Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 56

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Neutrality is the opposite of the truth because it equates facts with lies.

@Jimbo Wales, My Name is Madness, and Goodposts: Neutrality means treating facts and lies equally. For example, every reasonable person knows that Bashar al-Assad is a dictator while in Wikipedia, we are forced to pretend that he is not. Due to Wikipedia's nonsensical neutral point of view policy, we are forced to refer to him as the president of Syria and not as the dictator of Syria. The fact is that he is a dictator and the lie is that he is "the president" which implies that he was elected democratically which is not true. Neutrality is not a valuable thing. 2600:1700:BBD0:8050:814C:8D5A:6663:2007 (talk) 22:47, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

IP: No, because we have WP:FALSEBALANCE. --Izno (talk) 00:33, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales, My Name is Madness, and Goodposts: The fact that you did not respond to my argument shows that you cannot defend your pro-neutrality position. Special:Contributions/2600:1700:BBD0:8050:C460:8B9:6388:8E71 (talk) 02:02, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

@2600:1700:BBD0:8050:C460:8B9:6388:8E71:I didn't reply because you didn't tag me and hence, I didn't know you wanted to involve me in a discussion. The view is not nonsensical. In the same breath as you could call a world leader a "dictator", one of their supporters could term them a "great leader". Wikipedia's job isn't to push an agenda. It doesn't support either side. It is supposed to only show objective facts, which are then left up to the reader to interpret. These facts can be good or bad and may lead to a reader being inclined to refer to a certain head of state as either a "dictator" or a "great leader", but that is not something you can write in an encyclopedia (you could cite someone calling the person a dictator, but not refer to that person as such in a news summary, for example). The word "dictator" is also very subjective. What defines a dictator, exactly? Could Trump be a dictator because of his recent emergency executive action? Is the Queen of the United Kingdom a dictator, for she was not elected? What about the Prince of Liechtenstein, who holds significant political power and is also not elected? Is the Pope a dictator, after all, while he is elected, the Vatican functions as an absolute monarchy. Where do you draw the line? Fundamentally - it's not up to you. You can't decide who is a dictator and who isn't. You can only present the facts objectively and leave the reader to form his own ideas as to wether or not a certain figure is good or bad. Best regards, Goodposts (talk) 10:26, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

@2600:1700:BBD0:8050:C460:8B9:6388:8E71: For posterity, it may do well to mention a very important and useful word here. Ostensibly. In the example given, intuition as to whether or not the mentioned person is "a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force." is entirely irrelevant. Wikipedia is responsible to document the things we know for sure, things like "X Group of people said he is a dictator" and the reasons why, along with some form of evidence that the instance being cite is a reliable representation of X Group. If you do so feel motivated as to catalouge the injustices this supposed dictator in a purely academic and neutral manner, providing relevant information for others to develop a well founded perspective of their own, which is based on truth, you're welcome to do so. What you are not welcome to, however, is to say or do anything on any articles, which itself asserts a claim. Please, provide all the relevant examples and accessory citations needed to document the claims of others, and feel free to work on the articles and portions you feel passionately about, but if you can't understand the difference between "Maintaining Objectivity" and "Equating truth to lies" perhaps Wikipedia isn't the foundation for you Azeranth (talk) 10:04, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

RfC on restructuring the Michael Jackson article with respect to child sexual abuse allegations

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Michael Jackson#Request for comments on restructuring the article. A permalink for it is here. Restructuring has been suggested in light of the recent Leaving Neverland documentary. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:10, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Policy on Demonstration of Falsehood or Formal Fallacy

When providing details on various opinions and debates, both past and present, is it beyond the scope of NPOV to enumerate or explain, detail, or discuss the particularities and structures of the arguments? Specifically how any particular line of argumentation encounter logical failings, is discounted by evidence, or falls to some point of subjective arbitration.

I am well aware that saying "This is wrong because, and therefore..." is horribly outside of NPOV, but there seems something of a grey area in the middle, talking about the legitimate failings of formal logic or insufficient, inadequate, or contrary evidence used to develop a claim. To what extent is it appropriate to provide explicit description of an argument, as a purely academic endeavor, and to what minimum is it negligent on the part of the editor to not bother including such analysis of the argument's premises and structure.

Personally, I would think that it would be less than due diligence not to provide objective detailing, bordering on deliberation as to why any particular line of reasoning may be ill founded (not the claim itself), but I would like to know a bit more of the community consensus on this one going forward, as it certainly is a question I ask myself anytime I go near a mildly controversial article.

Azeranth (talk) 09:52, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

• This is where our NPOV policy intersects with our WP:No original research (NOR) policy. We (as editors) should not conduct an analysis of an argument and reach a conclusion as to the arguments truth or falsehood... doing so would be “original” to WP. However, if others (reliable sources outside of Wikipedia) have conducted such an analysis, we can mention that anslysis. So, we can not say “X is false, because...”. Instead, we need to say “According to Critic Y,this is false, because...” (and then cite where Critic Y says it). Blueboar (talk) 12:14, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I suppose I just find it a little different or extraneous to arbitrate on the following:
  • Imagine you had a source, which provided a generic rule, let's call it the "Puppy Dog's Rule" and it describes a format of deduction needed to make an assertion. Some reliable source provides "if X, then Y" and then I have a second source which asserts "X" but does not explicitly state "and therefore Y"
  • Is it beyond the realm of NOR to say "Source A says something is X, and thus according to source B, therefore Y" even though source A doesn't make the leap, and source B doesn't explicitly mention the thing the example case talked about i Source A. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Azeranth (talk • contribs) 06:27, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

But in your example, you do not know that source B arrived at its conclusion because of what source A discovered. Source A might say that puppy dogs wag their tails a lot, and source B might say that puppy dogs can damage their tails. But neither source is saying that because puppy dogs wag their tails a lot, their tails get damaged. The two facts may or may not be associative, causation or in any way related other than in your own mind. Where I personally find Wikipedia wanting is that if someone outside of Wikipedia made such a relationship regardless of foundation it may then be quoted on Wikipedia as though it were true. Varybit (talk) 15:13, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment: proper labeling for controversial naming

With declining hard copy sales and increasing dependence on sponsor revenue, I believe many publishers are more conscientious to avoiding friction with sponsors and their industry. Often times, euphemism and double spoken labels are sometimes used for political correctness or from editorial and author bias. If the purpose of reference isn't for conveying the position presented by the source, should the word loading transfer into prose?

1.) homeless, houseless, vagrants, transients: For example, double spoken phrase like "members of the houseless community" have been gaining popularity in my local government's publications. I prefer to use the term "transients" as it is not dependent on houseless vs homeless semantics. It is a term commonly used in formal documents as well.

2.) People who apply graffiti: Graffiti vandal vs graffiti artist. News outlets regularly use both for those who apply graffiti. Both labels are controversial due to the perception by audience on if the product is art or vandalism and if there was permission. So I feel that more appropriate label is not too frequently used but a conveniently short "graffitists" or "graffiti practitioner"(have seen used in social science and criminology related publications) and avoid both the "graffiti artist" and "graffiti vandal" labeling in general.

Thoughts?Graywalls (talk) 13:01, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm unsure if you have a general point you are trying to make. If so, I missed it. Specifically on "homeless, houseless, vagrants, transients" I dislike the genericalisation of transient as it implies that people are between one state and another. The reality is that many homeless people are trapped in that condition, and are not transiting to anything better. Even those who are without fixed abode as a lifestyle, are not necessarily physically transient as many prefer to hang around a fairly limited locale. "Members of the houseless/homeless community" is awful: one of the big problems for many is that there is no community, and trying to pretend that all these people are in some kind of homogeneous social group is as daft and damaging as talking about "members of the adoptee community." Varybit (talk) 15:53, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Second hand journalism source bias

Articles written about events that involved a journalism controversy almost always exhibit heavy bias towards the side of the journalists involved. This seems to be almost entirely reliant on the fact that almost any source on the topic that would meet the standards for sources on Wikipedia is very likely to take its own side. Most journalists aren't gonna write badly about themselves, and people who aren't journalists aren't publishing edited second-hand commentary on the situation. This leads to many articles that either ignore this bias and simply fill almost the entire page with support for one side, then defending the imbalanced nature of the article on grounds of source quality, ignoring the greater problem at hand, or articles that that try and fail to compensate for this issue and end up with poorly cited sections that lack evidence and are constantly being revised and deleted. As issues surrounding all forms of journalism are approaching the forefront of social discussion, I think it is important to address this problem now, before there are many broken and unfair articles creating flame wars. The amount of multi-level reporting is decreasing over time, as people begin to rely more heavily on first hand accounts of events and the ease of access to digital copies of evidence on a daily basis. A lot of important information doesn't end up in newspaper articles and scholarly reports, why can't Wikipedia adapt, and develop some method of cataloguing first hand information such that articles do not omit content due to a lack of second hand sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheSpoonKing (talk • contribs) 02:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that Wikipedia has problems in relying on what it defines as 'reliable sources' when such sources can simply be the people who own the media. As all the fake news over recent years has shown, just because it is in the media does not mean it is right - and just because it isn't in the media, doesn't mean it is not right. There is also a problem with editors simply cherry-picking their own data, then using that data to enforce an unbalanced viewpoint because the data they have chosen says what they want it to. I think an adoption of "other information" and "unsourced commentary" would be beneficial, even if these were initially collapsed to a phrase on an article so that people would only see them by clicking on the phrase. Varybit (talk) 13:37, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm not convinced by the premise of the original comment, that journalists will always be biased to support other journalists regardless of their political alliances. Maybe when they feel that their profession is under attack, but not, in my experience, on specific points. The broader proposal is too vague to comment on. In general, if the body of RSs displays a certain bias, then NPOV says that WP should mirror that bias on a proportional basis. Eperoton (talk) 01:08, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Confusion

Let me start off with an admission of bias. I am a Creationist, I believe in the pseudoscience of Young Earth Creationism. The reason I believe this is because it is my opinion that YEC is superior to Darwin's theory of Evolution, and I have some knowledge about my beliefs which I figured I could use to help improve Wikipedia for people who maybe don't know or care to know as much as I do.

Though I personally think my beliefs are better than everyone else's, for the sake of science I was looking to be as neutral as humanly possible in my edits. To help me do this before I started editing I visited this page. My idea of being neutral and treating everyone fairly is treating everyone the same, or in other words treating them equally. So naturally when I read this about pseudosciences such as mine I was confused:

"...when talking about pseudoscientific topics, we should not describe these two opposing viewpoints as being equal to each other... This helps us to describe differing views fairly."

Am I misunderstanding? How is it fair to treat one view as if it is better than the other?

I see no problem with simply pointing out that an idea is not considered mainstream or accepted by the majority of scientists. These are just simple facts and should be recorded because they are true. I also see no trouble with recording criticism of ideas, in fact this should be done on every article. But I do see a problem with editors picking which ideas to consider true or not. I always thought neutrality meant trying your hardest to not make truth claims.

Perhaps the paragraph needs clarification? Or maybe I'm overreacting? Cofefe2 (talk) 01:07, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

By definition the neutral point of view is the point of view of published experts in the relevant field. It is only when those experts do not have a single point of view that competing views are presented as controversial. Being fair to viewpoints on Wikipedia means giving each the due weight it deserves, not playing a game of false balance. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:11, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

"the neutral point of view is the point of view of published experts in the relevant field" The point of view of published experts in the relevant field is the point of view of published experts in the relevant field. The experts have their own biases and are not neutral. On this page it is stated that the NPOV means "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." I understand the thing about proportion because it keeps data relevant, but that's not what we're talking about. What I'm understanding here is that Wikipedia's official policy is to treat ideas held by the majority as if they are superior to ideas held by the minority.Cofefe2 (talk) 02:12, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I can understand how you might interpret the NPOV policy as an instruction to, as you put it: treat ideas held by the majority as if they are superior to ideas held by the minority. The policy does not advocate making personal value judgements, as you apparently believe. By definition, the views held in mainstream science and the views held in pseudoscience are not equal. I believe the NPOV and FRINGE policies explain that concept exhaustively. Another point: you are introducing a concept which is not part of the NPOV policy: the idea that neutrality in Wikipedia articles means that we are treating everyone the same, or in other words treating them equally. There are behavior policies here which instruct editors to Assume Good Faith and to launch No Personal Attacks, but those policies relate to personal conduct, not to content in articles. When we write articles about controversial subjects (or any subject), the goal is to accurately and fairly summarize the information from reliable sources; the idea of "treating everyone the same" is a laudable social aim, but is not relevant to the fundamental idea of NPOV, which is the conscientious exercise of writing and editing skills in order not to create biased text.

No doubt, everyone has bias about one thing or another, and you're honest in admitting yours upfront. Your job, should you choose to edit here, is to lay aside your bias and write as if you never before heard of the subject. At the same time, you indicate you have significant knowledge of the subject: I have some knowledge about my beliefs which I figured I could use to help improve Wikipedia for people who maybe don't know or care to know as much as I do. Here, you are on dangerous ground. Your beliefs have no place in any article. Your knowledge of the subject could be beneficial, as you may be able to add information from reliable sources that have not previously been identified by other editors. That's where your knowledge comes into play; your beliefs, however, have absolutely no role to play—that is the essence of NPOV. DonFB (talk) 03:46, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

In the page titled, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, under the section, "Due and Undue Weight," the word "miniscule" is misspelled as "minuscule."

Small error, but I figured I should point it out, especially since the page is ineditable without the proper privileges. Elswer (talk) 09:33, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Minuscule is actually the correct spelling, though like Aluminum, miniscule became such a common mistake that both are now acceptable. Someguy1221 (talk) 10:24, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

@Someguy1221: Actually, the form "aluminum" the original form, with "aluminium" coming later, though only a few months earlier (both date from 1812). Also, the newer spelling was not a "mistake": it was deliberately promoted as being more classical in character, and being more consistent with sodium, calcium, potassium, etc etc. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:05, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Santa Claus

Editors who watch this page might be interested in the RFC at Talk:Santa Claus#About Santa Claus. Please feel free to share your views, whatever they might be. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:08, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Navboxes

I've begun a discussion on whether navboxes should default to oollapsed / expanded at Template talk:Navbox#Collapsing / expanding. Contributions welcome. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 19:15, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

RfC Notice: An alternative version of the lead sentence to the lead in SNC-Lavalin affair.

Input welcome. This is not the RfC and there is no template. I posted information for those interested. Littleolive oil (talk) 15:51, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Defining/relaying the concept of "woman" at the Woman article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Woman#Proposed edits to lede. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:35, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

A related RfC has commenced: Talk:Woman#RfC: Article lead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:58, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Discussion about a photograph depicting an intersex person

There is a discussion at Talk:Main Page#Graphic but educational image of intersex person on main page? about the publication, on the Main Page, of a photograph depicting an intersex person. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 12:52, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

using a reliable source to introduce fact that is not true.....

I’ve a curious situation. On a page about an alternative medical modality, an excellent source (American Cancer Society) is used to introduce the following sentence "available scientific evidence does not support claims that craniosacral therapy helps in treating cancer or any other disease". There is one problem, the modality does not claim to be effective for cancer. So, this quote gives the false impression that craniosacral is debunked for the claim that it can help fight cancer..... In my opinion, this is exactly the kind of falsehoods we do not need to have here at Wikipedia.... KFvdL (talk) 20:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

The quote implies that somebody made a claim regarding cancer. You stated that "the modality does not claim" well of course not, modalities can't make claims because they are just modalities.  :-) So, what did you rally mean.....that NOBODY made such a claim? Maybe these thoughts / questions might help sort it out. North8000 (talk) 21:24, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

There are always individual practitioners who make wild claims, medical doctors are not exempt from that either. However, the main institutes like Upledger and others do not make those claims, as they know damn well that that would be a invalid claim. KFvdL (talk) 21:41, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that a reliable source is being used to say something that is true, but you consider misleading, because no true craniosacral therapist claims to treat cancer. Regardless, this means that the "not true" part of your headline is itself misleading. Anyway, the neutral point of view is the one that is the one that accurately describes the viewpoints of reliable sources. If reliable sources are calling out craniosacral therapists for bogus cancer claims, then it belongs in the article. What you're described is a good argument for keeping this content out of a hypothetical article on a specific institution. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:20, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining how Wikipedia allows falsehoods to be introduced to articles using incorrect quotes of reliable sources. KFvdL (talk) 22:15, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

It is certainly accurate that Wikipedia does not care what you the editor think is true. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:16, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

That too... KFvdL (talk) 03:12, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Labeling or categorizing BLP subjects as TERFs or trans-exclusionary radical feminists

Please see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Labeling or categorizing BLP subjects as TERFs or trans-exclusionary radical feminists and comment. Halo Jerk1 (talk) 02:52, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Now it's an RfC. Found at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#RfC: Should we provide attribution when using "TERF" or "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" when describing BLP subjects?. Halo Jerk1 (talk) 04:14, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

"Describing aesthetic opinions" e.g. "greatest" in lead sections of Tennis player articles!

Hi everyone. Since this is this page which has most of the guidance for adding aesthetic opinions in Wikipedia articles, I just thought I'd let you all know there is currently a discussion/RFC in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis on whether statements like "one of the greatest" or "the greatest of all time" can be added into the lead sections of Tennis player articles (e.g. Roger Federer) or kept in a separate section e.g. Legacy. Now the guidelines in the "Describing aesthetic opinions" section of this article seems to support mention of such statements in Wikipedia articles as long as they are supported with reliable references but it does not state whether they should be mentioned in the lead section or not which has lead to various problems across the tennis player articles in recent times, especially since last year. Since there has been no major additions to that discussion since 17th August 2019 and it currently seems to be a tie between supporting mention of such statements in the lead and opposing their mention in the lead, which means there is currently no sign of consensus, I do request anyone here to please add their opinions onto that survey/discussion whether if you are a tennis fan or not because a consensus is really needed there. Many thanks. Broman178 (talk) 09:18, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Describing climate change and global warming as "crisis"

Some media outlets have formally adopted the phrase "climate crisis" to report on climate change aka global warming. The issue has come up for us in a thread at Talk:Greta_Thunberg#Using_'Existential_crisis'_in_Wikivoice. Please consider adding your comments there. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:00, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Does due weight apply to facts?

I've just opened a discussion over at NPOVN regarding whether or not WP:DUE applies to factual information or is only relevant to opinions. I'd appreciate outside comments from users here. Nblund ^talk 02:16, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Request for Comment (involving WP:DUE)

Hello, more input is appreciated at this RfC regarding the lead intro on a BLP article. I'm posting this request here because it involves WP:DUE. Thank you. Lapadite (talk) 03:08, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Assertion that "peer-reviewed journals" means an absent of POV in an article

Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Assertion that "peer-reviewed journals" means an absent of POV in an article (permalink here). Editors can also obviously comment directly at Talk:Cultural impact of Michael Jackson#Peer-reviewed journals means POV?. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:50, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

NPOV vs consensus

This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus.

From time to time I see an editor trying to use NPOV as a kind of trump card, claiming that the above sentence gives them the right to override a majority who believe they are applying NPOV incorrectly. As I read it, it does appear to do that; on the other hand I don't see how that can possibly serve the project. Further, I've yet to see that argument prevail, with the majority essentially saying "Oh ok, if you put it THAT way, go right ahead!" How do you resolve this? If that argument is wrong, how should we modify that sentence to prevent further misuse of it? ―Mandruss ☎ 07:43, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

It's subject to gaming by insincere editors, but there is a difference between "Consensus that X is NPOV" and "Consensus that X is not NPOV, but we like X so we'll do it anyway". The purpose is to direct discussion toward figuring out what the neutral point of view is, and away from deciding whether to follow it at all. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:01, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

"Consensus that X is not NPOV, but we like X so we'll do it anyway" is always disguised (consciously or unconsciously) as "Consensus that X is NPOV". I've never seen anybody openly "deciding whether to follow it at all". If the majority is in the wrong, the only sensible remedy is uninvolved close, not assertion of NPOV as a trump card by one or two editors present, since there is no way of knowing whether they are gaming or not. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:11, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

You're correct insofar as experienced editors are concerned. Newbies very frequently do not understand this, and have some goal other than NPOV, or have a concept of neutrality quite far from what is written on the policy page. The "non-negotiableness" is convenient for getting the point across that Wikipedia doesn't care that you think it's really important to point out XYZ because reasons. But you're right, and that's why I said it's subject to gaming. One might imagine stating explicitly that figuring out what the neutral point of view actually is requires discussion and consensus, but I don't see such a change putting any sense into someone who already thinks his personal analysis is more important than anyone else's. He'll just move on to claiming that since consensus considers the weight of arguments and their basis in policy, that the majority is wrong and does not represent a consensus. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:49, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

And you're saying that there is no way that policy can be written in such a way as to prevent either of those invalid arguments? Hard for me to fathom. A little creep perhaps, but well justified creep. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:10, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Not at all, I'm sure there are improvements to be made. I'm just wondering if the specific scenario you are discussing is a user confused about policy, or a user hell bent on ignoring everyone else. Someguy1221 (talk) 13:27, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I find that confusion is often caused by editors focusing on content (which does not have to be neutral) rather than on editors' handling of content (they must be neutral and not censor or neuter the POV or bias in a source). -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Should we add the following?

• "Interpretation of its correct application in specfic situations is interpreted by consensus and our dispute resolution process."

BullRangifer (talk) 14:48, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

That would be great, but it would appear to contradict the statement highlighted above. I don't think it should be added without somehow resolving the apparent contradiction; we have too much apparently self-contradictory policy already. If that means removing the highlighted statement, I'm fine with that. This policy is non-negotiable?? Really? Isn't the consensus process a form of negotiation? ―Mandruss ☎ 20:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

The "non-negotiable" is a vague statement, but operatively/ practically means that the policy can't be overridden by consensus. Saying that a guideline can't override a policy doesn't need repeating here. And if 2 policies clearly conflict, we have to fix that problem rather than rely on one policy claiming superiority over all other policies. So why not just say "this policy can't be overidden by consensus"? North8000 (talk) 21:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

That will not work, because when a local consensus is to keep some non-neutral content, the very fact that that content violates NPOV is not recognized. Usually, it looks like that: a handful of users, who want to keep a statement X, decide that the statement X does not violate neutrality policy, despite the fact that it does.

As a result, formally there is no conflict at all: everybody formally recognizes NPOV, and everybody is acting according to consensus. If one user disagrees, their arguments are ignored, and that user is accused of acting against consensus. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:23, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert: Is this comment in the right place? ―Mandruss ☎ 03:56, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. It is easy to say that "NPOV cannot be overridden by consensus", the problem is that it will not work because when consensus is achieved to keep some content, it is implicitly (or explicitly) assumed that NPOV was not violated. The arguments like: "the edit X violates NPOV" face a counterargument: "A consensus has been achieved that the edit X does not violate NPOV." That means the clause that local consensus cannot override NPOV will not work, because it is unclear who is supposed to decide that NPOV violation really occurred.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I can explain that in simpler words: When a user X is a POV pusher, and users A, B, C are acting according to NPOV, they can easily revert X's edits and create a neutral content. However, when a user X respects NPOV, whereas users A, B, C are pushing some POV, A, B, and C can easily come to a local consensus that their edits are in full accordance with NPOV, and a user X is an edit warrior who is violating both NPOV and Consensus policy. For admins, who are not expected to go into details of that content dispute it will be clear that a user X should be blocked, and A, B, C are good users who are observing our policies.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:22, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

As soon as the fact of NPOV violation is confirmed, it is not hard to fix it. The problem is that to claim that the NPOV violation did take place, we need to achieve consensus about that. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:29, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I think that's very consistent with what I've been saying throughout. In your latter case, user X should request an uninvolved close and the closer should be competent enough, objective enough, and brave enough to close against ABC. If the closer fails to close against ABC, X should request close review. If the close review fails to correct the close, the imperfect system has failed. To the extent that there are not enough competent, objective, and brave closers to handle the workload, the imperfect system has failed. But it's still better than handing out NPOV trump cards to any editor who wants one. So how do we get that incorrect or at least egregiously misleading sentence removed or improved? ―Mandruss ☎ 04:40, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Frankly, I have a double feeling about that. I don't remember if I ever faced a situation when NPOV was used as a trump card, but I know many examples when requirements of NPOV policy were overridden by a local consensus. Actually, nothing terrible will happen if some user uses this trump card ... once. That means imperfect system has failed :-). I see nothing terrible in that, for the fact of misuse NPOV policy is easy to demonstrate, so the user must be prepared to defend their actions on relevant noticeboard, e.g. at ANI. NPOV is a strong weapon, and if you are using such a strong weapon you must be prepared for severe sanctions for misusing them. --Paul Siebert (talk) 04:57, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Paul, not that I am pushing my "just an idea", but your argument seems to be based on "everybody ostensibly follows NPOV" which would negate not only my idea but also the entire sentence under discussion. BTW, IMO the explanation of your observation and also the cause of the problems that you discuss is that the specific operative / "rubber meets the road" part of this policy is absolutely unusable. Determining predominance in RS's is impossible.North8000 (talk) 12:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

@North8000: First, my argument is not based on "everybody ostensibly follows NPOV". My point is different. When all parties are intellectually honest, and they follow our policy, any NPOV dispute can be easily resolved. However, when a group of users who share some POV achieve local consensus, and they prefer to ignore arguments of other users, they can easily decide their local consensus does not contradict to NPOV, and there is no way to fight against that, except a direct implementation of the "NPOV is non-negotiable" clause.

Second, there IS a way to establish predominance in RS, and I described it at several fora. By the way, there is a reliable source which confirms that I, Paul Siebert use the search procedure that allows identification of good and mainstream reliable sources. The procedure is as follows: if I want to determine what majority of sources say about some topic, I compose some search string, for example Vietnam war losses, and use google scholar (not google). Sometimes, it is useful to repeat similar search using a different keywords set. The analysis of first 20-40 results gives an general impression of predominant views. Now assume that my opponent disagrees with that. If they believe my search phrase was incorrectly formulated, they can do their own search using some different keywords set. Anyway, this procedure is mutually transparent, we both see that none of us is cheating, and, after several iterations we will obtain a set of sources that reflect a predominant point of view on the subject. Of course, that does not mean we have to use only those sources, however, at least, we will know what is a majority viewpoint. Per Aumann agreement theorem, such an approach will inevitably lead to consensus (except the case when some of us is insincere). Instead of google scholar, it is possible to use jstor, ISI Thompson-Reuter, Scopus, etc. The major requirement is that the procedure must be transparent, and participants intellectually honest.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:00, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

So why not just say "this policy can't be overidden by consensus"? Again, that fails to address misapplication of the policy, which is corrected by – consensus. If consensus incorrectly corrects correct application of the policy, the remedy is uninvolved close, which we have to assume will be both policy-knowledgeable and objective. Then, if someone feels that the uninvolved close was incorrect, they can request close review. There is ample protection against wrong consensuses without providing trump cards. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:23, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposed paragraph change
NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. It is also one of Wikipedia's three core content policies; the other two are "Verifiability" and "No original research". These policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles, and depend on one another for their correct use. Therefore, this trio of interdependent core content policies-
* Should not be interpreted in isolation from one another,
* Can not be superseded by local consensus,
* Always control when other guidelines or policies appear to conflict with the interdependent provisions of this trio of policies.
Editors are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with all three.
If approved, then copy similar text to the other two.
NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:40, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Oppose "Can not be superseded by local consensus" – for the reasons articulated above. As Someguy1221 correctly said, figuring out what the neutral point of view actually is requires discussion and consensus. BLP is the only policy that can be played as a trump card overriding consensus, and only because that's necessary to protect the project from costly lawsuits that could kill it. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:59, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

As a rule, non-neutrality problems happen with articles that are beyond the scope of a broader community. I cannot imagine a really non-neutral content to survive in high profile articles such as USA or WWII. In contrast, in the articles that are a subject of interest of some small group of users (especially those who belong to some national or political group), local consensus can really violate our policy. Taking into account that other users either are disinterested in that topic, or do not have needed knowledge, even NPOVN does not help, because the participants of the discussion at NPOVN are the same, and the opinion of uninvolved users becomes significantly diluted.

A possible solution could be to separate local and broader consensus. That can be done by separating involved and uninvolved users: for example, when the dispute moves to NPOVN, involved parties and uninvolved users are supposed to comment in separate sections, and the discussion must be summarized by some uninvolved user or an admin. That can be done by modifying the format of a NPOVN discussion: to add a template (similar to the AE template) where the user who posts the question lists all parties of the NPOV dispute, and those users are automatically considered involved. Other users are considered uninvolved, and their opinia are supposed to have greater weight.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:35, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I support Paul's suggestion, he points to a real problem with how the NPOVN works.--Ermenrich (talk) 00:35, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Paul seems to misunderstand NPOV: "...consensus is to keep some non-neutral content, the very fact that that content violates NPOV..." Ummm....non-neutral content can be NPOV. Neither content nor sources must, or necessarily should, be neutral, according to the policy. Rather, it is editors who must edit neutrally. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:17, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I also think Paul is hitting on a consistent problem with NPOV application. We have an obligation per NPOV to be impartial, describe disputes and not engage in disputes. Sources need not be neutral, but our description of their material, our content, should be per our requirement to be impartial. --Kyohyi (talk) 13:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I would oppose, mostly for the same reasons as Mandruss. While WP:NPOV should not be superseded by local consensus per policy (I agree), I can not imagine how it would work on practice. Consider someone who edit war on the page against consensus and claim that "current version contradicts WP:NPOV". My very best wishes (talk) 02:33, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• Read WP:NEUTRALEDIT. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:29, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

That is just an essay. In addition, it is you who misunderstand NPOV: it clearly says: "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias. " That means the content must be neutral, and nobody cares are you or me neutral. For example, two totally non-neutral but honest users can create a perfectly balanced content if their bias mutually compensated each other. And that frequently happens in Wikipedia. Your essay is wrong: several totally non-neutral editors can create a perfectly neutral content, an no non-neutral content can be created by neutral editors. The goal of the policy is neutral content, and nobody cares how exactly that is achieved. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:50, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

_________________________________

The more I am thinking about the "NPOV is non-negotiable" clause, the more I realize it is in a direct conflict with consensus policy. It simply does not work. "Non-negotiable" is supposed to mean exactly what Mandruss described as a trump card: when some user sees that NPOV is violated, they can fix this violation independently on a local consensus. That is how "non-negotiable" is supposed to work.

However, that is only a first part of the story. In a situation when some user had used a NPOV trump card, they are expected to defend this action before a broader community. For example, if other participants of the content dispute disagree with the action of that user, they are supposed to go to NPOVN and ask for a broader community input. If uninvolved users agree that the NPOV was violated, this change stays. Otherwise, the change is reverted and the user warned. Several warning may lead to a topic ban or other escalating sanctions. In my opinion, that is how "non-negotiable" is supposed to work.

I can explain the same in different words. When a user X sees a real or perceived NPOV violation that is supported by a local consensus, two scenarios are possible:

1. A user is not acting against a local consensus and, instead, they reports a violation at NPOVN. After long negotiations a community decides if NPOV was violated, and if the verdict is that the violation did take place, the content is changed accordingly.
2. A user fixes that real or perceived violation, and other users cannot revert it. Instead, they go to NPOVN, and start to negotiate. If a decision is that no violation took place, the old version is restored, and the user X is warned. After several warnings, a user X may be subjected to sanctions.

In my opinion, only #2 is really "non-negotiable"; the first scenario is obviously "negotiable", and taking into account that the first scenario is currently accepted as a normal way of actions, the "non-negotiable" clause is totally barren currently. --Paul Siebert (talk) 03:50, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• comment Regarding the tension between NPOV and consensus, in a recent Signpost article, a member of WP:Firearms stated: "The net result was an understanding, which had already been in place, that local consensus was ultimately going to decide these issues. It's too bad that the question didn't help editors understand the broader question of WP:WEIGHT.". In practice, 'local consensus' and tactical use of weight arguments appear more powerful determinants of content than NPOV. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 06:57, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Exactly. And, taking into account that acting against consensus is an obvious conduct issue, whereas NPOV dispute is seen as a conduct content dispute, admins easily take actions against those who are trying to implement the "non-negotiable" clause, and they abstain from interfering into what they see as a "content dispute".--Paul Siebert (talk) 14:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

That is unless the admin views your editing as non-neutral, then they'll sanction you for that. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Admins cannot do that. That can be done either via AE (is the topic is under DS), or via ANI. As a rule, admins hate to go into this type "content disputes".--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:03, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Admins have done that, and further there is no process, but merely custom, that prevents them from doing so. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:24, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Eyeballs please, Apollo denialism

Talk:Bart Sibrel#3RR on adding Sibrel's opinions as fact Andy Dingley (talk) 00:15, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Global perspective

I don't find any normative text about global perspective, although a large number of articles have templates such as {{Globalize}}, {{Over coverage}}, {{Geographical imbalance}}. Currently, the WP:GLOBAL shurtcut is linked to an essay. I suggest the following section, for example in this policy:

An article about a global phenomenon should provide definitions, perspectives, examples and illustrations that represent a worldwide view of the subject. English Wikipedia is not only about English-speaking countries, but is read by people globally, and often translated to other Wikipedia language versions. However, many contributors are from the western world, and an American or European perspective and a racial bias may exist in certain articles, and in Wikipedia as a whole, according to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Words like "we" (referring to a certain group of people) or "here" (referring to a geographical region) should not be used. To clarify the perspective, details that only concern a certain geographical region, type of country or religious tradition may be collected in a separate section named after that region, etcetera, and placed later in the article. To avoid disproportional coverage of regions, an overly extensive section about a region can be broken into a separate in-depth article, and summarized in the original article in a balanced way. If possible, corresponding sections or articles about other regions should also be created. A section or an article about a named region should, in turn provide balanced geographical coverage on the whole region in question.

Tomastvivlaren (talk) 17:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Izno reverted most of your addition. I reverted the rest. The rest of what I reverted seems fine at first glance, but the "should provide definitions, perspectives, examples and illustrations that represent a worldwide view of the subject" gives me pause because what, for example, definition represents a worldwide view of the subject? We go by WP:Due weight when it comes to definitions. A definition may be used in one country or jurisdiction, for example, but that doesn't make it a widely used definition. It could be a tiny minority viewpoint. Even speaking of including multiple definitions, we need to take care not to include undue weight. And we needn't include every definition. Your text needs work if any of it is to be included. It also needs consensus, as this is a policy page that will affect Wikipedia articles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:43, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Flyer22's revert. Motherhood statements are not helpful and the guidance about avoiding we and here is sure to be in MOS somewhere, apart from the fact that it is strikingly obvious that such terms are inappropriate which is why they are rarely seen. The NPOV policy is based on how reliable sources should be assessed and reported. Johnuniq (talk) 23:55, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Ok, Izno, Flyer22 Reborn and Johnuniq, do you think that some policy document should include some text about global perspective? Other Wikipedia language versions have - why does it not exist in English Wikipedia, where it is extra important?

If yes, what do you think about the formulations in the {{Globalize}}, {{Over coverage}} and {{Geographical imbalance}} templates, and WP:GLOBAL essay? Can we start out from them?

The version that user:Izno left here was "An article about a global phenomenon should provide definitions, perspectives, examples and illustrations that represent a worldwide view of the subject. English Wikipedia is read by people globally and often translated to other Wikipedia language versions." Tomastvivlaren (talk) 17:23, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Global perspectives are a good goal... but goals are not always achievable. Blueboar (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

When people clearly violates the requirement on global perspective, I think we need a WP:GLOBAL shortcut to a normative text. Currently WP:GLOBAL is linked to an essay that does not define the concept.

Early versions of the WP:NPOV policy included a section on "Anglo-American focus", which today can be found in the Wikipedia:NPOVFAQ#Anglo-American focus section. However it was not written as a normative text, and did not use the word "global perspective" and did not define it. To address these issues, as a suggestion, I moved the text version that user:Isno left to that FAQ section, and also linked to related quality templates and essay. Ok? If no, please provde better arguments that we have seen until now.

In 10 other Wikipedias, there are separate pages about WIkipedia:Global perspective, sometimes serving as policy addendums. Many other Wikipedias have WP:GLOBAL or WP:Gl shortcuts to policy sections, but WP:GLOBAL us currently not very useful at English wp.Tomastvivlaren (talk) 13:57, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Notability lists

Question.

Sometimes a person, such as a politician, is notable because of one thing (eg, US Congressman). But then they do a second scandalous thing (eg, double life, criminal conviction) that is so notable that it ultimately leads them to not for example remain in office (they resign or are not reelected, etc). And all later RS coverage of them, which may be hundreds of articles, typically mentions the scandal.

Think - Anthony Weiner, Dennis Hastert, Larry Craig, Vito Fosella, Sol Wachtler, etc.

When it comes to a notability list, for example embedded on city page or school page, is it ok to list both their political office and their scandal issue? For example, "Joe Blow, Congressman and ..."

I would be interested in thoughts. Thank you. --2604:2000:E010:1100:30F3:9E93:17BD:5014 (talk) 00:51, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Based on our discussion about Vito Fosella >>here<<, I looked up Anthony Weiner's college to see how he's listed and this is what I found: "Anthony D. Weiner – Former U.S. Congressman who represented New York's 9th congressional district from 1999 to 2011. Class of 1985." There was no mention of any other contributing factors to his notoriety. The same is true for Presidents who were impeached. I would say that unless the scandal is the reason why their notable, it shouldn't be included in the short descriptions we use for alumni lists, significant residents of a city, etc. Orville^talk 01:35, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

While Weiner is technically notable for being a former Congressman, his sexting scandals are far more notorious and by extension more notable. Ifnord (talk) 13:05, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Re: "The Exodus" topic - and a "neutral view"

Hi, this is Linda at Ecopeacevision, I am hoping to have a conversation with the editors of the topic The Exodus and whoever is with Wikipedia for dispute resolution as I have a problem that many people's views are not represented fairly on this topic.

It seems that the view of the author should be stated. Like if the author believes in God or not, or which god one believes in.

That is fair and reasonable and helpful for the reader to know. There should be room for other viewpoints to be included. At least a reader should know there are different viewpoints about this topic, especially: that "some say it is a myth and others say it is a true story with evidence: The evidence is: -people's personal experiences, dreams, visions -the events, names, and places in the Holy Bible appear to be historical and have been corroborated, with archaeological findings. (There is an Egyptian stepped pyramid with chambers in the ground around it and this is believed to point to the story of Joseph and the storing of the grain, a story which preceded The Exodus. -the "living history" of the traditions of the Jewish people like Passover (when the relatives of Jacob/Israel were passed over before the Exodus event, and the Sukkoth tradition (remembering the booths in their time in the desert.)

The rule "Neutral View Point" - says an article should be representing "all the significant views published by reliable sources." (People have had their lives saved by God and consider Him a Reliable Source. People have had their lives saved by prayer and guidance in the Bible and consider it a reliable source.) At least it can be said in the article that probably over 2.3 billion people are Christian and consider the Holy Bible a reliable source; many believe in the spiritual gift of being able to hear Father God, who generally hasn't let people see him.

I think we can say that the high vantage point/viewpoint, "Father God" we have evidence of in the Bible, should be allowed to be mentioned in this topic!!! -(Or at least the viewpoint of a believer should be represented: or it can be neutrally stated that some people believe the Bible includes true, and supernatural stories, relayed by Father God/Yahweh/"The LORD."

This is only fair.

Then it can be stated that whichever article contributor (list the username) holds the view that Father God who had the prophets/listeners write the Holy Bible Scriptures < is fictional.

(The biblehub.com/interlinear Version includes different translations and languages; the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is from Hebrew to other languages, and the New Testament offers a direct translation from Greek directly to whatever language is selected.) that he or she believes--has the viewpoint-- that Father God is fictional.

It should be clear to a child, that the author believes or doesn't believe in the God of Abraham - Especially since the author goes on to say the whole thing is a myth.

Fairness should at least handle the subject to say "some percentage" of people believe in the truth of the story. The reader should know that Jews and Christians (and Muslims should) believe in this story (BUt Muslims should speak for themselves). The "rough estimate" of people that consider themselves in each group could be listed, --then readers can check out the numbers-- so the reader has some idea -- it's a lot of people!!! The reader should know "some percentage" don't know, and what percentage are pretty sure or positive there can be no higher intelligence guiding humans for the past several thousand years.

Since some people can have the ability to have psychic abilities, and militaries have employed "distant viewers" -- we can say there IS a phenomenon whereby some people APPEAR to be able to tune into higher guidance. It should be acceptable to give links to archaeologists who are finding or who have found or claimed to have found relics and evidence of this story: That some sort of supernatural being and group helped to lead the Israelite people out of Egypt and to their Promised Land where they still reside.

It might be mentioned that people can change their viewpoint about this story and the existence of "Father God" according to personal experiences.

I used to not have any personal experience, and so I was really in the agnostic to atheistic continuum, but then I have had personal experiences that changed my viewpoint.

This information is one thing that has altered my viewpoint: Zecharia Sitchin's translations of the Sumerian clay tablets from reading some of his books, including "Genesis Revisited." He has discovered and presented a high-tech backstory to the "Nephilim" in the Bible, the small g "gods," and even that they believed in a "Creator of All" and have been guiding humans in this upward, more civilized direction - If we will listen !. Sitchin presents the link between Evolution and Creationism for our species.Ecopeacevision (talk) 22:24, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Not to be flipant, you need to review our policies on wp:reliable sources, wp:weight of opinions in sources and wp:fringe before bringing something like this here. The Exodus article reflects the academic consensus about the Exodus, which includes scholars of various religious beliefs. The views of fundamentalists and conspiracy theorists have no place there or anywhere else on Wikipedia.--Ermenrich (talk) 22:40, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

References

RfC on quotation templates with giant quotation marks and other decoration

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Use of Large Quotes in article space, and the Cquote template.

This did not open with a particular focus on NPoV concerns, but has turned that way (in short, whether colorful/flashy quotation templates pose a WP:UNDUE problem, or are simply a harmless layout choice like colored backgrounds in infoboxes).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:20, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

• It Depends - certainly styling COULD be used in a non-neutral way. For example, if quotes illustrating a particular viewpoint are styled with the large quote marks, while those illustrating other views are styled in a different (less noticeable) format, that would be non-neutral... However, that would only happen if the article used multiple format styles (unlikely).

That said... I could see an argument that the act of quoting (itself) might give a particular viewpoint or statement UNDUE weight. It is possible that the view or fact is not significant enough to quote... but if so, the FORMAT used to present that quote does not matter. It would be UNDUE to quote it regardless of the format used. Blueboar (talk) 01:16, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Wikimedia Project Grant Proposal on *Disinformation*

I'm proposing a Wikimedia Foundation Project Grant to study *disinformation* and provide actionable insights and recommendations.

Please check it out and endorse it if you support it.

Meta:Grants:Project/Misinformation_And_Its_Discontents:_Narrative_Recommendations_on_Wikipedia's_Vulnerabilities_and_Resilience

Cheers! -Jake Ocaasi ^{t | c}20:14, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The Balance of Wikipedia

As we know,the balance principle is one of the important ways to realize the neutral point of view.Why not set up "WP:Balance"to introduce the details about the balance.The balance principles in wikipedia policy can be divided into the text balance principles, the image balance principles and the external link balance principles according to the elements of the articles. Among them, the text balance principles can be subdivided into the text length balance, the text detail balance and the text source balance; The image balance principles can be subdivided into the image quantity balance, the image position balance and the image size balance; The external link balance principles can be subdivided into the external link quantity balance, the external link site balance and the external link language background balance. Through the further analysis of these balance principles, there are two kinds of connotation of balance. One is the balance of proportion consistent and the other one is the balance of proportion inconsistent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiffany-WBT (talk • contribs) 03:14, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

American economy and foreign affairs

{{Request Edit}}

This article is a disgrace to the recording of American History! Full of bias opinions and untruths, the contradictory statements are appalling for an article of this importance! This is a disservice to scholars, youth and Adult alike, who are trying to learn about the administration’s policies and such. This Article is not an Objective view of the state of The current American economy and foreign Affairs, it is a slanderous piece of propaganda! — Preceding unsigned comment added by CorrineNye (talk • contribs) 21:56, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@CorrineNye: You appear to be on the wrong page. --Izno (talk) 22:29, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

No

Davesmith38 (talk) 00:31, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Clarifying NPOV's application to questions of reputation

There's currently a debate raging at (where else?) Adolf Hitler over whether it's appropriate to mention in the lede that he's widely considered evil. In my view, this policy as it stands clearly permits such a mention ("Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects.") and many less experienced editors are just poorly informed, so I'm not interested in hashing out that debate here (comments on that should go on Hitler's page; good luck to anyone trying seriously to engage). However, I did want to bring it up, as it's not the first time I've encountered confusion over whether or not it's appropriate to describe an entity's reputation in its article. This applies not just to Hitler, but also to things like a college's academic reputation or a movie's reputation with critics. We provide explicit guidance on the latter here with the WP:AESTHETIC section, which states "it is appropriate to note how an artist or a work has been received by prominent experts and the general public", but nothing on the topic more generally. Would you all be in favor of potentially adding some brief language to make this clearer? If so, what form would you want it to take? Draft proposals welcome. Sdkb (talk) 02:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

You're right. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:23, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

IMO Being a slam dunk situation like Hitler is a bad example and could lead to a bad policy. You need a much more borderline case as an example if you want to make good policy. All too often I see people trying to Wiki-lawyer in positive or negative characterizations which have no information content or encyclopedic value. I think that any change that would tend to increase that problem would not be good. In general, some good wording would say that content should have useful information and that material which simply deprecates or elevates the person/organization without providing useful information should be avoided. Or that only overwhelmingly accepted characterizations should be included if in the voice in Wikipedia. BTW, IMO talking about an artist / artistic work / academic work / academic's scope of reception IS informative. That does not mean that every characterization of anything should be treated the same.North8000 (talk) 11:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I hesitate to use a more borderline example, since those tend to get bogged down debating the specifics of that example. But if you want an example of a less lopsided contentious debate, the ones a few years ago about how to characterize Harvard's reputation might suffice. And I agree that we don't want to encourage non-informative characterizations — the word I used above was "permits", which to my mind means "it's allowed so long as it doesn't violate any other policy (including policies that require information to be useful)", not "you always get to include it no matter what". Sdkb (talk) 02:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

@BullRangifer and North8000: Okay, throwing out a sentence here: It is sometimes permissible to note an article subject's reputation when that reputation is widespread and informative to readers. Does that sound like something we could include in a potential broadened aesthetics section? Sdkb (talk) 20:59, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. North8000 (talk) 16:36, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try adding it and see if it sticks. Sdkb (talk) 17:49, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Impartial

I have a problem with WP:IMPARTIAL: it suggests to some editors that we are not entitled to label quackery as quackery. Wikipedia does side with mainstream science. Wikipedia does endorse evolution, not creationism. This is long-standing practice. Of course, WP:GEVAL acknowledges this. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the section implied that at all. We obviously already have the WP:GEVAL section, which states, in part, "We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, and otherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world." That is what being impartial on Wikipedia means.

Anyway, as seen here, here, here and here, the WP:IMPARTIAL section now notes that we shouldn't engage in false balance. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:37, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I think what we have now is problematic, specifically:

• "The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view" <- surely we do endorse and reject particular points of view (yes, the Holocaust did happen; no, chemtrails aren't a government-sponsored programme).
• "Editors should faithfully document the biased points of view" <- but only insofar as it is documented in RS, which might not be "faithful" in the way a fringe proponent wants.

I can foresee these passages being used in support of WP:PROFRINGE editing. Alexbrn (talk) 02:46, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't ever see it as Wikipedia endorsing anything. And that's an argument I make against editors adding fringe or otherwise undue material. They will often argue that Wikipedia is taking a side and therefore being biased. The best argument against that is that Wikipedia is simply following the literature with due weight. It's not about what any individual personally believes. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:57, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

The more I look at WP:IMPARTIAL, the more I wonder what it's trying to do. The idea that a "tone" can endorse or reject is off, since a tone just lends colour. A tone can suggest that Wikipedia endorses or rejects an idea, and if such a suggestion is out-of-kilter with RS, it's a problem; even if it is aligned with certain brash RS, it could be a problem. Alexbrn (talk) 03:03, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

The basic foundation here is RS. If it's not stated, then it should be. We do not present arguments from unreliable sources in a manner which leaves readers in doubt about whether they are fact or fiction, because Wikipedia DOES take the side of RS. That should be stated. Our policies and content favor RS, IOW we take the side of RS and the narrative they tell us.

This also has to do with due weight. RS have due weight, and unreliable sources have no weight. (Due weight has various shades when comparing content from multiple RS, but not when comparing content from a RS vs an unreliable source.)

We should only use RS to document the false ideas advocated by unreliable sources. If those ideas are not mentioned in RS, then they don't have enough weight for any mention at all here. If they are mentioned in RS, we document the ideas in the setting, and with the tone, of the RS, IOW the mainstream scientific-friendly source's scorn for the subject. That is the proper tone. It's not Wikipedia's tone, but the tone of the RS, and per NPOV we should document that source's tone without altering it. NPOV says that "editorial neutrality" is how we should edit. We should faithfully document what the source says, including its biased tone. We love to document the proper scientific tone used toward nonsense. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:26, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

That's all fine, but if the job of WP:IMPARTIAL is just to restate other bits of policy in a different way, what is it for? As I see it, this is meant to be about specifically tone not meaning per its heading ("Impartial tone"), but the badly chosen shortcut name (it should have been WP:TONE not WP:IMPARTIAL) has meant all kinds of other stuff has got in here. "Tone" refers to word choice - so we say "Biochargers are ineffective alternative medicine devices, the promotion of which has been characterized as quackery" and not "Biochargers are too silly to take seriously" - even if a reliable source uses that tone (which it does). Alexbrn (talk) 07:54, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

When did fringe theories become fringe viewpoints? I see a lot of editors pushing that in a way not supported by the guideline or NPOV. fiveby(zero) 12:44, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

What difference does it make? Fringe viewpoints -- the belief that the Holocaust never happened, that extraterrestrial aliens landed at Roswell NM, or that white people are superior to black people -- rely on conspiracy theories or pseudoscientific theories. NightHeron (talk) 13:00, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

The difference is for pseudoscience and historical negationism etc. there is a mostly objective application of the guideline that is relatively easy for editors to implement. NPOV for such as opinion or belief, moral value judgments etc. is hard work and best handled by the core policy. Was the fringe theories guideline really meant to apply to such things a libertarianism or abortion debates? Calling something fringe should not be a tactic editors can use to try and gain easy wins in POV disputes. fiveby(zero) 13:33, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, of course the opinion that abortion is morally wrong cannot be labeled fringe on Wikipedia. However, the viewpoint or belief or theory (and I don't see that it matters which word is used) that abortion is dangerous for the woman (compared to carrying a pregnancy to term) is fringe because it is contrary to scientific evidence, and editors on the relevant pages have correctly insisted that it be treated as fringe. NightHeron (talk) 14:26, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

And those editors were clearly correct in their insistence, so let's hold on to a useful distinction that makes editing easier by applying that guideline in an objective manner. Anyway, issue resolved, lets not get in the way of discussion of tone for actual pseudoscience. fiveby(zero) 14:59, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

That section is likely to cause increased wikilawyering in support of fringe, in part because it's poorly written. It says we shouldn't "censor" the tone of the original source and then 2 sentences later contradicts that: Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone. Also, the word "censor" is a favorite of defenders of fringe. This might belong in an essay (rewritten with more care), but certainly not on a page documenting core policy. NightHeron (talk) 12:49, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I especially object to the sentence Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone. It introduces and caters to a misunderstanding held by some editors, that we are not allowed to quote as it's a copyright violation. That's BS. Fair use allows the use of quotes, sometimes even long ones, and while we are encouraged to often paraphrase, it does not forbid the use of quotes.

Quotes are especially essential when dealing with strong or controversial statements. Paraphrasing such content easily leads to OR, SYNTH, or subtle editorial NPOV violations. In such cases, it's best to just quote and not censor or neutralize the quote. Attribute it properly and let it stand or fall on its own merits. The use of biased language from editors is not proper editorial practice, but it is proper editorial practice to document and cite biased language accurately, without getting in the way.

So, I find that sentence offensive and counterproductive. Can't we just delete it? -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:45, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

What we want to do is avoid citing primary works from those parties directly involved in dispute at least when we are talking about fringe viewpoints and subjective situations, but prefer to use their words as framed in an uninvolved reliable source, or the sound bites as selected by that reliable source. Otherwise, we'll have editors digging into primary source to source both sides. It may be necessary once in a while, but we want this only as a last resort for neutrality purposes, and that would be like the case for example of going to Twitter to get someone's defense to criticism directed at them that no RS is otherwise repoting. We don't want WP articles to spent excessive time in quotes from primary sources in these debates. I do agree we're not trying to block the use of these sources for any copyright violation reasons, but there are reasons to avoid quoting the primary sources in these debates. --Masem (t) 18:17, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Masem, that makes total sense. It is the secondary sources which tell us how much weight to give such content. We can cite primary sources for straight facts, but as soon as we get into controversial and interpretive areas, we must depend on secondary sources. Very good point. -- BullRangifer (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Masem, wise words. I am reminded of a review of the crockumentary Vaxxed: "Wakefield doesn’t just have a dog in this fight; he is the dog." Guy (help!) 00:07, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

I think WP:ASSERT does a better job at describing best practices (and usual practices) than WP:IMPARTIAL. YMMV. jps (talk) 17:26, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Maybe rewrite it, but honestly it feels to me like people are looking for a way to misread and misinterpret this, instead of just reading what it actually says. Avoid quoting primary material from disputing sides; we all know the "he said, then she said, then he said" bad-article-writing problem. If you are going to quote, don't "sculpt" the quotation selectively to change the tone of it. It's better to just summarize, in an impartial tone (in WP's voice), the way we write everything. Just because people out there in the world, including some source we are drawing on, are injecting emotive, subjective, fallacious arguments into the subject doesn't mean that we should ape them. Using an impartial tone doesn't mean giving equal weight. The tone we use for both [or more] sides should be the same; the amount of space given will differ, as will the sourcing brought to bear for refutation, etc. But that has nothing to do with the tone of the encyclopedic writing.

This isn't difficult, so I'm not sure why there's all the above difficulty about this. Something I have frequently said: Any time you think two parts of our WP:P&G material are contradicting each other, you are making a mistake. The only time your sense of there being a contradiction is actually going to be true is when someone very recently added something and it hasn't been vetted properly. When it comes to long-standing material, it's already been combed over and massaged a zillion times. You're simply not yet absorbing the community interpretation of what it means and how it relates to other material, and are instead choosing to misinterpret it in a way that leads to an apparent conflict (most often this will be through the fallacy of equivocation, swapping out the obviously intended meaning everyone gets, to inject some other meaning that a term could have had but clearly can't really have in this particular context). So, just stop. Instead, choose the interpretation that doesn't lead to such a conflict, like everyone else does.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:53, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Problem with Final Countdown page

I wanted to remove incredibly biased content regarding Blender's listing of The Final Countdown on two "Worst Songs Ever" list. It is obviously biased and appealing to a demographic. However, the admins removed it, claiming it was "blanking" and because this policy "supports this article summarizing negative material about the song". Then why is this policy called "WP:Neutral point of view" then?

I need help with this issue. --2601:199:4181:E00:B44E:7793:DDAF:F182 (talk) 23:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE for less developed articles

A while back, I posted at VPP asking, to violate WP:UNDUE, does content need to be undue with regard to the current state of an article, or undue with regard to what the article is expected to become once it is fully developed, or some mixture of both? Quoting myself:

As a result of the recent North Face COI editing controversy, a lot of attention is being paid to how to describe the incident on The North Face's page. Any views specifically on that situation should be directed there, so as to keep the discussion in one place, but I want to bring one question raised by that discussion here to see about establishing a broader consensus. The North Face is a start class article, and many sections are pretty bare-bones, so as a result, any mention of the controversy in any amount of detail will take up a significant portion of the article. This has led some editors to argue that it would be WP:UNDUE. Others, however, contend that, were the article fully developed, spending a paragraph on the controversy would not take up a huge amount of space proportionally and would probably be fine, and that the article won't become more fully developed unless we allow additions, even if it temporarily leads to some unbalance. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated! (I do realize it's in some ways a proxy for the whole WP:Immediatism/WP:Eventualism debate.)

There were a few comments from Barkeep49, Nosebagbear, and Blueboar, but it wasn't a full discussion. This question has recently come up again with regard to Ed Kosner (see here), so I'd like to open the discussion again here. Can we come to some consensus on this and add appropriate guidance to the UNDUE section? Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:57, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

• By common practice, I've seen due weight judged by the article's current state, not its hypothetical finished state. Especially when writing thorough BLPs, building out the subject's origins before the other sections will overemphasize that portion. A fair compromise is to move that content to the talk page or a draft subpage until the balanced version (the hypothetically finished article) is ready for primetime. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 21:24, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
• I think UNDUE/DUE coverage is about the current state of the article. We might not ever get to the fully realized (even B class) version of an article and so having undue coverage in there basically permanently goes against the spirit of that policy. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
• I remain much more split on this. Perhaps it comes down to my very earliest content being declined and not being able to add most of it into its parent topic because of UNDUE that I was not in a position to resolve. Partially as a devil's advocate to @Barkeep49:'s point above, it might permanently violate UNDUE, but avoiding that also risks permanently excluding reliable information from the encyclopedia, purely on the basis of other missing info. Permanently missing information worse or better than permanently disproportinate coverage? Nosebagbear (talk) 22:20, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

As a side note, I am fully in favour of this getting a broader consideration - I imagine that the issue has been considered in a broad variety of articles, and as an issue with no inherently wrong answer, is more a question of community judgement and ethos. Nosebagbear (talk)

Permanently disproportionate coverage is worse than permanently missing coverage. It gives the illusion of a more complete article than it is. I also don't think in DUE/UNDUE it's about excluding reliable information it's about excluding some verifiable information, perhaps even from reliable sources. But we choose to exclude lots of kinds of verifiable information. This is no different, in my opinion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

• DUE/UNDUE is definitely assessed based on the “current state”. This becomes obvious when you realize that DUE/UNDUE goes beyond the question of WHETHER to cover something... it also influences HOW we cover it. A brief summary of some aspect of the topic may be DUE, while a detailed account of it may be UNDUE. This is especially true when it comes to discussing recent events... many editors make the mistake of writing a detailed account of the event rather than a brief summary. Blueboar (talk) 13:23, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
• This came up/is still being discussed at Scott Lobdell. My best effort at compromise was to summarize two paragraphs of detail into three sentences while retaining all the sources. If a reader (or editor expanding the article) wants more information, they can follow those links. This might not apply to all cases, though. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:29, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
• I find this reasoning a bit concerning. It would suggest that concision, bloating, non-extreme forms of RS refbombing (after all, we often don't include every single reliable source on a topic) etc would move a section of content on the boundary of DUE/UNDUE in and out. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:36, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Non negotiable?

I noticed a strange phrase in the intro (emphasis added):

This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus.

While I accept that NPOV is basically unchangeable, the phrasing seems unnecessarily vague. What actually does that mean and what makes it so? I was considering linking to Wikipedia:Core content policies but that doesn't really have any "power" behind it per se. I feel like that the statement is unnecessarily vague. I would propose something like "This is a foundational policy which is required for all content contributed and cannot be superceded..." although that still is just an appeal to authoritative "requirements" that isn't much better at explaining why the policy exists. Hopefully someone has some better thoughts about this? Thanks in advance. Techhead7890 (talk) 13:26, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

What it means is that there's a "policy" of Ignore all rules that says you can ignore policy and guideline to do something if you believe it it will improve the encyclopedia. Usually when one evokes IAR this becomes a discussion on consensus if this makes sense to go against policy, and if comes to agreement, it stays. But in this context, NPOV cannot be overriden by IAR, it is that paramount that it is upheld in an article. --Masem (t) 13:36, 7 June 2020 (UTC)