Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 33

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non-sequitur argument

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

No, the 1st sentence is NOT a Non sequitur (logic), the second clause is dependent on the first clause but not entirely so. This was addressed above but here we go again. "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view." This is not a non sequitur. That is, an article may well present all relevant points of view in a dispassionate manner and yet still be highly partisan but an article that does not use a "consistently dispassionate tone" will almost always be perceived as highly partisan. For it to be a non sequitur, one would have to claim that the second clause proves the first. That is, an article presents all relevant points of view but is still perceived as highly partisan, therefore the article does not use a consistently dispassionate tone. That is not the case here, the sentence merely says that without a consistently dispassionate tone the article will be perceived as partisan but having a dispassionate tone is not the sole criteria for a neutral characterization. Second sentence: Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized. I think the word "implied" should be replaced with "inferred", words can not imply anything a reader infers based upon their own POV. Third sentence: Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all notable positions. I would strike "proportionate" and replace "notable" with "relevant". Proportionate makes no sense in this context and notable is a loaded word around here. Relevant is much better, I think, as a position may be notable but still irrelevant to the subject of the article. That is, for example, Noam Chomsky's opinions on US foreign policy is notable but completely irrelevant to an article on foreign policy because Chomsky is a professor of linguistics and not a diplomat, poli/sci professor, historian, etc. The Discovery Institute has a notable position on biology but it is not relevant to an article about biology. With the aforementioned change in sentence 3, sentence 4 is fine. Can we put this to rest now? Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 15:28, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

As for point #1, The other things need not be included in this policy because the other needed things (other legs of the tripod if you will) are the policies on verifiability and original research. Taken together as a whole WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:N are what is needed to make a neutral article. L0b0t (talk) 17:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

Synthesis of MC, SDY, HA, LW2 concerns

The line of conversation over the current MC-derivative version seems to be compounding into the current discussion, so I'm going to split this off to help MC/SA and LW2 find the current version when they come back online. Bold emphasis represents changes to MC version to capture primary concerns of LW2. I have modified slightly the wording of SDY for the consensus viewpoints, but trying to resolve wording I find I have concerns with.

"A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.

Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. Proper compliance with WP:WEIGHT is not a value judgement. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority views should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of large scientific consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect scientific consensus, as is documented in the official policy."

HatlessAtless (talk) 17:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

  • As a follow on, I think that there would be a place for "If the primary source of an opinion contains value judgements, polemic, invective, or incivility, the opinion should be paraphrased neutrally and cited, rather than quoted." HatlessAtless (talk) 17:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I would change this sentence "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view." to this "A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently dispassionate tone, otherwise articles might end up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view.". The addition of the qualifier "might" will obviate the IP's non sequitur concerns. L0b0t (talk) 17:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)

I'm not sure what Wikipedia:Consensus has to do with scientific consensus (except that they happen to both be consensus-es). :-P

That and NPOV is not exactly the same as SPOV. I think your version conflates the two? There are a number of people who don't quite understand the difference, and who manage to get themselves and wikipedia into trouble at times. --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Kim - I second this, completely. I've been coming to realize myself how many people here confuse scientific objectivity with neutral point of view. they've obviously never seen an episode of "House".  :-) Scientific objectivity tries to make correct or useful statements about objects in the physical world; wikipedian neutrality tries to make balanced presentations of viewpoints in the social world. there's no valid logic that connects the two. --Ludwigs2 18:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • ok, this is looking better to me, though I'd still like to contest a couple of points (summarized here, and included in the discussion above):
    • dispassionate (as I argue above) is actually a worse word than some cognate of 'fair' - there is just no measure of what is or is not dispassionate, and this will simply prompt edit wars of the I'm dispassionate, you're not variety. a word (maybe 'just' or 'equitable'?) that has some reference to group consensus would be far superior. not that I object to the word entirely, but as the sole measure it doesn't cut the mustard.
    • the line about minority views should read something like: "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented, they should neither be presented as equal to majority views, nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority." this ensures that WP:WEIGHT issues are satisfied in both directions - keeping the majority view as prominent without disparaging the minority view unduly.
    • I'd still like the excessive references to WP:WEIGHT brought under control. if I count correctly, there are two direct references and three indirect references to weight in the last paragraph alone. that's just silly, and poor writing to boot. --Ludwigs2 18:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(redacted edit from banned user on open proxy)


I take issue with the clause "nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority." that sounds like an invitation to trolls and POV pushers of all stripes, opening the floodgates to allow more warring by flat-earthers, creationists, we've never been to the mooners, holocaust deniers, and all the other improvident lack-wits of the world with an ideological axe to grind. Quite frankly, some views are incorrect and invalid and should be treated as such. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 18:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
"Quite frankly, some views are incorrect and invalid and should be treated as such." Which is, of course, the opposite of NPOV. How do you determine which views are incorrect and invalid? --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The beauty of Wikipedia is that I don't have to. I have our core policies of WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:N to do this for me, I just report what is already written in reliable sources. In my view, the opposite of NPOV would be in giving deference to views that are incorrect and invalid. Neutrality means accurately reflecting realty, not tip-toeing around calling a spade a spade because a reader might get their feeling hurt by reading that their cherished misconception of reality is, in fact, a misconception of reality. L0b0t (talk) 19:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
OMG! :-O . Please, the beauty of wikipedia is that you get to use your brain for a change! (aka. the pretty text is only there to help you).
NPOV is not about accurately reflecting reality (whatever that is), or even real knowledge (no clue here either), because that is a very hard thing to do, and not all wikipedians are high-falutin' philosophers. What we *can* do is accurately represent what people have been saying and writing about their views on reality. --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC) ps, spades have historically been somewhat controversial? ^^;;
L0b0t - all of these 'bad people' you mentioned would be excluded by the first part of the passage: "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented..." which explicitly invokes WP:WEIGHT. nice straw-man argument, but it doesn't fly. now, can you think of some example(s) where a significant view on a topic (per WP:WEIGHT) should be presented as incorrect or invalid, just by virtue of being a minority view? and no neutrality does not mean 'actually reflecting reality' - that's what reliable sourcing does. neutrality means "representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views" - whoops, sorry, there's that dreadful 'fair' word again - lol.
honestly, L0b0t, it's beginning to sound like you have an axe to grind. is that the case? --Ludwigs2 19:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's try this on for size then. I'm reducing the horse-beating of WP:Undue and I'm going to try to clean up the "consensus" part, and clear out the possible reading of this as equating the mainstream view as a neutral view (that was never my intent). I agree with both criticisms. Thanks for the feedback.

"A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently nonjudgmental tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.

Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy."

HatlessAtless (talk) 20:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The language and sentiment looks good to me. (reliable should have a period after it). SDY (talk) 21:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • well, I could quibble (and probably will, but not any more today - lol). but this is definitely shaping up. --Ludwigs2 23:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Misleading wording

" For example, the article on the Earth does not mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, a view of a distinct minority." Eh? That's misleading at best. The article *does* mention the view that the earth is flat. It doesn't currently have any links directly to the flat earth society, but otoh, iirc that scoiety is historic atm, and thus best kept at flat earth. (So for practical reasons, not due to the reason mentioned here).

To amplify: I often use the fact that Earth does mention Flat Earth as the canonical example of our scrupulous adherence to NPOV!

And now that I re-read our section on undue weight... it's actually saying the opposite. I wonder how much this page still actually describes NPOV.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 18:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

How is the above misleading? The sole mention of "flat Earth" in the article Earth is the following sentence "In the ancient past there were varying levels of belief in a flat Earth, with the Mesopotamian culture portraying the world as a flat disk afloat in an ocean.", that's it, no mention whatsoever of any flat Earth beliefs from the past 2500 years. L0b0t (talk) 19:31, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
well, that's probably a mistake from a historical perspective (there were a number of debates on this issue during the pre-colonial exploratory period, as well as all sorts of mythical constructs aside from mesopotamia). I'll check in there and see if sources need to be added. thanks. --Ludwigs2 20:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it's more an editorial thing, we have several articles on flat earth now, so it could be thought to suffice to link to the main article on the matter now. The fun thing is that NPOV sometimes actually leads to more objective reporting on an issue. Careful examination of sources shows that the belief that people believed the earth was flat, is *itself* an incorrect belief. So L0b0t has shot himself in the foot, by promising to defend wikipedia against a myth, afaict ;-P. (that and wikipedia doesn't need defending against such people, wikipedia is not a battlefield. We just need to explain NPOV to them, provided that this page accurately represents it at the moment). --Kim Bruning (talk) 20:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
What a cool article, thanks for the link. I'm reading a book right now about Chinese circumnavigation of the globe in the 15th century. No, the history of humanity's understanding of our universe is something that should be written about extensively, including the beautiful myriad of cosmologies humans have invented throughout the ages. were it not for the presence of articles on flat Earth I would be in agreement with Ludwigs2 that the Earth article could use more mention of it. My objection would be to modern adherents of a flat Earth theory demanding that their beliefs be accorded space in an article about the Earth. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 20:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
you know, L0b0t, I have to say that this is one of the things that pains me most about working on WP. I have absolutely no doubt that you and other editors argue in good faith, from a reasonable and sophisticated perspective, and I know that I do (as best I can). but I feel like I get caught up in arguments that are just carry-overs from arguments that have been had with other (long-gone) people. perfectly understandable, I suppose, and I don't know how it could be otherwise, but still... at any rate, yes, just know that I wouldn't want wikipedia to turn into wonkapedia any more than you would.  :-) --Ludwigs2 21:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
and kim - there really is a push here to de-neutralize NPOV (probably unintentional, but still...). I've seen this happen in a number of different venues - once things that should be a matter of consensus are reduced to the 'purportedly' objective judgments of individuals, neutrality goes out the window (because neutrality is inherently based in consensus, and doesn't survive outside it). fortunately, common sense negates the problem in most practical cases, but it's still sad to see the ideal get worn down. --Ludwigs2 20:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Usually it comes down to a question of "what is a fact?" v. "what is an opinion?" When the consensus is that a statement is a fact and others want to treat it as an opinion (or vice versa) we run into problems. In a legal setting, expert opinions are facts. In the realm of politics, facts are opinions. Wikipedia, like most of the human experience, is somewhere between these two extremes. SDY (talk) 21:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
yeah, that makes sense. I guess my own bias is that I'd prefer that the answer to that question be negotiated rather than asserted. assertions are always going to boil down to a we're right, you're wrong, so be quiet thing that satisfies no one and makes the losers angry. seems to me that if you can say, instead: here are the facts we're working with, but there's some wiggle-room about how we're going to present them then the wiggle-room will get wiggled by all sides, and everyone will at least be happy that they got some say in the matter. --Ludwigs2 21:58, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I sometimes see a conflict between "organization asserts X" versus "X is fact". That conflict seems to be the source of a lot of the issues Ludwigs is talking about, and that is the perspective I am taking when presenting my ideas for the neutral tone section wording. HatlessAtless (talk) 22:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Here's a question for this policy: should we attempt to define the characteristics of a fact as opposed to the characteristics of an opinion? Has it already been done? Philosophically the two are massive minefields. It might be more of a topic for an essay than a policy, but I think this conversation points out that it is not always obvious what is what. SDY (talk) 22:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) wow, that is a minefield(s) - lol. you'd even have to extend it a bit. there's:
  • sourced objective facts (i.e. statements about the world that have physical evidence
  • sourced 'objective' opinions (i.e. statements experts make about their work which are not 'facts' but are generally accepted as true)
  • sourced 'subjective' opinions (i.e. statements people make which are significant and important, but are disputed by some)
  • unsourced 'subjective' opinions (i.e. pervasive attitudes or beliefs that really shouldn't be in wikipedia but probably influence lots of editors, one way or another...)
but now that you mention it, maybe I should do some essay writing. lord knows I'm halfway there already with the arguments I make, and essays might annoy people less. hmmmm... --Ludwigs2 23:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I generally don't see a problem of that type. If I have a reliable source that group G asserts statement S, then we can reasonably take as fact that "group G asserts statement S". The issue is that, unless broad consensus agrees, S may not be a fact. The key here is that for neutral tone, as long as we keep the caveat that "mainstream science consensus is S", "Major minority opinion asserts M" etc, we shouldn't have to worry about "fact vs opinion". Arguing too much about "fact" invites arguments and value judgments, and unless consensus is reached, they should stay as cited assertions, not cited facts. HatlessAtless (talk) 23:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
well, there is a problem, particularly with science, of over-attributing. for instance the claim 'group G asserts statement S' is fine in and of itself, but when group G is scientists, there's a tendency to assume that statement S is true and any other statement is false, even when the statement has nothing to do with science at all. it's the old '4 out of 5 dentists say...' thing: 5 out of 5 dentists want you to brush your teeth, and none of them care which toothpaste you use, but the reference to experts is convincing in and of itself. plus, I've seen editors play it up that way, particularly on fringe theories (where it sometimes seems that the opinion of anyone with any kind of PhD trumps everything else - I call that the Martin Gardner Syndrome :-) ). --Ludwigs2 23:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
That's exactly why I appeal to consensus. If group G is scientists, but so is group G2, there is a problem. Final judgements have to represent a consensus of the community (but not unanimity). When making the jump from a set of well sourced opinion to a "final judgment", I see the key guidance in WP:CON, for when an idea reflects broad consensus, and WP:civil for how the arguments are presented on the talk page. When going from "mainstream science considers the Piltdown man to be a hoax" to "The Piltdown man is a hoax" would be a product of how the discussion is framed on the talk page, as guided by Civility and Consensus, rather than some attempt at an "objective" formulation of when we can make a transition from opinion to fact. Put another way, in my mind, is that we define a proper process for how to determine whether something is a "fact" or an opinion (which may change more than once over the lifetime of an article), and then invoke WP:PI. And we just sit back and recognize that some stuff is so blatantly obvious and accepted (air is breathed, not eaten) that this process can be ignored. HatlessAtless (talk) 10:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
yes, I don't think I disagree with you. but I'm suspicious of the 'consensus of the community' statement; it seems oddly fluid. a community often achieves consensus by excluding perfectly valid views that they happen to disagree with (e.g. Christians have consensus that Christ was God incarnate by simply preventing anyone who doesn't believe that from being called a Christian, and scientists have a secular consensus simply by excluding transcendent views as unscientific). nothing wrong with that, but it makes some difficult decisions for editors - do we evaluate a claim from the perspective of this community, or that community, or some broader community that the first two belong in... as long as those really are governed by wp:civility on the talk page, this would work, but what I see happening is one side defending a particular viewpoint (often the scientific one) to the death. --Ludwigs2 18:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Judging it in the context of what it claims to be seems to be a reasonable way to go about it, and I think that's mostly the way it has happened so far. SDY (talk) 18:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, ultimately, I see it as coming down to the consensus of the community of wikipedia editors. Given that we have pluralistic and broad statements in our mission, it means that we as a community will make a good faith effort and do our best to make sure that we don't exclude people who shouldn't be excluded, etc. I mean, that's the situation we're in when it comes right down to it, but since we are making an effort to be neutral and not adopt any external ideology, and since we are trying to come to our consensus through civil discourse, etc, I am ok with it, even if we know it isn't perfect. The fact that the wikipedia is imperfect and continuously needs work and improvement is one of, if not the most fundamental part of the project. To answer your question specifically, the only community perspective we are capable of adopting is our own; the perspective of the community of wikipedia editors. And given how diverse, friendly, cooperative and thoughtful most of that community is, I am ok with that, even while recognizing it is imperfect. HatlessAtless (talk) 23:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
well, Hatless... I salute your idealism while shaking my head ruefully.  :-) the fact is that I have seen numerous examples of editors trying to limit consensus to people who agree with them (you can do a quick survey of this or other pages to see how often people try to exclude editors by calling them POV-pushers, or by cooperating to silence dissent). without some affirmative statement asking for broad consensus, what you're going to get on any contested page is a manufactured consensus designed to push through a point of view as fact over less organized opponents. sad as it is, that's the way politics works on wikipedia. and no, I'm not suggesting you give up your ideals, but ideals need to have some teeth, otherwise there will be plenty of people willing to take advantage (teach your daughters that the world is a beautiful place, but make sure they carry pepper spray, yah?). --Ludwigs2 17:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Important qualification: Majority views should not be used to create a bias against minority views

This should, in some way, be part of the policy. Too many articles, especially around the and discrimination areas, use UNDUE in a way to present a negative bias. Now, I'm not an expert regarding UNDUE, but I don't think that's what the spirit of it is. WP:NPOVFAQ#Giving "equal validity" and WP:PSCI don't seem to support that view either - they seem to say "It's fine to characterise a minority viewpoint as such in the viewpoint's article, and when viewpoints are compared, we should focus on the scientific majority viewpoint", but it doesn't say "it is fine to use a person's support of a minority viewpoint to present a bias against them" - NPOV as a whole prohibits that. We don't present a visible negative bias for Time Cube or David Icke, so we shouldn't for the slightly more plausible fringe theories. Sceptre (talk) 10:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you intend the term "bias" to be interpreted here? Could you give a concrete example of this bias? --Jenny 10:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
For example ("omg bullying!"), Jonathan Wells (intelligent design advocate). Weasel words, guilt by association, et cetera. A version from yesterday is worse, and was only fixed by the grace of Moreschi. Sceptre (talk) 11:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
By the way, I'm okay for saying "Wells is an ID advocate whose actions are controversial", but I'm not for "Wells is an ID advocate. ID is controversial". The former would be fact while the latter compromises neutrality by guilt-by-association and straying off-topic. Sceptre (talk) 11:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I see that issue as falling into WP:Civil, WP:Weasel, and WP:NPA. We already have understood policies against making judgment calls like that, and WP:BLP is particularly strict on this topic. "It's fine to characterise a minority viewpoint as such in the viewpoint's article, and when viewpoints are compared, we should focus on the scientific majority viewpoint", but it doesn't say "it is fine to use a person's support of a minority viewpoint to present a bias against them" First, as we've already discussed above, scientific majority and consensus viewpoints may not necessarily be the same. (I think they are far more often than they are not, but for the situations where it is important, it is very important). Second, if you look at the last iteration of the neutral tone proposal, it has a prohibition against wording implying value judgements, as well as requiring an nonjudgemental tone. In general, I would tend to think that this would keep concerns like you've expressed to ones that can be resolved with edits or talk page discussion. I don't think additional wording would be necessary as part of this policy, but by all means, propose some wording. HatlessAtless (talk) 12:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
actually, I think the extra terminology is useful. all a statement like "Majority views should not be used to create a bias against minority views" (or my original "Where minority views are significant enough to be presented, they should neither be presented as equal to majority views, nor be presented as incorrect or invalid by virtue of being rejected by the majority") would do would be to keep editors from implying that a viewpoint is wrong just because they are a minor position. editors would still be able to point out that it's a minority position, and still be able to point out that it is rejected by the mainstream opinion, but editors would not be able to twist that mainstream rejection into some assertion of ontological failure. --Ludwigs2 17:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Ludwigs, I couldn't agree more. I will incorportate that clause (or at least that sentiment) in my next draft of a synthesis "neutrality of tone". HatlessAtless (talk) 17:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
What happens, though, when a minority viewpoint is wrong, or entirely implausible, or beneath serious notice in the view of experts in the field? Wikipedia needs to reflect that. AIDS denialism, for instance, is not merely a "minority view thought to be unsupported by the majority of the mainstream conventional scientific community" - it is wrong, fundamentally so, and if Wikipedia can't make that clear, then we may as well pack it in as far as ever becoming a serious, respectable reference work. Sceptre's concerns are valid, but they involve WP:COATRACKing and WP:BLP, not WP:NPOV. Of course a biographical article should not serve as a vehicle to denouce a set of views, but we don't need to change WP:NPOV to address that. I don't see Ludwig2's distinction between "rejected" and "invalid"; views that are rejected by the relevant academic community are, academically speaking, considered invalid. I don't see a lot of room to split those hairs without further bloating what should be a very straightforward issue. Does Brittanica worry that rejection by the scientific community should not make an idea appear "invalid"? Does any other serious, respected reference work? MastCell Talk 17:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
You beat me to the punch MC, since that just occurred to me. I think, however, that we can resolve the situation with a scope of article issue. AIDS Denialism is sufficiently notable for its own article, but it is a tiny minority with respect to views on AIDS. Therefore, they wouldn't deserve mention on the aids article, but we would still fairly present criticism (extensive as it is) on the article for AIDS denialism. HatlessAtless (talk) 17:59, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
To borrow some unfortunately wikilawyeresque language: "Innocent until proven guilty", modified to "plausible until proven false." In the same vein, we should expect evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt". If there is no reasonable doubt among reliable sources, then that, in my mind, is the neutral point of view. The Durban Declaration is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a breaking point between minority views and fringe views, and views that are truly fringe should not be treated as plausible. Active attacks and incivility are obviously a problem, especially for WP:BLP, but treating things without editorial judgment and treating them as plausible are two very different questions. SDY (talk) 18:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think we may have reached a point where we'll have to leave it ambiguous and fight it out on individual talk pages. I think that labeling a group 'fringe' on its own article and not mentioning it in the main article about which the group has its views would be sufficient balance for now. Between that and WP:RELY and WP:V I think we've got enough guidance to go by, and leaving the "fairness of tone" section open for interpretation will let us try to get it right article by article. Specifically, if a fringe group is denied mention in the respective topic article (for lack of RSS's defending its views), is labeled fringe on its own article, its assertions and notability derived from some source other than scientific validity, and the mainstream opinions running counter to the fringe group's ideas are defended by RSSs (while no RSSs can be mustered in defense of the fringe group's views), I think I am ok with not declaring a theory bunk or no. It will be plainly clear to the reader either way. HatlessAtless (talk) 18:21, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Simplicity

Maybe simpler is better. All of this abstract talk about tone is making my head hurt. Why not just say:

Wikipedia strives to accurately and proportionately reflect the current state of human knowledge and opinion on a topic. Wikipedia's coverage of a topic should reflect its treatment by independent, reliable sources. An effort should be made to accurately and dispassionately convey the tone and substance of the topic's coverage in such sources.

Thoughts? This emphasizes the primacy of reliable sources rather than editorial emotion, it avoids "fairness" and "validity" meta-arguments, and it's flexible enough to deal with minority vs. fringe topics without being overly prescriptive. Or I think so, anyway. MastCell Talk 18:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It does sound good, a lot better than the abusable UNDUE. I'm still worried about bias from straying off-topic, though, but I do agree, that's not strictly NPOV - it's WEASEL, COAT, and BLP. Sceptre (talk) 19:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I have a lot of trouble with that for three reasons, two of which are good ones. First, the word (and sentiment) of dispassion has been strenuously objected to by several editors, per the discussion above. Second, I don't believe that that wording will be useful in sorting out POV edit wars, since it is amenable to a a "favorable source" treatment, which would not solve much. Finally (and included entirely for humor) its not the same as the version I spent all weekend negotiating! HatlessAtless (talk) 19:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Also, "convey the tone and substance" is problematic with NPOV. If an RSS's tone is polemic, that tone has no place in wikipedia. HatlessAtless (talk) 19:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Finally, I am thinking this might make an awesome seed for an essay related to NPOV, but I am worried that it also fails to give critical guidance. Specifically, it does not address how we as a community of editors would decide what sources we should include or which ones we shouldn't, given that organization, presentation, and selection of quotes and RSS citations can make an article a heavily biased opinion piece as easily as a neutral and encyclopedic article. HatlessAtless (talk) 19:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Those decisions are generally made on article talk pages - there's no suitably general guidance we can give on which sources to choose applicable to all articles, and even if we could it would be more appropriate for WP:V and WP:RS (see WP:MEDRS for an effort to codify "good" sourcing in one small subject area). I don't see a problem with "convey the tone", but I think we disagree fundamentally: I think that if reliable sources consistently disparage a subject, then we need to convey that here. There is nothing in policy or practice which says that if an otherwise reliable source is "polemical" about a subject that it becomes unworthy of inclusion here. Truly reliable sources tend not to be polemic; Nature, Science, the New York Times, and the World Health Organization rarely take a polemic tone, and when they do, it's notable enough to be reflected here. MastCell Talk 20:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Product of the weekend's discussion

Since we're discussing possible wording for the "neutrality of tone" section, here is what appears to have come out of the discussion from this weekend.

  • A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently nonjudgmental tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy.

I think this does pretty much everything we need it to do. HatlessAtless (talk) 19:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Overall this looks pretty good. One major objection: "The article must not contain value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article" has to go. This is a blanket invitation to wikilawyering; anything negative or contextual could be called a "value judgement". A good article absolutely contains value judgements about the topic, though they are the value judgements made by reliable sources. Perhaps you could amend this to say: "The article must not reflect an editor's value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article." This makes clear that it's editorial judgement you want to avoid.

I dislike the word "nonjudgemental" in the first sentence for the same reasons; a good, NPOV article may be judgemental, if the weight of reliable sources treat its topic judgementally. So long as we don't substitute our judgements for those of reliable sources, we're good. MastCell Talk 20:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds as if it is contradicting itself. This is what I hear, translating the proposed paragraph:
  • 1. Neutral tone means tone without bias or judgment.
  • 2. The sum of individually neutral parts may be biased.
  • 3. Neutral tone means tone without bias and proportionate representation.
  • 4. Follow other policies such as V and RELY.
  • 5. No judgments of the article's topic.
  • 6. Present views according to WP:UNDUE.
  • 7. Present uncontroversial value judgments.
Points five and seven don't agree with each other. Points one and three could be condensed. Point two could be read as disagreeing with point six. The ultimate question for NPOV, in my mind, is "how do we keep the article unbiased when the policy on weight requires us to present an inherently biased article?" My perception of reconciling these two views has always been: "Make Wikipedia's bias consistent with the bias of reliable sources." My bias is that the section on tone should say "let reliable sources kill the horse, editors may only take pictures." SDY (talk) 20:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think taking into account MC's comments fixes your objection with #5 and #7, if reliable sources are heavily biased one way, articles can reflect that. I don't read #2 the way you do, I read #2 as "Presentation of neutral parts may impart a bias into the whole", which does not mean the same thing; put another way, "the facts never speak for themselves", and so I don't believe it conflicts with point 6. HatlessAtless (talk) 21:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

That's exactly the feedback I needed. First, the easy one: nonjudgemental was an attempt to improve on "dispassionate". I'll replace it with "impartial" to try to avoid your concern without changing the spirit of the wording. At first glance, I had a negative reaction to your thinking that we do treat topics judgementally, but on a second reading, I like your wording anyway. It enforces attribution, and is in the spirit of:

Let the facts speak for themselves

  • Karada offered the following advice in the context of the Saddam Hussein article:
  • You won't even need to say he was evil. That is why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man"—we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources.

Since it means that we can cite and attribute value judgements without forcing the article to adopt the value judgements as its own, while not preventing us from pointing out the obvious if we have broad consensus in RSS's about a topic.

  • A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting schools of thought with a consistently impartial tone, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be implied through either the biased selection of facts or how they are organized.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. The article must not reflect an editor's value judgments about the opinions reported or the topic of the article. This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all. Representations of broad consensus, especially of historical theories and hoaxes, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man must accurately reflect such consensus, as is documented in the official policy.

HatlessAtless (talk) 21:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Please note that we do not have to have passed judgments on all articles. When there is a clear weight of reliable sources as to a disposition, (ie, the horse is dead), then of course we can say that. However, there are plenty of situations (the really interesting ones, at least from the neutrality perspective) where the horse may or may not be dead. Take Intelligent Design, for example (which I disagree with, so my bias is clear). From a scientific perspective, ID is a fringe view, and is roundly judged as such by mainstream science, and has almost no representation in the most reputable journals. However, the ID community is very large, very active, and there is plenty of RSS documentation in prestigious places in the public view that lies outside of the scientific forum. It is these kinds of conflicts where I see erring on the side of "nonjudgemental" as being the most useful. Since Wikipedia has not been defined as taking the scientific viewpoint on such issues, we exacerbate risk exacerbating edit wars if we are too favorable to pronouncing "weight of evidence". Reliable sources may kill the horse, but we should only publish pictures with the headline "the horse is dead" if there is a broad consensus that the horse is actually dead. Luna lovegood notwithstanding. HatlessAtless (talk) 21:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it's a nightmare, but there are parts of it where there is a clear consensus. To summarize very briefly, there is a bit of a debate whether the overall controversy means all points covered in the article are controversial because the topic is controversial. Back on topic, borrowing some language from WP:BLP:

"The article should document, in a non-partisan manner, what reliable third party sources have published about the subject and, in some circumstances, what the subject may have published about themselves. The writing style should be neutral and factual, avoiding both understatement and overstatement. ..."

"... If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented by reliable published sources, it belongs in the article — even if it's negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out."

The second section is from WP:WELLKNOWN, which should apply to all controversial topics where problems of neutrality of tone are a concern. There is extreme value in having these two policies be consistent in their treatment of a topic. I think the current BLP language covers the topic quite succinctly and is well worded. SDY (talk) 21:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) hmmm...
  1. I think "reflect an editor's value judgments" should be replaced by "reflect editors' value judgments" - this isn't necessarily about the mistaken judgement of a single editor.
  2. the line "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as equal: Minority schools of thought should not be presented as equally accepted as the majority view, for instance, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all" is just a repetition of WP:UNDUE, and should be removed and/or replaced by a reference to UNDUE.
  3. there is nothing here that distinguishes between (proper) criticism in sources and (improper) criticism from editors. I'd suggest rewriting the last paragraph along these lines:

    Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable. Where the article presents appropriate and necessary criticisms as given by sources, it must not reflect editors' value judgments about the correctness or incorrectness of those criticisms. This does not mean that all views should be presented as equal - frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man, must accurately reflect the consensus against them as documented in consensus policy - but rather that the tone and phrasing of the article does not impute that Wikipedia or its editors have any stance on the conflict.

--Ludwigs2 21:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

SDY - I think those quotes you gave have value here. --Ludwigs2 21:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I reworded the version, It seems to be fairly close IMO, the biggest change is linking to a different policy, and writing about facts, "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." I am wondering if it may be possible to conclude the topic if people edit this box on the talk page as if it were the main page until consensus is reached, no reversions, only improvement to the wording.
  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently neutral and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.
  • Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased and proportionate representation of all includable positions. Presentation of opinions must meet the same standards as all article sections in the Wikipedia; statements must be verifiable and reliable.Where the article presents appropriate and necessary criticisms as given by sources, it must not reflect editors' value judgments about the correctness or incorrectness of those criticisms. This does not mean that all views should be presented as equal - frauds, hoaxes, and debunked theories, such as Geocentric model or Piltdown Man, must accurately reflect the documented consensus against them - but rather that the tone and phrasing of the article does not impute that Wikipedia or its editors have any stance on the matter.
Ward20 (talk) 21:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Include Ludwigs' improvements. Ward20 (talk) 21:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

SDY I agree with all of your statements. I think that the last version of the neutral tone section I posted is consistent with that policy. We could concievably strengthen the ties to WP:WELLKNOWN by including "statements must be verifiable, reliable, and properly attributed to the source". While I beleieve that simply citing the source should be sufficient; for controversial statements attribution in the body as opposed to hiding it in a citation tag would be beneficial. (in the case of the WELLKNOWN example, this would mean stating the messy divorce as "according to the New York Times, John doe had a messy affair with Jane Doe [1]" as opposed to "John doe had a messy affair with Jane Doe [2]". HatlessAtless (talk) 21:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't like the recursive definition (using "neutral tone" in a definition of neutral tone), and I put ASF specifically linked. Otherwise, bullseye Ward.
  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently impartial and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.

HatlessAtless (talk) 21:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Ludwigs, I think Ward20 nailed it. Granted I'd have liked to preserve my wording, but I can't argue with most of his changes. He caught #1 with editorial. I beleive #2 is a quote from Jimbo, and I see it having value here as well. Prohibiting editorial criticism nails #3. HatlessAtless (talk) 21:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
HatlessAtlas, I like the version you have above as much as any. Can we just edit one version now to see if it can get consensus? Ward20 (talk) 22:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Ward, I've been beating that horse since before the weekend. Since we've got Ludwigs on board (with the exception of his minor quibbles, like everyone else's) and SDY, I think we're really close. I agree, let's wee if we can get consensus. HatlessAtless (talk) 22:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it looks good too. Sceptre (talk) 22:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Do we have consensus to put the last version above in the article, and then gently improve it from discussion on the talk page? And if someone starts reverting instead of trying to improve the section, we wack them with a trout? Ward20 (talk) 22:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think so, yes. Sceptre (talk) 22:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Pretty darn close. Two minor quibbles:

  • Consider using "report" instead of "present".
  • "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as being equally accepted. Minority schools of thought for instance should not be represented as having the same acceptance as the majority view, and views in the extreme minority do not belong in Wikipedia at all." These two sentences are kind of redundant and could probably be condensed, maybe to "This does not mean that all views should get equal space, nor that they should be presented as being equally accepted." Less to read, more or less the same message. SDY (talk) 22:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think 'present' is the best word under the circumstances; 'report' has subtleties that make it slightly more amenable to quoting polemic in my view, which might be problematic.. I have made the other change. HatlessAtless (talk) 23:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Consensus Achieved?

Based on the last four statements, I think we appear to be in agreement for the new wording of the "Neutrality of tone" section, as follows:

  • A neutral characterization requires presenting competing schools of thought about topics with a consistently impartial and factual tone, avoiding both understatement and overstatement, otherwise articles risk ending up as partisan commentary. Even while presenting all relevant points of view in terms of facts, inappropriate tone may introduce a prejudice through biased selection, description, or organization of verifiable material.

HatlessAtless (talk) 23:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Endorse change, This does what we need it to do, and is hugely improved over the existing version. I think, though, that page protect should be left up for another week to let the discussion die down. HatlessAtless (talk) 23:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Agree This works. I have some minor formatting and style quibbles, but they're truly minor. SDY (talk) 23:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Agree. I think I like Ward's version (above) slightly better, but not to the extent that it's worth making a fuss over. I've gone ahead and edited in one minor stylistic changes - I moved the start of the WP:ASF link to distinguish it from the WP:RELY link - and I'll list out two others for consideration, but otherwise I'm good with this:
    1. "equally accepted. Representations" should be "equally accepted: representations" the latter phrase is an exemplification of the former, so the colon works better
    2. the 'of' in "especially of historical theories" should probably be 'concerning' or 'regarding' (i.e. "especially concerning historical theories...") --Ludwigs2 01:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
      • Ludwigs, I didn't intend the "representations" to be an exemplification of weight, I intended it to stand on its own, but I don't have a particular problem with your quibble, it just links two meanings I did not intend to have links. The underlying sentiment and what we're trying to achieve is essentially the same. HatlessAtless (talk) 02:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
        • agreed, this is very minor. I'd only meant that as a stylistic improvement. --Ludwigs2 02:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree There is no "partisan commentary." There will be editors who will complain about a completely neutral article, and they will use these statements to defend their complaints. I wish someone would explain to me why we even have to do this? I also will await comments from MastCell, ScienceApologist, and numerous other editors before I would be convinced there is any type of consensus. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 01:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
why am I not surprised...? lol --Ludwigs2 02:00, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Your personal attacks are not going unnoticed. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
OrangeMarlin, I'll explain exactly why we need to do this. There are three critical reasons. 1) Only a small fraction of the articles on Wikipedia are amenable to science and mathematical rationale. Things such as religious beliefs cannot be discussed in terms of scientific facts; they must be discussed in terms of the assertions and articles of faith, in which case tone is of paramount importance. 2) What facts actually are requires care and a sharp eye to separate fact from opinion from assertion. When linking multiple facts or contrasting contradictory facts, again, tone is important. As anyone who has ever written a scientific paper knows, 3) Wikipedia adopts a neutral POV, even towards science. This means that, in context, the "scientific consensus" can be a minority view, or be contested significantly enough to merit discussion. In all cases, unless there is to be an eternal edit-feud between which set of "facts" gets premium placement in each article, and how they are interconnected and so on, we must have this policy. HatlessAtless (talk) 02:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
HA (not hah), let me first say how much I appreciate your good faith and civil response, as opposed to other individuals in this discussion. Let me reply to you point by point: 1) Well, I'm not sure it's that small, but your point is valid for non-scientific articles which are subject to more subjective study. I don't think an article should start "XXX is not supported by science, and all the twits who believe in XXX should be subject to further education at a respected institution of study". But, there is a level of tone that needs to point out the anti-science nature of certain fringe theories--and that should border on derision. But even in the non-science areas, how do you treat Holocaust denial? There's no science there (unless I'm mistaken), it's a historical fact, and those people who support it don't deserve a balanced "tone", whatever that is. The problem here is that tone is so open to subjectiveness we'll have a rule that will be referenced as WP:NPOV#Tone#number of conditions#words acceptable. Impossible to manage. 2) Science does work in facts, so I have no clue how to respond. But back to Holocaust denialism, history can be fact-based, especially more recently. I think we can calculate the number of votes in an election, or who was King of England in 1463. Science is based on theory, validation, repeatability etc, so there are no facts. But again, how are you to judge tone? I think this point alone makes my case. Finally, 3) I would contend that you're misinterpreting NPOV. In science, statements are verified by reliable sources. And if there are 1 million sources support Evolution by natural selection etc., and 10 support Intelligent design, and none of those 10 are reliable, then the science = NPOV. In fact, science has no POV or I would say SPOV = NPOV. Since "tone" is so subjective, and could cause infinitely worse edit-warring than we have now, I stand firmly opposed to any change in this statement. IN fact, I would delete it, but it's there, so I'm all right with it. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 04:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, let me reply to your comments point by point:
  • Extreme fringe views like Aids denialism are actually quite easy to handle within the context of this guideline. Since the group is obviously fringe, withing WP:UNDUE they do not deserve any mention at all in any serious treatment article of AIDS. In the article itself, the opening paragraph should assert that the group is a fringe theory, and in the article section on claims or criticisms, the weight of scientific citations that refute their claims (assuming that their claims are part of their notability) that there won't be any need to be derisive. IMO derision only serves to piss people off (and in many cases can be taken as a personal attack). It may just be my nature, but I don't piss people off if I can avoid it, its bad in life, and its bad for wikipedia.
  • The only facts in science are the observations of experimenters and the proofs of mathematicians. "I think we can calculate the number of votes in an election" This is where we get into needing a sharp eye 'fact' versus 'opinion'. There is the fact, which is the number of votes cast in the election (call it fact V). Then there are another set of facts, which represent the different estimates of the number of votes cast, based on their assumptions and methods of estimation, including simple counts and such (call them estimates E1, E2, etc). Since for major elections with millions of participants, with the inevitable irregularities, we likely do not know V, we are stuck trying to figure out which estimate EX most closely approximates V (or in the case of the 2000 US presidential election, which estimate EX which is favorable to us in florida can we sell to the supreme court) "or who was King of England in 1463." If this was a time when the kingship was disputed or in flux, different lines of legal reasoning may yield different results. There could be a de-jure king, a de-facto king, an ex-post-facto king, a quid-pro-hoc king, etc. (forgive my latin, but I hope you get my point as well as my joke).
(just an afterthought) I don't want to imply that all facts are as ambiguous as the ones I brought up. If a scientist observes that nitric acid dissolved copper, and reports those findings, and lots more scientists do it, we can be reasonably sure that nitric acid will dissolve copper (done it myself before). This can also be true of history; we can be reasonably sure who the second president of the US was, it is a well established historical fact, with no controversy at all (that I know of). In those cases, we can simply state the fact, and back it up. My point was to be careful with some facts, because asserting that X was the king of England at some point in history may be not true; the fact being asserted is that X was the 'legal' king of England at that point, since someone may have been ruling as king in his stead, including using the title. HatlessAtless (talk) 05:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I can't believe it. I used 1463 as an example of a fact of who was King of England, and of course, I chose a date right in the middle of the War of the Roses, when Henry VI and Edward IV were battling for the crown. Of course, unless one is a solid Lancastrian or Yorkist, it's hard to create a tone of any when discussing who was King of England. I'll have to get back to your other points. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:12, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • In your example of Intelligent design; the significance of the cultural phenomenon is irrelevant to its lack of scientific credibility. In an article on the scientific claims of ID, I agree that the scientific weight of evidence would overwhelm the scientific weight for ID. However, there are enough reliable secondary sources, prominent adherents, and ardent followers that it is essentially impossible to justify it as fringe. It is too large, vocal, (and in my hometown, aggravating, but that is a separate discussion) to dismiss. In an article discussing the ID for its notability as a cultural phenomenon, the scientific failures of the movement's claims would only merit one section, and since the scientific viewpoint and mainstream scientific acceptance is only peripherally related to the movement, it would not be possible to relate the mainstream scientific viewpoint to all aspects of the cultural phenomenon. To answer your question about how one judges tone? Basically, its an attempt to write in such a way as to piss off as few people as possible, and to try to make it so as few people as possible feel that their deeply held beliefs are being insulted, while at the same time stating the obvious and keeping all important, relevant and encyclopedic info in the articles.
HatlessAtless (talk) 05:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I'll add two points:
  1. the claim that SPOV = NPOV is itself a POV that has no basis in scientific reality. Science is objective, not neutral, and so science can only inform debates, it can't answer them. there is, in fact, a common opinion in the scientific community that explicitly precludes science from entering into public debates (you might remember the old 'scientists build the bombs, but politicians decide where to use them' arguments). scientific objectivity tells us that we can spread butter on toast (because of the particular properties of butter and toast); neutrality says that some people like to do that, and some people don't. are you suggesting that we say the people who don't like to spread butter on toast are wrong, because science tells us that we can?
  2. where you say "there is a level of tone that needs to point out the anti-science nature of certain fringe theories--and that should border on derision..." why? isn't pointing out that fringe theories have no scientific grounding sufficient to show that they have no scientific grounding? you personally may feel derision towards these theories, but I don't (I just dismiss them) - so why should your particular point of view have a presence in an article on the topic? --Ludwigs2 18:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I actually agree with you. Science has no POV, because it is based upon hypothesis, experimentation, repeatability, falsifiability and a bunch of other things. POV is an opinion. However, your rest of stuff is just so much original research. Never heard of most of that stuff, and it's simply incorrect. Science is at the center of social debates everywhere, including evolution, abortion, stem cell research, global warming, and so many other issues I'd hurt my typing fingers typing it. As for fringe theories, it's one simple issue--as long as Wikipedia is the #1 source on the internet for medical and science, then anyone reading an article ought to know that Homeopathy does not work and it might hurt you, because there are some homeopaths who think a dilution of the Berlin Wall will cure you of cancer. That's why fringe theories should be eliminated or treated with the derision that they so richly deserve. And it's not because I have a POV, it's because there are millions of articles that say evolution is scientifically accurate. And Intelligent design has none, and is really just an attempt by individuals to force religious teaching in US schools. There is no positive tone that I could see for ID. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 07:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. Science reflects the point of view that the important things in human life can be learned about via hyporthesis, experimentation, repeatability, faslsifiability, etc. This is definitely a point of view because it tends to magnify the significance of aspects of experience that are ameliorable to this kind of treatment and diminish the significance of aspects of experience which are not. Science tends to de-emphasize individual experience, emotion, intuition, and other sources of knowing that other points of view say are appropriate ways to direct the course of an individual life. Each one of our lives, and the universe as a whole, is utterly non-repeatable -- it will never be in the same state twice. In order to do science, one always has to take a point of view which ignores these individual and non-repetitive aspects and assume they are unimportant to the problem one is looking at. In human affairs, creating approximately repeatable states requires performing operations (random assignment and the like) that impose articifical conditions different from what people experience in a natural state, and this affects outcomes. (As the Hawethorne effect indicates and the Subject object problem attempts to discuss, being in an experiment results in different outcomes from not being in an experiment.) It also requires treating individual differences as unimportant so one can abstract two objectively different people into repetitions of the "same" underlying thing. Claiming that these types of perspectives are not a point of view ignores a great deal of contemporary philosophy, particularly when the view is simply asserted as self-evident with no sensitivity or even awareness of the numerous contrary arguments. Saying it's so doesn't make it so. Willing it to be so doesn't make it so. Such assertion represents a religious act, an attempt to impose ones faith on others rather than engage in reasoned discourse with them. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 17:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Self-evidently wrong. Science reflects the view that empirical explanations based on emirically testable evidence are useful, whether or not other untestable explanations might be true. Religion is inherently a matter of faith rather than testability, and while there is plenty of room for the perspective that religious views are important and true, they are not science and are not amenable to scientific examination. Of course there is a philosophical position that the most important, or only, things are those that can be scientifically tested, but that's not the only view of science and many religions or philosophical positions find no disagreement with the findings of purely empirical science. . . dave souza, talk 17:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, most of the debates you've just cited are not scientific debates (Only global warming is). The evolution debate (at least in its current incarnation of teaching ID in schools) is an argument over the right of parents to control what their kids learn, and whether or not they have a right to learn a non-scientific alternative. The debate over abortion is one over the morality of abortion, not its scientific value as a medical procedure. The debate over stem cell research is essentially an extension of the abortion debate. There is no question related to the scientific validity of stem cell research, or to its possible benefits; but instead questions of morality. Global warming as a phenomenon is not fully understood, and there is some pretty significant debate about the causes, consequences, and solutions to global warming within the scientific community. I mean, the observed fact, that there is a global trend towards higher temperatures is not really in doubt, but the relationship between cfc's, CO2, and CH4 is still an active area of research. In every single case you've mentioned, the scientific research and information is secondary to the policy debate. The question in most of these public arguments is "should", which is not a question science is equipped to answer. Granted that I agree with the policy positions most scientists advocate, but they're not advocating those policies as scientific theories, they're advocating them as people and are trying to use science as insight into how to achieve the results they want. HatlessAtless (talk) 14:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
This is getting hard to reply. Maybe someone should keep the "votes" in a separate section from this discussion. But in reply to HA, they are all scientific debates. Evolution is science--ID and Creationism are religious ideas that should be taught at home or church. I'm not going to get into the debate that "it is an argument over the rights of parents to control what their kids learn", because that isn't relevant to me. Abortion is not a moral argument, it is fundamentally a science one. Life either exists or does not exist at conception. Scientifically, it does not. Religiously, there seems to be a debate. Science is fundamental to each of these issues. Your attempt at moving the discussion to a religious/moral grounds is precisely why NPOV exists. The science behind Evolution is pristine. The science behind Global Warming is fairly pristine. They are supportable. Right of parents to control children, or denying global warming belong in denialist articles. I now see why there is a push to weaken the NPOV on Wikipedia.OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) OM: "that isn't relevant to me" is exactly why we're disagreeing. Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia devoted only to explaining the scientific status of various theories, it is an encyclopedia that deals with everything, including public policy debates. Again going back to our discussion of ID vs Evolution in schools; I have do disagree 180 with you on this one. Whether the science were right or wrong about evolution (and for the record, I agree with you both that the science on evolution is overwhelming and consistent, though I hesitate to use the word pristine, and I agree with you that science should be taught in school and and ID at church.) would not change the public policy debate in the slightest. The question revolves around a loaded one: "Does the freedom of religion, the right to privacy, and the right of a parent to be the primary educator of their children mean that parents have the right to control the curriculum of a public school?" There is lots of reliable sourcing behind and discussing the controversy itself, and in entire regions of the US, the coverage in reliable sources of the controversy is actually slanted against mainstream science. (And the fact that I live in one depresses me). Advocates of ID in public schools are a significant and notable minority. The "pristine" science behind evolution is silent on the topic of whether evolution should be taught in public schools along side, or instead of ID. Its not something that can be researched. Science can prove all day that evolution is a valid theory, but it cannot answer any questions that begin with the word "should" understood in the moral, rather than the probabilistic sense. You have made your own Bias clear, and I have to admit that I am a little unsettled that you take the stance that you do towards controversies over policy where it relates to science, since it seems that you challenge the underlying nature of NPOV, but I am still convinced that you edit in good faith, so please don't misunderstand my reservations. HatlessAtless (talk) 18:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Just as a follow on, this just occurred to me. OM, do you equate the policy positions held by the significant majority of scientifically trained people to be the non-POV of science? I notice that while "science" is silent on whether ID has a place in schools, the majority of scientists (I'm not sure how big the majority it, but I believe it is pretty massive one) believe ID should not be taught in schools. The same is true for most of the opinions you've presented. Science may not have a POV but there is an SPOV = Scientists' Point Of View. Could this be a fair understanding of where you're coming from? HatlessAtless (talk) 18:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, only the data itself is really objective, and whether that data is worth using is an opinion (obvious poor quality data sets are a hallmark of junk science). Science isn't devoid of opinions, its main claim to credibility is that it actually discards opinions that don't work. SPOV is a biased and human opinion, but it happens to be the POV of the relevant experts in many debates. The problem with so many pseudoscience debates is not that the SPOV is "truth" but that the Psci supporters refuse to accept that their explanation just doesn't provide consistent or predictable results. SDY (talk) 15:30, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Once again, there is no Scientific POV. There is an Anti-Science POV, but that's not relevant here.OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
OM, does that imply that the people (scientists) are free from POV as well as science itself? Are you combining the two? HatlessAtless (talk) 21:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Science lacks a POV. Scientists are just the tool that builds good science. Unless a scientist is paid to produce a result (and I consider them shills or something to that effect), they write the conclusion from the results of analysis (experimentation). Sure, sometimes, scientists get all emotional over a discovery, but that's the human being, not the science itself. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 22:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) A monkey can collect data, it takes expertise to make sense of it. That "sense" is an interpretation, which is at its most basic point an opinion. Whatever. At any rate, I think this conversation is getting a little off topic. I think it's relevant to NPOV and it should probably just get its own thread. SDY (talk) 23:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah heavens... and I'm trying so hard here to be nice. OM - when you say things like "Abortion is not a moral argument, it is fundamentally a science one. Life either exists or does not exist at conception" you're neglecting the fact that 'the existence of life at conception' is only a single question in the bigger moral issue. for instance, we know that adults are alive, but we consider it perfectly acceptable to kill them in certain contexts (self-defense, warfare, public executions of criminals, etc...). science only enters into the abortion issue to answer specific factual questions that get raised; science has no capacity whatsoever to answer the moral issue.
SDY, you're probably right that this needs a separate thread, but frankly I'm amazed we have to discuss it at all. it's making my head spin. --Ludwigs2 00:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
  • meh I was going to hold back, as I don't think writing a prescription for neutral tone would be easy, and I don't want to condem all approaches, but I don't care for this itteration too much either. Too munch jargon and not neccessarily applicable phrases. "Competing schools of thought?" Do most articles have more than one, if any, schools of thought? "Factual tone?" Like, if it has a tone, is that a fact? What do facts sound like? And the "partisan commentary" phrase, while longstanding, sort of assumes, well, "partisanship." And the second paragraph is more about the policies it links to than about NPOV in terms of tone. I think an effective section on tone could be possible, but it would probably take an audiologist to work out the niceties. If I were to rewrite this I would probably leave it at a single sentence, something like: "Presenting material in a neutral tone is important," as the more you get into it or try to explain it the more it all unravels. Ameriquedialectics 02:50, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) Actually, Amerique, writing a prescription for neutral tone is not difficult at all, nor is that the problem we've been having in this discussion. this whole issue is polarized between (a) editors who think that tone can by itself bias an article unfairly, and (b) editors who deny that possibility, or just don't care if it's true (with, of course, a number of good souls between trying to balance things). I frankly don't know what to do with editors who aren't concerned with whether an article sounds fair and impartial (even though "sounds" is a nebulous, difficult-to-assess word) because we all know that most people who read Wikipedia are going to pay at least as much attention to the way it sounds as to what it actually says. now I can understand the Machiavellian side here - there are a number of editors (I imagine) who've gotten good milage from making topics they like/dislike sound good/bad by playing with the wording, and may be worried that a revamp of this policy will start to undo their carefully defended schemes (who knows, yah?). but aside from that I can't see the problem. this version is better than what's there now; at worst, it won't change anything at all, and at best, it will make wikipedia a better encyclopedia. where's the downside? --Ludwigs2 03:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe it's perfect, but I do think it's better than the current version. SDY (talk) 03:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I went looking at some online style guides discussing the matter of tone. I would say, any discussion of tone on Wikipedia, for NPOV policy, should be able to come up with something along the lines any of these: [1],