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the article titled conspiracy theories on obama'a citizenship is somewhat less than neutral. no one but wikipaedea has made referance to any conspiracies. there is a fact, undisputed, that obamas father was is englishman, and so barak is an englishman unless otherwise so declaired. there are no crackpot conspiracy theorists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.98.13.100 ( talk) 17:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Moving this discussion from the BLP/N, as this is not a living person . Stephen E. Ambrose, eminent author of many best-sellers, has been dogged by accusations of inaccuracy. But I think that exploration of these issues in his biographical article has skewed the entire piece, so that it is essentially an attack or hit piece. That is my opinion and I'd like to get other viewpoints from persons not regularly editing the article. CheeseStakeholder ( talk) 21:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
It is observed that the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angika_language has been redirected to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Maithili_(Angika). This is a case of vendalism. You are requested to restore the original page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angika_language. -- — Angpradesh — talk 15:13, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
At Talk:Beslan_school_hostage_crisis#Neutrality a user posted an accusation of the article not being NPOV. The claim has not been examined, and it's been a few months... WhisperToMe ( talk) 16:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
While trying to assist in a discussion ( current thread) that I found at WP:DRN, User:Betty Logan suggested we get input on the neutrality of one of my edits, which was based in large part on some of hers but with additional sources. She and I are both attempting to resolve differences between User:Gothicfilm, who believes the text is undue weight and the three Apes movies in question are not prequels except in an expansive sense, and User:Barsoomian, who believes they are prequels sufficiently so to be listed in the prequel table.
There is technically an open RFC on the talk page, which led to the DRN, but the current active section is as above and the active editors are making progress only slowly. It is my opinion on reviewing both sides of the dispute that some reliable sources refer to the 3 movies as prequels, that a couple give language from which it might be logically inferred they are not prequels (slight OR, but we don't want to force anyone to prove negatives), and that both source sets should be reflected in the article. (Many sources simply ignore the question and use the word "sequels", which begs the unsourced question of whether sequels and prequels are mutually exclusive.)
The language might qualify as undue because it's two sentences focused on a particular franchise; we basically agreed some franchise should serve as an example, and we had been working with Star Trek as a better example, and so having a second example may be straining at a gnat. However, keeping the language in is not the important question: the dispute turns on whether the three films should be listed in the table with the gray coloring to indicate their disputed status. So I reinserted the language to see if all parties agreed with its neutrality as a baseline, as it might answer the more heated table question. One solution is if Gothicfilm should agree that the insertion is correct and thus the table addition would be valid in lieu; another is if Barsoomian should agree that the sources indicating "these are prequels" are only a tiny minority unfit for inclusion; there may be middle ground (graying lines in the table was a good start, I think).
The debate has also been shown to extend to categorization of these three movies just about everywhere else on WP.
Local questions: 1. Does the edit represent both sides neutrally, or what language would be better? 2. Are the sources there sufficient to indicate adding the three movies to the table, or what easy way would demonstrate they are only a tiny minority? Let the fur fly! JJB 01:50, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Ah. To clarify to the board: (1) Yes, as a DRN volunteer I closed discussion on that page because it was best moved back to Talk:Prequel. (2) No, I did not count the "inactive" editors like Barry who did not express interest in working toward a resolution. As to the rest, I trust the board volunteers here will determine how much it relates to my two questions in good time. JJB 06:01, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the point of just continuing the dispute on here, so I am going to try to summarise both sides of the argument succintly and fairly.
The term prequel has been ascribed to this set of films in several reliable sources. Taken from the discussion page at Talk:Prequel#Apes_source_analysis (I'm listing them here, because the discussion on the talk page is labyrinthine):
There are sources that have have an extremely minority view in this regard, such as this Empire magazine article that refers to Manhunter as a prequel (which everyone agrees is not). Admitting every film that is described as a prequel would lead to the list losing cohesion. Finding sources that describe the films as not prequels is difficult because it requires proving a negative i.e. sources that do not consider them prequels describe them as something else. On Google the vast majority of sources refer to them as sequels rather than prequels.
In pre-2000 sources (before remakes and reboots came along) Google give the following stats for usage:
In this respect the usage seems to suggest that the films are overwhelmingly described as a sequels, and not prequels.Please note if you google "prequel" and "Planet of the apes" you will get a high hit rate post 2000, but this is mainly because of Rise of the Planet of the Apes which is included and not disputed.
What we want to know is whether the coverage of these films in reliable sources justifies refrering to these films as prequels in the prose and the table. We do have a key that permits disputed definitions, but in the cases where this is applied there are a vast quantity of sources backing up the alternate claim. The gray shading isn't intended to make the table into a free for all, just to add come perspective. Unless you believe I have grossly misrepresented one side of the argument, I ask the other involved parties to step back, at least until someone neutral gives us an opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Betty Logan ( talk • contribs) 13:13, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
It appears the question is "whether the RS coverage describing these films as a "prequel" constitutes a significant point of view. To review the sources:
A throwaway line in a blog review of Hannibal Rising by a comedy writer is hardly significant.
Only the foreward (by a different author) uses the term "prequel" once, and he encloses it in quotes. The main text refers to the films as "sequels".
Whether a film can be both, and whether "prequels are subsets of sequels" (as suggested above) is debatable. Several dictionary definitions would suggest at the least that the latter three films are more sequel than prequel by defining prequel as "portraying the same characters at a younger age" and as "a film [...] about an earlier stage of a story or a character's life". The "story" in the three sequels is more concerned with a continuation of the story of the characters from the first two films rather than providing a pre-history of the events and/or characters in the first two films.
Again, this source suggests that Conquest is both a prequel and a sequel, but it also goes on to suggest that this is against the normal usage of these terms by saying "How is that possible you ask? Come on, this is science fiction!" Further, as has already been pointed out under "Case against", asking for counter-examples is asking to prove a negative ('Escape is not a prequel'). Since "the vast majority of sources refer to them as sequels rather than prequels", mentioning them in an article on prequels is to give undue weight to a minority view. Barry Wom ( talk) 11:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
In Gulf War syndrome, this edit removed mention of US Department of Veterans Affairs Chief Epidemiologist Han Kang's examination of the medical records of children born to Gulf War combat veterans after surveys found evidence of two times as many birth defects in the children of male troops, and about three times as many in the children of deployed female soldiers. The study of medical records was done in response to the concerns raised about the reliability of surveys in an earlier review and in the survey reports themselves, and it found that there were actually more birth defects than had been described in the survey reports. The editor deleting the medical records check source had earlier included a description of concerns about bias in the surveys, and deleted mention of the surveys in favor of the general conclusions of a review of all troops including those from countries such as Australia and France whose soldiers' children do not have any excess birth defects. At Talk:Gulf War syndrome#Dubious, the editor calls the government publication describing the medical records check "just a newsletter" and therefore says it fails WP:MEDRS. I disagree because it is a government publication held as reliable as scholarship per WP:MEDRS#Choosing sources, describing the work of the preeminent authority on the topic, and as such it presents an opposing view which would be obscured to the point of inaccuracy if it were omitted. I am interested in others' opinions. 71.215.84.127 ( talk) 23:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
But the statement in question is quite strong and affirmative as compared with the language of the footnote, which speaks of preliminary results. A statement to the effect that preliminary research that involves cross checking the survey results against medical records seems to support the findings would appear more appropriate, in my opinion. Coaster92 ( talk) 20:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)Medical and scientific organizations Statements and information from reputable major medical and scientific bodies may be valuable encyclopedic sources. These bodies include the U.S. National Academies (including the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences), the British National Health Service, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization. The reliability of these sources range from formal scientific reports, which can be the equal of the best reviews published in medical journals, through public guides and service announcements, which have the advantage of being freely readable, but are generally less authoritative than the underlying medical literature.
After editing the article to reflect the suggestion from Coaster92 here, the editor who I was concerned about asked another editor for help, and they have reverted the disputed statements and much more of the article in ways which I believe make the NPOV issues much worse. I'm going to try to address their points when I get more time. 71.215.84.127 ( talk) 20:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Articles has been deleted 4 times as an A7, once as a G3, and once as a G11. When created, the article often has unverified claims and reference claims whose references do not back up the claims made at all. I've recently cleaned up the article and I believe that the subject is now most likely notable but I think it would be helpful if a few other users added the article to their watchlist to guard from more NPOV and promotional editing. OlYeller21 Talktome 17:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I would appreciate some uninvolved eyes at Covance to check for neutrality, particularly the neutrality of the lead.
Covance is a contract research organization, and one of the kinds of research it offers is animal testing. Between 2003 and 2005, there were two undercover investigations by animal advocacy groups, the first by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and the second by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in Covance's primate laboratories in Germany and the United States. Both produced footage showing what the groups said was abuse of monkeys. In Germany no action was taken against the company; in the United States there was a small fine.
The issue now is that several new or sporadically used accounts ( User:BrainSnail, User:Tbd-r1 and User:Cromng) are arguing – on article talk and a user talk page (see User talk:Tbd-r1) – that any mention of the controversy should be removed from the lead, and the rest of it moved to another article. I've added the company's perpective to the lead and clarified the response of the authorities, but I don't agree that it should be removed entirely (per WP:LEAD). One of the accounts also wants to rewrite the article from a corporate perspective; see his version of the article.
As the new accounts have adopted the company's perspective, and as I have animal rights sympathies, it would be helpful if uninvolved editors could take a look. The key questions are: (1) should the undercover investigations be mentioned in the lead? (2) if yes, are they summarized appropriately? and (3) is the current section about the controversy written appropriately?
For anyone wanting to review the undercover footage, here is the BUAV video, and the PETA video. (The BUAV video is hosted on the PETA website because there was some litigation in Germany between BUAV and Covance, which I believe resulted in BUAV agreeing to remove it from their site, but I'm having difficulty finding good sources on that.) There is also a BUAV summary. There are secondary sources in the article; for example Nature and CNN. For other sources, see footnote 5. I can email the Nature article to anyone who can't see it.
Many thanks in advance for any input. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Is there a difference in understanding between NPOV and mainstream science view ?
Take a contentious topic like cold fusion (I am SPA for that).
I always thought I understood NPOV for fringe topics as: describe the majority view clearly and denote it as the majority view and describe the minority view clearly and denote it as the minority view.
It appears that other editors see it differently as: describe the majority view clearly and denote it as the majority view and describe clearly what the majority thinks of the minority view and don't give the minority view undue weight.
A NPOV article on a minority topic should have 4 "sorts" of content (i do not mean in form of blocks or sections):
So provided that the content comes from reliable sources, adding content for these 4 parts is not POV pushing, it's trying to keep NPOV. So what is POV pushing anyway ?
To me it seems that "POV pushing" or let's call it reducing NPOV can be:
What do you think about this ? -- POVbrigand ( talk) 12:32, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
A poor article. I have particular NPOV issues with the 'Views on the Euro' and 'Quotes' section added yesterday in
Nigel Farage, the
UKIP leader. Both appear to be a list of editorially selected links to primary sources -please feel free to disagree. If I'm right, I'd like some help finding a suitable template to explain to other editors and advice on a better source. I can't possibly summarise 300 odd links. I added "primary source" to 'Views on the Euro,' removed by
Special:Contributions/86.163.111.80 so I added 'Views on the Euro' note on the talk page. The template was once again
removed as it referred to the whole article, not just the section.
I'd like to delete the quotes section and replace views on the Euro with a summary of a
BBC Question time discussion as it shows his views and his opponents responses but this has disappeared.
A youtube video is available from UKIP but has comments. Would you suggest I gave the BBC details of the broadcast omitting the UKIP link?
Thanks in advance
JRPG (
talk) 21:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I created an article for the company I work for Mirus Futurues LLC. The first article I created was marked for deletion due to neutrality. I have since gotten the page back on my user folder and have removed sections that I could see as being bias.
I would appreciate it if other editors could take a look at the page and make changes or suggestions so that I can move the page live once again without worrying about it being deleted.
Here is the page url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Slosh3719/Mirus_Futures,_LLC
Any help would be appreciated.
Slosh3719 ( talk) 18:50, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Explanation of the neutral point of view: Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as "neutrality" means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them clearly and accurately.
Attributing and specifying biased statements: Biased statements of opinion can only be presented with attribution. For instance, "John Doe is the best baseball player" expresses an opinion and cannot be asserted in Wikipedia as if it were a fact. It can be included as a factual statement about the opinion: "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre." Opinions must still be verifiable and appropriately cited.
The article uses terms such as "reliable," "fast," "constantly searching," "Mirus believes." These suggest an advertisement. What have reliable secondary sources such as the New York Times or Time Magazine said about this company? That is what you need to look at and write about. Also, I am not sure what the limitations are about editors posting articles for which they have a conflict of interest. Other editors may know this. Good luck. Coaster92 ( talk) 05:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Per WP:Verifiability, information from self published sources can be used in some circumstances. The problem with this company is that there don't seem to be any reliable secondary sources that cover it, in which case the subject is not notable and the article would be subject to deletion under WP:Notability. This is the policy I found about when self published sources might be used:
Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves: Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field, so long as: 1. the material is not unduly self-serving and exceptional in nature; 2. it does not involve claims about third parties; 3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source; 4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; 5. the article is not based primarily on such sources. This policy also applies to pages on social networking sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.
To get more help, you might try posting a note on the conflict of interest noticeboard WP:COIN or posting your article idea on WikiProject. Here is a relevant section of WP:Conflict of Interest I found:
Suggesting changes to articles, or requesting a new article: See also: Wikipedia:Suggestions for COI compliance An editor with a conflict of interest who wishes to suggest substantive changes to an article should use that article's talk page. The request edit template should be used; it must be added manually to the talk page. When making a request, please consider disclosing your conflict of interest to avoid misunderstanding. To request a new article, you can present your idea on the talk page of a relevant article or WikiProject.
I still think a major problem is the lack of notability of the subject. Good luck. Coaster92 ( talk) 04:50, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
On page WOT Services, Ltd. a user operating through 7 proxies tagged the article as 'advert'. Inappropriately so, in my opinion. The unknown user fails to sufficiently motivate his/her actions, and neglects my invitations to adjust any POV, so I reverted the tag several times. Please see for yourself, thank you. WeatherFug ( talk) 11:57, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
It is a PPPoE connection without static IP. It sounds as if anyone who disagrees with the WOT system is some kind of malicious spammer, who's views have no validity.
There are several sources of criticism cited in the talk page by other users. Some of those pages criticizing the WOT system have been downvoted as phishing sites because they take a critical view of myWOT. Take a look at the review forum ( http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/5?sort=desc&order=Replies), especially some of the longer threads where site owners are asked absurd requests from the technically illiterate. There are examples of people with alternative medicine sites being flagged as phishing sites because users disagree with the content. Despite all of these available sources(listed on the talk page) of criticism, there are a measly 3 sentences listed under 'reviews'
"The rating tool has received favorable reviews in the press, sometimes with mildly critical remarks.[3][4][5] Some people vent more harsh criticism, saying the system is too susceptible to faulty results caused by targeted, malicious efforts of biased users. The company claims the system is extremely difficult to abuse and says that attempts usually get noticed.[6]"
This sounds like minimizing, and in Wikipedia terms, I would describe that as containing 'weasel words'. Other users posted critical sections to the article, which were removed. Those may or may not have been appropriately worded for the Wikipedia standard. I will not debate that. I am not an expert of Wikipedia, and I did not create those edits. It stands to reason that those edits would be replaced by a more appropriate summation of criticisms, instead of being deleted all together. That is, unless there are no valid criticisms of myWOT as it exists beyond reproach. For those reasons, I had flagged the article as sounding like a PR piece.
I admit my biases in this situation, and have no problems with stepping aside to let someone more objective examine the issue. I wonder if Weatherfug can say the same. It appears from where I stand that the user Weatherfug is towing the myWOT party line, or at least looking at the issue with an uncritical eye. Why was the article flagged as Advert in the past, if there are no concerns to be addressed? Are we to accept that fans of the service have decided that it is no longer a PR piece and a balanced representation?
Quoted from the talk page: "Another response to this article was posted here http://dukeo.com/mywot-web-of-trust-review-modern-web-totalitarism/ Convello 10:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC) With very little research, a lot of bad user-experiences and interesting in-depth reviews can be found and would probably need to be represented on MyWot page. An in-depth look at MyWot system illustrated with information taken directly from MyWot http://thundercloud.net/infoave/new/?p=818 Another review of MyWot http://www.foilball.com/mywot-com-another-false-review-site Complete blog dedicated to exposing MyWot flaws http://mywotlies.wordpress.com/ A response to this article exposing abusive ratings http://www.flounder.com/web_of_lies.htm An entrepreneur gets crushed by MyWot ratings http://thundercloud.net/infoave/new/?p=641 Convello 10:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)"
Some of those are overly hyperbolic. However, it does not mean that no valid criticisms exist. It is telling that the only critical sections available involve a legal judgement that myWOT has won and the minimizing text I mentioned above. Wikipedia should not be a platform for this group to whitewash public opinion. Fans of the service should not take the final decision on the objectivity of the article.
I am asking for assistance from administrators to investigate the article on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for POV. The article on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist militant paramilitary movement, is denying that the movement's well-known violent political behaviour towards Muslims in India and mostly focuses on its philanthropic efforts towards Hindus, stating in the intro that all statements on its violence are "alleged" - meaning that they are contested. This is not supported by mainstream sources. Efforts in the talk page to address the controversial aspects of the RSS have failed, the discussion descended into angry rebuttals, assumption of bad faith in violation with Wikipedia policy, and character assassination against Wikipedia users. The Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide on page 186 includes evidence compiled by the internationally-respected Human Rights Watch that says that during the 2002 Gujarat violence, "A plot to uproot the Muslim population of the state had been underway for some time: the RSS had circulated computerized lists of Muslim homes and businesses that were to be targeted by the mobs in advance." [6]. This has not been the first time that the RSS has incited violence against Muslims - it vouched for the demolition of Babri Masjid mosque in 1992 against fierce opposition by Muslims, resulting in the ancient mosque being torn down and eruption of violence between Hindus versus Muslims in which the RSS took part in anti-Muslim violence that resulted in the Indian government banning the RSS. The RSS has claimed that non-Hindus - including Muslims - are not considered by the RSS to be citizens of India and rejects any citizenship rights for non-Hindus, because it claims that the only "true" citizens of India are Hindus.-- R-41 ( talk) 16:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
The RSS is a highly controversial movement in India, for instance there are multiple books by scholars on fascism such as Stanley Payne, Walter Laqueur and others who investigated the RSS' connection with fascism - such as the former RSS leader's praising of Hitler's "purification" of Germany into ethnic German-only citizenship that he claimed should be a model for India to become a Hindu-only citizenship, as well as investigations that have uncovered that the RSS was inspired by Italian Fascist youth organizations. It is well-known to have participated in planned violence against India's Muslims, this needs to be stated in the intro, and material outright denying this needs to be removed from the article.-- R-41 ( talk) 16:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
The article Arana-Southern Treaty is about a treaty that ended the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata, a XIX century conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom. Although the conflict was not related to the Falkland Islands, some historians think that it may influence it.
The article includes several external links at the end. Cambalachero removed them because, with the exception of the first one, and the "Historia de las Relaciones Exteriores Argentinas..." one (which Cambalachero turned into a footnote) the others are merely generic links to "history of the falklands" pages, which do not contain a single mention of the treaty. Cambalachero thinks that such pages go against WP:ELNO item 13 (same as if we include generic pages of Argentine history). However, the author of the article, Nigelpwsmith, insists to restore them. I would appreciate uninvolved opinions.
Cambalachero insists on claiming that the above Treaty was derogated. He provided a link to a foreign history page provided by the Argentine Government, but he is unable to provide any proof that the Treaty was derogated. The Treaty was added to Wikisource and is still in effect. It has been quoted by numerous sources as proof that the Argentine Government acquiesced on British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. I believe that Cambalachero is making alterations without any validation or corroboration to support the Argentine position which is untenable. I have repeatedly asked him to desist from making these alterations and even suggested that if he feels strongly about his points he should alter the Argentine Wikipedia only, but not the English version.
He has included some interesting information which improves the overall article. However, his actions recently have been nothing more than unsupported vandalism to support a political and nationalistic point of view which can not be validated or supported by external documents in the UK. In fact, I do have documents in the UK which support the claims I've made. http://www.mediafire.com/view/?c4mn3cd8sb4mc1i
Title: "False Falklands history at the United Nations: How Argentina misled the UN in 1964 - and still does". Cambalachero questions whether this is a neutral and unbiased document? He agrees that there is Argentine nationalism towards the islands, but there is British nationalism as well.
Yes the reference does present the facts from the British point of view and the view of the Islanders, but it highlights the deliberate lies put forward from the Argentine side. User Cambalachero is admitting the Argentine nationalism towards the islands and in the documents. The British documents show a different version of the truth. The page was added to Wikipedia the Arana-Southern Treaty, because it shows a glaring omission by not including the history of the treaty and what it says about the legal position with respect to Argentina's claims. However, nothing which Camalachero has provided shows any proof that the treaty was derogated in any way. Especially not by the British Government, who included it in their released papers. He makes unsupportable claims that it was when it was not and then tries to say that at least he has external links - when those external links are biased and incomplete, belonging as they do to the Argentine Government (or rather an Argentine educational establishment). Nigelpwsmith ( talk) 19:57, 15 May 2012 (UTC) I re-iterate, there is no proof that this treaty was derogated by the British. I accept that the Treaty was not added to Wikisource by the British Government, but it was added from Volume 37 of the British and foreign state papers - a verifiable source. Nigelpwsmith ( talk) 18:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I accept that both sides to this dispute have strong nationalistic claims. However, Cambalachero has to provide proof that the Treaty was derogated by Britain - otherwise his alterations are just unsupportable claims. Even the Argentine Government source does not show that the Treaty was derogated by the British. Merely that diplomats discussed it. Diplomats discuss a lot of things, but it is Governments that make pronouncements on Treaties and this treaty is still in effect.
As neither side is willing to agree on the point of the derogation, I would like to make the following proposal to Wikipedia. Either Cambalachero provides the proof that the British Goverment derogated the treaty, or the paragraph on derogation is removed altogether and the document locked.
Can I also suggest that Cambalachero creates a separate page titled the 'Hotham Mission Saint Georges (August 1852)' and reference that to the Argentine source and remove the Derogation section of the Arana-Southern Treaty. Nigelpwsmith ( talk) 20:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Some prominent members of this Finnish political party have made colorful statements on the record. At issue is if they should be mentioned on the party article. There's been a slow-running dispute for a while; I think it could benefit from the attention of outside editors. a13ean ( talk) 13:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
This is an older post but I don't see any response here so far. Reviewing Wiki policies seems to lead to the conclusion that these statements are not appropriate in this article. The statements are peculiar to the speakers and do not purport to assert the position of the party. They just happen to be made by people who associate themselves with the party. WP:Relevance states:
On Wikipedia, relevance is simply whether a fact (in an article) is useful to the reader and is in the right article. If a fact is not relevant to the topic of the article, it should not be mentioned in that article. This does not mean it can not be mentioned in some other article. Mentioning things that are irrelevant to an article's topic can give them Undue Weight.
Wikipedia articles should be written in summary style, providing an overview of their subject. This overview may touch upon several related topics or subtopics, but any details not immediately relevant to the primary topic should be moved into other articles, linking to them if appropriate. If coverage of a subtopic grows to the point where it overshadows the main subject (or digresses too far from it), it may be appropriate to spin it off into a sub-article.
These statements seem to belong in articles about their speakers, not in this article. Coaster92 ( talk) 03:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
This article was created and has been maintained unimpeded for 5 years by Aslandad, who is Bruce L. Edwards per: Aslandad "It is a personal photo of myself."Part of the WP article is copied verbatim from this website: Bottom of page: "Bruce L. Edwards is Professor of English and Africana Studies…" I'm sure he doesn't know he is violating any policies as the bottom of the WP article shows that he is transparent about writing his own article with the heading: What I am Interested in Besides C.S. Lewis. Didn't seem to be any point in posting on the talk page, as there are no entries there, so in case someone here is interested and has time to address any issues, I'm posting it here. Thanks, Agadant ( talk) 02:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
See
User GeorgianJorjadze (and Kober) they refuse to constructive discussion, GeorgianJorjadze waging a war of edits without explanation (other than as a game with rules: that there is no consensus. However, I have arguments. They - no.)
I need help! -- PlatonPskov ( talk) 18:22, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I recently had to revert an edit by user:Lexlex at the Parents Television Council article for inserting POV against the PTC in the article. Lexlex has been inserting this original research, non-neutral claim for months now, dating back to January. Andrewlp1991 ( talk) 00:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry if this is not the right board. I am seeking assistance in resolving a NPOV dispute on Vietnamese article about the organization Viet Tan. The equivalent English achieved NPOV by stating both that the Vietnamese government considers Viet Tan to be a terrorist organization, while the US government does not. However, the Vietnamese version only states the view of the Vietnamese government. Attempts to rectify this with many verifiable sources continue to be completely reverted. AFAIK, paragraphs with references should not simply be reverted to achieve NPOV, but instead should be modified instead. This NPOV has been raised multiple times on the corresponding talk page already to no avail. I couldn't find a Vietnamese version of this noticeboard. What are you recommendations? Jaydeek ( talk) 14:45, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
This article looked terrible, had several single-purpose accounts, and has been in the news recently. I did a massive cleanup, which was reverted by one of the SPAs. I started a talk page discussion, but I'd love some oversight to confirm I made a net improvement. tedder ( talk) 19:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi. There is a disagreement on the neutrality of the lead in the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union article. There are a few issues, but the major one revolves around the use of a quote:
"Thirteen-man rugby league has shown itself to be a faster, more open game of better athletes than the other code. Rugby union is trying to negotiate its own escape from amateurism, with some officials admitting that the game is too slow, the laws too convoluted to attract a larger TV following."
— Ian Thomsen, The New York Times, 28 October 1995, [1]
Some editors are claiming that the use of this quote in the lead violates WP:Lead and WP:NPOV. Another editor is saying that it is a reliable, third-party source that summarises the article, so it should be in the lead. The full discussion can be found at Talk:Comparison of rugby league and rugby union#Quote in the intro. It would be good to get some opinions from people who are not part of either the rugby union or rugby league Wikiprojects. AIRcorn (talk) 08:48, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
[7]Argentina claims as a "fact" that a civilian population was expelled from the Falkland Islands in 1833 but the contemporary historical record shows this claim to be false. I have an editor claiming that to meet WP:NPOV we have to state the Argentine claims as a true fact "from the Argentine POV". At present the article merely notes the Argentine claim but notes that show this is contradicted by contemporary records (both British and Argentine btw). Wee Curry Monster talk 11:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
There is a group of editors trying to push a POV on the position of two language groups in the Indo-European languages tree, namely, the Baltic and Slavic languages. I have been observing this behavior for a few years, and it is obvious that the is a systematic ignorance of an increasing number of provided references, that the proposed Balto-Slavic group of languages within the IE is not a widely accepted view but rather a topic of ongoing debate and discussions. On the Talk page there are a number of reliable references, which list Baltic and Slavic as two individual branches of the IE. Also, there are ongoing disputes in articles like Baltic languages and Balto-Slavic languages. Especially there one can see that users Dominus Vobisdu, Ivan Štambuk , Angr, and most recently - Heironymous Rowe, have been systematically ignoring the provided references, and by collaborating, providing SYNTHESIS of their preferred literature are publishing their OR.
The latest example of this manipulation and WP policies misusing is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Indo-European_languages&diff=494263580&oldid=494212883
Somebody with the right experience in the field and also in handling nationalism-flavored disputes would be appreciated in this dispute that ultimately has to be settled. Count du Monét ( talk) 08:41, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
The psychotherapy article needs a balanced critique section. The current article contains a section called "criticisms and questions regarding effectiveness" in which a few random studies have been cited, and a laundry list of random arguments are put forward. It is not a comprehensive precis of the effectiveness literature. The article neglects a wide body of work that points to a) the success of some types of therapy with specific types of disorders, b) discipline-agnostic characteristics of therapist behaviour that contribute to success, c) superiority of psychopharmacology & psychotherapy combined, vs either intervention on it's own, d) characteristics of clients/patients that seem to benefit most from psychotherapy, and e) vested interests of stakeholders in swinging research to one side of the debate or the other and other inhibiting factors - consider the two APA's, the various laws and licensing authorities, the separate academic communities in psychiatry, philosophy, social work, occupational therapy, the professional jealousies, the profound neglect of mental illness and psychological wellbeing in public health and health insurance, and the impact of the pharmaceutical industry's deep pockets on the dominant discourse.
Please note that I am editing anonymously in protest against the tyrrany of the editing majority. Wikipedia's non-negotiable, amateur editor norm might be appropriate for certain article categories, but in more nuanced technical spaces there is invariably a segment that make nuisances of themselves by wanting to debate every word and angle. I have watched the development of articles on schools of psychotherapy since the early 2000s, and I'm afraid time and multiple amateur edits have not improved them much. In the specific case of psychology their mistakes add to the perception that this is a wishy washy discipline void of a body of knowledge and ANY facts. I suspect that this is partly why self-respecting people who are knowledgeable don't want to be involved in what is otherwise a very worthy undertaking.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.118.144 ( talk) 10:52, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Donald Tsang ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
I request your comments on
Talk:Donald Tsang for an on-going RfC to decide whether the title "Sir" should be used in the lead section. It should be noted that the subject himself does not use the title. —
Nearly Headless Nick {
c} 10:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
I invite editors to this proposal for a 1RR restriction to the circumcision page: [8] Pass a Method talk 16:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
All-
I want to highlight an article that, I think, is hopelessly lacking in a neutral point of view - 'Ramapough Mountain Indians'. From the looks of the talk page, there's a long history, with, ramapoughnative1, a member of the "tribe" (not meant as scare quotes - they're not officially recognized (and that's a part of the problem)) engaged in a multi-year edit war against everyone else who try to edit the article into something resembling neutrality. The article appears to have been tagged in the past with either NPOV or Close Relationship (or both), but the tags have been removed by ramapoughnative1 as everyone else has given up in the face of his dogged resistence to a more neutral article.
I don't have the time or expertise to edit the article or engage in a edit war, but it's one of the most slanted articles I've seen on wikipedia, and I have no dog in the fight - I was just checking the page to settle a wager with a friend regarding whether the Ramapo Indians were part-Dutch or not. I think that those invested in the neutrality of wikipedia would want to intervene.
Thanks, D.R.Z. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.104.167.98 ( talk) 12:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
What am I supposed to do with this? I mean, I don't want to just revert it, there's good info in there with actual references. But it's also formatted horribly and is written rather non-neutrally at parts. Silver seren C 08:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi there, Would anyone here be willing to add their 2 cents at the BP article? It appears to me that there is 'greenwashing' in the intro and editors are unwilling to allow a more neutral read.
This is my change which was labeled POV:
This what how it looked before:
To me it is obvious that to mention only the investments in green energy and to be unwilling to mention (the vast majority of BP's) investments in petrol is classic greenwashing in on no way neutral. These stats for BP's petrol investments were the only ones I could find in a pretty exhaustive search online. However, there is an employee of BP who is giving suggestions for the article, he might be willing to help with those numbers. Secondly, the statements about green energy appear tacked on to the "BP has been involved in..." as a rebuttal. It makes no sense for these unrelated statements to even be in the same paragraph, unless in fact some editors do want this page to make BP look good. petrarchan47 T c 22:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, [ here] is the link to discussion. petrarchan47 T c 22:43, 4 June 2012 (UTC) You might take note also that the editor who favors the more biased (imo) paragraph is also taking direct suggestions from a BP employee on how to improve the article. petrarchan47 T c 22:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
IMO the statement about the amount BP spends on exploration of fossil fuels puts its monetary amount spent for renewable energy in proper perspective. I agree that the sentence should be added. Otherwise undue weight is given to its renewable energy efforts. Coaster92 ( talk) 04:13, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
At Ramapough Mountain Indians an editor insists that a statement by the first of a long list of sources say "* Herbert C. Kraft Considered a "Noted Scholar" by peers in his field". I am not arguing that this isn't true, Kraft's an expert, but that this form of wording is pov and argument by authority. I suspect that there is quite a bit of pov in the article. The main editor is a member of the tribe who is, understandably, quite sure they are right about everything to do with the subject - a read of the talk page is recommended. If I ever have time I'll take a more thorough look at it. Probably quite a bit of OR also, I just reverted an obviously OR recent edit by the same editor but this isn't NOR. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 05:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I have written exactly how it was stated in the links provided but no one bothered to read them. It is not WP:POV when I am copying what was written. I have provided the links and still you have persisted to call it 'Puffery'. Regardless if i'm a member of the tribe or not, if it's written as such and verifiable, explain how it is POV? Ramapoughnative ( talk) 15:23, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
As far as the part about the BIA, how would you write it? The information was supplied them but not utilized in their decision. (Since then, we now know why. It had nothing to do with our history and everything to do with the state's concern for Casinos.) Ramapoughnative ( talk) 15:30, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
File:Senator_letter.pdf My link for my above statement. also, WP:PEA states.. "The examples given above are not automatically weasel words, as they may also be used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, where the article body or the rest of the paragraph supplies attribution. this is what is followed.. The BIA statement is not "my observation", it is fact because of their statement "None of the interested party or third party comments provided substantive proof that the earliest proven RMI ancestors descended from a historical tribe of North American Indians. Therefore, the third-party comments were not directly pertinent to criterion 83.7(e)". I am not here to discuss the opinions of the BIA, just present the facts. It is a fact they ignored eyewitness accounts from verifiable sources. Ramapoughnative ( talk) 16:23, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Also i consider this "The article now reads " a professor of archeology at Seton Hall University who conducted extensive studies of the Lenape" which is much better." This is your POV, not mine and I find unacceptable as it is not how it was written in the links I provided. Ramapoughnative ( talk) 16:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
"With the death of Herbert Kraft in 1999 and that of C. A. Weslager several years ago, we lost the leading Lenape-Delaware historian-ethnographers of the latter decades of the 20th century." This the description of Kraft from "a Kansas Delaware and a former Kansas Delaware Chief and and now Ceremonial Chief." on their website http://lenapedelawarehistory.net/mirror/bibliography.htm Still think he's just an archeologist? Ramapoughnative ( talk) 16:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
You did! (16:37, 31 May 2012 Dougweller (talk | contribs) . . (38,579 bytes) (-32) . . (→Historical perspective: remove 'noted scholar', we should never try to use adjectives in this way to make someone sound authoritative) (undo)) Is this not your name on the edit? So the only argument you can use as a defense is WP:Consensus? Total BS and you know it. Despite the fact it is documented as such and 'not' implied, you want to go with your opinion of what is WP:PEA, contrary to what is described within as valid.. Discussing this with you is pointless and we need a third party to get involved who's unbiased. Ramapoughnative ( talk) 17:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I think we can put this to bed. Ramapoughnative and I hope to work together to improve the article. Dougweller ( talk) 16:46, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Tucker
This sentence from the Cynthia Tucker entry requires little consideration before being removed:
"She blogs regularly but no one reads her drivel"
Further in the article, her characterization as a "radical leftist" is very debatable by anyone familiar with her writing. This sentence should be edited to include "considered by some" or be completely rewritten to reflect an objective POV.
No need to respond, I am not engaging in discussion. I am simply trying to report this & I do not see a simple place to do so.
Thank you (whoever) for your effort and consideration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.251.111.130 ( talk) 15:13, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
I have edited parts of the Rich Nugent page, but was still looking to see if I can could get another opinion on this one, Nugent's page reads like someone who is a supporter of his has written it, I've removed some unnecessary detail that was on there but this really needs a look at by the board. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Americium-con ( talk • contribs) 02:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
A couple of editors are insisting that the term feminazi is not comparing feminists to Nazis. The rest of us think that's absurd, but User:Paul Barlow, one of them, just removed a link to reductio ad hitlerum from the article, calling it unsupported. I feel that when you call your opponents "nazis" you have committed the reduction ad hitlerum by definition; but wish to get some outside input on this before we get into a real edit war. -- Orange Mike | Talk 00:21, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
This edit is being disputed, on the grounds that my removal "Basically calling into the question the editorial independence and integrity of the newspaper without evidence." [11]. I'd just like to establish whether a performance write-up, not a review and not sold as such, should be used to endorse a glossy description of a performance. I mean, is it sufficiently reliable or neutral to be used in this manner; or ought it to stay go? -- Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:22, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
I find it hard to believe that the article on David Irving meets WP:NPOV by any stretch. I tried putting the not-NPOV tag on it, but it was quickly removed. In part because I did not provide a list of specific things that make it clearly NPOV. This is due in part to the fact that the NPOV issues with the article will be *obvious* to anyone who has read it- and because the Talk Page and Talk Page history are filled with examples of NPOV objections (which went unresolved.)
I am neither pro nor anti-Irving, per se. But after reading the article I was left with the strong impression it was one of the least "balanced" and "fair" articles I'd read in some time. I'm listing this here so any fair-minded editors/admins can take a look at the page and decide for themselves whether they think it meets Wikipedias WP:NPOV stance. (Especially enough for it to qualify as a "Good Article".) Emeraldflames ( talk) 03:59, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I really don't understand this claim that the non-neutrality is supposed to be "obvious". Neutrality is defined by the major points of view taken toward a subject by reliable sources. Unless you expect everyone to be familiar with the mainstream literature that reviews Irving and his work, I don't see how whatever you see is going to be obvious. I mean, of course it is obvious that the point of view of the article is decidedly anti-Irving, but if that's the only significant viewpoint, then it's the neutral one as well. We're not going to sugarcoat the article and hand Irving a lollipop because the big bad historians were mean to him. If you think there is a significant viewpoint that is neglected by the article, or that the mainstream viewpoint is misrepresented, then it's your job to show that. Someguy1221 ( talk) 03:04, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Emeraldflames ( talk) 06:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
The article on Anti-Christian Sentiment concerning Israel was recently rewritten to sound more like an apologist essay replete with WP:OR statements including reduced numbers and minimized frequency of incidents. One editor in particular has shifted NPOV significantly with her/his contributions. I have since tried to find a compromise and get the article back to encyclopedic standards. An RfC has also been opened. Feedback from a broad background of editors would be greatly appreciated in stating how NPOV can be achieved.
Here is a reference of the most significant edits concerning this:
The discussion is currently taking place on the article
Talk page:Anti-Christian Sentiment#Israel.
Thanks for any and all participation. Veritycheck ( talk) 19:40, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
This is an article under ArbCom sanctions. It was split from a larger article (which covers modern scholarship on this subject) and states at the top of the page "Please note: this is not the article for discussing actual evidence pointing either way in this debate. This is a "history of controversy" article: please discuss it in this way, bearing in mind academic consensus, this is not a referendum on Afrocentrism or Eurocentrism." When you edit it, there is a yellow message above the edit window that says "Please note: this is not the article for discussing actual evidence pointing either way in this debate. This is a "history of controversy" article: please discuss it in this way, bearing in mind academic consensus, this is not a referendum on Afrocentrism or Eurocentrism."
An editor with no previous edits arrived at it a few days ago and made major changes which were basically arguments about the "actual evidence pointing either way in this debate" and if they belong anywhere belong in Population history of Egypt. Attempts to discuss these on the article talk page and at WP:DRN have resulted in statements saying that the editors disagreeing with him are bullies, censors, etc although I and another editor have tried to explain the problems (I don't want to focus on editors' behavior, just pointing out that it is because of this behavior that am bringing this here). Last night the editor reinstated his version saying it should stay pending discussion. I was about to bring this here when that was reverted, so I want to discuss his earlier version and get more input. His version is at [14].
The first obvious thing is the use of quoteboxes. Our not-guideline on this says, correctly I believe, "As a matter of style, quoteboxes should generally be avoided as they draw special attention to the opinion of one source, and present that opinion as though Wikipedia endorses it." I haven't done much editing of this recently, but even before his edits there was too much use of quoteboxes (I'd remove most if not all of them), and his use of them in the lead and in the section on Modern scholarship made this worse and are, I and the other editor on the talk page, being used to push a pov as well as being in the wrong article.
Leaving aside the use of a block quote in the lead, he uses them heavily in his addition to the Modern scholarship section. This section starts with a paragraph stating:
"Since the decisions of the UNESCO Conference of 1974 several authoritative Encyclopedic references have made conclusive statements on the "race" of the ancient Egyptians based on contemporary research, which disputes those earlier claims. The 1984 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica concludes that the Negroid element of Egypt was stronger during predynastic times."
Wikipedia articles should clearly not be claiming that there are any 'conclusive statements' on a subject which is still disputed (and complex). There's an RS issue about Britannica which I may bring up at RSN, so we don't need to discuss that there, but the use of a blockquote from it is I believe not appropriate in any case.
The rest of his addition here is basically blockquotes. I can't see how an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam can be a conclusive reference to anything, but he firmly states that it represents mainline scholarship.
He also introduces a large blockquote about the introduction of sheep. It looks to me as though the original use of that source from the National Georgraphic wasn't accurate in that it doesn't seem to say what it is referencing, and I'll look at that and fix it if needs be shortly, but the blockquote was at best overkill in an article about the history of the controversy, which it doesn't mention at all.
I'm going to take the liberty of adding a post from Wdford on this subject: "SirShawn, the material in the "population history" article is all relevant here, as a "modern hypothesis", because there is still controversy and a lack of consensus among 'scholars". However this article was spilt a while ago, because it was getting too big. The basis of the spilt was decided - with much acrimony – to be along the lines of a “history of the debate” article and a “modern scholarship” article. It’s a bit arbitrary, but a split had to be made. "In line with wikipolicy, the “modern scholarship” section in the “history” article is thus just a very brief summary, with a clear link to the other article for those who are interested. Lovell etc are mentioned in the “modern scholarship” article already, as is the discussion about languages, skeletal proportions, DNA analysis etc etc. The short summary is supposed to be short, but you have been adding lengthy quotes (which co-incidentally all support a certain POV) while leaving out the huge corpus of scientific study which doesn’t support this viewpoint. Feel free to add your Lovell quote at the appropriate section of the “modern scholarship” article, alongside the info that contradicts her, but we don’t need to duplicate material across the two articles."
Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 10:33, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
These are the edits that I've proposed to add [15]
Let me first start off by saying that every single contribution that I have made to that article are as mainstream and contemporary as it gets in regards to this discussion. In the modern scholarship section of the article I have added in the official statements of the "Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt", "The Encyclopedia of Archaeology of ancient Egypt", University of Manchester, "National Geographic" (which in itself cites a dozen scholars for their statements), and the Encyclopedia Britannica. The issues that several posters are having is that every one of these modern authorities have pretty much plainly come out in the support of the "black African" theory in regards to ancient Egypt. Their rejection of these sources is clearly a reflection of their own biased. Doug has attempted to argue that the contextualized (in terms of the social concept of "race" which is relevant to the article itself) statements by every one of those authoritative sources belongs in an article which is supposed to deal with individual studies dealing with strictly with biology and culture ("Population history" article). The population history section is dealing with conflicting individual studies, and almost none of which deal with "race" in the social sense. Doug is also hypocritical on what he perceives the purpose of the article to be. He states that it is somehow only to reflect the "history" of an on-going debate, while simultaneously acknowledging a section of the article devoted to MODERN scholarship and disputing the inclusion of the most MODERN and accepted theories in regards to Egypt's origins TODAY.
Interestingly enough another issue with the article is that a blatant lie in regards to a claim that modern Egyptians are "90%" genetically identical to ancient Egyptians is cited by a source that does not state it anywhere in the link. This claim prior to my contributions was posted THREE TIMES throughout the article (clearly a POV). Now why should that original research be repeated throughout the article, yet the contextualized (keyword) statements dealing with race of the Fitzwilliam, Oxford, Manchester, Britannica ect be excluded? It's makes absolutely no sense.
Another issue is that they are saying that my sources are basically biased to support my POV. Well is it at all possible that one particular POV is well...where the facts lay in regards to this issue? If not, then why not simply cite another modern institute of the same academic integrity (as the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Encyclopedia of Archaeology of ancient Egypt ect) which opposing contextualized statements? If it's really that much of a dispute amongst modern scholars shouldn't it be easy to cite other recent views, rather than censor the one side to make it appear as though no decision has been reached? Clearly there are emotional attachments to this issue, and imo anyone who wishes to censor any of those top notch sources should not be taken seriously.
One poster (WDford) attempted to say that somehow argue that including these sources were a POV because they were cited "Afrocentric" scholars. When I pretty much debunked that assertion (see the talk page), he nor anyone else responded.
As evident by the talk page these users aren't trying to be logical in their decisions. They are emotionally attached to certain ideas, and are simply trying to bully their views into place with a so called "consensus" to be unreasonable. SirShawn ( talk) 21:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Fifelfoo why are you ignoring the fact that I've also cited statements from Fitzwilliam (University of Cambridge), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (written by Donald Redford) and the Encyclopedia of Archaeology of Ancient Egypt written by Kathryn Bard? Please explain how these are not authorities on the matter of ancient Egypt? Why would these sources not convey points that are agreed upon by most scholars, or in other words "fringe theories"?
Also interestingly I was not the one who initially the National Geographic page which contains S.O.Y. Keita's summarization of multiple scholarly works. That source was inaccurately being cited to support a claim of Demic Diffusion into the Nile Valley from the Middle East in the modern research section of the article. I took the exact same source that was misinterpreted and posted an actual passage from the article to verify what was truly concluded on the matter. That being the misinterpretation of that article is still being presented in the modern scholarship section. If there is opposition to the passage being presented from the national geographic page, then perhaps the misinterpretation of what is actually being said should also be excluded.
So what I propose is that rather than getting rid of my contributions they should be placed in the "black African hypothesis" section as a opposed to the current research section. SirShawn ( talk) 09:41, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Also please explain why the 2010 genetic analysis pinpointing the land of punt in Ethiopia/Eritrea continues to be deleted as well? SirShawn ( talk) 09:43, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Request opinions on relative compliance with NPOV for these two edits: [16] (edit summary; that's not NPOV wording) [17] )edit summary: LGBT issues: NPOV wording)
The question is whether the linking of the living person to "Mormon pedophiles" by saying
is more or less NPOV with regard to VanderSloot than is saying
After reading the source on this topic, I think the first sentence linking VanderSloot to mormon pedophiles is fair considering that he took out multiple adds in the newspaper linking himself to the series via his critical full page ads. His bio does not accuse him of being one of them so imo it is OK in light of the weekly ads he had published in his name. Coaster92 ( talk) 05:05, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
VS' actions are not in dispute. He took out the ads. His ads criticized and were in response to a series on mormon pedophiles. The first sentence is more accurate. The second attempts to shield VS from his own actions, which are undisputed. This is POV imo. The sentence and entire section are not out of proportion in his bio. Again, it looks fair in this case. Coaster92 ( talk) 21:50, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I have tagged this article with a WP:COI tag since the major recent editor seems to have a close relationship with the subject which may make adherence to a neutral point of view difficult. As it stands, the "Student organizations" section, reads more like a promotional leaflet. Also most of the text in the "Student organizations" section is simply copied either form other Wikipedia articles or from Facebook fan pages of the clubs. I would like an unbiased third party opinion . Also I have a second problem, it is that every time I fix the article's (grammar, links, facts) the major recent editor puts the same things back. What should I do about it? SelomITC ( talk) 20:44, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Moved the above post from the WP:RFC/BOARD Coastside ( talk) 15:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Engaged in a discussion regarding the relative length and the content of the lead on Kirsten Gillibrand. At this point we seem to just be going around in circles on Talk, so I think it'd be constructive if some other folks could weigh in. Thanks! Arbor8 ( talk) 20:11, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Personally I am trying to stay clear to edit the article on Sōka Gakkai ... I am not sure if I can be called unbiased anymore, but the latest edits got rid of basically all critical views on this organisation ... could someone look into that? -- Catflap08 ( talk) 17:14, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Dubious as to whether this edit is neutral or supported by a reliable source [18]. More eyes welcome. 99.156.68.118 ( talk) 22:23, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
As creator of the Safetray page I have a conflict of interest in that I work for Safetray Products Ltd. After some debate about deletion the article is being kept, and I would like to ask more experienced Wikipedians to check it over for Neutral Point of View and for them to make any changes they deem necessary to ensure it meets Wikipedia neutrality guidelines, plus any other issues they might spot. Thanks very much for any help and advice you can give Carolinewhitham ( talk) 17:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
User:Nemo20000 has been editing a number of pages about politicians who were on the "No" side of the United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011. He will edit their page to put in that they were on the No side, which is fine, but then says that one of the arguments is "erroneous". The argument that particularly annoys him is that there will no longer be a "one man one vote" as minority parties will be able to vote for their candidate and after the candidate is eliminated then they can get counted again for their more mainstream second choice.
The claim that this is erroneous is backed up by a briefing paper from the Political Studies Association. There is no page number given, although it seems that what Nemo is referring to is a section on page 10 "The claim that AV gives some voters extra votes is a fallacy". It firmly takes the point that as it only turns up in one final total that this means that there is no real value in a vote being seen more than once. It's a legitimate point of view, but I don't think that it's that authoratative that it can override the NPOV policy.
Some examples are John Reid, Stephen Mosley and David Cameron. There are more.
There are issues of WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE, but can we ignore these for the moment?
I could be wrong on this and have missed some subtlety in the policy, but I think that this is a fairly clear breach. However I think that the editor feels very strongly on this particular issue and this could easily become an edit war.
The editor is fairly experienced, having first made edits in 2007, but seems to have until recently not attracted any attention on their talk page, so I think they've avoided controversy and I think that it would be a good idea to be gentle.
JASpencer ( talk) 07:49, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
The Humphries debate is actually quite a nice illustration of Nemo's underlying problem here, and that is that he is misunderstanding the point - as Humphries does (although in a different way). Humphries ( who the BBC later partially disowned on this) was proved wrong on two points. Firstly he claimed that second preferences would get counted for all votes whether they voted for one of the two main candidates or a knocked out candidate. This was clearly wrong. He also seemed to claim that there was only one round of counting as well as voting, although this may have been confusion or Cameron simply allowing the argument to be framed on his terms (something that appears to be happening the other way here). Both these claims are actually wrong on the face of it (as was Humphrey's claim that no other democracy uses First Past the Post).
It's a useful illustration as it shows that there is a misunderstanding of what the opponents of AV claimed. The idea that if you have 10,000 voters you would somehow have a 12,000 vote total at a later round was never made by Cameron or the anti-AV campaign (it may have been made elsewhere). However that is the argument that is being refuted by Nemo and the Political Studies Association.
The argument is that if someone's first preference is for Labour then her second preference won't be counted while if someone votes for a string of minor parties then there vote will be "seen" in a number of different rounds is the objection. It's also closely tied in with the argument that "extremists" are encouraged in this system compared to First Past the Post. In London I voted for a minor party and then a major one with exactly that expectation - first for who I wanted then against who I didn't want. That's why the Greens scored a good third place while most of their votes then went into an attempt to block the Conservatives afterwards. This is not the argument that is being refuted by Michigan which is about equal representation rather than how that equal vote is counted in many different ways.
But I don't want to dwell on the idea that you shouldn't claim that an argument is wrong by refuting another similar sounding but quite different argument. That's a political debate.
The argument is whether it's OK to claim that a viewpoint is erroneous when (a) the particular person was not mentioned and (b) there is only one source in a lively debate with a number of views. I think that this is a clear breach of NPOV.
JASpencer ( talk) 07:04, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
There is a huge debate going on at Talk:Homophobia about the wording of "homophobia". Numerous editors have expressed concern over this wording and the pro-gay stance this article takes. However, myself and other editors are being bashed by the militant homosexuals on Wikipedia that consider all religious or conservative sources unreliable and want pro-gay liberal fodder sources to prove our points. I just want to make this article a little less biased and more centered. I want the title or a paragraph explaining that there has been disagreement as to weather homophobia is truly a "phobia". Most people that speak out against gays are not scared or fearful of them, but this is the exact wording of the article. EVEN THE LEAD PARAGRAPH DOES NOT MENTION FEAR! A phobia, by definition is a fear. Heck, some dictionaries even do not define opposition to gays as "homophobia". Homophobia is a made-up word invented my the militant homosexuals to label people with just reason to oppose gays. Call it anti-gay, or opposition to gays! That is my opinion, it reflects a NPOV, and many editors agree with me! Andrewrp Tally-ho! 15:40, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I've been involved there. The core issue is that there two significant viewpoints regarding what is included in homophobia:
That article both implicitly and explicitly makes and builds an article upon the unsourced and implausible assertion that #2 is the ONLY view. I've been trying to raise this issue and gotten very nasty treatment there. (A new version of wp:ver, you aren't allowed to challenge an unsourced unless you have sources to prove that it is wrong) They have been asserting that I needed to have sources to bring up that the article is built upon an unsourced assertion, and that I mis-behaving by continuing to say that such is not the case. Also have endured the usual range of nasty stuff like straw man misstatements of what I said, accused of being "disruptive" etc., saying that it is illegitimate for me to pursue this on the talk page, saying that I'm beating a dead horse, 100% inventing that I said there is a "conspiracy", etc.. After enduring all of that, I can see how this has remained unresolved despite this concern having been raised by an immense amount of people throughout the entire history of the article. Also because the "#2 is the only view" view is so deeply embedded in the article it will take much work to fix it. For example, it goes on the list any and all opposition to homosexuality as being "homophobia" and saying that in the voice of Wikipedia. North8000 ( talk) 13:14, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Please point out the part in the lead where it says that "all opposition to homosexuality" is "homophobia."
The current article states that the "definitions refer variably to antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, irrational fear, and hatred", modifying the "negative attitudes or feelings" in the previous sentence. (These definitions are all reliably sourced.)
Definition of homophobia according to the lead: Hatred (antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion are just more synonyms) and irrational fear toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).
To add to Itsmejudith's comment, see:
.... islamophobia Islamophobia is prejudice against, hatred or irrational fear of Islam or Muslims. A person who exhibits such prejudice is an islamophobe.
.... xenophobia Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange."
.... antisemitism Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage.
Antisemitism may be manifested in many ways, ranging from expressions of hatred of or discrimination against individual Jews to organized violent attacks by mobs, state police, or even military attacks on entire Jewish communities.
(in the Homophobia article: "Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientations that are non-heterosexual.")
While the term's etymology might suggest that antisemitism is directed against all Semitic peoples, the term was coined in the late 19th century in Germany as a more scientific-sounding term for Judenhass ("Jew-hatred"), and that has been its normal use since then.
(Yet, I don't see North8000 arguing on the Antisemitism talk page about how the article should be about Semitic peoples instead of Jews, if he's going to use the same logic to argue that homophobia should literally be about the fear.)
Andrewrp, "EVEN THE LEAD PARAGRAPH DOES NOT MENTION FEAR! A phobia, by definition is a fear. "
North8000: "The core issue is that there two significant viewpoints regarding what is included in homophobia:
1. That it be used to refer to true phobia, by the common meaning of the term 2. Those who want to apply this "phobia" term to any and all opposition to homosexuality or to the societal normalization of it. Thus to call folks who simply think that homosexuality is wrong "homophobic"".
I do not see anything "un-neutral" about this article, just as I don't see anything un-neutral about xenophobia, islamophobia, or antisemitism. Those are just articles describing the definitions.
North8000, the current lead (with reliable sources to back it up) is the definition of homophobia, get over it. You can't just change the definition of a word just because you happen to disagree with its meaning. Arguing about the meaning with no reliable sources to back you up is your POV ranting. It is plain unhelpful and just a waste of time. Twøcents ( talk) 18:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
In the article entitled, "the Murder of Meredith Kercher," Nina Burleigh's book (written in support of defendant Amanda Knox) is very heavily cited, whereas alternative theories and points of view are cited much less often and worded in a way that makes them sound suspect. In addition, in the Media Coverage section of the article, only (supposed) bias against Amanda Knox is listed, whereas numerous examples of bias in favor of Amanda Knox are not. This bias in the article makes it seem likely that Amanda Knox was "railroaded" by the media, which her supporters often argue. However, there are numerous examples of bias in the other direction which have been edited out of the article. On the whole, this article is extremely biased in favor of Amanda Knox and her supporters and PR team (Gogerty Stark Marriott, a Seattle-based public relations firm).' Siamesekat ( talk) 23:43, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
In the article, Cristiada (film), I've deleted the misuse of a Washington Post source. [19] The source appears to have been misused by Lionelt ( talk · contribs) to attack the Obama administration and to promote an extreme, minority Catholic POV. This was done to create a DYK that was recently featured on the main page. Because Lionel will attempt to add this content back into the article, I'm starting this discussion here for review by others. Viriditas ( talk) 10:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
For Catholics enraged by the Obama administration's proposed contraception mandate, the film about the Mexican church's fight in 1920s is a heartening and timely cinematic boost in the American church's battle to preserve "religious freedom" in 2012. (underline mine)
Twice now over the past two or three days, I have had to de-POV reports in the Portal:Current events page concerning Euro 2012 matches. I'm not sure if it's the same person or not, but somebody keeps writing extremely POV reports concerning matches, teams and players. I wanted to discuss this on the Portal's Talk page, but it's protected, strangely, since the Portal itself is not. 69.62.243.48 ( talk) 22:49, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm running into a problem on Catholic sex abuse cases, and as a result it is running as a slow-moving edit war, which doesn't help anyone. I have attempted to raise this on the talk page, but as the problem is with one or more IP editors, and engagement on the talk page isn't working, this isn't making progress.
Quick summary: the IP has been adding claims which I believe are strongly POV to the lead [20]. My particular problems are with "... casts doubt on whether or not the Church truly apologizes or even cares about the sadistic actions of its priests" and "While there have been few if any responses from the Pope to the scandal, many have been criticizing the slow and careless nature of any actions taken to mitigate the crisis". Neither is supported by the sources. Rather than just revert, I added the sources to the lead based on their content, [21], but without including the opinions. That didn't work.
Discussion is here. Assistance either way would be much appreciated. Thanks! - Bilby ( talk) 14:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
12.129.87.3 ( talk) 20:06, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi everybody. There's a difference of opinion between myself and another editor over the wording in the first sentence of the Blackwater Baghdad shootings page. To give some quick background on the subject of the article, there are basically 2 sides (POVs) to the shooting incident, but it seems both agree that it started when a car approached the convoy and did not stop in spite of warnings resulting in the contractors firing upon the car. What happened after is what's unclear. The contractors' story is they were fired upon by insurgents and engaged in a shootout and a state department report corroborated that. Iraqi government and witnesses say that the contractors were not fired upon and the shootings were unprovoked. An FBI investigation couldn't match bullets to guns by Blackwater and found foreign cartridges not used by Blackwater or US, though shootings were common in the square so they could have been from another shooting. ( talk page discussion on the topic)
Current lead sentence: "On September 16, 2007, Blackwater military contractors shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad."
It was originally proposed by another editor to be changed to: "On September 16, 2007, Blackwater military contractors were engaged in a shootout that resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad." An editor on the talk page did not agree with this because it is disputed that there was a shootout. So I proposed the following:
Proposal: "On September 16, 2007, seventeen Iraqi fatalities and twenty four injuries occurred in the Blackwater Baghdad shootings in Nisour Square, Baghdad."
I think the current lead gives the impression that they shot civilians purposefully and seems to already agree with the second POV I mentioned above. I feel that the proposal gives the same information as the current lead (and more), and it does so in more neutral wording. Can others weigh in on this to help us come to consensus? AdventurousSquirrel ( talk) 18:49, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
It is not a valid alternate name. The problem with most of these sources is that they already have concluded, as you have, that every shot fired was unprovoked and unjustified (making it a massacre) and they don’t take into account any other possible scenario or context, such as the car approaching the convoy that the guards could not have known was not a vehicle bomb or the possibility that the guards were fired upon. As far as the sources that are books, the use of the word massacre can only be attributed as the opinion of the author and so should not be used to justify the alternate name in the lead. To give a few more specific examples of why some of these sources are not useful for claiming it was a massacre:
3) This article has a quote from one Iraqi who calls it a massacre and you take his word to speak for the entire Iraqi people?
4) The newspapers in the middle east are heavily biased against the incident.
5 and 10) Scahill is likely the most biased person you could find on this topic.
7) The author of this article concludes it was a massacre without considering any other possibility. He states as if it is a fact that: contractors “went on an unprovoked shooting spree in a Baghdad square..” What about the car that kept driving toward the convoy despite several shouted warnings and warning shots? That couldn’t have provoked shooting?
8) This is a paper that a University professor wrote for a class. Not a reliable source.
9) The only mention of massacre is a reference to Scahill.
11) Interesting, this book also references Scahill for its information on the Blackwater shooting.
Nisour Square massacre is already used as a redirect to this page, so if anyone types it into the search bar they will be redirected to the article that has the neutral and accurate title of Blackwater Baghdad shootings. Adding Nisour Square massacre into the lead sentence is not NPOV. It leads readers to believe what some of these sources do, that it was completely unprovoked murder. While there are plenty of people who believe that, there are also plenty who believe that they were provoked and justified in shooting (at least initially) to defend the State Department workers they were protecting, and that they were fired upon in response. We need to present both sides neutrally and let the reader come to their own conclusion after reading the article. Calling it a "massacre" in the first sentence does not do that. AdventurousSquirrel ( talk) 17:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
On Health Services Union expenses scandal, we have a dispute about how to describe a particular vote. The sources says, "The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has voted overwhelmingly to suspend the beleaguered Health Services Union (HSU) from its ranks" and later, "Today, delegates voted 1797 to 103 in favour of the suspension." The question is, can our article say that the vote was "overwhelming" in Wikipedia's voice? See this diff, wherein Youreallycan removes the word "overwhelmingly" that Skyring had included. As far as I can see, we have three options: include "overwhelmingly" as in Skyring's version, remove it as in Youreallycan's version, or somehow put the whole thing into a quote, attributed to ABC News (there's no author listed on the source). Personally, I favor Youreallycan's version, and had reverted to it myself, but I seek the opinion of uninvolved editors. Qwyrxian ( talk) 23:12, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Adjectives should be sourced - it is not up to Wikipedia editors to assert adjectives. Collect ( talk) 23:46, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
New editor making some major and I think pov changes to Halal, see [23]. Sourcing a statement it's humane to a Halal organisation, changing " Both the Muslim and Jewish communities were frustrated with the process of dialogue because of the scientific community's views on animal slaughter." to "Certain Muslim and Jewish communities expressed frustration with the process of dialogue skewed for non-religious audiences." - some of the changes may be ok but as there seems to be few editors watching this and this is a new editor I'd appreciate other eyes before I edit the article. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 06:17, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
There was a request for unblock on the UTRS program claiming that they were blocked for trying to fight POV pushing on International School of Gemology. I've had a look myself and the claim appears to be true. The article on 18 May 2012 is substantially different from today's version. Today's version gives incredible WP:UNDUE weight toward supposed controversy. However, the controversy is almost entirely linked to forums, blogs, or primary sources. I need help sorting the sources and balancing this article.--v/r - T P 14:17, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
A WP:SPA at this article is editing against talk page consensus to have Wikipedia state in its own voice that Ahmadiyya is "a Heterodox Islamic reformist movement". There is of course no problem in making it clear that as one of his sources [24] states they are seen as heterodox by many Muslims, but he is not listening to other edtiors but insisting on reinserting his version, with his latest edit summary saying "WP:VAN, WP:NPOV Doug Weller has potentially engaged in WP:EW against the administrators guideline. See talk page for exemption". (He's been warned for edit warring by 2 editors including me, so it's ironic he's at 3RR now). It is of course possible that I've misinterpreted NPOV and that we can call some religions Heterodox (ie all non-Eastern Orthodox Christian groups heterodox), but it is my opinion that this is not Wikipedia's role, and that all we can do is make it clear that, as I've said, many people view it ias heterodox. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 10:04, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
(opening can of worms)...
Several editors seem to be wanting to rewrite articles where information appears that mentions Noah's Ark. The article on Noah's Ark, Mountain, Book of Genesis, Deity, etc are being modified to seem to push the idea that they are mythological or fictional rather than biblical.
I've tried to explain that in the context of these articles, the term 'biblical' is more than sufficient, but it seems that there is a personal POV that these editors are intent on pushing and they prefer to downplay any claim of verisimilitude whatsoever.
To me, the term 'biblical' is more supported by sources and more neutral than 'fictional'or 'mythological', as in "Noah's Ark (Hebrew: תיבת נח; Classical Hebrew: Teyvat Noaḥ) is a mythological vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis (chapters 6–9) and the Quran (surahs Hud and Al-Mu’minoon)."
These editors are saying that it is a FACT that these things are mythological or fictional. My reply is that in the context of the stories themselves the objects are not 'mythological', so the term biblical is all around more accurate. Thanks for your input on this. -- Avanu ( talk) 09:51, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
( edit conflict) x2 :We represent the preponderance of suitable opinion. In the case of biblical texts, this means that we ought to represent the variety of theological and literary critical views of the texts. In all cases we should be using the highest quality sources available, the work of theologians, religious studies academics, and literary critics specializing in religious texts. Broadly, we should weight the results of all accepted scholarly traditions based on their presence in the literatures. Such a weighting would be neutral. Mountain has very little biblical context, deity has contexts lying well outside of the literatures specifically grounded only in the bible, Noah's Ark ought to see a preponderance of theological texts with a strong showing from religious studies or literary critical accounts, Book of Genesis again should see such, but as an "entire text" there are likely to be more literary critical studies of the entire Book of Genesis than of Noah's story in particular. "Pop" atheists without a grounding in theology, religious studies, or philosophy of religion really need not apply. Fifelfoo ( talk) 10:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Another contributor placed four tags on an article recently, including {{ POV}}. Well, when instantiated, {{ POV}} calls for the tag placer to initiate a discussion on the talk page, explaining why they placed the tag.
I noted, on the talk page, that the tag placer didn't leave an explanation.
They returned and wrote:
“POV because the article is entirely from the US government Point of view and the information it released about the prisoners to news media.”
I put the second part of their passage in bold because I am concerned that it suggests a misunderstanding of WP:NPOV.
On that talk page I suggested that when an WP:RS publishes an article, that relies wholly or in part on official documents, the POV in the document is that of the columnist, or the publication -- not of the government organ that published the documents they used while writing their article.
I suggested that WP:RS have editorial policies and professional editors. I suggested we trust WP:RS because their editorial policies require them to do some fact-checking. I suggested their editorial policies require them to employ writers who bring a competent understanding of the topic they cover to their writing. I suggested articles published in WP:RS have their own reliability, and a separate and distinct point of view from whatever sources the article is reporting on.
We may think we are smarter than the writers and editors at WP:RS. We may think they have been duped by the government sources they relied upon, where-as we are too sagacious to be fished in, and that we recognize what the professionals did not. There is nothing wrong with any of us PRIVATELY thinking writers at an WP:RS have been tricked into parroting the official line. But, in my opinion, trying to tilt our coverage, based on our PERSONAL doubts about professional writers' judgment, is a serious lapse from WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:VER. Our personal opinions shouldn't count.
I'd welcome input on whether wikipedia contributors suspicions about journalist's judgment should justify a {{ POV}} tag. Cheers! Geo Swan ( talk) 18:14, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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the article titled conspiracy theories on obama'a citizenship is somewhat less than neutral. no one but wikipaedea has made referance to any conspiracies. there is a fact, undisputed, that obamas father was is englishman, and so barak is an englishman unless otherwise so declaired. there are no crackpot conspiracy theorists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.98.13.100 ( talk) 17:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Moving this discussion from the BLP/N, as this is not a living person . Stephen E. Ambrose, eminent author of many best-sellers, has been dogged by accusations of inaccuracy. But I think that exploration of these issues in his biographical article has skewed the entire piece, so that it is essentially an attack or hit piece. That is my opinion and I'd like to get other viewpoints from persons not regularly editing the article. CheeseStakeholder ( talk) 21:08, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
It is observed that the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angika_language has been redirected to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Maithili_(Angika). This is a case of vendalism. You are requested to restore the original page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angika_language. -- — Angpradesh — talk 15:13, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
At Talk:Beslan_school_hostage_crisis#Neutrality a user posted an accusation of the article not being NPOV. The claim has not been examined, and it's been a few months... WhisperToMe ( talk) 16:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
While trying to assist in a discussion ( current thread) that I found at WP:DRN, User:Betty Logan suggested we get input on the neutrality of one of my edits, which was based in large part on some of hers but with additional sources. She and I are both attempting to resolve differences between User:Gothicfilm, who believes the text is undue weight and the three Apes movies in question are not prequels except in an expansive sense, and User:Barsoomian, who believes they are prequels sufficiently so to be listed in the prequel table.
There is technically an open RFC on the talk page, which led to the DRN, but the current active section is as above and the active editors are making progress only slowly. It is my opinion on reviewing both sides of the dispute that some reliable sources refer to the 3 movies as prequels, that a couple give language from which it might be logically inferred they are not prequels (slight OR, but we don't want to force anyone to prove negatives), and that both source sets should be reflected in the article. (Many sources simply ignore the question and use the word "sequels", which begs the unsourced question of whether sequels and prequels are mutually exclusive.)
The language might qualify as undue because it's two sentences focused on a particular franchise; we basically agreed some franchise should serve as an example, and we had been working with Star Trek as a better example, and so having a second example may be straining at a gnat. However, keeping the language in is not the important question: the dispute turns on whether the three films should be listed in the table with the gray coloring to indicate their disputed status. So I reinserted the language to see if all parties agreed with its neutrality as a baseline, as it might answer the more heated table question. One solution is if Gothicfilm should agree that the insertion is correct and thus the table addition would be valid in lieu; another is if Barsoomian should agree that the sources indicating "these are prequels" are only a tiny minority unfit for inclusion; there may be middle ground (graying lines in the table was a good start, I think).
The debate has also been shown to extend to categorization of these three movies just about everywhere else on WP.
Local questions: 1. Does the edit represent both sides neutrally, or what language would be better? 2. Are the sources there sufficient to indicate adding the three movies to the table, or what easy way would demonstrate they are only a tiny minority? Let the fur fly! JJB 01:50, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Ah. To clarify to the board: (1) Yes, as a DRN volunteer I closed discussion on that page because it was best moved back to Talk:Prequel. (2) No, I did not count the "inactive" editors like Barry who did not express interest in working toward a resolution. As to the rest, I trust the board volunteers here will determine how much it relates to my two questions in good time. JJB 06:01, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't see the point of just continuing the dispute on here, so I am going to try to summarise both sides of the argument succintly and fairly.
The term prequel has been ascribed to this set of films in several reliable sources. Taken from the discussion page at Talk:Prequel#Apes_source_analysis (I'm listing them here, because the discussion on the talk page is labyrinthine):
There are sources that have have an extremely minority view in this regard, such as this Empire magazine article that refers to Manhunter as a prequel (which everyone agrees is not). Admitting every film that is described as a prequel would lead to the list losing cohesion. Finding sources that describe the films as not prequels is difficult because it requires proving a negative i.e. sources that do not consider them prequels describe them as something else. On Google the vast majority of sources refer to them as sequels rather than prequels.
In pre-2000 sources (before remakes and reboots came along) Google give the following stats for usage:
In this respect the usage seems to suggest that the films are overwhelmingly described as a sequels, and not prequels.Please note if you google "prequel" and "Planet of the apes" you will get a high hit rate post 2000, but this is mainly because of Rise of the Planet of the Apes which is included and not disputed.
What we want to know is whether the coverage of these films in reliable sources justifies refrering to these films as prequels in the prose and the table. We do have a key that permits disputed definitions, but in the cases where this is applied there are a vast quantity of sources backing up the alternate claim. The gray shading isn't intended to make the table into a free for all, just to add come perspective. Unless you believe I have grossly misrepresented one side of the argument, I ask the other involved parties to step back, at least until someone neutral gives us an opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Betty Logan ( talk • contribs) 13:13, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
It appears the question is "whether the RS coverage describing these films as a "prequel" constitutes a significant point of view. To review the sources:
A throwaway line in a blog review of Hannibal Rising by a comedy writer is hardly significant.
Only the foreward (by a different author) uses the term "prequel" once, and he encloses it in quotes. The main text refers to the films as "sequels".
Whether a film can be both, and whether "prequels are subsets of sequels" (as suggested above) is debatable. Several dictionary definitions would suggest at the least that the latter three films are more sequel than prequel by defining prequel as "portraying the same characters at a younger age" and as "a film [...] about an earlier stage of a story or a character's life". The "story" in the three sequels is more concerned with a continuation of the story of the characters from the first two films rather than providing a pre-history of the events and/or characters in the first two films.
Again, this source suggests that Conquest is both a prequel and a sequel, but it also goes on to suggest that this is against the normal usage of these terms by saying "How is that possible you ask? Come on, this is science fiction!" Further, as has already been pointed out under "Case against", asking for counter-examples is asking to prove a negative ('Escape is not a prequel'). Since "the vast majority of sources refer to them as sequels rather than prequels", mentioning them in an article on prequels is to give undue weight to a minority view. Barry Wom ( talk) 11:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
In Gulf War syndrome, this edit removed mention of US Department of Veterans Affairs Chief Epidemiologist Han Kang's examination of the medical records of children born to Gulf War combat veterans after surveys found evidence of two times as many birth defects in the children of male troops, and about three times as many in the children of deployed female soldiers. The study of medical records was done in response to the concerns raised about the reliability of surveys in an earlier review and in the survey reports themselves, and it found that there were actually more birth defects than had been described in the survey reports. The editor deleting the medical records check source had earlier included a description of concerns about bias in the surveys, and deleted mention of the surveys in favor of the general conclusions of a review of all troops including those from countries such as Australia and France whose soldiers' children do not have any excess birth defects. At Talk:Gulf War syndrome#Dubious, the editor calls the government publication describing the medical records check "just a newsletter" and therefore says it fails WP:MEDRS. I disagree because it is a government publication held as reliable as scholarship per WP:MEDRS#Choosing sources, describing the work of the preeminent authority on the topic, and as such it presents an opposing view which would be obscured to the point of inaccuracy if it were omitted. I am interested in others' opinions. 71.215.84.127 ( talk) 23:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
But the statement in question is quite strong and affirmative as compared with the language of the footnote, which speaks of preliminary results. A statement to the effect that preliminary research that involves cross checking the survey results against medical records seems to support the findings would appear more appropriate, in my opinion. Coaster92 ( talk) 20:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)Medical and scientific organizations Statements and information from reputable major medical and scientific bodies may be valuable encyclopedic sources. These bodies include the U.S. National Academies (including the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences), the British National Health Service, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization. The reliability of these sources range from formal scientific reports, which can be the equal of the best reviews published in medical journals, through public guides and service announcements, which have the advantage of being freely readable, but are generally less authoritative than the underlying medical literature.
After editing the article to reflect the suggestion from Coaster92 here, the editor who I was concerned about asked another editor for help, and they have reverted the disputed statements and much more of the article in ways which I believe make the NPOV issues much worse. I'm going to try to address their points when I get more time. 71.215.84.127 ( talk) 20:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Articles has been deleted 4 times as an A7, once as a G3, and once as a G11. When created, the article often has unverified claims and reference claims whose references do not back up the claims made at all. I've recently cleaned up the article and I believe that the subject is now most likely notable but I think it would be helpful if a few other users added the article to their watchlist to guard from more NPOV and promotional editing. OlYeller21 Talktome 17:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I would appreciate some uninvolved eyes at Covance to check for neutrality, particularly the neutrality of the lead.
Covance is a contract research organization, and one of the kinds of research it offers is animal testing. Between 2003 and 2005, there were two undercover investigations by animal advocacy groups, the first by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and the second by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in Covance's primate laboratories in Germany and the United States. Both produced footage showing what the groups said was abuse of monkeys. In Germany no action was taken against the company; in the United States there was a small fine.
The issue now is that several new or sporadically used accounts ( User:BrainSnail, User:Tbd-r1 and User:Cromng) are arguing – on article talk and a user talk page (see User talk:Tbd-r1) – that any mention of the controversy should be removed from the lead, and the rest of it moved to another article. I've added the company's perpective to the lead and clarified the response of the authorities, but I don't agree that it should be removed entirely (per WP:LEAD). One of the accounts also wants to rewrite the article from a corporate perspective; see his version of the article.
As the new accounts have adopted the company's perspective, and as I have animal rights sympathies, it would be helpful if uninvolved editors could take a look. The key questions are: (1) should the undercover investigations be mentioned in the lead? (2) if yes, are they summarized appropriately? and (3) is the current section about the controversy written appropriately?
For anyone wanting to review the undercover footage, here is the BUAV video, and the PETA video. (The BUAV video is hosted on the PETA website because there was some litigation in Germany between BUAV and Covance, which I believe resulted in BUAV agreeing to remove it from their site, but I'm having difficulty finding good sources on that.) There is also a BUAV summary. There are secondary sources in the article; for example Nature and CNN. For other sources, see footnote 5. I can email the Nature article to anyone who can't see it.
Many thanks in advance for any input. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:29, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
Is there a difference in understanding between NPOV and mainstream science view ?
Take a contentious topic like cold fusion (I am SPA for that).
I always thought I understood NPOV for fringe topics as: describe the majority view clearly and denote it as the majority view and describe the minority view clearly and denote it as the minority view.
It appears that other editors see it differently as: describe the majority view clearly and denote it as the majority view and describe clearly what the majority thinks of the minority view and don't give the minority view undue weight.
A NPOV article on a minority topic should have 4 "sorts" of content (i do not mean in form of blocks or sections):
So provided that the content comes from reliable sources, adding content for these 4 parts is not POV pushing, it's trying to keep NPOV. So what is POV pushing anyway ?
To me it seems that "POV pushing" or let's call it reducing NPOV can be:
What do you think about this ? -- POVbrigand ( talk) 12:32, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
A poor article. I have particular NPOV issues with the 'Views on the Euro' and 'Quotes' section added yesterday in
Nigel Farage, the
UKIP leader. Both appear to be a list of editorially selected links to primary sources -please feel free to disagree. If I'm right, I'd like some help finding a suitable template to explain to other editors and advice on a better source. I can't possibly summarise 300 odd links. I added "primary source" to 'Views on the Euro,' removed by
Special:Contributions/86.163.111.80 so I added 'Views on the Euro' note on the talk page. The template was once again
removed as it referred to the whole article, not just the section.
I'd like to delete the quotes section and replace views on the Euro with a summary of a
BBC Question time discussion as it shows his views and his opponents responses but this has disappeared.
A youtube video is available from UKIP but has comments. Would you suggest I gave the BBC details of the broadcast omitting the UKIP link?
Thanks in advance
JRPG (
talk) 21:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I created an article for the company I work for Mirus Futurues LLC. The first article I created was marked for deletion due to neutrality. I have since gotten the page back on my user folder and have removed sections that I could see as being bias.
I would appreciate it if other editors could take a look at the page and make changes or suggestions so that I can move the page live once again without worrying about it being deleted.
Here is the page url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Slosh3719/Mirus_Futures,_LLC
Any help would be appreciated.
Slosh3719 ( talk) 18:50, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Explanation of the neutral point of view: Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as "neutrality" means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them clearly and accurately.
Attributing and specifying biased statements: Biased statements of opinion can only be presented with attribution. For instance, "John Doe is the best baseball player" expresses an opinion and cannot be asserted in Wikipedia as if it were a fact. It can be included as a factual statement about the opinion: "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre." Opinions must still be verifiable and appropriately cited.
The article uses terms such as "reliable," "fast," "constantly searching," "Mirus believes." These suggest an advertisement. What have reliable secondary sources such as the New York Times or Time Magazine said about this company? That is what you need to look at and write about. Also, I am not sure what the limitations are about editors posting articles for which they have a conflict of interest. Other editors may know this. Good luck. Coaster92 ( talk) 05:28, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
Per WP:Verifiability, information from self published sources can be used in some circumstances. The problem with this company is that there don't seem to be any reliable secondary sources that cover it, in which case the subject is not notable and the article would be subject to deletion under WP:Notability. This is the policy I found about when self published sources might be used:
Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves: Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field, so long as: 1. the material is not unduly self-serving and exceptional in nature; 2. it does not involve claims about third parties; 3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source; 4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; 5. the article is not based primarily on such sources. This policy also applies to pages on social networking sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.
To get more help, you might try posting a note on the conflict of interest noticeboard WP:COIN or posting your article idea on WikiProject. Here is a relevant section of WP:Conflict of Interest I found:
Suggesting changes to articles, or requesting a new article: See also: Wikipedia:Suggestions for COI compliance An editor with a conflict of interest who wishes to suggest substantive changes to an article should use that article's talk page. The request edit template should be used; it must be added manually to the talk page. When making a request, please consider disclosing your conflict of interest to avoid misunderstanding. To request a new article, you can present your idea on the talk page of a relevant article or WikiProject.
I still think a major problem is the lack of notability of the subject. Good luck. Coaster92 ( talk) 04:50, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
On page WOT Services, Ltd. a user operating through 7 proxies tagged the article as 'advert'. Inappropriately so, in my opinion. The unknown user fails to sufficiently motivate his/her actions, and neglects my invitations to adjust any POV, so I reverted the tag several times. Please see for yourself, thank you. WeatherFug ( talk) 11:57, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
It is a PPPoE connection without static IP. It sounds as if anyone who disagrees with the WOT system is some kind of malicious spammer, who's views have no validity.
There are several sources of criticism cited in the talk page by other users. Some of those pages criticizing the WOT system have been downvoted as phishing sites because they take a critical view of myWOT. Take a look at the review forum ( http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/5?sort=desc&order=Replies), especially some of the longer threads where site owners are asked absurd requests from the technically illiterate. There are examples of people with alternative medicine sites being flagged as phishing sites because users disagree with the content. Despite all of these available sources(listed on the talk page) of criticism, there are a measly 3 sentences listed under 'reviews'
"The rating tool has received favorable reviews in the press, sometimes with mildly critical remarks.[3][4][5] Some people vent more harsh criticism, saying the system is too susceptible to faulty results caused by targeted, malicious efforts of biased users. The company claims the system is extremely difficult to abuse and says that attempts usually get noticed.[6]"
This sounds like minimizing, and in Wikipedia terms, I would describe that as containing 'weasel words'. Other users posted critical sections to the article, which were removed. Those may or may not have been appropriately worded for the Wikipedia standard. I will not debate that. I am not an expert of Wikipedia, and I did not create those edits. It stands to reason that those edits would be replaced by a more appropriate summation of criticisms, instead of being deleted all together. That is, unless there are no valid criticisms of myWOT as it exists beyond reproach. For those reasons, I had flagged the article as sounding like a PR piece.
I admit my biases in this situation, and have no problems with stepping aside to let someone more objective examine the issue. I wonder if Weatherfug can say the same. It appears from where I stand that the user Weatherfug is towing the myWOT party line, or at least looking at the issue with an uncritical eye. Why was the article flagged as Advert in the past, if there are no concerns to be addressed? Are we to accept that fans of the service have decided that it is no longer a PR piece and a balanced representation?
Quoted from the talk page: "Another response to this article was posted here http://dukeo.com/mywot-web-of-trust-review-modern-web-totalitarism/ Convello 10:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC) With very little research, a lot of bad user-experiences and interesting in-depth reviews can be found and would probably need to be represented on MyWot page. An in-depth look at MyWot system illustrated with information taken directly from MyWot http://thundercloud.net/infoave/new/?p=818 Another review of MyWot http://www.foilball.com/mywot-com-another-false-review-site Complete blog dedicated to exposing MyWot flaws http://mywotlies.wordpress.com/ A response to this article exposing abusive ratings http://www.flounder.com/web_of_lies.htm An entrepreneur gets crushed by MyWot ratings http://thundercloud.net/infoave/new/?p=641 Convello 10:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)"
Some of those are overly hyperbolic. However, it does not mean that no valid criticisms exist. It is telling that the only critical sections available involve a legal judgement that myWOT has won and the minimizing text I mentioned above. Wikipedia should not be a platform for this group to whitewash public opinion. Fans of the service should not take the final decision on the objectivity of the article.
I am asking for assistance from administrators to investigate the article on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for POV. The article on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist militant paramilitary movement, is denying that the movement's well-known violent political behaviour towards Muslims in India and mostly focuses on its philanthropic efforts towards Hindus, stating in the intro that all statements on its violence are "alleged" - meaning that they are contested. This is not supported by mainstream sources. Efforts in the talk page to address the controversial aspects of the RSS have failed, the discussion descended into angry rebuttals, assumption of bad faith in violation with Wikipedia policy, and character assassination against Wikipedia users. The Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide on page 186 includes evidence compiled by the internationally-respected Human Rights Watch that says that during the 2002 Gujarat violence, "A plot to uproot the Muslim population of the state had been underway for some time: the RSS had circulated computerized lists of Muslim homes and businesses that were to be targeted by the mobs in advance." [6]. This has not been the first time that the RSS has incited violence against Muslims - it vouched for the demolition of Babri Masjid mosque in 1992 against fierce opposition by Muslims, resulting in the ancient mosque being torn down and eruption of violence between Hindus versus Muslims in which the RSS took part in anti-Muslim violence that resulted in the Indian government banning the RSS. The RSS has claimed that non-Hindus - including Muslims - are not considered by the RSS to be citizens of India and rejects any citizenship rights for non-Hindus, because it claims that the only "true" citizens of India are Hindus.-- R-41 ( talk) 16:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
The RSS is a highly controversial movement in India, for instance there are multiple books by scholars on fascism such as Stanley Payne, Walter Laqueur and others who investigated the RSS' connection with fascism - such as the former RSS leader's praising of Hitler's "purification" of Germany into ethnic German-only citizenship that he claimed should be a model for India to become a Hindu-only citizenship, as well as investigations that have uncovered that the RSS was inspired by Italian Fascist youth organizations. It is well-known to have participated in planned violence against India's Muslims, this needs to be stated in the intro, and material outright denying this needs to be removed from the article.-- R-41 ( talk) 16:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
The article Arana-Southern Treaty is about a treaty that ended the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata, a XIX century conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom. Although the conflict was not related to the Falkland Islands, some historians think that it may influence it.
The article includes several external links at the end. Cambalachero removed them because, with the exception of the first one, and the "Historia de las Relaciones Exteriores Argentinas..." one (which Cambalachero turned into a footnote) the others are merely generic links to "history of the falklands" pages, which do not contain a single mention of the treaty. Cambalachero thinks that such pages go against WP:ELNO item 13 (same as if we include generic pages of Argentine history). However, the author of the article, Nigelpwsmith, insists to restore them. I would appreciate uninvolved opinions.
Cambalachero insists on claiming that the above Treaty was derogated. He provided a link to a foreign history page provided by the Argentine Government, but he is unable to provide any proof that the Treaty was derogated. The Treaty was added to Wikisource and is still in effect. It has been quoted by numerous sources as proof that the Argentine Government acquiesced on British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. I believe that Cambalachero is making alterations without any validation or corroboration to support the Argentine position which is untenable. I have repeatedly asked him to desist from making these alterations and even suggested that if he feels strongly about his points he should alter the Argentine Wikipedia only, but not the English version.
He has included some interesting information which improves the overall article. However, his actions recently have been nothing more than unsupported vandalism to support a political and nationalistic point of view which can not be validated or supported by external documents in the UK. In fact, I do have documents in the UK which support the claims I've made. http://www.mediafire.com/view/?c4mn3cd8sb4mc1i
Title: "False Falklands history at the United Nations: How Argentina misled the UN in 1964 - and still does". Cambalachero questions whether this is a neutral and unbiased document? He agrees that there is Argentine nationalism towards the islands, but there is British nationalism as well.
Yes the reference does present the facts from the British point of view and the view of the Islanders, but it highlights the deliberate lies put forward from the Argentine side. User Cambalachero is admitting the Argentine nationalism towards the islands and in the documents. The British documents show a different version of the truth. The page was added to Wikipedia the Arana-Southern Treaty, because it shows a glaring omission by not including the history of the treaty and what it says about the legal position with respect to Argentina's claims. However, nothing which Camalachero has provided shows any proof that the treaty was derogated in any way. Especially not by the British Government, who included it in their released papers. He makes unsupportable claims that it was when it was not and then tries to say that at least he has external links - when those external links are biased and incomplete, belonging as they do to the Argentine Government (or rather an Argentine educational establishment). Nigelpwsmith ( talk) 19:57, 15 May 2012 (UTC) I re-iterate, there is no proof that this treaty was derogated by the British. I accept that the Treaty was not added to Wikisource by the British Government, but it was added from Volume 37 of the British and foreign state papers - a verifiable source. Nigelpwsmith ( talk) 18:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I accept that both sides to this dispute have strong nationalistic claims. However, Cambalachero has to provide proof that the Treaty was derogated by Britain - otherwise his alterations are just unsupportable claims. Even the Argentine Government source does not show that the Treaty was derogated by the British. Merely that diplomats discussed it. Diplomats discuss a lot of things, but it is Governments that make pronouncements on Treaties and this treaty is still in effect.
As neither side is willing to agree on the point of the derogation, I would like to make the following proposal to Wikipedia. Either Cambalachero provides the proof that the British Goverment derogated the treaty, or the paragraph on derogation is removed altogether and the document locked.
Can I also suggest that Cambalachero creates a separate page titled the 'Hotham Mission Saint Georges (August 1852)' and reference that to the Argentine source and remove the Derogation section of the Arana-Southern Treaty. Nigelpwsmith ( talk) 20:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Some prominent members of this Finnish political party have made colorful statements on the record. At issue is if they should be mentioned on the party article. There's been a slow-running dispute for a while; I think it could benefit from the attention of outside editors. a13ean ( talk) 13:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
This is an older post but I don't see any response here so far. Reviewing Wiki policies seems to lead to the conclusion that these statements are not appropriate in this article. The statements are peculiar to the speakers and do not purport to assert the position of the party. They just happen to be made by people who associate themselves with the party. WP:Relevance states:
On Wikipedia, relevance is simply whether a fact (in an article) is useful to the reader and is in the right article. If a fact is not relevant to the topic of the article, it should not be mentioned in that article. This does not mean it can not be mentioned in some other article. Mentioning things that are irrelevant to an article's topic can give them Undue Weight.
Wikipedia articles should be written in summary style, providing an overview of their subject. This overview may touch upon several related topics or subtopics, but any details not immediately relevant to the primary topic should be moved into other articles, linking to them if appropriate. If coverage of a subtopic grows to the point where it overshadows the main subject (or digresses too far from it), it may be appropriate to spin it off into a sub-article.
These statements seem to belong in articles about their speakers, not in this article. Coaster92 ( talk) 03:58, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
This article was created and has been maintained unimpeded for 5 years by Aslandad, who is Bruce L. Edwards per: Aslandad "It is a personal photo of myself."Part of the WP article is copied verbatim from this website: Bottom of page: "Bruce L. Edwards is Professor of English and Africana Studies…" I'm sure he doesn't know he is violating any policies as the bottom of the WP article shows that he is transparent about writing his own article with the heading: What I am Interested in Besides C.S. Lewis. Didn't seem to be any point in posting on the talk page, as there are no entries there, so in case someone here is interested and has time to address any issues, I'm posting it here. Thanks, Agadant ( talk) 02:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
See
User GeorgianJorjadze (and Kober) they refuse to constructive discussion, GeorgianJorjadze waging a war of edits without explanation (other than as a game with rules: that there is no consensus. However, I have arguments. They - no.)
I need help! -- PlatonPskov ( talk) 18:22, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I recently had to revert an edit by user:Lexlex at the Parents Television Council article for inserting POV against the PTC in the article. Lexlex has been inserting this original research, non-neutral claim for months now, dating back to January. Andrewlp1991 ( talk) 00:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry if this is not the right board. I am seeking assistance in resolving a NPOV dispute on Vietnamese article about the organization Viet Tan. The equivalent English achieved NPOV by stating both that the Vietnamese government considers Viet Tan to be a terrorist organization, while the US government does not. However, the Vietnamese version only states the view of the Vietnamese government. Attempts to rectify this with many verifiable sources continue to be completely reverted. AFAIK, paragraphs with references should not simply be reverted to achieve NPOV, but instead should be modified instead. This NPOV has been raised multiple times on the corresponding talk page already to no avail. I couldn't find a Vietnamese version of this noticeboard. What are you recommendations? Jaydeek ( talk) 14:45, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
This article looked terrible, had several single-purpose accounts, and has been in the news recently. I did a massive cleanup, which was reverted by one of the SPAs. I started a talk page discussion, but I'd love some oversight to confirm I made a net improvement. tedder ( talk) 19:24, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi. There is a disagreement on the neutrality of the lead in the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union article. There are a few issues, but the major one revolves around the use of a quote:
"Thirteen-man rugby league has shown itself to be a faster, more open game of better athletes than the other code. Rugby union is trying to negotiate its own escape from amateurism, with some officials admitting that the game is too slow, the laws too convoluted to attract a larger TV following."
— Ian Thomsen, The New York Times, 28 October 1995, [1]
Some editors are claiming that the use of this quote in the lead violates WP:Lead and WP:NPOV. Another editor is saying that it is a reliable, third-party source that summarises the article, so it should be in the lead. The full discussion can be found at Talk:Comparison of rugby league and rugby union#Quote in the intro. It would be good to get some opinions from people who are not part of either the rugby union or rugby league Wikiprojects. AIRcorn (talk) 08:48, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
[7]Argentina claims as a "fact" that a civilian population was expelled from the Falkland Islands in 1833 but the contemporary historical record shows this claim to be false. I have an editor claiming that to meet WP:NPOV we have to state the Argentine claims as a true fact "from the Argentine POV". At present the article merely notes the Argentine claim but notes that show this is contradicted by contemporary records (both British and Argentine btw). Wee Curry Monster talk 11:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
There is a group of editors trying to push a POV on the position of two language groups in the Indo-European languages tree, namely, the Baltic and Slavic languages. I have been observing this behavior for a few years, and it is obvious that the is a systematic ignorance of an increasing number of provided references, that the proposed Balto-Slavic group of languages within the IE is not a widely accepted view but rather a topic of ongoing debate and discussions. On the Talk page there are a number of reliable references, which list Baltic and Slavic as two individual branches of the IE. Also, there are ongoing disputes in articles like Baltic languages and Balto-Slavic languages. Especially there one can see that users Dominus Vobisdu, Ivan Štambuk , Angr, and most recently - Heironymous Rowe, have been systematically ignoring the provided references, and by collaborating, providing SYNTHESIS of their preferred literature are publishing their OR.
The latest example of this manipulation and WP policies misusing is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Indo-European_languages&diff=494263580&oldid=494212883
Somebody with the right experience in the field and also in handling nationalism-flavored disputes would be appreciated in this dispute that ultimately has to be settled. Count du Monét ( talk) 08:41, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
The psychotherapy article needs a balanced critique section. The current article contains a section called "criticisms and questions regarding effectiveness" in which a few random studies have been cited, and a laundry list of random arguments are put forward. It is not a comprehensive precis of the effectiveness literature. The article neglects a wide body of work that points to a) the success of some types of therapy with specific types of disorders, b) discipline-agnostic characteristics of therapist behaviour that contribute to success, c) superiority of psychopharmacology & psychotherapy combined, vs either intervention on it's own, d) characteristics of clients/patients that seem to benefit most from psychotherapy, and e) vested interests of stakeholders in swinging research to one side of the debate or the other and other inhibiting factors - consider the two APA's, the various laws and licensing authorities, the separate academic communities in psychiatry, philosophy, social work, occupational therapy, the professional jealousies, the profound neglect of mental illness and psychological wellbeing in public health and health insurance, and the impact of the pharmaceutical industry's deep pockets on the dominant discourse.
Please note that I am editing anonymously in protest against the tyrrany of the editing majority. Wikipedia's non-negotiable, amateur editor norm might be appropriate for certain article categories, but in more nuanced technical spaces there is invariably a segment that make nuisances of themselves by wanting to debate every word and angle. I have watched the development of articles on schools of psychotherapy since the early 2000s, and I'm afraid time and multiple amateur edits have not improved them much. In the specific case of psychology their mistakes add to the perception that this is a wishy washy discipline void of a body of knowledge and ANY facts. I suspect that this is partly why self-respecting people who are knowledgeable don't want to be involved in what is otherwise a very worthy undertaking.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.118.144 ( talk) 10:52, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Donald Tsang ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
I request your comments on
Talk:Donald Tsang for an on-going RfC to decide whether the title "Sir" should be used in the lead section. It should be noted that the subject himself does not use the title. —
Nearly Headless Nick {
c} 10:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
I invite editors to this proposal for a 1RR restriction to the circumcision page: [8] Pass a Method talk 16:52, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
All-
I want to highlight an article that, I think, is hopelessly lacking in a neutral point of view - 'Ramapough Mountain Indians'. From the looks of the talk page, there's a long history, with, ramapoughnative1, a member of the "tribe" (not meant as scare quotes - they're not officially recognized (and that's a part of the problem)) engaged in a multi-year edit war against everyone else who try to edit the article into something resembling neutrality. The article appears to have been tagged in the past with either NPOV or Close Relationship (or both), but the tags have been removed by ramapoughnative1 as everyone else has given up in the face of his dogged resistence to a more neutral article.
I don't have the time or expertise to edit the article or engage in a edit war, but it's one of the most slanted articles I've seen on wikipedia, and I have no dog in the fight - I was just checking the page to settle a wager with a friend regarding whether the Ramapo Indians were part-Dutch or not. I think that those invested in the neutrality of wikipedia would want to intervene.
Thanks, D.R.Z. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.104.167.98 ( talk) 12:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
What am I supposed to do with this? I mean, I don't want to just revert it, there's good info in there with actual references. But it's also formatted horribly and is written rather non-neutrally at parts. Silver seren C 08:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi there, Would anyone here be willing to add their 2 cents at the BP article? It appears to me that there is 'greenwashing' in the intro and editors are unwilling to allow a more neutral read.
This is my change which was labeled POV:
This what how it looked before:
To me it is obvious that to mention only the investments in green energy and to be unwilling to mention (the vast majority of BP's) investments in petrol is classic greenwashing in on no way neutral. These stats for BP's petrol investments were the only ones I could find in a pretty exhaustive search online. However, there is an employee of BP who is giving suggestions for the article, he might be willing to help with those numbers. Secondly, the statements about green energy appear tacked on to the "BP has been involved in..." as a rebuttal. It makes no sense for these unrelated statements to even be in the same paragraph, unless in fact some editors do want this page to make BP look good. petrarchan47 T c 22:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, [ here] is the link to discussion. petrarchan47 T c 22:43, 4 June 2012 (UTC) You might take note also that the editor who favors the more biased (imo) paragraph is also taking direct suggestions from a BP employee on how to improve the article. petrarchan47 T c 22:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
IMO the statement about the amount BP spends on exploration of fossil fuels puts its monetary amount spent for renewable energy in proper perspective. I agree that the sentence should be added. Otherwise undue weight is given to its renewable energy efforts. Coaster92 ( talk) 04:13, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
At Ramapough Mountain Indians an editor insists that a statement by the first of a long list of sources say "* Herbert C. Kraft Considered a "Noted Scholar" by peers in his field". I am not arguing that this isn't true, Kraft's an expert, but that this form of wording is pov and argument by authority. I suspect that there is quite a bit of pov in the article. The main editor is a member of the tribe who is, understandably, quite sure they are right about everything to do with the subject - a read of the talk page is recommended. If I ever have time I'll take a more thorough look at it. Probably quite a bit of OR also, I just reverted an obviously OR recent edit by the same editor but this isn't NOR. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 05:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I have written exactly how it was stated in the links provided but no one bothered to read them. It is not WP:POV when I am copying what was written. I have provided the links and still you have persisted to call it 'Puffery'. Regardless if i'm a member of the tribe or not, if it's written as such and verifiable, explain how it is POV? Ramapoughnative ( talk) 15:23, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
As far as the part about the BIA, how would you write it? The information was supplied them but not utilized in their decision. (Since then, we now know why. It had nothing to do with our history and everything to do with the state's concern for Casinos.) Ramapoughnative ( talk) 15:30, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
File:Senator_letter.pdf My link for my above statement. also, WP:PEA states.. "The examples given above are not automatically weasel words, as they may also be used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, where the article body or the rest of the paragraph supplies attribution. this is what is followed.. The BIA statement is not "my observation", it is fact because of their statement "None of the interested party or third party comments provided substantive proof that the earliest proven RMI ancestors descended from a historical tribe of North American Indians. Therefore, the third-party comments were not directly pertinent to criterion 83.7(e)". I am not here to discuss the opinions of the BIA, just present the facts. It is a fact they ignored eyewitness accounts from verifiable sources. Ramapoughnative ( talk) 16:23, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Also i consider this "The article now reads " a professor of archeology at Seton Hall University who conducted extensive studies of the Lenape" which is much better." This is your POV, not mine and I find unacceptable as it is not how it was written in the links I provided. Ramapoughnative ( talk) 16:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
"With the death of Herbert Kraft in 1999 and that of C. A. Weslager several years ago, we lost the leading Lenape-Delaware historian-ethnographers of the latter decades of the 20th century." This the description of Kraft from "a Kansas Delaware and a former Kansas Delaware Chief and and now Ceremonial Chief." on their website http://lenapedelawarehistory.net/mirror/bibliography.htm Still think he's just an archeologist? Ramapoughnative ( talk) 16:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
You did! (16:37, 31 May 2012 Dougweller (talk | contribs) . . (38,579 bytes) (-32) . . (→Historical perspective: remove 'noted scholar', we should never try to use adjectives in this way to make someone sound authoritative) (undo)) Is this not your name on the edit? So the only argument you can use as a defense is WP:Consensus? Total BS and you know it. Despite the fact it is documented as such and 'not' implied, you want to go with your opinion of what is WP:PEA, contrary to what is described within as valid.. Discussing this with you is pointless and we need a third party to get involved who's unbiased. Ramapoughnative ( talk) 17:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
I think we can put this to bed. Ramapoughnative and I hope to work together to improve the article. Dougweller ( talk) 16:46, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Tucker
This sentence from the Cynthia Tucker entry requires little consideration before being removed:
"She blogs regularly but no one reads her drivel"
Further in the article, her characterization as a "radical leftist" is very debatable by anyone familiar with her writing. This sentence should be edited to include "considered by some" or be completely rewritten to reflect an objective POV.
No need to respond, I am not engaging in discussion. I am simply trying to report this & I do not see a simple place to do so.
Thank you (whoever) for your effort and consideration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.251.111.130 ( talk) 15:13, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
I have edited parts of the Rich Nugent page, but was still looking to see if I can could get another opinion on this one, Nugent's page reads like someone who is a supporter of his has written it, I've removed some unnecessary detail that was on there but this really needs a look at by the board. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Americium-con ( talk • contribs) 02:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
A couple of editors are insisting that the term feminazi is not comparing feminists to Nazis. The rest of us think that's absurd, but User:Paul Barlow, one of them, just removed a link to reductio ad hitlerum from the article, calling it unsupported. I feel that when you call your opponents "nazis" you have committed the reduction ad hitlerum by definition; but wish to get some outside input on this before we get into a real edit war. -- Orange Mike | Talk 00:21, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
This edit is being disputed, on the grounds that my removal "Basically calling into the question the editorial independence and integrity of the newspaper without evidence." [11]. I'd just like to establish whether a performance write-up, not a review and not sold as such, should be used to endorse a glossy description of a performance. I mean, is it sufficiently reliable or neutral to be used in this manner; or ought it to stay go? -- Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:22, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
I find it hard to believe that the article on David Irving meets WP:NPOV by any stretch. I tried putting the not-NPOV tag on it, but it was quickly removed. In part because I did not provide a list of specific things that make it clearly NPOV. This is due in part to the fact that the NPOV issues with the article will be *obvious* to anyone who has read it- and because the Talk Page and Talk Page history are filled with examples of NPOV objections (which went unresolved.)
I am neither pro nor anti-Irving, per se. But after reading the article I was left with the strong impression it was one of the least "balanced" and "fair" articles I'd read in some time. I'm listing this here so any fair-minded editors/admins can take a look at the page and decide for themselves whether they think it meets Wikipedias WP:NPOV stance. (Especially enough for it to qualify as a "Good Article".) Emeraldflames ( talk) 03:59, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I really don't understand this claim that the non-neutrality is supposed to be "obvious". Neutrality is defined by the major points of view taken toward a subject by reliable sources. Unless you expect everyone to be familiar with the mainstream literature that reviews Irving and his work, I don't see how whatever you see is going to be obvious. I mean, of course it is obvious that the point of view of the article is decidedly anti-Irving, but if that's the only significant viewpoint, then it's the neutral one as well. We're not going to sugarcoat the article and hand Irving a lollipop because the big bad historians were mean to him. If you think there is a significant viewpoint that is neglected by the article, or that the mainstream viewpoint is misrepresented, then it's your job to show that. Someguy1221 ( talk) 03:04, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Emeraldflames ( talk) 06:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
The article on Anti-Christian Sentiment concerning Israel was recently rewritten to sound more like an apologist essay replete with WP:OR statements including reduced numbers and minimized frequency of incidents. One editor in particular has shifted NPOV significantly with her/his contributions. I have since tried to find a compromise and get the article back to encyclopedic standards. An RfC has also been opened. Feedback from a broad background of editors would be greatly appreciated in stating how NPOV can be achieved.
Here is a reference of the most significant edits concerning this:
The discussion is currently taking place on the article
Talk page:Anti-Christian Sentiment#Israel.
Thanks for any and all participation. Veritycheck ( talk) 19:40, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
This is an article under ArbCom sanctions. It was split from a larger article (which covers modern scholarship on this subject) and states at the top of the page "Please note: this is not the article for discussing actual evidence pointing either way in this debate. This is a "history of controversy" article: please discuss it in this way, bearing in mind academic consensus, this is not a referendum on Afrocentrism or Eurocentrism." When you edit it, there is a yellow message above the edit window that says "Please note: this is not the article for discussing actual evidence pointing either way in this debate. This is a "history of controversy" article: please discuss it in this way, bearing in mind academic consensus, this is not a referendum on Afrocentrism or Eurocentrism."
An editor with no previous edits arrived at it a few days ago and made major changes which were basically arguments about the "actual evidence pointing either way in this debate" and if they belong anywhere belong in Population history of Egypt. Attempts to discuss these on the article talk page and at WP:DRN have resulted in statements saying that the editors disagreeing with him are bullies, censors, etc although I and another editor have tried to explain the problems (I don't want to focus on editors' behavior, just pointing out that it is because of this behavior that am bringing this here). Last night the editor reinstated his version saying it should stay pending discussion. I was about to bring this here when that was reverted, so I want to discuss his earlier version and get more input. His version is at [14].
The first obvious thing is the use of quoteboxes. Our not-guideline on this says, correctly I believe, "As a matter of style, quoteboxes should generally be avoided as they draw special attention to the opinion of one source, and present that opinion as though Wikipedia endorses it." I haven't done much editing of this recently, but even before his edits there was too much use of quoteboxes (I'd remove most if not all of them), and his use of them in the lead and in the section on Modern scholarship made this worse and are, I and the other editor on the talk page, being used to push a pov as well as being in the wrong article.
Leaving aside the use of a block quote in the lead, he uses them heavily in his addition to the Modern scholarship section. This section starts with a paragraph stating:
"Since the decisions of the UNESCO Conference of 1974 several authoritative Encyclopedic references have made conclusive statements on the "race" of the ancient Egyptians based on contemporary research, which disputes those earlier claims. The 1984 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica concludes that the Negroid element of Egypt was stronger during predynastic times."
Wikipedia articles should clearly not be claiming that there are any 'conclusive statements' on a subject which is still disputed (and complex). There's an RS issue about Britannica which I may bring up at RSN, so we don't need to discuss that there, but the use of a blockquote from it is I believe not appropriate in any case.
The rest of his addition here is basically blockquotes. I can't see how an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam can be a conclusive reference to anything, but he firmly states that it represents mainline scholarship.
He also introduces a large blockquote about the introduction of sheep. It looks to me as though the original use of that source from the National Georgraphic wasn't accurate in that it doesn't seem to say what it is referencing, and I'll look at that and fix it if needs be shortly, but the blockquote was at best overkill in an article about the history of the controversy, which it doesn't mention at all.
I'm going to take the liberty of adding a post from Wdford on this subject: "SirShawn, the material in the "population history" article is all relevant here, as a "modern hypothesis", because there is still controversy and a lack of consensus among 'scholars". However this article was spilt a while ago, because it was getting too big. The basis of the spilt was decided - with much acrimony – to be along the lines of a “history of the debate” article and a “modern scholarship” article. It’s a bit arbitrary, but a split had to be made. "In line with wikipolicy, the “modern scholarship” section in the “history” article is thus just a very brief summary, with a clear link to the other article for those who are interested. Lovell etc are mentioned in the “modern scholarship” article already, as is the discussion about languages, skeletal proportions, DNA analysis etc etc. The short summary is supposed to be short, but you have been adding lengthy quotes (which co-incidentally all support a certain POV) while leaving out the huge corpus of scientific study which doesn’t support this viewpoint. Feel free to add your Lovell quote at the appropriate section of the “modern scholarship” article, alongside the info that contradicts her, but we don’t need to duplicate material across the two articles."
Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 10:33, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
These are the edits that I've proposed to add [15]
Let me first start off by saying that every single contribution that I have made to that article are as mainstream and contemporary as it gets in regards to this discussion. In the modern scholarship section of the article I have added in the official statements of the "Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt", "The Encyclopedia of Archaeology of ancient Egypt", University of Manchester, "National Geographic" (which in itself cites a dozen scholars for their statements), and the Encyclopedia Britannica. The issues that several posters are having is that every one of these modern authorities have pretty much plainly come out in the support of the "black African" theory in regards to ancient Egypt. Their rejection of these sources is clearly a reflection of their own biased. Doug has attempted to argue that the contextualized (in terms of the social concept of "race" which is relevant to the article itself) statements by every one of those authoritative sources belongs in an article which is supposed to deal with individual studies dealing with strictly with biology and culture ("Population history" article). The population history section is dealing with conflicting individual studies, and almost none of which deal with "race" in the social sense. Doug is also hypocritical on what he perceives the purpose of the article to be. He states that it is somehow only to reflect the "history" of an on-going debate, while simultaneously acknowledging a section of the article devoted to MODERN scholarship and disputing the inclusion of the most MODERN and accepted theories in regards to Egypt's origins TODAY.
Interestingly enough another issue with the article is that a blatant lie in regards to a claim that modern Egyptians are "90%" genetically identical to ancient Egyptians is cited by a source that does not state it anywhere in the link. This claim prior to my contributions was posted THREE TIMES throughout the article (clearly a POV). Now why should that original research be repeated throughout the article, yet the contextualized (keyword) statements dealing with race of the Fitzwilliam, Oxford, Manchester, Britannica ect be excluded? It's makes absolutely no sense.
Another issue is that they are saying that my sources are basically biased to support my POV. Well is it at all possible that one particular POV is well...where the facts lay in regards to this issue? If not, then why not simply cite another modern institute of the same academic integrity (as the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Encyclopedia of Archaeology of ancient Egypt ect) which opposing contextualized statements? If it's really that much of a dispute amongst modern scholars shouldn't it be easy to cite other recent views, rather than censor the one side to make it appear as though no decision has been reached? Clearly there are emotional attachments to this issue, and imo anyone who wishes to censor any of those top notch sources should not be taken seriously.
One poster (WDford) attempted to say that somehow argue that including these sources were a POV because they were cited "Afrocentric" scholars. When I pretty much debunked that assertion (see the talk page), he nor anyone else responded.
As evident by the talk page these users aren't trying to be logical in their decisions. They are emotionally attached to certain ideas, and are simply trying to bully their views into place with a so called "consensus" to be unreasonable. SirShawn ( talk) 21:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Fifelfoo why are you ignoring the fact that I've also cited statements from Fitzwilliam (University of Cambridge), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (written by Donald Redford) and the Encyclopedia of Archaeology of Ancient Egypt written by Kathryn Bard? Please explain how these are not authorities on the matter of ancient Egypt? Why would these sources not convey points that are agreed upon by most scholars, or in other words "fringe theories"?
Also interestingly I was not the one who initially the National Geographic page which contains S.O.Y. Keita's summarization of multiple scholarly works. That source was inaccurately being cited to support a claim of Demic Diffusion into the Nile Valley from the Middle East in the modern research section of the article. I took the exact same source that was misinterpreted and posted an actual passage from the article to verify what was truly concluded on the matter. That being the misinterpretation of that article is still being presented in the modern scholarship section. If there is opposition to the passage being presented from the national geographic page, then perhaps the misinterpretation of what is actually being said should also be excluded.
So what I propose is that rather than getting rid of my contributions they should be placed in the "black African hypothesis" section as a opposed to the current research section. SirShawn ( talk) 09:41, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Also please explain why the 2010 genetic analysis pinpointing the land of punt in Ethiopia/Eritrea continues to be deleted as well? SirShawn ( talk) 09:43, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Request opinions on relative compliance with NPOV for these two edits: [16] (edit summary; that's not NPOV wording) [17] )edit summary: LGBT issues: NPOV wording)
The question is whether the linking of the living person to "Mormon pedophiles" by saying
is more or less NPOV with regard to VanderSloot than is saying
After reading the source on this topic, I think the first sentence linking VanderSloot to mormon pedophiles is fair considering that he took out multiple adds in the newspaper linking himself to the series via his critical full page ads. His bio does not accuse him of being one of them so imo it is OK in light of the weekly ads he had published in his name. Coaster92 ( talk) 05:05, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
VS' actions are not in dispute. He took out the ads. His ads criticized and were in response to a series on mormon pedophiles. The first sentence is more accurate. The second attempts to shield VS from his own actions, which are undisputed. This is POV imo. The sentence and entire section are not out of proportion in his bio. Again, it looks fair in this case. Coaster92 ( talk) 21:50, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I have tagged this article with a WP:COI tag since the major recent editor seems to have a close relationship with the subject which may make adherence to a neutral point of view difficult. As it stands, the "Student organizations" section, reads more like a promotional leaflet. Also most of the text in the "Student organizations" section is simply copied either form other Wikipedia articles or from Facebook fan pages of the clubs. I would like an unbiased third party opinion . Also I have a second problem, it is that every time I fix the article's (grammar, links, facts) the major recent editor puts the same things back. What should I do about it? SelomITC ( talk) 20:44, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Moved the above post from the WP:RFC/BOARD Coastside ( talk) 15:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Engaged in a discussion regarding the relative length and the content of the lead on Kirsten Gillibrand. At this point we seem to just be going around in circles on Talk, so I think it'd be constructive if some other folks could weigh in. Thanks! Arbor8 ( talk) 20:11, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Personally I am trying to stay clear to edit the article on Sōka Gakkai ... I am not sure if I can be called unbiased anymore, but the latest edits got rid of basically all critical views on this organisation ... could someone look into that? -- Catflap08 ( talk) 17:14, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Dubious as to whether this edit is neutral or supported by a reliable source [18]. More eyes welcome. 99.156.68.118 ( talk) 22:23, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
As creator of the Safetray page I have a conflict of interest in that I work for Safetray Products Ltd. After some debate about deletion the article is being kept, and I would like to ask more experienced Wikipedians to check it over for Neutral Point of View and for them to make any changes they deem necessary to ensure it meets Wikipedia neutrality guidelines, plus any other issues they might spot. Thanks very much for any help and advice you can give Carolinewhitham ( talk) 17:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
User:Nemo20000 has been editing a number of pages about politicians who were on the "No" side of the United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, 2011. He will edit their page to put in that they were on the No side, which is fine, but then says that one of the arguments is "erroneous". The argument that particularly annoys him is that there will no longer be a "one man one vote" as minority parties will be able to vote for their candidate and after the candidate is eliminated then they can get counted again for their more mainstream second choice.
The claim that this is erroneous is backed up by a briefing paper from the Political Studies Association. There is no page number given, although it seems that what Nemo is referring to is a section on page 10 "The claim that AV gives some voters extra votes is a fallacy". It firmly takes the point that as it only turns up in one final total that this means that there is no real value in a vote being seen more than once. It's a legitimate point of view, but I don't think that it's that authoratative that it can override the NPOV policy.
Some examples are John Reid, Stephen Mosley and David Cameron. There are more.
There are issues of WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE, but can we ignore these for the moment?
I could be wrong on this and have missed some subtlety in the policy, but I think that this is a fairly clear breach. However I think that the editor feels very strongly on this particular issue and this could easily become an edit war.
The editor is fairly experienced, having first made edits in 2007, but seems to have until recently not attracted any attention on their talk page, so I think they've avoided controversy and I think that it would be a good idea to be gentle.
JASpencer ( talk) 07:49, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
The Humphries debate is actually quite a nice illustration of Nemo's underlying problem here, and that is that he is misunderstanding the point - as Humphries does (although in a different way). Humphries ( who the BBC later partially disowned on this) was proved wrong on two points. Firstly he claimed that second preferences would get counted for all votes whether they voted for one of the two main candidates or a knocked out candidate. This was clearly wrong. He also seemed to claim that there was only one round of counting as well as voting, although this may have been confusion or Cameron simply allowing the argument to be framed on his terms (something that appears to be happening the other way here). Both these claims are actually wrong on the face of it (as was Humphrey's claim that no other democracy uses First Past the Post).
It's a useful illustration as it shows that there is a misunderstanding of what the opponents of AV claimed. The idea that if you have 10,000 voters you would somehow have a 12,000 vote total at a later round was never made by Cameron or the anti-AV campaign (it may have been made elsewhere). However that is the argument that is being refuted by Nemo and the Political Studies Association.
The argument is that if someone's first preference is for Labour then her second preference won't be counted while if someone votes for a string of minor parties then there vote will be "seen" in a number of different rounds is the objection. It's also closely tied in with the argument that "extremists" are encouraged in this system compared to First Past the Post. In London I voted for a minor party and then a major one with exactly that expectation - first for who I wanted then against who I didn't want. That's why the Greens scored a good third place while most of their votes then went into an attempt to block the Conservatives afterwards. This is not the argument that is being refuted by Michigan which is about equal representation rather than how that equal vote is counted in many different ways.
But I don't want to dwell on the idea that you shouldn't claim that an argument is wrong by refuting another similar sounding but quite different argument. That's a political debate.
The argument is whether it's OK to claim that a viewpoint is erroneous when (a) the particular person was not mentioned and (b) there is only one source in a lively debate with a number of views. I think that this is a clear breach of NPOV.
JASpencer ( talk) 07:04, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
There is a huge debate going on at Talk:Homophobia about the wording of "homophobia". Numerous editors have expressed concern over this wording and the pro-gay stance this article takes. However, myself and other editors are being bashed by the militant homosexuals on Wikipedia that consider all religious or conservative sources unreliable and want pro-gay liberal fodder sources to prove our points. I just want to make this article a little less biased and more centered. I want the title or a paragraph explaining that there has been disagreement as to weather homophobia is truly a "phobia". Most people that speak out against gays are not scared or fearful of them, but this is the exact wording of the article. EVEN THE LEAD PARAGRAPH DOES NOT MENTION FEAR! A phobia, by definition is a fear. Heck, some dictionaries even do not define opposition to gays as "homophobia". Homophobia is a made-up word invented my the militant homosexuals to label people with just reason to oppose gays. Call it anti-gay, or opposition to gays! That is my opinion, it reflects a NPOV, and many editors agree with me! Andrewrp Tally-ho! 15:40, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I've been involved there. The core issue is that there two significant viewpoints regarding what is included in homophobia:
That article both implicitly and explicitly makes and builds an article upon the unsourced and implausible assertion that #2 is the ONLY view. I've been trying to raise this issue and gotten very nasty treatment there. (A new version of wp:ver, you aren't allowed to challenge an unsourced unless you have sources to prove that it is wrong) They have been asserting that I needed to have sources to bring up that the article is built upon an unsourced assertion, and that I mis-behaving by continuing to say that such is not the case. Also have endured the usual range of nasty stuff like straw man misstatements of what I said, accused of being "disruptive" etc., saying that it is illegitimate for me to pursue this on the talk page, saying that I'm beating a dead horse, 100% inventing that I said there is a "conspiracy", etc.. After enduring all of that, I can see how this has remained unresolved despite this concern having been raised by an immense amount of people throughout the entire history of the article. Also because the "#2 is the only view" view is so deeply embedded in the article it will take much work to fix it. For example, it goes on the list any and all opposition to homosexuality as being "homophobia" and saying that in the voice of Wikipedia. North8000 ( talk) 13:14, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Please point out the part in the lead where it says that "all opposition to homosexuality" is "homophobia."
The current article states that the "definitions refer variably to antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, irrational fear, and hatred", modifying the "negative attitudes or feelings" in the previous sentence. (These definitions are all reliably sourced.)
Definition of homophobia according to the lead: Hatred (antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion are just more synonyms) and irrational fear toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).
To add to Itsmejudith's comment, see:
.... islamophobia Islamophobia is prejudice against, hatred or irrational fear of Islam or Muslims. A person who exhibits such prejudice is an islamophobe.
.... xenophobia Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange."
.... antisemitism Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage.
Antisemitism may be manifested in many ways, ranging from expressions of hatred of or discrimination against individual Jews to organized violent attacks by mobs, state police, or even military attacks on entire Jewish communities.
(in the Homophobia article: "Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientations that are non-heterosexual.")
While the term's etymology might suggest that antisemitism is directed against all Semitic peoples, the term was coined in the late 19th century in Germany as a more scientific-sounding term for Judenhass ("Jew-hatred"), and that has been its normal use since then.
(Yet, I don't see North8000 arguing on the Antisemitism talk page about how the article should be about Semitic peoples instead of Jews, if he's going to use the same logic to argue that homophobia should literally be about the fear.)
Andrewrp, "EVEN THE LEAD PARAGRAPH DOES NOT MENTION FEAR! A phobia, by definition is a fear. "
North8000: "The core issue is that there two significant viewpoints regarding what is included in homophobia:
1. That it be used to refer to true phobia, by the common meaning of the term 2. Those who want to apply this "phobia" term to any and all opposition to homosexuality or to the societal normalization of it. Thus to call folks who simply think that homosexuality is wrong "homophobic"".
I do not see anything "un-neutral" about this article, just as I don't see anything un-neutral about xenophobia, islamophobia, or antisemitism. Those are just articles describing the definitions.
North8000, the current lead (with reliable sources to back it up) is the definition of homophobia, get over it. You can't just change the definition of a word just because you happen to disagree with its meaning. Arguing about the meaning with no reliable sources to back you up is your POV ranting. It is plain unhelpful and just a waste of time. Twøcents ( talk) 18:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
In the article entitled, "the Murder of Meredith Kercher," Nina Burleigh's book (written in support of defendant Amanda Knox) is very heavily cited, whereas alternative theories and points of view are cited much less often and worded in a way that makes them sound suspect. In addition, in the Media Coverage section of the article, only (supposed) bias against Amanda Knox is listed, whereas numerous examples of bias in favor of Amanda Knox are not. This bias in the article makes it seem likely that Amanda Knox was "railroaded" by the media, which her supporters often argue. However, there are numerous examples of bias in the other direction which have been edited out of the article. On the whole, this article is extremely biased in favor of Amanda Knox and her supporters and PR team (Gogerty Stark Marriott, a Seattle-based public relations firm).' Siamesekat ( talk) 23:43, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
In the article, Cristiada (film), I've deleted the misuse of a Washington Post source. [19] The source appears to have been misused by Lionelt ( talk · contribs) to attack the Obama administration and to promote an extreme, minority Catholic POV. This was done to create a DYK that was recently featured on the main page. Because Lionel will attempt to add this content back into the article, I'm starting this discussion here for review by others. Viriditas ( talk) 10:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
For Catholics enraged by the Obama administration's proposed contraception mandate, the film about the Mexican church's fight in 1920s is a heartening and timely cinematic boost in the American church's battle to preserve "religious freedom" in 2012. (underline mine)
Twice now over the past two or three days, I have had to de-POV reports in the Portal:Current events page concerning Euro 2012 matches. I'm not sure if it's the same person or not, but somebody keeps writing extremely POV reports concerning matches, teams and players. I wanted to discuss this on the Portal's Talk page, but it's protected, strangely, since the Portal itself is not. 69.62.243.48 ( talk) 22:49, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm running into a problem on Catholic sex abuse cases, and as a result it is running as a slow-moving edit war, which doesn't help anyone. I have attempted to raise this on the talk page, but as the problem is with one or more IP editors, and engagement on the talk page isn't working, this isn't making progress.
Quick summary: the IP has been adding claims which I believe are strongly POV to the lead [20]. My particular problems are with "... casts doubt on whether or not the Church truly apologizes or even cares about the sadistic actions of its priests" and "While there have been few if any responses from the Pope to the scandal, many have been criticizing the slow and careless nature of any actions taken to mitigate the crisis". Neither is supported by the sources. Rather than just revert, I added the sources to the lead based on their content, [21], but without including the opinions. That didn't work.
Discussion is here. Assistance either way would be much appreciated. Thanks! - Bilby ( talk) 14:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
12.129.87.3 ( talk) 20:06, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi everybody. There's a difference of opinion between myself and another editor over the wording in the first sentence of the Blackwater Baghdad shootings page. To give some quick background on the subject of the article, there are basically 2 sides (POVs) to the shooting incident, but it seems both agree that it started when a car approached the convoy and did not stop in spite of warnings resulting in the contractors firing upon the car. What happened after is what's unclear. The contractors' story is they were fired upon by insurgents and engaged in a shootout and a state department report corroborated that. Iraqi government and witnesses say that the contractors were not fired upon and the shootings were unprovoked. An FBI investigation couldn't match bullets to guns by Blackwater and found foreign cartridges not used by Blackwater or US, though shootings were common in the square so they could have been from another shooting. ( talk page discussion on the topic)
Current lead sentence: "On September 16, 2007, Blackwater military contractors shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad."
It was originally proposed by another editor to be changed to: "On September 16, 2007, Blackwater military contractors were engaged in a shootout that resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad." An editor on the talk page did not agree with this because it is disputed that there was a shootout. So I proposed the following:
Proposal: "On September 16, 2007, seventeen Iraqi fatalities and twenty four injuries occurred in the Blackwater Baghdad shootings in Nisour Square, Baghdad."
I think the current lead gives the impression that they shot civilians purposefully and seems to already agree with the second POV I mentioned above. I feel that the proposal gives the same information as the current lead (and more), and it does so in more neutral wording. Can others weigh in on this to help us come to consensus? AdventurousSquirrel ( talk) 18:49, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
It is not a valid alternate name. The problem with most of these sources is that they already have concluded, as you have, that every shot fired was unprovoked and unjustified (making it a massacre) and they don’t take into account any other possible scenario or context, such as the car approaching the convoy that the guards could not have known was not a vehicle bomb or the possibility that the guards were fired upon. As far as the sources that are books, the use of the word massacre can only be attributed as the opinion of the author and so should not be used to justify the alternate name in the lead. To give a few more specific examples of why some of these sources are not useful for claiming it was a massacre:
3) This article has a quote from one Iraqi who calls it a massacre and you take his word to speak for the entire Iraqi people?
4) The newspapers in the middle east are heavily biased against the incident.
5 and 10) Scahill is likely the most biased person you could find on this topic.
7) The author of this article concludes it was a massacre without considering any other possibility. He states as if it is a fact that: contractors “went on an unprovoked shooting spree in a Baghdad square..” What about the car that kept driving toward the convoy despite several shouted warnings and warning shots? That couldn’t have provoked shooting?
8) This is a paper that a University professor wrote for a class. Not a reliable source.
9) The only mention of massacre is a reference to Scahill.
11) Interesting, this book also references Scahill for its information on the Blackwater shooting.
Nisour Square massacre is already used as a redirect to this page, so if anyone types it into the search bar they will be redirected to the article that has the neutral and accurate title of Blackwater Baghdad shootings. Adding Nisour Square massacre into the lead sentence is not NPOV. It leads readers to believe what some of these sources do, that it was completely unprovoked murder. While there are plenty of people who believe that, there are also plenty who believe that they were provoked and justified in shooting (at least initially) to defend the State Department workers they were protecting, and that they were fired upon in response. We need to present both sides neutrally and let the reader come to their own conclusion after reading the article. Calling it a "massacre" in the first sentence does not do that. AdventurousSquirrel ( talk) 17:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
On Health Services Union expenses scandal, we have a dispute about how to describe a particular vote. The sources says, "The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has voted overwhelmingly to suspend the beleaguered Health Services Union (HSU) from its ranks" and later, "Today, delegates voted 1797 to 103 in favour of the suspension." The question is, can our article say that the vote was "overwhelming" in Wikipedia's voice? See this diff, wherein Youreallycan removes the word "overwhelmingly" that Skyring had included. As far as I can see, we have three options: include "overwhelmingly" as in Skyring's version, remove it as in Youreallycan's version, or somehow put the whole thing into a quote, attributed to ABC News (there's no author listed on the source). Personally, I favor Youreallycan's version, and had reverted to it myself, but I seek the opinion of uninvolved editors. Qwyrxian ( talk) 23:12, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Adjectives should be sourced - it is not up to Wikipedia editors to assert adjectives. Collect ( talk) 23:46, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
New editor making some major and I think pov changes to Halal, see [23]. Sourcing a statement it's humane to a Halal organisation, changing " Both the Muslim and Jewish communities were frustrated with the process of dialogue because of the scientific community's views on animal slaughter." to "Certain Muslim and Jewish communities expressed frustration with the process of dialogue skewed for non-religious audiences." - some of the changes may be ok but as there seems to be few editors watching this and this is a new editor I'd appreciate other eyes before I edit the article. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 06:17, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
There was a request for unblock on the UTRS program claiming that they were blocked for trying to fight POV pushing on International School of Gemology. I've had a look myself and the claim appears to be true. The article on 18 May 2012 is substantially different from today's version. Today's version gives incredible WP:UNDUE weight toward supposed controversy. However, the controversy is almost entirely linked to forums, blogs, or primary sources. I need help sorting the sources and balancing this article.--v/r - T P 14:17, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
A WP:SPA at this article is editing against talk page consensus to have Wikipedia state in its own voice that Ahmadiyya is "a Heterodox Islamic reformist movement". There is of course no problem in making it clear that as one of his sources [24] states they are seen as heterodox by many Muslims, but he is not listening to other edtiors but insisting on reinserting his version, with his latest edit summary saying "WP:VAN, WP:NPOV Doug Weller has potentially engaged in WP:EW against the administrators guideline. See talk page for exemption". (He's been warned for edit warring by 2 editors including me, so it's ironic he's at 3RR now). It is of course possible that I've misinterpreted NPOV and that we can call some religions Heterodox (ie all non-Eastern Orthodox Christian groups heterodox), but it is my opinion that this is not Wikipedia's role, and that all we can do is make it clear that, as I've said, many people view it ias heterodox. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 10:04, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
(opening can of worms)...
Several editors seem to be wanting to rewrite articles where information appears that mentions Noah's Ark. The article on Noah's Ark, Mountain, Book of Genesis, Deity, etc are being modified to seem to push the idea that they are mythological or fictional rather than biblical.
I've tried to explain that in the context of these articles, the term 'biblical' is more than sufficient, but it seems that there is a personal POV that these editors are intent on pushing and they prefer to downplay any claim of verisimilitude whatsoever.
To me, the term 'biblical' is more supported by sources and more neutral than 'fictional'or 'mythological', as in "Noah's Ark (Hebrew: תיבת נח; Classical Hebrew: Teyvat Noaḥ) is a mythological vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis (chapters 6–9) and the Quran (surahs Hud and Al-Mu’minoon)."
These editors are saying that it is a FACT that these things are mythological or fictional. My reply is that in the context of the stories themselves the objects are not 'mythological', so the term biblical is all around more accurate. Thanks for your input on this. -- Avanu ( talk) 09:51, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
( edit conflict) x2 :We represent the preponderance of suitable opinion. In the case of biblical texts, this means that we ought to represent the variety of theological and literary critical views of the texts. In all cases we should be using the highest quality sources available, the work of theologians, religious studies academics, and literary critics specializing in religious texts. Broadly, we should weight the results of all accepted scholarly traditions based on their presence in the literatures. Such a weighting would be neutral. Mountain has very little biblical context, deity has contexts lying well outside of the literatures specifically grounded only in the bible, Noah's Ark ought to see a preponderance of theological texts with a strong showing from religious studies or literary critical accounts, Book of Genesis again should see such, but as an "entire text" there are likely to be more literary critical studies of the entire Book of Genesis than of Noah's story in particular. "Pop" atheists without a grounding in theology, religious studies, or philosophy of religion really need not apply. Fifelfoo ( talk) 10:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Another contributor placed four tags on an article recently, including {{ POV}}. Well, when instantiated, {{ POV}} calls for the tag placer to initiate a discussion on the talk page, explaining why they placed the tag.
I noted, on the talk page, that the tag placer didn't leave an explanation.
They returned and wrote:
“POV because the article is entirely from the US government Point of view and the information it released about the prisoners to news media.”
I put the second part of their passage in bold because I am concerned that it suggests a misunderstanding of WP:NPOV.
On that talk page I suggested that when an WP:RS publishes an article, that relies wholly or in part on official documents, the POV in the document is that of the columnist, or the publication -- not of the government organ that published the documents they used while writing their article.
I suggested that WP:RS have editorial policies and professional editors. I suggested we trust WP:RS because their editorial policies require them to do some fact-checking. I suggested their editorial policies require them to employ writers who bring a competent understanding of the topic they cover to their writing. I suggested articles published in WP:RS have their own reliability, and a separate and distinct point of view from whatever sources the article is reporting on.
We may think we are smarter than the writers and editors at WP:RS. We may think they have been duped by the government sources they relied upon, where-as we are too sagacious to be fished in, and that we recognize what the professionals did not. There is nothing wrong with any of us PRIVATELY thinking writers at an WP:RS have been tricked into parroting the official line. But, in my opinion, trying to tilt our coverage, based on our PERSONAL doubts about professional writers' judgment, is a serious lapse from WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:VER. Our personal opinions shouldn't count.
I'd welcome input on whether wikipedia contributors suspicions about journalist's judgment should justify a {{ POV}} tag. Cheers! Geo Swan ( talk) 18:14, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
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