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Cannot be superseded

There is a discussion at WT:Consensus#"The principles upon which this policy is based cannot be superseded by ...by editors' consensus." which prompted a recent change to the wording of the lead in this policy. The new wording is not quite right: "is historic" can convey the idea that, like an old dog, the policy is kept for sentimental reasons and not because it has teeth ("it's just historic—ignore it"). I think changing the lead from "cannot be superseded" to something which is easily interpreted as much weaker needs discussion here, so have reverted. What is the actual problem? Is "cannot be superseded" creating alarm that there is a corner of Wikipedia which cannot change? Johnuniq (talk) 01:38, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi John. I see that interpretation of “historic” and agree with you. I meant “historic” as in “has always been, is, and probably will forever be”.
The problem with “The principles upon which this policy is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus.” is that it reads clumsily. There is a difference between policies and principles, and policies don’t supercede principles. And what is “editors’ consensus”? It is “consensus among non-admins”. I guess that it is a reference to local consensus.
Can I suggest instead: “The principle upon which this policy is strongly held and based on a firm and wide consensus.”
There is also a bit of redundancy of intent with the last paragraph of the preceding sentence. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
That's better, but let's leave it for a while and see if anyone else has a comment. My view is that there will always be a problem that can be found in the wording of fundamental policies, and the benefit of improving the wording has to balanced against the problems caused by changes to key wording a few times a year (confusion from those used to policies, and suggests a weakness in the underlying concepts). I'm not sure what the "consensus" bit refers to (local consensus?), but "non-admins" does not come into it. Johnuniq (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sold on there really being a problem with the present version, and I see some value in stating firmly that NPOV isn't negotiable. For clarity's sake, I'd support changing "editors' consensus" to "local consensus". --Tryptofish (talk) 01:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
There is also a big difference between saying that the principles of the policy can't be superceded vs. saying that the policy can't be superceded. The latter would be a claim that even the most badly written obscure phrase of the policy trumps all other policies and resolution mechanisms. North8000 (talk) 03:55, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I suggest
"This policy cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' local consensus."
By replacing "principles" with "policy" as whole we explain that, e.g. "Avoid presenting uncontested assertions as mere opinion. " is non-negotiable. By writing "local consensus" we explain that, although the policy is non-negotiable and its requirements cannot be overruled by users' consensus outside this page, this page itself can be modified if consensus will be achieved about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:13, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Treatment of fringe theories

I am concerned that how fringe theories should be treated is very open to what I think is misrepresentation. I have been involved in some heated discussions where people seem to think that if there is not a balance of stuff in an article about fringe views stating the mainstream view then they should be deleted. On the Fringe theories noticeboard they are discussing a new Fringe theories template which was placed on an article as well as the POV template which I felt implied that they thought Fringe was against Wikipedia policies as well as point of view rather than because of POV statement of the fringe.

This policy states 'Any inclusion of pseudoscientific views should be proportionate with the scientific view'. This supports deleting all fringe articles or making every other sentence a support sentence for the mainstream view. I don't believe this is really what is desired.

The WP:FRINGE nutshell says 'Fringe theory in a nutshell: To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea. More extensive treatment should be reserved for an article about the idea, which must meet the test of notability.' This is tending to bend too far the other way I think in that we should still point out that fringe or pseudoscience is such.

So could we have a bit of a cleanup please? I would favour something more like 'Any inclusion of pseudoscientific views should be proportionate to its weight in the topic of the article'. Together with the following 'Likewise, the pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such. An explanation of how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories should be prominently included' I think this should cover the various bases and allow fringe theories to be described without people trying to delete them because they occupy more than a tenth of an article in an article about themselves because that's their weight in the overall subject. Dmcq (talk) 11:01, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Deleting an article on a minority subject because the subject occupies more than a tenth? That's a joke right? An article on religion would have content on a minority view in proportion to its weight. By the same reasoning, an article of a minority religion (ie Judaism) would have to be decimated or removed because there are only 0.22% of adherents. Of course we refer to the mainstream views, and compare and contrast where there are suitable references, but an article on a minority subject is predominantly about that subject. --Iantresman (talk) 11:56, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
If the new template is created, it would be bad practice to place it on an article alongside the POV template. It is a more specific clean-up template, i.e. it specifies that the particular POV problem is one of inappropriate weight to a fringe view. I don't know where the 'more than a tenth' comes from. Due weight to different views is rarely or never established by the proportion of text. I edit on fringe topics a lot and find that the existing guidelines are good enough, except in some cases where the borderline between mainstream science and fringe science is very difficult to establish. I have rarely encountered anyone saying "this is a fringe topic so it has to go", and if I did, I and other people on FTN would quickly refute it. Notability is our guideline in whether a fringe topic is worth covering. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:51, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Are we saying that an article that is considered fringe or pseudoscience, is not a contributing reason in itself to remove it? --Iantresman (talk) 12:56, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely. We have articles on many topics that are considered as utterly off the wall by the majority. We still look for reliable independent sources, which could be newspaper or magazine articles, for example. If a topic has received no independent coverage then it doesn't meet the notability guideline. These cases are usually unproblematic. There are more difficulties in applying fringe guidelines where there is a fuzzy boundary betwen mainstream and fringe ideas. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
My 2 cents, I believe the part of the policy, that people seem to confuse all too often, is the weight clause:
In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint, such views may receive more attention and space. However, these pages should still make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant and must not represent content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view. In addition, the majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader can understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding aspects of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained. How much detail is required depends on the subject. For instance, articles on historical views such as Flat Earth, with few or no modern proponents, may briefly state the modern position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail, neutrally presenting the history of a now-discredited belief. Other minority views may require much more extensive description of the majority view to avoid misleading the reader. Wikipedia:Fringe theories and the NPOV FAQs provide additional guidance.
When handling articles about fringe concepts, we should prominently describe the majority view, and make clear how the minority to fringe viewpoint(s) described in such an article differs from the mainstream. When that is out of the way, it is possible to describe and explain the views from "within" (ie. in universe).... without going to the extremes mentioned of debunking every sentence, or describing how these views are wrong. Many fringe concepts are notable and have an abundance of reliable sources describing them, and thus they are of encyclopedic value, but an article that uses every other sentence to debunk would be of little encyclopedic value. As long as the reader isn't in doubt that we're describing fringe, then there should be no problem. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 15:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Exactly right, Kim. Blueboar (talk) 18:25, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but that's exactly wrong, at least for the purposes of a general encyclopedia like Wikipedia. An article on a fringe topic should focus on the fringe topic itself, with proper but limited attention given to scientific viewpoints for perspective. trying to write an article primarily from the perspective of an opposing majority viewpoint is biased, even when the opposing majority viewpoint is scientific. We don't engage in debunking on project, no matter how much some editors would like us to.
I've had this argument a billion times, I know, but it bears repeating that many times. keeping fringe topics off of scientific articles is necessary and beneficial; trying to cram fringe articles full of scientific refutation is anti-encyclopedic. that distinction should not be neglected. --Ludwigs2 18:45, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
The correct approach is somewhere in between, and I was under the impression that that's also what Kim meant.
  • The fringe topic must be properly contextualised as such. There was once an Arbcom decision (not sure if it was vacated) which said that e.g. to contextualise an article about a 'medium' as fringe it's enough to say in the lead that the person is known as one. In the Flat Earth and Hollow Earth articles for similar reasons no such contextualisation is necessary. In an article about scientific racism or a worldwide conspiracy of Jews, however, it is absolutely necessary.
  • The fringe topic must not be isolated from the mainstream POV. E.g. in a Flat Earth article it's perfectly appropriate to mention that for a long time depictions of the Earth were typically flat, that it's not clear whether educated people in the Middle Ages, for example, actually believed that the Earth was flat (I think that's a misconception, but I forgot the details), and indicate who was the earliest to go on record as saying the Earth is a sphere. In an article about paranormal or esoteric things, for example, it may be necessary to point out that the term 'energy' is used in a non-standard sense that is essentially unrelated to that of physics.
  • On the other hand, a fringe article must not normally be overwhelmed with the mainstream POV, and the mainstream POV should not be mentioned at all where it is actually off-topic and not needed to prevent misunderstandings. E.g. an article about Christian Science should mention how mainstream society deals with people who would rather die than accept a blood transfusion, and it should mention the consequences which a Christian Science lifestyle has on people's health. And it should discuss the major features that distinguish Christian Science from mainstream Christianity. But all of this must be done unobtrusively. Hans Adler 19:08, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I too took what Kim said in this way as well. Our primary job as editors is to explain the topic of the article to the reader. In doing that, we need place the topic into context. When the topic is a theory (whether fringe or not), we need to briefly outline opposing views... and that means we should outline what the majority/mainstream view is, and explain how the fringe theory differs from it. However, the key word is "briefly"... once that is done, the focus of the article should be on the theory, and not on the mainstream view. And we should resist the temptation to use the article to either "prove" or "disprove" the theory. Blueboar (talk) 20:08, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, briefly described opposing views will place subjects in context. Except that I am aware of some articles on a minority view, where the mainstream view is more than 50% of the entire article. We don't do that with "minority" religious, we shouldn't do with other subjects.
I think that the section on Undue Weight, should be split into two sub-section (1) general articles (2) minority subject articles, and clarify how undue weight applies to each, because it is quite different. --Iantresman (talk) 20:44, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, if that's what Kim meant than I retract my comment and offer her my apologies. I so rarely see that kind of balanced perspective in practice on fringe articles that I no longer expect it. Really, on most fringe articles conversation is dominated by editors whose sole goal is vilification (unless an actual fringe advocate happens along, of course, but that's comparatively rare). Any idea how we can promote more of this good approach and disempower more mind-numbingly aggressive skepticism? --Ludwigs2 21:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Simple. The NPOV approach should be written into the guidelines on Undue Weight, so that it is unambiguous. --Iantresman (talk) 21:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I believe that it is already there, its the paragraph that i quoted (2nd para in due weight). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 03:17, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
  • When I see a fringe topic that is mostly debunking, I call that a WP:COATRACK. NPOV means we treat topics with respect, no matter how abhorrent, silly, or downright insane we find them. If there's an article on the mainstream approach to something, a fringe article should mention the mainstream and link to it, but not regurgitate a whole bunch of content from the mainstream article into the fringe article. NPOV should be applied within each article, and across multiple articles: we don't really want all the fringe nonsense in the mainstream articles, do we? That would be appropriately reciprocal, though, if the fringe articles were clobbered with debunking, then the fringe topic should be given appropriate weight in the mainstream article. Jclemens (talk) 02:49, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
    Indeed. "Appropriate weight". The problem is that "appropriate" means very different things to different people. For instance, as far as I'm concerned, the "appropriate" weight of astrology coverage in, say, Mars is exactly zero (which, thankfully, appears to be the case at this time); and the "appropriate" weight of science in astrology should be exactly enough that no rational reader will be left with the mistaken impression that what little assemblage of that faux-science that isn't delusional is anything other than simple down to earth fraud.

    That's not "scepticism", that's very basic rational thought of the kind you'd expect an encyclopedia (you know, a compendium of knowledge) should display. That's what "due weight" means: explain the popular beliefs (modern and historical; give context), don't present them as what they are not.

    Funny enough, I expect very many people will dispute this meaning of "appropriate". — Coren (talk) 04:23, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

    Jclemens, I agree with you, but I always feel like a minority whenever I actually try to work on a fringe article. There always seems to be some editor willing to invest a lot of time quoting policy in nonsensical ways while adding debunking material, backed up by three or four editors who don't ever use the talk page but revert all efforts at achieving balance. durned pages turn into the intellectual equivalent of Whac-A-Mole (yeesh, wikipedia really does have an article on everything!), i.e., both aggravating and boring (which I think is the intention).
Coren, I agree with you too up to the point where you start engaging in 'impression management', then I disagree most heartily. That is sliding way down the slippery slope that separates the high-ground of education from the swamp of indoctrination. If you don't let people make up their own minds about things, they never learn; they just trade whatever irrational belief they had previously for an irrational belief in what you want to tell them. The entire rasion d'être of science is to shift the basis of belief away from authoritative claims onto observation and reason, so you're not doing science any favors by trying to force people into the 'correct' beliefs. --Ludwigs2 04:47, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
That may be nice in principle, but you're forgetting one very lopsided part of the equation: scientific and rational coverage is bound by the truth (or, at least, as good an approximation as we can make it), woo-woo isn't. Nobody would even think of writing an article about luminiferous aether as anything but an historical concern, for instance: the hypothesis has long been disproven by careful experimentation and does not correctly model reality. "Oh hey, we thought that X, turns out we were wrong!" is the driving force behind science.

Fake science and superstition, however, does not self-correct. No matter how clearly false some assertion is, you'll still find it claimed by woo-woo literature – even when that falsified claim is the entire basis of the cult (yes, "water memory", I'm looking at you). Neutrality isn't allowing those known false assertions as fact; it's writing in a way that does not pretend things aren't what they are. If you say "Xoxology is the study of the intelligent grubmets that manufacture human hair from strawberry jam", you aren't "letting people make up their own mind", you are begging the question and presenting it to them as a fact. Unless you qualify that statement with the fact that no grumbets have ever been observed, and that human hair is known to not be constructed from any sort of fruit (the things we do know), then you are trying to force people into beliefs. — Coren (talk) 05:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

You confuse material reality with the truth: the first is ontic, and something we only have tangential access to, while the second is a social construct relating to intellectual authority. You say that no one "would even think of writing an article about luminiferous aether as anything but an historical concern", but in fact many editors approach fringe articles not as historical concerns (which would be fine) but as challenges to the intellectual authority of science that must be suppressed (which is not fine). As I have said repeatedly in the past, science does not need - or want - bully-boys to enforce its dictates. That's not how science progresses.
WooWoo exists, yes. However, even WooWoo has intellectual value as part of the domain of human knowledge. I don't have a problem with WooWoo being described as WooWoo so long as its described accurately and well. I do have a problem with editors who become so fixated on making sure that said WooWoo will not be believed by anyone that they start to interfere with the task of describing the WooWoo. That's not informative, it's belligerent. Again (and again) we are not here as the militant wing of the scientific viewpoint. I don't know how to make that point clearer. --Ludwigs2 05:40, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps I would understand your concerns better if you illustrated them with examples; I'd certainly agree that writing so adversarial as to interfere with, as you say, "the task of describing WooWoo" would be problematic – but speaking in generalities like this makes it hard to see where, exactly, you feel the line must be drawn. — Coren (talk) 05:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Where would you like to start? just on a mental first-come-first-serve basis...
  • At the sublime end we have editors like WIll Beback (whom I generally consider to be intelligent and dedicated) arguing that a sourced statement of the form "Although X has been ridiculed, the sheer weight of data [in its favor] is compelling" should be used solely to say that X has been ridiculed (which is obviously not true to the quote or the author's intentions). That one is (apparently) resolved, but only after days of quibbling and a trip to the NPOV noticeboard. (honestly, from some of the things WIll said I think he just doesn't like the source and was looking for any conceivable way to get rid of it, but you'd have to ask him).
  • On the more ridiculous side we have the persistent insistence on most (if not all) AltMed articles that all sourcing must be MEDRS-compliant (basically, I think, to ensure that all non-critiquing sources are excluded). The extent of this varies according to who the dominant players on the page are - see chiropractic for a case study of a page even I avoid getting myself tangled in.
  • At the truly ridiculous end we have what happened at Ghost a few months back, where an attempt to remove a badly misused quote (a 'list of pseudoscientific topics' that was extracted from a footnote to an NSF 'indicators' section on public science education, and somehow elevated to a definitive claim by the NSF that ghosts were pseudoscientific) turned into what felt like a running gun-battle across several noticeboards, policy pages, and at least three simultaneous and conflicting RfCs. Not to speak kindly of the concept of ghosts, mind you, but most of the material about ghosts is purely mythological (not even remotely scientific enough to rise to the pseudoscience label); and pulling a quote out of a footnote to present it as though it were the authors' main thesis? really?
I have more of these stories, and can give more details on these if you like. What it usually comes down to is that I'll start trying to edit a page to shave off some of the worst of the debunking and give a clearer description of the topic itself, and find myself treated like I'm some irrational IP advocate (if I had a quarter for every time someone tried to imply I was an aggressive fanatic, I'd have enough money to buy the frigging project). --Ludwigs2 08:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
See, this is a problem. Coren, if you're going to ask questions like this, then I expect you to engage the response, otherwise we will never make any progress. I would prefer to find some common understanding we can reference so that we don't continually butt heads over this same issue, as we've done several time already. --Ludwigs2 14:24, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Above it is claimed "NPOV means we treat topics with respect, no matter how abhorrent, silly, or downright insane we find them.", equating "respect" with allowing the fringe view to be the dominant voice of the article. We aren't here to respect or give voice to fringe beliefs. What *we* as Wikipedia editors think is irrelevant. What's important is what the preponderance of the reliable, respected sources say. If those sources find the topic abhorrent, silly or downright insane then the article needs to say so, in objective language. While an article about a fringe belief or theory can certainly lay out the beliefs or features of the theory without having to continually say that they are wrong, whenever there is information given that could reasonably be mistaken for facts instead of merely the beliefs of a fringe theory, we owe it to our readers to either directly point those out in that article or to use clear language so a reader can always tell the difference between fringe belief and fact. Otherwise it ends up becoming the mouthpiece of those holding the belief and has the end result of endorsing and promoting their views -- which is the exact opposite of what WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE are for. We simply can't have a good encyclopedic article on a fringe topic without pointing out why the experts say those beliefs are wrong. DreamGuy (talk) 06:15, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
  • DreamGuy, I really get tired of this hyperbolic black-and-white stuff. You are trying to make the case that fringe concepts must be beaten down, because if they are not beaten down they are automatically advocacy. It's an odd position to hold, one without any clear rationalization or tangible evidence. Are you honestly trying to tell us that you see absolutely no middle ground here?
Indeed, editors should not draw their own conclusions. It is not the job of editors to decide whether a minority view is fringe and deserves to be criticized, any more than editors should give the impression the minority view is correct. Yes, we may attribute support to individuals, just as we include criticisms of the minority view where they have been published. Treating an article with respect means that we enforce NPOV. We describe the minority view (which is not the same as soapboxing), we refer to the mainstream view, and include criticism where supported by reliable sources. --Iantresman (talk) 10:42, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Well I would certainly want to check the best sources indicated a topic is pseudoscience or fringe before describing it as such in an article. However once that is established the policy is pretty definite that the topic should be clearly described as such and what the mainstream is. Dmcq (talk) 23:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Having done cleanup on a number of low traffic fringe articles I find abstract discussion of these policies to be helpful, but what would be more helpful are a few specific examples. Are there any existing fringe articles that a majority of editors agree are textbook examples of how to correctly cover a fringe topic (or cover the fringe view within a mainstream topic)? - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I've always found plain English to be the weapon of choice when dealing with this stuff. For a short article that I had successfully saved from deletion, I'd point to rasa shastra, a sort of Ayurvedic medical alchemy that involves ingesting heavy metals. We look for concrete details in the literature of the method itself, but restate them in the plainest possible English rather than the self-chosen words of the advocates, and we do that the same way with the "sceptics". In this way, we let the reader decide whether eating mercury cooked in cow shit will be medically helpful or otherwise.
That said, I'd cheerfully agree that there's a note of evangelical hostility in some of the comments. The first purpose of an article on astrology should be to explain what it is that astrologers believe and do, not to warn away people from belief in it. And, after all, "scientific scepticism" and anti-supernaturalism of the CSICOP variety is itself a fringe position, and often related to the ultimate fringe position. Its prominence here is due at least in part to community demographics. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 21:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
You only have to check certain categories to see that there are zero references supporting various fringe and pseudoscience tag, eg. (a) Category:Fringe physics (b) Category:Fringe science (c) Category:Fringe theories (d) Category:Pseudoscience. I am yet to find ANY scientific peer-reviewed paper that categorises a subject as "fringe", and more than one person has noted that the label "pseudoscience has no scientific meaning" --Iantresman (talk) 14:27, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: Fringe theories pertain to more than just what is commonly understood by pseudoscience - within topics of philosophy and history there is also ample evidence of "fringe theories" - I would suggest that language changes encompass those as well. un☯mi 15:05, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
I think the problem is that we have social scientists describing what they mean by "fringe science" or "pseudoscience" with a couple of examples, and then editors interpretting and applying their understanding of the terms, when there is no supporting citations. So we now have the NPOV FAQ claiming that there is "Obvious pseudoscience", but curiously there are often no citations. I do not consider Wikipedia editors to be suitable and reliable sources, even if it is in good faith. So do I think we should label Time Cube as pseudoscience? Any good editor will tell you that what I think is worthless, and it is all about whether there is a good source. --Iantresman (talk) 15:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I've changed from "Any inclusion of pseudoscientific views should be proportionate with the scientific view" to "Any inclusion of pseudoscientific views should not give them undue weight", which covers that there may be an article about flat earth without having most of it devoyted to round earth. Dmcq (talk) 09:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I think that's a step in the right direction, but doesn't that suggest that an article on astrology or time cube (which may be considered pseudoscience), can/should be reduced in size, so that they don't fall foul of undue weight? I think this makes sense in general articles, but not in articles devotes to the subject. After all, minority subjects which are not pseudoscience, nor even fringe science, would surely fall under the same rules, I can't see any reason to treat minority subjects any differently to pseudoscientific subjects, except to identify each as such? --Iantresman (talk) 11:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes it is difficult. I don't know how to do it better. At least it points to a place in the policy that describes what to do properly so if there is an argument there's no excuse for not looking. Dmcq (talk) 12:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
The problem here (which is a long-standing problem on Wikipedia) is that editors fail to make distinctions between science articles (on which fringe views should have a negligible presence) and fringe-topic articles (which have significantly different weight priorities). Fringe articles are not science articles: at best they are 'history of science' articles, and more often they are merely 'cultural oddity' articles. Trying to apply the same weight standards for a science article and a fringe article is silly; you might as well say that articles on Legos need to conform to the same standards as articles on civil engineering projects.
What we really need to do is clarify the difference rather than hack around trying to find some overly-simplistic formulation. --Ludwigs2 15:13, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Question

Let's say that there is yet-uncovered controversy at an article, a controversy which met all of the criteria (weight, sourcing) for inclusion in the article. "Side A" puts in material about the controversy, selecting material and sources favorable to their assertion, and meeting all criteria except for the posited requirement discussed in the next sentences. An editor from "Side B" does not add "Side B" material, but instead completely deletes "Side A'" material, citing wp:npov as a justification, saying that the addition of "Side A" material (without Side B material) creates a violation of the balance required by wp:npov. In such a case, does wp:npov justify the deletion of "Side A" material for that reason? North8000 (talk) 12:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

someone from side A should add the side B material in such a way that no one can tell his personal POV. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:09, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, that would be a solution, but the question is whether wp:npov justifies the described deletion. North8000 (talk) 13:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
There are quite a few unknown nuances to your theoretical. For example, I would want to know if Side A material or Side B material falls under WP:REDFLAG. Also would want to know if Side A or B is actually a fringe view being promoted as a mere "controversy". Describing something as a "yet-uncovered" controversy also makes me wonder if there's more going on that meets the eye. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:03, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
There's a real article which prompted my question, but I was viewing my question as on a narrower topic, and so the answer would not be directly applicable to or used on the article which, like most situations, is never that simple. North8000 (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Generic questions like the one posed cannot be answered in any meaningful manner: it all depends on the topic and the nature of the edits. Also, interpretations of NPOV should be asked at WP:NPOVN. Johnuniq (talk) 02:15, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
I think that the question was pretty narrow and specific and not situation-dependent: When only one side of a controversy is covered, does wp:npov particularly empower removal of the covered side as a way to remedy the imbalance? But either way, thanks for all of your thoughts. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo once said, and I agree with him on this, that it's better to have no information than to have wrong information in an article. If the included information biases the article and leaves the reader with a wrong impression about the nature of the debate, then yes, it should be removed until a version is created that gives a balanced view of the debate. LK (talk) 05:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The article should have a NPOV tag stuck at the top of it with the reasons stated as above. It may be reasonable to remove part of the POV material which is pushing a side too hard but anything that would reasonably be there should be left. It is up to other editors to fix the article in accordance with the tag. We cannot judge something without evidence and removing the article without the evidence would be that. And if the evidence is got it can be added to the article. As that other tag says, for the opposite side {{citation needed}}. Dmcq (talk) 10:06, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Let's say that there is an article about a planned new bridge. There is a lot of coverage in reliable sources that some people are opposed to it because it will be ugly, but no mention of that controversy in the article. So an editor "A" puts in sourced coverage of that opposition, as such. Editor "B" immediately deletes the new material, saying that it violates wp:npov because the addition didn't cover the "the bridge isn't ugly" view point. Does wp:npov support that deletion on that basis? (And, as an aside, one could argue that editor "A"'s addition rectified an NPOV violated rather than creating a violation). North8000 (talk) 12:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC) North8000 (talk) 12:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it is wishful thinking to assume that the nature of a debate is universally agreed. That still does not stop us from describing, impartially, the various points of view of those in the debate. For example, there is no doubt, and it is an incontrovertible fact, that some people believe that the Moon is made of cheese.[1][2][3][4] And of course we can state the more usual view of planetary scientists.[5] I doubt there are any peer reviewed sources criticising a cheesy Moon, and I don't think we need to state the nature of the debate. Undue weight would stop us including a Moon made from cheese in the main article on the Moon, but I think there is more than enough good material to warrant an article devoted to a Moon made of cheese. --Iantresman (talk) 12:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't you know, there is already an article on "The Moon is made of green cheese" --Iantresman (talk) 12:59, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

That is a conflicting view about a matter of fact (what the moon is made of) In my example it was a matter of personal/opinion/interests/priorities/values. But in either event, the question is whether wp:npov supports deletion of the imbalancing material on the basis that it creates an imbalance. North8000 (talk) 13:45, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
If disproportionate amounts of detail and quotes sourced entirely to proponents are added (this is often the case in the UFO articles), then yes, I'd remove much of it according to WP:UNDUE. As I understand it, weight given to a subject should be roughly equivalent to the attention it's been given by 3rd party independent and reliable sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:01, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
(1) If I have a lot of material for an article on a "pseudoscientific" subject, it does not make sense that I should "hold back" because there is either insufficient material, or people have not gotten around to adding material, of a contrary view. Either the material is accurate and well-sourced, or it is not. It does not make sense that material is conditional on their being contrary views. (2) There is also no reason to pick on "pseudoscience" for this requirement. Does it apply to "fringe science"? How about minority views? What about articles on minority religious? Do we cut them down because we can't "balance" the article with comparisons with majority religions? --Iantresman (talk) 15:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Here's one example of an article about a religious belief; Our Lady of Soufanieh. It was found crammed with credulous detail primary-sourced to proponent sites and sources that were arguably SELFPUB, as seen here. The solution was to find reliable secondary sources that covered the topic (there were few) and edit the article accordingly. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:45, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
My example was simpler. Complete immediate deletion of viewpoint A on the basis that it created an imbalance because viewpoint "B" was not yet added. The remedy is for persons with viewpoint "B" should add their material, not delete viewpoint "A". Think of it, without this, any first addition of viewpoint A material can be immediately deleted unless the same editor adds viewpoint B material. North8000 (talk) 16:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Quite logical in theory, but in practice it can provoke a lot of strife on the Talk page if someone dumps a ton of material slanted toward a minority POV into an article and leaves it up to others to fill in the majority POV. Regarding your bridge example: if there is "a lot of coverage in reliable sources that some people are opposed to it because it will be ugly" I would be very surprised if those same reliable sources didn't also touch on the "it's not ugly" view. It would be wise for the editor adding material about the 'controversy' to add that material as well rather than leave it to others. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:37, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree with North8000. You don't delete viewpoint A because viewpoint B has not been added. Coverage of viewpoint A does not imply a bias towards viewpoint A (it's all about how it is worded). I am quite happy to have an entire article on a Flat Earth, with just a single mention to the mainstream article on the planet Earth. --Iantresman (talk) 17:24, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Are you happy to have an entire article called "Shape of the Earth", that only includes (well-cited) coverage of the flat earth viewpoint without a single mention of the mainstream view? That said, there should be reliable sources provided that View B is at least as notable as View A, before View A is trimmed back. LK (talk) 04:24, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
As I said, I'm happy to have the article well-cited (primary/secondary sources), and just one mention to the mainstream article. We only need to say once, that this minority view is a minority view, and that there is a mainstream view, to put it into context. Of course if there are other well-cited criticisms, we included those too. The articles on Flat Earth and The Moon is made of green cheese, seem to be fair examples. --Iantresman (talk) 09:20, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I think that as long as the wording is right, those are very factual articles on what those people are people are saying. Incidentally, I have been resisting making this be about the particular situation that prompted me to bring up this narrower question, but in every way it is very much like my "bridge" example above. The first modest addition of material covering the "it's ugly" controversy was immediately removed (citing wp:npov as a basis) on the grounds that the "it's not ugly" viewpoint was not yet covered. North8000 (talk) 11:24, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:BALANCE/Balance redirects

Is it normal practice to have redirects that only differ in the use of caps to redirect to different places? I'm not aware of any other cases: WP:BALANCE (all caps) redirects to the How to put up a straight pole by pushing it at an angle essay. WP:Balance (only first letter caps) redirects to the balance subsection of Neutral point of view. - RN1970 (talk) 05:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Pending a potential outcome, I have placed one of the standard Policy shortcut boxes on the page. If the final result is status quo, it should remain. If either the full-caps or non-caps redirect ends up being changed, one of the policy shortcuts should also be removed (depending on which is changed, either the policy shortcut I just placed in WP:POV or the one in the How to put up a straight pole... essay). RN1970 (talk) 06:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

UAF

section refactored to Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#UAF — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ludwigs2 (talk • contribs) 17:38, 12 December 2010‎ (UTC)

Minor typo to rectify

  Wifione Message

  • Someone could change "Verifiable public and scholarly critiques provides useful context for works of art" to Verifiable public and scholarly critiques *provide* useful context for works of art." Simple change of singular/plural number agreement.Brunsonish 00:35, 2 October 2011‎ (UTC)

Labelling groups of people, especially with negative or pejorative epithets

I've been thinking about the question of using labels (usually nouns but also adjectives, often phrases) to describe people (rather than organizations) and how this pertains to NPOV. I'm curious to hear if there are any existing policies or guidelines to deal with this. I read NPOV thoroughly and I don't see anything specifically about this. As examples of how this can be problematic, I've been looking at highly controversial articles like Zionism...to use examples from this article, this article currently uses phrases like "Zionists do X" or "Anti-Zionists do Y" or "Anti-semites do Z". I find this problematic from an NPOV perspective because there is no consensus among different sources about what exactly constitutes a "Zionist" or an "Anti-Zionist", and there is especially more controversy about what constitutes an "Anti-Semite". Anti-semite can be used as a pejorative, and in some circles, either Zionist or Anti-Zionist can be as well. It seems to me, that to retain NPOV, one would need to refrain from attaching these sorts of labels to people. As an example of an article that avoids this, look at Racism -- not a perfect article, but note that the article completely avoids any reference of the term "Racists". So my questions: (1) is this currently handled in some sub-page that I haven't seen yet? (2) if not, is this something people would be interested in talking about including in the policies or guidelines? Cazort (talk) 18:40, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Ambiguous words need to be defined when used. The meaning of highly charged ambiguous words such as Zionism, if they must be used, should be clearly delineated. User:Fred Bauder Talk 14:39, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I think this statement of yours is consistent with my understanding of the guidelines and policies. Is there an explicit place in the guidelines and policies where this sort of thing is mentioned? That's why I posted here, I'd like to see some references to the most relevant parts of the guidelines. Right now, I'm not seeing explicit mention of this sort of thing, which is why I wanted to raise discussion here of possibly including some explicit mention of it, if it's not already somewhere. Cazort (talk) 18:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I think one example which should be covered by an explicit guideline is this: Newbie adds unsourced material. Experienced editor reverts, with terse explanation that refers to WP:RS. Newbie puts it back in. Experienced editor reverts again, tells newbie that if he puts it back again it will be considered to be vandalism. The current consensus appears to be that this is a misuse of the word "vandalism" and that some other policy, guideline or essay should be cited. (I have seen WP:3RR used but I personally like Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle for this. And yes, I prefer the long form to the WP:BRD shortcut. It's more friendly.)
A good start would be to add a policy shortcut to Wikipedia:Vandalism#How not to respond to vandalism, but I would like to see a policy that clearly states that good-faith content disputes are not to be called vandalism. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of this, but I agree with your reasoning here. I definitely agree that it is not constructive to call something vandalism when it is a good faith, but perhaps naive mistake. I was thinking about negative labelling in articles, but I think the same issues apply in discussions. Cazort (talk) 14:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia

An article on the website of The Chronicle of Higher Education, "The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia" concerning the trial of the defendants in the Haymarket affair has drawn attention to proper application of Wikipedia:Undue weight which redirects to Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Due_and_undue_weight. While the motivation of the editors who contested with the scholar in question are not clear, it is obvious that the effect was exclusion of significant information from the article. User:Fred Bauder Talk 14:39, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a larger question of whether use of this, and other Wikipedia guidelines, in a crude way that does not adequately reflect their meaning and purpose discourages good faith editing by knowledgeable but inexperienced editors and what might be done to remedy the situation. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:02, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps "The 'Undue Weight' of Dogma on Wikipedia" might be a more appropriate title. The two are often, rather purposefully and shamefully, conflated. You can see another example being played out here. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
"an article should not state that 'genocide is an evil action'," from Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Explanation_of_the_neutral_point_of_view is very strange indeed. User:Fred Bauder Talk 17:28, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
In fact, it partake of the sort of nihilist legal theory that maintains virtuous acts can properly be criminalized; crimes are, by definition, evil. User:Fred Bauder Talk 17:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I see no indication from the description on chronicle.com that Wikipedia policies and guidelines did anything other than exactly what they are supposed to do; give proper weight to a minority / fringe view. That being said, I would really like to examine the actual edits we are talking about. If someone could post some diffs or at least a rough timeframe and description of which usernames were involved, that would be a big help. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll do that; however, keep in mind that the hagiography of the American left is itself a minority view. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, I read all of that. Here is my problem with the basic argument. He is saying that, in this particular case, most of the published sources are wrong and that he, an expert who has done years of research on the topic, is right. Then he says "here is the evidence" and expect Wikipedia to accept what he says as truth.

My problem is that there are people who have done years of research on evolution or the holocaust and concluded that most of the published sources are wrong and that they, experts who have done years of research on the topic, are right. Then they say "here is the evidence" and expect Wikipedia to accept what they say as truth.

Now if I had to guess, I would guess that the evidence that our Haymarket expert presents is probably convincing and that the evidence the Creationists and Holocaust Deniers present isn't, but that's no way to run an encyclopedia. I would say to all three of them, "convince the other experts, and when you have done that and your minority opinion becomes mainstream, come back with reliable secondary sources and Wikipedia will follow the sources." Instead he is asking us to evaluate his arguments and be convinced by them, which is exactly what the Holocaust Deniers and Creationists are asking.

In my opinion, the charges that this is somehow an embarrassment or that Wikipedia policies need to change are without merit. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

It is not just that he says the assertion that no evidence was presented which would support a conviction is false, he demonstrates it in peer reviewed journal articles and a book. Not only that, the entire transcript of the trial is archived in an accessible format on the web, http://www.chicagohs.org/hadc/ User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Are there any contemporary scholars who contest his work? I think not. User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:48, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
He himself freely admits that his is a minority view. From his chronicle.com article: "Scholars have been publishing the same ideas about the Haymarket case for more than a century. The last published bibliography of titles on the subject has 1,530 entries. 'Explain to me, then, how a 'minority' source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong 'majority' one?' "
There are two possibilities here. Either he can convince the other experts in his field that he is right, or he can't. If he can, then he should do so, the other experts will publish, and we can edit the article to reflect what the reliable sources now say - that the old info was wrong. If he cannot convince the other experts, then we must treat his theory as the fringe view that not being able to convince the other experts proved it to be.
"If Wikipedia had been available around the fourth century B.C., it would have reported the view that the Earth is flat as a fact and without qualification. And it would have reported the views of Eratosthenes (who correctly determined the earth's circumference in 240BC) either as controversial, or a fringe view. Similarly if available in Galileo's time, it would have reported the view that the sun goes round the earth as a fact, and Galileo's view would have been rejected as 'original research'. Of course, if there is a popularly held or notable view that the earth is flat, Wikipedia reports this view. But it does not report it as true. It reports only on what its adherents believe, the history of the view, and its notable or prominent adherents. Wikipedia is inherently a non-innovative reference work: it stifles creativity and free-thought. Which is A Good Thing." --WP:FLAT --Guy Macon (talk) 01:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
He did convince the other experts. There isn't any recent research with contests or refutes his published peer-reviewed research. User:Fred Bauder Talk 01:47, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
So he backed up his desired changes with citations to reliable sources and ... what? Suddenly for some unknown reason the other editors stopped following the rules? And then for some unknown reason he wrote an article talking about his view being a "minority" despite knowing that it was a majority view? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
He is an inexperience editor and did not understand our our policies appropriately applied would have permitted addition of his work; that it is his work exposes him to conflict of interest, even self-promotional issues. He was wise to back off, and also wise to take the matter to a forum where he was respected. He did not understand what minority view means in the context of Wikipedia editing. Significant new research is not a minority point of view for our purposes unless it is contested or rejected by the relevant academic discipline; his was not; it is published in the leading journals. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Users who contested his edits were not familiar with the field and do not seem to have understood the significance of his work. By the way, his work is appreciated on the left as can be seen in the Progressive interview. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm just not seeing the issue, but it seems to me that some basic NPOV attribution and composition is rather easy here...unless a "dogma" aspect has a strong presence I'm not aware of. JakeInJoisey (talk) 00:59, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is a case a bullying a newbie; which is the second issue I raise, misuse of doggerel to intimidate and confuse. User:Fred Bauder Talk 01:47, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
I will admit that Wikipedia does have a problem with what I like to call the Bermuda Triangle syndrome--when experts simple parrot what others have said without doing any real research themselves. In some cases (such as with the Christ myth theory article) you can gather enough information to show that there are no WP:WEIGHT issues presenting so called "minority" views because there is no real agreement on what the subject even is.
I would also like to state that the Galileo example in WP:FLAT is actually wrong--as documented in the "Infinitely Reasonable" episode of James Burke's Day the Universe Changed one of the things that came out of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) was calendar reform using a system designed by a secretary to the Pope himself written in 1514. The name of that secretary was Niklas Koppernigk who we know as Copernicus. The uncomfortable reality was when Galileo looked into the sky in 1610 was the Church itself had been using a sun centered universe model for nearly 50 years! In short it wasn't a minority view!
I would like to point out it is not just newbies that get bullied. I've seen a lot of good long term editors leave Wikipedia due to what can politely called abuse of the system. There are editors that think nothing of sending templates to other editors when they do something they don't like. Personally I think the WP:HUSH rules need to be tightened to stop that kind of nonsense.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:17, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Regarding bullying, absolutely, and sometimes it doesn't stop with bullying or talk page templates, or even just on-wiki behaviour. If you are interested in reading about an extreme case, see the links at the top of my talk page. At some point I fully intend to write about my experiences.

There is also WP:CTDAPE. Despite its existence since September 2006, I somehow had always overlooked this section of Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. It wasn't until just recently that it gained shortcut links. [6] [7] --Tothwolf (talk) 05:10, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

See comments at the bottom of Talk:Haymarket affair#Signpost article. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I guess the general problem is that we should not answer polite requests with templates more than once. Maybe not even once without a bit of consideration. It is not that hard to differentiate a madman editing and a civilised expert editing a minority / new research view. If someone actually talks to those people who intend to answer then these conflicts could be handled much nicer. Yeah, too much work and too few minutes, so a template once could suffice, but if someone tries to communicate back we should follow suit and start discussion instead of kicking back. I do not want to quote don't bite and such, we all know them, I know, but still that's the main problem: there should be a guideline about striking with a template first (if unavoidable, I must say), getting an answer and not to reply that with another template instead of discussion. New published research is still published and peer-reviewed research, and the world changes, we must not delete it. If nothing else, open a "new research" section and let it grow as the facts get spread. --grin ✎ 08:17, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Using references to such emotional subjects as creationism, holocaust denial and heliocentrism can only serve to muddle the narrative. The Haymarket incident refers to a time-limited historical event about which factual material exists. Undue weight can be given to a majority view just as much as to a minority view, nor should there be an obligation to convince others before a minority view can be given its due weight. Mainstream views are not correct simply because hey have often been repeated in popular publications; many of these will often dumb down a subject for the sake of being readable by a broader public. Someone who has said that someone's testimony at a trial is not credible needs to say more than that bare statement. That statement draws a conclusion, and we need access to the origins of that statement for anyone who wants to question it. If an alternative view has some measure of plausibility for which there is prima facie evidence it must be given due weight. Prima facie evidence is still rebuttable, but it can shift the burden of proof. Eclecticology (talk) 12:03, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Re: "Using references to such emotional subjects as creationism, holocaust denial and heliocentrism can only serve to muddle the narrative", you appear to have missed my point entirely. My point is that MesserKruse's behavior (saying the a page is wrong, not providing citations to reliable sources, providing citations to a blog that we cannot access, claiming the blog is a reliable source) was absolutely indistinguishable from the behavior of a holocaust denier with a blog containing his years of research about Nazi gas chambers. It is easy to use 20:20 hindsight and conclude that, because we now know he is legit, that we should have somehow known then that his behaving identically to any number of fringe theorists was, in this case, misleading. Of course nobody complains when the true kooks (who show behavior identical to MesserKruse's behavior) get treated that way. My point is that we have an established method for separating kooks from scholars that works very well - asking for citations to reliable sources, explaining what reliable sources are, etc. Those who are asking that we use a different method in the case of those who turn out to be scholars don't quite grasp that this implies using that same method on the kooks, because the two are indistinguishable at the point where they are saying the page is wrong and asking everybody to refute their blog. Now that we know that MesserKruse is a scholar rather than a kook, he is being treated like a scholar. Before that, when we didn't know which he was, he could have instantly identified himself as being a non-kook by simply doing what we asked him to do; provide citations to reliable sources backing up his assertions. Those who propose that we treat everyone who acts exactly like a kook like a scholar just in case one of them turns out to actually be a scholar should demonstrate this on a few kooks and see how it goes, I suspect that this experience will bring them back to using our present method of distinguishing kooks from scholars - asking for citations to reliable sources. In general, the scholars can provide good citations and the kooks can't. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:13, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
The Holocaust is a straw man in this context. It was composed of a series of events in multiple places over an extended period of time. The haymnarket incident is about a single event on one day. That alone makes it more tractable. It is a serious assumption of bad faith to say to say that someone who shares some characteristics of a kook must be a kook, or that there is no possible placement in the wide gap between kook and scholar. As much as the kooks may draw the most attention they are still a minority. At first instance citing reliable sources appears to be a useful criterion, but we make a serious mistake when it excludes consideration of other criteria in either direction. What is reliable is open to debate. I don't object to taking someone's status as an expert into account, but again, not as a unique determining factor; like other factors it must be given due weight. We are not here to judge the person, but to evaluate their contributions, and wherever possible to encourage their development. Wikipedia gained its stature as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit; people have started to doubt that. Eclecticology (talk) 05:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
"Wikipedia gained its stature as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit; people have started to doubt that." That would certainly appear to be the case on the English Wikipedia anyway. Not all Wikipedias have become this way though. --Tothwolf (talk) 07:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Re: "At first instance citing reliable sources appears to be a useful criterion, but we make a serious mistake when it excludes consideration of other criteria" I would be most interested in finding out (with diffs if possible) what these "other criteria" were at the time we are discussing. I have looked very carefully and as far as I can tell the only thing the editors had to work with at the time is this: Someone shows up and says that a page is wrong. When asked for citations, cites a blog that we cannot access, when asked again with an explanation of what a reliable source is, once again refuses to provide citations and questions the validity of WP:RS. Do you know of anything - anything at all - that the editors at that point of time had to work with other than this? I am open to having my mind changed, but I need some evidence that these "other criteria" actually existed at the time. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
The fallacy here is in presuming to explain reliable sources on the basis of WP:RS. Wikipedia does not have a monopoly on reliability. Eclecticology (talk) 11:01, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
It is true that Wikipedia does not have a monopoly on reliability, but your reply ignored the question I asked. I think it's a reasonable question; you say that we should have "considered other criteria". Is there a shred of evidence that these "other criteria" existed at the time? If not, how can we consider that which does not exist? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Expertise is one criterion that deserves due weight. I didn't use the past tense, "should have." Eclecticology (talk) 22:31, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

History recorded by historian versus history recorded by machine

Guy Macon, you asked for diffs related to the Chronicle article. They are surprisingly hard to find. See User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 147#History recorded by historian versus history recorded by machine for details and discussion. (This isn't a NPOV matter, really.) Uncle G (talk) 08:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I figured that if I asked for diffs someone who is less lazy has more time than me would post a nice list that we can all refer to. What I am seeing instead is a bunch of comments saying things like "we bit a newbie" without any diffs showing that we ever did that. I am catching a fair amount of flack for saying that our asking for citations to reliable sources was correct behavior and that MesserKruse's failure to provide citations to reliable sources when asked is the root cause of the problems he experienced, so I would be very interested in seeing diffs where we bit the newbie instead of politely but firmly asking for citations to reliable sources. Evidence that the newbie biting actually happened would cause me to rethink my conclusions. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:57, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Re: "This isn't a NPOV matter, really.", I would like to see someone who is less lazy has more time than me be bold and move all the discussions in the various places to one central page, with the moved discussions replaced by a link to that page. Right now discussion about this issue is badly fragmented. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
One day, everyone will look back on this and either wish we had done things differently, or thank God that we did. Arlen22 (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

We now have a list of diffs so we can see for ourselves what happened and when. It is here: User talk:Jimbo Wales#play-by-play account. I am going to go over it in detail and then report back here. It will be interesting to see if my characterization of what happened when (based upon my far less thorough dive into the page histories) was accurate. More later. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll look at it, of course, clarifying what happened in this incident is important. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Rather than write my full thoughts here, I did it on my talk page Moynihanian (talk)

Questions regarding Due and undue weight

Rational relationship to Wikipedia purpose and policy

Does Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Due and undue weight conform to our goal of providing a useful summary of reliable knowledge? Does it conform to our core policies, specifically Wikipedia:Neutral point of view? User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Is the policy expressed in an understandable and useful way

Is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Due and undue weight expressed in a way which is understandable and useful for all levels of users and readers who may consult it or attempt to apply it? Relevant to the instant controversy is whether it is subject to misinterpretation or misuse by administrators or incomprehensible to inexperienced editors or the general public. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Practical considerations

Is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Due and undue weight liable to misuse by editors acting either in good faith or improperly, for point of view or malicious purposes. User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

From my own experiences, yes, all of the above. For one lengthy example, see the archives and past discussions at Talk:Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients. A purge of verifiable information that readers wished to read about (based on the talk page comments they left and numerous attempts by random editors to add the information) had been initiated by the parties involved in the mess which is detailed at the top of my talk page. This purge was then continued by a couple of other editors who tried to claim "undue weight". Even though there are a lot of things there which need to be updated and corrected, I find it pointless to bother trying now. In the broader sense though, pretty much anything can be abused if someone is determined enough to find something to game. --Tothwolf (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
In practice, I think most citations of policy on WP are done for questionable reasons, at least when there is any disagreement. Moynihanian (talk) 02:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Haymarket

Is there anything to be learned from the Haymarket affair editing controversy? User:Fred Bauder Talk 12:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I think Messer-Krause and other scholars will be challenged by Wikipedia's undue weight policy that states "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article." One of the primary points of scholarship is to point out nuances, discover the yet undiscovered, and provide evidence to support unpopular ideas. How can we make Wikipedia inviting to those whose primary focus is the study (and proof of) minority ideas? Kmpolacek (talk) 20:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Hey, I think you're on to something. I did a double-take when I read that, jaw dropping. Let's read it again:

If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

This raises some fundamental philosophy questions.

  • What is a fact?
  • What is a viewpoint?
  • What is an opinion?
  • Can a viewpoint be proven true or false?
  • If a fact is false, then is it still a fact, or is it something else?
  • Are there things which can be proven, or is everything a matter of opinion?
  • If something can be proven, how is it proved?

Answers to these questions will help determine what 'universe' Wikipedians live in. —Wbm1058 (talk) 03:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

While interesting, I'm not sure those are the right questions to be asking. What I meant was, if Wikipedia is going to have a policy not to publish minority viewpoints, what is the point of encouraging scholars to participate? (You're right, understanding what viewpoint is might be helpful, but I really want to get at the big idea of WHAT specifically merits being included in Wikipedia.) Kmpolacek (talk) 16:18, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Notability policy covers WHAT specifically merits being included in Wikipedia. So scholars with notable research are welcome, while the gatekeepers guard against non-notable research. The gatekeepers get to decide what's notable or not. Majority opinions tend to be more notable. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Notability covers whether or not a topic will be covered. It does not cover the material within an article. Please read your own rules. Of all the policies that are misused on WP, the "notability" policy may well be right at the top of the list. That policy directly prohibits its use in determining the content of an article, but I have seen it used that way hundreds and hundreds of times. Moynihanian (talk) 02:48, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
The notability guideline "WP:N" and the "Write the article first" essay "WP:WTAF" are frequently cited by people bulk removing content from comparisons and lists related to computing topics (and most likely other topics as well). For a real-time view of this, see Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Software comparisons and Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Lists of software. Here is one example right off the top of Special:RecentChangesLinked: [8] This has become an extremely serious problem within WP:COMP because many new editors who are interested in computing topics make their first edits to such lists and comparison articles. --Tothwolf (talk) 03:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
The rule does allow for lists of only "notable" items. It's the only exception to what's otherwise a blanket prohibition on applying the rule to article content. This rule is so commonly misused on Wikipedia that, when I see it used to block article content, I wonder whether the person doing it is illiterate or operating overtly in bad faith, or both.Moynihanian (talk) 05:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
The optional "list-specific" exception is a more recent "evolution" of the notability guideline, which I believe came out of the fictional topics debates. I can't say I much care for it, but the main supporters are those who bulk remove content from lists and comparison articles. These same individuals also have a history of claiming that comparison articles are lists in order to justify removing material from comparison articles (using recent changes to Manual of Style pages as justification*) even though comparison articles can be defined as having clear comparative elements and much more content (including references and citations) compared to a simple list of wikilinks.

My main point however, is that this is a key problem area related to our more recent editor retention problems. In removing these contributions, we are sending a message to new editors that we don't want their contributions and that Wikipedia is no longer an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. New editors who discover that their contributions have been bulk removed predictably respond in a couple of ways. One, they lash out at whomever removed their contributions, and/or two, they become disgusted with Wikipedia and decide not to contribute anything else.

We only have a handful of editors (maybe a dozen or so) who have mainly been involved in the bulk removal of content from lists and comparison articles (some of these individuals only "contributions" to Wikipedia are these bulk content removals). It is only more recently that the damage this has done and is doing has become more visible as the editor retention numbers have surfaced.

Here are a few links for more background on the editor retention issue:

The editor retention issue is something I have been watching since the WP:NEWTREAT experiment from November 2009, and a quick glance over my bookmarks indicates that I have somewhere around 100 related links saved (and probably more that I never tagged).

*Examples of problematic MoS page changes include this addition (talk page link) which attempts to relabel a Manual of Style style guide page as a content guideline, which was done yet again after I first discovered and corrected this back in October 2010 [9] [10] (talk page notice) after a number of biased and highly confrontational editors were attempting to use the stand-alone lists MoS style guide page as justification for removing content from articles. --Tothwolf (talk) 18:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Rather than being drawn into a debate over the merits of Wikipedia:Notability, I wish to point out that I view it as part of a much larger problem here: too many policies, most of which are honored only in the breach, and used mainly in edit wars, which tend to be either personal spats or various forms of deterring input from the outside. On my talk page, I discuss why I think Wikipedia's problems cannot be addressed by piecemeal change; among other things, I contend that there are far too many policies here. Moynihanian (talk) 01:00, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to get into a debate over Notability, but rather point out that the removal of contributions made by new editors is related to our editor retention issue. So far this hasn't really been discussed anywhere.

I'm not sure that it's a matter of having too many policies, but rather that we have tons and tons of "guidelines", many of which are a massive tangled hairball. Unfortunately, many editors are willing to give some of these guidelines nearly the same weight as actual policies, and sometimes the same is even done with essays and other pages.

I guess the reason for some of this is that everyone is going to have a slightly different opinion, and when challenged, a large majority are going to try to find something to back up their opinion. Where this becomes a more serious problem is when someone tries to game the system and manipulate a guideline or policy to fit their current agenda. --Tothwolf (talk) 02:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Guidelines, policies -- same thing in practice. They are commonly used to exclude content and people at Wikipedia. "Gaming the system" is rampant, and has been for several years. Wikipedia has a steadily growing reputation as unfactual and hostile to improvement. The organization has been aware of the problem for a long time, and has not effectively addressed it. I'm not sure it wants to. Moynihanian (talk) 16:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
"Guidelines, policies -- same thing in practice." Well, they aren't supposed to be the same though. This is partly why the 5th pillar of Wikipedia:Five pillars is a policy called Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. While you'll get no argument from me that some of our policies and especially some of our guidelines have suffered from instruction creep, the underlying problem that you bring up is that there are people within the community who aren't here to improve Wikipedia, they are here to play games. I expressed some of my thoughts about this earlier this month. --Tothwolf (talk) 22:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
When I thought I'd edit material at Wikipedia, I familiarized myself with all of those policies, rules, and guidelines. It didn't take long to see that, as this place actually operates, as opposed to how it describes itself, none of its policies matter until it comes time for this or that claque to invoke one or more of them to justify excluding people, material, or both. When, at root, no one really believes in anything but political consensus, it's pretty easy to toss any rules over the side of the boat when they get in the way.
That's how Wikipedia actually works. Academics and others who are accustomed to debates and disagreements occurring within parameters that make fact and truth the goal, look at Wikipedia with a well-founded mixture of amusement, derision, and horror. Moynihanian (talk) 22:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, Wikipedia's policy on Undue Weight falls short because it does not differentiate sufficiently in its application to (a) general articles, and (b) articles devoted to subjects which might be considered "minority views".

Only general articles (eg. religion) require different points of view to presented roughly in proportion to their prominence/acceptance. But articles devoted to a minority POV (eg. Khoisan religion) do not, and may (a) make appropriate reference to the majority view (b) predominantly described the minority view (c) provide a criticism, where available (d) offer a comparison to the majority view, where avaialable. Since the last two options may not have reliable sources, then we may have an article that is 95% about the minority view. What makes the article conform to NPOV, is by ensuring that the facts are (a) attributed (b) we don't misrepresent them as the accepted truth.

I've had editors tell me that an article devoted to a "minority view" can not be expanded because doing so would contravene Undue Weight. They mistaken compare the size of an article devoted to a minority view, to the size of either a general article on the subject, or the size of an article devoted to the majority view. It seems to be only contentious subjects that are more usually subjected to this misnomer.

All Wikipedia policies are liable to misuse by editors. But bad editors will take advantage of poorly worded policies. --Iantresman (talk) 21:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the most common problem associated with policies is mis-use of them, and wordign which permists such mis-use.
The weakness with wp:due/wp:undue is that although it does give some general guidance, specific use of it is impossible. I have NEVER seen prevalence in sources actually determined. North8000 (talk) 21:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

NPOV RfC closure assistance

I am soliciting for the assistance of an uninvolved administrator(s) with some experience/interest in NPOV dispute resolution. The RfC, NPOV and "Smear", has gone beyond its 30 day expiration and has been listed, as well, at WP:AN Requests for closure assistance, thus far to no avail. Any uninvolved administrator assistance rendered in the resolution of this rather contentious debate would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your consideration. JakeInJoisey (talk) 15:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Religion clarification

In the section on religion, it says:

Several words that have very specific meanings in studies of religion have different meanings in less formal contexts, e.g. fundamentalism and mythology. Wikipedia articles about religious topics should take care to use these words only in their formal senses to avoid causing unnecessary offense or misleading the reader. Conversely, editors should not avoid using terminology that has been established by the majority of the current reliable and notable sources on a topic out of sympathy for a particular point of view, or concern that readers may confuse the formal and informal meanings. Details about particular terms can be found at words to avoid.

While this should be common sense, I think policy should require the use of such terms, in contexts where the subject is a sensitive one, or where there is a concern that readers may confuse the formal and informal meanings, to be clarified in situ. In other words, I suggest that this paragraph be modified like so:

Several words that have very specific meanings in studies of religion have different meanings in less formal contexts, e.g. fundamentalism and mythology. Wikipedia articles about religious topics should take care to use these words only in their formal senses to avoid causing unnecessary offense or misleading the reader. Conversely, editors should not avoid using terminology that has been established by the majority of the current reliable and notable sources on a topic out of sympathy for a particular point of view, or concern that readers may confuse the formal and informal meanings. Where such concerns exist, the text of the article should include a clarification of how the word is being used. Details about particular terms can be found at words to avoid.

I've bolded my addition for ease of reading, but it wouldn't be bolded in the actual edit. Comments are welcome. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 00:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The wording you wish allows for a minority to define what they have a "concern" with and thus bypass concensus. Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so. If a minority have "concerns" with some text but the concensus is that the clarification is not necessary then why should the concensus be overruled? You have suggested it is common sense but do not appear to offer up any other rational for why concensus should be overruled. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
So what's the matter if we err on the side of understandability? There's nothing in what I suggested that would prevent any word from being used. It absolutely allows, and given the rest of the paragraph, even requires that the word "myth" be used. It merely says that where there are grounds for concern, clarification should be made in the text. I don't understand the people who insist on getting rid of the word, and I don't understand the people who insist on refusing to clarify the word in context. Is clarity such a bad thing? I mean think about it. So long as the only two options are "include myth" or "don't include myth", the fighting is never going to stop. But the religious folks who object to myth will have nothing to say any more if the word is used with a clarification. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 01:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Since the whole basis for your comment here is the RFC you started [11] and the subsequent move discussion [12], I have left a comment to make other editors aware of your attempts to circumvent the discussion. If your grievance is genuine I'm a little surprised you didn't inform those on the talk page yourself. You aren't really helping yourself considering you first tried to insert it onto the policy page without discussion, even reverting another editors removal [13]. The correct venue for clarification seems to be the FAQ (where you also tried to edit war to insert your opinion on the use of the creation myth [14] [15] [16]). You are pushing the bounds of WP:AGF by jumping to different venues to get what you want. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Please address the issue itself. If the only reason you can think of not to make this edit is that it would adversely affect your position elsewhere, maybe your position elsewhere is flawed. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 12:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Why would this be beneficial, in instances where a wikilink would provide more than enough clarification as to the use of the term? Wikilinks are used to inform users, and to avoid unnecessarily repeating information over and over when a wikilink would suffice. In instances where a wikilink would not provide the appropriate clarification, then clarification could be provided in-text, however, that would need to be judged on a case-by-case basis. I don't see why the wording should be changed to require in-text clarification when it would only be needed only very occasionally. - SudoGhost 12:49, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with SudoGhost; this addition is a poor idea. A wikilink should suffice to provide clarification for those that might be confused. This wording allows too much room for wikilawyering, weasel words or other things that we should avoid. Further, IRWolfie's point is germane since this is essentially the proponent's attempt to bolster her position in a specific RFC by adjusting a general policy that affects thousands of articles. That's never a good idea and her motivations are important to consider. Eusebeus (talk) 13:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

A wikilink doesn't suffice. That's just it. And this sort of circular reasoning doesn't wash. You argue here that requiring clarification is only a means to sidestep consensus elsewhere. And elsewhere, you argue that this paragraph justifies a consensus to omit a clarification. With a subject as controversial and emotionally charged as this, why would you possibly object to an in-text clarification? You can end the constant fighting by adding one. Surely you realize that if you do manage to get a move to Genesis creation myth pushed through, that's only going to last until the next push back. Why would any Wikipedia article not want to avoid that when it can be done without omitting the word "myth" or leaving it to be misunderstood? I guess I just don't understand how it's possible to assume good faith of people who are deliberately blocking something that would (a) make the article more clear and (b) end the incessant fighting. - Lisa (talk - contribs) 15:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
A wikilink does suffice, and does clarify what is meant. You assume that "constant fighting" is indicative of a lack of clarification, but I seriously doubt that this is the case, nor has it been demonstrated in any way. People edit war over the specific wording because they don't like the specific wording, and their personal religious point of view disagrees with it. This same thing occurs on many articles where an individual's religious personal point of view conflicts with the neutral point of view, such as Age of the Earth, any article depicting the prophet Muhammad, evolution, Madhyamaka, and many others. These articles are not subject to "constant fighting" because it is unclear what is meant, the meaning is understood, it is just a matter of the editor not agreeing with the material present on the article, and editing it to bring it in line with their personal religious point of view. Your proposal will not change this, because where there are multiple viewpoints and explanations on a subject, the article will attempt a neutral point of view. The neutral point of view will of course never be in line with everyone's point of view, so there will always be editors coming along to correct the article to bring it in line with their viewpoint. I don't doubt you mean well by proposing this clarification in the wording, but unfortunately even if it didn't have unnecessary ramifications in articles where the clarification is already satisfied by a wikilink, it is a solution that itself does not address the problem, I think. - SudoGhost 16:48, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. Both with the reasons against such a change and the issue of Lisa's behavior in bringing this here, which looks very much like WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Dougweller (talk) 15:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Lisa's addition is much needed, as it clarifies and makes it more neutral. Zenkai talk 21:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The idea that an article should have one "consensus" viewpoint and exclude minority views runs contrary to NPOV policy. Rather, where viewpoints are in conflict, we should describe that conflict.

Perhaps it would help to alert readers to the issue over the definitions of "myth" as we have done with Definitions of Palestine, which describes the several overlapping (and occasionally contradictory) definitions of "Palestine" (see also Definitions of Palestinian). The page for Myth redirects to Mythology, which describes sacred narratives chiefly in terms of how they developed from folklore. But a significant number of contemeporary religious people believe in Creation.

What irritates religious readers is the lack of attention to the religious viewpoint, which includes concepts such as God as an actual being; revelation; and the supernatural in general.

The creation narrative is on the cusp between mere folklore and actual divine revelation, and to be neutral Wikipedia should not imply:

  1. that God exists, and made His existence and creative works known in the Bible; nor,
  2. that people invented the idea of god(s) and Creation

I think if we put our heads together we can satisfy both parties: i.e., those who want to respect the academic way of describing religious ideas and those who want to respect for their religious viewpoints. There is no conflict between these two goals. Let's work toward both. --Uncle Ed (talk) 13:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussing changes to the WP:NPOV article. You appear to be going off on a tangent which is not related to the original proposal or WP:NPOV. I suggest you move your comment to the appropriate talk page. There is no evidence that there is any controversy about the use of the term creation myth by independent and reliable scholarly sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:51, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I think Lisa's suggestion is to use language to assuage potential offense, as present policy is alluding to "offense" and "sympathy". I support Lisa's suggestion. Bus stop (talk) 13:56, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
How does a wikilink potentially offend? The intent of the current wording is to prevent offense based on a misunderstanding of the use of the word, and a wikilink provides an in-depth explanation of what is meant by its use to prevent any misunderstanding of how the word or phrase is being used. In cases where this is insufficient or where the wikilinked article does not accurately reflect the use of the word, in-text attribution would then be used; however whether to do one or the other should not be set as a rule, as each article would be best served by a different way of doing so. The policy explains what should be done, and why it should be done, but as each article is different, it should be left to local consensus (or WikiProject, MoS, etc.) to determine how it should be done. What would work for one article may or may not work for another, so to prescribe such a rule into a policy would not benefit Wikipedia, in my opinion. - SudoGhost 14:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
SudoGhost—this is a common issue concerning policy language—what should be articulated, or at least alluded to, and what should not. I think that is exactly what we are discussing. Yes, it is an issue decided individually. But my argument would be that we should alert the community that it very well may be a good idea to set some language out in article space specifically geared to addressing anticipated "offense". You are asking how could a wikilink offend? (I'm paraphrasing.) It is not the link that necessarily offends; it is the superficial meaning of the word or phrase. I want to quickly add that I agree wholeheartedly that this is the sort of question that has to be decided on a case-by-case basis. The bottom line, I think, is that we don't want to disturb anyone, or to put it another way—our aim should be to make education as painless as possible. Lisa's wording I think allows for either including supplementary text or not. This is her added line:
"Where such concerns exist, the text of the article should include a clarification of how the word is being used."
How about this:
"Where such concerns exist, the text of the article could include a clarification of how the word is being used, but this should be determined on a case-by-case basis."
Bolded text changed. Bus stop (talk) 02:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Again this has the exact same issues. It doesn't clarify what a legitimate "concern" is and lets a minority overrule consensus because they feel "offended" by the current wording. If the consensus is that something is not needlessly offensive and or it is explained sufficiently then why should this be overruled? What if the concern expressed isn't reasonable? How do you determine if it is reasonable? IRWolfie- (talk) 16:16, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Fringe theories noticeboard RfC: Should there be advice to notify an article if discussion is extended or invites action?

There is currently a debate at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#RfC: Should there be advice to notify an article if discussion is extended or invites action? on whether the advice at the top should include as well some statement like "If a discussion on an article is extends over a day or invites action, please place a notice on the article's talk page, or an associated project page for multiple articles. This is not mandatory". Dmcq (talk) 11:43, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Is consensus required to add a neutrality tag to the article?

A neutrality tag is usually added to the article when one or several users have identified a serious neutrality issues that they appeared to be unable to resolve on the talk page. Usually, that occurs when there is a serious disagreements between the users editing that article. Therefore, from a commonsensual point of view, it is illogical to expect the POV tag can be added only as a result of consensus: if the users failed to achieve consensus about the article's content, how can they achieve consensus about the tag?
In connection to that, I think that it would be incorrect to require consensus for adding neutrality tags to articles/sections. I think policy/guidelines need to explain that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:06, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Broadly, I would agree that the whole point of such tags is that consensus hasn't yet been achieved. So, in that sense, of course an editor doesn't need consensus from others before adding the tag. But, this is one of those things where the situation can quickly become complicated, so I want to qualify what I just said. If consensus arises on the talk page that the reasons for placing the tag have been satisfactorily addressed, then that consensus can be a perfectly valid reason to remove the tag, even if the editor who placed the tag objects (ie, consensus does not have to be unanimous). Thus, an editor should not object to removing a tag, on the basis that the editor supposedly doesn't need consensus to keep the tag there. When things get really complicated, that editor may feel that the discussion has not really dealt with the reasons for the tag, while other editors feel that the discussion has resolved it. If there's really a deadlock on the issue, or concerns about filibustering by either side, it's probably best to open a content RfC or seek additional views in other ways. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Consensus isn't required to add a neutrality tag, but one should be cognisant of the ways in which this tag is often abused. There must be an ongoing, good-faith effort to resolve the neutrality issues. Also, the tag is often used as a "consolation prize" when an individual editor fails to convince others in a content dispute, as in "OK, no one supports my change and I can't edit-war it into the article, so I'll just slap a neutrality tag on the article as a compromise."

I don't know the specifics that prompted this request, and I don't mean to suggest any of these abuses are behind it, but I'm wary of instruction creep and legislation about the NPOV tag. It has legitimate uses, but it's also a preferred tool of wikilawyers and is often abused. MastCell Talk 18:02, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The most recent case that prompted me to ask this question is a situation with the Mass killings under Communist regimes article. The article is fully protected indefinitely, and can be edited only by admins. More than one year ago, I did not object to removal of the neutrality tag hoping that that my good faith step may facilitate achievement of consensus. However, subsequent edit war led to full and indefinite artice's protection. Recently, I decided to return to that question. I outlined several major neutrality issues, described them on the talk page and requested to re-add the POV tag to the article. The answer was:
"Please establish consensus for proposed changes before requesting an administrator to make these changes. Sandstein 17:10, 11 April 2012 (UTC)"
From that responce I conclude that Sandstein believes that the POV tag, as well as any ordinary content, needs in consensus to be added. My subsequent explanations have been ignored.
--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

When articles have a long term POV problem (and many do) that usually means that a plurality of wiki-saavy editors like the current POV as it is. Since they have the ability to prevent any "consensus" finding, it would be absurd to require a consensus for a POV tag....such would prevent use of the tag in nearly all appropriate situations. North8000 (talk) 18:34, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

North, by way of my edit conflict below, I actually agree in a general way with what you said, but I disagree in the specifics of this example, which is something of a special case. It isn't simply an editor coming along and deciding that the tag is justified, but rather, an edit request for a tag during full protection of an already disputed page. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) OK then, the discussion to which you refer is at Talk:Mass killings under Communist regimes#Wikipedia and it's anti-communist bias (sic). I've read it, and I think that it points to the kinds of cautions that MastCell and I have just discussed. I don't see much point in asking an administrator to put such a tag on an actively disputed page by way of an edit request during full protection. The IP editor missed the point by trying to justify a tag on that page because there is another page that is tagged that way. It isn't really the narrow question of whether you needed to get consensus from other editors to put the tag there in this case. It's more like it's unproductive to put the tag there at this time. My advice, instead, would be to make an edit request for a substantive revision of the content that would fix the issues associated with the tag request. And yes, you would need to work for consensus for that. I infer that you and other editors have already been discussing how to accomplish that, and are having difficulty getting to a consensus. The thing to do is to be patient, and not worry about a tag, and consider a content RfC if you think it would help. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:40, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
You seem to read the discussion not carefully enough. The edit request was made not by the IP, but by me [17]. I identified 5 out of many major issues, most of which have been a subject of prolonged debates, and remain unresolved. In addition, the tag had already been added to the article seveval times in past, the last tag was added in December [18], and I see no signs that any of neutrality issues had been resolved since then.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:26, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
In addition, I suggest you not to deviate from the major point. I do not want to discuss the details of the problem with this concrete article, my point is quite different:
"Is it correct to oppose to addition of the NPOV tag under a pretext that there is no consensus to add it?"
The fact that the article is fully protected changes nothing: admins are expected to implement changes proposed on talk pages of protected articles if the requests are legitimate.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Tryptofish in this case, the point of not placing a POV tag on this particular article is to force constructive discussion on the topic. The "accept my edits as the WP:TRUTH or a POV tag will be placed" gun-to-the-head paradigm caused lots of disruptive edit warring in the past resulting in the article being indefinitely protected. The issues are already being discussed, adding a tag-o-shame will not contribute to the solution. --Nug (talk) 20:43, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Nug, please, do not reduce the issue to one article only. I asked a general question and I expect to get a general answer.
In addition, your "accept my edits as the WP:TRUTH or a POV tag will be placed" is a gross misinterpretation of my point: I pointed at several neutrality issues, and my concern is shared by several other users. I had not requested for concrete changes, but suggested to discuss them.
Re "the point of not placing a POV tag on this particular article is to force constructive discussion on the topic", the argument is simply false: more than one year ago I didn't oppose to removal of this tag (as I already explained that here) to facilitate, as I believed, a constructive discussion. However, that lead just to worse edit war and full article's protection...--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:11, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Alright then, my general answer to the broader question of "Is it correct to oppose addition of the NPOV tag under a pretext that there is no consensus to add it?" is that it depends. Sometimes, it is correct, whereas many other times, it is incorrect. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Rule of thumb: Read tag before inserting. Template:Npov starts with the simple sentence, "The neutrality of this article is disputed." It links to the WP:NPOVD essay, which says to do exactly what Paul Siebert says he is doing, so prima facie it is appropriate to add. Next rule of thumb: Advocate for the opponent. Figure out what is being said in response to you. It appears Sandstein's concern is to get discussion rolling and to prevent drive-by tagging. While it is true that there should be a consensus that there is an NPOV dispute, and it's appropriate to ask for demonstration of this consensus in hotly disputed pages (as an individual may be the only one thinking there is a serious dispute), the burden of proving there is such a dispute is a low bar. (But then I also believe that if we dispute whether or not there's an NPOV dispute, that's a dispute by definition and one side is being contradictory.) Without reviewing article talk, it seems that if there are substantive replies (other than "we've been over every one of these in these linked discussions 1-5", or complete silence), the tag request is in good faith. In such a situation I would wait a couple days for replies, interact with them amicably, and then make the tag request a second time linking this policy-page discussion. Do that well before requesting any text edits. JJB 16:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

A Question on Neutral Point of View

First of all, please let me know if I'm in the wrong place to discuss this.

That said, I am confused about what exactly NPOV means in Wiki terms and possibly confusing it with No Point of View. In the past I was involved in edit conflicts due to POV differences, so don't feel fooled if you check my history, but I decided to actually question this after reading the concerns of some other members posted on the past Talk pages of the Cyprus article (such as [19] and [20]).

The problem I personally see is that one POV is accepted and the whole article reflects that. What I understand from reading the relevant Wiki rules so far I understand that the article as a whole should be free of point of views while simply reporting on what references state. For example take a look at what this editor writes on the Cyprus article:

  • Constant reference to any action from the North as "illegal" i.e. "their families flew into the illegal Tymbou airport", "have participated in trips through this illegal entry point.", "Illegal excavation is a frequent occurrence", "the illegal authorities in occupied Cyprus", "It is estimated that about 160,000 settlers from Turkey have been illegally established", "The Turkish Cypriot administration has allowed the illegal sale of real estate", "Turkish Cypriots in the illegally occupied North", "In the meantime Turkey illegally imported Turkish colonists"

In the examples cited by the editor it seems like the POV of certain sources dictate the language of the entire article. Take an other example, the Shooting of Trayvon Martin case. Some sources used in the article could label Zimmerman as a murderer. It would be like in the entire article if we used the phrase "murderer Zimmerman" in every occasion.

So, my question in simplest terms would be: should the POV of a number of sources, from almost a 100% of the sources to just one source, dictate the language and structure of the whole article? TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 23:01, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you are in the right place. Trying to answer your question broadly, without looking further at the pages you mention, I'd say that it's not really "no point of view" so much as not adopting "one point of view" in favor of another. Both examples you cite are prime examples of the kinds of pages where POV issues become difficult. I'm guessing that the "illegal" label in the first case is one that is considered correct by one "side" of the Turkey-Cyprus controversy, and disputed by the other "side". In that case, it would be best to present it in that way: certain actions are considered illegal by "X" but not by "Y". In the second case, no trial has occurred yet, so there is no conviction, and WP:BLP also applies. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your response. It's not really about disputing the term itself. It's about the use of it through out the article. I also must point out that the quotes mentioned in the editors post are mostly fixed in the past. I simply wanted to use it as an example. The reason I felt strong enough to ask this question was because in the past I was acused of POV-pushing when I questioned the wording of such sentences. The wasy I see it as that such adjectives that point a judgment should be only included when the statement from the source is cited (in a sentence like "X views actions of Y as Z"). My next question would be: in cases of POV dispute which place is the best to raise the issue? TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 23:48, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm thinking of writing a tongue-in-cheek essay based on extensive in-practice observations which will be "How to use the WP:NPOV policy to POV an article". Accusing anyone who tries to fix a POV problem of of "POV pushing" is certainly a useful and widely-used method of doing that. North8000 (talk) 00:02, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
As you say, attributing the label is a good idea. The place to go when you want to raise these kinds of issues, after the article talk page has been unproductive, is WP:NPOVN. Editors there are likely to recognize what is really going on, when editors at the page have made unfair accusations like that. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:26, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Accusing someone with POV-pushing or guarding an article doesn't really work but thanks for the Noticeboard link. TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 15:22, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Sure. What works better than that is simply focusing on the content. The community tends to be more receptive, for good reasons, to being asked to fix imbalanced content than to being asked to ascertain editors' agendas. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
True. Then I have a different question though; what is a way to attract editors or admins to oversee a fix when pretty much all the editors looking at the edits on a certain article are trying to push their own POV? TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 17:42, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
The best way is to ask for "third-party input" at the WP:NPOVN Noticeboard... this draws attention to the article, and gets experienced editors involved. Don't argue, or try to "prove" your point... and definitely don't accuse anyone of POV pushing (The editors who tend to reply to NPOVN queries and notifications can figure that out on their own). Just let them know which article has the problem and give them a short summary of what you think the problem is... and then follow their advice. Blueboar (talk) 02:32, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Due and undue weight

From the current Due and undue section:-

  • "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint."

From WP:SOURCES:-

  • "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy."

My question is should due weight be assessed by prominence of each viewpoint in third-party RS or simply RS in general. The reason I ask is because almost every source is reliable for its own opinion, but many would not reach the standard of RS for verification of facts in the wiki voice without attribution. For instance there are many advocacy organisations which publish vast amounts of material, they are an RS for the organisation's opinion but not an RS for facts in the wiki voice. Should this vast amount of material be used in assessing due weight of an article, as on one level it does reach the standards of an RS, or should it be excluded on the grounds that it does not reach the standard of a third party RS for verifying facts in the wiki voice. Dlv999 (talk) 11:11, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Truth be told, the idea of giving weight in the article based on amount of coverage in sources is operatively unusuable. It's fine as a vague principle to try to follow but that's about the end of it. When you get down to trying to actually implement it in detail (i.e. to try to resolve a dispute) , there is no practical way to apply it and I've never seen it actually done. So IMHO there is no explicit answer. On your more specific question, you have to make the distinction between real world reliable source and wp:reliable source because those have very different meanings. The ones that you gave are primary sources regarding what their opinion is. Such is excluded from certain definitions of wp:rs, and so the official answer might be to totally exclude them from the weighting equation. If trying to follow the spirit of the "in proportion" my own opinion would be to de-weight primary source coverage in figuring the balance. North8000 (talk) 11:52, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. I disagree with you that giving weight based on the amount of coverage in sources is operatively unusable. For instance if no third party RS has published a particular opinion it is quite easy to ascribe the correct weight to that opinion in the article (i.e by not including it). My question is, what if no third party source has published the opinion, but it has been published voluminously by an activist organisation (which is RS for it's own opinion, but not for facts). What definition of RS we are using to decide undue weight? Dlv999 (talk) 12:49, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
I should qualify/clarify what I said to what I meant. I really meant that for situations that aren't clear-cut and where there is a dispute involved, it is operatively unusable as a way to resolve it. Regarding your question, I don't see a "by the book" / safe answer. I would tend to offer the idea of using your primary sources on a de-weighted basis. But a Wikilawyer could safely knock all of your sources from consideration (due to being primary sources) if they don't like what they say. North8000 (talk) 13:58, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

If this is relating to general guidelines, a sensible approach to handling the issues it to generally cover topics with the same relative weight as prominent tertiary sources like encyclopedias, textbooks, and the like. If this is about resolving a dispute, then as North8000 notes, the policy isn't going to provide an algorithmic or clear cut path to proper weighting. One resource to consider is WP:FRINGE, which has a lot to say about treating topics which are clearly outside the mainstream, but may not provide clear guidance on controversial topics. aprock (talk) 21:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

You suggest the only source for the opinion is an activist org in volume. The first graf of UNDUE links to V and its def in WP:SOURCES that means only third-party, therefore there is no automatic place in WP for the opinion via V. Certainly not articles about the majority view that the activists are countering, unless your source analysis changes by finding a significant number of minority-view holders (multiple texts from a single activist source don't count, nor do those not intellectually independent like employees). The second graf of UNDUE recognizes the right to create an article on the opinion that discusses it in detail and in context with the majority view. WP:RSOPINION also recognizes the right to discuss the opinion in an article on the org, but even there it's not clear how much space it gets. Both hypothetical articles absolutely require WP notability. Best odds: find RS third parties that comment on the opinion, good, bad, and indifferent, and represent these RS. JJB 17:52, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard dead?

I see editors posting issues to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. Then waiting for input from third party editors. And waiting. None comes. The original parties to whatever dispute rehash their argument, get no feedback, and go back to bickering wherever they started. Their issue is autodeleted. Complete waste of time. No one is duty bound to take part, but as evidently nobody does on a regular basis, maybe the page should just redirect to some other venue where people might get some response. Barsoomian (talk) 04:26, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes the response to a noticeboard posting is not on the noticeboard itself, but at the relevant article's talk page (which in many cases is actually a more appropriate venue for the discussion). Blueboar (talk) 13:33, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Really? Ive never seen that on any other noticeboard. It didn't happen in the case I was involved in, not one comment anywhere except from previously involved editors. And if comments were made elsewhere, surely that should have been mentioned at the noticeboard. Anyway, we went to WP:RSN and solved it that way. Meanwhile I haven't seen any responses to any questions at WP:NPOVN in the last few weeks I've been watching it. Really, it's completely inactive and not helping anyone. It's cruel to just leave the facade here. Barsoomian (talk) 15:45, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Generally speaking, NPOV disputes are notoriously hard to resolve because too many editors are not editing in good faith, more interested in winning the dispute than trying to resolve it. I've given up on this board a long time ago. I still post at RS/N because I can do some good there but trying to resolve most NPOV disputes is a lost cause. Yes, I'm jaded. :) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:00, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
As a participant, affirm Quest completely. The particular issue (WP:NPOVN#Prequel) has not yet disappeared, but it was only a catharsis for the then-current editor clump and had zero input, and will probably be archived soon like several other unresolved cases I've seen there. Not only RSN but maybe even WT:NPOV is better! At least at DRN there is a habit of directing editors to another more direct page quickly, which might also work for NPOVN. JJB 16:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
If people are active at posting question/issues there (as seems to be the case) then it would seem to be useful, the problem being lack of responses. One issue on the latter is that once the "rubber meets the road" the operative part of the policy is called on. And as written, such (due/undue determined by amount of coverage) is unusable, making it very hard to provide responses. North8000 (talk) 17:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Godwin's Law and YESPOV

Can we do a little better than bring up the Holocaust to defend the last part of WP:YESPOV? It seems a little overdrawn if we have to resort to invoking Hitler to justify this concept. -- Kendrick7talk 04:21, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

We're not justifying the concept with the example. We're exemplifying the concept with the example. Examples are usually good, as different people understand new ideas in different ways, and the example may help to clarify where our plain description was lacking. BTW, we've said nothing about Hitler in the text. Why is mentioning the Holocaust a bad thing? Is there another example you would propose we use in its place? I reverted, but I'd be happy to discuss further. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 03:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Holocaust denial is an emotional issue. Perhaps we could use an example like flat earth that's less charged: "According to Isaac Asimov the Earth is an oblate spheroid but Thomas Dolby disputes this." Jojalozzo 03:45, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Kind of have to agree w/ Joja. -- Kendrick7talk 03:48, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't know... I think using an emotional issue as an example is actually a good idea... most NPOV disputes are emotional issues, and it helps to show how Wikipedia deals with them. Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, to be neutral does not mean to avoid emotional issues. We need an example of correct and neutral treatment of some emotionally charged issue, and the Holocaust related disputes are quite germane to that. --Paul Siebert (talk) 15:26, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
We might need an example of a contentious issue somewhere in WP:NPOV; but I don't see how invoking the slaughter of millions of innocent people during a previous century -- one which 99.999% of modern editors (I would reasonable assume) completely deplore -- in order to simply to elicit an emotional response makes any sense in a policy context. Doing so is simply propaganda. -- Kendrick7talk 03:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Unrealized, this is the exact same question I asked below at #Change flat-earth reference? on a different point! Unquestionably, while it's true that the Holocaust creates the emotional disgust you want good little editors to feel, there are many other topics that do so much better without teaching those good little editors the argumentum ad Hitlerum via subtext, or encouraging them to feel free to use it as a neutral summation. If there is no good suggestion in the next couple days, I can come back with a (preferably non-Western) example at random for both problematic texts that will address these parallel concerns. JJB 21:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree that promoting argumentum ad Hitlerum by example is a concern, and would love to read your suggestions. -- Kendrick7talk 03:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Articles about minority-POV holders

Discussion of UNDUE suggests the policy wording is unclear as to the scope of what articles are permitted to have "majority placement" of minority views. I have always understood that articles about the persons holding minority views, books that propose them, or other fora where minority views appear are permitted under this umbrella to have significant space devoted to the minority view as well. This follows logically from the fact that WP as a whole gives more space to any majority view, and so for any minority-POV person, book, or related topic there are expected to be an appropriate surplus of articles about the majority-POV persons, books, or topics. The policy seems to explicitly recognize this only if the viewpoint itself is the topic.

I'm not sure of the best wording, but a first draft is to change "In articles specifically about a minority viewpoint" to "In articles specifically relating to a minority viewpoint". JJB 16:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

The policy is in no way unclear, your reading of it is. The proposed change would completely undermine the intent of the policy. Your change would then allow for a mention of the undue "Flat earth" position in the article "Earth" which is the exact opposite of what the policy currently allows. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for responding so quickly. Your example (see section just above) is not an article specifically relating to a minority viewpoint. What would you change the text to? Or do you believe articles about minority-POV holders should have a majority placement of the majority view? Or do you believe the present policy clearly prevents that risk? JJB 16:26, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
If your question is whether we should mention a person's views about a fringe topic in a bio article about the person... the answer is: "It depends". Is the subject's views on a fringe topic part of what makes the person notable or not? If the person is primarily known for his fringe views, then yes... we probably should discuss what those views are. However, if the person is primarily known for something else, then mentioning his fringe views may well be irrelevant trivia. For example, a notable movie star might be on record as saying that he believes the Moon Landing was a hoax, but that belief is likely to have little or nothing to do with what makes the movie star notable. His opinion on the moon landing can probably be considered trivia and omitted from his bio article.
If the question is whether we should mention a specific Fringe view holder's views in an article about the Fringe view... that depends on how prevalent his views are within the context of the Fringe theory. There is such a thing as being "Fringe within the Fringe". Blueboar (talk) 17:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree with both analyses, although the question is only about the first. Would you say your distinction is covered by the phrase "specifically relating to"? The initiating discussion is about an author and food scientist widely published for creationist views, so his article "relates to" creationism, but the hypothetical movie star's article does not "relate to" the moon hoax theory any more "specifically" than the earth's article "relates to" a tiny-minority view about it. JJB 17:15, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
For more on what is appropriate and not appropriate to include in an article about a Fringe topic... please see WP:Fringe theories. Blueboar (talk) 17:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Reskimming, it appears WP:FRINGE too gives primary attention to articles about theories only, although it does mention perpetual-motion devices (which are not theories) and also uses the slightly ambiguous "Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail". Thus ALT1 would be perhaps "In articles specifically covering a minority viewpoint"; but given that I like my first version better. JJB 17:15, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
WP:FRINGE is not limited in scope to an particular type of article. It applies in all articles. Also, trying to get policy and guidelines changed to suite your arguments at a talk page is ill advised. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:31, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Note, I have reverted your change which you did in [21]. It's obvious you didn't have consensus for the change but you did it anyway. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:40, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Please read WP:BOLD and WP:BRD, under the first of which such changes are encouraged even without establishing full consensus, and under the second of which you are encouraged to take responsibility to discuss substantively your reversion (to prevent "bold again"). I bolded because of Kendrick's strong encouragement. The substantive reason is that "articles specifically about a minority POV" do not include articles about people, groups, or inventions, but "articles specifically relating to a minority POV" do. Your 3-minute reply was that the first is not unclear (without explaining why my logic is mistaken) and that in the proposed change, by implication, "earth" specifically relates to "flat earth". You did not answer my questions in response or recognize or respond to my objection to your reply. You claimed that my recommendation tried "to suite [my] arguments at a talk page", which is mistaken, because the question of "about" or "relating to" did not relate to a discussion on which I took a significant view; I only brought it up because it appeared people were debating the distinction there and one side found the present wording ambiguous as I described.
If you do not substantively explain your objection to this change, responsively to this analysis, I intend to bold again later. JJB 15:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Considering Kendrick has not commented on this thread I fail to see how he encouraged you. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:18, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Non-National Point of View of Articles

This is a proposal for a new policy that I think would be best placed in the Neutral point of view section. I am not American, but I always use the english wikipedia, because it simply always has a lot more in-depth articles, due to the fact that there are many more english internet users, than dutch ones. But because Americans use english as a first language, and because there are so many more Americans than any other non-native english speaking group, wikipedia articles very often have a strong tendency to be written specifically from an American perspective. For example, a U.S. Government agency will be named, called "the national ....", without specifying that it is an American agency. I would assume most editors try to avoid this, but I don't think that there is a specific rule or part of a rule, that promotes all articles to be written from an international/non-national perspective. --CoincidentalBystander (talk) 09:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Change flat-earth reference?

Actual usage of "flat-earth" may be much more as a pejorative than as a reference to a minority view of physics. Further, it is also a handy knee-jerk example when anyone wants to cite a tiny-minority view, which is perhaps how it came to be the representative of tiny minorities here. My concern is that people trying to view the policy might be tempted to continue to use "flat-earth" as if it were a neutral example when it is not, leading to the risk that others may take it as insulting. I have observed such an exchange at least once in recent months, as well as in the past (though not in the discussion I mention in the next section).

I propose that we take a different, preferably non-Western, clear-cut and noncontentious example of a belief held by a tiny minority that is clearly at odds with the supermajority. It is probable that some present-day sincerely-held mythos of an indigenous group will suffice. I am deliberately not making nominations today, though I invite others to do so. It seems that selecting such an example as a better representative would dissuade this unconscious support of the pejorative usage of "flat-earth". JJB 16:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly, a prime example of exactly this problem (citation of flat-earth as a knee-jerk example) appears in the "minority-POV" section just below, three minutes after this posting. This affirms my concern with the present wording. JJB 16:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Flat Earth is a handy example of a fringe theory precisely because it is so obviously fringe. The reason we use it so frequently as example here on this page is because it easily highlights potential problems with suggested changes. Essentially you can think of it an easy way to test whether a suggested change would have unintended consequences... if a particular suggested change would result in giving Flat Earth more weight than it deserves, it becomes quickly obvious that the proposer needs to go back and rethink the suggested change. Blueboar (talk) 17:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
True, but it's also pejorative because very often applied to people who have no relation to the Flat Earth Society or its theory, possibly more so than to people who do. Example in the section below, but I'll see if I can find a better one. In particular, people are steeled in the idea that they can use the flat-earth example freely although it may be offensive to their opponents to make such a linkage and may be regarded as a reductio ad Hitlerum. It's clear that any comment anything like IRWolfie-'s comment below could be easily misread and responded to with the good-faith but mistaken statement, "You just fallaciously compared creationism to flat-earth theory!", leading to the did-not-did-so we all know and love. It also permits editors to make apparently neutral references to flat-earth while deliberately sneering underneath knowing that their subtext will meet its mark but can still be wikilawyered away. Certainly the reductio ad Hitlerum invites "you compared me to Hitler!" and is generally recognized as a mistake even when the comparison is apt to the comparer, and I think "Nazi" and "flat-earther" are very aligned here. (Not to compare either group with the other of course!) Are there any other less contentious theories that are very obviously fringe? Certainly the Apollo moon hoax theory is used just as reflexively on WP, and has no significant pejorative connotation (I know of no short disparaging term for holders of this theory that is also used for other fringe theorists), but I was angling for something more indigenous and un-Amerocentric. JJB 17:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
What are you talking about? It's relevant in this article because we are giving an example of a fringe view, of which flat earth is one. Note that I did not compare any particular article to the flat earth, I stated what the change in policy you propose would result in. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:52, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Your statement is illogical: just because flat earth is one example does not mean it must be the one example given; and because flat earth has pejorative and negative connotations, as Kendrick strongly agrees, a different example would be an improvement. Also, you may not realize that when you strongly disagree with me on a core-policy talk, clearly in relation to a dispute in which you and I are involved, three minutes after I post, it undercuts your view that your reference to flat earth was neutral. Instead, it underscores my view that (a) flat earth is a knee-jerk example and, particularly, (b) statements like "Your change would then allow for a mention of the undue 'Flat earth' position in the article 'Earth'" should be discouraged because they tempt one party to affirm, and another to deny, that comparison between flat earth and the disputed viewpoint (creationism in this case, a frequent subject of this comparison) is intended. Regulars, this one seems very clear-cut: please help us understand how to proceed. JJB 15:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
How is flat earth a pejorative, any more than any other fringe example would be? It's a good example because it's clearly an example, and most people understand what the Earth is, and that the Earth is not flat. Therefore no sort of explanation is required, no back history needs to be understood before the person reading the example has an understanding of the example. - SudoGhost 00:50, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Based on two parallel sections above initiated independently, the following poor inline examples should be changed to more global, nonpejorative examples to prevent encouragement of knee-jerk echoes (1-8, 3 reductio ad Hitlerum and 5 flat-earth), or English-language bias or generic sloppiness (9-15):

  1. For example, to state that "According to Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust was a program of extermination of the Jewish people in Germany, but David Irving disputes this analysis" would be to give apparent parity between the supermajority view and a tiny minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field. TO For example, to state that "According to Jenny Craig, a healthy human diet should emphasize fruits, vegetables, and grains, but Wiley Brooks disputes this analysis" would be to give apparent parity between the supermajority view and a tiny-minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field.
  2. For example, "Derry/Londonderry", "Aluminium/Aluminum" or "Flat Earth (Round Earth)" should not be used. TO For example, "Constantinople/Istanbul", "Aluminium/Aluminum" or "Geocentrism (Heliocentrism)" should not be used.
  3. For example, the article on the Earth does not directly mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority; to do so would give undue weight to the Flat Earth belief. TO For example, the article on Elvis Presley does not directly mention testimonies of post-1977 Elvis sightings, the viewpoints of a distinct minority; to do so would give undue weight to the belief that Elvis did not die in 1977.
  4. For instance, articles on historical views such as Flat Earth, with few or no modern proponents, may briefly state the modern position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail, neutrally presenting the history of a now-discredited belief. TO For instance, articles on historical views such as luminiferous aether theory, with few or no modern proponents, may briefly state the modern position, and then go on to discuss the history of the idea in great detail, neutrally presenting the history of a now-discredited belief.
  5. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views (such as Flat Earth). TO Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views (such as Elvis sightings).
  6. There are many such beliefs in the world, some popular and some little-known: claims that the Earth is flat, that the Knights Templar possessed the Holy Grail, that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax, and similar ones. TO There are many such beliefs in the world, some popular and some little-known: claims that Elvis did not die in 1977, that a lake monster lives in Loch Ness, Scotland, that the Apollo moon landing was faked, and similar ones.
  7. such as Holocaust denial, or claims the Apollo moon landing was faked TO such as Breatharianism, or claims that the Apollo moon landing was faked
  8. What about views that are morally offensive to most readers, such as sexism and Holocaust denial, that some people actually hold? TO What about views that are morally offensive to most readers, such as sexism and homicidal cannibalism, that some people actually hold?
  9. For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil." TO For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by Ervin Staub as 'an obvious form' of evil."
  10. "Boston massacre", "Teapot Dome scandal", and "Jack the Ripper" TO the "Great Leap Forward", the "Cassette Scandal", and "Jack the Ripper"
  11. "Criticisms of X" might be better renamed "Societal views on X" TO "Criticism of patents" might be better renamed "Societal views on patents" <actual redirect>
  12. "John claimed he had not eaten the pie" .... "John said, 'I did not eat the pie.'" TO "Jacques claimed he had no hesitation in attacking" .... "Jacques said, 'I did not hesitate to attack.'" <taken from Franz Alexander>
  13. "John Doe is the best baseball player" .... "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre." .... "John Doe had the highest batting average in the major leagues from 2003 through 2006." .... "Many people think John Doe is the best baseball player." TO "Derek Jeter is the best baseball player" .... "Derek Jeter's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Don Zimmer and Curt Schilling." .... "Derek Jeter won the Best Major League Baseball Player ESPY Award in 2007." .... "Many people think Derek Jeter is the best baseball player." <easiest name to fill in all the spaces>
  14. "Certain adherents of this faith (say which) believe X, and also believe that they have always believed X; however, due to the findings (say which) of modern historians and archaeologists (say which), other adherents (say which) of this faith now believe Z." TO "Robert Cardinal Bellarmine [or other stated adherents] believed heliocentrism should be treated as hypothetical and not physically real [stated belief], and that it could not be conclusively proved without being likely to irritate "all scholastic philosophers and theologians" [stated self-reflective viewpoint]; however, due to the publication of Sidereus Nuncius [stated findings] by Galileo Galilei [stated modern sources], Archbishop Ascanio II Piccolomini [stated alternate adherents] was solicitous of Galileo's heliocentric theory [stated alternate viewpoint]." <diff; the only way I see to save this section is to give it as a past-history example>
  15. (e.g., so-and-so says) TO (e.g., "Jimmy Wales says")

My wife and I agree that Elvis sightings are the best example of a globally recognized, noncontentious tiny-minority view; they are, properly, not mentioned in Elvis's article. JJB 06:03, 13 May 2012 (UTC) JJB 15:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Keep drafts in your userspace if you don't wish others to comment. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:58, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Do not reply to drafts if you don't want a refactor to make your reply look disconnected. JJB 15:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Performing #15 now to see if I can get WP:BRD going. JJB 18:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
What is wrong with you? Get consensus first. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:52, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
You have given no substantive opposition to #15 or to a nascent consensus between me and Kendrick. You have also not BRD-reverted or given a reason for your position in your comment, other than claiming that consensus must be demonstrated first even on whether to hyphenate a word; accordingly your failing to discuss the change and help build consensus can be taken as contradicting your implication that you think consensus should be obtained. Again, I'm looking for BRD, substantive reasons why the words should be hyphenated or the word "so-and-so" should be retained. The regulars are not amused. JJB 19:10, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Implementing 1-14 boldly. @Jess, already answered above. @Blueboar, I've retained or inserted some strongly emotional issues that are not also generally used as pejoratives; I think an "Elvis test" is just as good. If a change to NPOV policy would give more prominence to Elvis sightings, it's overboard, and that appears a better test (more people know of Elvis than of the flat-earth theory). @Paul, the fact that one example is germane does not preclude replacing it with a nonpejorative germane example. JJB 17:19, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
You still have not given any reason why these examples should be changed. For example, there is nothing wrong with mentioning Derry/Londonderry as an example. These largely seem to be changes for the sake of changes. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Without commenting on these particular changes, I'm very concerned to see "Performing #15 now to see if I can get WP:BRD going" in response to an objection to that change. You shouldn't be making changes to policies when you know there is no consensus for them. The "B" and "R" stages of BRD are there to simplify editing in cases where an edit immediately meets with consensus; in that case, "B" is sufficient. The "R" stage is there to show you that there isn't consensus, and therefore discussion is needed. Given that an objection has already been made at the talk page, "B" is unnecessarily disruptive and destabilises policy for no good reason. Jakew (talk) 10:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I too see no real reason to make such a sweeping change to the examples. Taken en-mass, the proposal does strike me as being "change for change sake". I don't really see a need to change so much ... however I could probably be convinced on a few if we discussed them individually and in more detail, and if a clearer rational for the change were presented. Blueboar (talk)

@Jake, a blanket objection "no reason" to 15 changes, when reasons have been supplied, is not a specific objection to tiny #15. It is proper to get BRD going with substantive reasoning. After this editor declined again and has made one or zero comments using any more than reflexive action, other editors have now taken up the BRD responsibility. This does not destabilize.

@Blueboar, here's the problems again (baseline for #1-14). #1, 7-8: there is strong reason not to encourage editors to a silent winking permission that reductio ad Hitlerum is appropriate, when other examples do the job perfectly well. #2-6: the same is true of knee-jerk citation of Flat Earth, because both "flat-earther" and "nazi" have been used very uncivilly for people who do not hold the beliefs original to these terms. #9, 11-13, 15: these are sloppy writing. Strunk & White would fail the policy for so many thoughtless examples when bold, memorable examples are available. #10: like some of #1-8, this was several Anglo-American references together, in a policy rejecting Anglo-American bias. #14: requires special treatment. In addition to sloppiness, this phrasing has never made sense to me. It appears to be saying "some religionists are wrong" without out-and-out saying so. Without amendment it seems to imply that modern religious who disagree with historians or archaeologists are on the wrong side but we can pity them anyway. Since this is simply not NPOV, I decided a noncontentious historical example was best. The point is not "someone is wrong" but "cover all significant viewpoints religious or scientific". While this sentence came up solely because I was reviewing all "example" text, it also ties to other old discussions, so I have no problem splitting #14 into a different discussion for better consideration; but the rest seem straightforward improvements (I wanted to get some alternate examples going, which would be fine with me if in the same spirit, but nobody provided any). Since Kendrick7 agreed strongly with the theory and POVbrigand agrees generally, since these are not "for change's sake" and the reasoning, already stated, has not been rebutted, I am looking for any substantive objection to these improvements. JJB 16:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC) Digression about generic vs. specific examples. It appears the generic (sloppy) ones are provided to prevent argument in hot areas while the specific ones are widely agreed as not argument-provoking. In particular "best baseball player" is a hot topic but "Shakespeare" (which I left as is along with "soprano") is not hot except at SAQ. (Remember Dead Poets Society's dismissal of Shaksperean primacy with the sarcastic "S=GREAT"?) So let's not offend baseball fans by picking an example, but flat-earth and Shakespeare are obvious? This is unthinking. A better policy includes recognizing the subtext given by bad examples and chooses good ones. I chose Jeter because I have little interest in baseball and his name came up on a search of "praised by" and "joe torre" (though they were unconnected there). We should not choose "obvious" examples for obviousness's sake, but choose less obvious examples ("David Irving" was less obvious but had other problems) to ensure the knee-jerk is not subtly encouraged. JJB 16:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is an actual concern. I doubt you can show a direct link of any reference to "flat-earther" and "nazi" and the wording of WP:NPOV and how changing the wording would help. You are repeating the same arguments, this appears a good time to stop flogging a dead horse. IRWolfie- (talk)
You mean like this? More examples are available. JJB 00:42, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
That's not being used pejoratively, it's being used as a very clear example. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
As I said before, "IRWolfie-'s comment ... could be easily misread and responded to with the good-faith but mistaken statement, 'You just fallaciously compared creationism to flat-earth theory!', leading to the did-not-did-so we all know and love." You have now committed one side of this argument (the very argument that I have asked for the policy be changed to avoid), i.e., you believed I was stating you committed a pejorative, when I did not say so. You wanted a direct link of a reference to "flat-earther" and NPOV, and you had just directly provided one when you linked reference to the flat earth and NPOV nonpejoratively, and you still don't realize that your nonpejorative linking is itself a problem because ambiguous and easily misunderstood, so easily so that it's more appropriate not to bait than it is to claim "I meant nothing!" after the fact. JJB 18:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
If people misread comments and jump to the wrong conclusions then no change of this policy will help them. Also which example used is irrelevant because the exact same thing could be said no matter what: "X's comment ... could be easily misread and responded to with the good-faith but mistaken statement, 'You just fallaciously compared creationism to Elvis Sightings!. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:43, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
This should be straightforward. It's undeniable that (a) "flat-earther" and "nazi" (and "Holocaust denier") are pejoratives; (b) pejoratives are POV; (c) reference to nonpejorative use of concepts that are also pejorative is ambiguous; (d) ambiguity should be avoided; (e) Anglo-American bias should be avoided; (f) thoughtless generic examples should be avoided when specific examples can be supplied. But who is applying this logic besides Kendrick7 and POVbrigand? Instead I hear "it's unnecessary" and that status quo is to be preferred over fixing these writing problems, including one editor who described some obvious improvements by using an obscene illustration. Am I wrong about how simple this is? Is it harder for editors to apply NPOV to the NPOV policy for some reason? JJB 00:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Generic examples are preferred, as the likelihood of individuals to understand "specific examples" decreases the more specific the example. "Flat earth" is no more pejorative than any other example would be, and most people have a basic understanding of what the Earth is, and they can understand the intention of the example instead of focusing on trying to figure out exactly what it's talking about with an obscure but specific example. - SudoGhost 01:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
By this logic, would you prefer that the obscure David Irving, Derry, and Teapot Dome scandals be replaced by either more generally known or totally generic examples? This is not an argument for status quo. Any given specific or generic example leaves the reader with several "intentions" stated and unstated, and my point is that the present examples permit numerous unstated negative inferences (feel free to dump on Flat Earth and Holocaust, and to write sloppily and ignore calls for global NPOV) that can be easily fixed. JJB 18:26, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
I would agree the terms "Flat-earther" and "Holocaust denier" are pejoratives ... but... we don't use those pejorative terms in this policy. The policy refers to our articles on Flat earth and Holocaust denial as examples of articles where POV can be a problem... and we discuss them precisely because they so obviously are potentially POV problem areas. They are both excellent examples of what we are talking about. Blueboar (talk) 01:13, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
By the way... this is policy page, not an article... and our content policies only apply to articles. We are not required to maintain a neutral point of view in policies, just as statements made in policies do not have to be verifiable. Blueboar (talk) 01:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Frankly, long as I've known you, I've never known you to suggest I could say in this policy something like "Jimmy Wales says NPOV is nonnegotiable, but a lot of wiki editors who know better say more authoritatively that you can forget about NPOV." Of course NPOV is nonnegotiable for this policy. Um, let me try again. "Flat earth" and "Holocaust denial" are pejorative nouns as well as (sometimes) nonpejorative terms. This is ambiguous. This policy should be above ambiguity. "Elvis sighting" is nonpejorative, nonambiguous, clearly tiny-minority, and Elvis is more well-known than the FES or David Irving. (@Sudo, I'll grant Wiley Brooks is as obscure an example as David Irving, but that's not the issue; I think your basic idea, that using John Doe and John X throughout is somehow better, more helpful prose-writing, might be misguided, and I don't think you're answering the real question. But if you want something people use every day, there are lots of other options besides the earth. I can list some but I'd rather be sure of the best examples first, seeing how these are faring.) JJB 01:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'll go through them all then since you seem intent on sticking them in despite objections unless you get specific objections. I see no indication of a real problem being attacked, is there really agreement that referring to flat earth causes peoples minds to be strongly polarized?
1. There is no agreement on this, see Inuit diet.
2. There is a single article Derry covering Derry/Londonderry. There are two articles the historical Constantinople and the current Istanbul. That was the point. And I don't see a reason for preferring a term some people might not understand to something simple like flat earth.
3. Do we need twits coming along changing the policy to say to Elvis lives every other day?
4. Luminiferous ether is not known by so many people and I can't see that it conveys the message better.
5. No need to encourage vandalism by Elvis fans.
6. More encouragement of vandalism
7. Easily recognized is better.
8. Homicidal cannabalism being good is not even a minority held view.
9. No need to stick in some barely notable name
10. Better to have well established examples. The Great Leap Forward was the official name.
11. X sounds better than some undeveloped article, and patents might inspire strong views.
12. No need to cite specific unnotable examples and the extra words just dim the message.
13. No need to stick in stuff that might need to be changed next month
14. Seems to be the same desire ti cite specific cases instead of generalizing
15. Particularizing again and in a way that removes most of the sense.
All in all none of them seem to have even a halfway decent reason behind them, it isn't as though they are things which mightn't be obvious. May I point you to WP:PGCHANGE ' However, because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view and to be sure that they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion.' This all just seems to be change for the sake of change with no good sound reasoning behind it. Dmcq (talk) 06:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
On the Elvis sightings issue, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for the main article to WP:Build the web to that subtopic, and therefore it probably should be mentioned (very briefly) there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
I suspect the Elvis editors know about it and there's a reason it's not mentioned there. JJB 18:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Dmcq's rebuttals appear to be argument for the sake of argument. For instance, Dmcq argues that a tiny minority exists (#1, Inuit diet, which does not clearly exclude fruits and vegetables anyway) to argue that eating fruits and vegetables is not a widely agreed view, but then argues that homicidal cannibals (#8) do not exist as a tiny minority and can be excluded. #10 argues that "well established examples" are better (though probably more people worldwide know of the Great Leap Forward than the Boston massacre), but #14-15 suggests that fuzzy generalizing is better than a well established example. These pairs of logically contrary approaches belie the other examples. #3 contains an indirect personal attack (as before), #5-6 act as if Elvis sighters are more likely vandals than the FES as if this is a real problem, in #9 a world authority on genocide is dismissed in favor of "John X", in #13 Derek Jeter "might need to be changed next month" but there is no recognition that the current examples might need to be changed last month, and so on. The other objections appear to be generally logically fallacious are off-topic and do not need specific rejection due to the appearance of the whole. I am, however, interested in reasonable editors who recognize the problem Kendrick7 and I independently cited, and discussing ways of dealing with it. Editors who do not recognize what the concern is should wait until they do before responding. JJB 18:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

See WP:CONSENSUS. And WP:POLICY says 'Consensus for guidelines and policies should be reasonably strong, though unanimity is not required.'. My reasons are just as rational as yours and more people agree with objecting to your proposals overall and I object to each point in detail. You do not have a strong consensus. Dmcq (talk) 18:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

OK... time to stop

So we have "argument for the sake of argument" battling against "change for the sake of change". It is clear that neither JJB nor Dmcq are going to change the other's opinion here, no matter how much they write... so may I suggest that you both stop trying to to do so. Let others discuss it for a while. Blueboar (talk) 18:36, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Convincing JJB was unnecessary. Dmcq (talk) 23:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
  • No change We have a list of changes that are being suggested for effectively no good reason. JJB's reasoning for changing the examples appears to be based on that comments such as this [22] "could be easily misread". That people may misread comments is not going to be helped by changing policy. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
    • I think IRWolfie-'s contributions to talk are covered by Blueboar's description above. I provided several reasons, Kendrick7 contributed, the reasons have not been rebutted by offhand statements like the above. I would appreciate either others discussing it substantively, or Blueboar initiating more direct detailed discussion as he hinted above. JJB 20:41, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
I have already stated why I don't support the change... I think that is enough. I'll let others discuss. Blueboar (talk) 21:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose change - The changes would create the same issues they're said to solve, just for a different set of items. I haven't seen any strong argument for any changes to be made. - SudoGhost 20:58, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
It seems rather than discuss the proposed changes JJB has waited until things have become quiet and has started the changes again: [23]. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:40, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Forward

As I suspected, these matter-of-fact changes were not opposed, yet because of what page this is they were not implemented either. My latest attempt to insert noncontroversial changes was reverted without any BRD discussion (perhaps I should be required to put "BRD" in every single bold edit to remind people their responsibility). IRWolfie-, who gave evidence of following me from another page, and Dmcq, who gave evidence of objecting without foundation in logic, have not put forward substantive argument. SudoGhost and Blueboar have basically said they don't see my and Kendrick7's independent concerns. However, the fact that #15 was implemented and has remained unchanged with silent consensus, even though I advertised it, suggests that there is no real opposition to it, or to the similar #9-13. I think #1-8 and #14 call for more discussion to ensure a version that meets a a more overwhelming consensus. (And no, changing #15 alone back after this much time will be too late to indicate real opposition.) Accordingly, this proposal should be reinvoked later with either the same or other text, at such time as editors may arise who can use BRD and other methods to achieve consensus rather than object without substantive arguments. The door for real discussion is still open in the meantime, of course. JJB 16:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I watch the NPOV page. I do not take kindly to insinuations that I followed you here. There is no such policy or guideline as silent consensus, in fact any consensus has been very much to not to go ahead with the change. You appear to be laying out your plan to edit war the changes in. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:29, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Excuse me. The meaning of "followed" is that the 3-minute gap between my first post in this set and your reflexive response indicates that your thoughts may have been colored by your interaction with me on another page. Sorry for not using the long definition of that. BRD is not edit warring, but repeated reverting without discussing one's reasons becomes edit warring sooner or later. JJB 18:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Overall though your proposals have garnered a lot of opposition. So how about spending your time where it might be more usefully employed rather than as it seems here trying to set the grounds for continuing your edit warring? Dmcq (talk) 23:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

STOP - please focus discussion on why you support or oppose the proposed changes, and not on the behavior of the editors supporting or opposing those changes. Blueboar (talk) 13:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

My detailed contributions were dismissed with 'and Dmcq, who gave evidence of objecting without foundation in logic'. Changes were made despite a clear consensus against. It seems silly to me to say anything more about details rather than about consensus and acting against it. Dmcq (talk) 14:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Reasons have already been given in the above section against the change, but JJB appears to want to change the article despite there being no consensus to do so. The consensus is quite clearly against the changes. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:43, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
My reasons are pretty clear above, as well as my evidence for there being illogic in Dmcq's stated reasons. We should not encourage loose reference to the Holocaust or the Flat Earth, especially not by multiple reference, because these are reflexive pejoratives, nor should we use thoughtless generic examples and Anglocentric examples, especially not on this page. There has been no substantive objection to my reasons. A similar very bold edit to mythology, an article which unaccountably was overly fixated on Greek mythology, has met with support and with no opposition whatsoever. JJB 15:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
How is a bold edit to the Mythology article in any way related to this discussion of editing a policy page? You claimed it was a pejorative example before but there appears to be no agreement that this is the case. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
You have no special status on Wikipedia which says your opinions are worth more than others, and even Jimbo Wales would get it in the neck if he did what you did. Dmcq (talk) 16:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This is really too much, he is doing the same at WP:Summary style. I tried to let him do what he wants and only revert things which were absolutely definitely wrong and deal as reasonably as possible but he's gone and reverted a bit I reverted so it now says you're allowed to split an article at an arbitrary place and the bits need not be notable in themselves. I said twice that subtopics needed notability in themselves and only lists might slip out of that. I've not reverted his stuff so you can see but I put another edit war warning on his page. Somebody else revert it or if you really agree with what I see as breaking basic policy say so and I'll just remove my objections and let him do whatever he wants. Dmcq (talk) 16:46, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You are objecting to my insertion of quotations from other guidelines, as I will demonstrate at Wikipedia talk:Summary style. Enfolding your text is not warring. JJB 16:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
I am objecting to your putting in an end run round WP:Notability. And I like you to work to WP:CONSENSUS and not edit war. Dmcq (talk) 17:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Minor edit by John J. Bulten

The edit here: [24] only increases bloat in the article by unnecessarily not using tags. It also includes additions which are not grammatically correct such as non-negotiable to nonnegotiable, clichéd to cliched. Also changes to the text may result in a change of meaning such as in the subsitution of "something" for "topic". IRWolfie- (talk) 13:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

These are all minor style considerations and your objection to them, combined with your stance elsewhere on talk, is curious. 1. 565 bytes is not bloat, and changing redirect tags to their targets is widely regarded as minor (as is avoidance of tag jargon); the advantage is that the redirect text does not appear under the article title when the link is clicked, which with some of these short-name tags is distracting to new readers. 2. "nonnegotiable" and "cliched" do not relate to grammar; as to orthography, such closed forms are preferred by sources like Webster's Third Unabridged and the AP Stylebook; but this is also clearly minor. 3. "subsitution" of the word "thing" with a more specific term is widely recommended by guides like The Elements of Style, and the slight change in meaning (the specification, as dictated by context) is a clear style improvement. This might be regarded as slightly nonminor but falls within very clearly established best practices for English prose. Your strong objection to such minor charges thus appears immoderate and also carries the responsibility of substantively defending your objections. Accordingly I will reinstate the minor style changes in that diff that you did not object to as being noncontroversial, and I reserve the right to reinstate the objected changes if there is no substantive discussion. JJB 15:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
You are specifically required to reach consensus for your changes, not the other way around, see WP:CONSENSUS. Most of your suggestions appear to be changes for the sake of changes. You mention reducing the number of tag jargon but you have specifically inserted some such as NPOV instead of neutrality. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:23, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I have silent consensus for the other minor changes that you have not objected to. As to the changes you have specifically objected to, my reinstatement of the minors allows your concerns to be easily reviewed via this diff, with "my" version on the left and "yours" on the right (possibly the reverse of the usual view). Please note the additional point that several of the extant tags you defend were simply wrong and pointed to unintended targets, but I didn't make a list of them; the hex link "article spinout" was one that pointed incorrectly to the top rather than the middle of its target. Further, you have not replied substantively to my rationales as I asked, which can be regarded as declining to contribute to consensus, and I have advised you of the consequences if you continue to fail to reply substantively. (ADD: You refactored in an objection to "NPOV", which was already in the article and properly explained, to which my only contribution was to standardize the formatting. However, even though you neglected to make this adhoc additional charge in your initial review, I will adjust it and the diff accordingly.) JJB 16:33, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Silence_means_nothing. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:39, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by John J. Bulten (talk • contribs) 16:45, 13 May 2012‎
I support JJB's changes. --POVbrigand (talk) 18:48, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
By and large JJB's changes improve the article. Only minor points are the substitution of 'cliched' for 'clichéd' and e.g. 'nonnegotiable' for 'non-negotiable', both of which are incorrect according to e.g. Chamber's English dictionary (see http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chref.py/main?query=nonnegotiable&title=21st). And precisely to stop getting into edit wars over grammar and spelling between US and British English speaking editors I think the Wikipedia policy is to leave things in the original version? Aarghdvaark (talk) 03:41, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't like people doing loads of trivial edits to no great purpose. The talk page now has loads of proposed trivial edits to no real purpose that I can see and now we have the policy being fiddled with. Can't people go and do something useful in the article space instead please? Dmcq (talk) 11:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
Dmcq... I am not a great fan of "trivial edits either to no great purpose" either... but dismissively telling an editor who suggests a change you think is trivial to go away and "do something useful in article space" is not very civil... and can backfire (ie, it could be responded to with: "If you think the change is so trivial, why don't you go away and "do something useful" instead of wasting your time arguing about it). You don't have to agree to a proposed change, but you do have to be courteous in your opposition. Blueboar (talk) 13:04, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
I am sirry if you do not think I am being courteous. I do not believe it is treating people with respect to say what they have done is worthwhile when it is not. Doing otherwise is wasting their time and giving a false signal about what is worthwhile. Dmcq (talk) 15:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I am working in mainspace, but I do make policy cleanups now and then. I see that, contrary to my impressions, "cliched" is in only one of my dictionaries (OSPD), so I have no problem self-undoing that. I can also undo "non-negotiable" as it's in the Jimboquote. I made a number of other useful minor edits here that were cold-reverted without discussion and reinstated without objection; this thread is just for the surviving nitpicks. The primary reason there are several possibly trivial proposals at once is that there are many watchers and if even one objects it becomes a talk proposal; SOP. JJB 16:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I fail to see your point at #Recommended changes and reading through the proposed changes did not help. I don't think there is any good reason for doing any of them. As you say this page is watched by a number of people, so when stuff is done here it takes up a number of peoples' time. Cleaning up articles so hyphens for instance get changed into minus signs is reasonable enough, but this page is just a working document and part of process, it isn't part of the encyclopaedia. Doing changes like that here falls into the category turd polishing or thumb twiddling, as far as I'm concerned it is a nuisance and has taken away part of my life to no benefit. It makes it unpleasant to keep things like this on my watchlist even though neutral point of view is a very important policy and I wish to be aware of any agreed changes to it. So please confine the changes to something a bit more important that changing invisible bits of links. Dmcq (talk) 17:18, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
The comment about excrement has the effect of marking the other parts of the post as dismissable.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
I fail to see how. Dmcq's comment was spot on. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

Taken from my talk. JJB 17:33, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello.

I have noticed that you have undone my edit to that page. The explanation was reasonable, but I will explain why I do not entirely agree with it.

  • In Wikipedia articles (or other material), even if an acronym is defined in the title, it is often repeated in the text for clarity. Perhaps we can state "point of view fork" first, and then state that it is often abbreviated "POV fork".
  • The hyphen may have been negligible, but it was not particularly correct. The formal way to note a content fork on Wikipedia is "content fork", evident by the title of the relevant page, Wikipedia:Content forking, rather than Wikipedia:Content-forking, which does not even exist. 76.251.28.21 (talk) 17:22, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Philosophical Question About Undue Weight

Not giving undue weight to fringe ideas and small minority views is important to prevent information clutter and mass social confusion. However, I see a painful disadvantage to this as well. Hypothetically, what if a fringe group happens to be correct or at least partially correct about something? How is mainstream ever going to discover the truth about it if the information is so omitted and delegitimized that nobody credible is willing to poke at it? (And if they do, invariably lose their credibility when they find out it's true and start supporting it.) This creates a self-perpetuating cycle of unenlightenment. Humanity may be missing out on some significant and important truths. How much of a problem is this? How can we even know how much of a problem this is? DavidPesta (talk) 09:15, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

That is true, however it should be directed onto one of the Wikipedia:Reference_desks I think. WIkipedia is an encyclopaedia and it is quite explicitly not our job to help fix that problem. Dmcq (talk) 09:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
To go one step further. Almost all of the generally accepted ideas we hold about the world today started of as "fringe theories". It is a certainty that a small proportion of today's "fringe theories" will become tomorrow's generally accepted "truths". I think Wikipedia has it about right in that Wikipedia is not the place where fringe theories should be validated we should just report that process if and when it occurs as documented by RS. Dlv999 (talk) 10:26, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia is simply not the right venue for this sort of thing. See Right great wrongs. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:50, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
David, you are giving Wikipedia far to much credit. Wikipedia is not the be-all-and-end-all of knowledge dissemination. You ask: "How is the mainstream ever going to discover the truth?"... Well, how did people discover and disseminate the truth of things prior to the invention of Wikipedia? Blueboar (talk) 14:11, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
My response to this discussion branch is found shortly below. DavidPesta (talk) 16:11, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I guess it depends on whether the information appears in a general article, or whether it is an article devoted to describing the minority view. I wouldn't expect to see the idea, that the Moon is made of cheese, in the article on the Moon, but might expect to see it in an article about the Moon being made of cheese. It also depends on how the information is presented, whether it is presented as (a) a generally accept fact, ie. "The Moon is made of cheese" (b) whether it is attributed, ie. "According to Brie(1995), the Moon is made of cheese"[25] --Iantresman (talk) 14:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Except that the "Moon Made of Cheese" article will be full of reasons why that view is wrong and minimize the reasons that the proponents believe it is correct, all in the name of "undue weight." (Maybe articles are not supposed to do this in theory, but in practice, well, that's how I've perceived dozens of articles covering a wide range of controversial topics over the last several years. Sometimes it is blatant; other times it seems subtle to get under the radar. Let's not make a mistake about human nature here. It certainly happens and it sticks to the article under the strong arm of the majority.) If it turns out, for our hypothetical example, that the moon really is made of cheese, then Wikipedia isn't being a benign observer/reporter of human knowledge, but is actually having a direct influence on the progress of knowledge by contributing to the truth exclusion mechanism wedged deep within the way mainstream operates as people read the articles, which is the quandary of my original posting. My understanding is that Wikipedia doesn't want to do this.
The other posters had a good response that it is not Wikipedia's job to unravel this problem with mainstream, and while I appreciate that answer, I kind of have misgivings about it because much the public perceives Wikipedia's place as the "be-all-and-end-all of knowledge dissemination" as Blueboar rightly discouraged. The thing is, as long as the public has this misperception, Wikipedia really is contributing to unenlightenment (where fringe happens to be truth) rather than playing the role as a completely neutral actor in the arena of human knowledge. (I think this is at the heart of one of Wikipedia's goals, right?) So, here is my humble suggestion: Perhaps a public disclaimer that gives everyone a proper understanding of all this may be appropriate. Maybe Wikipedia can't do anything about the mainstream, like you all say, but Wikipedia can do something about Wikipedia. What do you think? DavidPesta (talk) 20:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
I think Wikipedia aspires to be an encyclopaedia, a tertiary source reporting what reliable secondary sources show and giving priority to majority expert views on topics. Minority and fringe views are shown and explained in the context of how they've been received by experts versed in the majority viewpoint. Wikipedia is not a journal of the paranormal, or a way of promoting The Truth that all those experts keep dismissing. . . dave souza, talk 22:35, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
I guess what bothers me is that everyone on Wikipedia seems to equate what is "reliable" with what is mainstream. But mainstream isn't always reliable, as was already discussed when considering the history of knowledge. (Nearly everything we believe today was fringe at one time in history.) There is a wide spectrum of relative acceptance among various Internet sources for different issues. I understand that favoring the most popular opinion among those sources is the best we can expect from Wikipedia, but there's going to be the potential for a lot of error in the process, and the public isn't really aware of that. An official disclaimer may help.
Just imagine if Wikipedia were run and maintained by the population as it existed during the dark ages. We're very fortunate that we're way beyond that era of extreme unenlightenment, but how much enlightenment do we still have left to achieve in this day and age? I really don't think anybody is equipped to answer that question in any era that they live in. Hundreds of years from now, people may abstract history in such a way to say that our generation was still at the tail end of the dark ages. It's a sobering thought, one that shouldn't be taken lightly. DavidPesta (talk) 04:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Of course the The Moon is made of Green Cheese article would include a reference to the mainstream view, but it doesn't mean we spend the entire article explaining what the Moon is really made of, as we already have an article on the Moon for that. I would include more mainstream views, only where there have sources that directly refer to the Moon being made of cheese. I need only be told once, that there is a mainstream view. --Iantresman (talk) 08:09, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
The problem of minority views being labelled as "fringe" (as in lunatic) and then derided is a real one. I think it's very common, and I think it violates the NPOV pillar. Setting up the Moon/Cheese example as a strawman is too easy and dismissive. In real life, there are plenty of minority views that are both notable and reasonable. Many of them are demonstrably more factual than the "mainstream" story, which often inclines toward lowest-common-denominator appeal, or represents outright manipulation by marketers, ideologues, etc. (examples on request).

A more instructive example would be, say, the history of a war of conquest, written by victors who have a strong financial and cultural interest in making themselves feel good about what happened. They don't feel that they're "lying" - but the story they tell should be suspected, simply because the authors are so deeply attached to it. It would be surprising if the victors were, en masse, committed to telling an NPOV story about a recent (or worse, ongoing) war, given that they're humans and not Vulcans.

If a group of individuals were committed to producing an NPOV story (and that's what we're supposed to be doing at WP), the way to do it would be to launch a slow and deliberate search for unvarnished facts, while consciously striving to recognize and compensate for our inevitable biases. It would require extensive interviewing of bystanders and losers of the war, and a sincere and vigorous search for evidence that supports their version of the story, even if we're biased against it. Otherwise, we'll never attain NPOV.

I've been working on this, and what I'm finding is that the conventions of drama (that is, entertainment value) usually trump NPOV. In telling a simple story, you need at least one good guy (or group) and one bad guy, and you have to set them up in conflict with each other. And one side has to win. People are left unsatisfied by a tie or a stalemate. (Think of spectator sports, and how the rules are engineered to ensure that ties are broken - often by rather arbitrary means.)

There's an essay somewhere in WP, making the case that WP articles should be "boring". In other words, the dramatic conventions requiring "good (correct) guys" vs "bad (incorrect) guys" don't apply, when plausible minority narratives need to be presented. That may be counterintuitive, to people who edit and read WP with a fixed POV that the majority view is almost always "correct" in a permanent sense, rather than a contingent one. In my experience, "consensual reality" is a mixed bag, and is not extremely reliable.

Searching out the real facts behind popular stories can be extremely interesting, and plausible stories can be held in a provisional matter alongside alternatives. But that's the hallmark of mature scholarship, which is a minority POV. You might even say it's "fringe". ;-)

I like the idea of separate articles for minority views, which would allow for detailed treatment of the rationale and facts supporting the view. But I think in many cases, a group of editors who believe in the "one, true (majority) view" would either delete it as a POV fork, or ruin it by inserting propaganda for their view. And they would succeed, simply because they are the majority. Feeling enriched, rather than threatened, by multiple points of view seems to be quite rare. But I keep hoping to be proved wrong on that.
Best regards to all, happy editing, Postpostmod (talk) 21:16, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Which is why you will always find the most complete story on an article's "Talk" page. That's one good thing about Wikipedia. But, what percentage of the general public actually visits, reads, and digests the "Talk" pages? Not many I imagine. A case could be made from this that as long as Wikipedia emphasizes mainstream views, the mainstream views (whether accurate or not) reinforce themselves and are self-perpetuated when the general public reads Wikipedia.
When the founder makes statements like this one: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge," it goes to show that at least the intention exists to make Wikipedia a major go-to place for knowledge, which means Wikipedia really does seek the power to shape, or in this case solidify, mainstream views (for better or worse) if it wanted to. (And it does so inadvertently via the self-perpetuating mainstream problem already mentioned.)
So my question is, does Wikipedia want to be an intellectually free platform that makes human knowledge passively available to everyone without exerting any disruptive force of its own? Or does Wikipedia want to play an active historical role in affecting public opinion about knowledge, which ultimately shapes cultures and changes governments? Since that's not the goal of Wikipedia for its articles, why not make a concerted effort to come up with measures to help curtail or prevent this problem?
I'm not seeing this as just some mainstream problem (outside of Wikipedia's jurisdiction), but a Wikipedia problem, because Wikipedia's intended influence (per statements made by its founder) positions itself as part of mainstream, which allows it to create a conflict in its own values and purpose, as I explained. I bet there are many creative solutions out there that can solve this for Wikipedia, but the community would need to become motivated and galvanize around some of those ideas in order to instigate change. (Or competition from a new site with new tools, of which there is no indication of in the foreseeable future.) DavidPesta (talk) 06:19, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand how due weight is measured.
Take for example this where someone suggests that found side effects of cataract, circulatory disease, and cognitive impairment, are of undue weight, and for example this where someone suggest that a side effect of DNA double strand brake in every cell is of undue weight.
Reading the WP:NPOV , I don't see how these claims of undue weight are supported. There is research showing these side effects occurring, there isn't any research showing or suggesting otherwise. So counting supporting vs. objecting researches indicate that the majority support the POV, so how can it be of undue weight? --Nenpog (talk) 23:09, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
None of the above is remotely true. Nenpog didn't get his way in a content dispute[26][27][28], and now he is WP:FORUMSHOPPING with vague accusations of wrongdoing by anyone who dared to disagree with him. Previous forums where he tried to get his way and was shot down are: Talk:X-ray computed tomography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, Talk:Ionizing radiation, Wikipedia talk:No original research, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard, User talk:Elen of the Roads, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard, Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine), and now Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:05, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Looks like Nenpog has exhausted the available paths and now must simply accept that consensus is against him. Binksternet (talk) 02:15, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Please ignore off topic comments that Guy Macon and his proxies write. The Guy is following me around where ever I post, and is tailing my posts, in order to prevent neutral consideration of my point of view, and questions. Is that how Wikipedians expected to act? I wrote to them, that I will not respond off topic. Please take a look at the discussions that he has pointed out, though in order to learn how WP:DUE is misused. --Nenpog (talk) 05:39, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Cannot fully agree. Nenpog has asked quite a legitimate question: "what are the mechanisms to determine mainstreamness of some particular viewpoint"? Taking his last example, the issue about DNA double strand breaks is easy to resolve: when you type "CT scan" DNA "double strand breaks", google scholar gives you 492 results. Several first results are the references to the articles recently published in quite respectable journals (thus, PNAS is a very reputable journal with impact factor of ca 10). Each of those articles have been cited several times (M Löbrich et al have been cited 160 times, MA Kuefner et al have been cited 13 times, which is quite decent for the 2010 artidcle, etc). By looking at the articles that cite those works it is easy to see that the citing articles contain no criticism and confirm the figures of Löbrich and Kuefner (~0.1 to 1 DSB per cell). Taking into account that this field of knowledge is developing extremely fast, and new techniques provide researchers with new opportunities, it is obvious that old data become obsolete quite quickly. Therefore, in a situation when we have a number of articles published in top journals that tell about ca 1 DSB per lymphocite, and no articles exist that contest those observations, we can speak about majority viewpoint. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
This is always on a case by case basis. One must be sure that when one discusses mainstream and fringe those views pertain to the same reliably verified basis in fact, that is, are different views of a common objective basis. One must be equally careful to separate different "views" from different "versions" which do not necessarily stem from a common objective basis. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 03:51, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
In other words, you imply that no universal mechanisms can be proposed? What is the ground of this your assertion?--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:54, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I think that we can have valid universal mechanisms and that in many cases mainstream views and fringe views have a substantive difference. The mainstream view on AIDS and AIDS denialism are not "different views of a common objective basis"
Nenpog's theories aren't that kind of "fringe." In his case, he tried to insert a long list of Evil Things CT Scans Do to X-ray computed tomography. First he tried getting his way through edit warring without sources. Then he tried with a few primary sources, Then he tried claiming that sources say things they don't say. Lately he has revised his claims and found what appear to my untrained eye to be some reasonable sources, and at the same time started accusing everyone who disagrees with him of having a COI. And he really has been forum shopping -- one of the worst cases I have seen. Here is where it gets interesting; the consensus of the other editors of that page (many of them doctors or medical researchers) is still against him, but is there a bias among the other editors based upon Nenpog's past behavior? One must remember that the story of the boy who cried wolf ends with a visit by a real wolf. Likewise, Nenpog could be right this time. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:27, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I am not aware of what concrete idea Nenpog advocates, however, his example with DNA double strand breaks demonstrates that the data about the amount of DSBs have been published in several high rank journals, they are being widely cited by peers, and they have not been contested so far. Therefore, we can speak about mainstreamness, and there is nothing wrong in Nenpog's approach. However, as soon as you started to speak about "evil things", let me add my 2 cents. Based on what I know from the literature, DNA damage is not something outstanding in human cells. About 10000 damages occur in each cell daily. although only a small part of them are DSBs, I assume, the cell has all needed means to repair those damages quite efficiently.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Pretty much any story where a real wolf shows up ends when the wolf shows up, being as how they only come for the dinner bell. Still, better than stories about polar bears. :) But Wikipedia shouldn't be about statistical considerations of how many virtual wolves make a real one, it should be about the sources. If one strident editor poisons their own well, the sources and both mainstream and fringe thinking on any topic don't change. The correct and weighted information will get included - just not by that one particular editor. So the question is, will this be done before the deadline? Franamax (talk) 08:59, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
What do you mean under "virtual wolves" in this particular case?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:44, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
My impression of what other editors meant, when they wrote undue weight, was something else than was meant in WP:DUE. E.g. "The secondary source you presented (the NEJM article) does not put any significant WP:weight on specific details like the # of breaks. As such, if secondary sources do not put weight on that, neither should we."Yobol - the term weight was used to describe the length/detail of a description of the fact, not how common/true/mainstream/important that fact was. --Nenpog (talk) 13:25, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
The weight put on one or another detail hardly matters. What is really important is a relative weight. Do some recent works that demonstrate the absence of DSB after CT exist, and, if they do, what is a relative weight of pro et contra?--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
There isn't any work that deny existence of DSBs after CT. --Nenpog (talk) 16:30, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is sort of a two-edge sword in that area. If there are 100 fringe views and one eventually turns out to be right and 99 turn out to be wrong, I don't see it as a mission of Wikipedia to list all 100 just so that it includes the one. Mis-informaiton is not information, it is the opposite. And particularly where the "view" is really just/merely a means to a POV end. For example, those opposed to a technology in general will generally try to give extra legs to any thought that it causes diseases. But on the flip side, following the North8000 maxim that we need to recognize that policies are much more often mis-used than violated, this policy is often wiki-lawyered to exclude significantly held opposing viewpoints via setting a high and time-consuming bar to inclusion of the material when it is contrary to the POV of the people seeking to exclude it. And, as POV warriors know, the most common way to "win" is to make whatever their opponent wants so time consuming and difficult that they give up and go away. North8000 (talk) 15:45, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

What are the reasons behind the WP:WEIGHT?
Is it conciseness? If so, shouldn't it be invoked only if the article gets too large? and can't majority views be prioritized by putting them above minority views? or by making a minority views article, that is referenced by the main article?
Is it supporting only the ""truth""? If so, are we sure it really support the truth? as was stated before, many majority views of the past turned out to be wrong.
Are there other reasons? --Nenpog (talk) 17:25, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
One of the reasons why WP:FORUMSHOPPING is so popular is because it allows one to repeat assertions that have been addressed elsewhere to see if the new audience can figure out the flaws in the assertion. In this case, Nenpog is talking about this edit, which is his latest attempt to insert material after finding that the consensus was 100% against him doing so. This is over a week after the discussion at Talk:X-ray computed tomography#Extensive DNA damage - Adverse effect (the IP editor is Nenpog). A search on "DNA" on that talk page turns up extensive discussion by the other editors explaining why they keep reverting the material.
Unlike Nenpog, who only wants to put in negative material whether the sources back him up or not, the other editors of X-ray computed tomography appear to be doing a very good job of making sure that the article is well-sourced, neutral, and has the right amount of weight. In particular, the individuals who Nenpog has accused of COI have put an appropriate mix of positive and negative material in the article. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Guy Macon, you are not right. The material Nenpog put is neither negative nor positive. It is a neutral and mainstream information about well established facts, published in mainstream peer-reviewed journals.
By saying that, I do not imply I see no problem with Nenpog's edits. There are some problems, but they are different. By adding detailed description of the amount of DSBs Nenpog implies some conclusion that is not explicitly present in the sources he cited. Indeed, upon reading this an ordinary user may conclude that a direct connection exists between CT and cancer. However, as far as I understand from one of the sources cited by Nenpog, DNA damages are not something outstanding in the cells, and most of them are almost harmless. Ordinary readers do not know about that, and they may conclude that 1 DSB/lymphocyte means the dramatic increase of of the risk of cancer, which is obviously not true. Instead of extensively citing the data on the number of DSBs, Nenpogought to cite another passage (from Furlow):
"Determining the cancer risk associated with CT exams remains a contentious matter. The cancer risk from a single CT scan is relatively small, particularly for adults. An estimated 1 patient per 2000 will develop a fatal cancer from any CT scan, compared with a general cancer risk of 1 in 5 for the U.S. adult population. However, examinations that involve higher doses correspond to greater lifetime cancer risks for patients. For example, a CT scan of the heart can cause 1 case of cancer in every 270 women aged 40 years and 1 per 600 men aged 40 years. In contrast, head scans represent a lower risk of 1 cancer in 8100 women scanned and 1 in 11 000 men scanned. These risks are twice as high for individuals aged 20 years as for those aged 40 years."
In other question, instead of discussing the relevance of the issue of the amount of DSBs to the CT article, you, for some reason, switched to the due/undue weight issue. Yes, the thesis Nenpog advocates is a mainstream viewpoint. However, the material you are talking about is hardly relevant to the CT paper, and the conclusion he tries to draw from the data on the number of DSBs is not explicitly sated in the sources he cites. In other words, there is no NPOV or V issues here, there is a SYNTH issue.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:51, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Re: "The material Nenpog put is neither negative nor positive", I just read every edit Nenpog has ever made to article space, disregarding copyediting and other edits that do not add or remove content. Of the edits that do add or remove content.[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] every single edit either added content about CT scans being harmful or deleted content about CT scans being beneficial. Some of those were very good edits that I would have made myself, but the fact that all of the edits paint CT scans as being harmful is an easily checked fact. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:50, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
I wrote the material, so I meant just the material regarding DSBs. I have no intentions to go into other details, because I am more interested in discussion of the general rules to establish mainstream/fringe views. Again, regarding DSBs, Nenpog's edits are quite correct: he does describe mainstream views (judging by my brief analysis; if more profound analysis will reveal some alternative viewpoints, that will disprove my conclusion, but not the procedure itself). The problem you both are arguing about seems to be of a SYNTH, not NPOV nature, and, therefore, belongs to another talk page. Do you have any objections to the procedure I used to establish mainsreamness of the DSB related sources?--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:59, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Not at all. I think you are spot on. I was assuming that a comment was about all the material, when you clearly were talking just about the the material regarding DSBs. Sorry about the misunderstanding. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:05, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Before this misunderstanding, I asked about the reasons behind WP:WEIGHT, and wondered if there are other ways to address the concerns behind WP:WEIGHT. I hope that we can get back to discussing that now. --Nenpog (talk) 08:15, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

This is now at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Nenpog. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:42, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

RfC on the verifiability policy lede

Hello all. I'd like to draw your attention to an RfC about the lede of the verifiability policy. We have been drafting this RfC for some time as part of a MedCab mediation, and it is finally ready for comment. In the RfC we have included a few specific drafts of the policy lede for you to comment on, and we have twelve general questions to find editors' views about how the lede should look. All editors are warmly invited to join the discussion at the RfC page. Thanks! — Mr. Stradivarius on tour (have a chat) 02:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

The status of the fact/opinion issue

For information purposes only — where are we currently at with respect to the consensus (or lack thereof) about viewpoints being described as facts and opinions? I know there has been considerable debate about this issue which has involved the removal of the WP:ASF section. Can someone illuminate? NTox · talk 05:05, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Implied correlation of statistics

I have seen articles cited with statistics implying support for the editors pov. Which is fine.

But how far does this go? In one political article, it says (rewording): "Young people tend to like this, older people don't." (Implication: it's modern and up-to-date). In the same article it says: "Better educated people like, lesser educated don't."

In neither case, is the issue about age nor is it about education. It is a political issue.

I guess anything is fair game in politics, so I can say, "Better educated people support Obama (or Romney)" as the case may be? Letting chips fall where they may?

But can I say "Red haired people tend to support Romney/Obama?" And if not, why not? Isn't hair color as relevant to political support as education or age? And if hair color isn't as relevant, why isn't it? What differentiates hair color from education level for a purely political issue? This all seems like cultural WP:BIAS to me. Student7 (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia-bias would be cherry picking our favorite facts from political surveys to make points about the supporters of a particular candidate. If the surveyors themselves cherry pick correlations to test, that's not our bias. Neutrality is accurately reporting the points of view of reliable sources, not "correcting" their own biases. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:13, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

"Neutral" vs. "Impartial"

It doesn't seem logical to use neutral here. The point of WP:UNDUE is that giving undue weight is not neutral. PSWG1920 (talk) 17:32, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference, however, because we are on a different rung on the abstraction ladder. The sentence in question is talking about the neutrality/impartiality of particular parts of articles (parts that discuss "isolated events, criticisms, or news reports", etc.), not the neutrality/impartiality of the article's treatment of the topic itself. Thus, it can very well be the case that one section of an article alone complies with the spirit of WP:UNDUE, etc. and be neutral, but when placed in the context of the page, the article becomes non-neutral as per WP:UNDUE. However, I usually am one to say that we should do what we can not to confuse readers, so I would in fact advocate for keeping "impartial" because I don't think there is anything lost doing it that way. Many people reading this thing are just starting to learn about neutrality; let's avoid throwing them off with the word unnecessarily here after we have just described it much more broadly. NTox · talk 00:26, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm neutral about this. I don't believe that most readers of the policy will parse the meaning so closely, so I think it will work just fine either way. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Why are this policy and this notion related to 'All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content' (as stated down in the page's lead section) only?

(Almost) every page here (regardless of the namespace which it is in) is (directly or indirectly) meant to be useful to the articles and their encyclopedic contents.

So a POV, or other bias or issues, for example in a talk page will lead to a POV in an article. (I can remember an example of this, in an other language Wikipedia, very well :-( ) . --Uno nessuno e 100000 (talk) 06:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, one thing that comes to mind is "undue weight". I don't thinks a talk page could be expected to represent all points of view with the appropriate weight at any given time, and any one editor's contribution can be expected to give more weight to that editor's point of view. That does not mean that the contributions are not "meant to be useful to the articles and their encyclopedic contents". Also, editors should be permitted to express clear personal views, like "Wikipedia needs more administrators" or "Articles about this topic could be improved if we could recruit more editors with a better understanding of Quantum Bogodynamics". -Boson (talk) 08:51, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
The provision is essentially there to cover two non-article space situations where do not require neutrality: 1) personal user pages (you can make a biased statement on your user page) and 2) policy and guideline pages (for example telling editors that they may not include original research is not a neutral statement... it is a policy statement based on consensus, and so we must all follow it whether we agree with it or not.) Blueboar (talk) 00:33, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Examples of fringe theories

Right now, Holocaust denial is one of the two examples the page gives of fringe historical revisionism. Would it be wise to replace it with something less inflammatory? Fringe theorists who are pointed to this policy usually fail to see the point of the perceived comparison between themselves and Holocaust deniers, and the problem is compounded by the fact that examples used in policy pages tend to be repeated when the policy is explained in discussion. Some alternatives might be:

- Cal Engime (talk) 19:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I support the basic principle here, but alternatives to Holocaust denial need to be equally well-understood to readers and be very clearcut cases of "fringe theories", and I think those suggested here fail in one or both of those respects. We could maybe use Paul is dead or Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. Formerip (talk) 19:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
My problem is that nobody believes the former and tens of millions of people believe the latter. Some fringe theories that have some currency, but not too much, would be 9/11 conspiracy theories, claims that Kurt Cobain/Marilyn Monroe/Princess Diana/Pope John Paul I was murdered, that the Sixteenth Amendment was never legally ratified, or that aliens crashed at Roswell in 1947. - Cal Engime (talk) 21:07, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't use the Tax protesters; I would try to avoid examples that are overly US centric as Non-US people might not know what you are talking about. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Good point. On that basis, I would lean towards the death of the Pope as being of the clearest worldwide importance. - Cal Engime (talk) 05:27, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

WP:DUE and length of sections

Can WP:DUE or WP:NPOV in general be used to determine the length of sections in an article? For instance, Ancient Graeco-Roman and Ancient Chinese sections in the article on Philosophy are roughly of equal length. Let's say majority of the tertiary sources on ancient philosophy focus entirely on ancient Graeco-Roman philosophy and only include a line or two on ancient Chinese philosophy. Does that mean the philosophy article in wikipedia should roughly follow the same format even if there are hundred articles (spinouts) on ancient Greek philosophy and none on ancient Chinese philosophy? In other words, when we spinout an article from a section in the main article, do we reduce its weight there (in terms of length) in comparison to other sections? And how does length of sections in wikipedia (which because of spinouts is theoretically infinite) sit with length of similar sections in other tertiary sources of limited length (like paper encycolpedias)? Correct Knowledge«৳alk» 20:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's my two cents. Yes, DUE does have a significant role in determining the amount of text to devote to a subject within a page. It's not like there's a rigid formula for the number of words, of course. But it's quite reasonable to say that the majority of reliable sources treat a particular topic as a minor point, and therefore we should not devote too much space to it on a page not specifically about it. I very deliberately am not looking at Philosophy in answering your question, but it does occur to me that NPOV could also provide an argument for providing a global view instead of a Western-centric one. If there are also spun-out pages on sub-topics, it makes sense to have template:main links to those. In that case, it's an editorial judgment call how much text to retain in the main page, and I'm not sure that NPOV will be that useful in determining that, but it's certainly reasonable to argue that major topics should retain a reasonable amount of detail (see WP:Summary style), whereas minor points could be scaled back to a short link or a see also. WP:Content forking also gives some guidance about how NPOV applies to cases where articles are split off from the main article. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, your comment was very helpful. Correct Knowledge«৳alk» 16:11, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Beatles RfC

You are invited to participate in an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles on the issue of capitalizing the definite article when mentioning the band's name in running prose. This long-standing dispute is the subject of an open mediation case and we are requesting your help with determining the current community consensus. For the mediators. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 00:43, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Description of "bias"

Currently, the project page states:

Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been ......

I would suggest changing this to read as follows:

Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias in favor of any particular view, all significant views that have been ......

-- that is by inserting the phrase "in favor of any particular view" after the word "bias." This would make it even clearer that while sources are often biased, and while the biased views of various sources may be included in Wikipedia articles, the bias that is prohibited by NPOV concept is the bias in the way Wikipedia presents the materials from the various biased or conflicting sources. Later in the project page, this is made clearer in the discussion about how to present material from biased sources, but I would suggest that the addition of this language in the aforementioned verbiage near the top of the page would help to clarify this even more.

Comments? Famspear (talk) 18:43, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

PS: I'm making this suggestion because I sometimes see new editors trying to delete material in articles on the ground that that the source, although a reliable source, is "biased", or that the material betrays a bias, even though the article in question clearly identifies the material as being that of the source (as opposed to being some sort of "position" of Wikipedia itself). I think it would help to make it even more clear that in Wikipedia, sources are allowed to be biased, and that we couldn't have an encyclopedia if we used only "unbiased" sources or source materials. Famspear (talk) 18:47, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I have given some thought to this, and my overall impression is that it is an idea that is quite well-intentioned, but I don't know if it would solve all that many problems. I'm not necessarily opposing the idea, because I don't think it really contradicts anything that we are trying to accomplish, but it seems to add length to the definition without adding a whole lot of value. I've always gotten the impression that neutrality on Wikipedia has been defined in a very holistic way - "fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views" ... there's a very big picture feel to that, which is compromised slightly by the suggestion here. And I guess to me (but I'm always willing to be proven wrong), I don't know if changing it to "in favor of" will really emphasize the neutrality-on-Wikipedia-only concept you're going for. I always thought "Editing from a neutral point of view means representing fairly, proportionately, (my emphasis) etc. was sufficient to emphasize that, but maybe we're in WP:OBVIOUS territory. Moreover, there is something to remember about conflicted (biased) sources - they can often be used to support claims of the author to be sure, but they are indeed often unreliable for factual material. Just some thoughts. NTox · talk 19:40, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

External reference

I would have inserted the following under "external reference" but the policy doesn't have such a section. http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-to-spot-b.s.-political-story-in-under-10-seconds Warning: contains profane language.

Pretty much represents WP policy (with politics as the main focus) but in really blunt fashion with details. Seems like this ought to go somewhere. One of the best polemic against political pov that I have read. Student7 (talk) 00:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Balance

WP:BALANCE says, "This involves describing the opposing views clearly, drawing on secondary or tertiary sources that describe the disagreement from a disinterested viewpoint."

Since WP:Secondary does not mean independent (or disinterested), I wanted to check on the intention behind this statement. Do we mean to say:

  1. "Use a source that is not a primary source",
  2. "Use a source that is independent", or
  3. "Use a source that is both not a primary source and disinterested"?

And of these is ultimately okay with me, but I'd like to know which is actually intended. (Personally, I favor #3). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I did some research and found that the statement was added in this edit. I can't of course say exactly what Tim had in mind, nor how the statement is usually interpreted by the community, but I have understood the intention to be more along the lines of a choice #4. i.e., That secondary and tertiary sources are often quite good at giving us a birds-eye view of a dispute, therefore we should rely on them to summarize the shape of the dispute, without prejudice against primary sources that augment the information. By 'disinterested', I read it as a simple reliability thing; that is, that we should be wary of COI sources that may describe the shape of the dispute unfairly and inaccurately. So, more simply, I think BALANCE is trying to say 'rely on non-conflicted secondary and tertiary sources in your analysis, but don't be afraid of ancillary sources that are primary or perhaps a little biased'. NTox · talk 01:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
That sounds to me like Option #3, with a reminder that you may WP:USEPRIMARY sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:53, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Find this hatnote annoying?

Maybe it's just me, but I find the "Find this page confusing? Just put a note on your talk page with {{Help me}} (including the curly brackets) above it and someone will assist you." notice at the top of the page kind of misplaced. Should we delete it (or at least move it to the bottom)? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:32, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE

WT:FRINGE#RfC on the scope of WP:FRINGE... Please take a look, and share your opinion (on that guideline's talk page.) Blueboar (talk) 13:25, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Why is there a noticeboard if nobody is interested in discussions?

I posted a thread on Neutral point of view/Noticeboard about Kashmir conflict, but nobody cared to post a comment with a meaningful conclusion. Why? It has been sitting there for 5 days. I tried discussing the issue on Talk:Kashmir Conflict also; again nothing meaningful except for an overly diplomatic and inconclusive comment. What is the point of having a noticeboard to comply with WP:BRD if all it leads to is a never-ending stalemate?

The issue in short, currently the article contains a quote that (is)

  1. Partial, not full.
  2. impertinent in that context, used wrongfully as an assertion whereas it was a rhetorical question (based on a very biased, rather a jaundiced POV).
  3. Quotation (which is framed as an assertion) is not even in the source.

Mr T(Talk?) (New thread?) 08:48, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

If you are referring to my reply as "overly diplomatic and inconclusive"... The reason why I did not participate further is that it seemed (at least to me) like you were not really looking for advice on how to make the article neutral, but instead were asking us to choose between two non-neutral POVs, and determine which should be favored in the article. Blueboar (talk) 16:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
I didn't refer to you by "overly diplomatic and inconclusive". However, your comment here is better than your comment there. Mr T(Talk?) (New thread?) 10:45, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Paragraph

Dos anyone think its a good idea to add a paragraph about religion here? I have already thought of some ideas at WP:ADHERENCESTATS. Pass a Method talk 13:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

There already is one under "Controversial topics". Useight's Public Sock (talk) 18:18, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm...

An idea that I have is to simultaneously put bias AGAINST and FOR them. This will cause the two to cancel out.

92.233.220.248 (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

NPOV and systemic bias

I have recently suggested an edit to the {{systemic bias}} template on its talk page. I feel like this is something of a general problem. I think in the overwhelming majority of cases, NPOV tags are placed on pages appropriately. However, on contentious topics, there seems to be something of a systemic bias problem. I feel that we may need tags that reflect the fact that an assessment of NPOV may be due either to the bias within the article, or the inherent systemic bias of the WP community. Perhaps changing the NPOV tags or policy to somehow allow for that possibility will make these tags less a badge of shame on contentious articles. Any suggestion or discussion is appreciated. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ] # _ 06:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Support.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
To be clear, I don't think this should be limited to the infobox I have already modified. This seems to me to be worthwhile of a larger project, since WP:Wikiproject Countering systemic bias seems to be dead. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ] # _ 19:21, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Essay about NPOV for images

I have written a draft essay about NPOV for images. Overall thoughts, ideas, would be much appreciated. Just comment on the essay's talk page. I'm especially interested in important facets I neglected to cover. I'd also been interested in specific historical cases I could mention of photo manipulation that have free images (i.e., textbook-style examples I could incorporate). If you see any typos or simple mistakes, feel free to make them directly. For now I wish to remain primary author until I feel it's good enough that I don't consider it a draft anymore, so please don't make big changes without discussing on talk page. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:03, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Measuring "prominent" for WEIGHT and MOS (lede) - "particularly poorly defined in the relevant Wikipedia policies"

There is debate and discussion at talk pages of WP:MEDRS, WP:Wikiproject Rational Skepticism, and psychiatry as to how to establish "prominence" and "significant" re controversies.

WP:WEIGHT says "significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence...".

WP:MOS (lede) says "summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies".

For example, User:FiachraByrne wrote "to establish weight. What constitutes a sufficient number is particularly poorly defined in the relevant Wikipedia policies...".

A specific example involves problems with using "the bible of psychiatry", Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), as MEDRS, and including problems with it in the psychiatry article lede, in the article at all, and in related articles. This year, the Chair of DSM IV came out with a "scathing criticism", and two of the members of one of the main committees resigned in protest over unscientific proposals.[38] The issue is of such importance to people (everyone who grows is likely to be a DSM “diagnosee”) that the problem's widespread coverage in academic publications, in the mainstream news, and in popular-science press, just got it listed among the "top science stories of 2012" in Discover Magazine.

Yet the controversy material is still debated as not having "prominence" sufficient to get in the lede, or into the article at all, arguing it does not meet WP:WEIGHT.

I would propose that the following addition be considered to amend our WP:WEIGHT policy, after rewording via discussion here -

"Prominence is established by publication of views of a previous major contributor to a work or field in mainstream journals or media, or by being listed as a 'top story of the year' by a mainstream reliable source on the article topic, but may be established by lesser standards." ParkSehJik (talk) 20:33, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
The current policy sets a general principle well, but is absolutely unusable in practice. But your your proposed change is far too specialized, designed for a particular type of situation. North8000 (talk) 22:18, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
The problem with defining words like "prominence" is that narrow definitions that work for articles in one topic area don't work in articles in another topic area (and we want to write policy that works for all topic areas). For example, how would Park's definition work for pop culture articles (say an article about a comic book). Blueboar (talk) 23:24, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I also don't like my own proposal for its topic specificity, but something needs to be fixed since many good editors are wasting a bunch of time arguing because of the vagueness of "prominence", especially as it is the criteria for inclusion of controversial material, the worst possible place for vagueness to exist. ParkSehJik (talk) 23:45, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The policy currently says "Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views..." However I frequently encounter a situation when the opinion expressed by some prominent but not very reliable source (i.e. a newspaper, a book for general public, a TV channel) contradicts to the opinion published in peer-reviewed scientific or scholarly journal. I think we need to explain that prominence is deeply interconnected with reliability of sources. In my opinion the policy is not clear enough.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:18, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I find that WEIGHT is misused too frequently. The point of WEIGHT is to make it clear that the state of research is not to be misrepresented by this encyclopedia. Too often though content is excluded per WEIGHT even though it is properly and conservatively mentioned with reference to reliable sources. Accurately recording in the body of an article (when there is no sub-article for the section) what a reliable source says cannot possibly be a case of giving undue weight. This is just adding well-sourced, on-topic content to the article, which is exactly what should be encouraged. As for clarifying the policies: I don't think we should have overriding worries about merely possible negative effects to articles like Justin Bieber when we are trying to ameliorate actual negative effects to articles like Septuagint.

I think Park's addition could help. n--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:01, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

On this topic, how does citations works into it. Are claims in well cited works more prominent than others? Belorn (talk) 14:53, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Not necessarily. You usually consider the "amount" of the views and the "quality" of the views. So a view that is widely published gets a lot more attention than a rarely heard one; a high-quality view (e.g., a commonly held academic opinion) gets more attention than a low-quality view (e.g., a view that only appears in celebrity magazines). The presence of citations in the work might be a reason that you considered the source to represent a higher quality type, but it's not actually definitive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes... it may help to think of this as a plot on a standard two coordinate graph... on the X axis is amount of coverage a particular viewpoint gets (regardless of quality)... the Y axis is the quality of the coverage (regardless of amount). Blueboar (talk) 20:18, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Why would a celebrity magazine be considered a reliable source when every academic source disagrees with it? Or do you think that when determining WEIGHT we are supposed to take into account non-reliable sources? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:04, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Who says that celebrity magazines are always unreliable? I suspect that they are widely considered reliable for information about celebrities. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:26, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure if anyone says that. I'm asking as to why a celebrity magazine would be considered reliable just when every academic source disagrees with it. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 16:17, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Even then, there might be circumstances in which the celebrity magazine is better than an academic source. Conflicting sources need to be evaluated based on the specific issues, not merely general categories. For example, if the academic sources say that Joe Film is Buddhist, and Celebrity Rag runs an interview with him that says "I have always been a Roman Catholic, although my publicist told me to keep it a secret until I hit the big time", then the newer source trumps the older ones, even though the older ones are "better" on a theoretical level. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:47, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The current policy works at the "general principle" level (as a general guiding principle) but when you get to the "operative mechanics" level (which is what's used when there is a dispute) it is absolutely unusable. So a usable form of wp:weight is probably the most important missing policy in Wikipedia. I don't have an answer, but a good starting point would be to list things that should be taken into consideration in the "applying wp:weight" equation. Most of these are sprinkled through the above conversation, but they might include:

  • Meeting the "floor" of wp:rs criteria (this is the current criteria)
  • Impartiality of the the source with respect to the topic at hand
  • Expertise of the source with respect to the topic at hand
  • Prominence of coverage
  • Degree of focus of the coverage on the topic at hand. (e.g. source just mentions the topic vs,. being about the topic)
  • Prominence & credentials of the source
  • Degree of distribution of the source. (e.g. circulation)

North8000 (talk) 14:01, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

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