuse has taken place at the GAO hearings.

Covergaard (talk) 04:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

GAO did not find any evidence of abuse at MMS, per their reports. MMS's inclusion in GAO report does not validate or verify any allegations of abuse. Testimony provided by Whitehead generally has been challenged as incorrect in the MMS letter to Cong. Miller that I posted in the References. Individuals working at MMS at the time of Whitehead's claims indicate that her Congressional testimony may be perjury. In any case it is defamatory to MMS, is not factual, and I will raise the issue as a Wiki dispute if this entry is reverted back.

Wildrock (talk) 05:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

MMS article has been edited to a NPOV, and is factual. I will remove the disputes soon in the absence of evidence to the contrary of either facts or neutrality of article.

Wildrock (talk) 21:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

This is not the case. MMS is one of the major reasons for H.R. 6358: Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008

At no point did the facility allow the detained girls to make unmonitored and free access to communication by phone to both extended family and their social network outside the facility. That is a human right, which we - outside United States - only see violated in non-democratic countries. The congress noticed that and introduced the bill to correct it.

Each child at such a program shall have reasonable access to a telephone, and be informed of their right to such access, for making and receiving phone calls with as much privacy as possible, and shall have access to the appropriate State or local child abuse reporting hotline number, and the national hotline number referred to in subsection

It is not perfect but it is a step on the until United States ratifies the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

I can see that there has been a great effort to convert the article into an advertisement but that doesn't mean that the article is not disputed. It still is.

Covergaard (talk) 06:49, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

As for staff claiming Whitehead statement to be prejury, it must be expected. People have to remember who are paying their salery. What kind of employee would want to be out of his or her job? Whitehead statements is backed by other survivors about scars from the stay lasting for years Kerry Keenan's statement, Aileen Chu's statement.

Covergaard (talk) 07:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

If we're going to include the letter from MMS to Congress refuting the claims made by Ms. Whitehead, then the original testimony is legitimate as a basis for this claim. Otherwise, there is no use for the reference to the letter MMS sent to Congressman Miller. As has been noted, Ms. Whitehead's testimony is only one of many such testimonies, yet was the one that got public recognition. If MMS feels so strongly that the statement was perjury, then it is up to them to go through legal channels to refute it. If they are not doing so, then their claim of perjury amounts to nothing more than heresay, and therefore is just as unverified as they claim the original testimony may be.DJJONE5NY (talk) 12:57, 19 July 2008 (UTC)djjone5ny

"Testimonies" from former students

Two wiki pages have been posted in the article under the guise of "testimony." It turns out that Kerry Keenan's "testimony" and Aileen Chu's "testimony" are no more than wiki pages on a wiki site maintained by The Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth. It has been alleged that these are appropriate external links according to WP:ELYES #4, which says "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews." However, the combination of relevance and nonsuitability for inclusion in an article does not "trump" items 10, 11, and 12 of "Links normally to be avoided." Specifically, links to be avoided include: "social networking sites (such as MySpace), chat or discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups), USENET newsgroups or e-mail lists," "blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority, and "open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors." Accordingly, these links do not belong in the article. --Orlady (talk) 19:03, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

• I see that my removal of these links was reverted faster than I could type the above post. The reverting editor has also invited me to discuss the reversion here and has placed a "totally disputed" template on the article. I think that the removal of those links was an extremely straightforward application of WP:ELNO, but I will not re-revert right away in order to give others time to discuss the links and the reasons why this article is considered to be "totally disputed." --Orlady (talk) 19:10, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't place the tag, I simply consolidated the existing tags into one (POV + Disputed = TotallyDisputed). These external links are reviews/testimonials of the facility from actual inmates. There's no social networking going on there, because the testimonials were only edited a few times by the same person. It also isn't a blog or a personal webpage like myspace, plus the "wiki" is stable, as it's made up of testimonials. I believe the links meet WP:ELYES #4 and do not violate WP:ELNO #s 10-12. Therefore, I see no reason why they should be removed. --Pwnage8 (talk) 20:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I guess I read too much into your edit of the templates. Editing the templates in that manner implied to me that you reviewed the templates and determined that they were meaningful.
Regarding the ELs, I think perhaps you are reading too much into the individual words of WP:EL and missing the main point of the entire guideline. The nutshell description of the guideline says that external links "should be kept to a minimum of those that are meritable, accessible and appropriate to the article." A corollary is that Wikipedia does not provide links to sites that are not "meritable", and that site is lacking in most of the attributes that indicate merit. If anything, that Wiki website is less reliable than many blogs, forums, and myspace pages. Anybody in the world can post a "testimony" on that website (see the the Submit Your Testimony page); there is no verification of who they really are or whether there is any validity to their stories; and although the site is probably moderated, not even that it is clear. The fact that only one anonymous IP user has ever contributed to each of those wikipages is hardly an indication of the kind of "substantial history of stability" referred to in the guideline.
Now that it is clear that your reverts were based on a misunderstanding of WP:EL, possibly due to reading only parts of the guideline, I am going to revert this again. Also, I will suggest a revision of WP:EL to minimize the potential for misunderstanding. --Orlady (talk) 20:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Orlady. The links are too unreliable to contribute to the article. --EnOreg (talk) 04:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

...and I am going to re-add them. I think that the main problem is calling them "Testimonies". They are neither more nor less reliable than the school's own site would be.sinneed (talk) 17:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think these links are appropriate for use per Wikipedia:ELNO#Links_normally_to_be_avoided, specifically #2 and #12 . The official website. http://www.missionmountain.com/ cannot be readily edited by anyone. Unlike the official website, the two links in question are easily edited wiki pages; their authenticity cannot be verified to a reliable source. Even when used as a source, I only use official websites as a last resort for clear statements of fact, not for evaluations or critiques. Information of that nature should only be added if clearly published by a secondary source, and only if the coverage has clearly been notable (e.g. New York Times coverage) --Jh12 (talk) 17:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The official website can be edited by anyone on the school staff with the authority to do so. Should we silence the students and ex-students because they don't have "official student-and-ex-students of whatever school" sites? This is one of the many reasons I think these school articles are a Bad Thing. They are normally very weakly sourced (the school's site is going to be FIRMLY biased... it certainly couldn't contain information that might be used in an action against the school, for example), and they are trouble magnets. I agree that the information in these articles should only come from, say, the NYT. And thus the articles should be generally empty... but I lose that argument. Current consensus is that they stay. I accept that.sinneed (talk) 18:01, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Further, remember these are "normally" to be avoided. I won't readd them, but I think that if the article ever belonged at all, the nay-sayers should have been heard.sinneed (talk) 18:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Controversy section

The reason these are PoVish can be seen by considering what the article would look like if the situation were reversed. If the article started off "MMS is a place where kids are made to work at menial and demanding labor outdoors for hours on end". Then the body of the article would expound on that. Then in a controversy section, anything the school wanted to say would be allowed. This would obviously not be acceptable. Neither is the reverse.sinneed (talk) 18:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The lead section of the article should be trimmed to truly function as a lead section. Program details and controversies do not belong in the lead of such a short article. The sentence about controversy sticks out like a sore thumb in the lead section about a defunct school, when the details of criticism are not in the Controversies section. IMO, it is even more out of place in the lead than the rest of it. --Orlady (talk) 18:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

There should BE no controversies section. It should be in the body... which doesdid not exist.sinneed (talk)

Through the long history of edit wars over this article (between persons affiliated with the school and persons ardently opposed to youth residential behavior modification), it has become more of a collection of external links than an article. For example, there is a sentence that says it has been controversial, but a person needs to click on the reference links to find out the substance of the controversies. The article should tell about the controversies, not merely link to them. Similarly, there is no context for the discussion of the state oversight issue, merely quotations and links to external documents. I'm not even sure the material about state oversight belongs in this article. --Orlady (talk) 21:01, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Good points. I found this through following some of the edit warriors' histories from Family Foundation School, where the war is ongoing (quiet at the moment as one warrior is on edit vacation after continuing the war after a shorter vacation). These individual high-school articles are problematic. I wish I had a way to quantify the percentage of vandalistic edits I kill in HS articles. This one is unusual in my experience because, short as it is, it has WAY more sourcing than most. Part of the reason I went to work on this one was that it didn't seem to be under attack at the moment, and it was clearly wounded in the wars.sinneed (talk) 21:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Testimony link

I agree the new link seems more likely, but the link was added here [[1]]. My concern would be that it is wp:OR that this is what was submitted... unless you personally made the submission. (edit to add that that is STILL OR but... there it is on the web site)sinneed (talk) 20:20, 4 January 2009 (UTC) sinneed (talk) 20:27, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

It looks like he/she simply clicked the wrong link, but... it stood a very long time. Are you sure you can make the statement that the new link was what was submitted?sinneed (talk) 20:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I am going to fact-flag it.sinneed (talk) 20:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

As noted above, this article has been more of a collection of external links than an article. Moreover, many of the links were broken. Rather than fact-tagging my attempt to replace the obviously incorrect link with a link to the material that was described in the reference, you might want to try writing a factual discussion of the state oversight issue and this school's role in it. --Orlady (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

• Hmmm. I will ask you to take a step back. I had done all I thought needful in making a note in the body of the article, in re this link. I understand that you did not find it valuable (you killed it), and I agree it is more *likely* that the link you added is the "right" one.
  Yes, the article is the point. No, adding a link that you or I or any other editor *think* *might* be the testimony given to the legislature is not a good step towards making the article better. (yes, PoV, thus, on the talk page).
  The fact-flag is an appeal for any editor who has the knowledge to find and provide an actual citation to do so, as you know. I am making that appeal. I am sorry that you seem to have taken it as a comment on your edits. It isn't... its purpose is only exactly what it says... that a citation is needed that there was testimony, and that the words in the article are part of that testimony.sinneed (talk) 21:12, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
• I made a stab at modifying the wording to match the factsource but it is still ORish. We see it on the site, but was it given, planned to be given, or just someone's thoughts? If someone objects I am sure they can change it to match the facts if this is wrong.sinneed (talk) 21:22, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

On review, I think my edit still needs a fact flag. Grrrr. Maybe, maybe not. I will try to see if I can find the legislature's copy, but, ick, digging through government web sites *shudder*.sinneed (talk) 21:23, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, testimony before a state legislative committee is extremely unlikely to be posted on the web by anyone other than the person who gave the testimony (outside of a couple of exceptionally Internet-saturated states). I believe that the person who posted the link simply copied the wrong URL link from the school's website (the two links are next to each other on a list on the school website). If the head of the school claims he provided this testimony, it seems to me that the article could link to it and quote it (indicating that it is his version of what he presented), if the testimony is determined to add encyclopedic value to the article. --Orlady (talk) 23:22, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Oversight dispute

Do we need this section at all? I see this as just the damaged hulks of weapons in the edit war. I think the single line about the practices and their effectiveness being disputed with the pro and con links is adequate.... giving it adequate weight and letting interested readers learn more.sinneed (talk) 21:45, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a hunch that this dispute over state oversight might have something to do with the closure of this school. However, in the absence of any indication that (1) the state discussion was aimed at this school or (2) had some particular impact on this school or (3) was influenced in some significant way by the involvement of this school's personnel, it's not apparent to me that it needs to be included in the article. This was what I tried (ineffectively) to allude to in some of my earlier comments. --Orlady (talk) 23:17, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The only link text in the section is the link for the testimony, so it should not affect any of the rest of the article to kill it, and I am going to delete it in a single edit, so it can be easily restored if and editor past or future decides zapping it was a Bad Idea. Easily undone if wanted. :) sinneed (talk) 05:50, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Done.

Neutrality and Factual Accuracy Flags - propose removal on 9 Jan 2009

I propose to remove these on, say, Friday 9 January 2008. This will give any of the previous editors who still care time to drop by and review the changes. While the article is still short, it is well-sourced and seems reasonbly balanced (no article is perfect, not even FA's). Any objections?sinneed (talk) 19:35, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

That was, clearly, 2009. Sorry. - sinneed (talk) 21:53, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Recent reversion and restore.

I have restored the text, as it appears to be more encyclopedic, better sourced, more balanced, and avoids the wp:controversy section.- sinneed (talk) 21:52, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

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