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A disagreement has arisen as to the use of the phrase "the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany". I consider it a neutral descriptor, no different to saying Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom". The other editor, however, disagrees.

The discussion has not resulted in reaching consensus. It can be found here:

• Talk:Heinrich_Sturm#Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany

I would appreciate some input on this matter. I've notified the other editor here. K.e.coffman ( talk) 00:13, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with it, though "Luftwaffe during World War II" (the current wording), is just as good.   Insert CleverPhrase Here  00:25, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I've welcomed the editor in question (as a fresh set of eyes) to elaborate more than their "personal opinion" edit summary comments to explain more in depth on the talk page. Although, I must agree with Insertcleverphrasehere in their assessment; and can see where adding "Nazi Germany" may seem excessive. I mean, was there really a Luftwaffe of Canada? Maineartists ( talk) 00:50, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@ Maineartists: Please see another discussion above: there was apparently a "Luftwaffe of the Bundeswehr" as well. :-). K.e.coffman ( talk) 03:02, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Ah, yes. Pardon my ignorance. We learn something every day! Maineartists ( talk) 11:02, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

In keeping with WP:ARTCON, we should either always use "Luftwaffe" for the air force of 1935-1945 Germany or have to distinguish between them with "Luftwaffe of {X}". To be fully compliant, would need to be consistent rules for the 1935-1945 Nazi era organization, for the 1956-1991 FRG era organization, the 1956-1990 GDR era organization, and (finally) the 1991-current reunified FRG era organization. This would also be ludicrously involved and require a huge number of edits to implement. It is much simpler, and in compliance with WP:EN and WP:ENGVAR and WP:COMMONNAME, to simply use "Luftwaffe" (without qualification) only for the pre-1945 organization and "{East}/{West} German Air Force" for all the post-1956 organizations. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:57, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

It's a mouthful, and reads like something you'd see in a high school paper. It also suggests that the reader is sure there was another type of Luftwaffe in the 1930s and 40s.

I welcome the sane comments from @ Eggishorn:. Dapi89 ( talk) 17:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

"[t]he Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany", although correct, does seem to me to be verbose. "Luftwaffe during World War II" would also be correct, IF one is talking about it during the war years; as is noted the Luftwaffe officially started in 1935. So it can depend on the context. For most cases just stating "the Luftwaffe" should be sufficient after the timeframe has been established (context) for the years 1935-1945. Kierzek ( talk) 20:25, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for their comments. This makes sense. Although I was surprised to hear comments about a mouthful from an editor who insisted that "the Luftwaffe of the Bundeswehr" was correct and proper terminology for the German Air Force ( diff). K.e.coffman ( talk) 02:48, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

No, I was in favour of only Bundesluftwaffe and objected to it's removal. No need for dishonesty. Dapi89 ( talk) 11:37, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

We ought to choose, if we have a choice, the least emotionally loaded and most precise and informative term available. Of the terms proposed, I favor "Luftwaffe (1935-1945)". That's as unemotional, informative and precise as we're likely to get. I don't think anyone inside or outside Germany is likely to forget that under the rule of Adolf Hitler, the Luftwaffe was largely an instrument of the Nazi Party, to the extent their aircraft bore the Nazi swastika as a large symbol painted on them. I just distrust appeals to emotion in reference material like encyclopedias, which this is. loupgarous ( talk) 09:29, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

In current version of the article, one-third of the lead is devoted to the Wikipedia editing of the subject, a Republican candidate for governor. Mentioning in the article itself is one thing, but isn't this a bit much? Coretheapple ( talk) 13:25, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

General notice. This is admittedly WP:BITING the newcomer but IAR and NPOV applies. —አቤል ዳዊት ^? (Janweh64) ( talk) 19:45, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

This article has recently gained the attention of a new editor who seems to be quite a devotee of this rabbi. Yitzchak Ginsburgh#Teachings shows what we've now got, including the line "He shows astonishing proficiency in Chassidic literature in all its fields and succeeds in elevating mundane concepts to astounding levels, capturing his listeners for hours on end". I've tried to rein this in, but the other editor is persistent and I don't want to edit-war. I'd be grateful if someone else could review this article and adjust (if necessary) for NPOV. Nomoskedasticity ( talk) 19:19, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I have made some edits to this article lately, to reign in this new editor. However, I had no problem arguing with this editor, and although there is obviously never a problem with an extra pair of eyes, I see nothing going on that warrants this cry for help. There is a talkpage: take it there. Debresser ( talk) 19:24, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Are you content with "astonishing proficiency..., elevating mundane concepts to astounding levels"?? You've left this in place. I think it's totally inappropriate, so here we are. Nomoskedasticity ( talk) 20:25, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@ Debresser and Nomoskedasticity: what's the problem with deleting this kind of peacock language? Even assuming it's true (I have no idea and don't care), the language is so overblown that a discerning reader will be put off and think the article is an advertisement. Toning down the language therefore seems to be in everyone's interest (especially that of Ginsburgh and Wikipedia). - Darouet ( talk) 20:46, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I made a few changes to the "teachings" section. Let me know if they seem problematic somehow. I wasn't sure if the material at the end of the section on his annual festival appearance should remain, be deleted, be altered, or what exactly - still sort of comes across like an advert. - Darouet ( talk) 21:20, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

No problem, go right ahead (I see you did). I disagree with Nomoskedasticity's low opinion of the editor's receptiveness, or Nomoskedasticity's apparent opinion that a few edits and talkpage discussions on the article talkpage won't be enough to deal with the issue and outside help is needed. Debresser ( talk) 21:33, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I did make a few edits and started a talk-page discussion; the other editor simply reverted, more than once. (And again you did nothing about the sentences I indicated.) Thank you to Darouet for making a start on dealing with this. Nomoskedasticity ( talk) 06:23, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Great. @ Debresser and Nomoskedasticity: hopefully you both are able to work things out throughout the rest of the article. - Darouet ( talk) 20:23, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

• Free banking (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

According to our article, extensively sourced to libertarian think tanks and right-wing economists for whom 2007-08 presumably never happened, "Free banking refers to a monetary arrangement in which banks are subject to no special regulations beyond those applicable to most enterprises, and in which they also are free to issue their own paper currency (banknotes)."

Mr. Orwell on line 2...

In the real world, free banking means checking accounts without transaction charges. What the article describes is unregulated banking, which is generally well understood to be (a) hypothetical and (b) a terrible idea.

I think we need to move this article. Guy ( Help!) 00:18, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey Guy, I sort of get where you're coming from, but is it true that "Free Banking" is really a commonly used and technical term to describe free checking account arrangements?

I wonder if this issue could be resolved to everyone's satisfaction by moving the article to Free Banking (economic theory) ? - Darouet ( talk) 20:27, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

In this page I have WP: Conflict of interest, so I need to ask other readers to help determine the WP:NPOV problem. I think there are three questions now.

1. Is the current title commonly used?
2. If the title does not use the Chinese point of view is not neutral?
3. Does the requested title be unusually and not neutral?-- Tr56tr ( talk) 06:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

It seems that these questions are already being hashed out in the linked discussion, and I don't see a compelling reason to change venues. But short answers: The current name ("incorporation of Tibet...") is not commonly used by sources outside this encyclopedia, and a neutral title is not necessarily one that reflects or aligns with the Chinese government point of view (or, for that matter, the Tibetan government-in-exile's). TheBlueCanoe 04:28, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

@ Tr56tr and TheBlueCanoe: it looks like a lot more discussion has occurred on the talk page of the article than will happen here. I think JFG's summary of that discussion and closure was probably accurate. But then again I tend to agree that "incorporation" is the most neutral term, compared to "invasion, annexation, liberation..." Darouet ( talk) 20:32, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Which version do you guys prefer: my version or this version? The latter says in the lead:

Several reports published by the CIS have been widely deemed misleading and riddled with basic errors by scholars on immigration; think tanks from across the ideological and political spectrum; media such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.Org and NBC News; several leading nonpartisan immigration-research organizations; and by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

I argue that this misrepresents several of the sources, assigns undue weight to others (think tanks that advocate for higher levels of immigration disagree with CIS's reports, and vice versa), and is in any case SYNTH as we would need reliable secondary sources to establish that CIS notably many errors compared to other Washington DC thinktanks or that there is this wide cross-partisan consensus that their work is shoddy. Talk starts here. Pinging Volunteer_Marek. NPalgan2 ( talk) 14:36, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

You can hardly argue undue weight, as it is just listing who has criticised them. Which from doing some quick research, appears to be everyone at one point or another except die-hard anti-immigration outlets. We dont need to compare CIS to other think tanks to say 'they have released reports which have been widely held to be misleading.' Unless we start saying 'CIS are worse than other think tanks'. Which as far as I can see no one has attempted. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 15:40, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

PolitiFact and NBC have not "deemed [CIS's reports] misleading and riddled with basic errors". Or take the part about "think tanks from across the ideological and political spectrum" - Cato Institute and Alex Nowrasteh in particular have been frequent critics of CIS. But Poltifact actually deemed the only Cato statement they fact checked 'False' - does that go in Cato Institute lead? Or the mention of ICE - Politifact fact checked Rep. Lamar Smith when he cited that CIS report that the ICE spokespersons disputed and rated it 'half true' because Smith "fails to acknowledge detainees had served criminal sentences and all releases weren't discretionary". But the CIS report did not claim that "all releases were discretionary" http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2014/jun/10/lamar-smith/lamar-smith-claim-about-obamas-prison-break-illega/ and Politifact did not deem the CIS report misleading and riddled with basic errors. So is the fact that ICE disputed a CIS report really so important that it should *be in the lead*? NPalgan2 ( talk) 16:28, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

The lead is a summary of the body of the article. The article has a *substantial* section of criticism of its reports. I would be surprised yes if it was not mentioned in the lead. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 16:37, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

if a thinkthank publishes stuff about contentious public policy debates then people on the other side are going to disagree with them, yeah, and it's undue just to count up all the criticism without evaluating whether it is notable criticism or has been validated by independent secondary sources. E.g., should this be summarised as criticism - Politifact's verdict seems pretty even handed to me: "Politifact, when evaluating Frum and Romney's statements, noted that the estimates produced by the study had methodological issues but that overall "both the report’s authors and its critics have reasonable points", and that "no one has disputed that recent immigrants filled a surprising share (more than half) of the added jobs". Or Sherk at Heritage criticizing Matloff - that's just a random thinktank analyst criticizing Matloff on Heritage's website. As I mentioned on the talkpage, Matloff's H1B research has been published in a peer reviewed journal, but Sherk's hasn't. Or a journalist at Think Progress wrote an article crticizing a CIS report on CO2 emissions. Do we mention in the lead of Center for American Progress that it's been criticized by National Review? NPalgan2 ( talk) 17:01, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

• CIS is well known among immigraiton scholars as a lobby organization. The diverse critiques of their reports of course needs to be included in the article. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:09, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether to include criticism of CIS in the article, it's whether it's reasonable to turn "Morici [non-CIS guy] said that all of the nearly 9 million new jobs created since 2000 went to immigrants. His numbers don’t add up. The [CIS] study he cited linked to numbers that showed that immigrants accounted for about 70 percent of the net job growth. While that study’s headline was that all of the new jobs went to immigrants, that only held true for a certain age range, which Morici misapplied to all workers. Morici is correct that foreign-born workers, both citizens and noncitizens, do disproportionately well in the job market. But the actual numbers fall well short of the 100 percent that he said. "All" is an overstatement." ^[1] which they rated 'mostly false', it seems on the ground of Morici's errors into NBC and Politifact have deemed CIS reports misleading and riddled with basic errors. NPalgan2 ( talk) 20:25, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@ NPalgan2 and Volunteer Marek: I'd make two quick notes on this topic. First, I think any neutral reader would read the first paragraph and get a sense that CIS has an agenda. I'm not criticizing that fact, but it's worthwhile to note that for some readers, aspects of the information in the second, proposed paragraph could be easily predicted or even inferred from the first. Second, reading through the article, I'd say that the content of the second lead paragraph is well justified, but that the lead is not a fair summary of the whole article. The lead is also very short. Instead of proposing to delete Marek's paragraph, NPalgan2 have you considered adding another middle paragraph that does more to summarize the article as a whole? - Darouet ( talk) 20:21, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Darouet The difference is not just the lead paragraph but the Reports section here: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Center_for_Immigration_Studies&oldid=772814648 which I edited to give a more balanced 'he said, she said'. What do you think about claims regarding particular organisations like Politifact's view of CIS? I'd be open to a lead paragraph noting criticism of CIS that was better than current version. NPalgan2 ( talk) 20:29, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@ NPalgan2: Generally I'm an inclusionist and I see no problem with including the Politifact view (or others). I also agree with careful attribution of opinion, though it seems like both versions are attempting to attribute opinions/statements properly (if there are instances where that's not happening you should point them out).

My only problem with the "Misleading reports" section is that the section title itself wears its view on its sleeve - e.g. declares where it stands quite stridently for readers. I agree personally with the view that these reports are misleading, but writing "misleading reports" as a section title could violate Raul's Razor: "An article is neutral if, after reading it, you cannot tell where the author's sympathies lie." ( WP:LAWS). I know we try to avoid "criticism" as a section title but it might be appropriate here. - Darouet ( talk) 20:45, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd be fine with a "Criticism" section, but could "Controversial reports" work? Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 20:46, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@ Snooganssnoogans: "Controversial reports" would be ideal. - Darouet ( talk) 21:04, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi.

There is an RFC ongoing here at Talk:Twin paradox. There is text there that currently reads as follows:

This result appears puzzling because each twin sees the other twin as moving, and so, according to an incorrect^[1][2] and naive^[3][4] application of time dilation and the principle of relativity, each should paradoxically find the other to have aged less.

The “naive” bit has received its share of attention on the talk page and there is an editor who frequents the article and opposes all attempts by other editors to delete it. I invite others to weigh in. It seems inappropriate and insulting in an encyclopedia directed to a general-interest readership like Wikipedia, which is certainly not a bulletin board for experts on relativity to hammer each other with insults. Greg L ( talk) 20:27, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Because this issue has been extremely contentious in the past, I invite admins and other interested parties to keep an eye on this name change discussion regarding the future naming of the Liancourt Rocks article. Thank you for participating! ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:08, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I am inviting opinions on a NPOV issue in the Stolen Generations article. [1]

The section titled “Historical debate over the Stolen Generations” has been edited to remove ALL the arguments criticising the premise of the Stolen Generations from a historical point of view. It retains some minor non-historical arguments/information but all arguments, information or explanations from one side of the historical debate have been repeatedly edited out.

It appears from the page history that over a fairly long period of time, numerous editors have attempted to introduce or reintroduce some of it into the article. Every time some of the omitted material has been added or returned it has been removed based on claims that removing one side of the debate ‘improves’ the NPOV, makes it ‘balanced’ or that leaving any of the opposing historical arguments in the article would give those arguments ‘undue weight’.

Apparently for an article on a controversial issue to have a NPOV, only one side of the debate may be represented in it?? I’m not the most experienced editor but that doesn’t seem right. 2001:8003:642A:6C00:D5C2:41E0:A153:C2E4 ( talk) 03:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I have left messages on the involved editors' talk pages notifying them of this. 2001:8003:642A:6C00:D5C2:41E0:A153:C2E4 ( talk) 03:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I just don't think that a view which dosen't represent historiographical consensus should be given a platform similar to (or even in excess of) to the position that does. El_C 03:16, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Ditto. The position being postulated for overemphasis is, in fact, a-historical and does not reflect the mainstream view. A blow-by-blow account of a single historian's refutation POV is WP:UNDUE and contravenes WP:BALASP. The historian in question is already well represented in the content. -- Iryna Harpy ( talk) 19:22, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I would ask objective editors to review the article and judge for yourselves just how much representation of the alternate POV remains in the article after a sustained campaign to remove it. There are a very limited number of historians who have published work covering the Stolen Generations issue, it is a 'niche' historical issue which is perhaps why there are so few involved editors on Wikipedia thus allowing a small number to take control of the article and push the POV that they prefer. There is quite a lot of published work out there from two historians that I am aware of, at least one anthropologist who has addressed the issue directly and many more who have written on the Aboriginal cultural issues involved (such as the cultural practice of infanticide of 'unwanted' children), journalists, missionaries and persons involved in the administration of Aboriginal child welfare. This paints a very different picture to what is being portrayed as the 'mainstream view'. There is a small group of editors currently controlling the article who want none of this in the article. This is still a disputed issue and there should be sufficient representation of the nature of the dispute, the evidence and arguments, in a Wikipedia article if it is going to present a NPOV. 2001:8003:642A:6C00:8C54:1E4D:7B89:BC10 ( talk) 23:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

You are mistaking neutrality for WP:GEVAL. There is nothing 'niche' about subject: it is thoroughly documented in scholarly texts, documentaries, etc. It is, in fact, why the apology speech was delivered by Rudd. The Howard government, for example, encouraged and nurtured the academics who pushed the 'Stolen Generation did not exist' line. Serious scholarship has dropped that line. My greater concern now is the tone of your response, particularly comments such as "...many more who have written on the Aboriginal cultural issues involved (such as the cultural practice of infanticide of 'unwanted' children), journalists, missionaries and persons involved in the administration of Aboriginal child welfare..." You what? Where? It seems that you're conflating issues in order to push your own original research. -- Iryna Harpy ( talk) 09:20, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

And you are misrepresenting the changes that I, and, from the page history, others before me, have proposed to the article. I can't see any indication of any editor requesting equal representation of a minority position WP:GEVAL, simply that there be some inclusion in the text of what that minority position is. It is deceptive for you to pretend that I have been asking for equal representation of a minority position. But you and the other editors have acted to remove any mention of what that position is, even the smallest inclusion, a couple of sentences explaining what the argument is about. My point with respect to the wealth of documentary evidence about Aboriginal cultural practices was to address your deceptive claim that the "position being postulated for overemphasis is, in fact, a-historical". Far from being 'a-historical', the historians and anthropologists and others writing about this issue have been able to cite actual historical evidence for their position. It is not something that they have just made up, the evidence is there to support it. Nor is it original research on my part, it is in the secondary sources. As for the apology speech delivered by Rudd, politicians say all sorts of things if they think it will gather them some political support. 2001:8003:642A:6C00:1057:5416:92AE:50D2 ( talk) 13:04, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

 Comment: Suggest this discussion be closed per WP:FORUMSHOP. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 04:25, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Agree. After a quick look at the article and talk page - it seems this more a question of weight than of neutrality, and, if anything, the article gives too much weight to the opinions of the likes of John Howard or Keith Windschuttle. The discussion on the talk page looks like it will be successful. Daveosaurus ( talk) 04:43, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Interesting that you say that the article "gives too much weight to the opinions of the likes of" Keith Windschuttle. The following is the "weight" of the text in the article which refers to Windschuttle:

Keith Windschuttle and other historians have argued for a much lower figure.

Keith Windschuttle, an Australian historian who argues that various abuses towards Australian Aborigines have been exaggerated and in some cases invented.

Windschuttle wrote a book on the Stolen Generations and was a key figure in the historical debate about it and the article now contains 2 sentences which mention him but give no details as to his evidence or arguments.

I think you are demonstrating a clear political bias when you refer to "the likes of John Howard or Keith Windschuttle". 124.177.138.139 ( talk) 08:39, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

There's been a dispute over how/whether to cover the plagiarism scandal in any detail at Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Briefly, a scandal surrounding alleged plagiarism in his doctoral thesis led to Guttenberg's resignation as the German Minister of Defense, and his (up until now) withdrawal from elective politics. I'll post at the BLP noticeboard to ask about weight issues, but I just wanted editors here to review the section I wrote, and to give any suggestions on neutral tone.

The section I wrote is here: [2].

Two editors have objected that my proposed text is not neutral. I have attempted to discuss with them here, but their response has essentially been, "try again from scratch." What I'm looking for them to identify concrete problems with the text, and to propose changes, rather than rejecting it in its entirety. Perhaps editors here could give the text a look and weigh in on its neutrality, and what changes could be made. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 19:46, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@ Thucydides411: Is there any specific text or portion of the text that has been criticized, and if so can you let us know what to look for?

Reading through the proposed text, I have one suggestion. The text states at one point, "It also emerged that Guttenberg had requested a report from the Bundestag's research department..." It appears this was found in a report by Der Spiegel, which is the source cited. I would change this to, "According to a report by Der Spiegel, Guttenberg requested..."

Also, the main article for the plagiarism scandal Causa Guttenberg states that (at least) two criminal complaints were launched against Gutenberg for plagiarism, sourced to the FAZ. That should probably appear somewhere in the section on the plagiarism scandal. - Darouet ( talk) 21:20, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@ Darouet: Thank you for your suggestion. I'm not sure if "According to a report by Der Spiegel" is really appropriate, however. While Der Spiegel broke the story, it has since been confirmed by many journalistic outlets, and the research reports that Guttenberg requested are now part of the public record. Here are a couple of sources confirming the story: [3] [4] [5].

"Is there any specific text or portion of the text that has been criticized, and if so can you let us know what to look for?" There are two overarching criticisms of the text. One criticism is that the text is too long, since a separate article covering the scandal exists ( Causa Guttenberg). The other criticism, made by the exact same editors, is that the text does not include a whole number of different minor aspects of the scandal, listed here. I find it hard to reconcile these two criticisms. One asks for the text to be shortened, and the other asks for a dramatic expansion of the text to cover nearly every minor detail of the scandal.

I think it's possible for a summary to be neutral, without mentioning every single aspect of the subject. I've tried to strike a balance between keeping the summary short (4 paragraphs in a much longer article) and mentioning the elements of the plagiarism scandal that received the most coverage. I've asked the two editors who took issue with my text to propose specific changes, but they reject the text in its entirety. If the dispute were simply about one or another detail being covered, I would expect some sort of compromise to be possible. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 22:29, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I think you can find a way of noting that it was Der Spiegel 's report without making it appear as though only Der Spiegel has confirmed this fact.

@ Thucydides411: The main article Causa Guttenberg is poorly written and had no lead, so I've copied the bio summary over to the lead there: [6]. Let me know if this is alright. - Darouet ( talk) 16:11, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

@ Darouet: That's fine by me. The summary works well as a lede for Causa Guttenberg. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 17:29, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

The current RfC at the European Graduate School talk page requires your input on specific discussions surrounding the selective use of primary sources in relation to the wider question of neutral point of view. Many thanks! Mootros ( talk) 05:02, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Alexis d'Anjou-Durassow is the positive one, and Alexis Brimeyer is the negative one. KMF ( talk) 22:05, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Alexis d'Anjou-Durassow, which accepted Brimayer's false pretensions to various thrones, has been redirected to Alexis Brimeyer. The redirect may need protecting — I'm putting it on my watchlist. Bishonen | talk 11:15, 6 April 2017 (UTC).

Also in Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, we write "U.S. officials said that under Putin's direction, the goals evolved from criticizing American democracy to attacking Clinton..."

The Reuters source reads, ""This began merely as an effort to show that American democracy is no more credible than Putin's version is," one of the officials said. "It gradually evolved from that to publicizing (Hillary) Clinton's shortcomings and ignoring the products of hacking Republican institutions, which the Russians also did," the official said." [7]

This is just one U.S. official, stating that according to U.S. intelligence, Russian hacking goals evolved to include publicizing Clinton's shortcomings. I think there's no reason to use language more inflammatory than in the source provided and don't believe our summary is accurate. Input appreciated here as well - Darouet ( talk) 21:31, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, Darouet. If we summarize the comments of Obama administration intelligence officials regarding Vladimir Putin's alleged aims as that article does, adding analysis to what was said, it's not just a POV issue, it's WP:SYNTH, and possibly WP:OR as well. If we give that official's statements that sort of credence, we must paraphrase him in a way that is faithful to what he actually said. The situation in our article you described is indeed a POV issue. loupgarous ( talk) 21:06, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

In the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections lead, we currently write that "President-elect Donald Trump... attacked the intelligence agencies in a transition team statement," citing Bloomberg News [8].

The source reads, "President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team dismissed claims of foreign interference in this year’s elections as the CIA reportedly concluded that Russia had intervened to help the Republican candidate and shared its findings with lawmakers in a private briefing."

The source later includes a subheading, "Trump dismissive," and also uses the verb "scoffs." The word "attack" doesn't appear anywhere in the source to describe Trump's response.

There has been a debate on the talk page over whether the word "attacked" or "dismissed" is better suited, and input would be appreciated. - Darouet ( talk) 21:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

"Attacked" is more emotionally loaded than "dismissed". We dismiss faulty information many times a day without the act rising to the level of an attack. In this particular case, the source doesn't support the use of the word attack to describe the response; calling it an "attack" could be construed as WP:SYNTH. Do you need this assessment on the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections talk page, or can I just post it here? I am looking at that talk page now and don't see the "attack vs. dismiss" discussion. loupgarous ( talk) 20:47, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

@ Vfrickey: This particular NPOV discussion was archived here: Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections/Archive 7#NPOV language. You'll find many more POV disputes to ponder by perusing the archives. — JFG ^talk 23:34, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks! loupgarous ( talk) 00:11, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I am in dispute with Antinoos69 regarding maintaining NPOV in the article, "First Epistle to Timothy". It seems that I am not the first to have this dispute with Antinoos69. PeacePeace in the Talk section of this article page also brought up similar issues last year with Antinoos69, but Antinoos69 would not deviate from his position. Antinoos69 has had contentious exchanges with JohnThorne on the Talk section of the article covering 1 Timothy 1. This uncompromising approach by Antinoos69 has resulted in a series of "undos" that has resulted in a protection against editing for several days. I am following the directions of the Admin who suggested the next course is to post to the NPOV noticeboard. I have tried to work with Antinoos69, but to no avail. I have discussed the unsubstantiated claims of the sources he has used and he challenged me to find contradicting sources. I have posted them to the article and amended the article with in-text attribution so as to maintain the POV he so desperately wants to keep. He has rejected all of the sources I incorporated and is unwilling to consider the use of in-text attribution. I have also considered some of the criticism of some of the sources I introduced and I willing removed one. He has ceased discussion and indicated that he would simply "undo" every time I introduce an edit. I'm not entirely sure what more I can do. Antinoos69 has already stated his general distaste for the WIKI block policy and procedures. Based on his unyielding positions he has displayed when working with others, I believe his distaste goes beyond just the WIKI block policy and procedures. 66.215.220.110 ( talk) 04:34, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

This is absolutely ridiculous. First, I've been trying to get you to engage substantively on Talk:First Epistle to Timothy for ages, providing multiple avenues for you to pursue. It's been like pulling teeth. Second, the issue isn't NPOV but WP:RS/AC and the fact that your sources don't say what you think they do. Actually, what I very strongly suspect is that you are duplicitously misrepresenting sources and policies in order to get the article to represent your "alternative facts." Anyone can review the details at Talk:First Epistle to Timothy. Needless to say, one cannot even begin to discuss NPOV, or know whether it is even relevant, until one first understands what the relevant sources are actually saying. Consequently, this dispute doesn't belong here at all. The real issue is your disruptive editing. Antinoos69 ( talk) 04:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC) And, third, the administrator suggested this noticeboard as one of several possible avenues to pursue—yet more all-too-convenient and maddening misrepresentation. This avenue is the wrong one. Antinoos69 ( talk) 05:08, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

• Difficult to know from the above quite what the dispute is - but it is certainly correct that for Wikipedia to say "most scholars agree ... " (or similar), a decent cited source needs to be saying that too. Alexbrn ( talk) 07:28, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

First Epistle to Timothy already provides such statements with such sources. Those sources provide the only scholarly position on what the scholarly consensus is. The problem is that 66.215.220.110 wishes to provide at least one source—and I strongly suspect all his/her remaining sources are of this type, but he/she keeps refusing to quote them on the talk page, and I won't hunt them down after I already caught him/her misrepresenting sources—that doesn't actually address what the scholarly consensus is. That source merely addresses some of the scholarly options, in the following general form: "some" (i.e., "writers") believe X, "some" believe Y, and "some" believe Z, without further specification regarding "some." 66.215.220.110 wishes to misread/misrepresent that as an explicit statement on scholarly consensus contradicting the sources already cited in the article. Of course, it is no such thing, which I'm all but certain he/she understands perfectly well. (Details can be found on Talk:First Epistle to Timothy.) As I said, none of this is a NPOV issue at this time. It is a matter of (mis)interpretation and (mis)use of sources, not to mention disruptive editing. It doesn't belong here. Antinoos69 ( talk) 08:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Unless the IP can actually bring up specific violations of NPOV this should be closed. Doug Weller talk 10:37, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Don't know who recommended NPOVN, I suppose WP:DRN might be possible too (however, not before this thread is closed in order to avoid WP:FORUMSHOPping).

On the ground of the matter: it is always difficult to summarize what a group of commentators say (even when grouped by denominational or philosophical similarities). A chronological narrative regarding what authors said in the authenticity & time of origin debate may be a way out. In general I support the anon's approach to name authors when their view on authenticity/time of origin of the letter is rendered in Wikipedia.

Another issue with the article is that after the #Date section, all further sections of the article are more or less written from the perspective that the letter "is" authentic. E.g. if the epistle could have been written in the second century, it should not be described as a "fact" that the receiver of the letter "is" the same Timothy as mentioned in Acts 16:1 (etc). -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 11:08, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The point at issue isn't the history of scholarship, quite a separate and enormous subject, or the other problems with the article, which are legion. At issue is a very specific and narrow claim about the current academic consensus, regarding which no genuine alternative scholarly views have been presented, because there aren't any. There is no debate to present on the fact of that consensus. If there were, a purely contrafactual hypothetical, that would require an entirely different approach, as I state on the article's talk page. But there isn't. The IP is ideologically driven on this matter. Wikipedia does not countenance "alternative facts." Antinoos69 ( talk) 11:42, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I'd avoid claims about "current academic consensus" if it is that difficult to determine such consensus from the sources. Even more: technically "current" should better be avoided as a style issue (we have guidance about that: MOS:CURRENT, MOS:RELTIME,...) See also elaborate example I was writing for comparison below ("ec" paragraphs): in the first decade of the 21st century scholar consensus seemed to lean towards "inauthentic" until statistical analysis proved incapable to demonstrate it was not by Bach... I wouldn't know what the "current" academic consensus is on the issue: any source describing a "current" academic consensus can be stale tomorrow, so I would, never, as in never at all, use the expression "current academic consensus" in an authenticity debate. Even if tomorrow physical proof emerges to decide the issue one way or another I wouldn't say "current" when inserting such material in Wikipedia (I'd rather say "as of <date>..."). -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 12:17, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

(ec) The case made me think of BWV 565 (different topic, similar Date/Authenticity issues: for the first two-and-a-half centuries of its existence it was attributed to Bach with "no questions asked", and then, since around the 1980s, literature started to emerge denying, and then after that defending, its authenticity)

• The article doesn't contain an unqualified statement that it "was" composed by Bach (see e.g. "according to its oldest extant sources" insertion in lead sentence)
• avoid grouping of sources on the authenticity debate (rather name individual scholars)
• (more or less) chronological narrative allows to discuss 18th- 19th- and 20th-century analyses of the composition and reception from before the authenticity debate era.

-- Francis Schonken ( talk) 12:17, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Francis, there isn't the slightest difficulty to determining the academic consensus from the sources. They are explicit, clear, in agreement, and in accord with WP:RS/AC. The problem is that the IP has an agenda, on behalf of which he/she is willing to very clearly and starkly misrepresent sources that say nothing on the matter, as I have detailed. I believe you would benefit from actually taking a glance at First Epistle to Timothy and Talk:First Epistle to Timothy to acquire some vague idea of what is being discussed, which you now lack. You are going way off reservation here. And, possessing a degree in biblical studies, I already know exactly what claims should be made here, why, and what reliable sources say on the matter. Frankly, if the IP were one of my students, graduate or undergraduate, I would question his/her suitability for university. That's how patently absurd the IP is being here. Fortunately, no student has ever directed any such absurdities or tortured misrepresentations of sources at me. Things would go poorly for any who did. I certainly agree, however, that this NPOV matter here should be closed. Antinoos69 ( talk) 16:31, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I had already read the article (as you might have noticed from what I wrote above). I now had a glance at the talk page too: frankly, your paternalistic attitude doesn't agree with me, and seems like a major obstacle to an end of the talking next to each other. Also, please stop aspersions regarding agendas by others and the like. -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 17:03, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I think when reliable sources say scholars as a group think in a certain way, these sources are brilliant for us, since the scholars are reliable in their own right, and individual ones from among them are separately reliable concerning what their consensus view is. If a source reliable for the statement states scholars have a consensus view, I don't see a problem stating in Wikipedia's neutral voice that scholars as a group hold this view. This is also more useful for the reader compared to citing "A says X, B also says X, C says Y", which can easily mislead. Having said that, everyone should maintain a cool and professional attitude. Editors shouldn't argue with each other, but let the issues sort themselves out. -- Dailycare ( talk) 18:30, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Francis, when editors demonstrate they have agendas and undeniably misrepresent sources, and grossly so, I will certainly point it out. Period. I'm not going to play games or lie about the facts. They are what they are. I've had my fill of misrepresentations already. I'm not going to contribute my own. As for the IP, I've already explained to him/her on the article's talk page what he/she would have to do to change my position, repeatedly. He/She has refused. Ask yourself why. It would be so very easy to do, if the sources existed. Antinoos69 ( talk) 21:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I certainly appreciate everyone’s input. I know that it takes a lot of everyone’s time to engage in this discussion. I also want to recognize Antinoos69 for engaging in this discussion. As I read through the thread, I can see that Francis Schonken has experienced some of the same frustrations with Antinoos69 as I have experienced with Antinoos69’s “paternalistic attitude”. I also see that Antinoos69 has tried (as he has in times past) to sway the discussion by his self-proclaimed credentials of “possessing a degree in religious studies” instead of the merits of his argument. And what do we really know about Antinoos69 other than the themes of writings and paintings on his talk and user page, perhaps connotations of his user name, his history of edit-warring, and the value of his discussion with others. This is who he is in the Wiki community. However, all have biases. This is a fact of the world. What is important is that we recognize our biases and do not allow them to stifle alternate viewpoints in the articles. It is not ours to sway readership opinion, like the editorial page of a newspaper. It is ours to bring out alternative viewpoints so that the readers can consider these and reach their own conclusion. This concept is embodied in Wikipedia’s NPOV policy. So, I ask all here. Does it make sense in this article to bring in alternate points of view and who is it here that only wants to show one point of view? 66.215.220.110 ( talk) 15:40, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

66.215.220.110 Eloquently said. I've been following this "discussion" not only here, but further on the article's Talk Page ever since it appeared here; and regardless of my opinion of the relevance for the discussion, I have come away with one very glaring observation: there are editors that exhaust my patience and attention with their endless dominance and need for control that even if they were to provide Timothy himself as a reliable source, I would side against them. It says a lot for how our appearances and our contributions can differ drastically to the point of almost working against us. Maineartists ( talk) 16:02, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

It is not Wikipedia's practice to invent "alternative viewpoints," as you have been doing with regard to the scholarly consensus on the authorship of 1 Timothy. Doing so generally runs afoul of WP:OR, to say the least. And some of your comments about me are flirting with homophobic harassment. I expect you to stop. Antinoos69 ( talk) 09:55, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

ATTENTION: 66.215.220.110 has resumed his/her edit warring now that the pages' edit protection has expired. He/She still has not achieved consensus for these changes, and I adamantly oppose them. Antinoos69 ( talk) 07:09, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I have added a NPOV section to the talk page for the article /info/en/?search=Fox_hunting To avoid taking unilateral action as I do not have the time to actively participate in that discussion, if there is some agreement about POV issue in the article, could somebody add a non-NPOV tag to the article for me. Thanks! 132.205.228.106 ( talk) 13:20, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 (in normal modern British (and even Irish, Australian and New Zealand) English, it is actually simply "United Kingdom European Union membership referendum 2016", without a comma...I blame probably "trolling", from people effectively imposing effectively American English (or "Oxford English", or British English 150 years ago) onto titles for articles on modern British events, supposedly "for uniformity", for this!) is written in a highly biased tone, especially in its Wp:LEDE, certainly the wording "to gauge support".

The Referendum of the 23rd June 2016 was subsequently ruled as effectively advisory in nature in the judgment of the case of R (on the application of Miller and Dos Santos) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union of the Divisional Court (Queen's Bench Division (QBD)) of the High Court of England and Wales (EWHC) on the 3rd November 2016 ([2016] EWHC 2768 (Admin) (CO/3809/2016; CO/3281/2016)), and then confirmed on appeal by a separate judgment of the United Kingdom Supreme Court (UKSC) ([2017] UKSC 5 (UKSC 2016/0196)) on the 24th January 2017, which was subsequently effectively partially overturned, by implication, by the wording of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 (2017 c. 9) [9] [10], which states that "the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU", which (by wording) clearly infers (implies) that the referendum was to be made retrospectively legally binding in British law at the same time as authorizing Theresa May to invoke Article 50, by formal notification.

The British doctrine and the Westminster system of Parliamentary sovereignty mean that the British Parliament is entitled and empowered to pass laws to be enacted to partially or wholly reverse or overturn judgments of the English and British Courts (see [11] back in the year 1689 ( O.S.)), even retrospectively, in the form of something called emergency retrospective legislation. [12] [13] [14] There is nothing particularly controversial about this. See e.g. the subsequent history of the British case law of Derry v Peek.

I think that the words "to gauge support" here smack more of some extreme diehard "Remoaners" editorialising here on Wikipedia, who probably genuinely believed (and no doubt still genuinely believe) that the British Parliament, Theresa May as British Prime Minister and the Conservative British Government-of-the-day did not actually have to do anything because "the Referendum was advisory" but they chose to enact, make into force and implement Brexit anyway in the form of (authorizing and then implementing) Article 50 Invocation...and to back up my claim, the words used in Wikipedia were certainly "plagiarised" since by people who obviously opposed (and remain obviously opposed to) Brexit. [15] [16] [17] [18] -- 87.102.116.36 ( talk) 08:13, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Well I would say the referendum was advisory as it was not (in fact) legally binding. Slatersteven ( talk) 09:12, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Which was subsequently overridden by statute, by something called the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. Unlike in the U.S. with the U.S. Congress, here in the UK, the British Parliament IS allowed (entitled; empowered) to BOTH pass (and caused it to be enacted) retrospective ex post facto laws (certainly civil), and to also override the British Courts by overturning judgments of the British Courts...or have I been missing something here?! -- 87.102.116.36 ( talk) 21:56, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

The referendum was not legally binding when held, so it was advisory. What you're doing is WP:SYNTH: the Act does not say that the referendum is made retrospectively legally binding; rather, that's an interpretation you're yourself making by putting together several (unrelated, in most cases) sources and reaching a conclusion on your own not explicitly stated in the sources. There's little discussion on this, really; I think you're mistaking the concepts of "legally binding" and "politically binding". Impru20 ( talk) 10:29, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

If you are in fact Spanish yourself and living in Spain, you are hardly an unbiased editor (you could be the Spanish equivalent of a civil servant, working in the, for all we know!), especially given the recent controversy over Gibraltar (and all the suspicious previous (and corresponding) pro-Spanish edits regarding Gibraltar in Brexit-related articles)! -- 87.102.116.36 ( talk)

You should know that WP:GOODFAITH exists. The mere fact that I'm Spanish doesn't turn me into a biased editor just because you argue about Gibraltar and blah blah blah. I care a shit about Gibraltar nor does the issue at hand relate to it in any way (we're just talking about whether the referendum was advisory or legally binding. I don't know what Gibraltar has to do with this). I just commented my opinion here on such an issue. So, no, I'm not suspicious of anything. Rather, you should learn to assume good faith from others and to actually counter their arguments with good reasonings and not by accusing them of whatever just based on their nationality. That'd be close to racism, I think. Impru20 ( talk) 15:19, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually it doesn't matter a damn what any of us think its status was: the only thing that matters is what a WP:reliable source says it was. And without a shadow of doubt, the most reliable and NPOV source in this case is the Supreme Court. They declared (a) that the referendum was consultative, not binding - for the very simple reason that [unlike the Scottish Independence and Alternative Vote referendums] the Act that established it did not declare it to be binding and (b) that for this and other reasons, it would be unconstitutional for the Government to use the Royal Prerogative to give notice of withdrawal but would require Parliament's authorisation in the form of an enabling Act to do so. I agree that the words "to gauge opinion" need improving but may only be replaced by words having exactly the same meaning.

By the way, I know that we should wp:assume good faith but when you use ad hominem attack words like 'remoaner', it is very difficult to take you seriously as a proponent of WP:neutral point of view. -- John Maynard Friedman ( talk) 16:41, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

What fantasy, make-belief "Remaoner" World is this?! The point about the Supreme Court is moot, because any subsequent Act of Parliament clearly trumps and overrides any previous (conflicting) judgment or judgments of the UKSC...By your own admission, the Act "authorises", not "requires", Brexit (in the form of the invoking of Article 50 by formal notification)...surely, a purely advisory referendum (which is NOT actually what the UKSC said (in the exact words) either, by the way) would have required Parliament to explicitly direct and order ("shall" (i.e., must), not authorise ("may")) Theresa May as PM to trigger Brexit, no?! Like I said, the Act was clearly written (and then passed, and then enacted) on and with the understanding that the referendum was (and is) to be treated and deemed as retrospectively legally binding...and the Scottish referendum was somehow legally binding?! In WHAT way?! Ever heard of WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source?! That Scotland would somehow become automatically independent from the United Kingdom upon the event of a "Yes" vote?! Scottish Independence without a separate Act of the British Parliament is and would have been a British constitutional impossibility! What have you been smoking?! You have been relying on your own original research (albeit-backed-up-by-Wikipedia (or rather, your own edits)), you mean, haven't you?! The Scottish referendum was certainly NOT mentioned (as somehow legally binding, or more legally binding) as such in the UKSC judgment, you must have been simply making this up! I want the relevant paragraphs in the UKSC judgment and their Paragraph numbers, please! -- 87.102.116.36 ( talk) 21:56, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

And changing entries on Wikipedia to score cheap, petty and otherwise meaningless pro-Remain political points (even AFTER Article 50 has already been triggered; i.e., as a [diehard] Remoaner), and then pretending that you are not editing Wikipedia in a biased, partisan fashion, and then trying to throw the Wikipedia book on me (but not before quoting some clearly made-up, Wikipedia-based, (equally) OR-esque stuff), is hardly editing Wikipedia in good faith either! -- 87.102.116.36 ( talk) 22:01, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Can someone quote the relevant parts of European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 that stated that (retrospectively) stated that the referendum was legally binding? Ohh and stop calling people Remoaner (aas well as all the other personal comments), it is a personal attack and is forbidden under the current rules of Wikipedia. Slatersteven ( talk) 08:57, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I have recently stumbled upon an article online, which proves that gender wage gap is not real anymore. However our article covering this topic does not agree with this opinion. The article [19] specifically brings up a theme of women working on less paid positions. As well as that, it is very clear that after the Equal Pay Act of 1963 the sex wage gap in the US is not a thing anymore. However, article on gender pay gap state, that in the US it is illegal or might not even exist. I might be wrong, but I think that the theme of gender wage gap should be reviewed on POV violations and/or brought to the arbitration committee. Cheers, FriyMan ^talk 16:01, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

One article doth not a social-scientific consensus make. If there are a succeeding spate of articles that form a collection of WP:RS, then we update our article to note the controversy. If there are a lot of articles that agree that the controversy is over, then we make our article reflect the historical developments. In this case, however, one economist's article in an alumni mag, even Harvard's, is not "proof" by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 23:14, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Editors are invited to participate in Talk:Day-care sex-abuse hysteria#RfC: Overall compliance with BLP and neutrality policies, where there are potential neutrality/BLP problems that might necessitate a major structural overhaul of the article, or even deletion. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) -- Dr. Fleischman ( talk) 18:08, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Fritz Korbach was a Dutch/German football coach. For know, the lead highlights him racially abusing lack players, Bryan Roy and Romário in a 1991 interview. None of the Dutch mainstream mediabobituaries considered this was notable enough to mention. At Talk:Fritz Korbach I discussed to remove it, for WP:UNDUE-reasons. However, someone else argued that it was "covered, by various sources to various levels of depth, and which relates directly to his professional career and what he is known for." I doubt if that is true, since the much larger German an the Dutch articles on Korbach did not consider it notable enough to include it. Therefore, is it notable enough to include the affair in the English-language article, and if so, should it be in the lead section? Best regards, Jeff5102 ( talk) 10:44, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

There's a difference between relocating it (which I would support) and removing it entirely (which I oppose). Giant Snowman 12:00, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Moved content to "Career" since nothing in article furthers statement in lede. Maineartists ( talk) 12:44, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The tone of this article is promotional. Amqui ( talk) 18:27, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

You are 100% correct. Support AfD; unless an admin steps in and decides speedy deletion. Maineartists ( talk) 20:24, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Page: Southern Poverty Law Center ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Edit: "In 2013, the SPLC named the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) as a "virulently anti-gay" organization. Professor Mike Adams criticized the SPLC because "Their reason for the characterization was simply that the ADF opposes efforts of the LGBT community to impose its agenda on those who disagree with them for religious reasons. "The War On Krishna", SPLC Mike Adams, "The Intellectual Poverty Law Center", Townhall Revision as of 05:26, 2 May 2017

Question: This edit is representative of a number of criticisms added to the SPLC page. Is the controversy presented in a fair manner? Is the criticism of sufficient weight that it should be added?

Comments: The edit fails to mention the full facts, including why they include the ADF and who Adams is. It provides a link to where the SPLC refers to the ADF anti-gay, but not their article where they explain why they consider it an anti-gay hate group, which can be found here. It supports the recriminalization of homosexuality abroad, says same sex marriage has lead to the "deification of deviant sexual practices," “The endgame of the homosexual legal agenda is unfettered sexual liberty and the silencing of all dissent,” and links LGBT people to pedophilia, and more.

While Adams is a professor, his views are controversial and he was writing as a columnist in a conservative magazine, rather than as a professor. For example, an article in Cosmopolitan, "UNC Professor Pens Racist, Homophobic Facebook Posts and Articles About Students," says Adams "has been posting hate speech against the LGBTQ community throughout his tenure at the college."

Certainly people who engage in hate speech as normally understood object to the attention the SPLC pays to them and we should mention that. But I think the way this is presented gives undue credence to a fringe view, and incorrectly presents the criticism as expert and unbiased. And this has been repeated for Islamophobic, racist and other types of groups.

I acknowledge that there are a few critics of the SPLC who do not promote hate speech, in particular the independent researcher and journalist Laird Wilcox and the founders of the left-wing magazine CounterPunch. but that is a separate issue.

TFD ( talk) 18:58, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah... A homophobe criticizing the SPLC for calling homophobes "homophobes" isn't notable. Delete it. 74.70.146.1 ( talk) 02:49, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Let's assume that either the SPLC's labeling of a group or the group reacting to the SPLC's labeling is covered by reliable sources, as a first measure for inclusion. (I'm sure there have been groups labeled by the SPLC with nary a mention in reliable sources, those should not be included). If inclusion is warranted, then I would definitely say that briefly summarizing (with short quotes) the reasoning that the SPLC listed the group (in this case, like the ADF) should be part of any of these to provide balance, as well as the counter-statement if such exists by the group listed. (In a controversy, laying out the stance of both sides without additional commentary is appropriate NPOV). The statement by Adams seems unnecessary, unless it is standing in for the lack of a statement by the ADF, but that begs again if this specific case is necessary.

But one might want to consider even more narrower inclusion metrics here: the SPLC labels a LOT of groups, but only a few of those labels have really caused significant discussion (not just coverage but secondary-source type analysis), so you might want to limit it to those cases, so you can go into more depth for those. -- MASEM ( t) 03:11, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Masem concerning general criteria for inclusion, though that does not seem to be the consensus on the talk page of the article in question, as reliable sources have been dismissed on grounds of lack of popularity or other reasoning.Though consensus might be arising in the talk page section of the article regarding this and related edits Regarding the specific case being discussed here I think the same criteria can be applied. The only reference in the text quoted above for the listing is the SPLC itself, while the only reference to the reaction is an opinion column, though the provided link seems to be pointing to a text by John Horgan (journalist), which doesn't seem to mention the episode. Considering only the current sources I agree that this controversy has no place in the article, and I believe that was the conclusion on the talk page as well for this specific change. Saturnalia0 ( talk) 11:59, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

• Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The article on this private college became the subject of some intense editing starting in January following the suicide of a student and the revelation of a number of other abuses at the school. Much material has been added on these controversies, but while this appears to be reasonably well-sourced, it has come to dominate the article. One editor in particular, User:Helpsavestudents, has been the primary contributor of verbiage highlighting the abuses. Others have tried to whitewash the article and/or have it deleted entirely. A few, including myself, have tried to make some severe cutbacks to restore some proportion--while I may have cut things back overmuch, these cutbacks have been reverted in their entirety.

I'm requesting a few more eyeballs to check out the article and assist with figuring out what the best balance is here. Thank you for your assistance. -- Finngall ^talk 01:27, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

A NPOV dispute has arisen on the Isshin-ryu karate page within the section "History," subsection "Tatsuo Shimabuku" (the founder of the style). Here are the relevant diffs.

Here is the lengthy discussion from the Talk page under lineage.

Essentially, undue weight seems to be placed upon a single, disputed secondary source from a magazine rather than presenting that source in the context of Shimabuku's widely accepted biography. For example, the section's language leads with the magazine article's alleged "controversy," placing it in the sentence immediately after Shimabuku's birth and death dates. A previous major edit 1) to expand the range of sources (secondary and tertiary), 2) to refocus on the topic (i.e. on the subject's biography rather than an alleged controversy), and 3) to contextualize the controversial source with other sources, was reverted and rewritten to highlight once again the single magazine article.

I do not object to including the sensational article's central claim that Shimabuku was a fraud who fabricated his lineage. As a non-representative or non-mainstream article, however, it probably should not dominate this brief biographical sketch in a subsection of the Isshin-ryu page.

Altogether, the neutrality issues involved seem to touch on WP:UNDUE WP:PROPORTION WP:FALSEBALANCE and WP:IMPARTIAL.

Help please! Billyinthedarbies ( talk) 04:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

__________

I am "The Other Editor" on this matter who cited that article in question, and I am ONLY posting HERE to SUPPORT Billyinthedarbies's request. I am only interested in an accurate history. I just want to make clear that this is not about arbitrating a "fight/Edit War" between two individuals/editors. We just want to have a nice accurate history section. Some of us would also like a pony, but I will not reveal who.

TheDoctorX ( talk) 06:23, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I would like to request a third opinion on the dispute currently ongoing at Douban. User:Whaterss initially blanked a section pertaining to censorship of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre on the grounds that it is "political content". He has subsequently justified this in edit summaries and on the article talk page by stating that the blanked content is "both unimportant and not neutral".

I responded on the talk page: "You are blanking an account of an event, reported in reputable news media, that has been presented here in a neutral tone. Why? WP:NPOV does not mean "censor anything that might reflect poorly on the article subject". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and Wikipedia is not censored. We report on notable aspects of the subject at hand. Notability is generally defined as something that is reflected in coverage by reliable secondary sources – for example, the content that you are blanking, which is cited to the BBC. Secondly it isn't your call to dictate whether something is "unimportant" or not – what matters is whether it has been covered by reliable secondary sources."

The blanked content is a brief, neutral summary of an aspect of the subject that has been reported on in a reliable secondary source. There is no basis in Wikipedia policy to censor it. Citobun ( talk) 04:35, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Two things to point out: First, he called "Tiananmen Square protests of 1989" a massacre. Clearly he have shown his political opinions while denying "I'm not promoting my political opinions" in Talk:History of the People's Republic of China (1989–2002). Second, he proposed the notability guidelines so as to object my opinions. Actually according to WP:N, "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article". Whaterss ( talk) 04:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

"Tiananmen Square massacre" is the common English name for this event – see Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. My reply on the Douban talk page: "I never referred to WP:NNC. Per WP:DUE, it is appropriate to cover a breadth of viewpoints on the article subject presented by reliable secondary sources. Censoring this content on the grounds that it is "political" is violating this policy. The text is not biased – it is written neutrally. If being "political" was grounds for deletion a significant chunk of Wikipedia would disappear. You have no basis in Wikipedia policy for censoring this." Citobun ( talk) 05:02, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Me and Snooganssnoogans are in a major dispute regarding content on Greg Gianforte. They revolve around two different topics.

First, Snooganssnoogans added a section detailing Gianforte's belief in Young Earth creationism. I removed it because I think it violates WP:UNDUE, because the article mentions Gianforte's contributions to the YEC museum three other times in the article; and that it violates WP:COATRACK, because the info he added describes the museum's beliefs, which has nothing to do with Gianforte.

Second, Snooganssnoogans added a section entitled "Social Security and retirement." I strongly disagree with this section because Gianforte is only talking about retirement and not about SS. He mentions SS only once to illustrate that the biblical figure Noah did not retire. This sentence has absolutely nothing to do with retirement, but the header misleads the reader into thinking the section regards Gianforte's position on retirement. These sections are in the "Political positions" section of the article, which I think is misleading because neither section has anything to do with politics (especially the retirement quote).

I am posting this here because Gianforte is a candidate in an upcoming special congressional election in less than a month. I am worried that this info and possibly other info is added because of the election. -- 1990'sguy ( talk) 22:57, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Does it really matter?! WP is practically giving this guy free commercial space. Is this an actual article on WP? or a political campaign ad!? I am actually quite shocked to read such extensive content since there is so much scrutiny over personal promotion in other areas for subjects and companies that would be instantly submitted for an AfD citing "promotional in tone". Why on earth are politicians a special breed here? From your statements, it seems that you may be a pro-Gianforte fan who just doesn't want anything negative on the page going into the campaign. He's a politician, anything he says regarding the state of our country or its citizen's is considered "political", including the quote on retirement / SS; which is far more relevant to "Political positions" than the next section: "Young Earth creationism". IMO Maineartists ( talk) 12:42, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Gianforte's statements on social security and retirement have been covered by reliable sources. They are notable and would belong on any politician's page. Gianforte's extensive financial backing of a creationist museum is also notable, and has unsurprisingly been extensively covered by reliable sources. The backing of the museum is notable because of the theories that the museum espouses to its visitors, it would therefore be inexplicable for the Wikipedia article not to mention what these theories are (this is something that reliable sources do - why shouldn't the WP article?). It's also disingenious to say that the Wikipedia article covers this three times: (i) one is in the lede; (ii) two is a brief mention about how his support for the creationist museum were the subject of protest; (iii) third was a brief mention under the activities that his charity runs. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 13:22, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Since we don't have a transcript of his speech where he mentioned Noah, we do not know the context or what he meant. We know it was interpreted by some as opposing Social Security and we should mention that, but presenting their interpretation as a factual representation is wrong.

I don't know why young earth creationism belongs in the political positions section. I note it says, he "is a believer in Young Earth creationism, the pseudoscientific belief that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old." My understanding is that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of God or his role in the creation of the universe, whether 6,000 years ago or 15 billion years ago. But that's something for discussion in articles about God and creation, and should not be spammed across every single article about people who happen to be religious. I note that Snooganssnoogans has never added to Hillary Clinton's article that she has "pseudo-scientific" beliefs; her religion has been documented in ThinkProgress [20] and FactCheck. [21] Since we mention Gianforte's beliefs already, this is just tendentious redundancy.

I would also like to point out that this type of propaganda is ineffective because it's too obvious. It's like far left pamphlets that call people running dogs of American imperialism. It only works for those who believe already.

TFD ( talk) 14:05, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I've been told that YEC beliefs, along with anti-vaxxer beliefs, should be identified as pseudoscience or in conflict with the scientific consensus (see the talk page at 'Ark Encounter' for example). I'm not aware that religious beliefs in general merit that designation. Also, it's quite common that politicians' takes on scientific matters are featured in their pol positions subsections. The content could, however, be easily moved into a 'religion' subsection or be added under the subsection on his charity. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 16:22, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I've been told isn't a policy. If readers want to know about YEC they can go to the article. Can't you see how patronizing your prose is to readers? And notice that reliable sources, which are our guides, don't write that way either, so there's no reason for us to coatrack it in. I know you want to disparage the subject but that is not the purpose of the article and probably won't have the effect anyway. If you show hostility to a subject, readers will discount what you say about him. TFD ( talk) 04:41, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

This is being discussed across about three different noticeboards. I've had the article watchlisted for a while and I'll take a look to see what needs to be fixed. In general, we write in a neutral tone and verify our content. Montanabw ^(talk) 05:00, 9 May 2017 (UTC) Follow up: I did a bit of wikignoming with hope that this revision can be status quo ante. My take is that the current version needs more MOS cleanup, and streamlining some redundant sections and over-quoting, but overall, it's adequate, NPOV and paints a fair picture. Montanabw ^(talk) 05:23, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I happen to agree with the fairly explicit point of view of this article, but that doesn't excuse the violations. As written it's a mess, with not only NPOV problems but formatting and others as well. It's had an assortment of tags on it, apparently, for about five years now. -- Orange Mike | Talk 02:28, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Lisa Fritsch (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

DMGUSA ( talk · contribs)

This is apparently a friend of the subject's; subject had previously attempted to have an employee of hers "Improve" the article, but that one got blocked. The edits by DMGUSA are very favorable to the subject, and poorly sourced, if at all. -- Orange Mike | Talk 22:28, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Not sure if this is the right place to discuss what will probably wind up being changing the text in a maintenance template, but anyway...

I was just looking at Jesus Christ, which transcludes Template:Redr and so includes the text Please do not replace these redirected links with a link directly to the target page unless expressly advised to do so below or elsewhere on this page.

But "Jesus Christ" is a non-NPOV theological title that shouldn't generally be used in Wikipedia's voice except in statements like Christians call him Jesus Christ. The neutral equivalent is Jesus of Nazareth. I can see why some editors might accidentally pipe-link the redirect because "Jesus" is ambiguous and they assume the article's title is not just Jesus. But places where someone actually wrote "Jesus Christ" in an article should generally be replaced with "Jesus" or "Jesus of Nazareth" or the like, per NPOV.

Can anyone think of a reason not to change the template text to read Please do not replace these redirected links with a link directly to the target page without a good reason?

Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 22:30, 20 April 2017 (UTC

What's non-NPOV about saying Jesus Christ? I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're requesting. Mr Ernie ( talk) 14:43, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I believe the point is that the Christ in Jesus Christ is a faith statement and therefore not NPOV. If so, the point is correct. Antinoos69 ( talk) 00:04, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Our article seems to clear it up - "In postbiblical usage, Christ became viewed as a name—one part of "Jesus Christ"—but originally it was a title." In modern times it seems to simply be a name, not a title. Mr Ernie ( talk) 14:45, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

And the cited sources make an obvious point: whether as a title or a "name" (a highly dubious claim, btw), Christ conveys and was meant to convey a theological point. Hence the NPOV problem. Antinoos69 ( talk) 20:42, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Jesus Christ is a redirect. When people enter "Jesus Christ" into the search box, they should be brought directly to Jesus, because "Jesus Christ" is an incredibly common way to refer to "Jesus." The NPOV claim is hairsplitting. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 03:22, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

All three of you are missing the point. My point was that the template explicitly tells editors that they are not supposed fix non-NPOV wording, apparently based on a overly generalized reading of WP:NOTBROKE. If someone still doesn't get why "Jesus Christ" is not NPOV, consider that "Christ" is a translation of the Hebrew term "messiah", and its appropriation by gentile Christians, and its being adapted to carry a different meaning, was an integral part of the Christian supercessionist view of Judaism. The messiah is in origin (and remains today, if we're being honest) a Jewish concept, and Jews don't consider Jesus to be the messiah. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 11:40, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

• I have to wonder if Hijiri has the same issue with our article on Gautama Buddha (since "Buddha" is also a title that has turned into a name)? Blueboar ( talk) 16:39, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Hijiri 88 should not be targeted for religious reasons, per WP:WIAPA. That said, the issue is not WP:NPOV because users are correctly redirected to our article Jesus after a search for the string ""Jesus Christ"" - so at present there's no NPOV issue at all. It's hard to understand why Hijiri 88 said there is one, it doesn't seem to bear on the change he wishes to make. I can't see a reason not to change the template text as Hijiri 88 requested, however; it's not a destructive change to the template. loupgarous ( talk) 10:38, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

My apologies if my comment came across as an attack... I meant it as a question. I wanted to know if Hijiri's concern was just about our Jesus Christ article, or was it a broader concern... applying to other articles where a potentially religious title has become part of the subject's name? Blueboar ( talk) 11:18, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

The off-topic nature of the comment in question aside (we don't have a redirect template specifically telling us that we are required to use the title "Buddha" to refer to Gautama Buddha), it is also a false equivalence: plenty of academic literature by non-Buddhists uses the title "Gautama Buddha", but most secular scholarship of Jesus does not call him Jesus. Gautama Buddha isn't even a redirect. I'd wonder, therefore, why Gautama Buddha specifically was gone to -- my user page doesn't mention Buddhism (as opposed to "Jewish history"). I do get a lot of people assuming, despite my user page, that I am ethnically Japanese, and therefore presumably identify culturally with Buddhism. But this too doesn't make sense, since no one in Japan calls him "Gautama Buddha" -- the name of the ja.wiki article translates to Shakyamuni Tathagata.

Vfrickey appears to have missed the point -- my concern is that the redirect page for Jesus Christ includes wording that inadvertently tells users not to change it to more neutral wording. The actual frequency of the non-NPOV wording is irrelevant, as I was proposing that the template wording be amended so as not to encourage the use of non-NPOV wording. If the non-piped link to Jesus Christ is not very common at the moment, that is likely because people have been ignoring the instruction in the template.

Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 11:40, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Just left a message to BD2412, the editor who placed the template in question over our article Jesus Christ out of courtesy to him, as well as the desire for an explanation of the reasoning behind the template as it stands. loupgarous ( talk) 04:07, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

My edit was strictly for purposes of replacing the deprecated {{ This is a redirect}} category shell with the new {{ Redirect category shell}} category shell. I have no preference for what specific categories are listed therein. bd2412 T 04:09, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarifying the issue, BD2412. I'd like to consider our article Jesus Christ under the guidance of WP:RNPOV, which says " ...editors should not avoid using terminology that has been established by the majority of the current reliable and relevant sources on a topic out of sympathy for a particular point of view, or concern that readers may confuse the formal and informal meanings." An unbiased eye can see that NPOV cuts both ways here, but logically the issue's more profound than that.

This whole article's a POV fork under Neutral_point_of_view#Handling_neutrality_disputes. Its text ought to be deleted, since the whole issue of Jesus being the Christ (or not) is covered in our main article Christ. That overrides the objection I have to changing the template to remove POV issues or to changes to the article. No convicted Christian would turn to wikipedia for affirmation of his or her faith, anyway - that's not what we do here - families and pastors ought to be doing that, not us. loupgarous ( talk) 05:09, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

The Amway article has been plagued by socks who remove the pyramid selling term. See e.g. [24]. Please chime in. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 08:21, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

As I explained on Talk, the term "pyramid selling" is a primary synonym of multi-level marketing according to the WP definition of the term. The repeated removal is disruptive and not NPOV (and the fact that multiple socks appear to be involved is suggestive of potential WP:COI). Page protection was just imposed so that should help with the WP:DE. Rhode Island Red ( talk) 19:09, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

As explained in the Amway article, the FTC has determined that Amway does not fit the definition of a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes are illegal. I appreciate that some critics say it is in fact a pyramid scheme and others say it is similar or an unethical business model. By all means that belongs in the article but we cannot state as a fact they are a pyramid scheme when most reliable sources disagree. TFD ( talk) 19:07, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Just because they have learned how to keep within the law doesn’t mean it is not a form of pyramid selling. The FTC is a huge slow-moving dinosaur that hasn’t realized it is extinct. The Better Business Bureau is also a business funded org so can in no way be assumed as a suitable RS. Why can't we call a spade a spade? And why are these edits being done by single purpose accounts? I would suggest first nuke the article and SALT it. Then if anyone then wants to recreate the article is has to go before many more eyes for approval. Much of the references are advertorials. Fresh eyes would not allow them to be added. Aspro ( talk) 22:57, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

I could relate horror stories about my and my wife's experience as Amway distributors, but that'd be WP:OR and unhelpful. Strictly speaking, Amway's not a Ponzi or pyramid scheme, in which no actual capital is acquired and grown for investors - any dividends paid come solely from other investors' money. Amway's a scheme in which potential earnings from direct sales are exaggerated, as are potential earnings from recruitment of the crowd of distributors you must recruit to "make the real money".

One possibly helpful RS is "Herbalife Deal Poses Challenges For The Industry", a 2016 article in Fortune, which describes the draconian settlement the multi-level marketer signed Herbalife signed with the Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to pay $200 million into a fund to reimburse their distributors who lost money, and to accept severe restrictions on their future business activity. Quoting from the Fortune article:

"But the part that should worry the industry isn't so much the fine—though it is one of the largest ever levied by the FTC in a consumer protection case. The more ominous part is the consent decree Herbalife signed as part of its deal to avoid litigation and put the matter behind them. As part of its settlement, the company agreed to provide proof going forward that its products are being sold to actual customers—something Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, had been seeking since launching his assault on the company in December 2012. (In the decree Herbalife neither admits nor denies wrongdoing.)

While the decree's terms may be strong medicine even for Herbalife, they would likely cripple, if not kill off, many of its competitors in what's known as the direct selling, or multi-level marketing, industry. That category includes companies like USANA (USNA, +0.39%), Nu Skin (NUS, +0.31%), Amway, and Avon Products."

The article also gives good descriptions of what makes multi-level marketing operations so prone to abuse:

"Multi-level marketing (MLMs) companies use independent contractors to both sell their products and to recruit additional independent contractors to sell their products. They are paid commission fees based not only on their own wholesale purchases from the company—intended either for resale to retail customers or for personal consumption—but also on the purchases of their recruits and on the purchases of their recruits' recruits, and so on.

Most MLMs bear at least a superficial similarity to illegal pyramid schemes, where early joiners make out like bandits but later participants inevitably lose their money since, mathematically, there's no one left to recruit. In a pyramid scheme, distributors buy product from the company just to manipulate the compensation system, not because they really want to consume it or resell it. (For that reason, inventory may pile up in garages or be dumped for resale at a pittance on the internet.) In 1979, the FTC accepted the notion that MLMs were not categorically illegal, at least so long as they followed certain rules—known as the Amway rules, because of the case that established the precedent—that were supposed to ensure that when MLM distributors bought product from the company they were really consuming or reselling that inventory...

Over the years, however, both the FTC and the courts have grown skeptical that these rules—which nearly every MLM claims to follow—are really being enforced or that they are, in any case, sufficient to prevent an MLM from devolving into a pyramid scheme. The consent decree Herbalife signed Friday replaces the weak, difficult-to-enforce Amway rules with robust, verifiable proof that products are reaching good-faith consumers."

Hope this helps! loupgarous ( talk) 09:34, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

This section provides a list of groups that are allegedly support Islamic extremist ideology, although the definition of "Islamic extremism" is ambiguous and often controversial. Can this list be re-written so that it describes these groups in more objective terms? Jarble ( talk) 00:20, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

There has been a really great conversation at Talk:Criticism of Walmart and I'm looking for more editors to join the discussion. To summarize: Wikipedians have noticed and have begun attempts to fix the Criticism of Walmart article, which is full of WP:UNDUE and WP:POV content, and is far from encyclopedic in areas. Some editors have suggested throwing out the article and starting from scratch, while others have said the article would take a "massive" effort to clean up properly. The issue is no one knows where to start. I posted this same question to Wikipedia:Village pump, where George Ho recommended I seek input at this noticeboard. So here I am. Input and advice from additional editors could be a huge benefit to finding a way forward in cleaning up Criticism of Walmart. As one of Walmart's representatives on Wikipedia, I have a conflict of interest and I do not feel comfortable making suggestions as to whether the editors should try to correct the existing article or start over by reducing it to a stub, as has been suggested by others. I am, however, willing to help with whatever "grunt" work is necessary to assist other editors in fixing the page (providing references, assisting with identifying inaccuracies, etc.). Any insight is valuable and appreciated. Thanks, JLD at Walmart ( talk) 19:08, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I spent a fair amount of time trying to fix this article, and finally gave up (sorry JLD). See my comments at the talk page, but it looks like someone went on a witch hunt some time in the past. Roughly half of the references I checked did not actually support what was said in the article. For the record, although I believe Walmart is the essence of evil and is destroying all that is good about the US, the Criticism of Walmart article is a hatchet job and reflects poorly on Wikipedia's reputation. I hope that some good people will step up and rectify this. For encouragement, I have found JLD to be one of the fairest, most helpful, and easiest to work with COI editors I have encountered, a pleasant change from the usual corporate shills. Kendall-K1 ( talk) 00:55, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

JLD and Kendall-K1, I think the entire article should be scrapped. I haven't touched the article since January I believe. Also, Kendall-K1, when I checked references, I had the same problem you did, the refs didn't didn't support what was claimed, or they were dead links. That's why I tried to remove the links. I wasn't trying to go against any Wikipedia policies when removing the links, my thinking (which was probably wrong) was that if the refs didn't support what was stated, they should be removed. I only did that because I read a lot of BLPs on Wikipedia, and on the talk pages for BLPs, you have to have a reference, or Wikipedia could get in legal trouble, so I figured the same would be true for an article about Walmart. I apologize if I caused you any trouble Kendall-K1, I did enjoy working with you on the article. I also think it's nice to work with someone like JDL. You're upfront and honest, and to echo what Kendall-K1 wrote, you don't act like a corporate shill. Paige Matheson ( talk) 02:17, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Criticism articles and sections are inherently POV. Criticism should be incorporated into the main article or articles in relevant sections or in some cases have stand alone articles. The main article for example should say what employees are paid, then commentary on it, rather than having it as part of a criticism section. TFD ( talk) 05:10, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

@ Kendall-K1 and Paige Matheson: Thank you both for recognizing my efforts here. I hope editors are able to reach consensus on how to move forward to bring Criticism of Walmart in line with Wikipedia's standards. Thanks, JLD at Walmart ( talk) 03:44, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Since 2010 I have edited and added to a Wikipedia page concerning a UK based rock page (now relocated to another EU country).

I seek advice of how to deal with repeated edits to the band's page being made by a former member of one version of the band who believes he has been badly treated and has rights to trade under the band's name. He also adds links to his current projects (unconnected) and to defamatory information on the band's founder and current members posted on a similarly named webpage he owns (which IMO is an abusive registration). I don't want to get into edit wars but don't really know what else to do.

I have declared a interest as a friend of the band's founder but also declare truthfully that I have no financial interest in the band and am not in any way contracted to edit the wikipedia article. The subject of the page might fairly be described as having somewhat limited tech understanding and I edit the page as a favour to him. Until recently this has been an uncontroversial process merely adding new releases and changes to band personnel etc.

The band in question have existed in various forms since the early 1980s and all their material has been composed by the band's founder who is also the only person to have been in all incarnations of the band.

Following an acrimonious split from the band, a individual who was a touring member of the band for about a year has posted untrue and libellous statements on a website he has registered with the band's name (merely buying a domain with a different suffix). He now posts links to those statements on the band's Wikipedia page, in a way which suggests this is agreed by the band's founder and reverts any changes made. This person has not declared a conflict of interest though that is obvious. He also adds links to his websites in external links and promotes his current band which has no connection with the original band other than having two members who played briefly in the subject band and a very similar name to the original band. During his membership of the band, the band only performed material written by the founder. In fairness, this person (the former band member) did record and produce an album of old hits of the band and organised two tours of Spain in 2015 and 2016. His contribution during that period is not in dispute nor is his right to claim that he was unfairly treated by the band's founder and management (and lost money as a result) though of course that is disputed. However I do not believe that Wikipedia is the place to grind an axe particularly when it involves links to material of a personal and libellous nature including financial information.

As is often the case in the entertainments industry disagreements arose and the band split with the former member claiming he now owned the band and would continue without the founder member. It is fair to say that the band is almost entirely a vehicle for the founder member who not only wrote all the material but also sings it and has a distinctive style. Once promoters realised that the founder was no longer in the band attempting to tour under the original name, further engagements were cancelled.

The founder member recruited new band members (to join the three members of the previous band who remained) and continues to tour and has produced and released an album of new material. He is very well known in the EU country in which he now lives and enjoys much TV and Radio coverage.

Ideally someone neutral would edit the Wikipedia page but I don't know how one 'recruits' such a person. At very least I think that the person doing these edits should declare a COI and the links to his disputed version of events which led to the split - which are not verified by other neutral sources - should not have a place on the page.

I have not mentioned the name of the band here as I do not want to fan the flames further.

Any advice on how to proceed would be appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lleolyons ( talk • contribs) 11:50, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

In truth neither of you should be editing the page without first asking for edits to be agrees with the community, COI edds should not make unilateral edits. As to how you recruit neutral edds, by posting link to problem pages and asking for help (such as here and at RSN). Could you please provide a link the the page in question? Slatersteven ( talk) 15:27, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I have started an RFC here on the topic of how time should be given in article text. It is possible that a few involved editors are biased due to the way such things are written in their own countries and languages. -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 14:12, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

This Timeline of scandals related to Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and attempts to impeach Donald Trump needs goof look at, maybe even an AFD. Slatersteven ( talk) 16:47, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Definitely problematic presently since this assumes via OR that all these events are essential to the story around the interference. WP:RECENTISM is critical here. In a few years we may be able to have a timeline like this when the full story is known (particularly if impeachment hearings come into play), but right now, it cannot be written neither neutrally nor without engaging in original research. -- MASEM ( t) 16:54, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

The article on Functional Medicine [ [25]] is very biased and the bias is obvious in both tone and quality of cited sources. The talk page here [ [26]] makes a clear point that even the definition of functional medicine, even when appropriately cited, is consistently removed from the article.

It appears after thoroughly reading the talk page that there IS a consensus, and that the consensus is that the article is biased, and yet attempts to fix it are consistently reverted. Hence, I am added the article to this list for 3rd party review. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.184.213.72 ( talk) 03:51, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Is it ever appropriate for Wikipedia to describe a person, movement, or viewpoint as "misogynistic"? This has cropped up in some articles pertaining to the manosphere (e.g. Robert Fisher (New Hampshire politician) which said, "In 2017, The Daily Beast claimed that Fisher was the founder and a moderator, under the alias pk_atheist, of the subreddit 'TheRedPill', known for its misogynistic views", and 2014_Isla_Vista_killings#Misogyny, which says, "Rodger frequented online forums such as PUAHate and /r/ForeverAlone where he and other men posted misogynistic statements about women"), with some editors saying it's an example of calling a spade a spade.

If advocating traditional sex roles is misogynistic, then there are quite a lot of historical figures ( such as Paul the apostle) who would have to be regarded as misogynistic (rather than merely "sexist," as I've more commonly seen them described).

It's a bit jarring to see people throw the rather strong word "misogynistic" around so much these days, but maybe the meaning of the word has changed, or people have changed their standards of what kind of ideas count as misogynistic. It definitely seems like a pejorative term, as I've never heard of anyone who would describe himself as a misogynist. Compy book ( talk) 16:54, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

If we are talking a contemporary person/group that is currently living/active, such claims should always be with attribution and never as fact in WP's voice. This falls under WP:LABEL. Someone may be universally viewed as misogynistic, but that still remains a label and thus requires some type of attribution, even if it something like "John Q Smith is considered misogynistic by a large number of commentators.(list of sources here)"

Now if you start talking about deep historical figures, where there is well established studies and analysis, it might be the case that there is universal acceptance that a figure was misogynistic, which wouldn't require the same type of named attribution but of course should be still be sourced correctly. The idea here is that any controversy over this label has been lost due to the test of time and scholars that have reviewed the person's life to come to a common conclusion. But there at least that should be included only if that's a relatively universal fact that all scholars about the person come to conclude. You do have to watch for some modern critics that want to reversion history with a specific modern-day view that wasn't applicable when that person lived, which can be controversial, and that's why its best to make sure there's universal acceptance of that. If not, then attribution is still required. -- MASEM ( t) 17:06, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Regarding this specific edit, I think "misogyny" fits better with the source than "sexist". It is clear that this is intended as an attributed claim to the investigative report, but the source-content integrity should be carefully restored. Here is the original report about the Red Pill in the Daily Beast, which in particular says this: "Yet further investigation by The Daily Beast suggests that Fisher may still be very much be an active contributor and chief moderator of The Red Pill, where an alias that appears to belong to him—under the username redpillschool—regularly champions misogynistic views." Sławomir Biały ( talk) 17:23, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Looking around at various headlines, it seems like most of the time when people are described as "misogynists," it's either in an opinion piece, or it's in quotes, like in this article. Although here we have TRP described as a "misogynistic forum" without quotes. That just doesn't seem very objective to me, but apparently this is what major news outlets are doing. Compy book ( talk) 17:45, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Like anything else like this, it's important that it be attributed. But once that is done, I think we should use "misogynist" as a fair and attributed representation of that source. I also believe that it is due weight to include it, but invite other community input on that point. Sławomir Biały ( talk) 18:12, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Considering that for Fisher that his discovered involvement with that Reddit thread led to him resigned, I see no problem with an attributed description of that reddit board so that people know (implicitly) why he likely resigned as a result of the discovery. The wording in his current article seems fairly neutral on this point and seems fine. -- MASEM ( t) 21:39, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I like how we handled the "misogyny" issue at Roosh V. The lead says he has been accused of misogyny, and the article gives three or four examples of such accusations, always with attribution. We also have a statement from Roosh saying he is "pro-woman" which seems to add some balance. Kendall-K1 ( talk) 23:25, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Would someone like to make a bold edit at Robert Fisher (New Hampshire politician), to help us out with our BRD cycle? Grayfell seem to favor the status quo in which the article says that TRP is "known for its misogynistic views" and I've been trying to figure out a more neutral alternative that would implement the emerging consensus here, while at the same time not being too clunky or creating a bias in the other direction. Based on some of the talk page discussion, I'm starting to wonder if I adequately and accurately understand the nuances of how one assesses what is and isn't misogyny (since he's talking about "textbook" as opposed to "dictionary" misogyny, which implies there's a lot more to it), so some more eyes would be appreciated. Thanks, Compy book ( talk) 03:03, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I have read quite a bit about editor bullying on Wikipedia, but had never once had imagined I would experience this myself. Moreover the comments by your Editor Houn are downright condescending!

I am an experinced University Professor (Tenured Full), the autor of two textbooks and the supervisor of over 50 dissertations. See my profile on: www.LinkedIn.com/in/ashleyfrankfinance

Having been slapped with a POV tag, whichI believed was unnecessary I was confronted by two editors, the first of whom was quite polite, but the response from Houn is downright condescending: "I would expect that, as a university professor, you're well aware of what kinds of sources are reliable. Accepting their own website as the sole source for such claims as having "faithfully preserved" apostolic succession doesn't seem like academic rigor to me; is that the standard you'd apply when writing a paper for publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal? Other parts of the content you wrote cited no references at all but the Bible; the last time I read the KJV, it didn't have anything to say about the Evangelical Anglican Church In America. Thus to me it seems you were mostly summarizing what the EACA has to say about itself, not what independent sources have reported about it; that indeed is not the way to write a neutral encyclopedia article". Huon (talk) 02:12, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

First it is impossible to write an article describing a faith-based group without describing what they believe, and it is only they who can describe what they believe! It is not any encyclopedias responsibility to check the accuracy of belief-based material which is supplied by the the group. How do I or should I even find a third party collatoration in describing the validity of someones belief? That is absurd!

In particular the dispute revolved around the use of "faifully preserved" in describing the succession of a church. To put this in context, lets assume a couple marry promising to be faithful to each other. Assuming that one partner is able to provide a written record which "demonstrates" fidelity (if such was possible). What would be wrong with saying that the marital vows have been "faithfully kept" and referencing the written record? Scientific method has to do ultimately with dispute and how would anyone dispute this statement? If you can't dispute it you will have to take it on face-value.

Referencing your own article on "Theology", the tension between faith (which cannot be independently referenced) and the scientific method has been long established: "Much of the debate concerning theology's place in the university or within a general higher education curriculum centres on whether theology's methods are appropriately theoretical and (broadly speaking) scientific or, on the other hand, whether theology requires a pre-commitment of faith by its practitioners."

The comment "Thus to me it seems you were mostly summarizing what the EACA has to say about itself" is improper criticism, how else do you document a belief? Look for example at the Wikipedia article on the Roman Catholic church, at least 80% of the references cited come from the church itself. In describing faith, the scientific method cannot be appropriately applied, simply because faith, by its very nature, cannot be indepependently tested and verified.

The comments made by Editor Houn are simply disrespectful and I shall not be submitting further work to your site.

Prof. Ashley G. Frank, DCom, MBA — Preceding unsigned comment added by HolyOil ( talk • contribs) 08:02, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Bye! Don't let the door hit you on the way out. You added added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without evidence of permission from the copyright holder, and you refused to follow Wikipedia's rules found at Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, and Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources. Get your own website, and you can publish whatever you choose on it. If you wish to publish on Wikipedia, you have to follow Wikipedia's rules. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 13:44, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh, it's about User:Huon? Misspelling a four-letter username is pretty uncouth. Talk about "disrespectful". Bishonen | talk 14:01, 27 May 2017 (UTC).

Just as a point of information, signing off with your credentials kinda rubs people the wrong way around here so it would be to your advantage if you left that off in future. You can barely move on Wikipedia without bumping into a senior scientist or tenured professor. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris ( talk) 14:22, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I stand by the comments I left at HolyOil's talk page. I'll add:

• "First it is impossible to write an article describing a faith-based group without describing what they believe, and it is only they who can describe what they believe!" - That's both wrong and irrelevant. It's irrelevant because "Its unbroken chain of apostolic succession has been faithfully preserved" is not a statement about their beliefs but a statement of fact. It's wrong because for notable faith-based groups there will be secondary literature discussing their beliefs that we can summarize. I'm pretty sure the books written on Catholic, or Anglican, or Calvinist, doctrine fill shelves, each.
• What's the difference between "preserved" and "faithfully preserved", beyond nice-sounding fluff? Also, such a preservation of apostolic succession is a claim many religious groups might make, not necessarily truthfully. Thus I think more than just their own website is necessary to back up such a claim, and WP:Verifiability agrees.
• None of this is about the scientific method but about writing based on reliable published sources, without embellishment or fluff. I agree, though, that our coverage of Catholic doctrine indeed could do with more secondary sources. Our coverage on the history of the Catholic Church, though, is indeed heavily based on secondary sources as it should be. Huon ( talk) 22:26, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

The section Diego Garcia#Arrival of the US Navy uses grossly POV language, including scare quotes and labeling some actions as "greusome". - Bri ( talk) 15:43, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

The current Sexual addiction article has previously been flagged (by others) for NPOV problems and being overly technical. I have been attempting to clean up the article to address these concerns. However, some editors are reverting every single change using 'mass reverts' rather than re-edits or engagement with the issue at hand. A key problem with the NPOV status of this page is the diagnosis section. Sex addiction is NOT a diagnosis in any of the diagnostic frameworks (DSM, ICD10 etc) having been considered many times by the relevant expert committees and deliberately and explicitly excluded. However, the wiki page lists various unrelated diagnoses, in an apparent attempt to use association fallacy. Just because A is an accepted condition it does not mean that B is accepted by association because it shares a single property (in this case sex/sexuality).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cogsci101 ( talk • contribs) 11:07, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

An editor has twice changed the terminology at Mediumship to present the practice as an irrefutable fact (see [27] and [28]). I have tried to make the language a bit less judgemental (see [29]) but I see some words I have used (such as "purportedly") are discouraged by WP:WEASELWORDS. Has anyone got any suggestions? Basically the line science takes on it is that it is an "open line of inquiry" but it has never conclusively found evidence of psychic phenomena, and inevitably comes up against that old quandary that you cannot prove a negative. Betty Logan ( talk) 19:24, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• I'm also not happy with the edits at Psychic by the same editor. Do they warrant a revert? Betty Logan ( talk) 19:54, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• The editor in question has since been indefinitely blocked. DES ^(talk) 01:27, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Multiple discussions on the article talk page have tried to resolve this issue. At Iron Fist (TV series), the introduction of the article, at the moment, says, "The series received mixed reviews from critics." This was added after an editor challenged the introduction saying that the series received generally negative reviews. The editor argued that "mixed to negative" is more accurate, and then settled on "mixed" when it was clear that "mixed to negative" would not be added. Since then, the introduction has said "mixed." Some editors have maintained that "mixed" is fine, while others have argued that "mixed" is at odds with what the overwhelming majority of sources report on the critical reception for the series; for example, with the use of sources, I have argued that saying "mixed" in the lead is a WP:Due violation. See Talk:Iron Fist (TV series)#"Mixed to negative" is unsourced for where the dispute started and for sources offered. 72.213.205.141 ( talk) 18:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

The Christian feast of Pentecost celebrates an event that according to the Acts of the Apostles (part of the Christian Bible) took place while the Apostles of Jesus were in Jerusalem during the Jewish festival Shavuot. The word Pentecost derives from the ancient Greek name for that Jewish festival. That is well-attested and uncontroversial. Western Christians will be celebrating the feast of Pentecost this weekend, and I imagine the article will see an uptick in traffic over the next day or two – especially as since 2005 it has appeared on the Main Page every time it has been celebrated. Over the past three days, User:Seraphim System has suddenly become very active on that page. For the most part they have been removing information they say overloads the article. But they have also added a section on the etymology of the word pentecost that gets more confusingly worded at every edit, seems to want to distinguish sharply between pentecost and shavuot (they insist that "pentecost is not a translation of Feast of Weeks" – they have removed the word "shavuot" itself in both English and Hebrew), and relies heavily (three citations in two short paragraphs) on the work of Gerhard Kittel, an important biblical scholar but also a known Nazi. Reliable sources recommend his work be used with careful and critical discernment but Seraphim System insists his lexicon is a standard and unproblematically reliable secondary source. Another main thrust has been that the word "pentecost" is "not in the Old Testament" – an irrelevance to the question of etymology, since the word is attested in ancient texts, both Jewish and Christian, as the Greek name for the Jewish festival; but also non-neutral since many Christians (Orthodox, Catholic, some Protestants) do regard two of the texts in question as part of the Old Testament, although most Protestants do not. The editor seems oblivious to the idea that the canonical status of an ancient text does not affect its value as a source for ancient words. I've tried a few rewrites and reverted a couple of particularly problematic edits, but draw back from 3 reverts in a day. The editor in question is nothing if not persistent. I've engaged on the article talk page at Talk:Pentecost/Archive 1#Septuagint_2 and responded to the editor on my own talkpage. I have tried (without on every occasion succeeding) to do so with patience and good humour. It is clear now that we keep going round in circles, with the editor asking for the same things to be explained again and again, asking about my personal POV, asserting that "this is sourced", asserting that the Nazi in question heroically disapproved of other Nazis going so far as to murder Jews, etc. I now want to disengage and get community input. It may seem abstruse, a content dispute about the meaning of a single ancient Greek word, but with the topic of the article just two days away (and likely to appear on the main page) I am concerned about the direction that the editor is taking this. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 00:04, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Pinging Doug Weller and PiCo who have had the opportunity to work on common articles with this editor, I think that I only conversed with Seraphim once on the Melchizedek article's talk page. Not about this editor, but an idea also would be to request semi-protection during the critical period of the events (against random IP disruption, if that's a common problem every year)? — Paleo Neonate - 01:10, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I come to this thread following a specific request from Andreas Philopater ("AP") at my user talk page. The only place I recall having encountered AP is on this AN thread, where I commented positively on advice AP had offered to Carolus. The request AP made to me was neutrally worded I do not consider it canvassing, just to pre-emptively address that potential concern.

I am not religious, so my knowledge of the intricacies of an issue like this is small, and I would need to look into sources to comment on the content issue – which I can do, but it will take some time. My immediate advice would be to post similarly neutrally-worded requests for input from suitable WikiProjects – perhaps the ones for Religion in general (and more specifically Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible), History (and specifically Jewish History), and maybe the Germany WikiProject for the specific issue of Gerhard Kittel and Nazism; all of these appear to be active and may have relevant information / perspectives to offer.

On the stability issue, I note that the article has seen a cumulative total of 113 edits since 31 May. I also note that the Shavuot article has seen no similar increase in editing. The Rambling Man has a vast amount of experience on main page issues, and I hope he will comment at least on the aspect of whether the article is main page-suitable in these circumstances. As I understand it, Howcheng usually puts together the WP:OTD section, so his input would also be welcome. EdChem ( talk) 02:16

In the 5.5 years I've been maintaining OTD, I don't recall ever having to deal with an article that's been in the middle of a dispute. I would say that in its current state, we should probably omit it. This year has been a bad one for the Christian holidays. A lot of them this spring have been omitted due to maintenance problems, but it is what it is. — howcheng { chat} 02:54, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Honestly this does not have a single diff of a supposed NPOV violation and this discussion should be closed and the OP trouted. AP has made repeated posts that the article is about a Jewish Feast - which it isn't. It's about a Christian commemoration of a supernatural event which Christians believe mark the birth of the Church. What the article said we "The ancient Greek word Pentecost is used in Deuteronomy 16:10" - it is not, and I removed this unsourced statement.The accusations agbout Kittel, who was tried and acquitted of any wrongdoing are just more of the same. Annemarie Tugendhat testified that after her Jewish father was taken to a concentration, she asked Kittel what he thought about it. She says that the discussed with her at length his strong objections and belief that Christianity did not allow any justification for these actions. She said the content of his speech exposed him to personal risk from the Nazis. Others who had been persecuted by the Nazis testified to defend the integrity of his work. Numerous "baptized Jews" testified to various forms of assistance they received from him. Distorting the facts about something terrible, contrary to the testimonies of the people who lived through it, because it is inconvenient to have to deal with an editor who writes sourced content is pathetic. This editor is not going to be happy unless this article is about "The Jewish feast of Pentecost " - editors have tried to push this POV in this article before, and have called others antisemitic and Nazis when they haven't gotten their way. He hasn't shown a single diff of an actual edit that is not NPOV - not one. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 05:19, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

The spice must flow...

I don't think there's a reason to be very alarmed at this point. This is still at the level of content dispute/discussion, we're not at ANI for instance. We could consider this like an RfC... — Paleo Neonate - 07:23, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Regarding Kittel, it is a 10 volume Lexicon written by multiple authors. Kittel was one of two editors for the German edition. It is colloquially referred to as "Kittel" - it's actual title is TDNT (or Theological Dictionary of the New Testament). It was translated into English by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and is published in the United States by Eerdman's - Some Eerdman's publications are available through Questia and they generally have a good reputation as a publisher for religious texts of all kinds. TDNT definitely meets our standards for WP:RS. Last time I checked sourcing statements to WP:RS was part of our WP:NPOV policy which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic - This is the last edit I made to the section, which is sourced to multiple WP:RS [30] — I am not sure why Andreas Philopater feels using "The Feast of Pentecost" for Pentecost is an NPOV issue. The etymology section needs to explain that different terms were used in the Septuagint for Pentecost and "Festival of Weeks" — the previous article said "Pentecost" was used in Deuteronomy 16:10 and Exodus 34:22 - it is not. This term was used in Greek texts — as far as I know, it is not a term in Hebrew, and the texts that were translated from Hebrew into Greek for the Septuagint used a different term. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with whether or not Kittel was a Nazi, but maybe someone can explain it to me. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 09:26, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Howcheng: If what you are saying is true, then it seems to be part of a problem I've seen on many of our Christianity articles. They are full of unsourced WP:OR, use of primary analysis of religious text sources without secondary sources, factual errors that are not supported by the majority of WP:RS - it is troubling that you feel an article in this condition would be suitable for OTD, in any case, simply because there is no active editing on the article. Just saying "This year has been a bad one for Christian articles" is not ok. Why are articles about Christianity being excluded from OTD? Can you be more specific then just "maintenence problems"? There seems to be a lot that editors can do to improve articles in the subject area, instead of starting frivolous disputes with an editor who is removing unsourced content and adding information based on WP:RS - I sugested that AP post to RS/n if he had concerns about whether Kittel is WP:RS. The version I am using is published by Eerdman's and edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley who is himself a big name in Christian theological studies. I think it's a tough sell and one or two critical articles that have been written about Kittel's "antisemitic" theology don't change that. There are scholars who believe that Christianity is inherent antisemitic, or a root of antisemitism. We don't write our articles from their POV and we should not write our articles from their POV. All I did here was improve an article that was largely unsourced and in poor condition based on WP:RS and our policies. I did change Shavout to its redirect Festival of Weeks in the lead per WP:JARGON which says we should use more commonly known terms where they are sufficient. This advice is especially relevant in the lede. I added the Hebrew term and spelling to the appropriate Old Testament section. I don't consider this POV editing. There seem to be some editors who think it is a POV violation when articles are not written from their POV, or even when articles are written by editors who they feel don't share their POV (independent of the content of their edits) —this is damaging to our articles in some areas, and Christianity seems to be one of the areas suffering from this problem. Constantly accusing other editors of POV editing without evidence is a personal attack. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 06:17, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

"Maintenance problems" refers to yellow-level maintenance tags and higher, whatever they may be. The most common reason is missing references (not enough or none at all), which is all that those of us who are not subject-matter experts are qualified to evaluate. Anything else like original research or needs expert attention, etc, we rely on others to judge. As for the rest of your post, I'm afraid I don't want to get involved in a content dispute. As I said before, I believe this is the first time this has happened during my tenure, so I don't have precedent to base any decision on. I had originally made the decision to exclude Pentecost because there was a maintenance tag on it, but if there's consensus that it's unwarranted, then I'll be happy to restore it. — howcheng { chat} 07:33, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Howcheng: Thank you Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 09:17, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Apologies that I am so inexperienced a wikilawyer as not to have provided diffs to the specific edits. There have been over a hundred edits on the page in the last three days, but I will try to sift through them and give a few (not exhaustive) examples. The first edit to try to dissociate the Christian festival from the Jewish festival mentioned in Acts 2 is here, where a statement that the word "Pentecost" was used for both a Jewish and a Christian festival is dismissed as "unsourced OR" (it was unsourced, and I would say poorly phrased – I have no idea who added it – but SS him/herself has since started adding material about a Jewish "Feast of Pentecost"). The article talkpage comment Most likely, we can say Acts 2:1 takes place during Shavuot, but then we have to consider what scholars have said about Acts 20:16 (part of a much long screed that makes a diff unhelpful: it's there on the talk page) as good as recommends WP:SYNTH. Here s/he is referring to another editor as "vandal editor" for wanting to clarify that "50 days after Easter" actually means "49 days" in the way most people in our culture count days (not including the day being counted from: and SS is insisting that the other editor provide a source for seven weeks from a Sunday to a Sunday not being 50 days). That reference to a "vandal editor" is a clear failure of WP:AGF, and a suggestion to me that there are issues of WP:OWN here. Here s/he's removing sourced material that ancient Jewish writers Philo and Josephus used pentekoste to refer to a Jewish feast. S/he later adds back in, from a different source, that Philo and Josephus "use the word pentekoste", after a section about the word having alternative meanings, leaving it moot as to whether or not they were referring to the Jewish feast. Here SS removes sourced content, now gone from the article, with the edit summary "adjust image size + WP:CAPTION". Here s/he starts the problematic series of edits on the etymology, at the same time moving the section up to right under the lead. A nuanced discussion of why Kittel is problematic but still used, rather than simply dismissed, can be found on Google Books. This edit summary has Kittel which I followed closely and cited, as though that was unproblematic. This, and subsequent assertions here and on the talk page that Kittel was a good Nazi, show a failure to apply critical and careful judgement to the source. I have to go now (life intrudes) but will attempt to add more diffs later, to oblige. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 10:31, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I'll take them one by one

• Removal of unsourced content, not POV. "Christians commonly do not celebrate it as a separate holiday" needs a source
• Comments on the talk page are irrelevant. The fact that you have already decided it is WP:SYNTH before seeing the edit or the sources is not worthy of consideration.
• About vandalism , what happened was I asked the editor for sources and he said he did not need any [ [31]] — the language "fiftieth day" that is being disputed is sourced to an overwhelming number of WP:RS. Then I reverted his "dubious-discuss" tags as vandalism. No sources, no discussion WP:FORUM.
• A lexicon from 1889 is not encouraged under WP:RS. Replacing it with BDAG, which is considered the #1 Biblical Lexicon is not POV editing. It is improvement.
• Removing that under WP:CAPTION was not POV editing, it was policy based and part of a series of edits that improved the abominable layout of the page, where the infobox spanned 3 sections of the article and the photos were poorly spaced. I set up an image gallery, etc.
• Basically, a whole lot of nothing and Kittel, which you should have more properly posted on RS/n. You keep bringing up Kittel without explaining what specifically you find problematic about how Kittel has been used in the current article. Judging from the rest of your comments, what you find problematic is that WP:RS don't support your POV that an article about the Christian Feast of Pentecost should emphasize a Jewish harvest festival and that you have decided it would be appropriate to make vague and dramatic statements about Nazism in the hopes that other editors will allow you to continue adding unsourced and incorrect content to the article, or at least have a well-sourced article removed from OTD because it no longer has the tilt you want. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 11:10, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
  • First point: yes, the phrase you now quote should indeed have been excised; but your edit removed more than that one phrase. Pretending otherwise seems desperate.
  • Talk pages: I have always tried to take account of talk pages. I was not aware that they were irrelevant. I am not sure I should accept your assertion that they are.
  • Vandalism: I did not say which of the editors was in the right, and I would myself be somewhere in the middle. You are right that Pentecost is indeed the "fiftieth day", the other editor is right that anybody who thinks for two seconds may be struck by the fact that Sunday to Sunday is only 49 days, so it may need clarification. The point is not who is right and who is wrong, but that you have displayed aggressive ownership of the article over the last two days.
  • lexicon from 1889: 19th-century scholarship on ancient texts is still fundamental (it's not as though textual scholarship has undergone the sort of changes that medicine has: the ancient texts were already ancient then, and modern scholarship was already modern). You yourself insist on using a translation of a work completed in 1945, despite the availability of more recent sources. Removing sourced material out of simple recentism is a dubious path. But again, this is deflection. You raise the issue of the publication date, without answering to how you turned Philo and Josephus using the word for a feast, into Philo and Josephus using a word that could mean any of three things. This speaks again to a pattern of editing to minimise or deny the relevance of the Jewish feast.
  • WP:CAPTION: It may be policy to remove such information from the caption; you removed sourced information from the article entirely, with an edit summary that suggested you were just tidying up the images.
  • Kittel: I have repeatedly stated on the talk page of the article what the issue is. For you to say I have not explained suggests you have not been reading my explanations. Given your view that talk pages are irrelevant, this makes sense.
  • "my POV": I notice you yourself provide no diff to what you ascribe to me, although you made much of my earlier failure to post diffs. From what you say here I begin to suspect you suffer from the etymological fallacy. To say that the word for a Christian festival derives from the Greek name for a Jewish festival is not to say "that an article about the Christian Feast of Pentecost should emphasize a Jewish harvest festival". But the etymology section (that you chose to make more prominent in the article, citing Kittel three times in the process) should certainly address rather than obfuscate this linguistic relationship. Since I initiated the discussion here, you have made praiseworthy efforts to rectify that, although more could be done.
  • vague and dramatic statements about Nazism: again, I notice you fail to provide diffs yourself. Above I provide a link to a nuanced statement about Kittel. It actually quotes Geoffrey W. Bromiley, in an Eerdmans publication, saying "It need hardly be said that the translation and publication of Kittel is no necessary endorsement of everything contained in it". I had intended to use this time to provide more diffs about your edits. Instead it has gone on answering your deflections. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 12:24, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Almost forgot, allow you to continue adding unsourced and incorrect content to the article: diffs (again). Also: what were you saying about personal attacks? have a well-sourced article removed from OTD because it no longer has the tilt you want: the article was a mess and when I saw somebody starting to clean it up my first feeling was relief. Then as your edits progressed, concern. Then at your intransigence and persistence, alarm. That is why we are having this discussion. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 12:39, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

NPOV is a policy about the content of edits to the article. It is not a policy about editors, your perception of their personal POV or comments made by editors on talk pages. If you are "not aware" of this, I suggest you read the core policies before filing complaints like this. If I am wrong about this, I would appreciate correction from more experienced editors, because I would not want to continue editing with a poor understanding of our core policies. For MOS:CAPTION, I removed information from the Caption only. My clarifying the etymology section had nothing to do with your post here. I added it because it was necessary for the article. After another series of vague and dramatic comments about Kittel, I still have no idea what you are complaining about. TDNT is sourced for the usage of Pentekostos in reference to Jubilees because TDNT was the only Lexicon that has this information. It is the only use of Pentekostos in the "Old Testament" (excluding the Apocrypha)—this is why TDNT is considered essential in the field of Biblical Studies. It can not be replaced. Our talk discussion about Kittel is a separate issue, I don't want to drag it out here. I haven't read Kittel's controversial works. I am speaking only of TDNT. Bromiley says in that same statement that TDNT is authored by multiple authors. It is like a 10 volume encyclopedia. I am not sure why you feel the quote "It need hardly be said that the translation and publication of Kittel is no necessary endorsement of everything contained in it" is significant. Publishers are not in practice of "endorsing" the views of the authors that they publish. Probably, he said this case expecting hyperbolic reactions that would jeopardize the availability of a critical source for which no adequate substitute exists. TDNT sometimes has information that even BDAG does not have. Your obsession with one of the editors of a 10-volume academic Lexicon seems to be approaching Ahab-like proportions. Seraphim System ^{( talk)}

Your personal POV is of no concern to me. I wish you would stop asking or guessing about mine, and also stop ascribing ludicrous intent such as This editor is not going to be happy unless this article is about "The Jewish feast of Pentecost" (above; with no diff; good luck finding one). It would be more fruitful to focus on well-sourced content. Prior to me initiating this discussion your edits were distinctly tendentious, and as I have repeatedly said, this is because you were uncritically using a single source, and stubbornly rejecting (as you still do) any suggestion that this was unwise (dismissing it as vague and dramatic). I have at no point attributed the POV of the source to you personally. Your editing turned around very quickly once wider input was requested, making for a much more presentable article this morning than we had last night. For that I commend you. As to your point immediately above, it is true that Kittel is a multi-authored work. As the text I linked to further above shows, a number of the contributors were worse Nazis than Kittel himself. I'm not sure how that helps your argument. You say that you have to use Kittel here, because the information you want to include can only be sourced to Kittel. If that is the case, you should perhaps consider whether WP:FRINGE might not apply to this particular bit of information. Biblical studies is not exactly a dormant field. Perhaps that one bit of information is not really essential? -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 14:38, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Lol, no the fact that Pentecost is used for Jubilee year in the Septuagint translation for Leviticus is not a fringe theory. I verified it in the Greek text myself and you can too. At no point was I "uncritically using a single source." This is a lie—and a deliberate one because we discussed BDAG on talk. I also used the UBS Handbooks. Nothing cited to TDNT is even remotely controversial. I can't say that I have read the entire thing and I can't speak to the integrity of the entire 10 volumes. I have never encountered anything problematic in it and I have overall found it be an invaluable resource, and very reliably researched with extremely thorough footnotes. You are trying to determine the reliability of the source based on the supposed political views of Gerhard Kittel—that is not how we do things. I have actually researched this—there are legitimate criticisms about Kittel's personal theories about political Christianity. I would not cite a statement like "Jews are secularizing our society. Christianity is the best line of defense against Jewish infiltration" to Kittel and expect that it should be considered WP:RS because of his reputation as the editor of TDNT. Scholars widely agree that his ideology was substantially different from Nazism. I have never encountered anything in the Lexicon that is about political ideology, or his original ideas about Christian ideology in the contemporary political context that Kittel wrote about in his other works. Every academic source has sections that may be primary for the ideas they are discussing. For anything like this, I find secondary sources instead of citing directly the scholar. The only thing I can attest to is my own good judgment in using sources. Can this discussion be closed now? Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 15:34, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Again with the deliberate missing of the point. At least, you seem to be able to read at college level, so I assume it is deliberate. Fringe is not whether or not the word is used for the jubilee, but how relevant that is to the etymology of the feast. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 20:15, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Also asked to give an opinion here by AP on my talk. I'm not up to date on current biblical scholarship, but from reviewing the talk page and the text it looks like no one disagrees that Tobit uses the word to refer to Shavuot. The current version of the page sets this out clearly without making value judgements as to whether Tobit is part of the Old Testament, which as this table shows depends on who you talk to. What is the exact nature of the contention laying it out this way? If we have reliable sourcing saying Tobit uses it in this way, we should present it and let the reader make their own value judgement as to the status of that book. TonyBallioni ( talk) 11:18, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
  • That was the issue that first raised my concern, but Seraphim System seems (after several back and forths, initially in the article and then on the talk page) at least partially to have conceded that point. The other issue is minimising the etymological connection of the Christian feast to the Jewish feast, which Seraphim System has gone some way to addressing since this conversation started (had s/he showed any sign of doing so earlier this conversation might not have been necessary). S/he still insists that Kittel is a fine source. Indeed, using Kittel as a reference no more makes someone a Nazi than driving on an Autobahn does, but using Kittel specifically to minimise the Jewish roots of Christianity should be a red flag. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 12:55, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

This is something that happened only in your imagination. Kittel is used for three statements. One is to call it "the Feast of Pentecost" - the other is to discuss the sole usage of Pentekoste in the Septuagint translation of the "Old Testament" - in the meaning of Jubilee year in Leviticus. The other is a trivial mention to several passages that use it in phrases like "one hundredth and fifty year." Ultimately I settled on explaining it in plain english rather then using complicated terminology like deuterocanonical or Apocrypha. What is unclear is why you are so deeply offended by the statement that Tobit and 2 Maccabees are not in the OT. You are right, it is not ideal because Catholics do include it in the Old Testament—however, Jews do not. So any claims that this should be seen a "red flag" for antisemitism are laughable. The word for the "Festival of Weeks" in Deuteronomy and Exodus is not Pentecost. I do not need Kittel for this. It can be sourced directly to the Greek Text of the Septuagint itself, because it requires no interpretation. It can also be sourced to any and every biblical lexicon and serious commentary. This is just a reality you are going to have to accept. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 13:19, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

The current text of the etymology looks fine to me in terms of NPOV. The general sourcing issues could be taken up at RSN for future questions. If you want to make a more clear connection The Catholic encyclopedia article clearly credits Greek Jews with the term citing Tobit, Maccabees from their canon and Josephus as a source outside the canon, and you could likely find additional sources if you had access to current academic sources. TonyBallioni ( talk) 13:48, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• I thought something like consensus had emerged, but comments such as this one make me wonder if I didn't have more cause for concern than I realised. -- Andreas Philopater ( talk) 20:51, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I'm concerned that you don't understand how disrespectful it is to write "This is a Jewish holiday" all over an article about a celebration of the birth of the Church, and yet you seem very comfortable accusing others of anti-semitism. What part of the first hundred years of Christianity leads you to believe that Christians spent their time celebrating Jewish harvest festivals? This was what, 1900 years ago? Putting that aside, Pentecost is a separate holiday. There is an entire section devoted to the Old Testament Roots of the holiday, and it is mentioned appropriately in the etymology section as well. Saying that "Pentecost is the Jewish Feast of Weeks" is ... well, it's something. Christians don't celebrate the Jewish feast of weeks. What they celebrate is an entirely different event. JEWISH!!!!1! was actually a comment another editor made on the talk page after being told "I have reverted the reversion so and so who claims Pentecost is a non-Jewish feast. It is this kind of antisemitism that needs to be addressed in Christian theology." It's funny, lighten up. This is not the first time this has happened. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 22:33, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I have started a RfC [32] on a certain contentious statement in this article, please help resolve the dispute. I should say though that the article is under discretionary sanctions - edit carefully! Banedon ( talk) 00:52, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

This RfC decided that the Daily Mail should not be used as a source in Wikipedia articles. This is problematic, because some writers for the Daily Mail have Wikipedia biographies. With this edit I used direct quotes from the Daily Mail, made by Katie Hopkins, on the Katie Hopkins Wikipedia article. My edits were reverted. I could understand prohibiting editorial content from the Daily Mail, but in this instance the Daily Mail is the only source for the quotes I used. Without permitting the subject of this BLP to state her opinion, the neutrality and fairness of the article is skewed. This undermines the integrity of WP:NPOV and WP:CRITS. Out of fairness to the subject of this BLP, an exception should be made to permit the use of the blacklisted source. Thank you. Magnolia677 ( talk) 13:50, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

A piece that Hopkins wrote herself published by the Daily Mail is one of those reasonable exceptions that is identified in the first bullet point of the RFC closure "The Daily Mail is actually reliable for some subjects. This appears to have been adequately addressed by the support !voters: if there are topics where it might be a reliable source, then better sources (without its disadvantages) should also exist and can be used instead." -the BLP's own words would be one of those cases that no better source would be found. -- MASEM ( t) 13:58, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Hopkins is mainly known in the UK for the controversies which regularly occur after she states her opinions. She is not known as a pundit with a reputation for serious comment, so the article you quoted from is frankly non-notable, quite apart from the issue of when it is appropriate to use the Mail website as a source. If there are any websites which praise her insights, they probably do not count as a reliable source. (In fact, Hopkins does not write for the newspaper itself, and is under contract to the associated website, see the sources when she moved from the rival Sun tabloid.) Philip Cross ( talk) 14:16, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Given that there is a section in Hopkins' BLP about criticism of her views of the Manchester Arena bombing, including her own words from the DM is completely reasonable to cover that neutrally. Anywhere else on WP, absolutely not. -- MASEM ( t) 14:18, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

The RfC says the Mail should not be used, and if the quotation has any substance in a neutral article about Hopkins, it will be reprinted in another, more respectable, source. I managed to write Enemies of the People without citing the Daily Mail once. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:41, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Again, this is a unique case: there is noted criticism of her views in the BLP, so her original statement is necessary to reference as to be neutral. Other sources might reprint parts of Hopkins' statements from the DM article, but we would still want to include the DM article as the original source for material. DM is not banned fully, but it should only be used exceptionally, and this is one of those exceptions, and only for being used to provide the context for criticism of her views. -- MASEM ( t) 15:03, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

And to point out that in the RFC, it was agreed that if DM's coverage of a topic was the center of a story, its use there was perfectly fine; I would think it is failing to not cite the DM for their original "Enemies of the People" headline in an article about that story, so that a researcher can go and review that original article for themselves.-- MASEM ( t) 15:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

As far as I can tell the RFC said we cannot use the DM, except in exceptional circumstances, so why is this exceptional? It is not our job to include critical materiel, but to report others criticizing it. Slatersteven ( talk) 15:14, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

If we are documenting the criticism about someone's specific viewpoint they made in a statement, with the criticism being considered notable and from RSes, then for purposes of neutrality, it makes no sense to exclude a reference to that original statement so that we are documenting the controversy. If say Hopkins wrote the same statement in the Telegraph or Guardian, there'd be no question of its inclusion. The fact that it came from the DM should not be an issue here because we're not making any claims of fact from her own words, just providing the citation to what her own words are. -- MASEM ( t) 15:33, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

No, we report what RS say about it. BY the way, this (as far as I can tell) is not a response to what was written about her tweets, so no there is no reason to include it in order to address NPOV issues. When RS comment on her article we can report is. Slatersteven ( talk) 15:40, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

On the last point, when re-reading, I do agree, the criticism over the tweets, it seemed initially that the criticism included the statements in the DM article, but that's not the case, so no that DM article citation can't be included; we would need a separate RS to make critical note of that.

But to the first point, if someone's published statement is being criticized in a manner that is considered notable and appropriate for inclusion in an article, then the exclusion of a citation to the original statement, regardless if it is from an RS or not, is inappropriate as per WP:YESPOV. We're documenting what one side and another side has said, without judgment calls, so it is only reasonable to provide a citation to the original statement and the RSes that critique it so that the reader can make their own call. Again, no factual information is being supported by the non-RS outside that that person wrote or spoke those words as their view. -- MASEM ( t) 15:57, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually, the section is entitled "Manchester Arena bombing", and in that section, information has been added regarding an inappropriate tweet Hopkins made regarding radical Islamics in Britain. It would certainly appear as if Wikipedia was attempting to maintain a positive and negative balance, per WP:CRITS, by including a more fulsome outline of her views on this subject. Keep in mind that Donald Trump thanked Hopkins in 2015 for her "powerful writing on the U.K.'s Muslim problems". If that "powerful writing", and her rebuttal to the current criticism, is only found in a blacklisted source, then that seems to warrant an exception. Magnolia677 ( talk) 16:01, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

If you look at WP:DAILYMAIL you will see the reason why we do not allow it except under exceptional circumstances. The reason is that they deliberately fabricate direct quotes, deliberately publish doctored photos, etc. Read the evidence posted in the RfC. A Daily mail article under Hopkins byline can be reasonably presumed to contain the words of Hopkins; she would complain if they made stuff up and published it under his byline. That makes it one of the exceptional circumstances. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 16:49, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Per Guy Macon. Also a primary source will almost always be acceptable to reference the primary sources views. The fact it was published in the Daily Mail is irrelevant in this case. If Hopkins had published it in a blog, another paper, self-published on amazon, it would still be acceptable to use as a source on her opinion. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 17:17, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I sense that interpretations by administrators differ here. According to Iridescent The Daily Mail remains "a valid source for opinions and commentary but not to be trusted as the sole source for facts". If that's correct then this case is not even exceptional, Katie Hopkins is quotable here and "anywhere else on WP". I disagreed, but think it shows once again that the closers' comments are hard to interpret. Perhaps they could be asked to explain what they meant? Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 21:24, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I think Guy's point above is important: this is a DM article, but is one penned by a specific person, and is desired to be used to source a quote from that person. Assuming inclusion of the quote is appropriate, we could care less if it was published by NYTimes or the DM, her opinion is her opinion and we just need to find a fixed medium to present that. The situation would be very different if we were trying to pull quotes reportedly said by her by an article penned by someone from the paper. In this case, as per the DM RFC, there are concerns they purposely misquote people, so we cannot trust that the quotes purported said by her are actually what she said, and DM should be avoided. -- MASEM ( t) 22:01, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Assuming inclusion of the quote is appropriate, we could care less if it was published by NYTimes or the DM isn't quite the case—part of the reason the Mail is deprecated as a source is their history of falsifying quotes (given that the context is Manchester, this story may be pertinent). In a case like this, I'd see no issue with using the Mail as a source, since it's essentially a story about a Mail article in which the paper is being treated as a primary, not a secondary, source. ‑  Iridescent 08:50, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Which is of course why we need third party RS (or even the person themselves, on a non DM page) saying that this was her. As daft as it seems (but given the above a valid question) do we KNOW that these her are unaltered words? Slatersteven ( talk) 08:54, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Since she's just been fired by LBC and will almost certainly be shown the door by Associated in the next few hours as well, one would think that if you give it 24 hours you'll have more third-party commentary than you'll know what to do with. ‑  Iridescent 09:23, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Re: my earlier comment ("If you look at WP:DAILYMAIL you will see the reason why we do not allow it except under exceptional circumstances. The reason is that they deliberately fabricate direct quotes, deliberately publish doctored photos, etc. Read the evidence posted in the RfC. A Daily mail article under Hopkins byline can be reasonably presumed to contain the words of Hopkins; she would complain if they made stuff up and published it under his byline. That makes it one of the exceptional circumstances."), I would emphasize that we are talking about two entirely different kinds of quotes. We have multiple examples of the DM fabricating direct quotes as in a claim that prosecutors said X at the close of a murder case written before the case closed. We have zero examples of the DM publishing material under a person's byline, paying them for their work, then printing something other than what they actually wrote. The first time we catch the DM doing that we will stop using DM articles penned by a specific person as a source. Right now, a reasonable person would conclude that it is OK to presume that DM articles penned by a specific person contain the words of that specific person, especially if that specific person does not complain about his words being changed but rather goes on to sell the DM further articles on other topics. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 13:26, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I do not accept Guy Macon's claims about "evidence" posted in the RfC, but addressing solely the issue of whether Katie Hopkins can be quoted for the opinion of Katie Hopkins: yes that should be the case. But the RfC closing comments don't allow for it, and some commenters in this thread say it would have to be an exceptional special case (if I'm interpreting correctly), and -- the topic of the first paragraph of this thread -- a quote of Katie Hopkins was reverted with the edit summary "No, the Daily Mail is banned from BLPs". Unfortunately that appears to be a correct summary. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 14:45, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Speaking as a closer of the RFC, we could not anticipate every possible use of the DM as a source in our close, which is why we tried to carve out some wriggle room for legitimate uses. This appears to be a legitimate use of the DM, because it is likely to be reliable in this specific case. It is still preferable to use a non-DM source if/when they become available. However, the DM does not have a reputation for altering the words of the author of the piece, so this can be taken as one of the exceptions we tried to write into the close. If I seem to be misunderstanding something, please ping me Tazerdadog ( talk) 17:01, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Tazerdadog, It is not a matter of "anticipate every possible use of the DM", this is a situation that was explicitly and clearly brought up in the RfC discussion: "This is relevant because the proposal would ban even attributed opinions, though of course there's some muddle about that too." Can you answer: yes attributed opinions are included in the ban, or no attributed opinions are not included in the ban? Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 17:34, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

@ Peter Gulutzan: Attributed opinions of people other than the author were considered in the RFC and were included in the ban (IAR notwithstanding). Attributed opinions of the author were not considered in the RFC, and a reasonable exception from the ban appears correct here. Tazerdadog ( talk) 20:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I take it that is also the judgment of the other four closers ( Yunshui, Primefac, Jo-Jo Eumerus, Sunrise) so attributed opinions by Daily Mail writers are not included in the ban, provided they aren't quotes of somebody else. Sorry about being wrong. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 21:01, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

It happens. Better to ask for clarification than never know. Primefac ( talk) 21:05, 28 May 2017 (UTC

Looks like I'm late to the party, so nothing much to add here except that yes, I endorse Tazerdadog's explanation above. Yunshui  ^雲 _水 07:30, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Although it's not strictly the same situation, I would say that a safe bet in cases like these is to apply the rules in WP:BLPSELFPUB; if something fits those criteria, then it's usually safe to use even in a BLP regardless of the source - WP:DUE weight permitting, of course. That would be the case here. -- Aquillion ( talk) 20:14, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is not a blog. WP:NEWSORG now applies: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." Then Ritchie333 should not have done the revert, attributed without-quoting-others opinion is not covered by the ban here or elsewhere, and Magnolia677 is free to re-insert. Consensus? Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 21:27, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• It makes no sense to apply WP:DAILYMAIL when Daily Mail is being used as a primary source or in WP:ABOUTSELF contexts. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) -- Dr. Fleischman ( talk) 21:37, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Comment - Consensus appears to be that using Daily Mail in this particular circumstance is supported. If this is correct, I will add this edit back to the Katie Hopkins article. Thank you. Magnolia677 ( talk) 22:07, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• Looks good. i would put something like "per neutral point of view noticeboard discussion" in the edit summary. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 05:38, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Brought to AfD to assess notability at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Kiyosaki. Sagecandor ( talk) 19:24, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

• Talk:Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections#Changes_to_lede_intro_and_addition_of_POV_template

Is it okay to add a {{ POV}} template at the top of the page, for the entire length of time of an RFC about the intro section, while the RFC is ongoing?

Could use more eyes on this, please.

Thank you ! Sagecandor ( talk) 22:37, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I've just added it back, based on my complaint about the declarative title, which I have argued is a WP:POVTITLE and not merited by sources. - Darouet ( talk) 18:12, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Darouet, that was bad move. You and a tiny minority of other editors have repeatedly made specious arguments for adding expressions of doubt to the article title and the lead. Your arguments are based on selection bias, where you have chosen sources that support your fringe point of view, rather than looking at broad sampling of sources. We have had several RfCs which support the current version of the title, and specifically reject the notion that the Russia election interference is alleged. At this point, you and (mostly) one other editor, refuse to accept WP:CONSENSUS and continue to WP:REHASH what has already been settled. This is not how Wikipedia works and if you can't get that, you have no business editing the article. Shame tagging the article because you have not prevailed in several consensus discussions is textbook tendentious. You need to stop.- Mr X 18:59, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@ MrX: The BBC and Reuters are not fringe sources, and there are other major world news outlets (e.g. Le Monde) that also take no position on the veracity of the allegations. Given this uncertainty you are advocating an extremely contentious, if not reckless, editorial policy where allegations in an international incident are transformed into established facts. Furthermore, I may be in the minority, but we are not a "tiny minority:" there have been many editors who've complained about this at various points. I can't speak for all of their viewpoints now, as they may have evolved. In any event I would invite other editors here to review the debate, which is available on the talk page. - Darouet ( talk) 19:37, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I didn't say they are fringe sources; I said that those sources were cherry-picked to support your fringe point of view. I have detailed this once again on the talk page. Again, a non-selective sampling of sources show that 80% of them do not refer to the Russia election interference as "alleged". You continue to insist that we use the 20% minority of sources, which blatantly violates WP:NPOV. I say again: if you can't understand or won't accept that we are not going to express a minority viewpoint in Wikipedia's voice, then you should not be editing these types of articles.- Mr X 20:14, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Nobody has done a rigorous analysis of all sources, and those that have been presented on the talk page, ostensibly to demonstrate that media generally take the allegations as truth, show that media attribute the allegations (something our title doesn't do). The accusation of cherry-picking can be turned right around: you are reading sources that attribute allegations and ignoring the attribution. I'm happy to stand behind the editorial policy of Reuters and the BBC, which doesn't deny the "possibility" of "alleged" Russian interference in the US election. Anything farther is a shaky POV limb we don't need to and shouldn't be resting our article on. - Darouet ( talk) 01:21, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@ MrX: and having said that, I'd like you to genuinely ask yourself why Reuters and the BBC write in this way? They don't write about the possibility of alleged global warming, the possibility of alleged evolution by natural selection, or the alleged landing on the moon. Clinton/Podesta/DNC emails were leaked, US intelligence publicly stated the Russians did it, and two of the most respected news agencies in the world will only write about "alleged" interference. Other news agencies sometimes write about interference as an allegation, sometimes don't, and often attribute the allegations. German, French, and Spanish wikis follow the BBC and Reuters approach. This isn't so complicated. - Darouet ( talk) 01:27, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

WP:DROPTHESTICK - Perhaps we need a "Criticism Section" for the small minority of dissenters to channel their rage? - Darknipples ( talk) 02:38, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

No, I think the concerns of the very significant minority (probably more than a third of editors) need to be taken seriously. Our article is written in an unnecessarily strident tone that comes off as highly POV. BBC, Reuters and other major publications are apparently unwilling to make a statement of fact that our article basically makes. That should be troubling to editors. - Thucydides411 ( talk) 22:37, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Thucydides411 What is your evidence that it HASN'T been taken seriously? Look at the amount of discussion on the talk page regarding this "alleged" concern. At some point this could become more than a simple content dispute. There are other ways to mediate this, but at some point WP:ANI will have to get involved. Is that what you want? Darknipples ( talk) 02:07, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

• Some eyes on Malcolm Nance would also be appreciated. Power~enwiki ( talk) 19:09, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Unrelated to above topic of this thread. I already personally posted myself to ask for more eyes on the page, due to concerns about violations of WP:BLP by individuals adding fringe sources that fail reliable sources to disparage a living person with undue weight, at WP:BLPN and WP:RSN. Sagecandor ( talk) 21:34, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

The article for United States District Judge Algenon L. Marbley has seen long term POV issues, with non-POV material being inserted and subsequently removed. Such material was reinserted on June 7, 2017, by a one shot IP editor. In 2013 and 2014, the problem was bad enough that the article was protected on several occasions, but activity is now on an infrequent hit and run basis. Because the material is not an outright BLP violation, I have chosen NOT to revert it, but rather report it. The issues raised are actually valid, they are simply presented in a non-POV manner. If somebody was willing to take some time to re-write some of that material in a POV-compliant manner, I think the problem would likely go away. My hands are full with my current project and probably better if somebody with a fresh set of eyes handles this. Thanks. Safiel ( talk) 18:38, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

I removed the contentious material per WP:BLP, I believe it is an outright BLP violation, because the Fox News reference doesn't support the contentious content, specifically: demonstrated strong opposition to freedom of religion, and WorldNetDaily is a poor source for contentious material in a BLP. Isaidnoway (talk) 13:58, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Pamela Geller, who rose to prominence as the head of a campaign to stop the building of an Islamic centre near the site of the 11 September 2001 attacks, is described by academic sources as a prominent activist for the counter-jihad movement in the United States. I have compiled a couple of academic citations on my talk space: User:Al-Andalusi/Pamela Geller.

The question, is the inclusion of the statement "She is a prominent activist for the counter-jihad movement in the United States" in the lead of her article appropriate or not? We have a user here who claims that this is "apologist language" used by "a lot of apologists for islamophobia". Your help is appreciated. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 04:23, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

If that's how the reliable sources refer to her, it's not for us to complain they have adopted the apologists' language. That aside, neither our article, nor the article on counter-jihadism in general, mince any words with how their subjects are perceived. Someguy1221 ( talk) 04:27, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Here is how SPLC described her

She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the "love child" of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps.

and also as a prominent anti-Muslim activist ^[1]

So if the question is does the language pose an NPOV concern, I think yes, maybe, since there are significant WP:RS who have not adopted the language "counter-jihad" movement. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 07:26, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

While I appreciate the ping to comment on this NPV, I don't have much more to say than what I've already said in the Talk:Pamela Geller#Counter-Jihad activist section. I'll ask the readers here to review that section, as I haven't edited in over a month due to other pressing concerns. Jason from nyc ( talk) 11:06, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Someguy1221: - re "how the reliable sources refer to her, it's not for us to complain they have adopted the apologists' language" - Sure. Some reliable source do refer to her as an "anti-jihadist". Many more refer to her as "anti-Islamic" or "Islamophobic". WP:BALANCE dictates that we reflect all sources or go with the majority language. Al-Andalusi seems to be on a one-man mission to use the language that seems to fit his unusual perception of Geller. NickCT ( talk) 13:10, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Agree with NickCT, adding that the "counter-jihad" movement seems to be a somewhat fringe mindset which we shouldn't adopt the language of in the neutral tone of the project. We should use the language used in mainstream sources, by which it is meant the balance of best sources. -- Dailycare ( talk) 18:42, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Given the number of sources is it Fringe? However I also note that many of those sources also refer to her (or at least the ideologies she defends) as being (I quote) " anti-Islam movement", thus it is rather more coimplex then I think the OP represents. Slatersteven ( talk) 18:52, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Dailycare:, no one buys your claims that the academic sources listed on User:Al-Andalusi/Pamela Geller (most of them specialized on right-wing extremism) are fringe. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 16:36, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ NickCT:, by all means add "anti-jihadist", "anti-Islamic" as well as "Islamophobic" to lede. No one has prevented you from doing so. You on the other hand, claim that the lede should be restricted to a single one size fits all label, of your chosing, and have insisted that all other reliably sourced labels be removed. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 16:31, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Al-Andalusi: - You were trying to change lede from describing Geller as primarily "anti-Islamic" (something that very many RS describe her as) to "anti-jihadist" (something that very few RS describe her as). Don't suggest I'm trying to exclude RS. I'm trying to maintain WP:BALANCE. NickCT ( talk) 16:41, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ NickCT: I don't see a removal of "anti-Islamic" in the edit you linked to. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 16:44, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Al-Andalusi: - Did I say you removed it? I said you de-emphasized by using the verbiage you prefer first and placing your verbiage on equal footing with the more common verbiage. You changed the tone in a unbalanced way that doesn't reflect the RS. NickCT ( talk) 17:01, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ NickCT: So in your view, the NYTimes and Toronto Sun (which are cited for the "anti-Islamic" claim) are more reliable than the scholarly academic sources I listed for "counter-jihad"? also, why the insistence on complete removal of "counter-jihad activist" from the lede? If it is an issue of balance as you claim, then a simple rewording and perhaps changing the placement in the lede would suffice. But there is an usual demand for complete removal, which I'm trying to understand here. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 17:17, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Al-Andalusi: - re "insistence on complete removal of "counter-jihad activist"" - I'm not insisting on that. If you want to put it in, put it in. Just don't put it in a way that suggests that "anti-jihadist" is as good or common a descriptor as "anti-islamic".

re " NYTimes and Toronto Sun" - You're cherry picking. The basic fact is that there are 100's of sources which use "anti-islamic" and a few sources which use "counter-jihadist". I'm not looking at any one source. I'm looking at them all. NickCT ( talk) 17:48, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I think there's a big problem with the text "Multiple groups have described Geller as Islamophobic". Neither cited source supports this "multiple groups" claim properly. SPLC has a tendency to be go OTT sometimes: they described Majid Nawaz as an extremist for example [33] - they're not suitable as a source for asserted fact. Alexbrn ( talk) 16:58, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Alexbrn: - So you think we need to cite it better? Certainly a whole number of folks/people have described Geller this way. NickCT ( talk) 17:04, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I would say that if we cite three groups saying it then we have "multiple groups" saying it. Slatersteven ( talk) 17:05, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to defend that at arbcom. WP:SYN thus: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." [my bold]. For a BLP it's important to be squeaky-clean. Just because editors are on the side of the angels is no excuse for laziness: we must be scrupulous in the application of the WP:PAGs. Alexbrn ( talk) 17:11, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

We are not, we are paraphrasing the paragraph "the following groups have called her Islamophobic (followed by a huge list of all the groups that have)". Slatersteven ( talk) 17:26, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Alexbrn: I think the "Islamophobic" label is a separate issue that can be addressed later. We are discussing the usage of "counter-jihad" label, as cited in many academic sources. Al-Andalusi ( talk) 17:19, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

@ Alexbrn: - Ditto on Slatersteven's comments. Multiple sources have explicitly stated that Geller is "anti-islamic"/"islamophobic". NickCT ( talk) 17:44, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

[34]

No idea what to make of this. Issue was previously discussed, and I thought resolved, here. Argument was made here that the claim should not be removed without re-adding the previous information, which I accept, but this doesn't apply to the above situation.

Thoughts?

Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 00:34, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC about the author credits of first edition in first sentence in a book article.

Please see Request for Comment, at Talk:Trump_Tower:_A_Novel#RfC_about_the_author_credits_of_first_edition_in_first_sentence. Sagecandor ( talk) 02:38, 21 June 2017 (UTC)