Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 29

Terms for killings

I've started a subpage (Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/Killing_NPOV) for discussion of an RfC regarding the proper unbiased terms to use for killings. I've seen this problem in very many articles where a pejorative or biased label for a killing (murder, atrocity, massacre, brutal murder, etc.) is used as objective fact (rather than offered as someone's opinion). Please direct any comments you may have there. Fourdee 01:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed addition to NPOV

Pursuant to issues raised in the above discussion it seems to me that some clarification of NPOV is needed due to probably unintentional ambiguity in how it is phrased. I have started another subpage (hope that is the right way to handle this) at Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/Fact_disputedfact_value which outlines the proposed addition of the following table:

How to phrase propositions

Proposition	Description	Examples	Voice
Fact	A factual statement which is not disputed.	Mars is a planet. Tennis is played with rackets. Water is a liquid.	Voice of editor.
Disputed fact	A statement of fact for which there are differing published opinions or which has been questioned by another editor.	John F. Kennedy was shot only by Lee Harvey Oswald. All events are pre-determined. Humans evolved from other mammals.	Attributed to published source.
Value (opinion)	A statement of value, worth or morality.	The holocaust was barbaric. Rembrandt is one of the most important painters. Powered flight was a significant accomplishment.	Attributed to published source.

Again please direct comments to Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view/Fact_disputedfact_value as apparently there is some considerable dispute about the place of value judgments on wikipedia and this may take some time. Fourdee 10:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

NPOV as an excuse for censorship?

Ive seen NPOV used as an excuse to delete sourced material that is claimed to be POV, even tho editor has has simply listed facts from a source that is considered reliable at least by him. In this case the opposing editors declare that their POV is not represented by enough sources and thus the sourced material should be removed as it is in their mind in violation of NPOV, while refusing to find sources because then their lock on content would no longer hold. Is this use of NPOV as a tool for censoring other editors work supported by the policy? --Alexia Death 20:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The issue of "subterfuge excuses" for removal or refusal of content is like a weed, it always comes up somewhere. Nevertheless, even if the motive is not entirely honorable, that does not (necessarily) render the decision illegitimate. Moreover, there's always WP:AGF to consider.

Therefore, your most productive course of action in this kind of situation will probably consist of involving more WP contributors, and taking more time to enhance: 1) substantiation through sources; 2) the rationale for inclusion; and 3) your reference to specific aspects of WP policy to reinforce why your viewpoint is correct. All of these have to be done on an article-by-article basis. dr.ef.tymac 21:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Assume good faith just means I must assume people doing this belive they are doing the right thing. I have never doubted that they believe their actions to be right because of belief that their material is so much better. Witch I why I write here to check if this use of NPOV as a content control tool is officially sanctioned or are they in error when believing that NPOV means that if they have no sources to give, different POV should not be represented in detail even when sourced.--Alexia Death 05:02, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It depends on your definition of censorship. If you consider any removal of verified information to be censorship, then to answer your question, yes. I know of an article about a company that I keep watch on that may fit your description of censored. It had about one short paragraph of neutral context information then about 9 paragraphs of criticism. Most of the criticism was removed, even though it was mostly well sourced. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 23:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I hope the criticism was not removed completely but moved to a separate page? Or if it did, it was removed because of notability issues and not NPOV? --Alexia Death 04:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Remember that NPOV is a m:Foundation issue. That means if there is a conflict between say NPOV and WP:V and WP:RS, then NPOV "wins". NPOV requires that we provide a balanced perspective of our subjects. We must be cautious about undue weight and unfair presentations. In the case of single-source claims, especially when they are contrary to the majority of sources, they can be interpreted as requiring exclusion due to the undue weight restrictions of NPOV. Wikipedia is not censored, but Wikipedia is also not a soapbox. Vassyana 17:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so what you are saying is that when there is a case where there is a good source that describes facts unpleasant and denied on some level by some editors, then if they cant or wont find their own sources to balance the article then the information should not be put into Wikipedia?`If you are then my fears that NPOV is a a way of silencing the opposition by inactivity or in some cases by the nature of the material are true... There are plenty of cases where equal representation of both sides of POV by sources is not possible because on one side there is no corresponding material, just blanket statements of denial... --Alexia Death 20:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Claims must be verifiable in a reliable source and cannot be conclusions based on the sources. This is true of all material that may be challenged. However, what constitutes a "good" source is highly subjective and if the material contradicts the majority of other sources, it requires additional sources to validate the claim. Please take a good look over the boundaries laid out regarding undue weight, as it directly relates to your concerns. Vassyana 21:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing me to to the relevant sections. It has cleared the picture a fair bit and I'm able to understand NPOV a bit better. This however raises a major issue in the the debates I participate. I debate in historical articles about a small country. About 1 million people. It has a neighbor it has had conflicts with over the history that stands at about 150 million people. In articles about that country and its relations to its big neighbor, does difference in population make the views of that country on the past conflicts minority views? If there are many supporters for views on general but if detailed research is made only in that country would showing that be undue weight?--Alexia Death 06:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Although others may see it differently, population statistics and national demographics generally do not mean a particular viewpoint is necessarily a "minority view" for purposes of this policy. If you look at the example of "Flat Earth" versus "Spherical Earth" (presented herein) you will see that the notion of a "minority view" consists of an explanation or set of assumptions that do not coincide with a predominant view of established and recognized authorities.

For some topics, the notion of an established authority is not entirely unambiguous, and therefore competing viewpoints should be given more consideration as long as they are relevant to the subject matter of the article. This is especially true for topics that are not falsifiable, but rather subject to personal interpretation and values (e.g., nationality, social issues, politics, military conflicts).

Since WP is intended to be international in scope, entirely omitting viewpoints based on a proportionately small demographic cohort would be like entirely omitting continents from a map based on a proportionately small land mass. To further this example from cartography, it might be considered "undue weight" if the small continent were situated in the center of the map, and enlarged to show greater detail (unless the article is specifically dealing with that continent) ... but "undue weight" is not intended to encourage contributors to entirely omit legitimately contested and relevant issues from articles. For more on this, see the section of this policy entitled "Bias". dr.ef.tymac 13:37, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Possible oxymoron in the phrase "Neutral point of view"

An anonymous user left a message on a talk page which got me thinking: would a neutral point of view really be a point of view at all?--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 17:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

This whole NPOV thing makes little sense, in my opinion. The policy states that objectivity is impossible, and then says that it is possible to avoid disputes, as if avoiding disputes were not the same as objectivity. A.Z. 21:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Can any point of view be truly neutral? I mean every POV has to have some sort of basis, in theory creationists probably think science is biased, therefore not neutral. Therefore we should change the NPOV into something more meaningful, like "the author of this article appears to be biased on the subject" or something along those lines. In theory even if you quote something and write it down, it still holds someones view, so sooner or later there's bound to be a person that's not neutral. Unless we write statistics on anything, there's bound to be non-NPOV.

If you read what WP:NPOV says, you'll have your answer. "Neutral point of view" doesn't mean we should search (in vain) for a single point of view that's neutral. It means that neutrality comes from fairly representing all points of view, none of which is neutral by itself. Pan Dan 17:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You've used the word "fairly", but fairness is a POV. Moveover, if "representing" different POVs, unless you're directly quoting them, you're doing synthesis, in violation of WP:SYN. Which directs to WP:NPOV. I'm told this is okay, so long as you can find one source which covers your synthetic POV, so you have a cite for it. Alas, that doesn't cover the issue of balance, and whether or not you've been fair in representing different POVs. You'll never get a cite for that, since it would require some outside-wikipedia publication endorsing your balancing of POV's in your wikipedia article writing, and good luck finding that. Especially if you just finished it.

Look, why not simply admit, in this article, that the production of any Wikipedia article is going to ultimately, at some level of writing judgement, going to require either some kind of uncited synthesis of facts or POVs, or else uncited judgement about balance of synthesis of POVs in your writing? Which itself is of course a POV, and one which you are (in all likelihood) never going to be able to provide a WP:ATT CITE for. Since THAT would involve outside-wikipedia publication of some judgement on the style and POV balance of the particular Wikipedia piece which you're working on. Thus, you are bound to transgress NPOV badly at some level, or metalevel, for any Wikipedia work. In the name of honesty, why not just admit the inevitability of this? And then be done with it? I'm tired of all this pretention of objectivity in the face of an enterprise which is ultimately driven by polling and voting on ArbCom, and similar fora. SBHarris 22:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The neutral point of view is basically that a wikipedia article should read as if there was no vested interest or interpretation at work. That would likely not be true, but ultimately, by having multiple editors who edit eachothers work, it can get asymtotically close to that. A neutral point of view would simply be a statement of fact, not opinion. Of course its wrong, nay impossible, to expect a user not to have some sort of non-neutral point of view, however, that doesn't mean they can't write neutrally. With regard to A.Z., avoiding disputes doesn't require objectivity, just agreement, and a basis for coming to said agreement that all participants are willing to use.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 22:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly it - no objective measure of neutrality exists.-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 14:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Can something be relative and neutral?

There has been some recent discussion about the neutrality of relative terms such as "tall" and "short" and other things. It has been said that it is never NPOV to call someone tall because that is a relative term. I'm almost certain that is not what is intended by NPOV, but I admit that a relative statement that doesn't specify what it is relative to is a potential source for dispute. It can be asked, "Tall compared to what?" The discussion that originated this question is rather silly, so I won't bring it up, but suppose I were to say, "Shaquille O'Neal is tall." Would that be a violation of NPOV? We've got reliable sources to say that he is over 7 feet. I am thinking that "Shaq is tall" is beyond serous dispute. -- Lilwik 21:45, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

For something that obvious I would be surprised anyone who would argue that on their own would be smart enough to live that long without falling into a well. Relative statements are NPOV as long as they are used in relation to some average or standard. A Bently or Maserati is expensive because probably 90% of production cars aren't comparable to them in price. Shaq is tall because most people are significantly shorter than him, and even among people of similar race/regional heritage/genetic descendancy or whatever you want to call it, he's notably taller than average. The best way to avoid this in cases where there could be a dispute would probably be to be as specific as possible without getting rediculous. If you can, use a relative term with what it is relative to. In some cases citation will be needed to establish the standard and/or the trait of the object in question. To use the car example again, it would be easy to establish that a maserati is expensive, no sources probably needed, but if you were to state that it is faster than most cars, you'd probably want to source some top speed figures for both it and the industry at large. If you were to say that a certain building were tall, source its height, and you probably want to mention how that height stacked up relative to other buildings. --Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 22:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

NPOV description

I've made a couple of edits to this section to fix a slightly misleading impression that may be given:

• OLD - "The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly."

• NEW - "The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. The policy requires that, where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic, these should each be presented fairly."

Significance: It ensures the discussion of "conflicting views" is in relation to conflicting views within the topic, not conflicting views between editors.

I've also tried to remove the impression that all views are discussed without heed as to weight, by a few minor wording changes elsewhere.

DIFF. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I've followed your recent mods, FT2, generally I think it's a useful clarification. Good edits and good work. dr.ef.tymac 01:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Confusing sentence

Old version

"It is also generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views, and to make it clear who holds them."

Proposed new verion

"It is also generally important to give the facts on which these views are based, as well as making it clear who holds these opinions."

Does this convey the meaning that is intended more clearly? Tim Vickers 02:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Uggh. If you ask me the entire section is confusing, so much so that I am going to stick my neck out and make direct copy edits right now -- and stand-by for whatever comments or concerns people want to forward. I think this is clearly a case of text that makes sense primarily to experienced WP contributors, but needs clarification for the General Audience. This should be relatively straightforward. dr.ef.tymac 15:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's work it out here:

Original version

But it is not enough, to express the Wikipedia non-bias policy, just to say that we should state facts and not opinions. When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about competing opinions, and to do so without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It is also generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views, and to make it clear who holds them. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.

Draft 2

A balanced selection of facts is critical for producing articles with a neutral point of view. For example, when discussing the facts on which a point of view is based, it is important to also include the facts on which competing opinions are based. This should be done without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It is also important to make it clear who holds these opinions. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.

Is this clearer? Tim Vickers 15:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim Vickers, for the mod, for moving this to talk, and yes, I think Draft 2 is clearer (the version you just pasted into talk) modulo some minor punctuation changes. dr.ef.tymac 16:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I am going to re-add the last draft to the article as an invisible comment, because the bolding and footnotes get clobbered with a paste to the talk page. dr.ef.tymac 16:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that having articles express opinions... even in the words of others should be discouraged. The whole idea of having one opinion expressed and then an alternative opinion being expressed is ugly. But its even worse if you run into situations where only one person or one side has bothered to express an opinion. In that case there is no "other" side to quote, so wikipedia is forced to take a stand. So, I think expressing opinions should be discouraged and when there is only one side expressed, a relatively low burden of support should be required to remove the opinion from the article and a very high degree of support should be required to include it. And when it is considered reasonable and appropriate to include opinions, THEN these guidelines should take effect and the opinions expressed should be in the words of people who are BOTH reasonably recognized as authorities and recognized as reliable on the subject at hand. It may seem like being a recognized authority and being recognized as reliable are inseparable, but they really are not. I am thinking, for example of people who are reasonably considered to be medical authorities but who are also recognized as unreliable crackpots on certain issues. I know of a person who is used as a reliable source on an historical issue here in wikipedia but he has been shown to be utterly wrong. Yet because he is considered a reliable source his bad info remains in one particular article. So, both authority and reliability should meet very high standards for their opinion to be included and even higher standards if their opinion is the only one presented. --Blue Tie 01:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

This point is already addressed here in WP:NPOV, which states in relevant part:

    Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts in the sense as described above. (emphasis 
    not in original)

The policy also suggests (although the current policy wording is quite sub-standard) that "opinions" are appropriate only to the extent that they can be represented as "facts" (through attribution) ... the policy nowhere encourages opinion as a substitute for "fact". Also, it is implicit that "opinion" is only appropriate when necessary and proper for the subject matter.

As far as opinions being acceptable from "sources regarded as reliable," that wording appears to be an un-discussed unilateral modification to the policy, and has not yet been substantiated. dr.ef.tymac 02:15, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed wording for - "A simple formulation"

Assert facts, including facts about opinions — but do not assert the opinions themselves. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So we can feel free to assert as many of them as we can.

By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean "a matter which is subject to dispute." There are bound to be borderline cases where it is not clear if a particular dispute should be taken seriously and included. However, there are many propositions that very clearly express values or opinions. That stealing is wrong is a value or opinion. That the Beatles were the greatest band in history is a value or opinion. That the United States was right or wrong to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a value or opinion.

Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts in the sense as described above. Therefore, where we want to discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion. For example, rather than asserting, "The Beatles were the greatest band," we can say: "Most people from Liverpool believe that the Beatles were the greatest band," which can be supported by references to a particular survey; or "The Beatles had many songs that made the Billboard Hot 100," which is also verifiable as fact. In the first instance we assert a personal opinion; in the second and third instances we assert the fact that an opinion exists, by attributing it to reliable sources.

It is not sufficient to discuss an opinion as fact merely by stating "some people believe..." as is common in political debates. A reliable source supporting that a group holds an opinion must accurately describe how large this group is. In addition, this source should be written by named authors who are considered reliable.

Moreover, there are usually disagreements about how opinions should be properly stated. Sometimes it is necessary to qualify the description of an opinion, or to present several attributed formulations, simply to arrive at a solution that fairly represents all the leading views in those matters subject to dispute. As an example, there is a dispute over using the name "Sea of Japan" to refer to the sea bordered by Russia, Japan, North Korea, and South Korea. The Sea of Japan, or equivalent translations, are currently most common in international productions, but North and South Korea insist on different names. North Korea proposes the "East Sea of Korea" and South Korea proposes the "East Sea", or the "Sea of Korea/Korean Sea". To fairly reflect these views in articles discussing this sea, the most common name of "Sea of Japan" should be used, with the alternative terms noted and attributed to the respective countries.

A balanced selection of sources is also critical for producing articles with a neutral point of view. For example, when discussing the facts on which a point of view is based, it is important to also include the facts on which competing opinions are based since this helps a reader evaluate the credibility of the competing viewpoints. This should be done without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It is also important to make it clear who holds these opinions. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.

Comments on new draft

I don't like the change to credible dispute. This really opens up a can of worms as people fight to dismiss what they deem as not "credible". The dispute should follow Undue Weight and Verifiability. Morphh ^(talk) 15:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, "credible dispute" was not intended to open that can, but instead intended to clarify the difference between:

• 1) Stuff that no one seriously disputes;
• 2) Stuff that reasonably informed people dispute, as can be demonstrated in reliable sources; and
• 3) Stuff that only crackpots and trolls dispute.

For the sake of discussion, let's just assume these three categories exist. Can you provide an alternate phrasing for category (2)? ... That's what I was using "subject to credible dispute" as shorthand for. The clarity of this subsection suffers seriously without a shorthand way to say (2). dr.ef.tymac 16:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

How about something like "subject to verifiable dispute of due weight"? Although, this goes against the purpose of the rewrite (to make it simpler). I agree that #2 is what we're after. I just worried that credible is a subjective term that we have not defined and that it could be used as an easy way to dismiss something. Then the debate turns to what is credible. I've gone through similar disputes. Credible may be the best word.. I'm just thinking out loud and the term struck me as an issue. There is a jump from "some dispute" to "credible dispute" but I agree with the breakdown - just not sure how to word it. Perhpas leave it as credible with a reference to your #2 statement. Then we're giving some definition to credible. Morphh ^(talk) 16:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: The phrase "credible dispute" is now gone entirely from the draft. This should obviate the need to ponder this matter anymore. dr.ef.tymac 17:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Re-worded and referred to undue weight. Tim Vickers 16:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: Re-added formatting, footnotes, additional changes. I changed the "undue weight" mention to a "see also" footnote, because "undue weight" describes proportionality between the varying "sides" in a dispute, whereas in "simple formulation", one question is whether the entire dispute itself is legitimate. In other words, if no one seriously disputes "water is wet" ... then no "opinions" (pro or con) should go in the article at all, and thus "undue weight" is (in that instance) moot. dr.ef.tymac 17:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The phrase "objectively quantifiable population" will lose most readers, I'm not 100% sure what it means myself! Tim Vickers 17:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, (that's been in from the very beginning, I never knew what it meant either :). dr.ef.tymac 17:31, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Made it very simple. Too simple? Tim Vickers 17:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

If there are any specific detriments or caveats, I'm sure someone will come along and propose them. For now, it seems we have: 1) clarification and reasonable improvements to readability; and 2) substantial improvement to the final paragraph (the issue that got this whole ball rolling). Absent any major objections, I think this re-draft is suitable to go live. dr.ef.tymac 17:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: Note, personally, I think "how large this group is" should be replaced with something more general like "statistically valid sample" or "describe the group" but the main thing is the section is a bit more readable to general folk. dr.ef.tymac 17:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

To avoid the mess that comes when amateurs wield statistics with harmful intentions, I used the phrase "accurately describe" instead. Tim Vickers 18:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments on proposed addition of final draft shown above

Looks good to me. Morphh ^(talk) 19:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Me also, this definitely clarifies the matters initially mentioned by Tim Vickers. dr.ef.tymac 21:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we should add this, it has the same meaning - so is not a change in policy, and it seems much clearer to me. Tim Vickers 19:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I strongly object to this, because it's badly written and therefore unclear. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

What in particular do you find unclear? Do you think adding back the phrases "identifiable and objectively quantifiable population" and "generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views" from the old version would make this more clear? Tim Vickers 20:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

To SlimVirgin: Can you please enumerate the specific deficiencies you are talking about? This will help clarify your concerns so other contributors can make a good-faith effort to address them. Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 21:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: Still waiting for other contributors with alternate viewpoints to join in on the discussion. In the meantime, I've added minor adjustments that correct minor (yet blatantly obvious) flaws. This is just a band-aid for the policy page; the entire section still merits updating as proposed here in talk. dr.ef.tymac 15:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: Additional note for the sake of principle. Edits to WP policy pages by contributors who are parties to an ongoing content dispute are rightly subject to a very high degree of scrutiny. If anyone has forwarded proposals here specifically to advance a position in a pending dispute, they will do well to demonstrate good faith by disclosing that fact openly.

Modifications to policy should be strictly for the purpose of clarification and consistency. Attempts to change the substance and meaning of policy (without prior discussion and consensus) are entirely inappropriate. dr.ef.tymac 19:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Due to the rather fraught atmosphere around the policies at the moment, I think it would be a good idea to wait a week or so to see if anybody else has any substantive comments about this proposal for a clarified summary. Although the present section is roundly condemned by all the editors involved as unclear and badly-written, it might be a bad idea to assume that silence on this talk page implies acceptance. Tim Vickers 19:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

More comments

Tim asked me to comment. I think the new draft is an improvement. Particularly, the 3rd paragraph is great, and it's much improved. It does an excellent job of explicitly showing how to state facts about opinions instead of stating the opinions themselves. I like that it's so concrete. Unfortunately, after the 3rd paragraph, I think the discussion kind of gets lost. Here are a couple suggestions:

• 4th paragraph: 3rd sentence could be cut; "reliable source" covers it. It would be nice if this paragraph became a summary of WP:AWW and linked to it.

I really don't want to change the wording that much, this is only intended as a clarification with the same meaning.

• 5th paragraph: too vague. I'm not sure what it's trying to get across

Added ID as an example.

• 6th paragraph: Is this about balance or citations? I'd love to see a "balance" paragraph about how to describe the sides of a controversial dispute (abortion and intelligent design come to mind). A balance paragraph could also warn about the inherent biases in the population of Wikipedia editors. A separate paragraph about how to cite sources (which are appropriate? how should the source be described in the text?) would also be useful.

Changed from "facts" to "sources" Tim Vickers 23:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Good work so far. I'd support inserting it as is, but it'd be great if there were a few improvements first. Good luck, and let me know if I can do anything to help. Gnixon 16:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

As an example, intelligent design is described as a scientific theory by some people, but as a religious idea by others. is fine as a really bad example, but to me it creates the impression that as long as the "people" are attributed, all will be well. This would be likely to still violate NPOV: Pseudoscience and NPOV: Undue weight. So, if we're giving an example, show how to do it properly –

As an example, saying "intelligent design is described as a scientific theory by some people but as a religious idea by others" is not acceptable, but the opinions should be attributed in accordance with NPOV: Undue weight, for example – "intelligent design is described as a scientific theory by its proponents but the overwhelming majority of the scientific community reject this assertion, and a U.S. Federal court has found it to be 'religion, not science'."

Citations would be expected, and all three points can be cited from s:Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District et al.. Just my opinion. ...dave souza, talk 07:57, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I feel a tangent coming on....  :) I agree the statement is much better when more specific, but an IDer reading it might object to the tone that comes out of phrases like "overwhelming majority" and "reject this assertion." Here's my try at a dispassionate phrasing:

Intelligent design is described as a scientific theory by its proponents, but the U.S. National Academy of Science has said that it is not science (cite), and a U.S. federal court has found it to be 'religion, not science' (cite).

By the way, I think Tim's original statement was fine as a representation of what you might find by surveying everyone in a grocery store, but it's not clear whether it refers to the opinions of the general population or of experts. I think the revisions by Dave and myself are a nice example of how simple, concrete statements can be used to maintain NPOV (often making a sentence more informative at the same time). Another way to go would have been to discuss surveys. On the other hand, maybe ID is a little too complex to present as an example here. Gnixon 14:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Dave, I've tried to add this correction in a slightly simpler form, to include Gnixon's concerns. Tim Vickers 14:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Urgent Recommendation: IMHO the latest revision of the proposal is in all respects quite well-constructed, all respects except for one. I'd like to (vehemently) suggest the example citing "Intelligent Design" be entirely removed, and replaced with an example citing "Flat Earth" ... there is simply too much "baggage" associated with the former example. It is almost certain to engender quibbles, tangential discussions, and distraction from the principle purpose of this policy.

Moreover, the "Flat earth" example is already included elsewhere in this policy; even in sections of the policy that are adequately-written and coherent. If it is concluded that "Flat earth" is not sufficiently contentious to illustrate the core principles at issue here, then I propose changing it to an example that does *not* center on religion, such as a disputed naming convention. (See e.g., Geographical_renaming#Naming_disputes, Sea of Japan naming dispute).

I beseech you, please avoid examples involving "religion vs. science". dr.ef.tymac 16:35, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

That is a good point. Although this is a good example, its inclusion would probably cause instability. I've replaced it with the "Sea of Japan" example, is my summary an accurate one? This isn't a dispute I have heard of. Tim Vickers 20:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Sea of Japan looks reasonable at first glance, but it would be nice to show a specific phrasing. Gnixon 14:21, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Moving towards consensus?

Hi everybody. Is there anybody who has any objection to the current draft of the summary being added to the article? I'll put the two next to each other to allow simple comparison. Tim Vickers 16:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Old version

Assert facts, including facts about opinions — but do not assert the opinions themselves. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So we can feel free to assert as many of them as we can.

By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean "a piece of information about which there is some dispute." There are bound to be borderline cases where we are not sure if we should take a particular dispute seriously; but there are many propositions that very clearly express values or opinions. That stealing is wrong is a value or opinion. That the Beatles were the greatest band in history is a value or opinion. That the United States was right or wrong to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a value or opinion.

Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts in the sense as described above. Where we might want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, "The Beatles were the greatest band," we can say, "Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band," which is a fact verifiable by survey results, or "The Beatles had many songs that made the Billboard Hot 100," which is also fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we "convert" that opinion into fact by attributing it to someone. This is not the same as the "some people believe..." formulation popular in political debates. The reference requires an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population, and should be attributed to named individuals who are regarded as reliable.

Moreover, there are usually disagreements about how opinions should be properly stated. Sometimes, it will be necessary to qualify the description of an opinion or to present several formulations, simply to arrive at a solution that fairly represents all the leading views of the situation.

But it is not enough, to express the Wikipedia non-bias policy, just to say that we should state facts and not opinions. When asserting a fact about an opinion, it is important also to assert facts about competing opinions, and to do so without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It is also generally important to give the facts about the reasons behind the views, and to make it clear who holds them. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.

New proposal

Assert facts, including facts about opinions — but do not assert the opinions themselves. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So we can feel free to assert as many of them as we can.

By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean "a matter which is subject to dispute." There are bound to be borderline cases where it is not clear if a particular dispute should be taken seriously and included. However, there are many propositions that very clearly express values or opinions. That stealing is wrong is a value or opinion. That the Beatles were the greatest band in history is a value or opinion. That the United States was right or wrong to drop the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a value or opinion.

Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts in the sense described above. Therefore, where we want to discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion. For example, rather than asserting, "The Beatles were the greatest band," we can say: "Most people from Liverpool believe that the Beatles were the greatest band," which can be supported by references to a particular survey; or "The Beatles had many songs that made the Billboard Hot 100," which is also verifiable as fact. In the first instance we assert a personal opinion; in the second and third instances we assert the fact that an opinion exists, by attributing it to reliable sources.

It is not sufficient to discuss an opinion as fact merely by stating "some people believe..." as is common in political debates. A reliable source supporting that a group holds an opinion must accurately describe how large this group is. In addition, this source should be written by named authors who are considered reliable.

Moreover, there are usually disagreements about how opinions should be properly stated. To fairly represent all the leading views in a dispute it is sometimes necessary to qualify the description of an opinion, or to present several formulations of this opinion and attribute them to specific groups.

A balanced selection of sources is also critical for producing articles with a neutral point of view. For example, when discussing the facts on which a point of view is based, it is important to also include the facts on which competing opinions are based since this helps a reader evaluate the credibility of the competing viewpoints. This should be done without implying that any one of the opinions is correct. It is also important to make it clear who holds these opinions. It is often best to cite a prominent representative of the view.

• Hi everybody, please don't vote, this isn't a straw poll. Just say if this is OK with you or not? Tim Vickers 19:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Support. This is an improvement. However, it's troubling that "A simple formulation" has almost doubled in length. Can we trim it down either before or after it is inserted? I feel like a lot is repeated within the last three paragraphs. Gnixon 17:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a vote, but that's a good point. Most of the size increase is the Sea of Japan example, and I can see this inclusion of a controversial example causing problems for stability, I've removed this entirely. Tim Vickers 17:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Support Morphh ^(talk) 18:12, 03 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me, just two points:

Text size: regarding the size, some of the text was subsumed into footnotes. The footnotes contribute to the bytecount, but obviously not the body text itself. If "Sea of Japan" (or any alternative example) becomes necessary, it can also be re-added as a footnote.

Reminder: Also, there may be some issues for contributors who have commented in edit summaries, but have not contributed to this ongoing discussion in any detail. Since this is not a substantive modification to pre-existing policy, there may be a need to remind people that this is not a "change" but rather a "clarification" ... in case this latter point becomes an issue. This proposal (IMHO) survives good-faith scrutiny from someone familiar with established WP policy, but everyone has his or her own way of seeing things.

Really though, it'd be a waste not to implement this (or a substantially similar) improvement. dr.ef.tymac 19:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

In an effort to improve the clarity of the guideline, I have added the new proposal. People are welcome to revert this addition, and if you do so, please explain your objections here so they can be discussed. Tim Vickers 03:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Writing in the FAQ

I think this page needs a rewrite, and that the policy tag should come off it in the meantime. It's hard to see how an FAQ can be policy in the first place. Any thoughts? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you referring to removing the policy tag from the NPOV page itself or from the FAQ page only? -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 07:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Just from the FAQ page. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:42, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, then I have no objection. In fact, I think the policy tag ought to removed from the page altogether. It is, after all, just a FAQ. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 18:34, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I don't see how a FAQ could be 'policy'. Crum375 18:42, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The wording in the FAQ was developed on this page. It's labelled policy because it was written into policy originally. Marskell 15:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

<unindent> Help!!! If the FAQ is no longer policy, then we have a policy of Common objections or concerns, but no policy clarifying the answers to these concerns. As it is, guidance on several sensitive talk pages now points to sections that have disappeared from the FAQ: for example, Giving "equal validity" is a common concern with no evident answer in the FAQ. Could you please consider the proposed improvements in a sandbox, meanwhile leaving the headings for us folks working on articles who need to refer to them. It does seem daft having a FAQ as policy: the answer to that is to make Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Common objections and clarifications into a set of brief statements in a section that could be headed Common clarifications – if we don't, we end up with no policy on Pseudoscience. The FAQ could remain as detailed background and clarification, but would no longer be policy. In the short term, a return to the previous status quo would greatly help at a time when arguments about what is or isn't science from theology students and sockpuppets seem to be increasingly frequent. .. dave souza, talk 17:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, given the degree to which the FAQ has been referenced as policy, stability would be preferable (i.e. rewriting in a sandbox and de-policying it only when there's some sort of replacement to address the "common concerns"). Which aspects of it do you think need to be rewritten? MastCell ^Talk 18:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

This page has always been policy ever since it was spun-off of WP:NPOV last year. I see no reason why any rewriting requires a change in that status, particularly when it can and should be done in a sandbox/subpage beforehand. I'm not even sure a rewrite is in order, particularly when one considers that some of this language appearing here appeared on the very earliest versions of the main NPOV page way back in 2002. Have our guiding principles changed that much? Odd nature 23:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly feel this page should retain the format and rewording it had when it was spun off the main policy page, for what it's worth. And clearly it must remain policy since it was policy before. FeloniousMonk 02:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree. I believe it was Francis S. who initially spun it off because this page was so big. The argument then was that it would defeat the point in moving it if it ceased to be policy. The recent rewriting was undertaken without consultation. Marskell 10:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Sympathy

I'm seeing a contradiction in this article:

As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. It is a point of view that is neutral, that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject.

We should present all significant, competing views sympathetically.

Are we presenting them sympathetically or not? Richard001 05:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out this inconsistency. I have changed "sympathetically" to "impartially" in the latter sentence. Presenting competing views sympathetically can result in an article that is still not neutral, but rather presents multiple POVs. I think the concept of "impartiality" more closely captures the purpose of NPOV rather than "sympathy". -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 08:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I support the change, though I neglected to mention that this is stated three times in the policy page, I only quoted one of them. You may need to make a couple more changes as well. Richard001 08:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Heh ... I'd missed that. Thanks for noting it. I think I've changed all but the first instance: "It is a point of view that is neutral, that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject". -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 08:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I had argued against the usage about a year ago, and had at least managed to change "Sympathy of tone" to "Fairness of tone." So I approve the latest change. "We can write with the attitude that such-and-such is a good idea..." was particularly bad. Marskell 14:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Quoting names of other religion, races, communities, individuals as examples with dictionary terms those used as a tease

It is ok to use names of religion, races, communities, individuals as examples for dictionary terms those are traditionally used as a prejudice?BalanceRestored 13:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, could you unpack that with an example? Marskell 13:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Lets say we have the name of the religion *you* belong to be placed at a dictionary term that's used to tease people. The current article does not give examples for the same. It is considered ok.

If a young child who's growing sees the name religion he belongs to is being used as an example with a dictionary term that's a negetive one. How will the child feel, won't he start feeling bad about the same?BalanceRestored 13:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I saw the article named nigger, it is clearly pointing to a section of a world. Is that a good example for good psychological growth of a community. Would that not cause depression?BalanceRestored 13:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

That's not the article I am talking about. There's some other one.BalanceRestored 13:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not understanding 100%, Balance. "Nigger" is probably the worst slur in the English language and there's no perfect way to describe it without potentially upsetting someone. Wikipedia is not censored so we do not, for example, use "n****r" or the "n-word" when we describe its usage. Marskell 13:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, then should such articles not be clearly criticizing the usage and being prominently apologetic? BalanceRestored 14:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Remember wiki is a great place to be at, every child who's born in the world will see this place and will reach here with the kind of penetration it has. There are sever medical problems associated with the same. You can very well consult a psychological expert about the same. The article starting with apology if examples are quoted should be there very clearly from the beginning of the sentence. We all are here to make the world a better palace, aren't we?BalanceRestored 14:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

No, we should not be clearly criticizing its usage. We should describe its usage and let the facts speak for themselves. This is central to the neutrality policy, and I think in it's own little way it does make the world a better place (or at least it makes the internet not suck :). Marskell 14:31, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Should we consider having a practice of getting opinion from the community members whose names are mentioned at wiki. Just a suggestion. They would be the best judge if the article talking about them are bad or good. But yet I am not fully aware of the problems associated with not having the articles. BalanceRestored 14:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

That practice would not conform to our current policies on neutrality and conflicts of interest. Subjects of articles who have concerns about the content of an article about them are encouraged to submit their concerns to the article's talk page or to contact Wikipedia via e-mail (see here). In addition, actively soliciting the input of subjects of articles is not always possible (contact information is absent) and generally undesirable (it can easily be construed as an invasion of privacy and/or pestering). In general, attempts to contact the subjects of articles are discouraged and any detailed contact information (phone number, address, e-mail) for individuals should be removed on-sight (with an exception of contact information provided by editors on their userpage). -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 15:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Context: Please see this ANI discussion for background information. Abecedare 23:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a bad example of venue-shopping. The issue has been discussed in this thread at AN/I. --Ragib 09:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Does this page Wikipedia is not censored not talk about deleting the text if it is found objectionable?BalanceRestored 11:08, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it does talk about that. Content should never be deleted for the sole reason that one editor finds it "objectionable". Black Falcon ^(Talk) 16:46, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Should there be a voting and then the article be removed?BalanceRestored 06:34, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Just as I and others indicated in the ANB report linked above WP:IDONTLIKEIT isn't a reason for removal of any article. BalanceRestored was rebuffed at the ANB thread, and has come here to shop for a new venue.

To put the issue into proper perspective, he is claiming that the word Nastika is an abusive term. However, Dictionary definition from established sources show that the word means:

নাস্তিক [ nāstika ] a disbelieving in the existence of God, atheistical; disbelieving in the Vedas or scriptures. ☐ n. an atheist; an infidel.

Unless Wikipedia starts censoring words, such venue shopping is just wastage of everyone's time. For details, please refer to the ANI thread linked above, and Talk:Nastika. Thanks. --Ragib 08:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

NPOV, or we are all moral relativists here

Quoted thesis from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

Thesis: That stealing is wrong is a value or opinion.

It is, in fact, neither. I offer this for clarification ( I owe this to the distinguished American philosopher, John Kekes, whom I over-heard in conversation)

Revised thesis: That the arbitrary torture, rape and murder of young children in front of their parents and siblings is wrong is a value or opinion.

Such a point of view is often associated with early Wittgenstein and "the Vienna Circle". It is not a tenable moral standpoint. There are numerous articles on wikipedia that establish this uncomfortable fact beyond a doubt. To blindly hold to this comfortable fact-value distinction is not rational. We look for the better theory, not just the facts. And not just any facts. The facts that we need given our objectives. And that is not just a matter of opinion.

Remember who this is for

Just an observation on the little highlight here [1]. Not sure why it was a comment, but it is a valid point. Long term Wikipedians need to remember that the audience ought to be the general public, not died in the wool Wikipedians. Using phrases like POV fork do tend to make people who are less into it glaze over and turn off. Spenny 09:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, but isn't the purpose of the policy to establish terms, define them, and put them in the proper context? Not just terms as in: "phrases and words" but terms as in: "the established expectations and norms that have evolved through consensus and deliberation, and are sometimes expressed using 'shorthand' phrases for simplicity and precision"?

If both senses are *not* meant here, then where should terms (phrases) like POV fork be used? If the phrase is shorthand for: "an unacceptably biased duplication of material reflecting an attempt to reproduce the same content from multiple viewpoints" ... then does that mean the shorthand is only allowed to be used once in the policy, and nowhere else within the same policy? Does that mean that the phrase "POV" itself can only be used once as well? Same for "NPOV"? Where are new users supposed to go to learn all the "buzzwords" that they are certain to encounter outside the context of this policy (e.g., on talk pages and the like)?

It is a very common practice in the drafting of statutes, contracts and other formal instruments to establish crucial "shorthand" definitions that the reader is expected to understand on the basis of having read the whole document. (For example: The secondary guarantor of this loan, [hereinafter 'co-signer'] has certain rights and guarantees: 1) co-signer may blah blah blah; 2) co-signer may ... ). Is this common practice somehow not acceptable for WP core policy?

It is totally understandable to want to avoid unnecessary obfuscation and "insider phrases" as much as possible, but it is difficult to understand why the concept: POV fork is not important enough on the basis of the "shorthand" alone. It's not a difficult concept, and substituting an alternate phrase just to sound less "jargony" is probably *more* likely to confuse new users.

The term seems entirely appropriate and even necessary. Am I missing something here? dr.ef.tymac 11:42, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Not really, I just always enjoy our chats :) . I just thought that rather than leave the mini-debate hidden in the edit comments it was worth surfacing. It's my theme for today, policy for the public, not for Wikipedians, and I do find the jargon tiresome.

I do understand the need for working terms, but I guess I don't see Wikipedia as so unique that everything has to be spoken of in these terms. The wider point being that the jargon continually leaks out onto user pages and innocent bystanders are inflicted with this shorthand that WikiPeople know, love and understand and others are excluded by.

In the UK over many years there has been a campaign to recognise that public documents and contracts need to be written in plain English. Perhaps we could run the policy pages past Crystal Mark who give their logo Clarity approved by Plain English Campaign to a wide variety of documents. I like the comment: "Thanks to our lobbying in Europe, it is now impossible to enforce consumer contracts that are not in 'plain, intelligible language'." and I feel the same here. I know I would never get the mark, but I'd like to think it is something for Wiki to strive for. Spenny 12:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

You'll get no disagreement from me on the general benefits of "clarity" ... in fact, I even commend you for making this point out in the open, it's a good one.

Unfortunately, the "linguistic bathwater" is already well-saturated with the detritus of insider-jargon-speak, and it's not the kind of thing one can dispense with a single drop at a time. Either we (meaning all contributors to Wikipedia) agree to make a conscious and diligent effort to dump all the jargon, or we're just kidding ourselves.

Sure, it'd be nice to see 'POV fork', 'speedied', 'un-PRODded', 'xFD', 'AfD'd', 'MfD', 'CSD:G11' , and all the other little artifacts of WP-speak cleaned up or even done away with, but until there's a realistic chance of that happening, it would seem that second-best will have to do. dr.ef.tymac 14:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Notability refs removed?

It's been a while since I checked but the references I added to the notability pages have been removed. The idea that "tiny minority" views "do not belong in Wikipedia" does touch on issues of notability, not just neutrality, sicne what's so unneutral about including them in separate articles if verifiable information exists? Not every verifiable, unoriginal research viewpoint can be included in separate articles. Does this suggest then a new "notability" criterion for viewpoints, namely the number of adherents as opposed to verifiable coverage? Furthermore the statement "If you are able to prove something that no one or few currently believe, Wikipedia is not the place to premiere such a proof. " The number of believers has absolutely nothing to do with it. A whole bunch of people could believe it but the first publication still cannot be in Wikipedia! (Of course if enough do believe it it could get published easily by someone else somewhere else but that's not what I'm talking about -- I'm talking about the bar for inclusion itself, not circumstances arising from some situation). Similarly you can publish a proof and if absolutely nobody at all believes it yet it stirred up a lot of attention and third-party reporting (see WP:V, WP:N, WP:RS) it may still be able to be mentioned in Wikipedia (although the article should of course be written the right way obviously) and this must be reflected. mike4ty4 07:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Biases

I've slightly edited the scientific bias to add:

This can also include excessive favoring (or disfavoring) scientific orthodoxy if in doing so, notable viewpoints are no longer being treated neutrally.

Scientific bias has always been a problem since on the one hand, SPOV is not NPOV, but on the other hand it often should have great weight, and reducing that weight is often seen as creating a licence for minority theories, pseudoscience and WP:WEIGHT problems in general.

The above addition, I think, addresses that issue, by making clear that a bias for or against scientific orthodoxy becomes problematic when other notable viewpoints cease to be neutrally represented as a result.

Example - explaining that science doesn't support homeopathy is fine. But when that view extends to a failure to treat homeopathists views neutrally, that is, with due weight and fair tone, it's a problem. In the same way, to report phrenology with a strong bias towards that subject, without reporting the scientific viewpoint neutrally, is also an NPOV problem, this time an anti-scientific bias. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:47, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I dislike the formulation. "Scientific orthodoxy" is has a negative (and incorrect) connotation. "prevalent scientific opinion" might be better. --Stephan Schulz 11:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

That works just as well, I think. If thats a common understanding (I wasn't aware that way of describing it had a negative connotation as well) then fine :) On a side, what is the connotation it's acquired - I'm curious now :) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:29, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The term "Orthodoxy" is strongly associated with religion, and with doing things the (ritualistic) right way. It also suggests an unwillingness to change and to accept new ideas. Science is exactly the other way round - if it rejects ideas, it does not do so a-priory by dogma, but only based on evidence. --Stephan Schulz 11:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Ahh. I wasn't aware that meaning had acquired such a hold on the word. I had in mind the classical sense, orthodox (the present views of the establishment, in this case of science/scientists) as contrasted with controversial (minority/less well tested beliefs). So scientific orthodoxy would be that theories should not be assumed unless carefully tested, supernatural explanations should not be invoked, and so on.

If that's actually the case and the better expression, then it probably is better to change it. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a good addition (especially without "orthodoxy"). However, I suspect some people will be strongly against it because of the pseudoscience issue. Gnixon 15:49, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I've edited that in now. Question - "prevailing scientific opinion" or "prevalent scientific opinion"? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:58, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Big problem

There is a big problem growing in the area of "logic" and "mathematical logic." The problem extends to perhaps many dozens of articles, and more every day. There is a group of people in the very organized WikiProject Mathematics who are of the strong opinion that "mathematical logic" is not "logic." This has lead to numerous territory issues in the creation of WikiProject Logic, which is intended as an interdisciplinary subject connected to philosophy, and perhaps linguistics, computer science, etc.

Well these guys don't have to share anything if they don't want to, and they don't want to. They have as many people babysitting the wikipedia as they need to A) keep anti-logicist propaganda in the articles, B) have split project areas for logic stubs/math-logic stubs C) remove all the mathematical logicians from the logicians category D) remove several categories out from under the logic category (including mathematical logic) E) disintegrate numerous articles into conceptx (logic), and conceptx (mathematics) which are the same concept. The issues go on and on. It is a serious issue to the intellectual integrity of the wikipedia. I am not sure that this discussion page is where to go, but perhaps someone can suggest a way to address this. I have started an account for myself on meta wikipedia, but it is not clear when to go in there either. Please advise. Gregbard 21:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

See dispute resolution first? More eyeballs will often help. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Recent addition

The following was recently added:

The acronym NPOV does not mean "no points of view". The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV".

Whilst true, this feels rather like a sore thumb sticking out; the addition of a point to be used in debate.

Can other eyeballs help decide if this statement, added this way, is the most appropriate way to cover something like this? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I wrote that addition. I have had problems with other editors not understanding this policy and removing content by calling it "POV". The addition of these two sentences are integral for debating with editors who continue to pretend to not understand the NPOV policy. If you haven't met editors who have tried to by-pass NPOV by pretending to not understand it, then you are lucky.----^DarkTea 13:14, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

"The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV"" is basically correct (imho...) but incomplete. (1) If the POV is that of some obscure minority (X considers that Christopher Colombus should have stayed at home, because...), the content may be eliminated from the main article because of relevance consideration (just direct it on a specialized article, this will usually kill the problem). (2) A POV may need to be presented for the information to be complete, but it has to be attributed in order to be neutralized and respect "N"-POV. EG: Even if the information is relevant on a nazi-related page, a formulation like "Jews should be killed because..." (obviously POV - and it hurts) is not acceptable, and must be turned into something lile "Nazi leaders thought that Jews should be killed because..." (or whatever - let's ignore the reference problem in that case). The style and vocabulary must be neutralized as well, by the way. Michelet-密是力-Me laisser un message 16:42, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I've met it, hence my comment "Whilst true". My concern is not that it's untrue. I don't have a problem with the factuality of it, but as it stands it looks like something added for an agenda, and to be used to provide carte blanche for any POV warrior looking for a justification why their pet view or cite or proposal can't be removed...... WP:NPOV has a few places where balance is needed in the phrasing and expression, so as not to provide ready support for non-neutral agendas. For me, this is one of those. Doesn't mean its 'wrong', just that added this way, it's a concern. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:02, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Article naming: recent edit by Ian covers exactly what I was commenting on

This is just a note to register support for the clarification just done by User:IanMSpencer. I recently flagged a subsection for copy editing but I never got around to it. Ian's edit provided precisely the modification that seemed necessary there. I add this just in case there was any misunderstanding about what I was referring to with the comment, which I've now removed. Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 00:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Need an example or a referrer

Hello, all. I am a relative newbie on Wikipedia, and I have spotted a few articles which I believe should be tagged as not expressing a NPOV. Maybe only an administrator can do this, but otherwise, could someone please reveal to me the code that is used to insert those "notice" boxes? Thanks.--Surfaced 18:49, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

The general strategy is to find an article that contains an example of what you want, and then to edit that article and copy that example to the article you wish to place it at. Then use "show preview" and make adjustments as needed. WAS 4.250 17:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Animal liberation POV

Please help decide a NPOV issue at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Challenges and issues of industrial agriculture. Thank you. WAS 4.250 17:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

It would be easier for new people to find the Neutral point of view article if there were a disambiguation page, where, if someone types the commonly seen "NPOV" into a search engine, he can more easily find the link to this site. Brian Pearson 14:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Wales quote

Am I alone in finding it distasteful when wikipedia policy pages quote the words of Jimbo Wales as gospel? Either our policies are justified on their own merits or they are not. I find it rather gauche. john k 15:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Question: emotional response / emotive language

Would it be a violation of NPOV principles for an article to be written in such a way that it provokes an emotional response in the reader? In other words, should emotive terms be avoided in the interests of neutrality? I have read through the article, the tutorial and the examples and I can't find any explicit statement on this... yet it seems self-evident that, just as wikipedia should not tell the reader what to think, nor should it tell them how to feel about a subject.

What do other editors think about this? Is there a place in this article (or tutorial/examples) for such an issue to be raised - or clarified? Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 19:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:WTA, WP:PEACOCK and WP:WEASEL try to lay out (through examples) what is considered to be encyclopedic tone, editorializing etc. Is this what you are looking for ? Abecedare 20:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll give them a good read and get back to you. Thanks for the links! Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 21:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Nothing :-( Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 02:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean something like this?:

• The atomic bombing of Hiroshima annihilated thousands of women and children.

compared to:

• The atomic bombing of Hiroshima killed thousands of people.

Anynobody 04:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Something like that, yes. The background to my request is that I've been debating the inclusion of abortion photos and I feel that the user who wants to include them intends that they should provoke an emotional response. I argued that inclusion of emotive images would not be neutral - that's always been my understanding of NPOV - but after being challenged on this, I can't find anything concrete on the subject. Setting aside the content dispute for the moment, I'm hoping that somewhere in all the NPOV-related articles there is a clarification on this topic (or a place for one). Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 05:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Tough issue, I think you are most likely correct about the motivation of the person wanting to add said photos. On the other hand it seems like a justifiable encyclopedic desire to want some kind of illustration.

What's the source? If it's a pro-life group's photos they use in protests I'd say skip it because those pictures have been picked because they look the "saddest". A scientific, academic or governmental picture is less likely to be chosen for such reasons.

I also suspect that guidance on this issue can be obtained by looking at another where "sad" photos are involved: Animal testing. Anynobody 06:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC) (Not to sound pompous, I realize you were asking if WP:NPOV says anything, but I've searched for similar specifics that just aren't there.) Anynobody 06:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The way I have handled this on another article with strong viewpoints, was, the lead photo follows Wikipedia's usual style. It's interesting, relevant, and so on - but not chosen to make a specific point or push a specific side.

Other photos, chosen to illustrate the range of the topic (with balance), then illustrate the body of the article, or if there are several and the aim is not to make a point with any, in a gallery at the end. This worked very well, allowing the more one-sided photos space, balancing them, and not implying a specific viewpoint. Try it, if able? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I think perhaps I've been trying to hard to find something that applies specifically to the case in point. On reflection, this sentence is probably all that's needed: The neutral point of view is a point of view that is neutral, that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject..

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughtful comments. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 01:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Minority view and content fork

I recently undid a revision to the text of this policy [2].

The rationale for my action is as follows:

• The clarification changed the first sentence without (apparently) changing the substantive meaning. Because the stability of the wording in this policy is a legitimate goal, the change did not seem warranted;
• The clarification specified that "content forks" or "POV forking" is no more legitimate for "minority view" articles than for any other kind of article. Although this makes practical sense, there is no reason to conclude that the restrictions against "POV forks" should not be considered applicable to all WP content, regardless of whether it is a "minority view" article or not; and
• The balance of the changes did not seem to warrant a shift in wording, in light of the interests of clarity, stability and predictability for this core policy.

If you find fault with this rationale, or wish to further clarify the change and explain why it was warranted, please feel free to do so here on the discussion page. Thanks for your consideration. dr.ef.tymac 02:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The rationale for the change that was reverted is as follows:

• The original wording looked very much like supporting pov forks. It made no mention of them and appeared to contradict that other part of the policy.
• The change was not intended to alter the meaning (and apparently per the comment above it did not) but only to clarify it.
• Clarity should not be sacrificed for stability
• It is clear that there is a desire and perhaps a need for articles that reflect minority views. However, that there is a need for such articles should not automatically create an easy exception to the POV Fork Rule.
• The balance of the changes was not so severe as to injure any prior intent, and so preserved the stability of the intent of the policy, but it improved the clarity of its meaning and predictability for this core policy.

Incidentally, changes get made fairly often without any such objection, including the original change to this policy a few months ago that resulted in the wording that I clarified. If the meaning did not change but there is more clarity and definition that special focus articles are not excuses for POV Forks, that is an improvement and should not be objected to.--Blue Tie 04:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't actually feel either quite hit the spot. The first sentence of the original that minority views "can receive attention" or the revised version (an improvement) that stated some pages deal with "inherently" minority views. I'd be more direct, with something on these lines:

1. "Notable minority viewpoints which are expanded upon in their own articles should take care to place their topic within the balanced context of the wider subject, and make appropriate reference to majority and other notable viewpoints. A reader should be able to gain a fair understanding of the weight or prominence of a viewpoint, as part of the information contained in its article."
   or
2. "Notable minority viewpoints which are expanded upon in separate articles should take care to apply this policy to the separate article created. NPOV concerns about such articles include placing their topic within the balanced context of the wider subject, and make appropriate reference to majority and other notable viewpoints. A reader should be able to gain a fair understanding of the weight or prominence of a viewpoint within its context, as part of the information contained in its article."

That for me is more to the point of this section. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

To Blue Tie: First, let's start off with the areas where you and I are apparently in complete agreement: 1) Clarity should not be sacrificed for stability (agreed). In fact, I don't think it should be sacrificed at all; 2) changes get made fairly often without any such objection (also agreed). In fact I myself have made or proposed such changes, but I've also reverted or opposed such changes; individual merits get evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Second, if I put you off with the rationale I stated (or the way I stated it) that was by no means my intent. Please do not misconstrue my response as general opposition to constructive changes to WP:NPOV. When I mentioned "stability" as an interest, it was not a "catch-all" excuse for opposing changes, it was a specific reaction to the wording change that was proposed here.

For example, the change would have affected the parallel reference to wording that has been in this policy since this very early revision. (click the link and search for the words "specifically devoted to" to see what I mean).

I'm pretty sure this text gets cited quite frequently, because it is reasonably clear and it's been around for a while. If it's a clarification we propose, it seems pretty important that we all can agree it's indeed a much-needed clarification, and an obvious improvement.

Respectfully, I would not have reverted if I felt that this specific change clearly represented an improvement. It's really just that simple.

Having said all that, if you want to discuss specifics, and propose specific changes, let's do that. One question I have is, what specifically about the text do you consider as implicitly condoning POV forks? dr.ef.tymac 09:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

To FT2 and Blue Tie: I'm not quite sure I see a need for clarification here in the first place, perhaps you can elaborate a bit. So far, it seems to me the basic message is pretty clear:

   Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them.
   
   (e.g., if you want to write about "Flat Earth" in great detail, do it in the article 
   "Flat Earth" and not the article "Earth").

   A POV fork is an attempt to evade NPOV policy by creating a new article about a certain 
   subject that is already treated in an article.
   
   (e.g., if you want to write about good and bad aspects of "Earth", do it in the article 
   "Earth", and don't create separate stand-alone articles Earth (good aspects) and 
   Earth (bad aspects)).

dr.ef.tymac 10:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Dreftymac - Mine was a response to an edit; the "undue weight" section was edited with rationale, and this was reverted again with rationale. I think (attention being drawn to it) that paragraph in "undue weight" could indeed be clarified, but this could be done better than both the original and proposed revision.

The intent of the revisor seems to be mainly, to emphasize even if there is a separate article (eg via summary style), that separate article must acknowledge if it covers a minority viewpoint - ie contextualize itself and not give the impression it is a major viewpoint if it isn't, and not accidentally seem to approve of content or POV forking. Those seem reasonable things to clarify, hence the draft I added above that does so. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: WP:BLP#Reliable sources

Please see WP:BLP/N#Ongoing WP:BLP-related concerns, particularly: WP:BLP/N#WP:BLP#Reliable sources policy section itself, which pertain to questions pertaining to verifiability and reliability of sources of material about living persons (not only biographies but other articles concerning living persons as well), including questions pertaining to sources being linked via "external links" in Wikipedia space (WP:EL), whether it be in source citations, or in References and/or External links sections. Some of the issues being debated in the talk page of that Wikipedia policy (Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons) also pertain to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, as well as WP:NOR). Thank you. --NYScholar 17:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Undue weight is very subjective

I am seeing this policy being used a lot to justify the removal of relevant sourced material from articles here. It is problematic becuase what does and does not constitute undue weight is very subjective. Bigglove 01:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure it's problematic. The very concept of NPOV is problematic. One major aspect of the problem is, the concept is indispensible, and yet impossible to precisely and exhaustively define. There's really no simple way around this basic balancing of potentially competing interests.

Nevertheless, there are various measures in place: WP:3O, WP:RFC and user talk pages immediately spring to mind; probably others will chime in with additional viewpoints to consider. dr.ef.tymac 04:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

POV in first sentence?

Is it proper form to begin an article with something like "Jennifer Hudson is an Academy Award winning American actress and singer"? As it reads to me, opening sentences such as this imply a bias, and proper tone would be. --FuriousFreddy 16:06, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Without looking at this specific situation closely, it seems a reasonable start to the WP:LEAD of the article, given that those facts are verifiable and that there are sources that present her as such. --Ronz 16:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:LEAD says "The first sentence in the lead section should be a concise definition of the topic" - I don't know how a sentence that includes mentions of things such as awards or whatever can be considered "concise". Also consider Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Fairness_of_tone, which says "Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization." Terms such as "[award]-winning" and the like, particularly when placed at the very beginning of an article, have positive connotations and imply a positive POV of the subject. It's something you'd find in a press release or a hagiography, not an encyclopedia striving for a neutral point of view.

Note that this doesn't necessarily mean notable awards and other achievements can never be mentioned anywhere in a lead - for example, the lead of the aforementioned Jennifer Hudson article reads "She went on to star as Effie White in the 2006 musical film Dreamgirls, for which she won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a SAG Award." As far as I can tell that's appropriate, because her performance in that film and the awards and acclaim she received for it has received a lot of publicity. But introducing her as an "Academy Award winning actress" definitely implies bias. Extraordinary Machine 15:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, I've just glanced at the article. My rule of thumb is to find similar articles to see what other editors have done in these situations. --Ronz 17:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

That's not always a good idea: if everyone else is screwing up, that means you'd screw up right alongside them. --FuriousFreddy

Hi, Extraordinary Machine. It is not at all obvious why you consider such a mention to be "not concise" AND "biased," especially when the award is directly relevant to the occupation of the person in question, especially when it tends to satisfy WP:N. What viewpoint do you feel is being unfavorably misrepresented or left out by the inclusion of such information? dr.ef.tymac 17:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Because, if you read professional print encyclopedias (Wikipedia is supposed to be professional), you'll never see them identify someone as being an "award-winning" anything right out of the gate. Your first sentence should be perfectly objective and concise. For example, TLC (band) once began as "TLC is a five-time Grammy Award-winning American R&B, hip hop and pop group that formed in 1991." Besides the inherent bias (oh, look! My favorite band won five Grammies!), that is a horribly formed sentence. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to read on a fan page or in a press release, not in a professional reference work. It doesn't hurt to say "TLC is an American music group", and, later in the lead paragraph, mention that they won five Grammys. It's not about including or disclosing viewpoints. It's about professionalism, something Wikipedia is lacking more and more each day. --FuriousFreddy 17:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the asserted decline in WP professionalism, I withold comment. I do, however, think FuriousFreddy raises a noteworthy general point regarding professionalism. The problem is this: a case could be made that the distinction you illustrate here is largely a matter of editorial stylistic preference, and should be subject to some discretion. I choose not to make that case here, but I also wouldn't call it frivolous.

Clearly, you acknowledge that this type of content is appropriate to include in an article (of course minding WP:RS et. al.). Moreover, although I and others may agree with your conclusion about placement within an article, it does not necessarily follow that disagreements with our conclusion necessarily constitute a violation of WP policy. Therefore, framing the issue in terms of an NPOV violation (I think) is counter-productive.

Framing the issue as a matter of "professionalism" is helpful, but remember that every profession has its own norms and traditions regarding what constitutes a reasonable standard of care and dilligence. Yes, WP is an encyclopedia; but (so far) it is also fundamentally a volunteer effort. This necessarily implies that many "enthusiasts" will make contributions that excel in terms of sheer volume, but are deficient in terms of refinement and consistency. This is especially likely for articles related to pop culture topics.

Solution: is there anything for us to do besides roll up our sleeves and add refinements when and where necessary? This seems to be the very definition of what moves this project foward: people contribute what they can, and experienced contributors try not to step on the toes of the energetic-but-perhaps-uninformed, whilst still fixing up where experience is called for and needed.

If people disagree with your "improvements" respectfully justify them in discussion or request additional comment. If you see something that looks unprofessional, you already know what to do. dr.ef.tymac 18:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It does seem to be "a matter of editorial stylistic preference" - that is, a preference for introducing a person or topic as they would be introduced in something intended to cast them in a positive light (such as the cinema trailer I saw today for the new film starring "Academy Award winner Halle Berry"); or a preference for introducing a topic concisely and neutrally, which is what Wikipedia policy stipulates.

Your solution isn't as straightforward as you make it sound when you have multiple editors, some of whom acting in good faith and others intent on pushing a positive POV of their favourite artist(s), re-adding POV remarks such as "[award]-winning" to intro sentences. As an example, the Christina Aguilera article had to be protected twice in three months after edit wars related to this issue ensued. What tends to happen when requesting comment from other users is that most of those who comment are also unfamiliar with policy or simply choose to ignore it; they repeat things like "other articles have similar intros", "there's nothing wrong with it", "it's a fact (s)he won this award", "this is not fan bias" etc., even in the face of lengthy explanations detailing why their contributions make the article biased.

Now, I don't know what else to do about this problem except make it clear that it is a problem so awareness of it can be raised. Suggesting the issue is "largely a matter of editorial stylistic preference" only serves to trivialise it. Extraordinary Machine 23:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, I'm not really trivializing the situation you address, just suggesting that this particular discussion page may not be the best strategic approach in dealing with it. (See also WP:ANI). dr.ef.tymac 23:45, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It is not a matter of "editorial stylistic preference". Crack open some professional print encyclopedias, and observe how they introduce their subjects. I would be shocked and appalled if any professional encyclopedia article started off with a sentence proclaiming someone as "award-winning", unless their winning a certain award was particularly groundbreakign in some way (Sidney Poitier, Hattie McDaniel). This issue needs a better solution than an encouragement ot "be bold", because iut's far too widespread for me or any other small group of people to run around trying to fix (especially when other editors wil likely "un-fix" it almost immediately). There needs to be a set policy requiring people to understand how to write in a professional, balanced tone. But will there be? --FuriousFreddy 16:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I should mention that this is a widespread (and recent) problem when it comes to celebrities and entertainment, particularly items and persons of current and recent interest. --FuriousFreddy 17:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I understand your perspective better. Is it proper form to begin an article as you've noted? Yes, given current policies and guidelines. Such introductions are easily backed with solid, secondary sources. Unless we require tertiary sources for lead sections (or something similar), I don't see how to prevent these types of introductions. --Ronz 18:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

"Is it proper form to begin an article as you've noted? Yes, given current policies and guidelines." - actually, no, given that WP:NPOV#Fairness_of_tone states "Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization." The presence of reliable sources does not, contrary to what you appear to be saying, prevent NPOV violations from occurring. We can prevent these introductions from being included by editing them to conform with the NPOV policy so editors don't read them and think other article intros should contain remarks like "[award]-winning" too. Extraordinary Machine 23:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm making some assumptions about the sources available, that they demonstrate a majority viewpoint. Basically, I'm assuming that WP:WEIGHT is being properly applied. If it is not, then saying "award-winning" gives undue weight. Are we talking undue weight here, or something else? --Ronz 23:27, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

We're talking biased language really, not necessarily undue weight. Yes, it's verifiable in most cases that people, films, albums and such won awards, but that's not something that needs to be stuffed into the first sentence of an article. As I said before, it is highly unprofessional. --FuriousFreddy 16:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I feel everybody has already said what I would say about this, but I've actaully seen this situation in a different light. Once, the Carmen Electra article was lead by "Carmen Electra is a razzie award winning actress". This same form of introduction can also be used to disparage the subject of an article. --w^{L<speak·check>} 18:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Would you consider Britannica to be a professional encyclopedia?

• Katharine Hepburn: indomitable American stage and film actress, known as a spirited performer with a touch of eccentricity.[3]
• John F. Kennedy: 35th president of the United States (1961–63), who faced a number of foreign crises, especially in Cuba and Berlin, but managed to secure such achievements as the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress.[4]
• Joseph Stalin: secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–53) and premier of the Soviet state (1941–53), who for a quarter of a century dictatorially ruled the Soviet Union and transformed it into a major world power.[5]
• Ronald Reagan: 40th president of the United States (1981–89), noted for his conservative Republicanism, his fervent anticommunism, and his appealing personal style, characterized by a jaunty affability and folksy charm.[6]
• Winston Churchill: British statesman, orator, and author who as prime minister (1940–45, 1951–55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory.[7]

--SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 22:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't easily access to those articles. Are they one-sentence stubs? --w^{L<speak·check>} 00:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

No, they're not. But they'd hardly fit our principles of NPOV. Here's Hepburn's, which definitely sounds like a magazine article or a press release. In some respects, we should look at what other publications do when evaluating our own methods. But Britannica doesn't have any sort of NPOV policy, so we shouldn't be modeling ours off of them. Awards do not belong in the lead sentence; they're not the subject of the article. Take Madonna (entertainer). Her awards are not the subject of the article, and there's no reason to include "award-winning" instead of any other section. It's easy to tack on "known for her controversial subject matter and music video", "wife of Guy Ritchie", or "who was a major figure in the development of pop music" to the lead sentence. However, none of those things are the subject of the article, and it's misleading to put it there. ShadowHalo 02:41, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

What intrigues me most about this issue is that even the most established editors honestly don't feel anything is wrong with awards in the opening sentence. I've been removing every mention I see about "Grammy/Academy/Emmy winning" etc. in the opening sentence and I usually don't encounter resistance. But every now and then, I find my edits reverted (so far, by two admins[8][9] and by two editors who have written a lot of GAs [10][11]). Perhaps POV in the first sentence warrants a more explicit mention in this policy? Spellcast 13:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree. POV is unacceptable anywhere in an article, adding an specific injunction to avoid it in the first sentence would be redundant. I agree though that "award-winning" is a piece of verbal fluff that has no place in an encyclopaedia article. Tim Vickers 14:23, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it does need to be stated somewhere. Because many editors add this in, others simply assume that it's the standard, whether or not policy actually states that it's acceptable. Mentioning it here wouldn't be redundant since it would be clarifying what is considered POV. Alternatively, it may be a good idea to add something about it at Wikipedia:Lead section. 17Drew 19:40, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, you may also want to verify that there is indeed consensus that the "verbal fluff" truly constitutes POV as disfavored under this policy. The phrase "award winning" does by itself tend to suggest editorial laziness, but sub-optimal writing is not the same as unacceptable bias. Moreover, some established editors do express contrary views that are not entirely frivolous and without merit.

Also, I have a question for those who oppose any mention of awards in the lead section (even non-poorly-written mentions that specifically enumerate the awards by name with proper references) ... is this acceptable? dr.ef.tymac 20:07, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree with dr.ef.tymac. Lazy writing is not necessarily POV writing, and mentioning notable awards in the opening sentence is not always a bad idea. See Linda Greenhouse, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Mother Teresa - are these to be outlawed too ? What about Carl Lewis's 10 olympic medals - POV boasting ?Abecedare 20:32, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Concerning Laura Pausini: I take issue with User:Spellcast and other "crusaders" like him/her with purist stances against the mention of awards in the opening sentence of an article. Now, I say "crusaders" because even Spellcast admits, "I've been removing every mention I see about 'Grammy/Academy/Emmy winning' etc. in the opening sentence."

Their argument is seemingly logical—seemingly, because it's also biased. No one ever makes mention of the Nobel Prize. A quick scan through the biographies of Nobel laureates reveals that 3 in 4 such articles mention the award in the opening sentence. No one seems to have a problem with this. Why? Nobel laureates were nominated and selected by a group of their peers and/or "authorities" in their discipline just like Academy Award– and Grammy Award–winners. Why the double standard? Why is one prize held in higher esteem than all others? User:FuriousFreddy suggests we "crack open some professional print encyclopedias" to see their level of professionalism, but even these mention Nobel laureate in the opening sentence of their entries.

Secondly, the purists seem to have a problem with quoting precedent (unless it's convenient for them, of course). User:Extraordinary Machine suggests sympathizers who claim that "other articles have similar intros" are ignorant. FuriousFreddy states "if everyone else is screwing up, that means you'd screw up right alongside them." It will greatly inconvenience these users to know that even featured articles (Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Jake Gyllenhaal, Diane Keaton, Norman Borlaug are but a few examples that a quick scan yielded) which Wikipedia holds in greatest esteem contain the "screwed-up," "ignorant" practice of including awards in the opening sentence. Perhaps the real "verbal fluff" is Wikipedia's claim:

Featured articles are considered to be the best articles in Wikipedia, as determined by Wikipedia's editors. Before being listed here, articles are reviewed at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates for accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style according to our featured article criteria.

I have a hard time believing five articles with NPOV "problems" in the opening sentence slipped past the editors.

Finally, FuriousFreddy says the practice is acceptable if "their winning a certain award was particularly groundbreakign in some way." It just so happens that Laura Pausini's Grammy gave her the distinction of being the first Italian female to win the award. In the Grammy Award's 50-year history, Pausini is only the second Italian to win the American award. Had Spellcast taken the time to read the article, he/she would have known this. But again, there is a fixation among editors to do away with "violations" that they skip over context to serve their righteous campaign.

Because of these reasons I am undoing Spellcast's edit. I have read the purists' arguments and what I see is bias and discrimination. Oskarg956 04:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey Spellcast, thanks for responding. When I noticed you had edited the opening sentence of the Laura Pausini article I wasn't upset, I wasn't offended, I really had no opinion. But I wanted to know why, since you had failed to explain in the edit summary. After reading your user discussion page I came to understand that it was a problem with POV. Now, I've read the policy at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and clearly understand. I am, by no means, contesting the policy. What I am challenging here is the policing. It seems that only performing artists' biographies are targeted for violations. What about Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize–, Peabody Award–, Medal of Honor recipients? What about Olympic medalists? No one is up in arms about the inclusion of awards in the opening sentence of their articles. Are these awards more valid than performing arts awards (namely, the Academy–, Grammy–, and Emmy Awards)? If this isn't discriminating policing then I don't know what is. Then, in an effort to sway opinion the purists make some arguments that undermine and invalidate Wikipedia's claim of excellence when sympathasizers quote precedent. Featured articles are supposedly reviewed rigorously for neutrality, style, etc. And yet they're also full of "ignorance" and "screw–ups." Are featured articles the standard to emulate or not? I understand the NPOV policy. The policy is not the issue. The issue is neutrality itself. I'd love to hear the purists admit they themselves have been bias and discriminating in their crusade. I'd love to see a real effort for NPOV on all biographies, not just performing artists'. The revision on the Laura Pausini page is my form of protest. Until I see reform in the purist circle, then I'll be convinced of neutrality. Oskarg956 05:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Pseudoscience wording

The pseudoscience wording on the WP:NPOV/FAQ has been repeatedly changed over the last two weeks, from:

• "The task before us is to determine which is the majority and which the minority view, and then to represent them in proportion; that is, to represent the majority (scientific) view as the majority view and the minority (sometimes pseudoscientific) view as the minority view, and to explain how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories."
• "The task before us is to determine which is the majority and which the minority view, and then to represent them in proportion; that is, to represent the majority view as the majority view and the minority view as the minority view, and to explain how they have been received, describing any dispute fairly."

As NPOV itself was initially drafted with pseudoscience in mind (the "physics cranks"), the former wording is six years old, and Arbcom has affirmed its intent, I would like to see consensus.

I'm not sure how many people are watching the FAQ; there is much cruft, but the pseudoscience wording has been absolutely critical in demonstrating that we are concerned about scientific majorities and minorities, not popular majorities and minorities, on science articles. Marskell 06:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Nothing in the FAQ may contradict or undermine the policy. The previous wording of this section did just that. We do not represent the scientific view as the majority view, and the pseudoscientific one as the minority view. We represent the majority published view as the majority pub view, and the minority pub view as the minority pub view. Our job is to represent the majority views published by all reliable sources. We don't prioritize the majority views of animal rights activists in AR articles; or the majority views of pedophiles in pedophilia articles. We give them a lot of attention in those articles, yes, but no special status.

Most of the time (probably the overwhelming majority of the time), the two sentences above will end up meaning the same thing. But no Wikipedia policy can claim that the scientific view will necessarily be the majority one, because what if it isn't? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 06:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

If we are describing, say, pedophilia's status as a paraphilia (nice appeal to emotion) the views of pedophiles matter not a whit unless they have been published in medical literature. Note I say status as a paraphilia—a medical designation. We do not describe the position of the DSM-IV and then contrast it with Bundy's interview from prison for points of scientific fact. The views of pedophiles may be appropriate when discussing social aspects, legal issues, family backgrounds etc., however repugnant. Your recent innovations to policy are badly blurring this needed distinction. Marskell 07:08, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I have no idea what you mean, and would you mind cutting out the barbs, please? It's pointless and tiresome. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:10, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

If you have no idea what I mean, then let's wait for third opinions. Marskell 07:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

You could try explaining it. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I thought I did take your example and unpack it. Let's imagine there is a debate over whether pedophilia or necrophilia should be classified as a paraphilia. There is a scientific majority opinion and a dissenting scientific minority. Would the opinion of Ted Bundy, who apparently suffered from both, matter with regards to the clinical classification itself? No, it wouldn't, even if published in interview form in a reliable but non-scientific source. Ted Bundy wasn't a diagnostitician and he published no peer reviewed work on the matter. His opinions might matter on our page on Ted Bundy, but certainly not on our paraphilia page. If, by contrast, a psychologist had gone and evaluated him and published a diagnosis in the Journal of Criminal Psychopathology it might well have a place on the latter. Marskell 07:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay. But I still don't see your point. Ted Bundy's view on its classification would be a tiny-minority published view, presumably. Giving one example after another isn't going to help us determine the principle, which is all we care about. The principle is that we represent the majority published view as such, and the minority published view as such. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:45, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

"Giving one example after another..." My God! Giving no examples whatsoever is not going to help us either; I have repeatedly asked you for an example of an area of science that you edit where it would be useful to erase the disctinction between scholarly and non-scholarly for scientific fact, and you have repeatedly declined to answer.

What would be the point of it? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 08:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Ted Bundy's views on the classification of necrophilia is not "tiny-minority published," but essentially non-published insofar as it is promulgated outside of scientific media. Literally, it should be given no weight when characterizing psychological or medical theory—another point made repeatedly, with reference to the Arb wording. Marskell 08:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Then why mention Bundy as an example? If it's unpublished, it gets no mention for that reason. If it's published, it gets no mention because he's an unreliable source, and because his views are almost certainly tiny-minority. If you must give examples, please give real, meaningful ones. Better still, stick to discussing the principle. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 08:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I have provided "real, meaningful ones": Global warming, evolution, extraterrestrial life, and astrology, amongst others. "What would be the point" of asking you for one? Oh, I don't know—to confirm that you have some idea of what you're talking about. I don't see that at present. I see an editor that has provided one example from the humanities—survivor stories—and decided to change six year-old policy wording because of it. You're accusing other people of innovating, when you have innovated, and you don't edit in the areas where this is going to have an affect. Check archive 20 on this talk. Do you remember the massive threads on pseudoscience a year ago? I do—because I was dealing with the very editors posting here at the same time in the main space. Dealing with bullshit like the following:

"I suspect that more people 'believe' astrology than there have ever been astronomers. That means it's a majority view, that deserves description (all views are described fairly and without bias). --Iantresman 18:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)"

And now, oh sure, let's dismantle the wording in pseudoscience that has allowed us to deal with people like this. Let's tell them we only need to describe how astrology has been received (which doesn't matter) and not how scientists have received it (which does). I am sticking to a principle, TYVM. Marskell 15:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Marskell, do you understand that, when we discuss reliable sources and majority views, we mean the views of published, reliable sources? The examples you keep giving are of unpublished material (Bundy, Iantresman's claims about what more people believe). These red herrings aren't helpful. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I think Marskell's point is that context matters. In a scientific context, scientific opinion should be given greater weight. But SlimVirgin is correct that we should not necessarily favor science. So for an article about a science, science matters, but in an article about fiction, it does not. I don't think either version sets up the proper balance. This is covered under Bias: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Scientific, so this needs to be consistent with that. Dhaluza 08:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem is also that certain editors will claim that particular articles are about "science," simply to ensure that scientific point of view prevails there. The whole thing is very easy to game.

What we are trying to do is stop idiots using poor sources to justify idiotic edits. I assume we all agree on that. Where we disagree, I suspect, is that Marskell does not take into account that pro-science editors (for the want of a better term) can be idiots too, and that they will abuse the "scientific sources must be the majority view in science articles" as a loophole for their bad editing, in just the same way that anti-science editors will look for other loopholes to squeeze in their fringe theories.

What matters is that the content policies encourage good editing using good sources, without saying that they must be scholarly or non-scholarly, or scientific or whatever. They need to be reliable, they need to be appropriate, and they need to be used correctly. I don't think we can legislate for that editorial judgment. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 08:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this e-mail from Jimbo helpful? He specifically refers to "scientific minority" and the "majority of prominent physicists", this doesn't seem very consistent with assessing views by a simple majority. Tim Vickers 16:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

What do mainstream physics texts say on the matter? What do the majority of prominent physicists say on the matter? Is there significant debate one way or the other within the mainstream scientific community on this point?

If your viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts.

If your viewpoint is held by a significant scientific minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents, and the article should certainly address the controversy without taking sides. Link

I just used this on the FAQ. More people will be familiar with it than the Arb wording and it makes essentially the same point. Marskell 17:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how it's relevant. He's talking about special relativity and original research. What you're talking about is ignoring any reliable sources that aren't academic, in academic subjects. So, for example, an implication of your argument is that only scholars of antisemitism may be used as sources in articles about antisemitism. While using such scholars is preferable, and while their views may be given de facto priority, it would be a serious violation of NPOV to exclude other reliable sources entirely, or to formulate a policy that allowed editors to do that. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 22:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

SV raises (yet again) a very important point. Clearly science articles should be guided by the majority POV of scientists, but that's not necessarily the case for non-science articles. I've witnessed a number of long, heated debates over articles which involve a conflict between scientific and popular POVs. When a clear consensus holds in the scientific community but not in the general public, some argue strenuously that NPOV demands representing only the scientific consensus, while others argue NPOV demands representing all views in the general population. People shout "NPOV!" and "undue weight" at each other until their faces turn blue because this policy page is not at all clear on the issue. For example, I think we do need some guidelines for when the sciientific POV reigns and when it does not. Gnixon 00:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Even in science subjects, the policy can't state that only scientific sources may be used. I started an article today that dealt with a good example of where we'd have made a mistake to exclude a source. Mark Purdey was an organic farmer, and self-funded, self-taught researcher into the causes of BSE. He came up with a minority view that attributed the disease to a mixture of environmental concerns, and said it wasn't infectious and that cattle were being culled unnecessarily. For the first few years of his research, it was only published by newspapers, yet it would clearly have been a mistake for Wikipedia (had we existed) to omit any mention of it; indeed to do so would have made us look uninformed. (Later, it was published by peer-reviewed journals too.)

It's impossible to legislate for when a non-science source becomes important enough to use. It boils down to common sense and editorial judgment, and it requires editors to be well-informed themselves and able to handle source material intelligently. What we can't have is a policy that states sources like Mark Purdey may never be used (until peer-reviewed), because that will be misused by POV pushers. The policy has to emphasize that all reliable, published sources are welcome in all articles, so long as UNDUE is adhered to — and adhering to UNDUE will almost always ensure that academic sources are de facto prioritized in academic subjects anyway. And where there's any controversy, views must be fairly attributed so that people can judge the quality of the sources without having to hunt through footnotes. It's perfectly legitimate to say: "Professor A of Cambridge University says that BSE is caused by X, a theory contradicted by Mark Purdey, a self-taught researcher whose views have caught the imagination of the public, but are dismissed by mainstream scientists." That tells the reader that Professor X might be a better source. I feel that people who try to keep (non-crazy) alternative views out of articles entirely feel threatened by them somehow.

Remember that we're talking about reliable, published sources. That doesn't mean we have to include all beliefs held by the general public, especially given that we're meant to reflect a global view. If we had to reflect the unpublished views of the general global public, we'd have to start the article on Gay by saying that gays are evil, and the article on Woman that women are stupid creatures best kept indoors. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Assuming Mark Purdey is notable enough to have an article, then describing his views in the article about himself is acceptable. No one is disputing that. But if he is the only person to put forth a theory, has not done so in scientific literature, and has been dismissed by the mainstream, then it would be irresponsible to add your suggested sentence to the BSE article itself. It would mix peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed claims and play to one of Wikipedia's weaknesses: "undue prominence given to controversial scientific theories."[12]

Then I think I have to say you don't understand the policy or Wikipedia. Purdey's views about BSE were being published in mainstream newspapers. The BBC made a documentary about him. This was at the height of the BSE outbreak, so this was all important news. But according to your view of Wikipedia, we could not have mentioned any of this in the article about BSE until his views had been published in a peer-reviewed journal — which was four years after the first BBC documentary! That is clearly absurd. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Slim, given that you did not appear to know that pseudoscience wording was a part of the NPOV policy until I pointed it out to you by e-mail, and that you are the one who has undertaken a change to it to suit your POV, I'd call your first sentence a bit of pot-and-kettle. What your post above suggests is that I don't understand Mark Purdey—admitted; never heard of the fellow until this morning.

At every iteration of my point I have (at least I've tried) to make clear that I'm speaking about the nature of claims themselves. "Mark Purdey has propounded non-mainstream views regarding the nature of BSE" is fine enough on the article about Mark Purdey, and you can source it to the BBC; "one possible cause of BSE is Phosmet" is a scientific claim and should take a citation of a scientific character on the BSE page. Even with phrasal attribution, to use that claim to contrast Professor A who has published peer-reviewed work is irresponsible—it may mislead the reader by giving prominence to a controversial theory. (As we both know, whether Purdey's ideas are true is irrelevant.) If his ideas constitute a kind of movement and have been elaborated by others, then they may have a place—but they cannot be called science until they have been published in scientific media. "What do mainstream medical texts say on the matter? If your viewpoint is held by a significant scientific minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents." I understand the policy just fine. Marskell 16:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Your view makes no sense. The question is this: once the first BBC documentary about Purdey's BSE theory had aired in 1988, should material about him have been added to the article on BSE? You are saying no, despite a major broadcaster devoting documentary time to him, which they don't do lightly. And why? Because his views had not yet been peer-reviewed. Every other mainstream news organization in the Western world had reported his views on BSE by the time he was published in a scholarly journal. But Wikipedia would not be allowed to mention him, at least not on the BSE page itself.

Marskell, I have to assume from this that you have never worked in academia. If you had, you would realize that peer review, and PhDs, and all the things you seem to hold as sacred cows, often don't amount to a hill of beans.

If you are saying that Wikipedia may not report controversial material covered by a BBC documentary, except perhaps in some subpage about the person behind the material, then you've seriously misunderstood what we're here to do, which is to tell people what reliable sources are saying, not to hide things from them. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:45, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Save your ad hominems, please.

Again, I had no idea who Mark Purdey was until today. If "every other mainstream news organization in the Western world had reported his views on BSE by the time he was published in a scholarly journal" (a rather bold claim, to be sure—I'm surprised we didn't have a page on him until yesterday) then it may, in fact, have a place in the article. But it should not be presented as a scientific alternative until it has been vetted through scientific media. See, for instance, "Social and religious controversies" on Evolution; it properly contextualizes the criticism, so as to not mislead the reader. And if "every other mainstream news organization in the Western world" picked up the story, then surely, at a minimum, he would've been picked up by Discover or Scientific American if not by Nature or Science. This would at least be preferable to the Guardian.

"If you are saying that Wikipedia may not report controversial material covered by a BBC documentary, except perhaps in some subpage about the person behind the material, then you've seriously misunderstood what we're here to do." I would point to wording you already know: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it is true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." Again, if he is the only person to put forth a theory, has not done so in scientific literature, and has been dismissed by the mainstream then his ideas do, in fact, belong in an ancillary article. Cranks may be well known, after all—a BBC documentary is not by itself grounds for inclusion. Marskell 17:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

As for red herrings, you listed an example and I elaborated it. (The last Bundy interview was published by a "reliable" source, incidentally—Focus on the Family.) Other specific examples of the danger of reliable, published but non-scientific sources have been provided: selective, politicized coverage of global warming in a Black broadsheet; a parapsychology journal used to substantiate a point about physics; and "Teach the controversy".

You can look at Jimbo's statement as a proximate reply to a question on Special relativity, but you know very well that it has been taken up and applied elsewhere—indeed, in UNDUE itself. UNDUE is a generalized statement that needs to be applied to all types of Wikipedia material, and of course we don't rely on science journals for everything. When dealing with the specific problem of pseudoscience, situating majority and minority in terms of the scientific mainstream is perfectly in keeping with UNDUE. Jimbo's statement clearly suggests as much, as, again, do the Arb findings. Marskell 14:34, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

These people would not support the views you've been expressing over the last week or so about the deliberate suppression of material from reliable sources. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 16:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Well that's good. Perhaps I need a lecture about not understanding the politics of Wikipedia. Marskell 17:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I've restored the passage that read "The task before us is to represent the majority (scientific) view as the majority view and the minority (sometimes pseudoscientific) view as the minority view; and, moreover, to explain how scientists have received pseudoscientific theories. This is all in the purview of the task of describing a dispute fairly." It is a central notion and so a necessary passage and it stood since the earliest version of the policy WP:NPOV - 25 February 2002 Odd nature 23:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I wish I knew when these conversations arise in changing major policy. Thanks Odd Nature for restoring it. There are numerous articles that I've recently found, mostly in the medical arena, where editors almost want us to agree that because 10,000 people may chant under a pyramid as a cure for cancer (and randomly some percentage are cured) that it should be "proof' of a cancer cure. But I'm repeating lots of stuff written above. It's too bad that a lot of the discussion here is by people whose opinion of NPOV and pseudoscience is remarkably weak. Orangemarlin 01:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Amen. Marskell 10:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to add a comment on Mark Purdey. I was quite attracted to the theory at the time. A relative of mine was explaining how they were forced by the UK government to use organophosphates (OPs) to deal with an outbreak of warble fly in the UK (they thought this stuff was quite frightening and especially did not like the way it made the cattle's skin crackle and fizz). It was around the same time as BSE was first being recognised, and also at a similar time that Parkinsons Disease and Alzheimers was gaining recognition and there seemed to be some correlation with farm workers and OPs. At that time, nobody had any idea what was going on.

Mark's theory was plausible and so it got coverage at a time there was no indication of anyone else having a clue. The BSE Inquiry did not ignore this, and there is clear coverage here [13]. What that said was roughly that it could not have been the cause of the disease, but it was plausible, but unproven, that OPs could make animals more susceptible. I'm not aware that there has been any significant press coverage on this issue in recent years (BSE is pretty much buried as a press topic though I presume there are still instances of the disease being found in the UK - another reason for being circumspect with the press).

So, it is an amateur work, but amateur is not the same as pseudo-science and it would in this case be inappropriate to characterise it as a fringe theory (though it could still turn out to be wrong), it was recognised as worthy of investigation.

On that basis, there is a good scientific source that can be used as a foundation for any comments, and I would presume that there should be more up to date research. It is a legitimate subject to be covered, it was an important part of the search for understanding. However, care should be taken to reflect the speculative nature of the theory. What would be inappropriate would be to say something like "The inquiry showed OPs were not the cause but the Sunday Times dismissed this assertion based on its review of Mark Purdey's work." - we could not give credibility to the Times without doing significant validation of how they came to the conclusion.

The general problem is to differentiate between speculative press comment, effectively their own original research or uncritical review, quality summaries of scientific papers that might not be in an accessible form for mere mortals, green agendas of reporters and so on. The quality of the piece needs to be assessed on each instance and it must be recognised that newspapers will not see the need for the pedantic accuracy of phrasing that peer reviewed scientific sources would expect. Spenny 01:16, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Just a point of information: a study carried out by (as I recall) Cambridge indicated that the OPs did make the cattle more suspectible to BSE, which is why the inquiry said the door had not yet closed on Purdey's theory.

The point is not whether Purdey is worthy of a mention in the BSE article, because he clearly is. The question is whether we should have to wait until a peer-reviewed journal takes the issue up, which Marskell says we should, and which I say is absurd: once the BBC has devoted its resources to making a documentary on it, that's good enough for us. To argue otherwise is to imagine that BBC and other network journalists don't talk to scientists, or themselves have no scientific background, whereas in fact they have easy access to the world's top scientists on whatever topic they're covering, and many will have science backgrounds themselves. As for your final point, I agree, but that's a question of knowing how to write and use sources. Unfortunately, there's no way for us to teach that. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 01:37, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

That's fine; I don't think most editors would have a problem with mentioning Purdey's hypothesis. It's been published (albeit in Medical Hypotheses, it would appear) and covered by the BBC, who are generally quite responsible (with some notable exceptions). I'd be surprised if you encountered any serious opposition to adding at least a brief mention of his role in the BSE article. What I don't understand is why the NPOV FAQ needs to be rewritten. Its wording already supports covering views, like Purdey's, which are minoritarian but described by reliable sources. Am I missing something? MastCell ^Talk 02:48, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Slim, I think we are vigourously agreeing. I don't think anyone would say that it was inappropriate to mention this type of claim. It is (always) a question of evaluating the specifics of the claim and the context of the claim within the article. To explain the various theories, including those in retrospect demonstrably wrong, is often appropriate and useful. Two issues to be clear on: are they based on reasonable grounds and are the non-peer reviewed sources making extraordinary or unusual claims, especially where those claims are contradicted by sound documented evidence. I think policy already understands that, though the detail of wording may vary over the different documents. Spenny 07:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

As Mast and Spenny are more familiar with the man in question, I would only add that I was using Purdey as a hypothetical in the debate above. I don't know if his position is "vastly limited" or "significant minority." If he was covered by a government enquiry, then all well and good; give him a mention. Nor did I say we must wait until it's been peer-reviewed to mention it. I said: a) you cannot characterize it as a scientific alternative until it has been presented as such in scientific media; b) if it is a limited position that's been dismissed, then it's irresponsible to use it in-sentence to contrast the mainstream view; c) if he's the only person to adopt the position, then it probably does belong in an ancillary article about him and no where else. Marskell 09:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

A different wording question:

The article states:

• Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more.

Without more what?

Softtest123 12:28, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Use of the word "terrorism"

There is currently a debate about the use of the word "terrorism" in the narrative voice over at Talk:September 11, 2001 attacks. I believe its use violates the idea of letting the facts speak for themselves[WP:NPOV#Let_the_facts_speak_for_themselves], and also violates the guidelines specific to the word at WP:TERRORIST. Furthermore, it shows cultural bias, because articles about attacks against non-americans (such as the Guildford pub bombings) are described using neutral language, in accordance with these two principles.

There are some editors there who believe that WP:UNDUE trumps all this, and are aggressively defending the use of this word, contrary to both policy and guidelines. They have plainly stated that they won't listen and will just revert any edit they don't like[14]. I would appreciate some outside comment about this. Damburger 09:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:ASF

I took the freedom of creating a redirect to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#A simple formulation at WP:ASF, as I believe it's a very important and also widely misunderstood or at least underappreciated aspect of the policy and having a redirect to it can come in handy in many related disputes. I also put a link to WP:POV in the section. It's an essay on how to present point of views, which I think is both worthwile and instructive. —AldeBaer 12:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Not sure I agree - "A simple view" isn't per se, a meaningful term, and it may be better to link to NPOV directly than a simplified version of it.

What exact aspect of NPOV are people "widely misunderstanding or underappreciating" that this is designed to help? Perhaps some section needs rewording better to help. But I'm not sure this is the right way to fix it. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Linking to a particular section of a policy is not linking to a "simplified version of it". I agree that the term "a simple formulation" is a bit clumsy, but can't think of a more accurate name for the concept or the section.

The thing is, I frequently see opinions being asserted as facts, which goes against this very aspect of the policy. Consider the following example: A fan of Pete Sampras inserts the sentence "Pete Sampras is considered among the best tennis players of all time" or some variant of it. Even if references are being attached to such a statement, it's still not a truthful citation, as the wording asserts the opinion itself, not the mere fact that someone holds that opinion. I believe people are frequently missing the point or are unaware of what the section "A simple formulation" describes. Since several other sections of NPOV as well as other policies have shortcuts redirecting to them, I figured it would do no harm to do the same with a too often ignored aspect of this policy.

An alternative would be to extend WP:POV to a guideline. But WP:CREEP, so it may be better to keep it this way, and maybe include links to related guideline pages, like WP:WEASEL and WP:CS. —AldeBaer 16:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

A short list of "common neutrality errors" maybe, that editors can point to? Any use? Something like this:

1. Comparatives (best, worst, most famous, least popular, top 100) need sourcing.
2. All notable viewpoints should be represented.
3. Undue weight should not be given to minority viewpoints.
4. Forking to create separate articles covering new viewpoints is not allowed.
5. Opinions should be put in terms of a given source that holds them.

... and so on. Any better? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 16:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

You mean extending the section with this list? —AldeBaer 16:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure. But if WP:NPOV is regularly not being correctly interpreted, and needs rather more immediate impact on readers in dispute, something to point to, then maybe a bullet point summary of some kind that editors can objectively refer to, might sometimes help in neutrality disputes, wherever it's put. A list of common NPOV points that can be quickly cited and referred to. We use these on some policies, to draw bright line rules for non-controversial matters (See WP:CSD for an example.) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 17:36, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Maybe a new "Common neutrality errors" section like you suggested would do the trick. (Personally, I'd like a shortcut to that section, but wouldn't create one if there's any opposition.) To round off the initial topic, would you still rather not have the WP:ASF redirect? —AldeBaer 17:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

NPOV and pictures in an article

An interesting thought occurred to me during some discussions at WT:NFC (talk page of non-free content page):

"How much do the pictures used in an article contribute to the NPOV of the article?"

One argument might be that pictures are purely decoration, and only the text can transmit a point-of-view. My feeling though is that when you have a biographical article of someone, the article needs to cover (as far as possible) all aspects of their life - their birth, their childhood, their education, their career, their family, their old age and their death. I'm wondering whether an article can become unbalanced if you only use pictures of when someone is a child, or when they are an old person, as opposed to a picture of them when they were famous. The free/non-free image issue is also a problem. In some cases, not many pictures are available at all, and that is an insurmountable problem. In other cases, you have free pictures of people at all stages of their lives. Then you have cases where all known pics are non free, so you have to choose just one to use under fair use, if that. Finally, you have cases where there are a mix of free and non-free images. The classic example is the case when the available pictures of a person during their career (or whatever they are famous for) are all non-free pictures. If the person is still living, so the theory goes, you try and get someone to take a free picture. But what happens if the end result of this is that you end up with a picture of a very old, decrepit person in the last years of their life? Surely this is in itself misleading, and it would be better to have no picture at all? Even when the person dies, you are left with a free picture that should, in theory, be used instead of the non-free ones of that person when they were famous. But wait! Give it a few more years and the copyright starts to expire on some of the pictures of this person. Wonderful! Oh, hang on. The newly free pics are of a 10-year-old kid playing at the seaside. Hmm. Not ideal. Does anyone else begin to see how the stringent application of the non-free policy on images of people ends up with Wikipedia being more likely to have free pics of people when they are retired, or public domain pics of when they were young, and how only much later will Wikipedia be able to freely use the pics of these people as they were when they were famous? This seems to me to be a very unbalanced way of illustrating an encyclopedia, and thus it seems to be to me against the spirit of the NPOV policy. Ideally, an encyclopedia will, when illustrating a biographical article, select as their first choice the picture of the person when they are famous. But the free content encyclopedia, until such time as free content becomes more widespread, will, in the cases of retired but still living people, be biased towards pictures of them when they are retired, or when they are young.

So my question for people here is whether, in principle, the fair-use of a non free picture could ever be claimed to improve an article to the extent that it helps to address NPOV issues in that article? Carcharoth 20:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting question. Personally, I'm inclined to agree that this is non-trivial and goes even farther than just NPOV, since it touches on basic questions of encyclopedic accuracy and free content. Unfortunately, I'm not knowledgeable on fair use.

Another image-related NPOV issue concerns in my opinion images in criticism sections in articles on corporations. There is the example of Starbucks, where irrelevant, merely decorative (and in effect distractive) images were placed in the section on criticism. But that aspect appears to be covered by WP:UNDUE. —AldeBaer 21:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE is also relevant here, as the text of many biographical articles will, per undue weight, only give passing mention of a person's childhood or later activities (while not omitting details), and will quite rightly concentrate on the activities that have made, or did make, the person notable. Applying the same logic to pictures, putting an image into the article of a person in childhood or old age may give that part of the article undue weight. This can probably best be summed up as: "The first section to be illustrated with a picture should be the most important one, which is determined by applying the principle of due weight. Other pictures should only be added after that section has been illustrated. This applies to both free and non-free images, so free images to peripheral sections should only be added if a free image, or a non-free image with a fair-use rationale, has been added to the central section." Probably unworkable in practice, but I do fear that the demands and restrictions to free content can come into conflict with NPOV. Carcharoth 01:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Wanted to let some more experienced players respond first. This page must be on thousands of watchlists. But ok, let me chime in once more.

I agree with your basic contention and to the notion that images and text can pose distinctive NPOV problems on (biographical, and other) articles, with particular regard to UNDUE (and IMO other sections, too, like WP:ASF). However, I also agree that your italicised text or something closesly based on it wouldn't be enforceable as actual policy.

As kind of a (farther-reaching?) compromise, I think there should be some kind of unambiguous message in this policy that NPOV does apply to all question of encyclopedic accuracy, like your bio image example and e.g. also to selective in-universe coverage as in far too many fiction articles, which happens to be one of my pet peeves. It wouldn't even need to be very specific, just a small section stating that NPOV encompasses balancing contradicting POVs on all kinds of levels, not only POVs that are on eye-level with each other.

So far, too much (near exclusive) focus is placed on ideological bias, and too little on —often unintentional— systemic biases which can result in even worse inaccuracies because they are even less easily identifiable as such. —AldeBaer 17:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Though isn't there a page on systemic biases somewhere? As for the "thousands of watchlists" point. The monkeys can't always come up with Shakespeare. If that doesn't provoke a response, I don't know what will. :-) Carcharoth 00:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

why so negative?

The more I think about it, the more I get to dislike the section name undue weight. I believe it has an unnecessarily forbidding ring to it and communicates a generally negative outlook. This could be avoided simply by renaming the section to Due weight, which far more accurately transports what the section is about: Instructing —ideally motivating— users to give due weight to all relevant aspects. It shouldn't preemptively instruct them not to give undue weight; that point follows logically while the opposite I feel is not so much the case. Aspects regarding fringe views should of course still appropriately state what they do now.

I also learned to despise the capitalized redirect WP:UNDUE, which likewise carries a connotation of general negativeness instead of far more desirable encouragement. Who would favour this biting buzzword UNdue over the simple, straightforward, positive and accurate due weight? Since use of WP:UNDUE is practically ubiquitous, it couldn't possibly be abandoned. But may I suggest introducing a positive counterbalance by creating WP:DUE? —AldeBaer 23:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and create it. Start using it, and in a year's time see which has more links to it. Cultural inertia around here is high, but not impossible to change. Carcharoth 00:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

NPOV is

A) A measure by which we can judge the completeness and faithfulness of our use of references.
B) A policy meant to increase the neutral tone of all articles.
C) Something else.
D) Both.
I would say the answer is A) since NPOV essentially says the sources should speak for themselves.
The reason I would say B) is incorrect is that statements not backed by a reference are simply unproven assertions which need a {{fact}} tag. If that assertion turns out to be backed by a reference the {{fact}} tag is removed regardless of how "neutral" the tone is.
Since I think B) is wrong, then I also think D) is too.

As an example I refer to Hitler; most sources point to him as being responsible for The Holocaust. No matter what else is said about him in the article, a reader is going to walk away thinking of him as a murderer (unless they are neo nazis). If we operated under B) we'd have to neutralize that impression, which actually seems POV in a different way.

Surely someone must have an opinion on this interpretation. Anynobody 23:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The answer is (C): Balance. NPOV is about balance. Apart from the truly fringe and crackpot theories, all POVs deserve a mention, but the amount they are mentioned by (the balance bit) depends on due weight. That's the tricky bit. Neutral point of view doesn't mean be neutral. It means don't be biased. Be objective and don't give something more coverage than the balance of the sources warrant. Carcharoth 00:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem is dealing with biased sources, e.g. "the source calls him a (insert slur, dismissive term, etc.), therefore it would be POV for the article not to call him a (same)." Jacob Haller 00:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

That's covered in WP:ASF, although that section's wording could be a bit clearer. —AldeBaer 00:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but many editors disagree. Comes up time after time. Jacob Haller 00:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, no-one said writing an encyclopedia this way was easy. It certainly can't be done by formulaic application of rules to avoid healthy disagreements and discussions. Carcharoth 01:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe I know what he's talking about. I've seen people play deaf, dumb and blind just to ignore this aspect of NPOV. All I can say is: He is considered the best tennis player of all times. —AldeBaer 02:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

In addition to Carcharoth's correct answer (C), the answer is (C): Encyclopedic accuracy. —AldeBaer 00:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

But would we really include a POV for which no reliable/verifiable references could be added? Lets say a group of people form what they call a religion, but everyone else terms a cult. Proponents of B) would say NPOV dictates we avoid using the word cult because it implies bias and therefore POV, whereas A) would dictate using the word since this is what the reference calls them.

I realize it may seem like a balance issue, but A) and B) actually conflict with each other. Since a reference may be saying the kind of things a person following B) might delete or "neutralize" by a rewording. Contentious info that may sound NPOV but also has no source should probably be removed rather than reworded, since if a reference could be found it'd be eligible to be reincluded. Rewording an assertion without a reference for the sake of balance could be creating WP:OR unintentionally. Anynobody 01:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't accuracy be determined by accuratly describing the sources? It's my understanding that what is right or wrong is secondary to what can be referenced.

It's a bit of an absurd example but; Imagine nobody had ever published or discussed the fact that absorption of red light makes the sky appear blue. Most of us can see it's blue, we just look up and see it. Now lets say the color blind editor of a respected magazine writes an article on why the sky is yellow. If this were the only source about the color of our sky, we'd have to say it's yellow too since saying the truth would be WP:OR without a source for it. Anynobody 03:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

If I could answer a point about the Hitler example, I think I can illustrate something about NPOV. Assuming for the moment that I am not an idiot, that is. Most sources point to Hitler to being responsible for the holocaust. No matter what else is said about him in the article, a reader is going to walk away thinking of him as a murderer (unless they are neo nazis). Anynobody goes on to say that if we were concerned solely with maximising the neutrality of all articles, we would have to take steps to restore balance, which would arguably lead to more neutrality problems.

I think that an essential aspect of NPOV is presenting the information and not caring what opinion the reader walks away with. The whole point is to let them form whatever opinion they like. If we worry too about what a reader might make of the evidence, we run the risk of getting entangled in the worst kind of second-guessing, double bluffing, reverse psychology, etc. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 04:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't be POV to discuss the facts of the Nazi death camps, murder units, etc. In this case, the facts condemn the Nazi hierarchy more than any opinions we could add. Jacob Haller 05:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I take NPOV to mean that Wikipedia should try to maintain neutrality, in matters where testing is impractical (religion, ethics, etc.) or meaningless (opinion). I sometimes refer to the "voice of Wikipedia" and the "voice of [whoever made the description]." In particular, some editors assert that biased statements must remain in the voice of Wikipedia, not even attributed to the voice of whomever is appropriate, unless sourced statements challenge the biased statement. As far as I can tell, applied consistently, this interpretation would mean that editors could always add more bias against exterminated groups, and never remove bias against such groups. Jacob Haller 05:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Sheffield Steel that is pretty much my point, so you aren't an idiot (unless I'm one too). In reporting all the facts one has to more or less call him whatever the facts (sources) do, even to the point of possibly being "wrong" as in the absurd yellow sky example. A possibly more rational, but also absurd example would be the evolution of some theories for longstanding problems. If Wikipedia existed in 1944, our article about the moon would state that it most likely was formed from leftovers of the Earth among many other things since proved wrong.

Jacob Haller fortunately our society allows us the luxury of criticizing our governments, otherwise that would be a most valid concern. In your example lets say that we were writing this in 1944 Germany. Our encyclopedia would read very differently than it does now (understatement) if the general Wikipedia rules were followed (since sources with specifics on the Holocaust, Hitler and the war in Germany weren't exactly available to the average person. If a someone really believed the radio in Berlin, 1945 was a victorious year for Germany until they lost the war all of a sudden.) Anynobody 08:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Voice of Wikipedia, that's nice. — As I already said, I understand your point. That's why created a shortcut to that section (see #WP:ASF). Maybe a clarifying rewording would be useful, too? —AldeBaer 08:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

AldeBaer I'm sorry I forgot to mention your post, I had a feeling I forgot something.
I completely concur a rewording is in order. How to do it so that a majority of people will understand is the problem I'm trying to work out. Anynobody 08:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Looking forward to a rewording proposal. Btw, FT2 proposed a list of common errors above, which may be something worth considering as well. —AldeBaer 09:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, the most common cases involve religious disputes: article x calls person y a "heretic." One of the most common meanings of "heretic" is "teacher of false religious doctrine," so if Wikipedia calls someone a "heretic" it condemns their doctrines, which seems to throw NPOV out the window. In most cases, the "heretic" is long dead and the "heretical" group has long since been wiped out. However, by definition, they didn't consider themselves "heretics."

For example, an old version of the Photinus article old version...

Presumably Photinus did not consider himself a "heretic" (and he doesn't seem to have been "Arian" - but that's another story entirely). Jacob Haller 18:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the same kind of POV issue has cropped up on Gregory of Cappadocia. Jacob Haller 01:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The policy is not about some idealistic "neutral" or "objective" view. If certain historical figures and movements are widely referred to as heretics and heresies, it's throwing NPOV out the window to selectively censor that information. NPOV is not about removing POVs, it's about treating views equitably in proportion to their prominence. Vassyana 05:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

In other words, you're saying ASF does not describe NPOV? Because you are throwing ASF - and the understanding of NPOV which ASF reflects - out the window. Jacob Haller 06:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

You obviously have a drastically different understanding of the section than I do. To me, it says nothing whatsoever about censoring those views, and (quite the contrary) goes to lengths to provide advice about how to present those views. Especially in the case of figures and movements that are near-universally described as heterodox and/or heretical, it is essential that information is included in the article. We're not in the business of censoring negative and pejorative views presented in reliable sources, or trying to correct the "failings" of those sources. Vassyana 13:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Vassyana, the widely referred can and does frequently become a problem. Who says it is? You'd need a source, and a good one, for an assertion that strong. Or very reliable, peer-reviewed publications far outnumbering diverging POVs. Using only a single source for a strong assertion requires to include who said that. Otherwise it would indeed violate NPOV, particularly ASF, and even more than that it would lead to inaccurate articles. —AldeBaer 16:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

ASF says "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." Although ethical and religious disputes are not matters of opinion strictu sensu, direct evidence is rarely available, and it is perfectly appropriate to bring most ethical and religious controversies into this category.

ASF recommends stating facts about opinions and my bias-reduction did exactly that. Instead of stating that Photinus was a heretic, I discussed who considered Photinus a heretic and why. It could still use some work. Jacob Haller 17:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, there have been somewhat similar attempts at addressing the general issue of NPOV failing to distinguish between ideological and systemic bias — or "narrative bias and selective bias", as called in this post. It looks as if that attempt ended in a cl*st*rf*ck group hug, as did others. OTOH, I don't think a complete rewrite is necessary (or at all doable), clarifying ASF and possibly UNDUE should do the job. —AldeBaer 18:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I saw your post about undue weight above, I don't really like it either (Undue weight not your post). The reason it bugs me is that it assumes we all know what due weight is. I would call undue weight as ignoring valid references and stacking an article with equally valid references of a different POV when really both should be discussed.

Jacob Haller is right that it shows up on religious matters quite often, but to expand on his point, I find it tends to be a possibility anywhere something intangible or unproven attracts people of various opinions. People in the minority will tend to feel that undue weight is given to the good points of the majority view or the bad points of theirs. Anynobody 07:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at this proposal. —AldeBaer 14:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

That is a great idea. I especially like how it addresses trivia sections too. Anynobody 03:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Templates for UNDUE?

What templates can be used to inform that an article/section/inline statement may have problems with WP:UNDUE?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

{{Unbalanced}}. —AldeBaer 17:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Question

Is it correct to use the concept of "undue weight" as it is used in "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Notability and undue weight"?

Regards, G.A.S 20:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I put it there and I think it is, but that's pretty obvious, so let's hear it from others. —AldeBaer 21:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Spirit over wording

NPOV is non-negotiable, as Jimbo said, but of course that's not true. It should rather be "the spirit of NPOV is non-negotiable". The wording of WP:NPOV can indeed be interpreted and twisted in an non-NPOV way, and I think the policy should explicity warn against doing so, if only by prominently linking to Wikipedia:Gaming the system, the related behavioral guideline. — [ aldebaer⁠] 22:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Third opinion requested

Does [15] meet NPOV? I look at it and I say "who cares?", but that's not a policy. --NE2 18:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks neutral to me. Needs a reference. I see that the website is listed, but the quote itself needs to cite the reference. 74s181 03:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is really an issue of POV, it is more is it appropriate to an encyclopedic article? What is the point being made? It seems to me that the article is unfinished and I would tend to let it rest for the moment on the basis that further editing is required to make the article work properly. For example, given that there is little real discussion of the route, making this point prominent looks like undue weight. Spenny 09:17, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I generally agree with Spenny and others above. I question its relevance to a road -- this material more properly belongs in an article about the area, but not the highway itself. Wikipedia is not a travel guide. I think it looks out of place and if it's included at all it should be removed until the author writes a lot of tidbits. Otherwise this looks like an awkward commercial for southeastroads.com.Journalist1983 13:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

NOR discussions that may have an effect with the interaction of this policy

Please see this for a brief synopsis of what is being discussed and why. To see everything in it's proper context, then much reading will be required, including going through the Archives for the page. In short, we are not attempting to weaken the policy, but to make clearer by moving WP:PSTS somewhere more appropriate, and linking to it's new location (wherever that is). The types of sources and their definitions are not really part of a policy that discusses "No Original Research", much like your house insurance policy's definition of "Acts of God" don't really pertain to your insurance policy. It's just included for further clarity, but the actual definition has nothing to do with your policy, just its final interpretation of what is covered (or not). This is not something that some are trying to impose overnight, much discussion still needs to be done, but the sooner others participate and help, the quicker the additional work can progress. wbfergus ^Talk 13:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Minor removal from undue weight section

I've made this removal from the undue weight section, as the same thing is said at least twice, in only slightly different words, above it. Seems unlikely to be controversial, but I note it anyways. Picaroon (t) 01:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarifying Undue Weight

An interesting discussion broke out in Talk:Anti-gravity about the concept of Undue Weight. To me the definition is clear as it is, but in retrospect it seems that it is definitely possible to misunderstand it. Specifically, the issue is that the definition does not clearly define who's "weight" needs to be considered. As I understand the definition, possibly incorrectly, the weigh has to be among people "in the field". If this is the case, then I believe this should be made more clear. Maury 13:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is that if there are statements by experts in reliable sources the POV should be presented in a neutral, plausible manner. It is appropriate to state that the POV is not a majority opinion, or that it is pseudoscience as described in equal validity and pseudoscience. 74s181 14:56, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Shakespeare examples

It would be best not to unilaterally add examples to the policy page. Please discuss them on the talk page and achieve some sort of consensus that they are appropriate first. The Shakespeare examples recently added (and removed by me) do not seem particularly illustrative. If an example is in fact needed, it should be to a stable article rather than one which is in constant flux. The balance in the cited article is tenuous at best , and it shouldn't be enshrined as a gold standard. - Nunh-huh 18:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Anthropocentrism

We don't care to mention this bias at all do we? Perhaps we should consider doing so at some point? Richard001 04:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

What kind of thing did you have in mind, Richard? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Let me try to get something clear here. Does NPOV relate to content of a page (e.g. a page presenting XYZ as if the United States is the only country in the world, i.e. content omission), or strictly to opinions asserted in the article? If it is only opinions my complaint may be misplaced. I'll have to read through this policy again, it's been over a year since I read it originally. Richard001 04:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your question, Richard. NPOV relates to content and omission, if that helps. When you say you think the policy is anthropocentric, do you mean we should say something about including the views of, say, dogs? Not that I'd be opposed to that; it's just that dogs aren't known for their reliable publishing houses. ;-D SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

What I mean is there are a lot of articles that simply look at a subject only in its relevance to humans, with no content other species, be they animals or other kingdoms. If NPOV is about opinions only then my complaint isn't relevant to this page as it stands, but if we're talking about not just opinions, but the content of an article, in terms of omission of other ways of looking at the subject, then there needs to be a mention of it. If an article dealing only with a subject as it applies to say a given country comes under NPOV, then omission of details on the subject as it applies to non-human species is also an NPOV concern - for example describing learning only in terms of human learning, and entirely omitting any information about learning in other animals. If omission of content is relevant to the NPOV policy we need to talk about this on the policy page, but if it is not then argument has no relevance. Richard001 04:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Does the issue come up? Can you give an example of where it's been a problem? Gnixon 05:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

It's a fairly widespead issue. It's a case of both ignoring the non-human side of things and the evolutionary origins of them in a large number of articles related to biology in some way or other. Look at humour for example - where does it discuss humour in animals, and its evolutionary origins? Look at infanticide - widespread throughout the animal kingdom and it had one line on the subject with no examples before today. Deciding how much weight to give to such aspects is also a concern, one that can't reasonably be decided without a values (POV) decision. And if we create a fork, should the main article (say infanticide) be about humans or all animals/species? (Infanticide (humans only) and Infanticide (zoology) or Infanticide (all animals) and Human infanticide. I can't seem to dig up anything at naming conventions, though perhaps there is a guide somewhere else? It still needs to be done on a case by case basis, but some general rules would help. Richard001 05:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you mean now. Sorry, I didn't mean to be facetious. Certainly if you can find reliable sources that discuss the effects on animals of whatever the topic is, it's fine to include them. Ditto with your learning example. It's always going to boil down to whether you can dig up good sources. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but is it relevant to NPOV or not? Do we need to add some guidelines on the subject? If we are going to do so, we could also mention other planets ('Earth-centrism' if you like) while we're at it - there are many phenomena that apply to planets besides earth, though we often neglect to mention them in articles. Richard001 05:44, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Anthropocentrism...? Well, when dolphins become Wikipedia editors maybe then we can care, otherwise it's a completely ridiculous thing to be worried about. Encyclopedias are written for humans. They reflect human views. There is no other view. As far as we know there is no other view, so there's nothing to be concerned with.

The anthropocentrism template was deleted as nonsense, and rightly so. DreamGuy 05:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

No, that was a different template saying something like 'This article does not present a 'biocentric' point of view'. Have you bothered to read any of the discussion above to understand where I am coming from? Let me restate: I am asking whether NPOV has any concern for the what is presented in an article, not just the lack of bias in presenting it. Is omission of information relating to a certain sex, people or species covered by NPOV? Richard001 06:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Read it. Not seeing any need to be worried. Humans reading an article on Cancer are mostly concerned about cancer in humans and not, say, minks. People searching for info on infanticide want to know about people killing infants and not guppies eating their own young. The content is the way it is in this case because it's what people want to see. You're a human too, or at least I presume so, so stop the self-loathing and embrace it. DreamGuy 07:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard001, as I understand it, you're referring to bias in articles where topics relevant to humans receive more and more detailed coverage than those related to other animals (such as in articles about organs, diseases, and so on). The ommission of such content is partly a result of the simple fact that there are generally more sources about humans and partly due to systemic bias (not surprising given the species affiliation of editors). It is not, however, relevant to the NPOV policy, which concerns the presentation of "views", which non-human animals do not and are not capable of holding. I believe what you're referring to is the result of an underemphasis on how various topics are relevant to animals, but that can only be corrected via editing (and addition of appropriate content). It is not, by itself, a neutrality issue. I hope this clarifies why I removed the tag. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 06:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. Shall we make it clear then that systematic bias and NPOV are different? For example saying that women do not make good scientists would be an NPOV issue, but neglecting to mention that there are any women scientists would be a systematic bias issue, correct?

I am however confused as to why Category:WikiProject Countering systemic bias is nested in Category:Wikipedia neutral point of view. In accordance with what you have said, should it not be moved up a level to Category:Wikipedia editorial validation? Richard001 07:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't work out whether this is a serious conversation or not. Earth-centrism? :-) SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, maybe I should have left that one for another day (though it is still a type of systematic bias, and relevant on articles like night, storm, carbon dioxide etc.). But yes, this is a serious discussion. Richard001 07:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

We just report what reliable sources say. That's all we do. The day the New York Times starts reporting the view from Mars, we'll follow suit, but until then, we're earthbound. :-) SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

If you don't mind me going further off topic, with other planets I mean leaving out available information in articles that is relevant. For example our material on water should discuss the presence of water on other planets as a sign for possible life or habitability, and its distribution on other planets in our solar system. Richard001 07:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

In attempting to state my point clearly, I think I may have overstated it and I apologise for that. Systemic bias can be an NPOV issue, but is not always. Consider the following examples:

1. The statement "academica in Africa is inferior to academia in Western Europe" violates NPOV, but is not really a systemic bias issue. It's an issue of one person presenting his or her opinion as fact.
2. The fact that only about 30 of 1480 featured articles (2%) are about topics related to Africa, a continent that accounts for 14% of the world population and 20% of its land area, is an indication of systemic bias, but is not directly a neutrality issue.
3. An article on the effects of globalisation that notes the views of European academics, but does not note the views of African academics, when their views differ substantially from those of their European counterparts, suffers from a POV problem that is rooted in systemic bias.
4. An article on the effects of Hurricane Ivan that notes the economic damages and loss of human life but fails to note or gives little attention to the impact on the environment or on animals may suffer from systemic bias (it depends on the extent of coverage available) but is not really an NPOV issue as there are no conflicting views involved. The issue is not that someone's opinion has been left out or that a personal opinion has been presented as fact, but rather that there are gaps in the coverage of the subject.

I hope you find these examples useful. As for why WikiProject CSB is nested in Category:Wikipedia neutral point of view, I can offer two reasons. First, addressing systemic bias can address NPOV issues (as in example 3 above). Second, neutrality is generally considered more important than coverage. Wikipedia is constantly growing, so our coverage expands over time. Systemic bias undermines the completeness of the encyclopedia, but an incomplete encyclopedia is still useful and usable. Lack of neutrality undermines the quality of the content that exists and a non-neutral encyclopedia is no better than any one of tens of thousands of online blogs or forums. -- Black Falcon ^(Talk) 07:45, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed response. I'll add it to the FAQ if you don't mind. Richard001 07:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad to have been of help. Best, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 08:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

All well put, Falcon. Gnixon 18:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems someone took this request literally! [16] No, sorry. Yes, we will automatically assume every biography is about a human, we will not specify. Yes, this is even though articles about non-humans (Rin Tin Tin, Jumbo, Socks (cat)) gives their species in the very first sentence or even article title. Yes, articles about diseases will by default be about the disease in humans, and will happily make Wikipedia:Featured article without giving equal weight, or even a mention, to any other species (Acute_myeloid_leukemia, Coeliac disease, Cystic fibrosis, Down syndrome Prostate cancer, Schizophrenia). --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 01:33, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Plausibility

Plausibility seems to be an important aspect of NPOV that isn't adequately explained. It is mentioned in WP:NPOV#Fairness_of_tone:

We should write articles with the tone that all positions presented are at least plausible, bearing in mind the important qualification about extreme minority views.

My interpretation of this is that each POV should be presented as plausible. I think the definition of plausible that is meant here is "appearing worthy of belief". That is, some group larger than a tiny minority believes 'X', this implies that they have some reason to do so, therefore, their POV should be presented as if it were plausible or 'worthy of belief'.

In other words, any POV that is significant enough to be presented on WP deserves to be presented in a plausible manner, not in a way that makes it appear ridiculous or silly. This seems like an important concept. I'd like to expand on it a bit, but before I do, I'd like to get some feedback here. 74s181 12:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the important thing is to word this properly. Neutrality means not presenting an opponent's view as implausible. It doesn't mean bending over backwards to try to make crank theories seem reasonable. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 13:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

'Reasonable' I agree with what I think you are saying, I think you mean 'reasonable' in a global sense, and in that way, 'reasonable' is not the same as 'plausible'. People view the world in different ways. A particular group has reasons for their POV that are valid within their world view. You and I may not agree with their world view, but we can see that within it their POV is reasonable. In other words, we don't agree with their conclusions, but we also don't think they're mentally ill. Perhaps for WP purposes we could define 'plausible' as, "reasonable within a non-tiny minority world view". Does that make sense? 74s181 14:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding 'crank theories', I think this is covered by 'tiny minority opinion' and 'original research'. I think that if a particular POV is held by enough people to be worthy of mention on Wikipedia it should be treated in a plausible manner. If that means bending over backwards, well, isn't that what 'writing for the enemy' means? I think 'encyclopedic' or 'neutral' tone means treating a POV respectfully without endorsing it. If we present a POV that we don't agree with in a 'plausible' manner we're doing that. I think 'plausibility' is the best word for this, that's why I'd like to expand on it. 74s181 14:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm seeing problems where they don't exist. I just worry that one day an editor is going to have to describe a position which is notable, reliably sourced, and thoroughly implausible. There are beliefs out there which are held by irrational people, or for irrational reasons, and which a neutral or mainstream observer would tend to describe as implausible. It's neutrally describing those beliefs which is difficult. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 18:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe that, generally speaking, NPOV requires presenting viewpoints from the perspective of those who support them, making the arguments that supporters actually make in favor. On controversial topics there are often Wikipedia editors with multiple views and it can be valuable to get input from editors who hold a view that seems implausible. --Shirahadasha 20:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

"...notable, reliably sourced, and thoroughly implausible." Rationality is a slippery slope, one person's fact is another person's heresy. I think that if a POV is notable and reliably sourced then WP:NPOV requires that it be presented as plausible. That doesn't mean it has to be presented as 'true' or even 'reasonable' to the majority, WP NPOV says we don't have to give a minority view undue weight or even equal validity and it is ok to identify pseudoscience as such. 74s181 13:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

However, I agree with what Shirahadasha said, minority viewpoints must be presented from the perspective of the minority which holds them. When it comes to such minority views, I think that NPOV means respect without endorsement, and I think 'plausibility' is the best word to describe that. 74s181 13:53, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. That is the Sympathetic Point of View, which Wikinfo provides. We don't do that. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

"...the Sympathetic Point of View, which Wikinfo provides..." is implemented via POV forks, which are encouraged on Wikinfo. Wikinfo also encourages original research and article ownership. All three of these practices are strictly forbidden here on Wikipedia. 74s181 23:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not advocating any of these practices. What I hope to do is help Wikipedia editors better understand Wikipedia's neutral POV policy and provide another tool to help us all do a better job of editing material we don't agree with, but I guess I'm not expressing myself clearly. So I've updated the proposal below, maybe it is better now. 74s181 23:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

A specific proposal to change the second paragraph of 'Fairness of Tone' language. Current:

If we are going to characterize disputes neutrally, we should present competing views with a consistently fair and sensitive tone. Many articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting both points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization.

We should write articles with the tone that all positions presented are at least plausible, bearing in mind the important qualification about extreme minority views. We should present all significant, competing views impartially.

Proposed replacement / expansion of second paragraph, last revised 74s181 23:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

An objective test for fairness of tone is plausibility. If a particular point of view meets the requirements for inclusion (verifiable, not original research, not a tiny minority view) then it must be treated as plausible. That is, the description of what the POV is and why it is believed must be written so as to appear worthy of belief.

One way to determine the plausibility of a particular statement or article section is to ask, "Would a member of the group with POV X agree that this is a neutral presentation of their POV?" Statements about a POV can be implausible even when references and quotes from the believing group are used. Such statements are in violation of Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy and are unnecessarily offensive to those who support the POV.

Another description of plausibility is respect without endorsement. Although it is appropriate to identify a minority view or pseudoscience as such, editors should never portray any POV as 'silly' or attempt to objectively prove one point of view by ridiculing another. Any statement describing a POV should be written so as to appear reasonable within the worldview of the group who believes it, or, in other words, as a member of the believing qroup would neutrally present it.

I've revised the proposal again to clarify that the presentation of the POV, while plausible, must also be neutral. Let me know what you think. 74s181 23:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment I don't want editors "revising" beliefs which they find implausible to match their ideas of the plausible. I don't think the exception for extreme minority beliefs is appropriate either. I suggest that:

• Editors need not give much space to extreme minority beliefs, but if they do
• Editors should treat all beliefs with respect if and when they discuss them. Jacob Haller 20:28, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, if a POV is worth presenting, it is worth presenting in a respectful manner. That's what I'm trying to say. Please help me understand how I can clarify this. 74s181 03:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Please consider Welteislehre and John Cleves Symmes, Jr. before continuing this conversation. Some ideas are, by the consensus of all but a trivial minority, silly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

"Some ideas are...silly" Many theories and beliefs widely held in the past seem 'silly' today. Some current beliefs held by large groups seem silly to those outside of the group who believes them, however, 'silliness' is not a criteria for exclusion from Wikipedia. 74s181 14:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The two articles mentioned above are excellent examples of presenting a minority POV as plausible. I found them interesting and educational. I didn't check the references so I don't know if they meet the notability / WP:RS criteria, but they look like something that belongs on WP, they are useful because they talk about historic figures and theories. What these articles lack is balance in the form of a clearer statement (with appropriate ref) that these ideas are, in fact, minority POVs or pseudoscience. Such a statement should be in the lead. One of the articles you mentioned doesn't have a lead, so a lead should be created and a statement like this should be added. 74s181 14:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I would oppose deletion of either article. But I'm against any effort to make either of them "plausible". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you and I have a different understanding of 'plausibility'. I don't think 'plausible' means you read it and are convinced, rather it means you read it and it sounds like whoever wrote it is convinced, it is believable. Take a look at plausible, if something is 'plausible' it reads as if it were true but it may not be. I really think this is the essence of NPOV, to present each POV on a particular issue as if it could be true, and to allow the reader to compare and judge for himself. 74s181 03:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, I see both articles as excellent examples of utter nonsense presented in a plausible manner. The only thing they lack is a balancing POV with appropriate references presenting the majority opinion that these theories are false. 74s181 03:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

A specific proposal to modify WP:NPOV

Does anyone object if I move forward with this and edit the article? 74s181 14:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Objection: Yes, Chris, this very discussion reveals that the terms identified here are subject to considerable variance based on personal interpretation. Can you please post here in discussion the specific change you want to implement before editing WP:NPOV? Thanks. dr.ef.tymac 18:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

First paragraph below is current language of "Fairness of tone". Second and third paragraph below replace existing second paragraph. 74s181 23:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

If we are going to characterize disputes neutrally, we should present competing views with a consistently fair and sensitive tone. Many articles end up as partisan commentary even while presenting both points of view. Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization.

An objective test for fairness of tone is plausibility. If a particular point of view meets the requirements for inclusion (verifiable, not original research, not a tiny minority view) then it must be treated as plausible. That is, the description of what the POV is and why it is believed must be written so as to appear worthy of belief. One way to determine the plausibility of a particular statement or article section is to ask, "Would a member of the group with POV X agree that this is a neutral presentation of their POV?" Statements about a POV can be implausible even when references and quotes from the believing group are used. Such statements are in violation of Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy and are unnecessarily offensive to those who support the POV.

Another description of plausibility is respect without endorsement. Although it is appropriate to identify a minority view or pseudoscience as such, editors should never portray any POV as 'silly' or attempt to objectively prove one point of view by ridiculing another. Any statement describing a POV should be written so as to appear reasonable within the worldview of the group who believes it, or, in other words, as a member of the believing qroup would neutrally present it.

That's the proposal. 74s181 23:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I thoroughly disagree with attempting to inscribe in policy a concept as fluid and ambiguous as "plausibility". That is what WP:V says: verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, that avoids the making of value judgments of "truth," "plausibility," and the like. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, maybe this particular thread has gotten too long and lost the original context. This is absolutely not about 'truth' and does not change anything about WP:V. Rather, it is about expanding upon a word already used in the current "Fairness of tone" section, that is, 'plausible'. Right now this word stands more or less as Jossi has described it, "fluid and ambiguous". I think this word defines a key NPOV concept but needs a bit more explanation. Expanding on it as I have done above could provide a tool to help editors better evaluate what they or someone else has written about a POV that they violently disagree with, or think is 'just silly'. 74s181 02:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

≈ jossi ≈ seems to have summed up the situation here pretty well. It may indeed be the case that the original proposal got drowned out by the depth of this discussion, but the potential for confusion, ambiguity, and collision with WP:V seems to outweigh the potential benefit of the proposal. This very thread demonstrates that fact.

Nevertheless, the intent of the proposal itself does seem to some have merit. Therefore I would propose simply getting *rid* of the potentially confusing term altogether. For example, the relevant paragraph can be rephrased:

   We should write articles with the tone that all competing positions presented 
   are at least worthy of independent evaluation, bearing in mind the important 
   qualification about extreme minority views. We should present all significant, 
   competing views impartially, and leave judgments about the credibility of any given
   "side" in a dispute to the readers.

This obviates the need to clarify "plausibility" and also takes into account that some viewpoints may lack credibility, or even be thoroughly discredited, but still get the right to "state their case" unvarnished by the opinions of editors. Moreover, the "jury" that evaluates notions of "plausibility" are our readers, and we just neutrally transcribe the "cases" as presented by the reliable and verifiable outside references. dr.ef.tymac 20:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I was in a bit of a hurry and missed the mark in my earlier statement, the problem is not that 'plausible' is "fluid and dynamic" the problem is with "Fairness of tone". The jury, or reader, evaluates notions of Truth, not 'plausibility'. If NPOV has truly been achieved then all POVs will appear 'plausible' to all readers. As editors we are required to present all POVs as possibly true, in a fair and neutral manner. IMHO, the desired reader response is "I don't believe this but I can see why group X does."

'Neutral' is well defined, and easy to reach. However, 'Fairness of tone' is an aspect of NPOV that is much more subjective. A particular POV can easily be 'neutralized' as described in 'A simple formulation' while remaining partisan or 'unfair'. Applying the 'plausibility' test makes it easier to achieve fairness.

Plausible is used in the current 'Fairness of tone' section because it is a word that has a specific meaning: superficially fair, reasonable, pleasing, or persuasive; appearing worthy of belief. It doesn't mean something is true, it just means that it is written as if it is true, it appears to be 'worthy of belief'. So, the idea is, a little more emphasis on plausibility makes it easier to achieve both fairness and neutrality when we're writing about a POV that we think is 'silly'. We can look at what has been written and say, 'it doesn't look plausible, therefore, it isn't neutral yet'. It also provides a tool for an editor who subscribes to a minority POV to use when discussing neutrality and fairness with an editor who holds a different POV and insists that his wording is 'factual' and 'neutral'. It can be 'factual', and 'neutral', but still "radiate an implied stance" and not meet the spirit of NPOV. But if it isn't 'plausible' it clearly needs more work. 74s181 03:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"I don't believe this but I can see why group X does." isn't quite subtle enough. It needs to be more, "I don't believe this but I can see the arguments group X use."

Certain positions are held relying on unreasonable arguments. We understand that self-reinforcement allows groups to establish wholly unreasonable positions, yet their views are sincerely held. Often crackpot theories rely on standard con-artist techniques, some slight of hand of making 1 - 1 = 20 - 20, therefore 1 = 20. Where a reasonable person should be expected to accept that it is a slight of hand, there should be no reason for Wikipedia to present this slight of hand as plausible. We can accept that 1000 years ago, flat earth was reasonable, we present the obvious argument that the average person only had the evidence of their own eyes and travelled little - it was not actually relevant or of interest to them. Within that context, it can be presented as plausible. In the modern age, there is so much compelling evidence that no reasonable person should accept a flat earth - too many other things have to be dismissed. There should be no reason for a flat earth to be presented as a plausible position. What you can do is present their logic baldly, without comment, knowing that any reasonable person would dismiss it. If you go the extra step and make it plausible, (and how would you do that convincingly for a flat earth argument?) you are being unreasonable.

Flat earth is easy, Pseudo-religions, for example, become harder, but there should be no need to feel compelled to present the spirit of imprisoned spacemen from a million years ago documented as being devised by an SF writer as entirely plausible. We can document the tenets of the system without judgement, but that will not make it plausible to a reasonable person. The plausibility comes by explaining the environment in which that belief system has been cultured which allows us to understand why otherwise reasonable people hold unreasonable positions. Spenny 08:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Reply to 74s181: A basic problem with this scenario is the discussion gets bogged down too easily. Resolving this issue based on a "consensus definition" of the underlying concept is difficult enough. The depth and complexity of this discussion should be a sign to us. If we really want to "clarify" the terms of NPOV, we should avoid wandering into an intellectual tarpit.

Please consider Spenny's examples: 1 - 1 = 20 - 20, therefore 1 = 20 and flat earth. Both of these examples demonstrate how the term you are trying to clarify has context-specific application. To repeat Spenny: "What you can do is present their logic baldly, without comment". Injecting "plausibility" into apparently specious viewpoints (that nonetheless warrant inclusion in WP for some reason or another) is just not our job.

Respectfully, I would suggest refinement of "plausibility" is o.k. for theoretical discussion, but not o.k. for clarifying WP:NPOV. It doesn't seem to help, and it would be better to avoid elaborating on the term entirely. dr.ef.tymac 11:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

You and I were editing at the same time, I got an 'edit conflict' when posting my response. I have responded in detail below, but I wanted to address one thing you said. "...apparently specious viewpoints..." is exactly what I'm talking about. 'Specious' is part of the definition of 'plausible'. There are things that most people think are 'silly' that are notable and belong on WP. If these things are presented as 'silly', people will ask, why is it included at all? Let the facts speak for themselves says: "If you do not allow the facts to speak for themselves you may alienate readers and turn them against your position." My interpretation of A simple formulation is that the statement of what people believe is a 'fact', as long as we have a WP:RS to support it. NPOV requires us to present the fact of what the group believes in a neutral but plausible manner. After the plausible presentation of the 'silly' POV we should then identify it as a minority opinion or pseudoscience with statement or quote from another WP:RS. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

More explanation by 74s181

"...I can see the arguments group X use." Why can you 'see' them, what is it that you see? You see that they are plausible, or worthy of belief. That doesn't mean that you believe them, but some non-tiny-minority group does, and we're not calling for straitjackets. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I certainly would not see that. I can see that some people make claims and we can report them - that is fair. The fact that I can see the claims are tosh is my business that I keep to myself. I can see that they are entirely unworthy of belief, even that those who make such claims may not honestly believe they are plausible, but we look to sources to fight the argument. What we do not do is take those sources and then look at the result and say: Shoot! that result doesn't look very believable, we better change the article. Spenny 14:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"1 - 1 = 20 - 20, therefore 1 = 20" I'm not familiar with this particular 'crackpot theory', but I suspect those who believe it present it in a slightly different, less 'bald' manner. The policy language I've proposed says that it should be presented as the believers would, but then it should be identified as pseudoscience with a reliable source quote like: "the arguments of group X can be boiled down to '1 - 1 = 20 - 20, therefore 1 = 20' which is obviously false". In other words, if the pseudoscience or minority POV is really pseudoscience, or a minority, then there should be plenty of majority POV / reliable source quotes available for rebutal, it isn't necessary for the editor to editorialize. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"...1000 years ago, flat earth was reasonable... average person only had the evidence of their own eyes and travelled little... Within that context, it can be presented as plausible." Exactly what I was saying earlier, within a given world view. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"...modern age... compelling evidence...no reasonable person... There should be no reason for a flat earth to be presented as a plausible position." But that is exactly what you did. You presented the world view of the believing group in a plausible manner. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Not really. The point was to observe that there is a context in which we can present a view as fair, and there is a different context where it would be unfair to present a view as plausible. Spenny 14:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"...present their logic baldly, without comment..." It is often possible, even easy to present the believer's POV out of context, using only true statements and even quotes from experts within the believing group, and make the POV appear to be 'silly', or, IOW, implausible. I think the result is not truly neutral, this is why the "Fairness of tone" section was written. My goal is to expand it and make the judgement of 'fairness' more objective. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"...any reasonable person would dismiss it..." You and I dismiss it because our world view includes other knowleege, but we can both 'see' why the ancients believed it. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"...If you go the extra step and make it plausible..." that is exactly what you did when you presented the context or world view of the believing group. You placed the beliefs in context, you didn't imply that those who held the beliefs at that time were insane. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"...Pseudo-religions...harder...imprisoned spacemen...SF writer..." Sounds like you're talking about Scientology, if so, you've picked a good example. I am not a Scientologist, I don't accept Hubbard's cosmology, but I suspect most Scientologists do, at least as much as most Christians and Jews accept Book of Genesis cosmology. Scientologists probably believe that Hubbard figured these things out, not that he made them up. Therefore, if I were going to attempt to edit any of the Scientology articles I would want to present their beliefs respectfully, without endorsement. Or in other words, as plausible. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I took a quick look at the Scientology article, at this moment the lead looks like it could be a bit more neutral, more 'plausible'. The statement "...created by American pulp fiction author L. Ron Hubbard..." is a bit of a problem, it "...radiate(s) an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization", do you see that? It implies that Hubbard, a writer of fiction, 'created' or wrote Scientology just like he wrote many other works of 'pulp fiction'. Therefore, Scientology is a crock, right?

I believe the statement violates "Fairness of tone". I believe it could be more neutral, more fair, more plausible, without being 'false' or offensive to those who reject Scientology. Is there a more neutral verb than 'created'? Must we identify Hubbard as a 'pulp fiction' author in this particular statement? This particular construction is only important if you're trying to 'prove' something. It shouldn't be necessary to do this, I say, let the facts speak for themselves. "...the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man"—we don't need to..." Similarly, the article on Scientology doesn't need to start with "...created by American pulp fiction author..." Maybe this particular example is a bit extreme, but I think it illustrates the need to improve the definition of "Fairness of tone", to make it more objective. 74s181 13:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

That Scientology was created by L Ron Hubbard is documented fact. That it undermines the reader's ability to believe it as a religion is you expressing your POV, it is a fact the reader has to deal with. Similarly, you see pulp fiction author, again a factual position (though I am not convinced pulp fiction is an encyclopaedic term, I'd use dreadful or similar!), as undermining plausibility, therefore this fact should not be juxtaposed. However, a truly neutral view has to present this rather implausible piece of information, that an author of little note should have stumbled on the secret to life, the universe and everything. We should not distort reality in our effort to make the case in favour. It is not an easy task to get this right, and it seems to me that fairness of tone could encompass a certain amount of incredulity when preposterous suggestions are made. That is fair. Plausible has the potential to be more than fair. There is no easy formula. Spenny 14:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Basic point: "clarification" here in talk vs edits to WP:NPOV

To 74s181 we seem to be talking past one another here. You've reiterated some points that no one seems to be disagreeing with. Nevertheless, there are threshold considerations that you don't seem to be addressing. Consider these basic "questions" and "responses".

• (A) Is "fairness of tone" an important element of WP:NPOV? Response: "Yes! Indeed!";
• (B) Do "apparently specious" viewpoints sometimes merit inclusion in WP? Response: "Yes! sometimes they do."
• (C) does "fairness of tone" apply even to instances of (B)? Response: "Yes! Fairness of tone applies to all viewpoints worthy of inclusion in WP."
• (D) are A through C interesting to talk about and consider? Response: "Sure, I don't see why not."
• (E) does the specific proposal by 74s181 constitute an improvement of the definition for "fairness of tone"? Response: "So far, no, because the potential for added confusion is just as likely, if not more likely, than the potential for added clarification."

So far, you've given pretty elaborate and even well-reasoned discussion of points A through D. My guess is you'd probably agree (at least partially) with all the responses above to those points. Point (E), however, seems to be the most glaring point of disagreement here; a point made (at least indirectly) by more than one contributor to this discussion; a point reinforced by the very length of this (ever growing) discussion thread.

So far, there's no evidence to conclude your proposed clarification is going to help, but ample evidence to suggest it is going to confuse people. Even the people who entirely understand what you are saying do not agree that your proposal is going to fix more than it breaks. dr.ef.tymac 14:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying the discussion, I can now see where I have failed to understand the objections, hopefully I can now state my concern in a way that will be more easily understood. 74s181 16:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Let's put the word 'plausible' aside for the moment. How about:

• (E) Is the current description of "Fairness of tone" sufficiently objective and citable? Response: "No, I've had difficulty with other editors over this concept."
• (F) How can we improve the description of "Fairness of tone" to make it objective, understandable, and enforceable?

Does that make sense? 74s181 16:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense. I think people can have problems with that section in both directions, worded to allow too strong a representation of dubious points of view, and not strong enough for some that will later be seen to be well-founded.

The word fairness is the key point. It does not mean show bias towards presenting the viewpoint, it simply means fair. So I picked out that plausible has the potential to be unfair - rewarding a viewpoint more than it deserves. Also, plausibly presenting one view might damage another view, it really depends on context. For example, if we fairly present the creationist viewpoint in the evolution article as plausible, then, to be fair within the totality of Wikipedia, there are potentially a large number of articles that have to be adjusted to match this plausible view: there is a chunk of science that has to be abandoned or amended. At some point we have to go with a view of what the totality of human knowledge is believed to be. Spenny 18:07, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I have questions about some of the things you've said. 74s181 01:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"...potential to be unfair - rewarding a viewpoint more than it deserves" Deserves, according to whom? The reader should judge, not the editor. 74s181 01:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting point to pick up on. At some point, the editor has to put themselves in the place of the reader and determine how the presentation will be read. You cannot magically absolve an editor of the responsibility of this. Put another way, how can we judge how a reader will perceive an article aside from, as editors, reading it and make our judgement, using consensus as our guide. What mechanism do you perceive that could resolve this? Spenny 08:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"...presenting one view might damage another view" Is this really possible? I can see two ways this would happen. 1) too much attention to a minority POV, this is limited by WP:UNDUE. 2) An excessively positive presentation, but any WP:RS statement that is properly attributed and neutralized is ok, right? So, if statements supporting a minority POV are limited in length relative to the majority POV as described in undue weight, reliably sourced and properly neutralized as described inA simple formulation, how can the presentation be too positive? 74s181 01:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

If an article is written well, there should not be an issue. Policy is about dealing with when things are not written properly. My point is that by making too much effort to present a point of view plausibly, as opposed to fairly, there can come a point where you rubbish other points of view. Back to the con man analogy, the point about many crackpot theories is that they have their basis in wrong but plausible thinking. If you present things fairly you may feel obliged to omit the foundations of sand on which the dubious theory is built on, the fallacy that those who support the point of view chose to dismiss. Spenny 08:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"...creationist viewpoint in the evolution article..." The main topic of the 'Evolution' article is the evolution POV and creationism is the alternate POV. Within the 'Creationism' article, creationism should the main topic, and evolution the 'alternate' POV. If evolution is the majority POV then does WP:UNDUE require that the majority of the creationism article be about the evolution POV? That seems obviously wrong, is there anything in WP policy that describes this? 74s181 01:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"...to be fair...large number of articles that have to be adjusted to match this plausible view:...science that has to be abandoned or amended. At some point we have to go with a view of what the totality of human knowledge is believed to be." I really don't understand what you meant by this. 74s181 01:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

My point was simple. Wikipedia as a complete work is going to represent the current consensus view on what is believed to represent the mainstream views of human knowledge. Things like creationism have logical contradictions with that view. While we can resolve local difficulties within articles on evolution, what we are not charged with doing is presenting for example a fundamentalist Christian point of view throughout the encyclopaedia, and adapt the contents so someone reading Wikipedia who ascribes to the theory that the world was created in 4000BC can see their POV asserted within articles on geology and dinosaurs and so on? If you accept that Wikipedia as a whole is designed to be a view on the consensus position of human knowledge, then the anxiety about fairness (as opposed to fairness of tone) should reduce. I think there is an important difference here: to me, fairness of tone is saying, "be civil in what you say and how you say it", not "be supportive". A neutral point of view is not an uncritical point of view, hence the elements of undue weight and all the other elements of policy that come together to attempt to write a sane encyclopaedia. Spenny 08:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not saying that the Evolution article and all the other geology, dinosaur, etc. articles should be restructured to look like the Creationism article. What I am saying, is that "Fairness of tone" requires that the Creationism article should be structured like the Evolution article, rather than having the scientific POV scattered all through it. You said "consensus position of human knowledge", well, what people believe is part of that knowledge. Even if what they believe isn't 'true' that shouldn't matter to Wikipedia, the description of their belief should be presented fairly, without interruption. 74s181 14:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

A related thought. It looks to me like there is a difference between the presentation of a given POV, or, IOW, the description, the 'what' of the POV, versus the discussion about the POV, history, criticism, apologetics, etc. I think this is why the majority of the 'Creationism' article should be about creationism, with the evolution POV only a small part of the article even though in the 'global' view it may be the majority POV. It is interesting that the Evolution article strictly follows this model, while the Creationism article is riddled with evolution POV from begining to end. So, which is correct, which is the Wiki-way, and how can we clarify the policy on this? 74s181 01:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read the article thoroughly but it does look to be superficially that the Creationism article is written with a rebuttal of creationism running through it. We have had a similar problem on the Factory farming article. Sometimes you need to set down what it is and then deal with the opinion, whereas if you try and balance each statement, you end up with a stream of criticism woven through the text, which does not give the reader credit for being able to evaluate the presentation - it is not, if you like, fairness of tone. However, I would have said that by the end of the article, the reader must be allowed, even encouraged, to conclude that Creationism is not accepted by the consensus view of the state of human knowledge, otherwise NPOV has not been met. There is a similar issue with citation, where sometimes editing is undermined by looking at citations on a sentence by sentence basis, rather than stepping back as a whole and asking whether the article as a whole is justified by the source as a whole.

In the real world, if you are presenting something you say, stop interrupting, hear me out, then let's discuss the issues. Spenny 08:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"...stop interrupting, hear me out, then let's discuss the issues." I agree. Where is the WP policy that says this? I am in desperate need of it right now, but I don't think it exists. The idea of 'plausibility' in the "Fairness of tone" section was the closest thing I could find, but it wasn't adequately explained. Since I called attention to this the word "plausible" has been removed from "Fairness of tone". I guess I should shut up before "Fairness of tone" is deleted altogether. 74s181 14:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

To 74s181: the only point worth adding here to Spenny's reply is that (F) is a legitimate (although esoteric) question, but perhaps the more straightforward solution is to take a "step back" and discuss the specific difficulties you've had with other editors. Generally, it is a good idea to refrain from changes to WP policy and guidelines as a means of resolving specific disputes, especially when discussion and clarification on the relevant talk page is the prescribed and customary way to deal with this kind of thing.

That's not to discredit your points or analysis, but it seems like there's a missing horse somewhere that needs to be looked at before we start talking about the cart. dr.ef.tymac 00:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

You're right, there is a particular dispute. I've tried and tried to resolve it, I've repeatedly quoted excerpts from the WP:NPOV policy, I tried going thru the dispute resolution process, the response I got was that my complaint looked like a content dispute that the ArbCom was notoriously bad at resolving. Clearly, "Fairness of tone" is important but is not sufficiently objective, understandable, and citable. That is, it has failed me as an editor, I want to improve it. I'm not trying to produce an Ex post facto law if that's what you're worried about. I'm just trying to 'fix' this for the next time I or any other minority POV editor runs into a POV warrior like the one I'm dealing with right now. And, BTW, I have an RfC going on right now based strictly on behavior. 74s181 01:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

O.k. 74s181, it should be emphasized that the substance of the dispute, or any pending RfC does not detract from the independent merit of the views you've expressed here. You raise some very good points. The problem, however, is that this 'fix' remains a quite remote and improbable outcome when we take into consideration all the factors at play here.

Already there is a sizable chunk of this discussion thread that is quite frankly getting close to being "way off topic" for this talk page.

Given your obvious ability and willingness to discuss complex issues with clarity, consistency and mature appeals to objectivity (something that is greatly appreciated and worthy of respect) it is becoming increasingly difficult to see the compelling need for your proposed changes to WP:NPOV itself. You say "it has failed you" despite the fact that the greatest "safety net" for content disputes is your own ability to sensibly interpret and discuss difficult matters on a case-by-case basis. Unless there is a blatant logical contradiction or inconsistency, no amount of policy re-writing is going to help 'fix' fundamental differences of perspective among contributors who sincerely consider their viewpoints to be reasonable and impartial.

Respectfully, it seems the best suggestion here is to refrain from pursuing a 'fix' to "fairness of tone", and instead pursue a more direct resolution of the relevant issues on the discussion pages for specific articles. dr.ef.tymac 09:18, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible need to address bias

When editing an article on a controversial topic, there are two choices when friendly persuasion and appeals to common sense fail. One can walk away and allow the POV warrior have his way (thus allowing Wikipedia to suffer) or one can follow the dispute resolution process. An objective standard is needed in order for disinterested third parties to be able to evaluate certain kinds of disputes. The neutral point of view policy is part of that objective standard. I have pointed out a weakness. You have said it can't be fixed, and that I shouldn't waste any more time trying. 74s181 14:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I had another thought on this, then I'll shut up and go away. There is considerable discussion about systemic bias. Looking over this discussion I see such a bias, one that perhaps has not been previously identified. It is the the bias of science. If a POV conflicts with 'science' then obviously it is wrong. If neither of two conflicting POVs have a scientific basis, then they aren't important, they are both 'silly' and not worth the time of any 'real' editor or ArbCom member. Although I am a 'believer', I am also a technologist, and I see the scientific method as an incredibly useful tool for providing food and shelter. However, science itself has proven that there are things which are true but cannot be proven scientifically, and things which are false but cannot be disproved, although most science-biased people won't admit it. What is 'love'? What is 'happiness'? These things are real and science has spent a lot of time trying to dissect them but has always failed. Who is God? Most WP editors are technologists, they have a scientific bias, and many think that certain things are just 'silly' or not worth wasting time on. I think that this may be why the other editors here don't see a problem with "Fairness of tone", and don't want to waste any more time discussing it. 74s181 14:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

If you don't think the 'science' systemic bias exists, look at how the scientific POV is scattered throughout the Creationism article, then look at how the creationist POV is boxed into one tiny corner of the Evolution article. Then consider what most of the world believes, and not just most of the english-speaking, North American, educated, computer-literate editors of Wikipedia. 74s181 14:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I suspect what most of the world believes would not be a good test for you to adopt to assert your point of view... what most of the world believes may not be what you believe that most of the world believes. Spenny 14:42, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

And there it is. 74s181 15:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

You appear to be suggesting that I believe that you believe that I believe that what the computer-literate believe the rest of the world believes is not the same as the rest of the world believes, but I am not part of your specified subset so I am not sure if you know what I believe about I believe others believe, or what a reader would believe having read what you believe is not what most people believe but I believe is what people believe, I believe. Though I may not believe it. Spenny 16:00, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

And there it is again. All I can take from your two statements is that you think my POV is silly. 74s181 03:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I was being facetious and that was a little unnecessary. You are missing my point though. Your view appears to be that creationism and related issues are not given due weight and suitable respect. The problem is from what viewpoint do you assess a neutral point of view? You are suggesting that there is a systematic bias amongst editors: that may well be true. However, you then make another assumption that the population as a whole are more accepting of the creationist standpoint. I disagree, the world is not made up of fundamentalist, primarily American, Christians, and however sincerely you believe it, it is at that end of the spectrum that that sits. However, neither my view nor your view should count.

Having said that, I also think it is a very difficult task to work out what a proper balance is, and I think that ultimately policy ducks the issue, because although we can describe creationism as a theory neutrally, we cannot describe the debate about it without noting that it is widely dismissed outside the fundamentalist, American, Christian world. I'm not sure you would be content with that last bit. You do not resolve the lack of balance by asserting a different viewpoint.

Put simply, yes I do believe the creationist point of view is silly, but it needs to be properly presented. By properly presenting it people can come to their own judgement, if only to understand why people like yourself find it plausible. It is not the job of Wikipedia to make converts, nor is it the job to undermine it, it is the job to outline the facts. Faith doesn't really get look in, and it is faith that is often used to make 1 = 20.

I pointed out that the Creationism article was not properly written, and even though I think creationism is a load of mumbo-jumbo clap-trap I still think that the article is poorly written and should allow the creationist case to be stated without the sniping all the way through it. I would object if the article did not have a strong "health warning" about the lack of acceptance in the wider community, but that would need to backed up with solid evidence that shows it is not just some propeller head editor making it up.

Final point: I do also agree with you that there is a blind acceptance of "Scientists say" as some magical indication of "case closed". That is not just a Wikipedia problem, it is far more widespread. There is a big difference between the assertions of a carefully argued scientific paper, and the general pronouncements of a member scientific community. However, that is not a religious point of view, it is an observation that scientists have all the human foibles of the rest of the community. 09:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

"...it is the job to outline the facts. Faith doesn't really get look in..." This illustrates the problem. I think that what you are really saying is, "...it is the job to outline the scientific facts." An editor with the science bias might read this and say, 'what other kinds of facts are there?' According to Wp:NPOV#A_simple_formulation, we are to "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." Articles should report on the debate but avoid engaging in it. Measuring every topic against the yardstick of science is engaging in the debate. That is what is wrong with the Creationism article, I'm sure that those who did this felt like they were 'neutralizing' the POV, keeping it 'fair', but the result is a demonstration of the science bias. 74s181 13:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

To 74s181, here are some points you may (or may not) wish to consider:

• 1) Lumping "other editors" into cookie-cutter monolithic groups may be seen as unhelpful by some, since every pair of eyeballs sees the world from a unique perspective. You have yours, I have mine, Spenny has his, others have theirs;
• 2) As far as I can tell, no one contributing to this thread has said a "fix" would be impossible (or even a "waste of time") ... but then even *you* admit there are proven limitations in certain symbolic systems (including the English language, which is all we have to communicate with) and some things simply cannot be expressed *easily* ... this voluminous thread seems like pretty reasonable evidence all by itself;
• 3) Sometimes, people avoid discussing things not because they are "biased" or "afraid to admit something" but simply because busy people generally do not like reading through huge discussion threads ... sometimes a little extra effort to make text concise and easily scannable can go a long way.
• 4) There's been plenty discussion and debate about whether NPOV == SPOV. Contrary to what some might think, not every WP contributor thinks they are one in the same.

As I said previously, none of these points are offered to discredit your viewpoints; some of which are quite well-stated -- but there are always practical limitations. Take from that what you will. Regards. dr.ef.tymac 17:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"Lumping "other editors...cookie-cutter monolithic groups..." The 'cookie-cutter' group came right out of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. The responses I was getting made me think that the "...other editors here don't see a problem...". Here are some samples:

There are beliefs out there which are held by irrational people, or for irrational reasons, and which a neutral or mainstream observer would tend to describe as implausible

I disagree. That is the Sympathetic Point of View, which Wikinfo provides. We don't do that.

I don't want editors "revising" beliefs which they find implausible to match their ideas of the plausible

Some ideas are, by the consensus of all but a trivial minority, silly.

I would oppose deletion of either article. But I'm against any effort to make either of them "plausible".

I thoroughly disagree with attempting to inscribe in policy a concept as fluid and ambiguous as "plausibility".

...the potential for confusion, ambiguity, and collision with WP:V seems to outweigh the potential benefit of the proposal.

...there is a different context where it would be unfair to present a view as plausible

...plausible has the potential to be unfair - rewarding a viewpoint more than it deserves.

Also, plausibly presenting one view might damage another view...

That's what I meant by "...other editors here don't see a problem..." 74s181 03:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

"...proven limitations..." Yes, we're dealing with human language, not machine language, there is always someone motivated enough to find the loophole. But as it stands, "Fairness of tone" barely even attempts to 'build a fence'. 74s181 03:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

"...huge discussion threads..." I know I have problem with this, my /V switch defaults to on. 74s181 03:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

"NPOV == SPOV" A purposeful SPOV is part of what I'm talking about, but my bigger concern is a subtle SPOV bias that is inherent in many WP editors as a result of their demographic. 74s181 03:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate that you have taken the time to read and respond to my concerns. Since there doesn't seem to be any support for making any kind of change I'll drop this for now. 74s181 03:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Rethinking dimensions of "Fairness"

Earlier, Spenny said:

In the real world, if you are presenting something you say, stop interrupting, hear me out, then let's discuss the issues. Spenny 08:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This is the difference between the Creationism and Evolution articles. This is what I'm looking for in the WP:NPOV policy, but I can't find it. This is what I meant by 'plausibility'. I think it is related to "Fairness" although I can see that perhaps it is not strictly "Fairness of tone". If this concept is already in WP:NPOV I've missed it, can someone please point it out? And if it isn't there, does anyone else besides me support trying to add it? 74s181 13:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that you have a think about that issue, and under a new heading come up with a simple formulation. Try and think about it not just from faith issues but from the simple case of allowing the facts to be fairly presented. How about "Where a concept is subject to critical debate, there should first be a neutral attempt to describe the concept without introducing the criticism. Balance should be tested across the article, not on a sentence by sentence basis."? You could have a new section "Fairness of approach" instead of Fairness of tone. I think this could be a useful addition, though it might be a style guide rather than a policy. Spenny 14:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

@74s181 ... The section Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Article_structure almost touches on this, (see the last bullet item in the list). You may want to consider proposing a concise, authoritative and direct addition to that section that addresses the deficiency you want to fix. You might also consider archiving this discussion and starting over before you propose any specific new wording. Just some thoughts. dr.ef.tymac 15:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting to note the comment in the MoS:

Separating all the controversial aspects of a topic into a single section results in a very tortured form of writing, especially a back-and-forth dialogue between "proponents" and "opponents". It also creates a hierarchy of fact — the main passage is "true" and "undisputed", whereas the rest are "controversial" and therefore more likely to be false, an implication that may often be inappropriate.

Though I understand the point, I think it has the potential to be disruptive. In Factory farming, there was a lot of proponents say this, opponents say that, but in fact quite a few of the issues would not be disputed by either side. There were two issues, one was describing what this form of farming was, and then a second issue where we discover that there are health and ethical issues. If you dive straight into the ethics, without first having the understanding of the subject, you get a fairly unstructured article. It actually encouraged a very POV stance because every fact was discussed within the context of an ethical battle. Spenny 22:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the Factory farming article. I can see some of the same POV problems that we've been dealing with in First Vision, and Factory farming has nothing to do with religion, unless you consider animal activism a form of religion. 74s181 01:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The irony is that in my view, as an caring meat eater is that the case for humane treatment is better served by a factual exposition of what goes on that cannot be dismissed as animal rights POV-pushing. Further, most of the people who wanted a more neutral exposition of the subject did not disagree that there were major ethical and health issues and wanted these properly covered, but there was a movement a foot to make the article as biased as possible from the first sentence. 90% of the controversy was structure, not giving the subject room to breath, not daring to let one statement go unchallenged for fear that the reader might not read the article properly. I might mosey on by First Vision and see what I think as a confirmed atheist. Spenny 08:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I see your problem. There is a determination in the tone of the article to show up all the inconsistencies. I think it needs to separate those as different POVs rather than make the article hold to a dismissive conclusion throughout, with its tone. Spenny 09:20, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

"...dismissive conclusion throughout, with its tone." Yes, that is exactly right. Do you mind if I quote you on talk:First Vision, "...as a confirmed athiest"? 74s181 12:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I am hardly a reliable source :) but feel free to quote me. Spenny 12:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I looked at WP:MOS, couldn't find the above quote. I agree that separating controversy creates a back-and-forth dialogue, but I think that when there is a lot of controversy the back-and-forth occurs in-line and makes the article unreadable. 74s181 01:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

My fault, it was actually buried in Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Article_structures_that_can_imply_a_point_of_view Words to avoid!. Not exactly intuitive! Spenny 08:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, now I see it. This is interesting:

Since many of the topics in an encyclopedia will inevitably encounter controversy, editors should write in a manner that folds debates into the narrative rather than "distilling" them out into separate sections that ignore each other.

I think the first paragraph says, don't have a separate section for the debate. The second paragraph says, don't separate POV A into one section and POV B into another section. However, I've seen how ugly things can get if the debate occurs in-line, I'm sure you have as well. I think a good label is 'NPOV bloat', where each POV wants to respond / counter-respond ad infinitem, and the subject of the article gets lost in the debate. 74s181 12:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe an objective way of identifying different article types, followed by a statement of what structure is most appropriate for each would be helpful. In the case of both First Vision and Factory farming there is a belief or practice which is highly controversial. I think the appropriate structure is to first state as neutrally or possible, the who / what / where / when of the belief or practice, then have a 'response' section where different POVs on the belief / practice are explored. That would be the "stop interrupting, hear me out, then let's discuss the issues" format. Unfortunately, this doesn't work 100% for the First Vision as the 'when' is part of the controversy. 74s181 12:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The trick would be an objective method for classifying types of articles. One way might be a simple comparison of how much of the article text is 'undisputed facts' ("Mars is a planet"), vs how much is 'disputed facts' ("the Beatles are the best band"). If the dispute is large relative to the article as a whole, then the undisputed facts are presented first, followed by a 'response' section. If the dispute is smaller, then the dispute is folded into the article without a separate response section. This would require an objective method for determining the size of the dispute, as well as a clear definition of "large" and "small". 74s181 12:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

There may be more than two types, there may be a better measuring stick, there may be a better structure for controversial articles. But I think the bigger problem is that some editors will resist any attempt to dictate article structure as policy. I think it has to be policy, because what we're talking about is enforcing neutrality. The First Vision and Factory farming articles are clearly biased, but they don't violate NPOV policy in any objectively quantifiable way. This is why my first attempt at dispute resolution failed, the ArbCom saw the problem as a content dispute and didn't want to get involved, IMHO, this was because there was no objective standard. The only tool I have on First Vision is that the problem editor is acting as owner of the article, so I'm pursuing dispute resolution on that basis, but it's going to take a long time. 74s181 12:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

• You should be aware that some of us believe that the terms ‘POV warrior’ and ‘problem editor’ are more suitable for you than for any other editor involved with the First Vision article. Duke53 | ^Talk 13:42, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

While that may or may not be the case, I think it is unhelpful to make personal attacks (even if he started it(!). Spenny 15:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I mentioned anyone by name, therefore, I don't think I made a personal attack. Ok, I did provide a link to the RfC, the link contains the user name, sorry. 74s181 16:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I've been trying to learn the lesson myself. It doesn't matter if they are unnamed, they know who they are and will take it personally, deserved or not. It's better not to go there (and yes, I am an offender too!) Spenny 16:35, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I have looked at WP:NPOV#Article_structure before and decided that it wasn't very helpful because bullet one and three could be contradictory in some cases. I agree that this is probably the right place to add this clarification. It is interesting that Article structure has a 'main article' tag to Manual of style, but Article structure talks about POV issues, while Manual of style carefully avoids any discussion of POV. 74s181 01:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll think about this a bit and maybe try again. 74s181 01:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

As a historical note, the apparent inconsistency of the 'main article' tag actually stems from the fact that MoS was the impetus for adding that section here in the first place. Some contributors considered the issue to be mostly a stylistic concern, and thus the 'main article' tag was a way of saying "if you want more detail on this, you should probably be reading the manual of style instead" ... others may disagree with my summary the facts, but that's pretty much my recollection. dr.ef.tymac 01:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)