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Please feel free to see article Anti-Israel lobby in the United States and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-Israel lobby in the United States as a particularly egregious case of a WP:attack page and wp:coatrack page where extremely POV partisan sources are allowed to insult and attack individuals and groups. Very bad precedent for this article to survive, IMHO. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 01:47, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
This user keeps deleting neutrality tags in FlG articles. There are serious neutrality issues under discussion on all of the talk pages and the neutrality of these articles is legitimately disputed; these are NOT drive-by taggings and yet this user has taken it upon himself to decide what constitutes legitimate neutrality concerns. This is not the first time that there have been problems with Dilip rajeev in FLG articles. How should I proceed? Simonm223 ( talk) 14:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Zulualpha ( talk) 17:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I've just noticed that Wikipedia's article on Race and crime has been deleted. The title now redirects to Anthropological criminology, but none of the deleted article's content was merged into Anthropological criminology; it's simply been removed. Race and Crime talked about the varying rates of crime by ethnic groups, as described by the U.S. Department of Justice here. The anthropological criminology article does not talk about the actual correlation between race and crime, but only a particular (somewhat obsolete) theory of causation about it. As far as I know, the actual data about this is no longer mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia.
The discussion page where the possibility of deleting Race and Crime was discussed is here. It was also discussed here. As can be seen there, the result of the discussion was "no consensus", but a single editor apparently decided to delete the article anyway.
I wasn't aware that it's even possible to delete articles on Wikipedia without consensus, but as can be seen from the discussion page for Anthropological Criminology, a large number of editors have a problem with the fact that this was done. Is deleting an article without consensus considered POV-pushing? And if so, is there a way to restore the deleted article, and do anything to prevent the same thing from happening again? -- Captain Occam ( talk) 04:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Ice Cold Beer ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) topic banned five editors from the race controversy article. Claims of support and opposition to the bans involve claims about NPOV and fringe theories. Thus, it would be invaluable if some experienced regulars from this noticeboard participate in the review of the topic bans at: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Ancient Egyptian race controversy ban review. Thank you. -- Vassyana ( talk) 01:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I have encountered an article, Children's Pool Beach, which is a complete mess. It is about a beach in San Diego which has been the subject of passionate, ongoing legal and philosophical battles over a colony of seals which has taken up residence on what used to be a children's swimming beach. The article makes all kinds of unsourced assertions and "some people believe ..." type of statements. Could some senior wiki editor, preferably someone who is familiar with the controversy, take a look at the article and see what can be done about it? Thanks.
-- MelanieN ( talk) 18:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)MelanieN
This new article popped up on my radar screen for unimportant reasons. I suspect it could use some eyes because of (1) the title, and (2) the creator, a new editor named Justice and Arbitration ( talk · contribs). In my experience, editors who choose names like that almost always have a very strong POV. The topic is way outside my domain of editing, so I'm not going to do anything beyond listing the article here. Looie496 ( talk) 04:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
I was wondering if some people with experiance in ensuring that NPOV regulations are followed, especially people who have accounts with Wikipedia, took a look at High-stakes testing. I feel that the article is extremely biased at the moment, and that this fact will be patently obvious to anyone who looks, but without an account, I am concerned that my claims may end up being ignored.
I'm pretty sure the article has been written to make opponents of High-stakes testing look like idiots. 173.45.201.98 ( talk) 07:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
If the many citation needed tags can be replaced with actual sources that confirm these assertions, then the article would probably get a low pass on a high-stakes NPOV review.
Editors should source the article, or you should FEEL ENTIRELY FREE TO REMOVE uncited statements after allowing a reasonable time for the statements to be cited. -- Nemonoman ( talk) 16:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Long standing attempt by an IP editor to use this article to promote a fringe view with excessive undue weight has flared up again. The short version is there's been a theory flying around internet forums over the last couple of years that he shot JKF from the front seat of the car. This doesn't seem to be supported by any credible sources, but has been covered by a vanity publisher on Lulu. The disputed version of the article can be seen here. In that state it ceases to be a biography of Greer, and is a vehicle used to promote this fringe theory and is completely undue weight. To see how desperate the IP editor is to make Greer look guilty, you only have to look at sentences like "The FBI interviewed Greer after the assassination and, although agents Kellerman and Behn were also interviewed, Greer's interview is unique in that his physical description is also recorded in the 11/27/63 FBI report" which is a clear attempt to make him look dodgy. I earlier suggested here how this theory should be dealt with, if at all, and it was ignored and reverted to the disgusting version again. More eyes welcome on this, thanks. 2 lines of K 303 11:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I wonder if those who run Wikipedia might consider updating WP:UNDUE to indicate that, although giving undue weight to the claims of actual Holocaust deniers is, of course, a good example of what this policy is trying to prevent, it nevertheless is bad Wikipedia etiquette to imply that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial or engaging in anything akin to Holocaust denial.
What I'm concerned about is that some editors invoke this in order to put a chill on debate on the Talk pages, e.g., "No one believes that but you, you're just like a Holocaust denier." A Holocaust denier is someone who wants to spread the manifest falsehood that millions of people were murdered. The average person whose edits manifest a potential issue over WP:UNDUE are people who have merely not sufficiently demonstrated that a substantial minority of people agree with some specific statement. I'm okay with the principle of WP:UNDUE, it's the tenor of the discussion that I have a problem with.
We shouldn't be here to belittle people's edits, but to tell them what will fly and what won't. In the specific case I've confronted (on the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis page) I've found that some elements first criticized as WP:UNDUE turned out not to be as reliable sources began to report on those elements in more detail. In other words, the "Holocaust deniers" turned out to be people trying to report a dimension of the crisis but simply not having enough evidence yet to make their point. It was legitimate of people to make edits citing WP:UNDUE until those sources emerged. It was not legitimate of those people to compare their adversaries in an editing dispute to the Nazis.
Is there something that can be added to this policy to make it clear that name-calling and guilt by association are not okay according to WP:UNDUE? Zachary Klaas ( talk) 18:18, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
I address this to an editor who considers themselves to be neutral on the topic of climate change (pie in the sky perhaps). I am involved in a dispute with Kim D. Petersen (yet again) over what appears to me as a very basic, trivial point of logic. The argument is very simple, and it is certainly very frustrating to have to escalate something of this nature here, but as a matter of principle, I persist.
a. the Watts article currently attributes to the subject a view that "some global warming may be the result of measurement error".
b. a statement from NOAA has then been inserted into the page by another editor (not Petersen) stating, I paraphrase, that despite Watts work in qualifying measurement error, "the evidence for human-caused warming remains robust."
Now, Watts, who is a supporter of the views of both Lindzen & Pielke, almost certainly expects, regardless of what his qualification of measurement error finally reveals, that evidence for human-caused warming will remain robust. Both the current wording of the article and Petersen himself in the talk page are trying to imply, falsely, that Watts holds a view that human-caused warming will be shown to be in fact "insubstantial". It is possible that Watts does hold this view, but as far as I am aware, he has never said so. Thus, there is absolutely no justification for attributing directly (or by suggestion/implication) a view to Watts that he has never publicly assented to.
Finally, Petersen is also defending the inclusion of an obvious factual error, apparently out of sheer stubbornness (i.e. the wording has it that despite NOAA revelations that Watts work is making no difference (I paraphrase) Watts "still" believes that "some global warming is a result of measurement error". Trouble is, the source given is dated 2007, and thus the word "still" is being used to imply that it is something he has said recently. Stupid stuff, really; it's in there as a result of very sloppy, lazy editing, and regrettably I've had my edits to clean this up reverted twice, with Petersen not interested in discussing it or re-adding it. So... having wasted about 6 hours of my life on this nonsense now, can someone neutral please assist? Thanks. Alex Harvey ( talk) 14:10, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
7-26-09
Dear Editor:
When "Pastor David" rejected my resource of WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD AND WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, he showed either a lack of knowledge about these sources or bias against them. These reference works are reliable and are NOT VANITY publications. I paid nothing to have my name entered. I was approached by the publishers and asked if they could publish my biography.
This complaint is in reference to THE HEVENER CHURCH article that is now labeled stale. Please put it in the active file.
Thank you very much.
DR. FILLMER HEVENER, FOUNDER, THE HEVENER CHURCH
(Note: We have members/friends/supporters in many countries including: Kenya, Uganda Brazil, Ghana, The United States, Canada, Pakistan, Tanzania, and others.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.105.12.125 ( talk) 17:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
This page is an egregious violation of neutral point of view; with lines like "a religious leader, who conquered Nature, wrought wonders, and healed people". It also violates many other wikipedia policies of style. Almost all the current content has been added in a long series of anonymous posts from IPs in Moscow, and it seems likely to be the work of a single religious follower of Ivanov. All content from before these edits started has been removed, and edits made by other people to this page are immediately reverted and termed "vandalism" by more anonymous edits from Moscow IPs, again indicating the work of a single person to prevent balanced discussion of this topic.
Aidan ( talk) 20:38, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Please note that the page has been nominated for AfD. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 23:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
This article has a number of editors posting to the article that share a common inability to compromise with each other. Recently they have been engaged in manipulation of the wiki-bureaucracy in order to war with each other.
My involvement began with the E1b1b page which began with an accusation of COI against another editor, which I found to be baseless against the individual; however the page was a trainwreck. I have partially cleaned up that page to make it more encyclopedia and reduce opinion and NPOV material. Much of the problem has now moved to the new page A1b1b1a (which desperately needs attention)
Next the sub-Saharan DNA admixture article was brought to my attention and soon-there-after a AfD appeared. It appeared this article lack suitable reliable sourcing for its existence. Consequently I sided with others the page should be deleted and the topic should be handled on the GHofE page.
My attention has now been called to this Genetic History of Europe page. Despite the opinion that this topic was minor, there is an edit/beaurocracy war that has now erupted on this page. The individuals that are involved in this edit/opinion war have been battling over several pages of Wikipedia where the topic of African contributions has been raised. These pages are generally poorly written pages in which the edit warring creates less encyclopedic content.
I have moved the questionable material of both parties to the Talk page so that they can hash things out. However, unless these editors can come to some kind of ability to work together, ultimately this page will suffer, the page may need to be locked or restrictions placed on editing. In addition the talk page has become a surrogate for the edit war on the main page, and claims of personal misconduct by participants are repeatedly made.
This page deserves administration attention. PB666 yap 17:52, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
There has been some dispute of the use of the image used in the infobox of the Henry Louis Gates Jr. article.
There are some editors who think that the use of Gates's mugshot as his infobox is "accurate," there are others who think deem this to be a reflection of bias, as according to the Wikipedia standards, " Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view" and Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight." The racial undertones of the event deem this image inappropriate for the info box. Help resolving the subject is appreciated. BFeen ( talk) 13:41, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
This has been brought up numerous times by various users and little seems to have been done thus far by administrators. The article Persecution of Falun Gong is only one of a family of Falun Gong related articles that are constantly being disputed for their NPOV. Sources from Falun Gong-related organizations and advocacy groups are openly used and presented as fact. In my view these articles seem remarkably similar to Falun Gong pamphlets that I am receiving from solicitations, and are attempting to promote Falun Gong's cause. It would not be unreasonable to say these articles now serve as handy companions to a massive public relations campaign put on by Falun Gong against the Chinese government. In any case, there is already a mediation happening at Talk:Falun Gong. My view is that Falun Gong-related groups should only be sourced if they are used in a context to present Falun Gong's view, not in a context where they present facts. This is a chronic issue that have been RfC'ed and disputed endlessly. Can someone do a POV check? Colipon+( T) 17:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
A lot of times I notice that users change population, religion or ethnic figures without giving a source/reference. A lot of times there is already a source, but people just ignore it. Please revert all these kind of edits. For instance I have found a lot of false edits in India related articles. E.g.: Example user 1 and Example user 2 - Cheers, Jeroen ( talk) 00:14, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Got a little disagreement over at Talk:Arrest of Henry Louis Gates about whether to include which beers each participant drank at the "Beer Summit". Basically, I feel that whether the information is WP:DUE or not should be based on secondary sources, and whether they find it salient to include, whereas another editor feels that it would be UNDUE to include such a trivial piece of information. How is NPOV appplied in such a situation. Editors are split about half and half on their preference, so WP:CONSENSUS isn't making it super clear. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 23:42, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
There is an edit war on Unmanned aerial vehicle involving at least five editors, including myself, as well as some anonymous IP's who have also been participating. The edits center around material I added to the article, which is being repeatedly removed from the article with accusations of POV. There is a discussion on the talk page but it doesn't seem to be moving the discussion away from continuing the edit war. Editors removing the material seem to contest both the reliability of the sources used, as well as whether it is inherently POV for me to include the material on the page that I did. Their argument seems far-fetched to me, but of course I'm biased as I added the material. I would appreciate some outside perspectives here. The discussions begin with Talk:Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#drone_attacks_often_kill_civilians and continue into the section Talk:Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#POV.2FNPOV_Discussion. Thanks for your help! Cazort ( talk) 13:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Just wanted to let someone know as I wasn't sure how to just flag an article, if that's even possible, but the ArcLight Theater article, about the movie theater in Los Angeles feels like it was written by a publicist, or someone working for the theater. The language sounds like an advertisement; not wikipedia. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.11.8.10 ( talk) 19:37, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I would like to point out this article. It was created as a blatant soapboxing POV propaganda fork by a user whose sole edits are POV warring on Communism related subjects. Surely this page is not acceptable per Wikipedia guidelines? Triplestop x3 00:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Dear reader just recently my thoughts on talkpage Tito have been deleted and it seems it’s going to stay that way. Since I am faced with the fact that my opinions are being suppressed and then eventually will be blocked, I’ve decided to put this out there so these events may be known to the wider wiki community.
The article in question is Josip Broz Tito (the former Dictator of Yugoslavia- East Europe). He was commander of the partisan forces during world war 2 and later a Stalinistic style dictator of the former Yugoslavia. The Wikipedic article is biased and does not mention crimes (Bleiburg massacre & foibe massacres)) against humanity that were committed under his leadership. I registered that this should be part of the article and as a result I have been deleted. One writer was very abusive and deleted my writings on talk back pages. His name is DIREKTOR. He was supported by Ruhrfisch ><>°° I would like to quote some of the Direktor’s statements regarding this article just to inform you of what we are dealing with here.
“Find yourself another one of your crappy "forums" to talk about your presumptions. Just forget about this, Luigi/Brunodam, you're not annoying anyone - you're just turning out amusing. I think I'll file a checkuser in an hour or so, you'd better believe it when I say I'll delete everything you wrote if you're a sock. --DIREKTOR (TALK) 15:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)”
These events are not some conspiracy. They have been part of the western media since the break up of the former Yugoslavia. They have been presented as TV documentaries, on talk back shows and in general writings in England, other parts of Europe and USA, Australia and other parts of the free world. They are backed by eye witness accounts by people who were actually caught up in these events.
The Croatian government is addressing these issues with investigations and financial reimbursement is being given to the victims. These are facts and should be present in the article and not deleted when someone points them out. These actions mirror the attitude of the regime that I am trying to expose.
The Josip Broz Tito article is a dangerous biased piece of writing. It would fit perfectly in any article of the old the Yugoslavia or the old Soviet Union propaganda machine (Cult of personality). Why is it there? The only answer it seems is that Wikipedia has some writers of extreme views (Stalin Style) who don’t tolerate being questioned.
Regards Sir Floyd
We've got an attempt to exclude a recent controversy from this article. Since it has been reported in the tech media, specifically in a Datamation article, I'd say it's properly sourced (though I'm checking on the BLP noticeboard to be sure). Discussion is at Talk:Richard_Stallman#.22Controversy.22_section. Yworo ( talk) 17:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
The first sentence in the diagnosis section of the article ADHD is currently: "ADHD is diagnosed with a psychological evaluation because there currently is no physical examination for it." An editor has raised the issue that this sentence may cause create an undue weight issue because it mentions there isn't a physical examination for ADHD. Please visit the talk page discussion here and here for further information on the various points of view. Sifaka talk 15:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
User:Ohconfucius has kept insisting on his version of the page that seems to construct a narrative debunking the Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China. He says that mentioning the United Nations reports or the independent research by David Kilgour and David Matas is a breach of WP:UNDUE, see Talk:Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital#This is a hospital FFS!. However, he keeps inserting three paragraphs that only attempt to discredit the allegations. A version with only a link to the main Wikipedia article discussing the organ harvesting is not alright with him, either. For more information, see the edit history. I would like to get some comments on this matter. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 10:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
An IP is duplicating information that is already in the article Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (in a relatively NPOV form). The IP is putting the duplicate information into a new second section, entitled "Eco-terrorism". I have already reverted twice, in part because of BLP concerns. I was going to take this to AIV, but now the IP is showing some limited signs of intelligent reaction to what I am writing. But not enough, so additional eyes are needed. Hans Adler 19:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
An editor with the IP address 99.225.138.205 has continually edited in unsubstantiated and biased content meant to damage the reputation of the school. I know the people who run the school, so I suppose I have a conflict of interest, but I'd like to request arbitration in this regard. Ingoman ( talk) 13:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Please keep an eye on 2009 Lithuania–Russia crisis. It reads like a soapbox against Russia. All the references are in Lithuanian, which means that very few people are able to verify that the sources actually state what we say they state. I think this is very little for bold assertions like "The Russian Federation has officially declared that they are targetting Lithuanian truck drivers on purpose." 94.212.31.237 ( talk) 22:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
It's turning into a real POV-fest. See for instance this edit by Samogitia ( talk · contribs) at Portal:Current events/2009 August 14: "Lithuanian carriers are forced to look for the assistance from foreign colleagues who could help to deliver cargo on time. Due to this our state is losing revenues into the budget and Lithuanian carrier companies are being harmed." 94.212.31.237 ( talk) 15:23, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
More eyes please. -- dab (𒁳) 16:08, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I point you to the Cybersquatting discussion page. As you can see, there was an uproar when Wikipedia decided that Domaining (the 100% legal, as per many news sources, and multi-million dollar industry) was equal to "Cybersquatting" (the 100% illegal and wrong practise) and put in a re-direct as such.
After a lot of proof was shown, a Domaining page was set-up. However now, the same biased Wikipedia admin who caused the wrongful re-direct is now pushing to delete the Domaining page, probably to re-direct it back to the cybersquatting page. How is this in-keeping with Wikipedia's policies?
Please look at all the reputable links and proof given to support the fact that "Domaining" is a reputable and legal practise. 82.15.29.29 ( talk) 18:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Tristan Perry
I'd like to get some feedback from some uninvolved editors regarding our Ron Paul article. For those that don't know, US Congressman Ron Paul appeared in Sacha Baron Cohen's latest film, Brüno. Ron Paul's segment has been covered by dozens of (if not hundreds) of reliable sources including Slate, The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, Political Intelligence, Huffinton Post, The Guardian, The Independent, San Francisco Gate, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, Phoenix Times, The Star, Variety Magazine, Newsweek, The Wallstreet Journal, etc. Last week, an editor included a single sentence reference [2] to Paul's appearance in the movie which was promptly removed. Since then, there has been an ongoing debate on the article talk page about whether to mention Paul's appearance in Brüno. Although various (and sometimes creative) reasons were given for its exclusion, it all seemed to boil down to a case of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. Now there's talk of a filmography which honestly sounds like a bad idea for a politician. Can we get some uninvolved editors to weigh in on the discussion [3], please? A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 18:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify, the reason why I think this is a NPOV dispute is that Ron Paul's appearance in Brüno is a bit of a political embarrassment to Ron Paul. Although many reasons were given to exclude this information from the article, I think it ultimately boils down to the fear that it might make Ron Paul look bad. The Slate article goes into some detail about Paul's use of the word 'queer' along with with Ron Paul's spokespeople either denying or explaining the usage of the term.
Also, to clarify further, the edit [4] that was immediately reverted [5] was extremely benign and didn't mention anything controversial. It only mentioned that he appeared in the movie. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 04:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
This is such a joke. A Quest is running home to momma here simply because he got outvoted. The proposal on the RP talk page is to have a compromise edit which includes a TEXT section (not a listed filmography) which covers appearances in film and documentaries (particularly
I.O.U.S.A. and
American Drug War, in addition to
Brüno). The rationale behind the compromise is that there has always been tension between two camps of editors on RP's page over piddly issues; adding Bruno only will antagonize one side, while not including Bruno at all will antagonize the other. By proposing a comprehensive, film appearances text section, one side gets the movie they want in, and the others can't point at the mention of Bruno only as a means of claiming bias on the part of the adding editors. That's the proposal. There's more in favor than against. A Quest is the minority of one and has come here to round up the posse. Those are the facts. --
Foofighter20x (
talk) 18:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
As an uninvolved editor: I agree that it would be obvious bias to mention a film that a person appeared in unwillingly (as our article about the film states he was "deceived" into being filmed) but not to include the documentary films that he apparently appeared in willingly. A film appearances paragraph or filmography is not merely a compromise, but a neutral and encyclopedic response.
Foofighter20x is cautioned to maintain civility even when dealing with people with whom he disagrees. The "running home to momma" remark is outside the bounds of acceptable conduct on Wikipedia. -- FOo ( talk) 19:50, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
A Quest: Your concerns were addressed because you got what you wanted in the compromise proposal on the talk page, which is that the Brüno appearance gets into the article. That's what you wanted, that's what the consensus on the talk page got you. Why you feel that other film appearances can't be included is the real issue. Of the four editors on the RP talk page discussion this, three settled on meeting you halfway. When you didn't exactly what you wanted, you bolted and brought the issue here.
And accusing me and the other consensus editors of attempting to exclude information is an outright lie, and you know it. The consensus on the RP talk page decided not only to put in the information you requested, but to put in more than what was asked. Quit twisting what's really happened in order to save face here in the hope of vindicating yourself. And the reason I'm adamant about my proposal's pending approval on this dispute board is that any editor who checks out the RP talk page can easily verify what I've just said. You version of the events don't fit the facts. -- Foofighter20x ( talk) 18:46, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
If lots of reliable sources mention one film, and the others do not, then UNDUE says only mention that one. As an aside, keeping Ayers out of BO's article is probably the biggest NPOV violation on this whole website, and I'm a die hard democrat. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 06:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
the Little Richard article is having ongoing POV issues that could really use input from more experienced editors. please see the edit history and these talk-page sections: Talk:Little_Richard#Testimonials_Section, Talk:Little_Richard#comment_from_Smoovedogg and Talk:Little_Richard#improving_the_.22Influence.22_section. thanks Sssoul ( talk) 10:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Gerald Celente is a talking head, a gloom-and-doom prognosticator, a business consultant who has made appearances on TV, made statements in newspapers. But the Gerald Celente Wikipedia page is being used by several of his supporters as an advertisement. These supporters have make repeated claims about the accuracy of past predictions without proper attribution to sources. The pro-Celente supporters have reverted well-researched articles, added statements with no reliable sources, used YouTube videos as "sources", have undone repeated "citation needed" tags. They have repeatedly replaced fair and neutral statements about Celente (which had references) with unsupported statements. The result is an article highly biased towards Celente. It's not NPOV. It violates the Wikipedia policy against original research. See history and talk page of Gerald Celente. Tomwsulcer ( talk) 17:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)tomwsulcer
Are we blurring the line between description of a political epithet and discussion of an actual school of political thought? Compare Israel and the apartheid analogy, which was once Israeli apartheid. BYT ( talk) 11:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
A first read of portions of this article Leslie_Van_Houten, especially the Parole section seem to be written with a bias. There has been discussion in the talk sections but I thought it might be prudent to get a bunch of new eyes on the subject. It just generally strikes me as written to portray a particular point of view by its language. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.226.129.208 ( talk) 05:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
The original version of this article looked as if it had been copied from somewhere else, including footnote numbers in brackets, but I couldn't find the original source. It has since been rewritten enough that I supposed it's no longer a copyright violation, but its pro-Dave Warwak tone is rather nauseating. I've put a POV tag on the article I think three times, now, and the author keeps removing it. This reads as if it was written by Warwak himself, including mentions of his trying to teach the kids "kindness" and a discussion of his trying to show them "the plight of the animals". This thing needs to be toned way down, or else deleted. I do agree that he's probably notable, but none of the claims is cited to a specific source, and all of the references at the bottom of the page don't link to any lines in the article. Who then was a gentleman? ( talk) 17:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
The stub article StartKey, which sites no sources, describes an apparently-fizzled competitor to U3. With no citations, the page makes the following claim:
"On the Microsoft homepage an advertisement is running positioning Windows Live as an alternate with the headline "Forgot your Memory Stick again?". It would seem reasonable to presume that this idea falls into Microsoft's embrace, extend, extinguish strategy."
This phrasing seems unnecessarily biased against Microsoft.
However, it would be unreasonable for me to make the correction myself- I have a clear conflict of interest. (I'm on Wikipedia because I'm slacking off at work, and, as my current IP address will reveal, I work for Microsoft.) Can someone not so inherently involved in the topic decide whether I've got a point, and rewrite that passage (at least, although the stub could use more help than that)?
Thanks, 65.55.31.147 ( talk) 17:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
We have a dispute over whether the article Academic views on Falun Gong should be renamed to Reception of Falun Gong or Criticism of Falun Gong. A group of editors advocate the latter, while some (including myself) disagree. Some points here, in no particular order, just points of discussion:
1) Reception is suggested because it avoids a WP:POVFORK, where "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts."
2) There are arguments advocating both Criticism and Reception, and arguments against Criticism, but no arguments against Reception that I am aware of.
3) The essay on criticism says: "Often Wikipedia articles separate the description of a topic from a description of how the topic was received. This is often the clearest (also, this often helps to keep the description of the topic itself neutral). Another advantage might be that a general "reception history" section usually avoids being "all negative" or "exclusively laudatory" about the topic." and makes a recommendation on this. John Carter, who supports Criticism of Falun Gong and opposes Reception of Falun Gong, points out that essays are not policies.
4) Some attempt has been made to summarise the dispute here, but this strikes me as rather biased. Why are red crosses next to the arguments in favor of reception, and green ticks in front of those in favor of criticism? I have issue with how some arguments are dismissed and how straw-men are put up for others. There's no sense reiterating them one by one here (I started but deleted it all). The crux of the whole issue is really about the definition of the word "criticism." So let's look what the dictionary says: The Free Dictionary (primary meaning of the noun: "1. fault-finding or censure") [9]; Merriam-Webster (primary meaning: "1 a : the act of criticizing usually unfavorably") [10]; Dictionary.com (secondary meaning: "the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding") [11]; Answers.com (primary meaning of the noun in thesaurus: "A comment expressing fault: blame, censure, condemnation, denunciation, reprehension, reprobation. Informal pan. Slang knock. See praise/blame.") [12]. This is"the context which the vast majority of English speakers deploy the word in on a daily basis". Presumably I don't need to provide definitions of "reception" to show that it has an exclusively neutral meaning.
5) There also appears to be some doublespeak here on the part of proponents of the Criticism of Falun Gong title. It is at once argued that "criticism" in this context is not supposed to be negative commentary, but all commentary, however, the list of articles which follow this model of "Criticism of...", which the Falun Gong page is supposed to fit into, are all almost exclusively negative commentary on the subject, such as that for Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, which I just checked. Secondly, proponents of the "Criticism" title use the word "Critics of Falun Gong" to refer to someone who has commented negatively on Falun Gong, as evidenced by the list of proposed named in that proposed category (of "Critics of Falun Gong"), and also by PerEdman's suggestion that this would be a "POV magnet."
So does "critic" and "criticism" mean someone who makes negative comments, and negative commentary, respectively, or anyone who makes comments, or commentary generally? In arguing for the page to be called "Criticism of Falun Gong" the term is given a neutral meaning, but when defining categories of people and in the examples of criticism of other religious gropus, it is used in its conventional, negative sense. This strikes me as doublespeak.
6) With an article entitled "Criticism of Falun Gong," which is focused on negative criticism of the subject--as in all the other articles referenced to other religious groups--would we then not also have a "Praise of Falun Gong" article, which documents the positive criticism the subject has received?
...
It all boils down to this: to be able to have the article titled "Criticism of Falun Gong" the word "criticism" has to NOT be given the meaning of "the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding", "A comment expressing fault: blame, censure, condemnation, denunciation, reprehension, reprobation," as defined by several dictionaries, but given the meaning of "both... positive, negative and neutral commentary on a subject matter," as defined by
user:PerEdman. Yet PerEdman regards "Critics of Falun Gong" to be a POV magnet, the list of "Critics of Falun Gong" are all people who have made negative comments, all the articles titled "Criticism of <topic>" are all actually criticism of that topic, and not general commentary on that topic. There is a clear inconsistency here.
"Reception of..." is a standard formula on wikipedia, it's recommended by an essay, it prevents a POV fork, it is unambiguous in being an article about all commentary on the topic, i.e., the reception that topic has received rather than soley the negative reception the topic has received. It seems to me that it solves the POV issue entirely to call the article "Reception of Falun Gong," and avoids having to split hairs over the meaning of "criticism," and even making seemingly contradictory statements, where it means neutral in one context and negative in the next. "Reception" includes no hint on the tone of the reception. If they are essentially synonymous, except for the problems with "criticism" discussed above, the question is, really, why not call the article "Reception of Falun Gong"? Does it have a particular flaw? Why not call the article that?
I bring this case here for the community to discuss.-- Asdfg 12345 16:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Seb az86556 ( talk) 17:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
It's unclear how "reception" is a euphemism here. What is being pointed out is that "criticism" means negative commentary; and in all the articles that follow this apparent convention--which does not even have a wikipedia essay on it--the article is about just that: negative commentary. The issue here is that if you are arguing that "Criticism of Falun Gong" is to follow the convention of "Criticism of Islam" etc., then you presumably mean that it is to be an article principally about negative commentary on Falun Gong. If not, then it's not an article in line with that apparent convention anyway. There are other article titles which do not include criticism in the title, thus not implying that the article will be about negative commentary on the subject, like: Reception of Falun Gong, Commentary on Falun Gong, Representations of Falun Gong, or something else. Unlike other topics, there is no history of "Criticism of Falun Gong" (as in, negative commentary on the subject), probably because it has such a short history; such an article would attempt to fit into the convention for which there is a history of content, but be unable to. There are neutral article naming possibilities which would indicate to the reader what the article is about, and what it isn't. Mainly, I am interested in thoughts on the observation about the other articles cited going along "Criticism of..." -- did you guys look at them? Do you realise they are principally documenting negative commentary on those subjects (referring to, for example, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity)?-- Asdfg 12345 21:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Editors Asdfg12345, HappyInGeneral have argued against the change. Editors John Carter, PerEdman, Colipon, Simonm223 and Ohconfucius have argued for the change. Editor Seb az86556 attempted to list the arguments for and against, which spawned a metadiscussion. No outside editors have engaged in the discussion. At this point the discussion seems to have stalled.
In my opinion, the discussion needs to be taken back to the project talk pages until there is something concrete and concise for other editors to comment on. / PerEdman 10:36, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
We need outside opinions, there is no other meaningful way of dealing with these disputes. Let's take it to another forum until a bunch of uninvolved editors weigh in and argue among themselves and come to a conclusion. I think our continued argumentation only highlights our differences, whereas I think we should be quickly referring disputes that start to look tricky to other forums, and work together where we can collaborate. We should try to emphasise where we can collaborate, and not go around in circles on what we simply do not agree on. Better to 'outsource' the dispute sooner, before the chain gets jammed in the crank, if I could put it that way. PS: I'm not sure where else to put this, but my problem with Seb az86556's apparent attempt to list the arguments for and against was, with the use of ticks and crosses, an attempt to guide the discussion process, and promote one set of arguments over another. I really do not want to get into the to-and-fro, so I'll just say that, but I must point out why I objected to that, and I had not done so clearly earlier. One idea: we move to another forum. I can only edit wikipedia once every 24hrs at the moment. Unless someone does so before me, I will list for an RfC on the talk page and see what attention that receives.
Or, another proposal for wrapping this up for now is to actually drop this whole thing for now, build the article, and then see how it goes later on. We may find we have more in common after working together for a few months. just an idea. I'm happy to go for it if others are. What I mean is to just leave the title as it is, build the article, then figure out the title. Can we get some feedback on this? If this is not agreed on, we can take it to another forum.-- Asdfg 12345 05:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Since a voice of reason has entered the discussion in supporting a neutrally titled article, let me retract the suggestion that we simply leave it as it is. The article should just be given a neutral title. I can't see it any other way.-- Asdfg 12345 05:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Moved my comment to a more appropriate place, but it does relate the above discussion as well. See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Is_.22Criticism_of....22_malfeasant.3F.
This article does not seem neutral. It equates socialism with communism. That is not the general academic view of the subject. The article even goes so far as to submit a thesis about the way Marx and Engels used the term "socialism." The rest of the article looks pretty sloppy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blacklisted newsking ( talk • contribs) 16:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
This article about an ultra-right Hungarian political party is littered with sympathetic attempts to prove that the biased left-wing Western media élite have got it all wrong, etc. Every piece of critical information - and the mainstream sources are overwhelmingly critical - is immediately followed by something like "but the party denies the allegations[1][2][3][4] as patently absurd[5][6][7] and promoted by Communists[8][9][10][11][12][13]." In one case, an article in The Economist is criticized as biased, with the source for the criticism being... the article's online comments section. I've done some work on the lead section at least, but rather expect to be reverted by the party hacks who are clearly dominating this article. 74.14.71.144 ( talk) 20:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
(Changed the wording; previous version -even longer, more complicated & boring- here)
There is a (very heated and very long) discussion in the Gibraltar article regarding the first sentence of the lead.
All editors agree that Gibraltar is not 100% self-governing. The Government of Gibraltar has said that it does not control external affairs, defence and internal security. The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office adds public service to that list.
The current version reads: "Gibraltar is a self-governing [15] British overseas territory" (it explains details of governing status in the Politics section and wikilinks). Supporters argue that, in the context of British Overseas Territories, the expression "self-governing" will be understood as not really 100% self governing and, anyway, details are below in the same article and in wikilinks.
I (and other editor) think that this is ambiguous, as self-governing can be misinterpreted to 100% self-governing, sovereign, etc... [16] [17]. I also think that this ambiguity benefits the Gibraltarian POV, that claims that Gibraltar should be delisted from the UN "Non Self-Governing Territories List." I also think that -if you look at it- the current citation is not valid for saying that "Gibraltar is a self-governing territory" but that "once in 2001 a UN officer called Ambassador Donigi proposed a text for a referendum that mentioned the current status of Gibraltar as self-governing." Furthermore, the current lead does not include the UN POV. (The limits to Gibraltar self-government and the UN list are mentioned in the Politics section and in wikilinks, but I think that this does not make the lead NPOV if it includes the governing status but not al POVs about it).
I propose an alternative sentence: "Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory. It has self-government in all areas except external affairs, defence, internal security and the public service" [18] (the citation is of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth country profile of Gibraltar). And add "Gibraltar is on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories since it was nominated by the UK in 1947, though politicians both from the British Foreign Office [3] and Gibraltar wish to see it removed citing that Gibraltar has effectively been decolonised. [4]" in order to include the UN POV (and its criticism by others).
What do you think? Thanks!! -- Imalbornoz ( talk) 17:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I would note that:
In response to Pfainuk, I have to say that the expression "Gibraltar is a self-governing British overseas territory" is not accepted by any of the following sources (except the current citation). Please notice that the UN explicitly says "is a non self-governing territory" and the other sources either leave it at “British Overseas Territory” or qualify the “self-governing” expression with “except in …” (please also notice the nature of the current source):
Source | Term used in introduction | Details in Politics / Gvt. section |
---|---|---|
UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) | “British Overseas Territory” [20] | “Gibraltar has a considerable measure of devolved government.” Also, “The Constitution thoroughly modernises the UK-Gibraltar relationship. Key elements include limiting the responsibilities of the Governor to the areas of external affairs, defence, internal security and the public service” [21] |
BBC | “British overseas territory” [22] | “self-governing in all areas except defence and foreign policy” [23] |
Encyclopedia Britannica | “British colony, Europe” and “British overseas territory” [24] | “is self-governing in all matters but defense” [25] |
Merriam Webster | “a British colony” [26] | n.a. |
Encarta | “British dependency” [27] | No explicit reference to self-government |
British Library | “self governing British overseas territory in all matters but defence and foreign policy” [28] | n.a. |
UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) | “almost complete internal self-government” [29] (pg. 16) | "The constitution defines the responsibilities of the Governor as relating to the areas of external affairs, defence, internal security and the public service" [30] (pg. 146) |
United Nations | “Non-Self-Governing Territory administered by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” [31] (pg. 3) | “The Governor is responsible for the conduct of external affairs, defence, internal security (including the police, in conjunction with the Police Authority for Gibraltar) and for certain appointments as conferred on him by the Constitution. The Governor, together with the Council of Ministers, constitutes the Government of Gibraltar.3” [32] (pg. 3) |
UN Ambassador Donigi, in Peter Gold book "Gibraltar: British or Spanish?"
(current citation) |
n.a. | "(Peter Caruana, Gib. Chief Minister) referred to a paper written by the Chairman, Ambassador Donigi, in which he had proposed that a referendum should be held in Gibraltar on the question: “Should Gibraltar remain a self-governing territory of the United Kingdom?”." [33] (pg. 259) |
(Gibraltar is not self-governing in the areas where the Governor holds responsibilities: he reports to the the UK Secretary of State who heads the UK FCO, which is monitored by the House of Commons FAC -a tripartisan Parliamentary Committee; Gibraltar is self-governing in all the other areas).
Funny, the current first sentence of the Gibraltar article in Wikipedia looks like it’s been fine tuned to literally contradict the UN’s statement (a long standing Gibraltarian demand). Are we sure that adding 5 or 10 words to qualify that sentence in the lead would be gory detail? (that way we would avoid Wikipedia being the only relevant internet source supporting the POV of one of the parties in this international controversy in the lead of its article). -- Imalbornoz ( talk) 06:58, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
(out)Imalbornoz, the Canadian Constitution (the Constitution Act 1867) states:
This is the same as the Gibraltar constitution, and Canada is considered to be self-governing.
The Four Deuces ( talk) 00:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
(out) Where the comparison between Gibraltar and Canada is most valid is before the enactment of the Statute of Westminster 1931 which was enacted after Canada became admitted to the League of Nations. I attach an article from the New York Times 1920:
The Four Deuces ( talk) 13:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
OUT) RedCoat10, Gibraltar is a "Non Self-Governing Territory" according to the General Assembly (which is the one that sets the UN official position). You can see that Gibraltar is in this list in un.org "NON SELF-GOVERNING TERRITORIES LISTED BY GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2002" (sorry for the markup, it's in capitals in the original). If you want to have a general idea about the decolonization process you can see these Q&As from un.org. For some more updated and detailed info, you can dive in some of the last GA resolutions from the 63rd session here, here, here. I agree that the list is controversial and the UN has many deffects. But the fact is that the list is the UN official position and Gibraltar is in it.
I think we should not miss the point here: "Gibraltar is a self-governing British overseas territory" (current WP article's first sentence) vs. "Gibraltar is a Non Self-Governing Territory administered by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (UN). Can't we find a less partisan wording? -- Imalbornoz ( talk) 21:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
UNINDENT
I understand your position about the UN. You say it has nothing to do with self-governance, and you have your arguments.
I agree that the UN is not the oracle of TRUTH, that it has many defects and that its arguments for defining a self-governing territory are very complicated, intricate and non-intuitive.
I understand that you agree that it is a fact that the official UN position is that Gibraltar is a "Non Self-Governed Territory administered by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." (with the caveats of my previous sentence).
Can we build on that common ground? (sorry to insist, but I want to be sure we have some common ground before moving on). -- Imalbornoz ( talk) 09:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
An interesting discussion emerging from the ongoing Falun Gong discussion, one editor has suggested that the "Criticism of X" structure of titling for religious pages is generally malfeasant. This is coming out of the fact that pro-FLG editors have blocked efforts to create a "Criticism of Falun Gong" page, prefering other titling structures. The argument in favour of the "Criticism of Falun Gong" titling has been that it is standard with other religions. This led an editor to say, essentially that it is wrong with other religions. Thoughts? Simonm223 ( talk) 16:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
On August 19, User:Rvcx tagged the article for Carly Fiorina with {{ Template:POV-check}}. He later added that including what he believed to be content supportive of Carly Fiorina "isn't appropriate if none of the criticism appears here." He then went through and stripped the article of most anything he deemed to be supportive, edit warred to keep the content out, and was blocked as such. If someone could please review the article and determine whether it is or is not, in its current state, neutral, the objective viewpoint(s) would be very helpful. If you could stick around, keep the article on your watchlist, and help police this frequently-controversial wp:blp, that'd be even better. Please. Pretty please? Thanks in advance! user:J aka justen ( talk) 05:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Editors Maunus and myself hereby ask the opinions of fellow editors on whether the further existence of the separate article Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China is warranted, or if the contents of that article should be integrated into Organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China. We are currently deadlocked over whether this is a matter of Notability or of giving undue attention (non-NPOV). The former article is currently very long on its own while the latter has only recently grown due to an attempt to integrate the contents of both into the one. Aside from that, the more general article was very short indeed.
I have recently suggested a merger and that discussion is currently held on the talk page of the target article. Mergers has been suggested in the past and there are several discussions on the Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China talk page, on the Organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China talk page, as well as archived discussions on this Noticeboard. Please browse through these discussions and the articles themselves and give us your input.
Thank you.
/ PerEdman 17:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I am looking for outside viewpoints on the Toronto Port Authority article. I have expanded the lead (summarize the whole article) and started a 'History' section, both of which are being objected to and removed by a user User:Kdickson who works for the agency. I do not work for any political opponent of the agency, but have been accused of being biased against the agency. Because we have been going back and forth, an administrator has placed a one-week protection on the article. I would like some outside comments if possible to resolve this and move forward. Alaney2k ( talk) 17:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
There is discussion ongoing on whether to merge Wing Chun and Wing Tsun on the Wing Chun talk page. I just noticed it today. The argument against merging is that either a) Leung Ting's divergence from Wing Chun, marked by his trademarking of the spelling Wing Tsun is notable or b) Wing Chun is a generic category of martial arts; like Karate while Wing Tsun is a notable art within the category (much as Shotokan would be). Neither of these assertions are particularly correct. Leung Ting's divergence is more about the ongoing lineage conflicts that plague TCMA and are, perhaps, notable enough for a sub-header in the Wing Chun page. More to the point, Wing Chun is a single martial style of southern wugong. Leung Ting's divergence is not notable enough for a separate header. Likewise the Hung Gar page contains information both on the Wong Fei Hong / Lam Sai Wing lineage and other lineages within Hung Gar / Hung Kuen. Simonm223 ( talk) 18:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
This article came to my attention through the Fringe noticeboard. It is definately a Fringe issue but there are (as is frequently the case in fringe articles) WP:NPoV and WP:DUE issues with this article. Please have a look. Simonm223 ( talk) 13:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
This article on an Indian Hindu nationalist politician who is currently under investigation for his role in the 2002 Gujarat violence needs outside eyes. According to the New York Times and the Times of India, the investigation was ordered earlier this spring by the Indian Supreme Court, in response to a complaint by the widow of former MP Ehsan Jafri, a muslim who was murdered by a Hindu mob in the 2002 riots. The allegations say that Modi's administration sat on their hands while the rioting went on.
For background, please see:
{{
cite news}}
: Check date values in: |date=
(
help)Mdabdul ( talk · contribs) has repeatedly – at least half a dozen times [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] – removed any mention of the accusations levelled against Modi from his BLP. This is not appropriate; if there are articles on it in the Times of India, the New York Times and The Economist, and if the man is currently under investigation by the Indian Supreme Court for it, then it is a notable controversy that should be mentioned in the article per NPOV. JN 466 18:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
see Talk:Circumcision#The Word Mutilation (Uncircumcised & Intact) Garycompugeek ( talk) 19:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
The Department of Defense Police page is in need of attention. There is very little in the way of citations, and was recently edited by someone who included sweeping generalizations with no supporting research (i.e. "most" statements, "most DoD police officers are incapable of getting jobs elsewhere", etc.). Parts were written in the first person point of view, using "I". This article has lacked neutrality from its inception, and probably meets the definition of an "editing war" as well. Other biased statements include that the only requirement to work as a DoD police officer is to "have ten toes and ten fingers". Furthermore, the grammar is atrocious and in need of proofreading.
I rewrote the author's "Important note" in the meantime to reflect a more neutral tone until the article can be revamped. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grozny09 ( talk • contribs) 19:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
This page's history is riddled with edit wars. This is a combination of authors that regularly edit the page as well as both registered and unregistered editors who make edits with or without discussion.
It seems there's a pretty obvious pattern of accusations flying back and forth whereby the "regular" editors make consensus that "new" editors' language fails NPOV; on the other hand, the "new" editors accuse the regulars of forming a cabal that prevents any new edit contrary to what the "regulars" see as NPOV...thus violating NPOV.
This is a classic tit-for-tat, he-said vs. she said, on a known controversial article that has already been through medcab at least once (2007-09-11 Falkland Islands) if not more times. Would suggest locking and assigning a neutrality editor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.36.57.10 ( talk) 21:21, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Additional note...same for the Gibraltar article. Here again we see a similar history of edit wars and mutual NPOV accusations by various registered and unregistered editors on one side, and a clan of regular editors on the other side, in an article about a known controversial subject. I'd submit that both articles should be edit-protected while a third pair of eyes gives a good once-over and maybe the creation of a neutral and permanent avenue for third-party dispute resolutions (as it's a sure bet the current ones won't be the last). —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
209.36.57.10 (
talk) 22:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The article Prostitution has had several sections broken out of it and moved to larger article, often without any notice on Talk:Prostitution and without any linking or announcement to appropriate WikiProject. The articles in question are Feminist views on prostitution, Prostitution (criminology), and Legality of prostitution (specifically, the " Debate_over_legalization" section). These forks are quite blatantly one-sided, presenting an anti-prostitution/"prostitution abolitionist" position as basically the sole political and academic view on the subject. These articles are now severely unbalanced and in violation of WP:NPOV and represent POV forks.
The thing is, some of these subjects are large enough topics to break out into their own articles. However, it seems that in practice, the purpose of breaking these sections out into independent articles was to create editorializing articles away from watchful eyes in the original article.
I am requesting more eyes on these articles and suggestion on how to reintegrate the articles, clean up content forking, and turn these forks back into simple content breakouts.
Also, how does one deal with articles like the above where undue weight is a significant problem, that is, where editors have made extensive, referenced contributions, but are entirely one-sided? Bringing the article back to WP:NPOV seems to require either of two problematic alternatives: 1) add content until the article is balanced, which may take a long time in articles where previous editors have flooded the article with content from one perspective, or 2) delete excess content so that the article may be more easily balanced, but in the process take out referenced content and risk charges that content is being deleted for POV reasons. I'm really not sure how to deal with this dilemma. Iamcuriousblue ( talk) 19:58, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I want to note that this seems to have blown up into a full-blown NPOV dispute. An editor who has edited several of the above-mentioned articles holds that there is an "academic consensus" against the idea of consensual prostitution and that views opposing this are of a "small minority". Naturally, I disagree with this and see editing prostitution-related articles toward this point of view as POV-pushing. I would like to get third-party opinions on this dispute and hopefully head off a full-scale edit war over several articles. Discussion is at Talk:Prostitution #POV_Forks. Iamcuriousblue ( talk) 22:41, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I refer to these recent edits of the article False prophet: [63] and [64]. In my opinion those edits violate neutrality of the article. They have been discussed in the talk page. No consensus has been reached. Uikku ( talk) 18:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I changed the section title to be more informative to attract more editors. - 2/0 ( cont.) 20:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
user:Jack Upland is taking issue over the introductory paragraph of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007#Alternative theories section, which he says is POV because he believes it is exclusively critical of US government. Would appreciate a second pair of eyes on this wording as I can't see any NPOV issue (both the US and Soviets had conspiracy theories and propaganda campaigns). More details of the discussion are on the article's talk page. Thank you. Socrates2008 ( Talk) 12:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia states all articles and other encyclopaedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. The above mentioned article is not. Important factual information is missing thus making it biased and lacking in objectivity. This then results in an overall inbalance. Here are four examples of 20th century European Balkan history that are missing (which all can be referenced): 1. Cult of Personality (of the dictator Josip Broz Tito) 2. Bleiburg massacre ( Operation Keelhaul) 3. Foibe massacres 4. Josip Broz Tito’s failure in addressing the ethnic tensions and economic crisis of Yugoslavia (section Ethnic tensions and the economic crisis of Yugoslavia)
Also there are other facts missing as mentioned on the talk page by other previous writers such as; UDBA’s full role in the former Yugoslavia, which he established (a notorious secret police), and his immensely luxurious life style as a dictator.
My attempt to start improving the article’s inbalance on the talk page ( Talk:Josip Broz Tito) was eventually met with abuse and then deletion. If I have crossed any of Wikipedia’s protocol etiquette I apologise (I am new at this). I just wish to express my concerns to Wikipedia and also to try to improve the Wiki articles if I can. If Neutral point of view/Noticeboard finds that the article is fine I shall then accept it gracefully also I would like to thank Simon Dodd for undoing what was done on the talk page. Thank you for your attention dear reader. Sir Floyd ( talk) 01:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
“After Tito's death the Yugoslav economy faced catastrophe. Immediately following that event, the federal government realised that it could not repay almost US$20 billion of external debt. Difficult negotiations with international banking institutions continued for years. They were prolonged for political reasons.”
“Virtually every communist system extinct or surviving at one point or anther, had a supreme leader who was both extraordinarily powerful and surrounded by a bizarre cult, indeed worship. In the past (or in a more traditional contemporary societies) such as cults were reserved for deities and associated with conventional religious behaviour and institutions. These cults although apparently an intrinsic part of communist dictatorships (at any rate at a stage in their evolution) are largely forgotten today.”
“ Stalin, Maio, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Sung, Enver Hoxha, Ceascesu, Dimitrov, Ulbricht, Gottwald, Tito and others all were the object of such cults. The prototypical cult was that of Stalin which was duplicated elsewhere with minor variations”
Referenced information from R. J. Rummel’s ‘Death by Government’. Rudolph Joseph Rummel is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii.
"Frank Waddams, a British representative who had lived outside of Belgrade, said he knew first hand of ten “concentration camps” and had talked with inmates from nearly all of them. “ The tale is always the same, he said “ Starvation, overcrowding, brutality and death condition, which make Dachau and Buchenwald mild by comparison. Many Slovenes who were released from Dachau at the end of the war came home only to find themselves in a Slovene camp within a few days. It is from these people that the news has come that the camps are worse than Dachau.” Out of a Slovene population of 1,200,000, Waddams believes that 20,000 to 30,000 were imprisoned."
The above clearly shows the inner workings of Josip Broz Tito and his government post WW2. The Wikipedic article does not mention such things. If it had done so it would show a more balanced and modern view of history. Sir Floyd ( talk) 10:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
The bold is to highlight what is missing in the Wikipedia’s Encyclopedic Article. It’s not to make the individual Josip look good or bad.
Referenced from www. britannica.com Sir Floyd ( talk) 00:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
BBC History
Written by
Tim Judah
Referenced from www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/yugoslavia_03.shtml Published: 2003-02-04
Tim Judah has written articles published in The Guardian and BBC News. Sir Floyd ( talk) 01:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I am engaged in a dispute with some users. I am trying to improve neutrality of the articles Mary (mother of Jesus) and Jesus, but they oppose it. I am sure every administrator is tired of problems such as this one, but your hep would really be appreciated. Thank you! Surtsicna ( talk) 22:45, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Singularity, please don't distort my intentions. Grammatical edits always included punction marks as well; if other users weren't so passionate about reverting each of my edits, they would've kept the punctation marks. You can see that I have started a discussion at each talkpage; however, the POV-pushers revert edits much faster than they respond to arguments. Regarding Mary's sainthood, you should read my arguments on Talk:Mary (mother of Jesus). Infobox Saint should be presented in the article Blessed Virgin Mary, as all parameters of the infobox (veneration, shrine, feast, and patronage) are meant to describe Christian view of Mary. Similarly, disputing a person's death by saying one religion still believes he is alive in heaven is POV. That's true, but I have never replaced Christian POV with Islamic POV. I proposed having either none of them or both of them. The article currently claims he died on a cross just because one religion believes he did; isn't that also a POV? Shouldn't we try to achieve NPOV by presenting all points of view (like Wikipedia:Neutral point of view suggests)? Regarding Umm Isa, the fact that it was uncited was never brought as an issue by those removed it - it was removed on the basis of not being neutral (?!). BashBrannigan, trying to improve neutrality means presenting either all points of view or none. I have only tried to improve neutrality of the lead sections (the infoboxes, to be precise). For example, the lead section in the article Jesus says that Christians believe he was crucified and that Muslims believe he was not crucified, yet the infobox simply lists his cause of death as crucifixion. I would also like you to explain your last sentence; all my edits were explained and it's clear that their purpose was achieving NPOV. Surtsicna ( talk) 10:01, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
As a devout follower of Lactuosity, I am appalled as well. According to our faith, we believe that Jesus was wrapped into a big cheese-ball before being transported into the Universe to align a vast number of stars which have henceforth become known as the Milky Way. And I want that in the infobox. Seb az86556 ( talk) 12:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Excuse me, I am not following. What is the point of your arguments, Seb and BaseballBugs? Can you get serious? Do you have to insult to prove that you're right? Even some forms of Christianity do not believe Jesus was crucified - Docetism for example. We have two religions: one usually teaches that Jesus was crucified (though some forms of it teach that he wasn't) and the other one always teaches that Jesus was not crucified. Wikipedia cannot decide which religion is right. Surtsicna ( talk) 13:44, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
|death_cause=
blank. There's nothing in that infobox that isn't in the intro or the first section of the article.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 14:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
|death_cause=
blank, but that was reverted and hence this discussion (+ some irrelevant comments by Seb and BaseballBugs). Your last sentence is also right; however, there are important points of view that are in the intro but not in the infobox. Besides, having the Infobox Person in the article about Jesus is also an Islamic POV, for Jesus is usually considered to be
more than a person in Christianity. Perhaps having no infobox is the best solution.
Surtsicna (
talk) 15:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
User:Dewen12 and I have a disagreement about whether or not a paragraph he wrote should be part of Van Jones. It is my opinion that the paragraph is negatively biased and sourced by non-reliable sources. It is his opinion that, since I am a Democrat, I am inherently inclined to remove unflattering information, and so his paragraph should remain, exactly as he wrote it. Rather than enter into a pointless edit-war, I'd appreciate some assistance in looking at Dewen12's desired contribution and helping decide what the most neutral version might be. - FisherQueen ( talk · contribs) 10:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
New User: I think that, if your friend can find valid sources to cite, the article should be allowed. Just because information is unflattering doesn't mean it shouldn't be posted. And to be clear, I'd say the same about Bush or any republican; I support people's rights to write an article about how Bush's war policy was viewed, as long as they have reliable sources as well. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
68.63.39.20 (
talk) 09:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I'd like opinions on an ongoing dispute at Ahmed Deedat. Just as background, Ahmed Deedat was what might be called a Muslim missionary, or at least a Muslim missionary writer. He worked in the area which (depending on your POV) either attacked Christianity or defended Islam against Christian attacks. The problem with a Wikipedia article on someone like that is you tend to only get two types of editors: those Muslims who are admirers of his work, and those Christians who are very critical of his work. (I admit I am in the latter group). I have tried to insert a link to a page of writings critical of Deedat's work, by a Christian author named John Gilchrist, and a number of Muslim editors continually revert it. (Of course, from their POV, a Christian is trying to disrupt the article and only gets support from another Christian). Debate on the issue on the talk page ( Talk:Ahmed Deedat) almost invariably falls along Christian/Muslim lines. So I am looking for some new editors - preferably without strong opinions on Deedat - to take a look at the issue.
To me it's a pretty clear case. Deedat wrote against Christianity, so a Christian response is notable if it's by a notable enough writer. I detail my reasons that Gilchrist is notable at Talk:Ahmed Deedat#Should we link to the anti-Deedat material at Answering-Islam.org?; but briefly I offer 3 strong sources backing up Gilchrist's writings: (1) Christianity Today, probably the leading evangelical Christian magazine in the world (CT page here [65] references Gilchrist's "The Christian Witness to the Muslim", which is partly a response to Deedat's writings); (2) two of his books were endorsed by leading Christian writer Ravi Zacharias in 1995 [66]; and (3) Gilchrist co-authored a book with Josh McDowell (probably the leading Christian apologist, at least at the popular level in the 1970s/early 80s) in 1981 (book is here [67] an 8 MB downlaod; Amazon page is here [68]).
It has been objected that these are Christian sources and so are inherently biased, but that misses the point. In the field of Muslim-Christian debate, there are really only two sides - the Muslim side (which Christian consider flawed) and the Christian side (which Muslims consider flawed). Note WP:NPOV says: "where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly... Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions."
A second objection has been that it's POV to put a link to a Christian critique unless we first explain Deedat's arguments so the reader knows what Gilchrist is arguing about. To me that objection is nonsense - we link to Deedat's anti-Christian writings (about 12 times in the article) so there's plenty of context for a single link to a notable Christian response. After a back and forth with a single editor over this, with neither of us backing down, I've decided to call for other opinions. Our debate is in the last part of Talk:Ahmed Deedat#Should we link to the anti-Deedat material at Answering-Islam.org?, beginning at 16:41, 21 July 2009 (UTC).
Anyway, what do people think? I think it's a clear example of a notable critique of Deedat, which is on-topic, and not POV to insert, in view of the large number of pro-Deedat links the article already contains. But I'd like some more opinions... Peter Ballard ( talk) 11:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Those are the only debates deemed notable to this particular third-party reviewer. Of course, there may be other sources out there. Newspaper articles, commentary from outsiders, etc. would all be really good to find to get better sourcing. I suggested starting here and working your way through the journal articles. If you cannot get access to them, go to your local university or college library, or you can message me and I can send you quotations. Alternatively, you can look for sources from news outlets like these which can also establish external notability. Unfortunately, looking for both John Gilchrist and Ahmed Deedat yielded almost nothing. If the book you mention is clearly notable, we're going to need to find some external third-party reviews of it, some indication of its popularity, or, even better, some criticism.In the 1980s and 1990s Deedat debated in several countries with religious opponents, who in most cases were representatives of evangelical or fundamentalist forms of Christianity. For example, he debated with the American TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, the Palestinian Christian Anis Shorrosh, and the Swedish Pentecostal Pastor Stanley Sjoberg.
which indicates that Deedat's most famout two works do not include the one you reference. Once you and the rest of the editors can agree on an objective standard for deciding which of Deedat's writings to have prose in our article, then if Deedat's book "The God that never was" makes the cut it clearly makes Gilchrist a notable character.Deedat’s key mode of argument, manifest in his most famous works, Is the Bible God’s Word? and Crucifixion or Crucifiction? is to critique Christianity through close biblical hermeneutics.
The author remarks that what distinguishes the form and content of both Gilchrist and Deedat's activities was their "exlusivist" outlook towards their religions informed by missionary or reactionary impulses in some cases mirrored in the activities of the Anglican and NGK churches. The author then lists Deedat, Vanker, and Laher as Muslim exclusivists with Pypers, Nehls, and Gilchrist as Christian exclusivists. However, apparently the popularity of exclusivist approaches waned through the 1980s and 1990s in favor of pluralism, thus casting both Deedat and Gilchrist as anachronisms. This is perhaps a way Gilchrist can be addressed in this article as it is a fairly good quality source. This isn't exactly an argument to include his website, but in the larger context of this discussion Gilchrist's reliance on web-based technologies is a unique identifying feature. I must warn you, the connection here is very tenuous and is shared amongst four other people as well, so we're looking at something that will not be weighted very highly. It may mean that Gilchrist's actual commentary gets excluded from the article simply by virtue of the fact that it seems to lack sufficient prominence, especially in comparison to other aspects of Deedat's life works.Naude and Greyling's academic and mission work was complemented by those of Gilchrist and Nehls; the latter worked in the Western Cape while the former worked in the Transvaal where he had established his "Jesus to the Muslims" organization. In 1977 Gilchrist, a lawyer, produced his work The Challenge of Islam in South Africa, in which he provided an overview of the position of Islam and Muslims with the aim of arming his "Jesus to Muslims" society and others regarding Muslim beliefs and practices.... Gilchrist saw the web as another avenue to make his ideas and writings known to a wider audience.... Gilchrist has since the 1970s spent a great deal of time studying sources of Islam and produced his extensive work Jam' al-Qur'ān — The Codification of the Qur'ān Text. This text's main objective was to undermine the Muslim interpretation and acceptance of the Qur'ān's authoritative and divine nature. In addition to these, he brought out "The Qur'ān and the Bible Series" and the "Christianity and Islam Series."
<- (outdent) I'd use it as a source for the Josh McDowell article, certainly. Not sure if it is the best for the Ahmed Deedat article for the reason you outline. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia states all articles and other encyclopaedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. The above mentioned article is not. Important factual information is missing thus making it biased and lacking in objectivity. This then results in an overall inbalance. Here are four examples of 20th century European Balkan history that are missing (which all can be referenced): 1. Cult of Personality (of the dictator Josip Broz Tito) 2. Bleiburg massacre ( Operation Keelhaul) 3. Foibe massacres 4. Josip Broz Tito’s failure in addressing the ethnic tensions and economic crisis of Yugoslavia (section Ethnic tensions and the economic crisis of Yugoslavia)
Also there are other facts missing as mentioned on the talk page by other previous writers such as; UDBA’s full role in the former Yugoslavia, which he established (a notorious secret police), and his immensely luxurious life style as a dictator.
My attempt to start improving the article’s inbalance on the talk page ( Talk:Josip Broz Tito) was eventually met with abuse and then deletion. If I have crossed any of Wikipedia’s protocol etiquette I apologise (I am new at this). I just wish to express my concerns to Wikipedia and also to try to improve the Wiki articles if I can. If Neutral point of view/Noticeboard finds that the article is fine I shall then accept it gracefully also I would like to thank Simon Dodd for undoing what was done on the talk page. Thank you for your attention dear reader. Sir Floyd ( talk) 01:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
“After Tito's death the Yugoslav economy faced catastrophe. Immediately following that event, the federal government realised that it could not repay almost US$20 billion of external debt. Difficult negotiations with international banking institutions continued for years. They were prolonged for political reasons.”
“Virtually every communist system extinct or surviving at one point or anther, had a supreme leader who was both extraordinarily powerful and surrounded by a bizarre cult, indeed worship. In the past (or in a more traditional contemporary societies) such as cults were reserved for deities and associated with conventional religious behaviour and institutions. These cults although apparently an intrinsic part of communist dictatorships (at any rate at a stage in their evolution) are largely forgotten today.”
“ Stalin, Maio, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Sung, Enver Hoxha, Ceascesu, Dimitrov, Ulbricht, Gottwald, Tito and others all were the object of such cults. The prototypical cult was that of Stalin which was duplicated elsewhere with minor variations”
Referenced information from R. J. Rummel’s ‘Death by Government’. Rudolph Joseph Rummel is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii.
"Frank Waddams, a British representative who had lived outside of Belgrade, said he knew first hand of ten “concentration camps” and had talked with inmates from nearly all of them. “ The tale is always the same, he said “ Starvation, overcrowding, brutality and death condition, which make Dachau and Buchenwald mild by comparison. Many Slovenes who were released from Dachau at the end of the war came home only to find themselves in a Slovene camp within a few days. It is from these people that the news has come that the camps are worse than Dachau.” Out of a Slovene population of 1,200,000, Waddams believes that 20,000 to 30,000 were imprisoned."
The above clearly shows the inner workings of Josip Broz Tito and his government post WW2. The Wikipedic article does not mention such things. If it had done so it would show a more balanced and modern view of history. Sir Floyd ( talk) 10:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
The bold is to highlight what is missing in the Wikipedia’s Encyclopedic Article. It’s not to make the individual Josip look good or bad.
Referenced from www. britannica.com Sir Floyd ( talk) 00:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
BBC History
Written by
Tim Judah
Referenced from www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/yugoslavia_03.shtml Published: 2003-02-04
Tim Judah has written articles published in The Guardian and BBC News. Sir Floyd ( talk) 01:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
pennyharrold
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Please feel free to see article Anti-Israel lobby in the United States and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-Israel lobby in the United States as a particularly egregious case of a WP:attack page and wp:coatrack page where extremely POV partisan sources are allowed to insult and attack individuals and groups. Very bad precedent for this article to survive, IMHO. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 01:47, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
This user keeps deleting neutrality tags in FlG articles. There are serious neutrality issues under discussion on all of the talk pages and the neutrality of these articles is legitimately disputed; these are NOT drive-by taggings and yet this user has taken it upon himself to decide what constitutes legitimate neutrality concerns. This is not the first time that there have been problems with Dilip rajeev in FLG articles. How should I proceed? Simonm223 ( talk) 14:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Zulualpha ( talk) 17:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I've just noticed that Wikipedia's article on Race and crime has been deleted. The title now redirects to Anthropological criminology, but none of the deleted article's content was merged into Anthropological criminology; it's simply been removed. Race and Crime talked about the varying rates of crime by ethnic groups, as described by the U.S. Department of Justice here. The anthropological criminology article does not talk about the actual correlation between race and crime, but only a particular (somewhat obsolete) theory of causation about it. As far as I know, the actual data about this is no longer mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia.
The discussion page where the possibility of deleting Race and Crime was discussed is here. It was also discussed here. As can be seen there, the result of the discussion was "no consensus", but a single editor apparently decided to delete the article anyway.
I wasn't aware that it's even possible to delete articles on Wikipedia without consensus, but as can be seen from the discussion page for Anthropological Criminology, a large number of editors have a problem with the fact that this was done. Is deleting an article without consensus considered POV-pushing? And if so, is there a way to restore the deleted article, and do anything to prevent the same thing from happening again? -- Captain Occam ( talk) 04:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Ice Cold Beer ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) topic banned five editors from the race controversy article. Claims of support and opposition to the bans involve claims about NPOV and fringe theories. Thus, it would be invaluable if some experienced regulars from this noticeboard participate in the review of the topic bans at: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Ancient Egyptian race controversy ban review. Thank you. -- Vassyana ( talk) 01:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
I have encountered an article, Children's Pool Beach, which is a complete mess. It is about a beach in San Diego which has been the subject of passionate, ongoing legal and philosophical battles over a colony of seals which has taken up residence on what used to be a children's swimming beach. The article makes all kinds of unsourced assertions and "some people believe ..." type of statements. Could some senior wiki editor, preferably someone who is familiar with the controversy, take a look at the article and see what can be done about it? Thanks.
-- MelanieN ( talk) 18:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)MelanieN
This new article popped up on my radar screen for unimportant reasons. I suspect it could use some eyes because of (1) the title, and (2) the creator, a new editor named Justice and Arbitration ( talk · contribs). In my experience, editors who choose names like that almost always have a very strong POV. The topic is way outside my domain of editing, so I'm not going to do anything beyond listing the article here. Looie496 ( talk) 04:47, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
I was wondering if some people with experiance in ensuring that NPOV regulations are followed, especially people who have accounts with Wikipedia, took a look at High-stakes testing. I feel that the article is extremely biased at the moment, and that this fact will be patently obvious to anyone who looks, but without an account, I am concerned that my claims may end up being ignored.
I'm pretty sure the article has been written to make opponents of High-stakes testing look like idiots. 173.45.201.98 ( talk) 07:16, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
If the many citation needed tags can be replaced with actual sources that confirm these assertions, then the article would probably get a low pass on a high-stakes NPOV review.
Editors should source the article, or you should FEEL ENTIRELY FREE TO REMOVE uncited statements after allowing a reasonable time for the statements to be cited. -- Nemonoman ( talk) 16:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Long standing attempt by an IP editor to use this article to promote a fringe view with excessive undue weight has flared up again. The short version is there's been a theory flying around internet forums over the last couple of years that he shot JKF from the front seat of the car. This doesn't seem to be supported by any credible sources, but has been covered by a vanity publisher on Lulu. The disputed version of the article can be seen here. In that state it ceases to be a biography of Greer, and is a vehicle used to promote this fringe theory and is completely undue weight. To see how desperate the IP editor is to make Greer look guilty, you only have to look at sentences like "The FBI interviewed Greer after the assassination and, although agents Kellerman and Behn were also interviewed, Greer's interview is unique in that his physical description is also recorded in the 11/27/63 FBI report" which is a clear attempt to make him look dodgy. I earlier suggested here how this theory should be dealt with, if at all, and it was ignored and reverted to the disgusting version again. More eyes welcome on this, thanks. 2 lines of K 303 11:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I wonder if those who run Wikipedia might consider updating WP:UNDUE to indicate that, although giving undue weight to the claims of actual Holocaust deniers is, of course, a good example of what this policy is trying to prevent, it nevertheless is bad Wikipedia etiquette to imply that a person who is advancing a claim thought to be WP:UNDUE is somehow a supporter of Holocaust denial or engaging in anything akin to Holocaust denial.
What I'm concerned about is that some editors invoke this in order to put a chill on debate on the Talk pages, e.g., "No one believes that but you, you're just like a Holocaust denier." A Holocaust denier is someone who wants to spread the manifest falsehood that millions of people were murdered. The average person whose edits manifest a potential issue over WP:UNDUE are people who have merely not sufficiently demonstrated that a substantial minority of people agree with some specific statement. I'm okay with the principle of WP:UNDUE, it's the tenor of the discussion that I have a problem with.
We shouldn't be here to belittle people's edits, but to tell them what will fly and what won't. In the specific case I've confronted (on the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis page) I've found that some elements first criticized as WP:UNDUE turned out not to be as reliable sources began to report on those elements in more detail. In other words, the "Holocaust deniers" turned out to be people trying to report a dimension of the crisis but simply not having enough evidence yet to make their point. It was legitimate of people to make edits citing WP:UNDUE until those sources emerged. It was not legitimate of those people to compare their adversaries in an editing dispute to the Nazis.
Is there something that can be added to this policy to make it clear that name-calling and guilt by association are not okay according to WP:UNDUE? Zachary Klaas ( talk) 18:18, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
I address this to an editor who considers themselves to be neutral on the topic of climate change (pie in the sky perhaps). I am involved in a dispute with Kim D. Petersen (yet again) over what appears to me as a very basic, trivial point of logic. The argument is very simple, and it is certainly very frustrating to have to escalate something of this nature here, but as a matter of principle, I persist.
a. the Watts article currently attributes to the subject a view that "some global warming may be the result of measurement error".
b. a statement from NOAA has then been inserted into the page by another editor (not Petersen) stating, I paraphrase, that despite Watts work in qualifying measurement error, "the evidence for human-caused warming remains robust."
Now, Watts, who is a supporter of the views of both Lindzen & Pielke, almost certainly expects, regardless of what his qualification of measurement error finally reveals, that evidence for human-caused warming will remain robust. Both the current wording of the article and Petersen himself in the talk page are trying to imply, falsely, that Watts holds a view that human-caused warming will be shown to be in fact "insubstantial". It is possible that Watts does hold this view, but as far as I am aware, he has never said so. Thus, there is absolutely no justification for attributing directly (or by suggestion/implication) a view to Watts that he has never publicly assented to.
Finally, Petersen is also defending the inclusion of an obvious factual error, apparently out of sheer stubbornness (i.e. the wording has it that despite NOAA revelations that Watts work is making no difference (I paraphrase) Watts "still" believes that "some global warming is a result of measurement error". Trouble is, the source given is dated 2007, and thus the word "still" is being used to imply that it is something he has said recently. Stupid stuff, really; it's in there as a result of very sloppy, lazy editing, and regrettably I've had my edits to clean this up reverted twice, with Petersen not interested in discussing it or re-adding it. So... having wasted about 6 hours of my life on this nonsense now, can someone neutral please assist? Thanks. Alex Harvey ( talk) 14:10, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
7-26-09
Dear Editor:
When "Pastor David" rejected my resource of WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD AND WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA, he showed either a lack of knowledge about these sources or bias against them. These reference works are reliable and are NOT VANITY publications. I paid nothing to have my name entered. I was approached by the publishers and asked if they could publish my biography.
This complaint is in reference to THE HEVENER CHURCH article that is now labeled stale. Please put it in the active file.
Thank you very much.
DR. FILLMER HEVENER, FOUNDER, THE HEVENER CHURCH
(Note: We have members/friends/supporters in many countries including: Kenya, Uganda Brazil, Ghana, The United States, Canada, Pakistan, Tanzania, and others.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.105.12.125 ( talk) 17:30, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
This page is an egregious violation of neutral point of view; with lines like "a religious leader, who conquered Nature, wrought wonders, and healed people". It also violates many other wikipedia policies of style. Almost all the current content has been added in a long series of anonymous posts from IPs in Moscow, and it seems likely to be the work of a single religious follower of Ivanov. All content from before these edits started has been removed, and edits made by other people to this page are immediately reverted and termed "vandalism" by more anonymous edits from Moscow IPs, again indicating the work of a single person to prevent balanced discussion of this topic.
Aidan ( talk) 20:38, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Please note that the page has been nominated for AfD. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 23:10, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
This article has a number of editors posting to the article that share a common inability to compromise with each other. Recently they have been engaged in manipulation of the wiki-bureaucracy in order to war with each other.
My involvement began with the E1b1b page which began with an accusation of COI against another editor, which I found to be baseless against the individual; however the page was a trainwreck. I have partially cleaned up that page to make it more encyclopedia and reduce opinion and NPOV material. Much of the problem has now moved to the new page A1b1b1a (which desperately needs attention)
Next the sub-Saharan DNA admixture article was brought to my attention and soon-there-after a AfD appeared. It appeared this article lack suitable reliable sourcing for its existence. Consequently I sided with others the page should be deleted and the topic should be handled on the GHofE page.
My attention has now been called to this Genetic History of Europe page. Despite the opinion that this topic was minor, there is an edit/beaurocracy war that has now erupted on this page. The individuals that are involved in this edit/opinion war have been battling over several pages of Wikipedia where the topic of African contributions has been raised. These pages are generally poorly written pages in which the edit warring creates less encyclopedic content.
I have moved the questionable material of both parties to the Talk page so that they can hash things out. However, unless these editors can come to some kind of ability to work together, ultimately this page will suffer, the page may need to be locked or restrictions placed on editing. In addition the talk page has become a surrogate for the edit war on the main page, and claims of personal misconduct by participants are repeatedly made.
This page deserves administration attention. PB666 yap 17:52, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
There has been some dispute of the use of the image used in the infobox of the Henry Louis Gates Jr. article.
There are some editors who think that the use of Gates's mugshot as his infobox is "accurate," there are others who think deem this to be a reflection of bias, as according to the Wikipedia standards, " Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view" and Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight." The racial undertones of the event deem this image inappropriate for the info box. Help resolving the subject is appreciated. BFeen ( talk) 13:41, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
This has been brought up numerous times by various users and little seems to have been done thus far by administrators. The article Persecution of Falun Gong is only one of a family of Falun Gong related articles that are constantly being disputed for their NPOV. Sources from Falun Gong-related organizations and advocacy groups are openly used and presented as fact. In my view these articles seem remarkably similar to Falun Gong pamphlets that I am receiving from solicitations, and are attempting to promote Falun Gong's cause. It would not be unreasonable to say these articles now serve as handy companions to a massive public relations campaign put on by Falun Gong against the Chinese government. In any case, there is already a mediation happening at Talk:Falun Gong. My view is that Falun Gong-related groups should only be sourced if they are used in a context to present Falun Gong's view, not in a context where they present facts. This is a chronic issue that have been RfC'ed and disputed endlessly. Can someone do a POV check? Colipon+( T) 17:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
A lot of times I notice that users change population, religion or ethnic figures without giving a source/reference. A lot of times there is already a source, but people just ignore it. Please revert all these kind of edits. For instance I have found a lot of false edits in India related articles. E.g.: Example user 1 and Example user 2 - Cheers, Jeroen ( talk) 00:14, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Got a little disagreement over at Talk:Arrest of Henry Louis Gates about whether to include which beers each participant drank at the "Beer Summit". Basically, I feel that whether the information is WP:DUE or not should be based on secondary sources, and whether they find it salient to include, whereas another editor feels that it would be UNDUE to include such a trivial piece of information. How is NPOV appplied in such a situation. Editors are split about half and half on their preference, so WP:CONSENSUS isn't making it super clear. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 23:42, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
There is an edit war on Unmanned aerial vehicle involving at least five editors, including myself, as well as some anonymous IP's who have also been participating. The edits center around material I added to the article, which is being repeatedly removed from the article with accusations of POV. There is a discussion on the talk page but it doesn't seem to be moving the discussion away from continuing the edit war. Editors removing the material seem to contest both the reliability of the sources used, as well as whether it is inherently POV for me to include the material on the page that I did. Their argument seems far-fetched to me, but of course I'm biased as I added the material. I would appreciate some outside perspectives here. The discussions begin with Talk:Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#drone_attacks_often_kill_civilians and continue into the section Talk:Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#POV.2FNPOV_Discussion. Thanks for your help! Cazort ( talk) 13:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Just wanted to let someone know as I wasn't sure how to just flag an article, if that's even possible, but the ArcLight Theater article, about the movie theater in Los Angeles feels like it was written by a publicist, or someone working for the theater. The language sounds like an advertisement; not wikipedia. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.11.8.10 ( talk) 19:37, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I would like to point out this article. It was created as a blatant soapboxing POV propaganda fork by a user whose sole edits are POV warring on Communism related subjects. Surely this page is not acceptable per Wikipedia guidelines? Triplestop x3 00:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Dear reader just recently my thoughts on talkpage Tito have been deleted and it seems it’s going to stay that way. Since I am faced with the fact that my opinions are being suppressed and then eventually will be blocked, I’ve decided to put this out there so these events may be known to the wider wiki community.
The article in question is Josip Broz Tito (the former Dictator of Yugoslavia- East Europe). He was commander of the partisan forces during world war 2 and later a Stalinistic style dictator of the former Yugoslavia. The Wikipedic article is biased and does not mention crimes (Bleiburg massacre & foibe massacres)) against humanity that were committed under his leadership. I registered that this should be part of the article and as a result I have been deleted. One writer was very abusive and deleted my writings on talk back pages. His name is DIREKTOR. He was supported by Ruhrfisch ><>°° I would like to quote some of the Direktor’s statements regarding this article just to inform you of what we are dealing with here.
“Find yourself another one of your crappy "forums" to talk about your presumptions. Just forget about this, Luigi/Brunodam, you're not annoying anyone - you're just turning out amusing. I think I'll file a checkuser in an hour or so, you'd better believe it when I say I'll delete everything you wrote if you're a sock. --DIREKTOR (TALK) 15:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)”
These events are not some conspiracy. They have been part of the western media since the break up of the former Yugoslavia. They have been presented as TV documentaries, on talk back shows and in general writings in England, other parts of Europe and USA, Australia and other parts of the free world. They are backed by eye witness accounts by people who were actually caught up in these events.
The Croatian government is addressing these issues with investigations and financial reimbursement is being given to the victims. These are facts and should be present in the article and not deleted when someone points them out. These actions mirror the attitude of the regime that I am trying to expose.
The Josip Broz Tito article is a dangerous biased piece of writing. It would fit perfectly in any article of the old the Yugoslavia or the old Soviet Union propaganda machine (Cult of personality). Why is it there? The only answer it seems is that Wikipedia has some writers of extreme views (Stalin Style) who don’t tolerate being questioned.
Regards Sir Floyd
We've got an attempt to exclude a recent controversy from this article. Since it has been reported in the tech media, specifically in a Datamation article, I'd say it's properly sourced (though I'm checking on the BLP noticeboard to be sure). Discussion is at Talk:Richard_Stallman#.22Controversy.22_section. Yworo ( talk) 17:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
The first sentence in the diagnosis section of the article ADHD is currently: "ADHD is diagnosed with a psychological evaluation because there currently is no physical examination for it." An editor has raised the issue that this sentence may cause create an undue weight issue because it mentions there isn't a physical examination for ADHD. Please visit the talk page discussion here and here for further information on the various points of view. Sifaka talk 15:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
User:Ohconfucius has kept insisting on his version of the page that seems to construct a narrative debunking the Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China. He says that mentioning the United Nations reports or the independent research by David Kilgour and David Matas is a breach of WP:UNDUE, see Talk:Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital#This is a hospital FFS!. However, he keeps inserting three paragraphs that only attempt to discredit the allegations. A version with only a link to the main Wikipedia article discussing the organ harvesting is not alright with him, either. For more information, see the edit history. I would like to get some comments on this matter. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 10:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
An IP is duplicating information that is already in the article Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (in a relatively NPOV form). The IP is putting the duplicate information into a new second section, entitled "Eco-terrorism". I have already reverted twice, in part because of BLP concerns. I was going to take this to AIV, but now the IP is showing some limited signs of intelligent reaction to what I am writing. But not enough, so additional eyes are needed. Hans Adler 19:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
An editor with the IP address 99.225.138.205 has continually edited in unsubstantiated and biased content meant to damage the reputation of the school. I know the people who run the school, so I suppose I have a conflict of interest, but I'd like to request arbitration in this regard. Ingoman ( talk) 13:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Please keep an eye on 2009 Lithuania–Russia crisis. It reads like a soapbox against Russia. All the references are in Lithuanian, which means that very few people are able to verify that the sources actually state what we say they state. I think this is very little for bold assertions like "The Russian Federation has officially declared that they are targetting Lithuanian truck drivers on purpose." 94.212.31.237 ( talk) 22:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
It's turning into a real POV-fest. See for instance this edit by Samogitia ( talk · contribs) at Portal:Current events/2009 August 14: "Lithuanian carriers are forced to look for the assistance from foreign colleagues who could help to deliver cargo on time. Due to this our state is losing revenues into the budget and Lithuanian carrier companies are being harmed." 94.212.31.237 ( talk) 15:23, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
More eyes please. -- dab (𒁳) 16:08, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I point you to the Cybersquatting discussion page. As you can see, there was an uproar when Wikipedia decided that Domaining (the 100% legal, as per many news sources, and multi-million dollar industry) was equal to "Cybersquatting" (the 100% illegal and wrong practise) and put in a re-direct as such.
After a lot of proof was shown, a Domaining page was set-up. However now, the same biased Wikipedia admin who caused the wrongful re-direct is now pushing to delete the Domaining page, probably to re-direct it back to the cybersquatting page. How is this in-keeping with Wikipedia's policies?
Please look at all the reputable links and proof given to support the fact that "Domaining" is a reputable and legal practise. 82.15.29.29 ( talk) 18:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)Tristan Perry
I'd like to get some feedback from some uninvolved editors regarding our Ron Paul article. For those that don't know, US Congressman Ron Paul appeared in Sacha Baron Cohen's latest film, Brüno. Ron Paul's segment has been covered by dozens of (if not hundreds) of reliable sources including Slate, The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, Political Intelligence, Huffinton Post, The Guardian, The Independent, San Francisco Gate, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, Phoenix Times, The Star, Variety Magazine, Newsweek, The Wallstreet Journal, etc. Last week, an editor included a single sentence reference [2] to Paul's appearance in the movie which was promptly removed. Since then, there has been an ongoing debate on the article talk page about whether to mention Paul's appearance in Brüno. Although various (and sometimes creative) reasons were given for its exclusion, it all seemed to boil down to a case of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. Now there's talk of a filmography which honestly sounds like a bad idea for a politician. Can we get some uninvolved editors to weigh in on the discussion [3], please? A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 18:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Just to clarify, the reason why I think this is a NPOV dispute is that Ron Paul's appearance in Brüno is a bit of a political embarrassment to Ron Paul. Although many reasons were given to exclude this information from the article, I think it ultimately boils down to the fear that it might make Ron Paul look bad. The Slate article goes into some detail about Paul's use of the word 'queer' along with with Ron Paul's spokespeople either denying or explaining the usage of the term.
Also, to clarify further, the edit [4] that was immediately reverted [5] was extremely benign and didn't mention anything controversial. It only mentioned that he appeared in the movie. A Quest For Knowledge ( talk) 04:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
This is such a joke. A Quest is running home to momma here simply because he got outvoted. The proposal on the RP talk page is to have a compromise edit which includes a TEXT section (not a listed filmography) which covers appearances in film and documentaries (particularly
I.O.U.S.A. and
American Drug War, in addition to
Brüno). The rationale behind the compromise is that there has always been tension between two camps of editors on RP's page over piddly issues; adding Bruno only will antagonize one side, while not including Bruno at all will antagonize the other. By proposing a comprehensive, film appearances text section, one side gets the movie they want in, and the others can't point at the mention of Bruno only as a means of claiming bias on the part of the adding editors. That's the proposal. There's more in favor than against. A Quest is the minority of one and has come here to round up the posse. Those are the facts. --
Foofighter20x (
talk) 18:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
As an uninvolved editor: I agree that it would be obvious bias to mention a film that a person appeared in unwillingly (as our article about the film states he was "deceived" into being filmed) but not to include the documentary films that he apparently appeared in willingly. A film appearances paragraph or filmography is not merely a compromise, but a neutral and encyclopedic response.
Foofighter20x is cautioned to maintain civility even when dealing with people with whom he disagrees. The "running home to momma" remark is outside the bounds of acceptable conduct on Wikipedia. -- FOo ( talk) 19:50, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
A Quest: Your concerns were addressed because you got what you wanted in the compromise proposal on the talk page, which is that the Brüno appearance gets into the article. That's what you wanted, that's what the consensus on the talk page got you. Why you feel that other film appearances can't be included is the real issue. Of the four editors on the RP talk page discussion this, three settled on meeting you halfway. When you didn't exactly what you wanted, you bolted and brought the issue here.
And accusing me and the other consensus editors of attempting to exclude information is an outright lie, and you know it. The consensus on the RP talk page decided not only to put in the information you requested, but to put in more than what was asked. Quit twisting what's really happened in order to save face here in the hope of vindicating yourself. And the reason I'm adamant about my proposal's pending approval on this dispute board is that any editor who checks out the RP talk page can easily verify what I've just said. You version of the events don't fit the facts. -- Foofighter20x ( talk) 18:46, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
If lots of reliable sources mention one film, and the others do not, then UNDUE says only mention that one. As an aside, keeping Ayers out of BO's article is probably the biggest NPOV violation on this whole website, and I'm a die hard democrat. - Peregrine Fisher ( talk) ( contribs) 06:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
the Little Richard article is having ongoing POV issues that could really use input from more experienced editors. please see the edit history and these talk-page sections: Talk:Little_Richard#Testimonials_Section, Talk:Little_Richard#comment_from_Smoovedogg and Talk:Little_Richard#improving_the_.22Influence.22_section. thanks Sssoul ( talk) 10:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Gerald Celente is a talking head, a gloom-and-doom prognosticator, a business consultant who has made appearances on TV, made statements in newspapers. But the Gerald Celente Wikipedia page is being used by several of his supporters as an advertisement. These supporters have make repeated claims about the accuracy of past predictions without proper attribution to sources. The pro-Celente supporters have reverted well-researched articles, added statements with no reliable sources, used YouTube videos as "sources", have undone repeated "citation needed" tags. They have repeatedly replaced fair and neutral statements about Celente (which had references) with unsupported statements. The result is an article highly biased towards Celente. It's not NPOV. It violates the Wikipedia policy against original research. See history and talk page of Gerald Celente. Tomwsulcer ( talk) 17:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)tomwsulcer
Are we blurring the line between description of a political epithet and discussion of an actual school of political thought? Compare Israel and the apartheid analogy, which was once Israeli apartheid. BYT ( talk) 11:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
A first read of portions of this article Leslie_Van_Houten, especially the Parole section seem to be written with a bias. There has been discussion in the talk sections but I thought it might be prudent to get a bunch of new eyes on the subject. It just generally strikes me as written to portray a particular point of view by its language. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.226.129.208 ( talk) 05:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
The original version of this article looked as if it had been copied from somewhere else, including footnote numbers in brackets, but I couldn't find the original source. It has since been rewritten enough that I supposed it's no longer a copyright violation, but its pro-Dave Warwak tone is rather nauseating. I've put a POV tag on the article I think three times, now, and the author keeps removing it. This reads as if it was written by Warwak himself, including mentions of his trying to teach the kids "kindness" and a discussion of his trying to show them "the plight of the animals". This thing needs to be toned way down, or else deleted. I do agree that he's probably notable, but none of the claims is cited to a specific source, and all of the references at the bottom of the page don't link to any lines in the article. Who then was a gentleman? ( talk) 17:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
The stub article StartKey, which sites no sources, describes an apparently-fizzled competitor to U3. With no citations, the page makes the following claim:
"On the Microsoft homepage an advertisement is running positioning Windows Live as an alternate with the headline "Forgot your Memory Stick again?". It would seem reasonable to presume that this idea falls into Microsoft's embrace, extend, extinguish strategy."
This phrasing seems unnecessarily biased against Microsoft.
However, it would be unreasonable for me to make the correction myself- I have a clear conflict of interest. (I'm on Wikipedia because I'm slacking off at work, and, as my current IP address will reveal, I work for Microsoft.) Can someone not so inherently involved in the topic decide whether I've got a point, and rewrite that passage (at least, although the stub could use more help than that)?
Thanks, 65.55.31.147 ( talk) 17:29, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
We have a dispute over whether the article Academic views on Falun Gong should be renamed to Reception of Falun Gong or Criticism of Falun Gong. A group of editors advocate the latter, while some (including myself) disagree. Some points here, in no particular order, just points of discussion:
1) Reception is suggested because it avoids a WP:POVFORK, where "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts."
2) There are arguments advocating both Criticism and Reception, and arguments against Criticism, but no arguments against Reception that I am aware of.
3) The essay on criticism says: "Often Wikipedia articles separate the description of a topic from a description of how the topic was received. This is often the clearest (also, this often helps to keep the description of the topic itself neutral). Another advantage might be that a general "reception history" section usually avoids being "all negative" or "exclusively laudatory" about the topic." and makes a recommendation on this. John Carter, who supports Criticism of Falun Gong and opposes Reception of Falun Gong, points out that essays are not policies.
4) Some attempt has been made to summarise the dispute here, but this strikes me as rather biased. Why are red crosses next to the arguments in favor of reception, and green ticks in front of those in favor of criticism? I have issue with how some arguments are dismissed and how straw-men are put up for others. There's no sense reiterating them one by one here (I started but deleted it all). The crux of the whole issue is really about the definition of the word "criticism." So let's look what the dictionary says: The Free Dictionary (primary meaning of the noun: "1. fault-finding or censure") [9]; Merriam-Webster (primary meaning: "1 a : the act of criticizing usually unfavorably") [10]; Dictionary.com (secondary meaning: "the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding") [11]; Answers.com (primary meaning of the noun in thesaurus: "A comment expressing fault: blame, censure, condemnation, denunciation, reprehension, reprobation. Informal pan. Slang knock. See praise/blame.") [12]. This is"the context which the vast majority of English speakers deploy the word in on a daily basis". Presumably I don't need to provide definitions of "reception" to show that it has an exclusively neutral meaning.
5) There also appears to be some doublespeak here on the part of proponents of the Criticism of Falun Gong title. It is at once argued that "criticism" in this context is not supposed to be negative commentary, but all commentary, however, the list of articles which follow this model of "Criticism of...", which the Falun Gong page is supposed to fit into, are all almost exclusively negative commentary on the subject, such as that for Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, which I just checked. Secondly, proponents of the "Criticism" title use the word "Critics of Falun Gong" to refer to someone who has commented negatively on Falun Gong, as evidenced by the list of proposed named in that proposed category (of "Critics of Falun Gong"), and also by PerEdman's suggestion that this would be a "POV magnet."
So does "critic" and "criticism" mean someone who makes negative comments, and negative commentary, respectively, or anyone who makes comments, or commentary generally? In arguing for the page to be called "Criticism of Falun Gong" the term is given a neutral meaning, but when defining categories of people and in the examples of criticism of other religious gropus, it is used in its conventional, negative sense. This strikes me as doublespeak.
6) With an article entitled "Criticism of Falun Gong," which is focused on negative criticism of the subject--as in all the other articles referenced to other religious groups--would we then not also have a "Praise of Falun Gong" article, which documents the positive criticism the subject has received?
...
It all boils down to this: to be able to have the article titled "Criticism of Falun Gong" the word "criticism" has to NOT be given the meaning of "the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding", "A comment expressing fault: blame, censure, condemnation, denunciation, reprehension, reprobation," as defined by several dictionaries, but given the meaning of "both... positive, negative and neutral commentary on a subject matter," as defined by
user:PerEdman. Yet PerEdman regards "Critics of Falun Gong" to be a POV magnet, the list of "Critics of Falun Gong" are all people who have made negative comments, all the articles titled "Criticism of <topic>" are all actually criticism of that topic, and not general commentary on that topic. There is a clear inconsistency here.
"Reception of..." is a standard formula on wikipedia, it's recommended by an essay, it prevents a POV fork, it is unambiguous in being an article about all commentary on the topic, i.e., the reception that topic has received rather than soley the negative reception the topic has received. It seems to me that it solves the POV issue entirely to call the article "Reception of Falun Gong," and avoids having to split hairs over the meaning of "criticism," and even making seemingly contradictory statements, where it means neutral in one context and negative in the next. "Reception" includes no hint on the tone of the reception. If they are essentially synonymous, except for the problems with "criticism" discussed above, the question is, really, why not call the article "Reception of Falun Gong"? Does it have a particular flaw? Why not call the article that?
I bring this case here for the community to discuss.-- Asdfg 12345 16:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Seb az86556 ( talk) 17:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
It's unclear how "reception" is a euphemism here. What is being pointed out is that "criticism" means negative commentary; and in all the articles that follow this apparent convention--which does not even have a wikipedia essay on it--the article is about just that: negative commentary. The issue here is that if you are arguing that "Criticism of Falun Gong" is to follow the convention of "Criticism of Islam" etc., then you presumably mean that it is to be an article principally about negative commentary on Falun Gong. If not, then it's not an article in line with that apparent convention anyway. There are other article titles which do not include criticism in the title, thus not implying that the article will be about negative commentary on the subject, like: Reception of Falun Gong, Commentary on Falun Gong, Representations of Falun Gong, or something else. Unlike other topics, there is no history of "Criticism of Falun Gong" (as in, negative commentary on the subject), probably because it has such a short history; such an article would attempt to fit into the convention for which there is a history of content, but be unable to. There are neutral article naming possibilities which would indicate to the reader what the article is about, and what it isn't. Mainly, I am interested in thoughts on the observation about the other articles cited going along "Criticism of..." -- did you guys look at them? Do you realise they are principally documenting negative commentary on those subjects (referring to, for example, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity)?-- Asdfg 12345 21:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Editors Asdfg12345, HappyInGeneral have argued against the change. Editors John Carter, PerEdman, Colipon, Simonm223 and Ohconfucius have argued for the change. Editor Seb az86556 attempted to list the arguments for and against, which spawned a metadiscussion. No outside editors have engaged in the discussion. At this point the discussion seems to have stalled.
In my opinion, the discussion needs to be taken back to the project talk pages until there is something concrete and concise for other editors to comment on. / PerEdman 10:36, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
We need outside opinions, there is no other meaningful way of dealing with these disputes. Let's take it to another forum until a bunch of uninvolved editors weigh in and argue among themselves and come to a conclusion. I think our continued argumentation only highlights our differences, whereas I think we should be quickly referring disputes that start to look tricky to other forums, and work together where we can collaborate. We should try to emphasise where we can collaborate, and not go around in circles on what we simply do not agree on. Better to 'outsource' the dispute sooner, before the chain gets jammed in the crank, if I could put it that way. PS: I'm not sure where else to put this, but my problem with Seb az86556's apparent attempt to list the arguments for and against was, with the use of ticks and crosses, an attempt to guide the discussion process, and promote one set of arguments over another. I really do not want to get into the to-and-fro, so I'll just say that, but I must point out why I objected to that, and I had not done so clearly earlier. One idea: we move to another forum. I can only edit wikipedia once every 24hrs at the moment. Unless someone does so before me, I will list for an RfC on the talk page and see what attention that receives.
Or, another proposal for wrapping this up for now is to actually drop this whole thing for now, build the article, and then see how it goes later on. We may find we have more in common after working together for a few months. just an idea. I'm happy to go for it if others are. What I mean is to just leave the title as it is, build the article, then figure out the title. Can we get some feedback on this? If this is not agreed on, we can take it to another forum.-- Asdfg 12345 05:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Since a voice of reason has entered the discussion in supporting a neutrally titled article, let me retract the suggestion that we simply leave it as it is. The article should just be given a neutral title. I can't see it any other way.-- Asdfg 12345 05:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Moved my comment to a more appropriate place, but it does relate the above discussion as well. See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Is_.22Criticism_of....22_malfeasant.3F.
This article does not seem neutral. It equates socialism with communism. That is not the general academic view of the subject. The article even goes so far as to submit a thesis about the way Marx and Engels used the term "socialism." The rest of the article looks pretty sloppy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blacklisted newsking ( talk • contribs) 16:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
This article about an ultra-right Hungarian political party is littered with sympathetic attempts to prove that the biased left-wing Western media élite have got it all wrong, etc. Every piece of critical information - and the mainstream sources are overwhelmingly critical - is immediately followed by something like "but the party denies the allegations[1][2][3][4] as patently absurd[5][6][7] and promoted by Communists[8][9][10][11][12][13]." In one case, an article in The Economist is criticized as biased, with the source for the criticism being... the article's online comments section. I've done some work on the lead section at least, but rather expect to be reverted by the party hacks who are clearly dominating this article. 74.14.71.144 ( talk) 20:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
(Changed the wording; previous version -even longer, more complicated & boring- here)
There is a (very heated and very long) discussion in the Gibraltar article regarding the first sentence of the lead.
All editors agree that Gibraltar is not 100% self-governing. The Government of Gibraltar has said that it does not control external affairs, defence and internal security. The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office adds public service to that list.
The current version reads: "Gibraltar is a self-governing [15] British overseas territory" (it explains details of governing status in the Politics section and wikilinks). Supporters argue that, in the context of British Overseas Territories, the expression "self-governing" will be understood as not really 100% self governing and, anyway, details are below in the same article and in wikilinks.
I (and other editor) think that this is ambiguous, as self-governing can be misinterpreted to 100% self-governing, sovereign, etc... [16] [17]. I also think that this ambiguity benefits the Gibraltarian POV, that claims that Gibraltar should be delisted from the UN "Non Self-Governing Territories List." I also think that -if you look at it- the current citation is not valid for saying that "Gibraltar is a self-governing territory" but that "once in 2001 a UN officer called Ambassador Donigi proposed a text for a referendum that mentioned the current status of Gibraltar as self-governing." Furthermore, the current lead does not include the UN POV. (The limits to Gibraltar self-government and the UN list are mentioned in the Politics section and in wikilinks, but I think that this does not make the lead NPOV if it includes the governing status but not al POVs about it).
I propose an alternative sentence: "Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory. It has self-government in all areas except external affairs, defence, internal security and the public service" [18] (the citation is of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth country profile of Gibraltar). And add "Gibraltar is on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories since it was nominated by the UK in 1947, though politicians both from the British Foreign Office [3] and Gibraltar wish to see it removed citing that Gibraltar has effectively been decolonised. [4]" in order to include the UN POV (and its criticism by others).
What do you think? Thanks!! -- Imalbornoz ( talk) 17:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
I would note that:
In response to Pfainuk, I have to say that the expression "Gibraltar is a self-governing British overseas territory" is not accepted by any of the following sources (except the current citation). Please notice that the UN explicitly says "is a non self-governing territory" and the other sources either leave it at “British Overseas Territory” or qualify the “self-governing” expression with “except in …” (please also notice the nature of the current source):
Source | Term used in introduction | Details in Politics / Gvt. section |
---|---|---|
UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) | “British Overseas Territory” [20] | “Gibraltar has a considerable measure of devolved government.” Also, “The Constitution thoroughly modernises the UK-Gibraltar relationship. Key elements include limiting the responsibilities of the Governor to the areas of external affairs, defence, internal security and the public service” [21] |
BBC | “British overseas territory” [22] | “self-governing in all areas except defence and foreign policy” [23] |
Encyclopedia Britannica | “British colony, Europe” and “British overseas territory” [24] | “is self-governing in all matters but defense” [25] |
Merriam Webster | “a British colony” [26] | n.a. |
Encarta | “British dependency” [27] | No explicit reference to self-government |
British Library | “self governing British overseas territory in all matters but defence and foreign policy” [28] | n.a. |
UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) | “almost complete internal self-government” [29] (pg. 16) | "The constitution defines the responsibilities of the Governor as relating to the areas of external affairs, defence, internal security and the public service" [30] (pg. 146) |
United Nations | “Non-Self-Governing Territory administered by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” [31] (pg. 3) | “The Governor is responsible for the conduct of external affairs, defence, internal security (including the police, in conjunction with the Police Authority for Gibraltar) and for certain appointments as conferred on him by the Constitution. The Governor, together with the Council of Ministers, constitutes the Government of Gibraltar.3” [32] (pg. 3) |
UN Ambassador Donigi, in Peter Gold book "Gibraltar: British or Spanish?"
(current citation) |
n.a. | "(Peter Caruana, Gib. Chief Minister) referred to a paper written by the Chairman, Ambassador Donigi, in which he had proposed that a referendum should be held in Gibraltar on the question: “Should Gibraltar remain a self-governing territory of the United Kingdom?”." [33] (pg. 259) |
(Gibraltar is not self-governing in the areas where the Governor holds responsibilities: he reports to the the UK Secretary of State who heads the UK FCO, which is monitored by the House of Commons FAC -a tripartisan Parliamentary Committee; Gibraltar is self-governing in all the other areas).
Funny, the current first sentence of the Gibraltar article in Wikipedia looks like it’s been fine tuned to literally contradict the UN’s statement (a long standing Gibraltarian demand). Are we sure that adding 5 or 10 words to qualify that sentence in the lead would be gory detail? (that way we would avoid Wikipedia being the only relevant internet source supporting the POV of one of the parties in this international controversy in the lead of its article). -- Imalbornoz ( talk) 06:58, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
(out)Imalbornoz, the Canadian Constitution (the Constitution Act 1867) states:
This is the same as the Gibraltar constitution, and Canada is considered to be self-governing.
The Four Deuces ( talk) 00:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
(out) Where the comparison between Gibraltar and Canada is most valid is before the enactment of the Statute of Westminster 1931 which was enacted after Canada became admitted to the League of Nations. I attach an article from the New York Times 1920:
The Four Deuces ( talk) 13:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
OUT) RedCoat10, Gibraltar is a "Non Self-Governing Territory" according to the General Assembly (which is the one that sets the UN official position). You can see that Gibraltar is in this list in un.org "NON SELF-GOVERNING TERRITORIES LISTED BY GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2002" (sorry for the markup, it's in capitals in the original). If you want to have a general idea about the decolonization process you can see these Q&As from un.org. For some more updated and detailed info, you can dive in some of the last GA resolutions from the 63rd session here, here, here. I agree that the list is controversial and the UN has many deffects. But the fact is that the list is the UN official position and Gibraltar is in it.
I think we should not miss the point here: "Gibraltar is a self-governing British overseas territory" (current WP article's first sentence) vs. "Gibraltar is a Non Self-Governing Territory administered by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (UN). Can't we find a less partisan wording? -- Imalbornoz ( talk) 21:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
UNINDENT
I understand your position about the UN. You say it has nothing to do with self-governance, and you have your arguments.
I agree that the UN is not the oracle of TRUTH, that it has many defects and that its arguments for defining a self-governing territory are very complicated, intricate and non-intuitive.
I understand that you agree that it is a fact that the official UN position is that Gibraltar is a "Non Self-Governed Territory administered by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." (with the caveats of my previous sentence).
Can we build on that common ground? (sorry to insist, but I want to be sure we have some common ground before moving on). -- Imalbornoz ( talk) 09:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
An interesting discussion emerging from the ongoing Falun Gong discussion, one editor has suggested that the "Criticism of X" structure of titling for religious pages is generally malfeasant. This is coming out of the fact that pro-FLG editors have blocked efforts to create a "Criticism of Falun Gong" page, prefering other titling structures. The argument in favour of the "Criticism of Falun Gong" titling has been that it is standard with other religions. This led an editor to say, essentially that it is wrong with other religions. Thoughts? Simonm223 ( talk) 16:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
On August 19, User:Rvcx tagged the article for Carly Fiorina with {{ Template:POV-check}}. He later added that including what he believed to be content supportive of Carly Fiorina "isn't appropriate if none of the criticism appears here." He then went through and stripped the article of most anything he deemed to be supportive, edit warred to keep the content out, and was blocked as such. If someone could please review the article and determine whether it is or is not, in its current state, neutral, the objective viewpoint(s) would be very helpful. If you could stick around, keep the article on your watchlist, and help police this frequently-controversial wp:blp, that'd be even better. Please. Pretty please? Thanks in advance! user:J aka justen ( talk) 05:57, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Editors Maunus and myself hereby ask the opinions of fellow editors on whether the further existence of the separate article Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China is warranted, or if the contents of that article should be integrated into Organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China. We are currently deadlocked over whether this is a matter of Notability or of giving undue attention (non-NPOV). The former article is currently very long on its own while the latter has only recently grown due to an attempt to integrate the contents of both into the one. Aside from that, the more general article was very short indeed.
I have recently suggested a merger and that discussion is currently held on the talk page of the target article. Mergers has been suggested in the past and there are several discussions on the Reports of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China talk page, on the Organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China talk page, as well as archived discussions on this Noticeboard. Please browse through these discussions and the articles themselves and give us your input.
Thank you.
/ PerEdman 17:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I am looking for outside viewpoints on the Toronto Port Authority article. I have expanded the lead (summarize the whole article) and started a 'History' section, both of which are being objected to and removed by a user User:Kdickson who works for the agency. I do not work for any political opponent of the agency, but have been accused of being biased against the agency. Because we have been going back and forth, an administrator has placed a one-week protection on the article. I would like some outside comments if possible to resolve this and move forward. Alaney2k ( talk) 17:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
There is discussion ongoing on whether to merge Wing Chun and Wing Tsun on the Wing Chun talk page. I just noticed it today. The argument against merging is that either a) Leung Ting's divergence from Wing Chun, marked by his trademarking of the spelling Wing Tsun is notable or b) Wing Chun is a generic category of martial arts; like Karate while Wing Tsun is a notable art within the category (much as Shotokan would be). Neither of these assertions are particularly correct. Leung Ting's divergence is more about the ongoing lineage conflicts that plague TCMA and are, perhaps, notable enough for a sub-header in the Wing Chun page. More to the point, Wing Chun is a single martial style of southern wugong. Leung Ting's divergence is not notable enough for a separate header. Likewise the Hung Gar page contains information both on the Wong Fei Hong / Lam Sai Wing lineage and other lineages within Hung Gar / Hung Kuen. Simonm223 ( talk) 18:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
This article came to my attention through the Fringe noticeboard. It is definately a Fringe issue but there are (as is frequently the case in fringe articles) WP:NPoV and WP:DUE issues with this article. Please have a look. Simonm223 ( talk) 13:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
This article on an Indian Hindu nationalist politician who is currently under investigation for his role in the 2002 Gujarat violence needs outside eyes. According to the New York Times and the Times of India, the investigation was ordered earlier this spring by the Indian Supreme Court, in response to a complaint by the widow of former MP Ehsan Jafri, a muslim who was murdered by a Hindu mob in the 2002 riots. The allegations say that Modi's administration sat on their hands while the rioting went on.
For background, please see:
{{
cite news}}
: Check date values in: |date=
(
help)Mdabdul ( talk · contribs) has repeatedly – at least half a dozen times [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] – removed any mention of the accusations levelled against Modi from his BLP. This is not appropriate; if there are articles on it in the Times of India, the New York Times and The Economist, and if the man is currently under investigation by the Indian Supreme Court for it, then it is a notable controversy that should be mentioned in the article per NPOV. JN 466 18:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
see Talk:Circumcision#The Word Mutilation (Uncircumcised & Intact) Garycompugeek ( talk) 19:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
The Department of Defense Police page is in need of attention. There is very little in the way of citations, and was recently edited by someone who included sweeping generalizations with no supporting research (i.e. "most" statements, "most DoD police officers are incapable of getting jobs elsewhere", etc.). Parts were written in the first person point of view, using "I". This article has lacked neutrality from its inception, and probably meets the definition of an "editing war" as well. Other biased statements include that the only requirement to work as a DoD police officer is to "have ten toes and ten fingers". Furthermore, the grammar is atrocious and in need of proofreading.
I rewrote the author's "Important note" in the meantime to reflect a more neutral tone until the article can be revamped. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grozny09 ( talk • contribs) 19:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
This page's history is riddled with edit wars. This is a combination of authors that regularly edit the page as well as both registered and unregistered editors who make edits with or without discussion.
It seems there's a pretty obvious pattern of accusations flying back and forth whereby the "regular" editors make consensus that "new" editors' language fails NPOV; on the other hand, the "new" editors accuse the regulars of forming a cabal that prevents any new edit contrary to what the "regulars" see as NPOV...thus violating NPOV.
This is a classic tit-for-tat, he-said vs. she said, on a known controversial article that has already been through medcab at least once (2007-09-11 Falkland Islands) if not more times. Would suggest locking and assigning a neutrality editor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.36.57.10 ( talk) 21:21, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Additional note...same for the Gibraltar article. Here again we see a similar history of edit wars and mutual NPOV accusations by various registered and unregistered editors on one side, and a clan of regular editors on the other side, in an article about a known controversial subject. I'd submit that both articles should be edit-protected while a third pair of eyes gives a good once-over and maybe the creation of a neutral and permanent avenue for third-party dispute resolutions (as it's a sure bet the current ones won't be the last). —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
209.36.57.10 (
talk) 22:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The article Prostitution has had several sections broken out of it and moved to larger article, often without any notice on Talk:Prostitution and without any linking or announcement to appropriate WikiProject. The articles in question are Feminist views on prostitution, Prostitution (criminology), and Legality of prostitution (specifically, the " Debate_over_legalization" section). These forks are quite blatantly one-sided, presenting an anti-prostitution/"prostitution abolitionist" position as basically the sole political and academic view on the subject. These articles are now severely unbalanced and in violation of WP:NPOV and represent POV forks.
The thing is, some of these subjects are large enough topics to break out into their own articles. However, it seems that in practice, the purpose of breaking these sections out into independent articles was to create editorializing articles away from watchful eyes in the original article.
I am requesting more eyes on these articles and suggestion on how to reintegrate the articles, clean up content forking, and turn these forks back into simple content breakouts.
Also, how does one deal with articles like the above where undue weight is a significant problem, that is, where editors have made extensive, referenced contributions, but are entirely one-sided? Bringing the article back to WP:NPOV seems to require either of two problematic alternatives: 1) add content until the article is balanced, which may take a long time in articles where previous editors have flooded the article with content from one perspective, or 2) delete excess content so that the article may be more easily balanced, but in the process take out referenced content and risk charges that content is being deleted for POV reasons. I'm really not sure how to deal with this dilemma. Iamcuriousblue ( talk) 19:58, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I want to note that this seems to have blown up into a full-blown NPOV dispute. An editor who has edited several of the above-mentioned articles holds that there is an "academic consensus" against the idea of consensual prostitution and that views opposing this are of a "small minority". Naturally, I disagree with this and see editing prostitution-related articles toward this point of view as POV-pushing. I would like to get third-party opinions on this dispute and hopefully head off a full-scale edit war over several articles. Discussion is at Talk:Prostitution #POV_Forks. Iamcuriousblue ( talk) 22:41, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I refer to these recent edits of the article False prophet: [63] and [64]. In my opinion those edits violate neutrality of the article. They have been discussed in the talk page. No consensus has been reached. Uikku ( talk) 18:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I changed the section title to be more informative to attract more editors. - 2/0 ( cont.) 20:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
user:Jack Upland is taking issue over the introductory paragraph of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007#Alternative theories section, which he says is POV because he believes it is exclusively critical of US government. Would appreciate a second pair of eyes on this wording as I can't see any NPOV issue (both the US and Soviets had conspiracy theories and propaganda campaigns). More details of the discussion are on the article's talk page. Thank you. Socrates2008 ( Talk) 12:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia states all articles and other encyclopaedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. The above mentioned article is not. Important factual information is missing thus making it biased and lacking in objectivity. This then results in an overall inbalance. Here are four examples of 20th century European Balkan history that are missing (which all can be referenced): 1. Cult of Personality (of the dictator Josip Broz Tito) 2. Bleiburg massacre ( Operation Keelhaul) 3. Foibe massacres 4. Josip Broz Tito’s failure in addressing the ethnic tensions and economic crisis of Yugoslavia (section Ethnic tensions and the economic crisis of Yugoslavia)
Also there are other facts missing as mentioned on the talk page by other previous writers such as; UDBA’s full role in the former Yugoslavia, which he established (a notorious secret police), and his immensely luxurious life style as a dictator.
My attempt to start improving the article’s inbalance on the talk page ( Talk:Josip Broz Tito) was eventually met with abuse and then deletion. If I have crossed any of Wikipedia’s protocol etiquette I apologise (I am new at this). I just wish to express my concerns to Wikipedia and also to try to improve the Wiki articles if I can. If Neutral point of view/Noticeboard finds that the article is fine I shall then accept it gracefully also I would like to thank Simon Dodd for undoing what was done on the talk page. Thank you for your attention dear reader. Sir Floyd ( talk) 01:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
“After Tito's death the Yugoslav economy faced catastrophe. Immediately following that event, the federal government realised that it could not repay almost US$20 billion of external debt. Difficult negotiations with international banking institutions continued for years. They were prolonged for political reasons.”
“Virtually every communist system extinct or surviving at one point or anther, had a supreme leader who was both extraordinarily powerful and surrounded by a bizarre cult, indeed worship. In the past (or in a more traditional contemporary societies) such as cults were reserved for deities and associated with conventional religious behaviour and institutions. These cults although apparently an intrinsic part of communist dictatorships (at any rate at a stage in their evolution) are largely forgotten today.”
“ Stalin, Maio, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Sung, Enver Hoxha, Ceascesu, Dimitrov, Ulbricht, Gottwald, Tito and others all were the object of such cults. The prototypical cult was that of Stalin which was duplicated elsewhere with minor variations”
Referenced information from R. J. Rummel’s ‘Death by Government’. Rudolph Joseph Rummel is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii.
"Frank Waddams, a British representative who had lived outside of Belgrade, said he knew first hand of ten “concentration camps” and had talked with inmates from nearly all of them. “ The tale is always the same, he said “ Starvation, overcrowding, brutality and death condition, which make Dachau and Buchenwald mild by comparison. Many Slovenes who were released from Dachau at the end of the war came home only to find themselves in a Slovene camp within a few days. It is from these people that the news has come that the camps are worse than Dachau.” Out of a Slovene population of 1,200,000, Waddams believes that 20,000 to 30,000 were imprisoned."
The above clearly shows the inner workings of Josip Broz Tito and his government post WW2. The Wikipedic article does not mention such things. If it had done so it would show a more balanced and modern view of history. Sir Floyd ( talk) 10:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
The bold is to highlight what is missing in the Wikipedia’s Encyclopedic Article. It’s not to make the individual Josip look good or bad.
Referenced from www. britannica.com Sir Floyd ( talk) 00:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
BBC History
Written by
Tim Judah
Referenced from www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/yugoslavia_03.shtml Published: 2003-02-04
Tim Judah has written articles published in The Guardian and BBC News. Sir Floyd ( talk) 01:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I am engaged in a dispute with some users. I am trying to improve neutrality of the articles Mary (mother of Jesus) and Jesus, but they oppose it. I am sure every administrator is tired of problems such as this one, but your hep would really be appreciated. Thank you! Surtsicna ( talk) 22:45, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Singularity, please don't distort my intentions. Grammatical edits always included punction marks as well; if other users weren't so passionate about reverting each of my edits, they would've kept the punctation marks. You can see that I have started a discussion at each talkpage; however, the POV-pushers revert edits much faster than they respond to arguments. Regarding Mary's sainthood, you should read my arguments on Talk:Mary (mother of Jesus). Infobox Saint should be presented in the article Blessed Virgin Mary, as all parameters of the infobox (veneration, shrine, feast, and patronage) are meant to describe Christian view of Mary. Similarly, disputing a person's death by saying one religion still believes he is alive in heaven is POV. That's true, but I have never replaced Christian POV with Islamic POV. I proposed having either none of them or both of them. The article currently claims he died on a cross just because one religion believes he did; isn't that also a POV? Shouldn't we try to achieve NPOV by presenting all points of view (like Wikipedia:Neutral point of view suggests)? Regarding Umm Isa, the fact that it was uncited was never brought as an issue by those removed it - it was removed on the basis of not being neutral (?!). BashBrannigan, trying to improve neutrality means presenting either all points of view or none. I have only tried to improve neutrality of the lead sections (the infoboxes, to be precise). For example, the lead section in the article Jesus says that Christians believe he was crucified and that Muslims believe he was not crucified, yet the infobox simply lists his cause of death as crucifixion. I would also like you to explain your last sentence; all my edits were explained and it's clear that their purpose was achieving NPOV. Surtsicna ( talk) 10:01, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
As a devout follower of Lactuosity, I am appalled as well. According to our faith, we believe that Jesus was wrapped into a big cheese-ball before being transported into the Universe to align a vast number of stars which have henceforth become known as the Milky Way. And I want that in the infobox. Seb az86556 ( talk) 12:45, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Excuse me, I am not following. What is the point of your arguments, Seb and BaseballBugs? Can you get serious? Do you have to insult to prove that you're right? Even some forms of Christianity do not believe Jesus was crucified - Docetism for example. We have two religions: one usually teaches that Jesus was crucified (though some forms of it teach that he wasn't) and the other one always teaches that Jesus was not crucified. Wikipedia cannot decide which religion is right. Surtsicna ( talk) 13:44, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
|death_cause=
blank. There's nothing in that infobox that isn't in the intro or the first section of the article.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 14:54, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
|death_cause=
blank, but that was reverted and hence this discussion (+ some irrelevant comments by Seb and BaseballBugs). Your last sentence is also right; however, there are important points of view that are in the intro but not in the infobox. Besides, having the Infobox Person in the article about Jesus is also an Islamic POV, for Jesus is usually considered to be
more than a person in Christianity. Perhaps having no infobox is the best solution.
Surtsicna (
talk) 15:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
User:Dewen12 and I have a disagreement about whether or not a paragraph he wrote should be part of Van Jones. It is my opinion that the paragraph is negatively biased and sourced by non-reliable sources. It is his opinion that, since I am a Democrat, I am inherently inclined to remove unflattering information, and so his paragraph should remain, exactly as he wrote it. Rather than enter into a pointless edit-war, I'd appreciate some assistance in looking at Dewen12's desired contribution and helping decide what the most neutral version might be. - FisherQueen ( talk · contribs) 10:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
New User: I think that, if your friend can find valid sources to cite, the article should be allowed. Just because information is unflattering doesn't mean it shouldn't be posted. And to be clear, I'd say the same about Bush or any republican; I support people's rights to write an article about how Bush's war policy was viewed, as long as they have reliable sources as well. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
68.63.39.20 (
talk) 09:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I'd like opinions on an ongoing dispute at Ahmed Deedat. Just as background, Ahmed Deedat was what might be called a Muslim missionary, or at least a Muslim missionary writer. He worked in the area which (depending on your POV) either attacked Christianity or defended Islam against Christian attacks. The problem with a Wikipedia article on someone like that is you tend to only get two types of editors: those Muslims who are admirers of his work, and those Christians who are very critical of his work. (I admit I am in the latter group). I have tried to insert a link to a page of writings critical of Deedat's work, by a Christian author named John Gilchrist, and a number of Muslim editors continually revert it. (Of course, from their POV, a Christian is trying to disrupt the article and only gets support from another Christian). Debate on the issue on the talk page ( Talk:Ahmed Deedat) almost invariably falls along Christian/Muslim lines. So I am looking for some new editors - preferably without strong opinions on Deedat - to take a look at the issue.
To me it's a pretty clear case. Deedat wrote against Christianity, so a Christian response is notable if it's by a notable enough writer. I detail my reasons that Gilchrist is notable at Talk:Ahmed Deedat#Should we link to the anti-Deedat material at Answering-Islam.org?; but briefly I offer 3 strong sources backing up Gilchrist's writings: (1) Christianity Today, probably the leading evangelical Christian magazine in the world (CT page here [65] references Gilchrist's "The Christian Witness to the Muslim", which is partly a response to Deedat's writings); (2) two of his books were endorsed by leading Christian writer Ravi Zacharias in 1995 [66]; and (3) Gilchrist co-authored a book with Josh McDowell (probably the leading Christian apologist, at least at the popular level in the 1970s/early 80s) in 1981 (book is here [67] an 8 MB downlaod; Amazon page is here [68]).
It has been objected that these are Christian sources and so are inherently biased, but that misses the point. In the field of Muslim-Christian debate, there are really only two sides - the Muslim side (which Christian consider flawed) and the Christian side (which Muslims consider flawed). Note WP:NPOV says: "where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly... Readers should be allowed to form their own opinions."
A second objection has been that it's POV to put a link to a Christian critique unless we first explain Deedat's arguments so the reader knows what Gilchrist is arguing about. To me that objection is nonsense - we link to Deedat's anti-Christian writings (about 12 times in the article) so there's plenty of context for a single link to a notable Christian response. After a back and forth with a single editor over this, with neither of us backing down, I've decided to call for other opinions. Our debate is in the last part of Talk:Ahmed Deedat#Should we link to the anti-Deedat material at Answering-Islam.org?, beginning at 16:41, 21 July 2009 (UTC).
Anyway, what do people think? I think it's a clear example of a notable critique of Deedat, which is on-topic, and not POV to insert, in view of the large number of pro-Deedat links the article already contains. But I'd like some more opinions... Peter Ballard ( talk) 11:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Those are the only debates deemed notable to this particular third-party reviewer. Of course, there may be other sources out there. Newspaper articles, commentary from outsiders, etc. would all be really good to find to get better sourcing. I suggested starting here and working your way through the journal articles. If you cannot get access to them, go to your local university or college library, or you can message me and I can send you quotations. Alternatively, you can look for sources from news outlets like these which can also establish external notability. Unfortunately, looking for both John Gilchrist and Ahmed Deedat yielded almost nothing. If the book you mention is clearly notable, we're going to need to find some external third-party reviews of it, some indication of its popularity, or, even better, some criticism.In the 1980s and 1990s Deedat debated in several countries with religious opponents, who in most cases were representatives of evangelical or fundamentalist forms of Christianity. For example, he debated with the American TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, the Palestinian Christian Anis Shorrosh, and the Swedish Pentecostal Pastor Stanley Sjoberg.
which indicates that Deedat's most famout two works do not include the one you reference. Once you and the rest of the editors can agree on an objective standard for deciding which of Deedat's writings to have prose in our article, then if Deedat's book "The God that never was" makes the cut it clearly makes Gilchrist a notable character.Deedat’s key mode of argument, manifest in his most famous works, Is the Bible God’s Word? and Crucifixion or Crucifiction? is to critique Christianity through close biblical hermeneutics.
The author remarks that what distinguishes the form and content of both Gilchrist and Deedat's activities was their "exlusivist" outlook towards their religions informed by missionary or reactionary impulses in some cases mirrored in the activities of the Anglican and NGK churches. The author then lists Deedat, Vanker, and Laher as Muslim exclusivists with Pypers, Nehls, and Gilchrist as Christian exclusivists. However, apparently the popularity of exclusivist approaches waned through the 1980s and 1990s in favor of pluralism, thus casting both Deedat and Gilchrist as anachronisms. This is perhaps a way Gilchrist can be addressed in this article as it is a fairly good quality source. This isn't exactly an argument to include his website, but in the larger context of this discussion Gilchrist's reliance on web-based technologies is a unique identifying feature. I must warn you, the connection here is very tenuous and is shared amongst four other people as well, so we're looking at something that will not be weighted very highly. It may mean that Gilchrist's actual commentary gets excluded from the article simply by virtue of the fact that it seems to lack sufficient prominence, especially in comparison to other aspects of Deedat's life works.Naude and Greyling's academic and mission work was complemented by those of Gilchrist and Nehls; the latter worked in the Western Cape while the former worked in the Transvaal where he had established his "Jesus to the Muslims" organization. In 1977 Gilchrist, a lawyer, produced his work The Challenge of Islam in South Africa, in which he provided an overview of the position of Islam and Muslims with the aim of arming his "Jesus to Muslims" society and others regarding Muslim beliefs and practices.... Gilchrist saw the web as another avenue to make his ideas and writings known to a wider audience.... Gilchrist has since the 1970s spent a great deal of time studying sources of Islam and produced his extensive work Jam' al-Qur'ān — The Codification of the Qur'ān Text. This text's main objective was to undermine the Muslim interpretation and acceptance of the Qur'ān's authoritative and divine nature. In addition to these, he brought out "The Qur'ān and the Bible Series" and the "Christianity and Islam Series."
<- (outdent) I'd use it as a source for the Josh McDowell article, certainly. Not sure if it is the best for the Ahmed Deedat article for the reason you outline. ScienceApologist ( talk) 15:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia states all articles and other encyclopaedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. The above mentioned article is not. Important factual information is missing thus making it biased and lacking in objectivity. This then results in an overall inbalance. Here are four examples of 20th century European Balkan history that are missing (which all can be referenced): 1. Cult of Personality (of the dictator Josip Broz Tito) 2. Bleiburg massacre ( Operation Keelhaul) 3. Foibe massacres 4. Josip Broz Tito’s failure in addressing the ethnic tensions and economic crisis of Yugoslavia (section Ethnic tensions and the economic crisis of Yugoslavia)
Also there are other facts missing as mentioned on the talk page by other previous writers such as; UDBA’s full role in the former Yugoslavia, which he established (a notorious secret police), and his immensely luxurious life style as a dictator.
My attempt to start improving the article’s inbalance on the talk page ( Talk:Josip Broz Tito) was eventually met with abuse and then deletion. If I have crossed any of Wikipedia’s protocol etiquette I apologise (I am new at this). I just wish to express my concerns to Wikipedia and also to try to improve the Wiki articles if I can. If Neutral point of view/Noticeboard finds that the article is fine I shall then accept it gracefully also I would like to thank Simon Dodd for undoing what was done on the talk page. Thank you for your attention dear reader. Sir Floyd ( talk) 01:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
“After Tito's death the Yugoslav economy faced catastrophe. Immediately following that event, the federal government realised that it could not repay almost US$20 billion of external debt. Difficult negotiations with international banking institutions continued for years. They were prolonged for political reasons.”
“Virtually every communist system extinct or surviving at one point or anther, had a supreme leader who was both extraordinarily powerful and surrounded by a bizarre cult, indeed worship. In the past (or in a more traditional contemporary societies) such as cults were reserved for deities and associated with conventional religious behaviour and institutions. These cults although apparently an intrinsic part of communist dictatorships (at any rate at a stage in their evolution) are largely forgotten today.”
“ Stalin, Maio, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Sung, Enver Hoxha, Ceascesu, Dimitrov, Ulbricht, Gottwald, Tito and others all were the object of such cults. The prototypical cult was that of Stalin which was duplicated elsewhere with minor variations”
Referenced information from R. J. Rummel’s ‘Death by Government’. Rudolph Joseph Rummel is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii.
"Frank Waddams, a British representative who had lived outside of Belgrade, said he knew first hand of ten “concentration camps” and had talked with inmates from nearly all of them. “ The tale is always the same, he said “ Starvation, overcrowding, brutality and death condition, which make Dachau and Buchenwald mild by comparison. Many Slovenes who were released from Dachau at the end of the war came home only to find themselves in a Slovene camp within a few days. It is from these people that the news has come that the camps are worse than Dachau.” Out of a Slovene population of 1,200,000, Waddams believes that 20,000 to 30,000 were imprisoned."
The above clearly shows the inner workings of Josip Broz Tito and his government post WW2. The Wikipedic article does not mention such things. If it had done so it would show a more balanced and modern view of history. Sir Floyd ( talk) 10:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
The bold is to highlight what is missing in the Wikipedia’s Encyclopedic Article. It’s not to make the individual Josip look good or bad.
Referenced from www. britannica.com Sir Floyd ( talk) 00:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
BBC History
Written by
Tim Judah
Referenced from www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/yugoslavia_03.shtml Published: 2003-02-04
Tim Judah has written articles published in The Guardian and BBC News. Sir Floyd ( talk) 01:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
pennyharrold
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).