Talk:Murder of Anne Searle

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Inclusion of Bill Mountford quotes

What Bill Mountford has said about Ann Searle's murder is not relevant to the article. He is not party to the incident in any way, and his thoughts about it are neither here nor there. The inclusion of the quotes, or selected bits of them, is intended to invoke negative sentiment towards him (and by extension, UKIP) and is firmly against Wikipedia's policy of neutrality. I could easily take the same sources, the same quotes, and write the following: Bill Mountford, a former UKIP leader, expressed his shock at the incident, saying "It is shocking... I'm not condoning it in any way... I was very, very sad." ... discospinster _talk 20:11, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your complaint that the quotes were "selected bits" was really poor excuse for deleting them. You could have included the full quotation if that was the problem. I assume your link to a defunct WikiProject was intended to link to neutral point of view, which requires including "all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". It does not mention leaving out the views of anyone "not party to the incident in any way".-- Fishiness Spotter ^{(Leave me a message)} 21:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Quoting Bill Mountford as saying "these things happen" was not selective because this was a highly controversial comment, attracting criticism from women's rights campaigners and featuring in at least one news headline. I didn't do the selecting here, the reliable sources did. -- Fishiness Spotter ^{(Leave me a message)} 22:59, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm copying what I said on my talk page to keep the conversation in one place. A key word in WP:NPOV is significant. I'm sure lots of people have said things about the murder, even reported by reliable sources, but we don't have to include every comment. He's not even otherwise notable beyond his awful comment. Maybe if the national leader had said it, it would be relevant. ... discospinster _talk 13:48, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You are taking positions on what counts as "significant" that are without foundation. I will deal with each of them.

First, you claim to be "sure lots of people have said things about the murder, even reported by reliable sources". Are you really? Other than the victim's family, the authorities, Bill Mountford and people responding to him, who else had views on the murder's unacceptableness that received anything approaching the level of prominence given to Bill Mountford's? If you are as sure as you claim to be, you will have no difficulty providing examples.

Next you went for "we don't have to include every comment". Actually, the NPOV explanation clearly confirms "the neutral point of view does not mean exclusion of certain points of view". Your original removal of Bill Mountford's views on stated grounds of neutrality ignored this principle. This sentence continues "...but including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight." Due weight is explained as meaning "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." Prominent is what "significant" in the context of NPOV actually means. The more prominent a view is in reliable sources, the more weight NPOV requires it to be given.

You even tried "He's not even otherwise notable". What? Where is this regulation requiring all included viewholders to be otherwise notable? There isn't any.

Then you finished with "Maybe if the national leader had said it, it would be relevant." (Hang on, only "maybe"?) Relevant according to who? You appear to be misunderstanding the role of Wikipedia authors regarding conflicting POVs. Journalists and news editors make the kinds of judgements you are attempting to make. However, we don't. Our job is to reflect those judgements of which views are "relevant" by giving due weight to each based on its prominence in reliable sources.-- Fishiness Spotter ^{(Leave me a message)} 22:07, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]