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At articles like Karl von Habsburg, we're seeing things like this in the infobox:

Spouse: Baroness Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza (m. 1993)
Issue:
 Archduchess Eleonore
 Archduke Ferdinand
 Archduchess Gloria

and similar things throughout the article.

Note: archduke titles removed on Karl von Habsburg, other articles still have this problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Southern Lights ( talk • contribs) 04:29, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

This is a problem under all of at least WP:BLP, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:ABOUTSELF, WP:SOAPBOX, and more. These titles are not only not used by these people, they are actually illegal to be used by most of them (other than some of those who have moved, to places that don't care), and for most of these people we have no evidence they actually attempt to use such titles, so we should not be imposing them on these subjects. These titles are basically a fantasy (and some of them appear to be "If this were still real, then so-and-so would have inherited this title from such-and-such" OR conducted by editors. The jurisdictions and legal systems in which they would be real ceased to exist around World War I or a bit later in most places, and countries like the UK where some of this sort of thing still exists do not automatically recognize such titles and honors and yadda yadda of alleged pretenders to extinct sovereignties.

There's a bit of a MOS:FICTION element here, too. For anyone from a deposed formerly royal family who does still assert and use such titles, styles, and honors (and there are a few of them running around; Karl von Habsburg's father was one of them), we have to be clear in our material that this is pretender stuff that most of the world does not take seriously (including people in non-deposed noble families in jurisdictions that still recognize nobility – except inasmuch as they may be looking for a "suitable" marriage partner, though even that stuff is drawing to a close as genetic effects inbreeding (including compounded cousin marriages) are well-studied now, and royal–commoner marriages like those in the recent British royal family have been accepted within those circles and by the public).

I'm not really sure if we just have a problem at a few dozen articles, or if there's a more systemic one that needs to be addressed in a guideline. I suspect the latter. E.g., when I look at List of current pretenders, I see a lot of entries that are people whom various WP editors believe (through various genealogy studies of their own) to be legitimate pretenders, but whom our articles (and more importantly, the reliable sources in them) do not indicate that they are in fact pretenders to (claimants of) the listed thrones, realms, titles, etc.

Let's look just at Karl von Habsburg: "Born a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, he does not use his ancestral titles, since the use of such titles is now illegal in both Hungary and Austria. ... In 1961, his father, Otto von Habsburg, renounced all claims to the Austrian throne, as a necessary legal condition to being allowed to return to Austria." (What part of "renounced" wasn't clear?) His family has been trying since the 1960s to regain seized assets including estates, but this is not the same thing as being pretenders to the throne and other noble titles and offices and powers. Otto is also the grand master of the Habsburg-Lorraine Order of St. George which is an internal house order of the family (i.e., a private club). It is not the Habsburg Order of St. George (est. 1469); it has only existed since 2008 or 2011 (sources conflict), simply as a means of promoting and awarding pan-Europeanism; and of the Austrian Order of the Golden Fleece, which is older but "an honour solely for Catholic royalty and nobility". So, this again is not the same as being a pretender to a throne or the asserter of a title like HI&RH Archduke, etc. The grand-mastering of these orders isn't really any different from chairing the board of directors of a charity or being the executive director of a learned society. It is not even issuance of historical chivalric titles as a pretender-sovereign. (In the first case, it's a recently invented private-sector award by the head of the Habsburg-Lorraine family to [any] recipients for international political do-gooding in the family's eyes, so it's not particularly different in nature from the Nobel Peace Prize or any other award from a family foundation. In the second case, it's simply an internal family matter, of nobles giving titles to related other nobles; it is a private club, albeit an old one and one which long ago meant something legally, under feudal class systems that have long since been abolished in the relevant jurisdictions.)

Much less does any of this stuff amount to an assertion that Karl von Habsburg's son Ferdinand Zvonimir von Habsburg is "Archduke Ferdinand" as our infoboxes are claiming; it's an assertion for which he could be criminally prosecuted. So where is this stuff coming from, and how do we weed it out?  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Although I don't have time to go into details, this is definitely a problem and one I have encountered too many times, including this month . I hadn't thought of the legal issue though. Doug Weller talk 07:54, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree that there is a systematic issue and a stench of OR around the area. That being said, royal genealogy is a thing and I'm pretty sure there are secondary sources in the area (e.g. Almanach de Gotha), so this is going to get into messy issues of reliability and dueness. The legal issue doesn't seem important though. The anti-dynastic laws might nominally still be on statute books, but they're as archaic and obscure as the claims themselves these days. -- RaiderAspect ( talk) 08:15, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Two minds, you cannot (in effect) lose an hereditary title, but if its not used by the holders why should we? Guess it goes back to if its not sourced its OR. Slatersteven ( talk) 08:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, we can cite and attribute. E.g., "According to the Almanach de Gotha, Pübertus von Dorff is technically the duke of Elbonia by birth, though the duchy was constitutionally abolished in 1893", or whatever. And leave it at that, to the extent practicable. The WP:DUE part in is the latter; various editors are instead dwelling on the noble-family stuff and the dubious title-mongering (which is often something that the subjects themselves are not actually engaged in). And one can lose a hereditary title, in all but a silly personal-fiction sense, if the entitlement to which it refers was abolished or was renounced (both of these conditions apply simultaneously to the von Habsburgs), or successfully usurped. For much better material, see our articles on the current British royal family; they are primarily of Battenberg stock, and renounced their German entitlements a couple of generations ago in order to marry into what remained of the then-current British royal family (which itself was already German-dominated via Nassau, Hanover, Saxe-Coburg, Teck, and other lineages). We are – correctly – not implying that they still have those German titles and styles. But those are very-watchlisted articles, at which more sensible, knowledgeable, and policy-cognizant editors restrain the excesses of overenthusiastic amateur heraldry-mongers. I consider the article Ferdinand Zvonimir von Habsburg a Wikipedia embarrassment. This should be an article about a race-car driver, with a quick mention in a "Personal life" section of his noble-family background. Instead, it's a royal-chaser OR pile, that incidentally gets into his professional career at the bottom of the article kind of as an afterthought. This is unfortunately not a one-off problem.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:27, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Minor points: I don't believe anyone has ever been prosecuted under the various laws banning noble title - not since the French Revolution anyway. I might be wrong, are there examples? Also there is afaik no "Nassau" component at all close to the British royal line - if you are thinking of William & Mary (no, not the college), they had no children. There may well be something much more remote. Not that they are German anyway. Johnbod ( talk) 01:56, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone has suffered any legal blowback from this stuff either, but it's certainly statutorily possible in some places. But that's not really the point, which is that we know that various people we're putting these labels on not only aren't making such claims (in some cases because they live in places where doing so would be unlawful), they have in some cases explicitly renounced such titles (either personally themselves, or had a recent ancestor do so, which precludes our subject renewing such a claim anyway). That is, it's Wikipedians (and some bloggers and low-end journalists cribbing from Wikipedia) who are sticking these titles onto such people as Ferdinand Habsburg. There's a WP:CIRCULAR problem happening here, on top of the central OR/NPoV/BLP/ABOUTSELF/IDENTITY issue. Good point about William and Mary; I'd forgotten their line ended.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time finding sources that refer to von Habsburg's children using the titles. If the terms are not their legal titles anymore, and the titles are not in widespread use according to reliable sources, then I don't see the justification for including them. Eleonore von Habsburg's page seems to deal with the issue more appropriately than the unsourced footnote in Ferdinand Zvonimir von Habsburg, but the uses in the infoboxes are not supported by any of the articles from what I can see, including the children's infoboxes referring to their father. If the use of the titles is not appropriate for the lead of the article, then it is not appropriate in the infoboxes. – wallyfromdilbert ( talk) 16:09, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

• A lot depends on WHERE we are including the title. I don’t have an problem with including a brief mention of the “title” in the body of the text... as long as the historical context of the title can be explained. It certainly should not be used in the article title, or the infobox, as if it were extant. Blueboar ( talk) 20:28, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
• Just from looking at the Karl von Habsburg article, this is clearly an issue. He's labeled as "Archduke of Austria, Royal Prince of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia" in the infobox, but he's not. There is no Archduke of Austria, no Prince of Hungary, Bohemia, or Croatia. He's certainly notable on his own merits, but all these titles are nonsense. They should be mentioned in the article, but only as historical curiosities. Red Rock Canyon ( talk) 04:10, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

  Red Rock Canyon, and the bogus navbox needs to go. Guy ( help!) 10:04, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

• In theory, current policy is clear that these titles should not be used (OR, BLP, ect.) That said, this problem is rampant. I have noticed some editors whose only contributions are jamming as many honorifics and titles into articles (especially infoboxes), regardless of factual accuracy. If we can get by without making more policy or guidelines, great, but I think this is a problem that current guidelines could be more direct with. I think it would be beneficial to add a single line to the relevant MOS explicitly stating not to attach theoretical titles to pretenders, but they can be discussed in the article if relevant. That way, when someone inevitably comes along trying to add theoretical titles, they can easily be pointed to the specific line of MOS, as opposed to requiring other editors and admins to explain via broader Wikipedia policies why theoretical titles shouldn't be included. On a similar topic, British courtesy titles are frequently used incorrectly; numerous individuals who never took their courtesy title are being assigned one in their Wikipedia articles. Not pretenders, but they come under a similar umbrella. Editing with Eric ( talk) 14:53, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

  Editing with Eric, I will take this up with my school chum Chez HIN HRH The Colonel Count Sir JSJ Tye-Motörhead Neasel. Yes, he really did style himself thus. Guy ( help!) 21:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

  Good point about courtesy titles. You're right that it's technically different, though posing some similar OR/ABOUTSELF/etc. problems on WP.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• @ SMcCandlish: Would you agree to remove "von", "Archduke" from article titles, first sentences and infoboxes? I think that would be a good start. I've noticed that both Karl Habsburg and Ferdinand Zvonimir Habsburg's German WP pages drop "von", etc., which would be in accordance with their legal names as they were born in Austria/are Austrian residents. The only counter-argument I can think of is WP:COMMONNAME. Daß  Wölf 00:53, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think we'd blanket remove von and the like (van, de, etc. – varies by country/language) from articles of this sort, but should do so on a case-by-case basis, when there's compelling evidence that 1. the subject has dropped it, and 2. sources usually don't use it. While back when Germany and culturally related countries had formal nobility, von conveyed something specific (and legally regulated), for many people today it's just part of their name. That's probably surely less true in Germany, Austria, etc., than in somewhere like the US, Canada, Australia, etc., of course, but some of the original countries still have nobility (e.g. Liechtenstein). And for all I know, use of von or an equivalent might actually be legally banned or otherwise regulated in one jurisdiction but not another. (This isn't my area of expertise; I'm just tired of all the North American and British/Commonwealth "royal fanwanking" leading to shameless OR in our articles. It's an "If even I know this is bullshit ..." kind of situation.)

  In the case of Ferdinand Habsburg, the von should definitely be removed at least from the title (and probably also the lead, barring evidence that it's his legal birth name, or whatever). He doesn't use von, and sources mostly don't use it [1], so it fails various aspects of WP:COMMONNAME, WP:NOR, WP:ABOUTSELF, MOS:IDENTITY, and WP:BLP. Similarly, we know for a fact that Karl Habsburg renounced the Austrian title, so this archduke stuff cannot apply to him in later life, nor to his son (at all). Honestly, it's kind of weird to me that this has even come up. It's comparable to still referring to Edward, Duke of Windsor, as "King Edward VIII" after he abdicated and became governor of the Bahamas, and calling Wallis Simpson "Queen Wallis" on the basis that the wife of that king must be a queen. It makes almost exactly the same kind of confused not-sense as calling Ferdinand Habsburg the archduke today just because his father was at one time the archduke and Ferdinand is the eldest son. Gaaahhh ....
   —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

  I was actually talking specifically about Austria, which is where the people you mentioned are from. Austria blanket banned all nobility titles (including von) after WWI (except for a short period around Anschluss), see Habsburg Law. While people who would have been nobility if it hadn't been for this law are occasionally referred to by their titles, (some more often than others, e.g. Herbert von Karajan) this is irregular and controversial. I doubt that von is on the birth certificate of any of these people who are still living and were born in Austria. Daß  Wölf 20:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

  I've just seen this discussion. I totally agree that the practice of working out who would be king or prince or duchess etc of abolished monarchies and calling them by those titles on WP is absurd and wrong. I tried to deal with this, which is on thousands of articles, years back, but met fierce opposition and gave up. You can see the discussion on the talk page of the absurdly titled Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia. His name does not have a comma in it and he isn't a prince, [2] if you look at his article in the German WP [3] it doesn't go into any of the ludicrous folderol that there is here, with a box on the "Prussian royal family" listing loads of people with nonexistent honorifics and titles. It should all be removed, everywhere on WP. User:SMcCandlish, User:Doug Weller, are you doing anything about this problem? Happy to help! Smeat75 ( talk) 13:30, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  @ Smeat75: would that I could. I'm sorry Smeat, but my watchlist has gone crazy with India-Pakistan-Afghanistan ethnic warring, AP, etc. I'm finding no time to do article building and it's annoying. Doug Weller talk 14:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• User:SMcCandlish mentions above the article List of current pretenders, truly mind-boggling stuff. The first sentence says A pretender is an aspirant or claimant to a monarchy that has either been abolished or suspended, or is occupied by another. Are these people really all so deluded that they are pretending or aspiring or claiming to be Kings or rulers of non-existent monarchic states? I don't believe most of them are claiming or aspiring or pretending anything, genealogists or somebody work out who would be in that position had it not been abolished and label these individuals as such. I think those are all WP:BLP violations unless there is a reliable source somewhere that says "So and so has stated that he pretends to be, or aspires to be, or claims to be, King Whotsis of the Two Sicilies" or whatever. That list labels Franz, Duke of Bavaria as the Jacobite pretender to the thrones of England and Scotland but when you look at the article on this person it says Were it not for the Act of Settlement 1701, Franz would be the successor to the British crowns of the House of Stuart. This is not a claim he has advanced, however. So this guy knows how silly this is, apparently, and doesn't claim or aspire to or pretend anything and yet List of current pretenders labels him the Jacobite pretender to the thrones of England and Scotland. Look at the German version of the article on that person - [4] - it doesn't call him a Duke. When German noble titles were abolished holders were allowed to legally change their last names to their title so his name is "Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria Herzog von Bayern", Herzog von Bayern means "Duke of Bavaria" but that isn't a title, it is his last name. So why does the English WP translate his name, we never translate people's last names, and put a comma in it so that it comes out "Franz, Duke of Bavaria"? It's just incorrect. The German article on him does not have a box marked "Bavarian royal family" and give a long list of people with fancy honorifics "HRH' this that and the other. Taking a name at random from that list HRH The Margravine of Meissen it redirects to Gisela, Margravine of Meissen where the article just says she is two different kinds of princesses, (no she isn't) who her parents were, who she is related to, her marriage and her children and that she went to a wedding once, apparently the only even remotely notable thing she ever did. It also says "she is the Margravine of Meissen" and when you click on that you see that Margraves of Meissen have not existed since 1547! there are hundreds, maybe thousands of articles on EN WP like this of people who only have articles about them because they would have some royal position if it still existed. So absurd and this seems to be a problem specifically with English WP, the other language versions don't include such stuff so much. Are we going to do anything about this? Smeat75 ( talk) 13:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

  Wow, this is even worse than I thought. I'm not even sure how to begin policing this. There's a wikiproject devoted to this sort of thing, but it's a near certainty that participants in that project are the source of the problem.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:42, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

  At this point, I think a WP:VPPOL RfC might be the best bet, using a lot of examples from this thread. While WP:NPOV can often reach a decision on a small matter, it's not very good at spurring action. But everyone and their dog are watchlist VPPOL, so a clear result there should interest various people in collectively doing some cleanup on this mess. It's too big a job for just a couple of editors to try to take on. I certainly don't have the time for it in the current crisis. I barely have time to answer a few pings.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:11, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for responding User:SMcCandlish. I left a message on your talk page. Please try to set up a WP:VPPOL RfC on this issue, you know how to phrase and format these things, I don't. RaiderAspect, Slatersteven, Johnbod, User:Daß Wölf Blueboar, wallyfromdilbert, Guy,anybody who reads this, please watch for these discussions, join in and help if you can. Thanks Smeat75 ( talk) 23:35, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

As I said in user talk, yes, I can do it, but my time is pressed right now. The issue reported here has been a problem for a long time, so taking a while longer to get to it isn't going to break anything. Someone else might want to run with this before I get around to it, though. Part of it is also have little stomach for drama right now, so even if I had the time to write this up, I'm not inclined to do it at present.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:43, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Smeat75, what the ever-loving fuck? That counted Franz, Duke of Bavaria as "pretender" to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. From the linked article:

• Franz is a direct descendant of the House of Stuart. Were it not for the Act of Settlement 1701, Franz would be the successor to the British crowns of the Stuart kings. ^[1] His spokesman has, however, made it clear that this is a purely 'hypothetical' issue ^[1] and not a claim which Franz pursues. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]}

  So, were it not for the thing that has been recognised as the settled law for 320 years, he would hypothetically be a rival claimant to the thrones, but has no intention of ever pressing such a claim, nor would it have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

  That is one of the most egregious examples of synthesis I can recall seeing in a Wikipedia article. Guy ( help!) 18:12, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

  • Yes, the people who care about such issues seem to live in an alternate reality. Try and remove "Franz, Duke of Bavaria" from List of current pretenders and watch what happens. "Pretender" is just the term these monarchy obsessed people use to mean, in this case, "the person who would be monarch if the Stuarts were still on the throne". The actual person doesn't have to pretend or claim or aspire to anything, and in this case has made clear he doesn't, it won't make any difference, they will insist on calling him "the pretender." Smeat75 ( talk) 18:49, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Bah, what a mess. I'm sorry I don't have much energy to help deal with it myself, either. I think that if reliable sources mention that X would be King of Elbonia had the monarchy not been abolished, then we could note that in article-body text, but giving them that title in the infobox (etc), especially if they don't use it, is iffy (is it synth? is it just undue cruft? eh). I'm also not entirely opposed to there being a list of people who would be kings if their kingdoms had not been abolished etc, if there are reliable sources for that concept and the entries, as opposed to it being synth; whether it can be called a list of "pretenders" depends on whether that term is regularly used by sources even for people who don't actively "pretend" (it might be). -sche ( talk) 17:03, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

It is very frustrating to me to see all these comments "that ridiculous stuff should be removed " but no one is trying to remove any of it. I almost wish I had never seen this thread. I can't try to do anything about it by myself, that didn't work before and wouldn't work now. I forced myself to stop thinking about all these absurd and incorrect articles about fake royals seven years ago and will try to do so again unless and until SMcCandlish or someone else starts an RfC about it. Smeat75 ( talk) 20:36, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

• I believe the legal issues are not on point unless the subject themselves is putting the label on. Nobody is going to be arresting anyone for violating the law not to call themselves a royal title if someone else is doing so. Until a bonafide law enforcement agency files papers asking or ordering Wikimedia to desist hosting such content, I think the legal issues should be left to be as theoretical as all these titles. As for the titles themselves, it would probably be better to address things from the other end and get better rules for justifying all titles in a way that makes the use of pretender titles to be easily distinguishable and with a limiting rule. A good limiting rule would be the existence of a bonafide restorationist movement that actually is seeking to put the system the title derives from back into the business of ruling territory. TMLutas ( talk) 19:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The people who write and maintain these articles about people who would be holders of a royal position had it not been abolished, will say that those titles are not theoretical. They also say that governments can't abolish such titles, they exist independently of governments, or something, I never really understood their way of thinking, if that's what it is. The only arguments they use that ever made any sense to me were WP:RS or WP:COMMONNAME, ie, look here's this royalist handbook that says so and so is still His or Her Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke or Archduchess Whatever and here's proof that people still call them that, so it is their name by COMMONNAME. And they will argue your arm off about it. Smeat75 ( talk) 19:30, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I've developed an unexpectedly strong opinion on this topic after reading this discussion and the Talk pages for the various people linked above. For several of these pages, the issue would be solved by just deleting them for non-notability. For the rest, I think it would be best if there was a policy change that explicitly addresses assignment of styles and titles when they have been abdicated or renounced by individuals, have been abolished by the issuing states, are constitutionally banned by states, are from defunct polities, or are hypothetical/OR. And I would certainly support any RfC or policy change proposal from SMcCandlish, Smeat75, or anyone else here. JoelleJay ( talk) 23:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Glad to hear it JoelleJay. I tried to have some of the utterly ridiculous articles in this area, like "HRH Duke or Princess Somebody or Another", the small child or teenaged offspring of the person who is the brother of the person who would be the king if there still were one, deleted on grounds of notability several years ago, but all these royalty fans or whatever they are ganged up and prevented any deletions. I can't deal with this by myself and there comes a point when you think "it's not worth wasting any more of my life attempting to deal with this trivia." SMcCandlish knows how to try to change policy and how to set up RfC's, I don't, we have to hope that he or someone else who is used to dealing with these kinds of things will take it up, I usually write articles about music. I think the model for EN WP should be the German and French wikipedias, they have articles on the most important of these people, the ones who actually would be the monarch if there still were one, but not on all their relatives, they don't call them by their (non-existent) titles, they don't use fancy honorifics and emblazon their pages with heraldry. Let's all try to stay in touch, anybody who wants to try to deal with these delusional articles about fake "royals" is welcome to communicate on my talk page. Smeat75 ( talk) 00:34, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

What we call people can be handled perfectly well by the WP:COMMONNAME policy. Emperor Norton, Queen Latifah, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, Princess Nokia, Princess Superstar, Prince Narula, Duke Albrecht, Princess Maria-Olympia, whatever tickles the fancy of reliable sources. It is not up to Wikipedia to judge whether Queen Latifah has the right to be called a queen. The problem here is the immense number of biographies in which no common name can be ascertained because there is no coverage. Articles such as Duchess Elisabeth of Württemberg (b. 1933) and Karl-Konstantin von Habsburg should not be renamed but deleted. They are nothing but genealogy. Surtsicna ( talk) 22:44, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, there is a huge problem with users attributing claims to people. Here we had a living individual listed as the pretender to an imperial throne without any source stating that the person does claim that title. Apparently people do not understand how serious that is. Someone went along and named Uma Thurman's mother Baroness Nena von Schlebrügge. Neither she nor reliable sources use that title. It is a case of monkey see, monkey do: people see titles attributed to actors, politicians, and other people who do not use the said titles and they just go ahead and attribute titles to other people. Ahnentafeln have spread the same way; suddenly every article must have them despite general biographies never including that stuff. This mess should be untangled ruthlessly. Surtsicna ( talk) 23:34, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

This thread: “The law. Hungary is a Republic and deposed its royal family a hundred years ago and legally it doesn’t recognise titles so there can’t be any Princes, therefore Wikipedia can’t possibly call this Habsburg a Prince” (even though that’s what a load of verifiable sources do) An alternative way to look at this thread “The law. Hungary legally doesn’t allow a person to change their birth gender so that Wikipedia article on that Hungarian who was born a woman but now identifies as a man must be called a woman on Wikipedia because that’s what the Hungarian law says there gender is, so Wikipedia can’t possibly call her a him” (even though that’s what a load of verifiable sources do. But in all seriousness there is a really simple straightforward answer already out there, Wikipedia:Article titles, Wikipedia:Reliable sources (which apparently gets thrown at the Editors with the law/reality on their side whether it’s a fake royal they are tackling or a fake Hungarian man/woman (because hey the law is the law right, Wikipedia must bend over no questions asked to a countries laws) - it’s always the identity of the minority groups that get erased sadly Royal, noble, transgender etc. What is disturbing here though is a lot of people would appear to want to disregard policy and cook up some random fairy tale naming conventions and rules solely for members of deposed Royal Families because it’s the law of X country. So in the unenlightened, regressive outside world people will read about a “ Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece”, they will come on Wikipedia and find an article about what exactly, a Miss Maria-Olympia Glücksburg or whatever made up nonsense the progressive, enlightened Wikipedia Editors have cooked up by ignoring their own policies to serve their own agendas. I’ve got no problem with an article called Karl von Habsburg (mentioned right at the top of the thread), that would appear to be his common name I’m not insisting he be called Emperor Karl II of Austria, or Karl, Archduke of Austria, Archduke Karl von Habsburg (which is actually quite common) because I respect WP policies not just when it suits me, can everyone in this thread say the same? - dwc lr ( talk) 23:18, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Please don’t attempt to lump royals and nobles into the same identity struggle as transgender people again. That’s utterly ridiculous. — MarkH₂₁ ^talk 12:09, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Related issues raised at WT:NCROY

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)#Pretenders and defunct titles, a closely related thread (though confined necessarily to page-title matters, while the above is more about in-article content).  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Other related threads

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

• Talk:Princess Marie-Françoise of Bourbon-Parma#Requested move 25 May 2020
• Talk:Prince Antônio of Orléans-Braganza#Requested move 26 May 2020
• Talk:Grandchildren of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha#Requested move 25 May 2020
• Talk:List of current pretenders#Requested move 27 May 2020

 —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:17, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Does the Praise & Criticism section contain editorializing?

Does the Praise & Criticism section contain poor writing?

Is the sourcing in the Praise & Criticism section unreliable?

Are the topics chosen in the Praise & Criticism section worthy of inclusion?

/info/en/?search=Talk:Jacobin_(magazine) BuilderJustLikeBob ( talk) 00:55, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

• Note that this is a copypaste of an RfC on the article talkpage. Please respond there, not here. Bishonen | tålk 12:30, 6 June 2020 (UTC).

People who watched Tiger King may recall Doc Antle, and probably would not be surprised that a great deal of the sourcing about Antle following the documentary has been critical (other than the sources about how he was unhappy with how critical the series was). Our article, however, seems to have some PR work going on, with a whole section of primary sourced conservation work and critical language reframed. It's not something I have the capacity to work on at the moment, but I figured there are enough people into those related articles that posting here might attract the necessary attention. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Please, review the Paleolithic_diet article. The article's opening section seems to imply the diet is highly (entirely) flawed, yet, the article contents both support and refute the diet.

I suggest removing "mistakenly" from "mistakenly assumed".

The phrase "mistakenly assume" (in the article's opening section) is redundant or incorrect. Any assumption is, by definition, not proven. Thus, until proven, the assumption has the potential to be either a mistake or correct. It's the same as a theory upon which scientific research is based. If the assumption is proven wrong then the phrase "mistakenly assume" is redundant. If the assumption is proven correct then the phrase "mistakenly assume" is a contradiction. I'd suggest "mistakenly" be removed from the phrase so as not to bias the reader with hyperbole.

Please notice, too, that other editors were concerned with using the phrase "fad diet" in the opening sentence.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Liberty5651 ( talk) 22:30, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Jumping straight into criticism seems WP:UNDUE. In my view, the order of the second and third paragraphs should be swapped, so as to give context to the criticism. "Fad diet" and "mistakenly assume" seem well sourced. But perhaps "Supporters of the diet . . ." can be changed to something like "Many supporters of the diet. . ." given that no source can confirm every single supporter's views. HappyWanderer15 ( talk) 01:38, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• The paleo diet is nonsense. Our article says why. This is not a problem. Guy ( help!) 12:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Center for Countering Digital Hate ( | visual edit | history) · Article talk ( | history) · Watch

User:The Anome could use some help. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 07:40, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@ Hob Gadling: Thank you! Any help would be much appreciated. -- The Anome ( talk) 07:43, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Huh. Should have seen that coming, I guess. Watchlisted. Guy ( help!) 08:07, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Edward Colston was the C17/18 merchant and slave owner trader whose statue in Bristol was torn down recently. The disagreement between editors is whether he should be described as a "philanthropist" in the opening paragraph. He gave money to causes he supported, and in the past has been described as a "philanthropist" in many biographies and on the plaque on the monument itself - but there is a strong view among some editors, myself included, that he should not be described neutrally, in Wikipedia's voice, as a "philanthropist" now. Comments and thoughts from disinterested editors are welcome. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 15:33, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

The sources given to support "philanthropist" include the ODNB; historicengland.org (which describes him as "Bristol's most famous philanthropist, now also noted for his involvement in the slave trade."); and Gardiner, Juliet (2000). The History Today Who's Who In British History. which per what other editors say, 'begins "slave-trader and philanthropist" and concludes: "His life demonstrates how it was possible for the morally righteous to play leading roles in the slave trade while elsewhere pursuing good works."'. Since this was improperly notified on article talk: @ Sufcmad, DeFacto, The Land, and Deb: hopefully I didn't miss anyone? RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 15:41, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Note also that this is being discussed on the article talk page and there's already a rather long thread there (/*Introduction) so maybe one of them should be closed as WP:FORUMSHOP to avoid splitting the discussion? RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 15:55, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Its reasonable to post a notice here, but I agree the discussion should not be split between multiple forums or threads. Slatersteven ( talk) 16:00, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• To quote Ghmyrtle, "[Colston] gave money..." that makes someone a philanthropist. Cassianto ^Talk 15:53, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

contribs) 15:41, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - This arose in the context of a rewrite of the introduction to the article on Colston following the recent Statue of Edward Colston. My particular concern was to reflect the way Colston is now regarded in the city and elsewhere, which has changed significantly over the past thirty years. In 2018, the local authority tried to address this by adding a reference to the slave trade on a plaque attached to the statue. However, the plaque was not placed because of a general unease about the proposed wording, which included the words "benefactor" and "philanthropy". My view is that we should be sensitive to the current climate by making it clear that, although Colston was for centuries regarded as a philanthropist, he is not regarded in the same light now (as the article makes clear), and I therefore proposed that the introduction should say "he came to be regarded as a philanthropist", rather than that he was one. User:DeFacto considers this to be "weasel wording" and asked me to explain what was the problem with the word "philanthropist", which I did. I thought that I had consensus for the change, but as soon as I amended the wording, DeFacto altered it. I don't mind it being altered if there is consensus to do so, but I do not agree that the change is unnecessary. Deb ( talk) 16:03, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
• WP:PRESENTISM. At the time, and why he was honored with a statue then, was from his philanthropy. That now we have considered that his money that he used in that was build off slave trade which over the past decades and very much more recently has became a taboo thing should not reflect how he was historically seen to start. A "legacy" section (maybe not best term) can be added though to talk about modern reflection on that there's rethinking if he really was as "good" a person as when the statue was erected. But we should not be wiping out how he had been historically seen for more than decades by historians. -- Masem ( t) 16:04, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Well, here you go - here's someone who agrees with you: [5] Deb ( talk) 16:06, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Deb, please keep politics out of this. Has there been a link to Karl Marx when talking to you? No. Get a grip. Cassianto ^Talk 16:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
      • I gave you a source, that's all. Why start a slanging match over it? Deb ( talk) 18:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
• What Masem said. Cassianto ^Talk 16:11, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• As I see it, he was literally a philanthropist ("A person who seeks to promote the welfare of others, especially by the generous donation of money to good causes.") [6]. It isn't disputed that he donated a large proportion of his accumulated wealth to charities, particularly in the city of Bristol, England and reliable sources use the word when describing him (see above). To try to water down his past role now, because he has over the last few days been reviled in the press, feels like whitewashing and recentism. -- DeFacto ( talk). 16:12, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

He may have sought to promote the welfare of some others who followed his particular beliefs, but he certainly didn't promote the welfare of those he trafficked as slaves. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 16:36, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

He contributed charitably to a lot of organisations in Bristol, agreed? He also traded slaves, agreed? So he did both things; now simply because he did one doesn't mean we should not mention the other... As I said, the only "opinion" that matters here is that of reliable sources (such as those I quoted in the first reply above), and they unanimously say that he was both of those things... RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 16:39, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I would be perfectly happy with a wording in the introduction that said that he donated substantial sums of money for charitable causes in Bristol. That is what I did in this edit. So, that is not the issue. The issue is on some editors' insistence on describing him as a "philanthropist" - which has wider implications of, essentially, being a worthy person - rather than using any of the other, more neutral, descriptions that could be used. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 16:48, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, PRESENTISM. Historically he has been described as a philanthropist. That today that many do not feel that term applies is a reasonable fact/assertion to include somewhere but you can't wipe the historical record away of how he was seen at the time he lived or in the many decades that followed. -- Masem ( t) 17:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Ghmyrtle, "... he donated substantial sums of money for charitable causes in Bristol" - for that, read "philanthropy". Cassianto ^Talk 17:23, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Cassianto, or read "charitable giving", which would be far less emotive. Deb ( talk) 18:49, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

...which is...er...philanthropy? Cassianto ^Talk 19:17, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Ghmyrtle, slavery, as barbaric as it is now, and in my opinion, has always been, existed and was accepted 250 years ago. You cannot rewrite history. Cassianto ^Talk 17:18, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

There are two ways of covering this. Either we say that in the past he was regarded as a philanthropist - that's fine - or we say that he donated money for good causes in Bristol - that's fine. No-one is arguing against including one or both of those statements in the introduction. But, there is no reason to be fixated on the use of a single word - philanthropist - which, like it or not, is now seen as having wider connotations and can no longer be used as a neutral descriptor of him. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 17:28, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

By whom is it seen as having connotations? Certainly not by the ODNB or other reliable sources. If you have a problem with it, fine, but your opinion is not what matters for WP:NPOV. He wasn't "regarded as a philanthropist in the past"; since that's not what reliable sources say, so we write what they actually say (see my first post above) and not what amounts to modern WP:PRESENTISM and revisionism. Leaving a statement that he is a controversial figure (as already done) seems fully appropriate. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 17:32, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Ghmyrtle, I beg to differ, but it is you who is fixated on the word "philanthropy", no one else. Shall we do away with "slave trader" too? Leaving that in skews towards negativity, which isn't very neutral. I tell you what, sod it, if you want total neutrality, let's delete the article altogether? That's about as neutral as you can get. Or how about push the darn thing into a lake to hide history? That, if I'm not mistaken, is what you want to do here, hide the good and focus on the bad. Cassianto ^Talk 17:40, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@ Ghmyrtle: not matter how often you rinse and repeat the same argument, he was still a philanthropist, so the article should say exactly that. See my reply when you last made exactly the same point for my reasons. -- DeFacto ( talk). 17:48, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

History regularly gets rewritten Cassianto. That is why at least two schools have ditched the name Colston and why the Colston Hall will be renamed before the Fall. He was a big donor/"benefactor"/sugar patron, that's clear. Philanthropist, in the sense "lover of all humanity", that is less clear. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:34, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

SashiRolls, I disagree; history is written and you cannot change it. You can change the future, but not the past. History cannot be forgotten or ignored. The oxymoron is that history exists. This discussion seeks to hide Colston's philanthropy because it doesn't fit the 2020 narrative. That is wrong. Cassianto ^Talk 18:44, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, there's been a fight going on about that very old plaque (1905ish if I remember correctly) for years. Synonyms like "donor" or "local benefactor" might make everyone happy.— Preceding unsigned comment added by SashiRolls ( talk • contribs) 18:52, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Cassianto - No-one is trying to hide the fact that he gave money for charitable causes - quite the reverse. What is needed is a description of that activity in neutral terms. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 19:10, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Ghmyrtle, I didn't say that; I said you're trying to hide his "philanthropy". If you are now saying that "philanthropy" and "giving money to charitable causes" amounts to the same thing, then what's the point of all this bruh-ha? Cassianto ^Talk 19:30, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Oppose any change suggested here, I am not going to try and follow 15 separate threads. Slatersteven ( talk) 16:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Modern attitudes to this sort of thing dont alter the historical facts, just our attitudes to this sort of thing, sorry. Colston has always been a slave trader and philanthropist, and our attitude to slavery now should not colour our recording of the details. I have one of the affected articles on my watchlist, and make no apology for my edits to the lead of that one. Also, what MASEM and Cassianto said. - Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 17:16, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

This is also wp:notforum. Slatersteven ( talk) 17:48, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

"Edward Colston was a slave trader who invested much of his wealth in philanthropic efforts, particularly for the benefit of his native Bristol, where he also served as an MP." is a very nice compromise I think. The key to neutrality is not applying value judgements, it is about letting the reader make up their own mind about what they think of such a man now, in the 21st Century. Krypto Wallace ( talk) 18:18, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@ Krypto Wallace: But that's not what the sources (see, again, my first post above, since apparently nobody noticed it) say (how much of his wealth he made from slaves and how much he made from other more mundane affairs is unclear); and the purpose of WP is not "letting the reader make up their own mind" but report what reliable sources think of the matter, even if it doesn't match up with what our personal view of "neutrality" is. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 18:23, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that description of neutrality comes directly from the people who created Wikipedia. It stuck in my mind because it is the reason the article on Hitler doesn't say he was a bad man, it just describes what he did. I doubt there are any sources that contradict my wording on that score, he traded slaves and used the money for philanthropic causes. Draw your own conclusions, no commentary required. Detailing exactly how much money he made from slaves, is going to be mere detail, since it obviously wasn't a non-trivial amount. Krypto Wallace ( talk) 18:35, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's because WP:NPOV is part of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia. Saying that someone is/was "a bad man" isn't informative and doesn't help our readers. For the record, neither dodes Britannica describe Hitler as "a bad man" (the only mention of "bad" or "evil" comes when they paraphrase Hitler's antisemitic views), since it is written in the style of a scholarly work, like Wikipedia should be. @ SashiRolls: "philanthropist", while it might be etymologically traced to the meaning you give, does not actually mean that (see the Cambridge Dictionary for what it actually means) and neither did it mean that back when Colston was alive. Changing this simply because it offends modern sensibilities is WP:PRESENTISM. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 18:52, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

What are you disputing then? What sources supposedly contradict my wording (and more importantly, why, if not simply because they are dated). He traded slaves and did philanthropy off the back of it. Historical facts, perfectly neutral. Potential bad/good man conclusions are certainly offered by this merely descriptive text, depending on your moral compass, but are certainly not given. No other route to go, without addressing the problem of whether "philanthropist" is offered in the introduction here and now as a value judgement, not a description. Krypto Wallace ( talk) 19:46, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

But reliable sources such as the ODNB (which is undoubtedly neutral) use this term as a descriptive without any worries bout "value judgement". If the ODNB doesn't have a problem, then I don't see why Wikipedia should. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 19:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, yes. Lots of robber barons have become philanthropists... especially if they're heirless as Colston was. Personally, don't care much. "Local benefactor" is possibly more accurate than philanthropist (he was also apparently fairly particular about which local projects he would fund (unsurprising given that Wesley was lobbying against slavery (slight anachronism))... maybe I'll find the reference I read that talks about that and report back to the TP). -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 19:09, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Many bad people have been "philanthropists", and personally I dislike the fact that the English language has a word for a special category of charitable giving that is only attainable by the very rich. However, the word "philanthropist" is usually applied based on how much someone has given away and not the source of the funds, however unethical. The Land ( talk) 18:25, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

So you don't think we should include what most people think of him now? For example, this article is headed "How Bristol came to see the slave trader as a hero and philanthropist". Do you think we should add to the article that he was a hero? And if not, why not? Deb ( talk) 18:47, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Deb, "hero" verges on POV. I'm surprised you've felt inclined to ask that, if I'm honest. Cassianto ^Talk Cassianto ^Talk 19:33, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

That's exactly my point. Both "philanthropist" and "hero" are POV terms. If you are supporting one, then why not the other. Deb ( talk) 07:38, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Whilst "philanthropist" has the weight of reliable sources to support its use, it could be that "hero" has not. However, if it has, then it should be used too. -- DeFacto ( talk). 09:14, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Above I quoted two sources in which the accuracy of the term "philanthropist" is questioned. So why not just say that he made financial donations? Why get hung up on such a disputed word? Deb ( talk) 10:55, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Deb, I couldn't see which sources you meant in the above wall of text - please re-state. -- DeFacto ( talk). 11:26, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

There's this one and this one. It's not difficult to find others [7]. I accept that the sources may not be impartial ones, but they do make it clear that the description of Colston as a "philanthropist" is by no means universally accepted and is in fact rather controversial. Deb ( talk) 11:55, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@ Deb: they look more like moment-in-time click-bait-headlined political opinion pieces to me, rather than anything resulting from serious fact-checked research. -- DeFacto ( talk). 14:19, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't really see why that eliminates them from consideration. They are opinion pieces - someone's opinion - and I believe there are now a lot of people who find the continued use of the word "philanthropist" in relation to Colston insulting. Deb ( talk) 14:31, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Deb, it is you who is getting " hung up" on the use of the word philanthropist. Cassianto ^Talk 18:21, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Deb, sorry, philanthropist has a very clear meaning, as defined in the dictionary. "Hero" could mean anything and introduces ambiguity. Sure, this guy traded slaves, terrible, but he also did some good, the results of which defined the city of Bristol. It seems to be an alt-left-wing narrative that no matter what good someone has done in life, crimes against social justice by today's standards will always outweigh it. That seems to be the case here and that is not very balanced. Cassianto ^Talk 18:31, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Cassianto Three somewhat different definitions there, but in two of them, giving money is by no means an essential feature of a philanthropist. Deb ( talk) 19:18, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

But the fact is we should prefer more "serious" sources (such as the ODNB and the like, which apparently properly understand English and do not ascribe the incorrect "lover of humanity" meaning to the word "philanthropist). RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 14:34, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing incorrect about that. That's the literal meaning. It's the idea that simply giving money meets the definition of philanthropy that is inaccurate. Deb ( talk) 16:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

No, "lover of humanity" is the etymology. The following sources all give the meaning above; i.e.

"A person who seeks to promote the welfare of others, especially by the generous donation of money to good causes." Oxford and co.

"a person who helps the poor, especially by giving them money:" Cambridge

"A philanthropist is someone who freely gives money and help to people who need it. Collins

Whether people think it is positive or neutral, it is the wording used by neutral sources such as the ODNB and the others I mention above in my first post. Whatever other objections remain to the term appear to be WP:PRESENTISM. That, as some point in time he was considered a "philanthropist", is a fact, not an opinion. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 18:32, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

However, given how many times - before the last few weeks, that "philanthropist"/"philanthropy" and "Edward Colston" are used, its near unavoidable. I understand that the term generally carries a positive image with it, but it is a neutral word and that meaning is something people only read into it themselves. We shouldn't try to soften past terms that may seem wrong to use today. -- Masem ( t) 17:05, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

There is no argument over the fact that "at some point in time he was considered a "philanthropist"." But that does not mean that we need to describe him as a philanthropist now. We can say, "he was regarded as a philanthropist" in the 19th century, or whenever. That is more accurate and correct than using a disputed term to describe him as such in the 21st century. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 20:47, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem That sounds strange, surely Wikipedia should reflect the best of current knowledge, not reflect out-dated thinking. Why not use a perfectly good compromise term like Benefactor. Wikipedia neutral but still fairly positive. (Personally I think the term philanthropist is a bit over used term on Wikipedia, any well off generous celeb can get the term added to their lead). ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 21:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Is there an "English do-gooder" category? Has it been purged of any inadvertently admixed English givers or English humanity lovers? In fact I might have unwittingly swiped that term from the Wikiverse, come to think of it ... though in fairness reference #2 in the Edward Colston entry does use "benefact" 8 times. :) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 22:02, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I will also remind users to observe wp:npa, it dos not matter how right you are or how riotous your cause, comment on content not users. Slatersteven ( talk) 19:29, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Stick with philanthropist for the lead. It what he was, according to both the reliable sources and to any dictionary definition of the term. That doesn't stop him also being involved in the slave trade - the two were not mutually exclusive. The POV of editors over whether they consider him to be a philanthropist or not is neither here nor there: we go by what the sources say. Every time and without fail: use the sources. - SchroCat ( talk) 10:17, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The cult of Colston

The problem with many sources about Colston is that they are very biased, due to the Colston societies and other organizations such as the Society of Merchant Venturers promoting a biased view of him from at least the 19th century, Colston Day having been in effect a public holiday in Bristol since the 1720s.

This source: Ball, Roger (2018-10-14). "Myths within myths…Edward Colston and that statue". Bristol Radical History Group. Archived from the original on 2020-06-07. Retrieved 2020-06-10. contains the follow remarks:

The statue actually marks the high point of the reinvention of Colston as the ‘father of the city’ in the Victorian era.

Jordan’s point is that the historical figure of Colston was being reinvented in the Victorian period to represent the economic, social and political perspectives of the Bristol business elite.

Ritual commemoration, celebration and memorialisation of Edward Colston in the Victorian public domain were crucial to propagating both the elite concept of Colston and the belief that this concept was validated by long-standing tradition.

The organisations used for propagating this Victorian version of Colston were primarily the four charitable societies; the Dolphin, Anchor, Grateful and Colston (or Parent) Societies. Leading members of these associations were tied closely to other organisations of the Bristol elite such as the Society of Merchant Venturers.

So, when reading about Edward Colston, one must be careful to critically evaluate the source. Just because it's been published doesn't make it a WP:RS since so much of the published material is intentionally biased mythologising.

One must consider if the source is pro-Colston propaganda, written to promote the mythological view of him created in the 19th century? Or is the source reliable and neutral?

If a claim can be traced back to the intentionally biased Colston societies or the equally pro-Colston Society of Merchant Venturers, it should not be used unless it can also be attested to in a WP:RS, such as the work of a historian or other unbiased writer working independently of the pro-Colston organizations.

Michael F 1967 ( talk) 18:05, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@ Michael F 1967: I wonder how WP:RS-compliant that self-published content, hosted on a history reformation activists' website, is. -- DeFacto ( talk). 19:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

The Website belongs to a history project, of which that author is a member: it's not a self-published piece as you incorrectly claim. And it's far more reliable than any content published under the banner of the historical revisionists who created the false Victorian myth of Colston-as-virtuous-civic-minded-do-gooder.

My point there is that reliable sources tell us that the myth of Colston as a good man was made up in the 19th century by Bristol societies created in order to promote Colston, reliable sources also tell us that slave trading history has been swept under the carpet in this country for a long time now, and reliable sources tell us that some aspects of history do in fact need to be reinvestigated and - dare I say it? - corrected. So those working on reforming history are on the whole good people doing good work in good faith.

I suggest that a properly referenced work of history re-assessing existing views based on propaganda lies invented in the 19th century (as is the case with Colston) is indeed likely to count as a very reliable source. And that work is properly referenced.

If you think it's wrong, find a WP:RS which says so. If not, accept it without making unfounded insinuations against what seems to be a well referenced and reliable work created in good faith. Michael F 1967 ( talk) 19:24, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Insinuate? I was direct about my concern as to whether that website would be considered to be an WP:RS. Probably best to test it at WP:RSN. -- DeFacto ( talk). 07:16, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

The above points are why it's useful to make reference to the work of serious professional historians such as UWE's Professor Madge Dresser whose work does count as WP:RS, including the text developed for a proposed second plaque on the Bristol city centre Colston statue which was erected at the instigation of the Colston societies to promote their mythological view of the man. The source I cite above strongly suggests that the wording on the plaque attached to the statue: 'Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city' was a flat-out lie and known to be so by those promoting the statue. They knew perfectly well that he was a typical merchant of his time, cut-throat in his dealings and out for as much personal profit as he could get. Nothing fundamentally wrong with that: it was how things were done in the late 17th and early 19th century.

In fact, the idea for the statue came from James Arrowsmith, president of the Liberal dominated Anchor Society. Arrowsmith was a wealthy businessman who owned the largest printing and publishing company in the city. Despite his efforts, the citizens of Bristol proved unenthusiastic about funding the statue and it seems that Arrowsmith had to put up a very large fraction of the money himself.

More reliable sources such as this need to be referred to - by that, I mean sources such as the text of the plaque developed under the supervision of UWE historian Professor Madge Dresser cited here

Cork, Tristan (2018-08-23). "Row breaks out as Merchant Venturer accused of 'sanitising' Edward Colston's involvement in slave trade". Bristol Live. Reach plc. Archived from the original on 2020-06-07. Retrieved 2020-06-09. Dr Dresser said she disagreed with the third proposal, claiming it 'sanitised' the slave trade.

Whether the sources are biased or not, the simple fact that he was a philanthropist is mentioned in multiple independent sources. There is no use continuing wasting our time on a disputed plaque text which we`re not going to include in the article (it was rejected...). We probably shouldn't take either of the Victorian grandiose mythologizing or the modern 'no-quarters' approach in the article; simply mention both views, which I believe is already done. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 19:52, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm astonished that you think it doesn't matter if a source is biased. That point of view is antithetical to Wikipedia, which demands the use of reliable sources WP:RS; no matter how many biased sources make a claim, they should not be used. Michael F 1967 ( talk) 21:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Michael F 1967, per WP:BIASED, Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Schazjmd  (talk) 22:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting my mistaken impression. Still, if a source is biased, then that bias must be recognised and taken into account. Michael F 1967 ( talk) 22:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

The fact that multiple sources describe him as a philanthropist does not matter if those sources are not reliable sources - and how can anyone check that if you don't cite them? There is no use continuing wasting time talking about 'multiple sources' unless they are cited and assessed for reliability.

Ah - I've just read the start of the discussion where you did cite multiple sources. I see that one cited source describes him as "slave-trader and philanthropist", so why not put that formulation in the lede, for example? Personally, I'd prefer to describe him as a merchant involved in the slave trade who engaged in philanthropy, thus avoiding what I see as pointlessly contentious language Michael F 1967 ( talk) 21:37, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

As for the plaque in question: the only people who have disputed its text are pro-Colston activists. Since it was produced under the supervision of an eminent historian, there is no reason at all not to treat it as a reliable source.

We should take a neutral point of view using reliable sources. Modern research has proven beyond doubt that 19th century pro-Colston activists succeeded in falsifying history. Therefore, it is wrong to use on Wikipedia any information from pro-Colston sources such as the Society of Merchant Venturers.

Your reference to the modern 'no-quarters' approach implies to me that you have a bias against modern historical research and are unwilling to assume good faith on the part of modern historians.

The only correct approach is to cite a source, and assess it for reliability when you read it. If it's properly referenced and written by a serious historian, then it's reasonable to trust it. If it derives from propaganda promoted by any of the Colston societies or the Merchant Venturers, then it should be treated as what it is: intentionally dishonest mythologizing. That is not my opinion: it is a view attested to by a reliable source I've already cited.

Michael F 1967 ( talk) 21:12, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Regarding "the modern 'no-quarters' approach": what I was referring to was WP:PRESENTISM. We shouldn't and can't ignore the historical perspective simply because it offends modern tastes about somebody who did something wrong in their life. Are you also going to say that the ODNB is "propaganda promoted by the Colston societies"? Regarding "slave trader": the real issue is flow, since the text should read like there was some thought put behind it, not like an attempt to loosely cram everything without too much structure. RandomCanadian ( talk / contribs) 22:36, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Consider also: multiple sources refer to Colston as a slave trader, but apparently calling him that in the introduction is not appropriate. What is the justification for insisting on calling him 'a philanthropist' but not 'a slave trader'? That is a serious question: please address it.

Two example sources calling him a slave trader are: "Edward Colston statue pulled out of Bristol Harbour". BBC News. BBC. 2020-06-11. Archived from the original on 2020-06-11. Retrieved 2020-06-11. A statue of a slave trader that was thrown into a harbour by anti-racism protestors has been retrieved from the water.

King, Jasper (2020-06-11). "The removal of Edward Colston statue from Bristol Harbour in eight pictures". Bristol Live. Reach plc. Archived from the original on 2020-06-11. Retrieved 2020-06-11. The statue of the slave trade[r] was pulled out by Bristol City Council</ref>

Michael F 1967 ( talk) 21:41, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

It does the lead says involved in the slave trade. You cannot say for sure that he was a slave trader, all previous sources state that he was involved in a company that was involved in slavery, they never said that he personally took part in it. Now come off it Michael that BBC source has one mention of slave trader and does not give any background whatsoever and the BBC seem to be very biased in this situation (the other day they said what I wrote above and now suddenly Colson is a slave trader?!). The lead is fine stop trying to squabble over a very minor point that frankly boils down to semantics. Games of the world ( talk) 07:25, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

If there is a disagreement about facts amongst reliable sources, then that should be discussed in the article, with due weight given to each. It's not up to Wiki editors to judge which is the more correct. Similarly, for difference of opinion, all notable opinions, duly weighted and duly attributed (whose opinion it is) should be discussed in the article. -- DeFacto ( talk). 07:52, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I don't to get involved in this particularly, but the word philanthropist has throughout history been applied to people whose professions are less than "human-loving". Colston's philanthropy is the completely normal self-serving kind of euergetism that has always characterized the concept of philanthropy. I don't see any reason not to call him a "slave trader and philanthropist". Philanthropy is an Ancient Greek concept and anyone who was anyone is the classical world owned slaves and thought nothing of it. Everyone from the Historical Jesus to Thomas Jefferson owned or traded in slaves, and many can be described as philanthropists. In this particular case, it would be jarring to avoid the philanthropy of Colston while still having to explain the Victorian statue of Colston as Colston the Philanthropist. The statue was for the money he and the RACo. brought the city and its institutions, not for the slavery he obtained it from. Post-abolition society did not venerate slavers as such, but as explorers, colonists, warriors, industrialists, statesmen, euergetes, and yes, locally prominent philanthropists. GPinkerton ( talk) 19:08, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  GPinkerton, indeed. We have long described the Koch brothers' "philanthropy", which consists in large part of large self-interested donations, funding think-tanks and buying influence to ensure they are allowed to continue profiting from the destruction of the planet. Guy ( help!) 09:19, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Supply-side economics is a macroeconomic theory that argues that tax cuts bolster economic growth far more than what other economists think. Supply-siders frequently argue that tax cuts will not have the adverse effects on net tax revenue that other economists claim they have, with some arguing that the tax cuts made by Reagan, Bush and Trump would pay for themselves (either that they would be revenue-neutral or that revenues will go up). Per all RS, Arthur Laffer is a prominent supply-siders and the Laffer Curve is a key concept in supply-side economics. I added two peer-reviewed studies to the article which explicitly refer to supply-side economics and explicitly assess the validity of the supply-side argument that tax cuts will pay for themselves:

• John Quiggin's Zombie Economics (Princeton University Press) which says that it's "incorrect" that the US is on the wrong side of the Laffer curve
• Saez et al. in the Journal of Economic Literature, which explicitly refers to supply-side economics and explicitly assesses its claims regarding revenue-maximizing tax rates and finds that "the U.S. marginal top [tax] rate is far from the top of the Laffer curve."

However, both of these studies are being kept out of the article by two editors who are engaging in gatekeeping. [8] It is clearly a NPOV violation to solely include pro- Supply-side economics content while removing peer-reviewed studies which conflict with the pro- Supply-side economics literature. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 20:04, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion of this issue is being talked about here: Talk:Supply-side_economics#tax_cuts,_Laffer_curve_and_revenue --- Avatar317 ^(talk) 20:22, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

No opinion on the specific content but Snoogans, perhaps if you tried a more convivial tone when dealing with disagreements the talk page discussions might be more productive. Springee ( talk) 20:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment: You got that right. Not sure what the strident tone (just about all the time) is about. Rja13ww33 ( talk) 20:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

This is (of course) misrepresenting things. First off, I didn't touch this when it was added to the article....and secondly, I said I didn't "have a opinion on Bonewah's" removal of it either (on the talk page). So I'm not sure who these "two editors" are. Secondly, a discussion broke out on the talk page regarding how central a tenet revenue maximization actually is to supply-side....since the article (thanks in part to Snoogs edits) now seem to focus on it. In the Saez reference for example, he/she claims that it "explicitly assesses its claims regarding revenue-maximizing tax rates". However when challenged on the talk page to point out exactly where the article makes explicit claims on what supply-side economists say....I get nothing. There is also no claim in that article about the "key/central tenet" of supply-side being about revenue maximization. So in short, this is a misrepresentation by a editor who is clearly pushing a POV and doing OR. You can look at numerous edits where he/she has done this. (See some of the other sections on the talk page.) Rja13ww33 ( talk) 20:30, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

As i have said several times on the relevant talk page, in so far as supply side proponents claim that "tax cuts would pay for themselves" we are free to cite material which are relevant to those claims (such as refutations). The problem here is that the citation here are simply glued into a section that covers the history and theory of Supply Side apropos of nothing. While it is a related concept (and is treated as such) this is not an article on the Laffer Curve. Similarly, it is not an article on US taxation and maximal rates, and so, the citations provided are inappropriate as they are currently being used, in my opinion. I dont see why the rush to this board when the talk page discussion is still ongoing. Bonewah ( talk) 20:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

The study literally says "Following the supply-side debates of the early 1980s, much attention has been focused on the revenue-maximizing tax rate," and then assesses that the US is not on the wrong side of the Laffer curve (i.e. a tax cut would not be revenue-maximizing): "the U.S. marginal top rate is far from the top of the Laffer curve." The claim that this has nothing to do with supply-side economics is patently absurd. Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 20:48, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

So how does that statement make revenue maximization a "key/central tenet" of supply-side economics? How does it reflect what supply-side economists actually claimed? You are running with your interpretations of things. Rja13ww33 ( talk) 20:51, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

A study that explicitly refers to supply-side economics in the context of revenue-maximizing tax rates cannot be included to the article because it does not explicitly describe Laffer curve-style arguments as "key tenet" of supply-side economics? Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 21:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Here is what the peer-reviewed book that Bonewah deleted from the page said: "The strongest version of trickle-down economics is the “supply-side" school of economics, which came to prominence in the late 1970s, with the claim, summed up in the so-called Laffer curve, that a reduction in tax rates would produce an increase in revenue. [9] Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 21:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Again: I didn't oppose/approve it's removal. And secondly: this is a peer reviewed book? (His statement isn't even sourced.) This is more like a book intended for the general public. Your next source does call it a "central" tenet later on, but the introductory paragraph doesn't mention (government) revenues at all. The next source calls it "the most controversial and widely discussed proposition of this particular school of macroeconomic thought". (Not exactly "key" or "central".) Rja13ww33 ( talk) 21:51, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to handle this one. It's about a book, although it doesn't have any real discussion of the book, and is used mainly for a list of the top 10. At the top of course is Muhammad, described as "The last prophet of God, Secular and religious leader, shepherd and merchant", which is clearly a violation of MOS:ISLAM, and the long bit on his influence starts with "Muhammad was revealed to Islam, the Qur'an was revealed to him..." I'm not at all sure that all this detail on the top 10, which doesn't seem to come from the book, belongs in the article. Doug Weller talk 12:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello all,

I am nominating Escobar Inc to be checked for its neutrality, because it has been the target of so much sockpuppetry over the past month that it is very hard to determine what is biased and what is correct. There have been two opposing factions of sockpuppets connected to or possibly created by people associated with the company - those of WowWashington, who are on the side of former executive Daniel Reitberg, and those of Verbatimusia, who are apparently on the side of current executive Olof Gustafsson. These sockpuppet armies have edit-warred over the page and filed SPI cases against each other. In addition, there are several fishy-looking lone wolf contributors to the page such as Danielreitberg, whom Juanmestizo claims is actually Olof Gustafsson trying to pull the wool over our eyes, and not Daniel Reitberg as his name might suggest. This whole thing is a complete mess and I am hoping someone here can bring back a semblance of normality. Passenger pigeon ( talk) 08:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

The usual problem of "royalcruft" appears to infect Ra'ad bin Zeid and successors, but with a complication that the British-installed Hashemite monarchy is still apparently recognised by the Jordanian house of Hashem (unsurprisingly). The result is articles that refer to people as Jordanian Prince(ss)es and (crown) prince(ss)es of Iraq despite Iraq being a republic since 1959. This is further compliucated by the recent deprecation of some self-published royalty fansites,m which were the only sources for much of the content, notably the styles and titles. I have switched Ra'ad bin Zeid from {{ infobox royalty}} to {{ infobox person}}, but Princess Sarah Zeid of Jordan is more complex - is she actually a Jordanian Princess, or a "Princess" of Iraq recongised by Jordan and thus referred to by Jordan as royalty? It's unclear (and the tone of many sources makes Hello! look like the FT). Guy ( help!) 10:01, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, Sarah Zeid's husband, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, does seems to be referred to as a Prince in reliable sources ( NYT, IOC). I'll see if I can turn up anything more. -- RaiderAspect ( talk) 09:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@ JzG: That was easier than I expected. Ra'ad bin Zeid appears to be a genuine Prince of Jordan; he served as Regent of Jordan as recently as last year as well ( Jordanian State Media). Also found this from a UN website. -- RaiderAspect ( talk) 09:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

There is currently a dispute around the prehistory section in the Mustang article, which has resulted in the article being locked. In essence, the dispute is because there is a lot of argument about whether Mustangs are an invasive or re-introduced species. The taxonomy for Pleistocene North American equines is a complete mess, with over 50 species having being named, often from dubious material. Recent papers sequencing ancient DNA from prehistoric equine specimens from the Late Pleistocene ~(50,000 to 12,000 years ago) have found that some of the specimens are closely related to living horses and have been suggested to be part of the same species, see. ^{[1] [2] [3]} . The dispute revolves around the due weight of phrasing this section about the relationship between the north american caballine (horse-line) equines and wild horses (given that this relationship is based on primary sources), the distinction between the E. ferus and E. caballus, and whether mentioning the New world stilt legged horse, Haringtonhippus, which the only other equine in Late Pleistocene North America alongside caballines, and Przewalski's horse are revevant.

Another issue is whether it is due weight to include a footnote about the idea that the horse was present in North America prior to Columbus, the current text is as follows

In 1991, ethnohistorian Claire Henderson put forth a theory based in part on Lakota Sioux oral history that Equus was not completely extirpated from North America, but that the northern Plains Indians had domesticated and preserved horses prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Deb Bennett, a vertebrate paleontologist who, at the time was on the staff of the Smithsonian Institution, expressed skepticism about Henderson's theory, but conceded that "there may have been isolated pockets of grasslands untouched by the glaciers of the Ice Age in which horses could have survived. However, it is generally accepted that, at the beginning of the Columbian Exchange, there were no equids in the Americas. [references have been removed for clarity]

This refers to The Aboriginal North American Horse a statement apparently given by Dr. Henderson (who I can find nothing about) in 1991 in response to a North Dakota bill, the full context of which can be found in this Chicago Tribune article, which includes Deb Bennett views. However, given that this theory is not mentioned in any reliable sources, per WP:FRINGE it should not be mentioned at all. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 16:56, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Hemiauchenia and Alexbrn, WP:FRINGE is pretty clear on this and it's not WP:DUE. b uidh e 11:18, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• If somebody's "theory" (fringe or not) is not given coverage in secondary sources, then on the face of it any mention would be WP:UNDUE for sure. Alexbrn ( talk) 17:29, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

The notice for this article is its map (right side). Quick rundown, the article is about a planned pipeline project with 3 participant countries, Israel, Cyprus and Greece. Carrying gas from Israel to Greece in that order. The POV dispute is regarding the coloring of other countries, namely entire Europe the same color as the 3 participating countries, due to an organization called Union for the Mediterranean. This organization, per the references in the article has no connection to the project, yet it is colored in the map. 3 users (who have pro-Greek histories) have reverted me when I removed this organization from the map. I have opened a discussion and pinged them regarding this unreferenced addition to the map, which they did not respond. Can an administrator share their thoughts on this? ArtyomSokolov ( talk) 09:20, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@ ArtyomSokolov: This is ludicrous. You clearly fail to understand that the main reason for my reverting is you adding that problematic map (as I explained on the relevant talk page) and not the removal of the existing map. By the way, I'm not on Wikipedia 24/7. We are all volunteers here so give people some time to reply before escalating.

Please read my reply here as well. Esslet ( talk) 11:25, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

More input would be much appreciated at the following RfC:

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#RfC: J. K. Rowling

Crossroads ^-talk- 03:28, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I have discussed a possible COI / Advocacy issue with the author of Catena_(linguistics) on User_talk:Tjo3ya#Possible_COI_/_Advocacy_on_catenas. Since it concerns the entire article, not just some changes, I am not including diffs, but I do copy my original question summarizing the problem as I see it here:

Hello, I'm writing because of a possible Conflict of Interest / Advocacy issue surrounding your edits to the page on catenas. As of now, you have authored around 89.4% of that page, and the bulk of the references there is to your work.

References to the concept of the catena may also be problematic. For instance, on Extraposition#Theoretical_analyses, it is now written: "The words in red in the dependency tree qualify as a concrete unit of syntax; they form a catena." However, it is not clear whether this is a generally accepted statement, given that most of the references on the catena page are to your work.

In short, would it be possible to make the content on the catena page more diverse, and clarify to what extent statements there are generally accepted (in what subtheory specifically)? [...] Kaĉjo ( talk) 18:00, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The user in question has agreed to "likely reduce the number of those sources" on the catena page, but this does not address the main issue of links to that page. This is for me the main source of the issue, since it may give undue weight to the concept of catena in linguistics. In other words: I am worried mostly about undue weight to the concept, less about undue weight to the author.

Guidance would be appreciated, since I am not all that familiar with Wikipedia. Kaĉjo ( talk) 08:32, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Since posting this I found that two others have raised concerns about the treatment of the catena concept by Tjo3ya before. See User_talk:Tjo3ya#(=_xxx) and User_talk:Tjo3ya#Ling/ellipsis_edits,_thanks!,_and_some_suggestions. Kaĉjo ( talk) 10:06, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I have weighed in on this, from WP:3O, here: User_talk:Tjo3ya#Unacceptable_behaviour Leijurv ( talk) 18:29, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Here is the background of my concerns around Catena (linguistics) if it helps you, Tjo3ya, to understand why this may be an issue: I am learning some syntax, saw a sentence I couldn't draw a tree of, found a relevant wiki, and there it seemed that the catena was a very common way to address the issue. I then discussed with my supervisor and he had never heard of it. Hence my question how generally accepted it is, and whether there is any WP:UNDUE weight. I'd like that others coming across this in the future are not sent down what may be a rabbit hole.

I would suggest we tag Catena (linguistics) with Template:COI, and start a discussion on the talk page there to also look at the incoming links. Hopefully this will attract attention from neutrals who can also tell when there are issues of WP:UNDUE. Is that okay with you? Kaĉjo ( talk) 07:41, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Kaĉjo, Yes, that is acceptable to me. -- Tjo3ya ( talk) 08:33, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Can we get some more eyes for NPOV over at Falun Gong? Until recently, the article made no mention of a variety of facts, and since then the article has seen repeated and sustained attempts at scrubbing it, including removing anything that the new religious movement would not approve of—such as any discussion about where it is headquartered, its political involvement, and even its status as a new religious movement. Much of the article seems to read as a puff piece. :bloodofox: ( talk) 00:56, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

As far as I remember, the lead used to mention FG promoting some dangerous "alternative" medicine and banning real medicine. It is now instead whitewashing FG. Much work is needed. Notrium ( talk) 02:22, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

This is indeed a topic I've seen mentioned in secondary literature, such as here ("They said that life in Dragon Springs is tightly controlled by Li, that internet access is restricted, the use of medicines is discouraged, and arranged relationships are common.", NBC News). Of course, English Wikipedia's article on the topic, as you mention, currently makes no mention of it. :bloodofox: ( talk) 02:56, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, it is mentioned currently on Falun_Gong#Dragon_Springs_compound_in_Deerpark,_New_York, but it's probably not being given nearly enough weight in the article or lead. Notrium ( talk) 02:58, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah yeah, I added that today—it wasn't there before I added that section (which last I saw had been removed once today). The whole article needs a reconfiguration: It downplays the central role of its new religious movement's founder and leader at nearly every turn, and the article frequently parrots FG talking points, often all but verbatim. :bloodofox: ( talk) 03:07, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

We have this nice template, probably all included articles should be scrutinized together with the main Falun Gong article. No promises from me, though; dunno if I will have enough time. Notrium ( talk) 03:17, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

If you want to attract outside editors to this article, you need to provide some information about what the dispute is. Reasonably informed editors know that Falun Gong has accused the Chinese government of persecution, which has been supported by Western media, and that they their well-funded newspaper, The Epoch Times, promotes far right conspiracy theories. Otherwise, what do you expect outside editors to weigh in on? TFD ( talk) 05:07, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

You're right. In short, the major issue at the article is the regular scrubbing of the article of anything that does not align with Falun Gong's narrative about itself. Anything exterior to that sees repeated attempts at removal. This includes basic information somehow absent from the article before last month like:

• Where the new religious movement is based (a controversial compound in Deerpark, New York)
• Its political involvement (Falun Gong is the source of both The Epoch Times, performance company Shen Yun, and a variety of other far-right, pro-Trump, and pseudoscience-spreading organizations
• Its status as a new religious movement (it was founded in the early 1990s by Li Hongzhi, who is also its leader)

See, for example, this diff from today. This has now happened dozens of times since last month.

All of this information is fully referenced to the highest quality sources, both academic and media ( here's an NBC News article explaining the new religious movement and its activities, for readers unfamiliar). Nonetheless, the material sees regular scrubbing by several accounts, most of them essentially single-purpose, some of them popping up from nowhere or reemerging from long absences after the article saw the addition of the above information. :bloodofox: ( talk) 06:02, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The deleted material contains information that would be helpful in understanding them, although I would have left out the reference to the golden escalator. You need to find an article about them in a mainstream source so we can compare it with the article, per WP:TERTIARY. That makes it easier for editors to evaluate whether the article reflects mainstream perception. TFD ( talk) 06:13, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

(Indented response) There's no shortage of coverage on this topic. Here are some examples:

• Braslow, Samuel. 2020. "Inside the Shadowy World of Shen Yun and Its Secret Pro-Trump Ties". Los Angeles Magazine. March 9, 2020. Online.

Quote:

Among other pronouncements, [Falung Gong founder and leader Hongzhi] Li has claimed that aliens started invading human minds in the beginning of the 20th century, leading to mass corruption and the invention of computers. He has also denounced feminism and homosexuality and claimed he can walk through walls and levitate. But the central tenet of the group’s wide-ranging belief system is its fierce opposition to communism.

In 2000, Li founded Epoch Times to disseminate Falun Gong talking points to American readers. Six years later he launched Shen Yun as another vehicle to promote his teachings to mainstream Western audiences. Over the years Shen Yun and Epoch Times, while nominally separate organizations, have operated in tandem in Falun Gong’s ongoing PR campaign against the Chinese government, taking directions from Li.

Relatively unknown before 2016, Epoch Times enjoyed a surge in traffic after the presidential election thanks to stridently pro-Trump content. NBC News reported in 2017 that the site was drawing millions of visitors a year, more than The New York Times and CNN combined. But Falun Gong didn’t restrict its pro-Trump stance to the paper.

This article discusses a shift that occured in 2017, and, indeed, from that time the vast majority of sources start popping up. It appears coverage has only snowballed since, a risk the organization seems willing to take to continue to wield political influence. Let's continue digging through media coverage:

• Roose, Kevin. 2020. Epoch Times, Punished by Facebook, Gets a New Megaphone on YouTube. The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2020. Online.

Quote:

Little is known about The Epoch Times’s finances and organizational structure. The nonprofit Epoch Times Association, which operates it, reported $8.1 million in revenue and $7.2 million in expenses on its 2017 public tax filings. An investigation by NBC News last summer found ties between the outlet and other Falun Gong-affiliated organizations, such as the Shen Yun dance performance series and the video broadcaster [New Tang Dynasty, New Tang Dynasty Television ], and said the organizations 'appear to share missions, money and executives.' ... Three former Epoch Times employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from the organization .. described its staff as primarily Falun Gong practitioners, many of whom had little previous experience in journalism. Editorial employees, they said, were encouraged to attend weekly “Fa study” sessions outside work hours, during which they would gather to study the teachings of Falun Gong’s spiritual leader, Li Hongzhi. ... The Epoch Times has long denied having direct ties to Falun Gong. Mr. Gregory said that the organization was primarily funded through subscriptions and ads, and that "donations are a small part of our income."

More straightforward discussion from MSNBC, reporting on an NBC News article discussed above:

• Ruhle, Stephanie. 2019. "Pro-Trump news outlet The Epoch Times funded by Chinese spiritual group". August 20, 2019. MSNBC. Online.

Caption quote:

NBC News has exclusively learned that the popular conservative news site The Epoch Times is funded by a Chinese spiritual community called Falun Gong, which hopes to take down the Chinese government.

The NBC article refers to an article by The New Yorker:

• Tolentino, Jia. 2019. "Stepping into the Uncanny, Unsettling, World of Shen Yun". The New Yorker. Online.

Quote:

Falun Gong also has its own media outlet, a newspaper called the Epoch Times, which was founded in 2000. (The chairman of the newspaper’s board has said that it is “not a Falun Gong newspaper,” because “Falun Gong is a question of an individual’s belief.”) The paper skews conservative: among its recent pieces are stories headlined “Why We Should Embrace President Trump’s Nationalism,” “Government Welfare: A Cancer Known as Communism,” and “President Trump, Build the Wall.” It also is the world’s foremost purveyor of Shen Yun content, publishing such stories as “Excited Fans Welcome Shen Yun at Taiwanese Airport,” “The Vivid Storytelling of Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra,” and “Shen Yun Audiences Already Waiting for Next Year."

And a few years back, here in Germany, referring to the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD):

• Busvine, Douglas. 2018. "German far right far ahead in use of social media". Reuters. September 13, 2018. Online.

Quote:

Instead, the researchers found that AfD supporters amplified the reach of media coverage of stories that the AfD posted or commented on. Social media users sympathetic to the party often tweeted links to stories in Die Welt, a conservative daily, but also to right-wing media outlets.

These included news sites such as Junge Freiheit and the German edition of the Epoch Times, which is part of a media group set up by Chinese-American members of the Falun Gong sect and focuses on the same immigration issues at the heart of the AfD platform.

These are a few examples of sources regularly scrubbed from the article. The material is strongly referenced to both media and academic sources, which are plentiful. :bloodofox: ( talk) 06:36, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The lead in History of Poland was overly embellished with phrased such as "thousands of years of human activity", "an inseparable part of western civilization", "intricate history", "innumerable tribes" and "brilliant period of economic prosperity". [10] I took to cleaning it up, [11] [12] but was reverted. [13] [14] I've looked at the articles of Poland's neighbours' ( Germany, Czech Republic, etc.), and none are so embellished; nor are Greece or Syria, whose histories span many thousands of years. I've tried to discuss it, [15] but obviously some editors think it stylish or due. Comment welcome. François Robere ( talk) 15:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The “brilliant”, “intricate” and the “innumerable” are def peacock-y, but “thousands of years of human activity” is factual (although it’d be better to be more precise here) and the “inseparable” is a judgement call which we leave up to the sources. Volunteer Marek 20:43, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I've changed the "thousands" to "2,000", but it was removed. "Inseparable" isn't in any source. François Robere ( talk) 23:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

How in the world did you get 2000? Volunteer Marek 02:27, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

One datum or another from History of Poland#Prehistory and protohistory. François Robere ( talk) 09:13, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I tried to fix the beginning of the lead in multiple ways already, (finally by just mostly removing the offending first paragraph of the lead, as it was unnecessary anyway and only recently added), but the two editors there just keep adding back the absurd tourism-pamphlet-style wording back in. (The issues are puffery, but also vagueness/lack of precision of certain phrases.)

To be honest I don't know how to proceed: they are not giving any argumentation or anything, so I can't even imagine what would a compromise-solution be like because I don't know what their position is (except that they like tourism advertisements better than encyclopedias or something). An RfC seems like a potential, but tricky solution: what would I name the RfC; I mean I don't know if there should be a different RfC for each offending phrase, or what? (The whole first paragraph of the lead is horrible, but there is at least one other offending phrase in the next paragraph.) And why would an RfC even be needed for such blatant style and verifiability violations? What do other editors usually do in such a situation? Notrium ( talk) 11:48, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I think a single formal RfC is a good idea, as it will draw attention to the issue. Each offending passage should be a individual question for inclusion or exclusion. Hemiauchenia ( talk) 12:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I concur, particularly with regards to clearly specifying which parts I disputed. For example, some peacock terms listed above (and I agree they are peackock-ish) seem to have been removed from the most recent versions. -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The second sentence is also a meandering sea of blue that needs to be rewritten. A laundry list of vague links isn’t as helpful as prose that actually names the respective entities (e.g. Lechites instead of ancient tribes). — MarkH₂₁ ^talk 07:20, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The section about about NATO and Western media role in the Propaganda during the Yugoslav Wars article was labeled as POV. Meanwhile, the section has been considerably rearranged, references by esteemed and relevant authors have been added, as well as criticism of their opinions.

No one on the talk page made specific objections to the sources and current content. Nicholas Cull, David Holbrook Culbert and David Welch are historians specializing in propaganda. Scott Taylor is a well known military journalist, while Michael Parenti is a well known political and social scientist. Philip Hammond is a professor of media and communications focused on the role of the media in post-Cold War conflicts and international interventions. David Binder was the Harvard University-graduated journalist who reported on Yugoslav Wars. Mark Wolfgram is a political scientist who has published his work in peer-reviewed academic journals. Noam Chomsky's propaganda model has been confirmed by a number of scholars around the world. Here we don't list their views on the war in general, but the subject of the article is propaganda. The authors' relevance to this topic is difficult to dispute. Furthermore, criticism of their claims have been added. Even Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Wesley Clark discussed the “propaganda war” as part of the strategy. There is really no doubt that NATO propaganda is well documented.

Can the POV template be removed now? Also, can the “claims about” be removed from the title of the section, as in other parts of the article? Thanks.-- WEBDuB ( talk) 11:08, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Gutiérrez's performance career spans over four decades and is considered one of the great pianists.
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User: talk: maryphillips1952
Maryphillips1952 (
talk) 16:06, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Issue deals with WP:NPV. Editors might be interested. Can find it here: Talk:Audrey Strauss#RfC including Strauss's political party . Casprings ( talk) 19:33, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

There is currently no dispute but I would like guidance on a couple of issues:

A) I am changing all instances of "Indian" since the term is highly deprecated, and presumably falls into the category of things that should not be said in wikivoice. Where I can discern that it is a particular tribe, I am using the name of that tribe. Where it is more global (since many tribes were involved in this war) I have been using "tribal", "Native" or "Native American." First of all, is there any policy on any of "those" terms? I haven't had to use First Nations yet, as the one battle I have seen in Quebec so far specifically involved the Mohawk.

B) what to do about long pull-out quotes from Americans of the period, some of which are cringeworthy, and at least one of which is pretty racist? Article also repeatedly complains that Indians were preventing Americans from taking good land. I haven't really tackled this yet.

C) article seems very focused on unquestioned US expansionism, but also goes into great length about the British insults to American honor, etc. I have already flagged the article NPOV for this. I am assuming that the thing to do here is write about these things, which do seem to have been factors, as neutrally as possible without seeming to endorse them?

Feedback appreciated. Elinruby ( talk) 03:28, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

There are discussions in the archives about this. Modern historians refer to them as Indians which was the term used at the time. The terms tribe and Native American are only used in the U.S. and native and tribe are considered offensive Canada, while the term First Nations is used in Canada to refer to its aboriginal population.

There is nothing wrong with quoting what people said at the time, even if it would be considered politically incorrect today.

Similarly, we should mention the reasons why the U.S. declared war, even if we believe they were unfounded.

Before posting here, you should have posted your concerns on the article talk page. And when you post here, you should other editors on the talk page.

TFD ( talk) 04:08, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

That's a rather dismissive answer.

I have posted on the talk page, actually, as you would have seen if you had looked. Nobody else is currently working on the article. I repeat, there is no dispute here.

I am quite aware that First Nations is the usual term in Canada, but it's of recent vintage, and so far on the Canadian side specific battles have involved either the Mohawk or other specific Six Nation peoples, so that has not arisen. I am not aware that tribe and native are offensive in Canada, but I am here, actually, to check on whether there is some such issue. So would it be better to replace "an Indian" with "an indigenous ally"?

Also, part of my question had to do with a long pull-out quote about how you can't trust an Indian, yes, but the term also occurs dozens of times in the article in Wikipedia's voice, and you seem to have missed that part of the question.

Please do not respond to questions you cannot be bothered to read.

Also, if the words "tribe" and "native" are offensive in Canada then I guess I should not use them even for Native Americans? Even if they are not offensive there? Elinruby ( talk) 05:44, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes I know you have posted on the talk page, but you have not posted about this issue. As it says above, "Before you post to this page, you should already have tried to resolve the dispute on the article's talk page. Include a link here to that discussion."

As I mentioned, the issue has been discussed several times and the consensus was always to use the term Indian because that is the term that appears in reliable sources about the topic. The Canadian government renamed the Dept. of Indian AFfairs in 2011, while the U.S. Government retains its Bureau of Indian Affairs. The term Indian is used in the name of many aboriginal organizations. [24] Had the term been that highly deprecated, these names would have changed long ago.:::There is also the problem of what term to replace it with. And it's problematic to assign British and American nationality to them.

TFD ( talk) 21:54, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I have since realized that the reason nobody else is editing the article is that you are running RFCs on the talk page about whether Canadian historians can be dismissed as espousing fringe theory, hehe. My bad, I didn't realize that some of those were recent. Nor did I expect contention over the idea that we should follow the Wikipedia policy that we are guided by what the members of a culture call themselves. Hint, that isn't "Indian".

I would like to hear from some uninvolved editors, please, and given the talk page it would be nice to see some sourcing for what you are saying here, because you definitely have a weird understanding of WP:FRINGE. Meanwhile I have changed some instances of "tribal" to "Indigenous" but it is true that there are issues with this, notably that English doesn't have an equivalent to "indigène" and "an Indian" is different than "a First Nation". This is why I am asking for feedback here, but I stand corrected: apparently there is a dispute, and it is you. So noted. Elinruby ( talk) 16:59, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Your suggestion that Canadian historians would have a different take on history based on their ethnicity is a slur on their professionalism, made without any evidence. TFD ( talk) 05:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Are you seriously maintaining that disagreeing with the US view of its own imperialism is unprofessional? Elinruby ( talk) 06:14, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

No. What does that have to do with the discussion? TFD ( talk) 07:18, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

This:”Your suggestion that Canadian historians would have a different take on history based on their ethnicity is a slur on their professionalism, made without any evidence. TFD (talk) 05:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)”

No it's not that that would put Canadian historians in disagreement with U.S. imperialism but that it would put them in disagreement with the consensus of historians. Presumably historians base their judgments on weighing the evidence, not on their nationality. Anyway, the U.S. imperialist position would be that they won the war. TFD ( talk) 20:54, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Reminder, the topic here is what terminology should be used to refer to native people in North America Elinruby ( talk) 07:51, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I was notified that I was involved here. When I asked the question about "Indians" I was informed that that was a Wikipedia guideline on the subject. Has that changed? Tirronan ( talk) 19:19, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@ Tirronan: I notified you because you were commenting on the RfC about the infobox. The text is boilerplate and says you"may" be involved in the sense that you may care, and want to comment. This is optional, like all participation on Wikipedia. I am not aware of a Wikipedia guideline to use "Indian". I personally believe that the applicable policy is the one that says that we call ethnic groups the name that they wish to be called. In general this would afaik mean using Mohawk or Cheyenne, etc. But when you have members of more than one tribal group then the usual formulation would be Native American in the US and First Nations in Canada. However at the time neither country existed in its current form, so I understand that "Indian" is convenient, but I have been taught that it is offensive. So I posted here as a question, which has now become a dispute. Incidentally, I do think we should lose the long pull-out quote about how you can't trust Indians. Imagine being a First Nations child reading that. Elinruby ( talk) 20:02, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I always seem to get involved in this article, and I've tried this time to stay out of it. Again without success, so here I am damnit. Look, this war is so confused compared to 95% of other conflicts that it almost defies description. It literally took me a decade to decide that this was not in fact a British victory. Why? Because America asked for terms. The terms proposed were so grievous that the American government balked and kept fighting. So what changed my mind? The letter from Wellington, and the Prime Minister's instructions to the negotiators at Ghent. The American government at the time was and would continue to be on the verge of a breakup of the country. This would continue until the end of the American Civil War. So, America was more than ready to end the conflict. So what does this have to do with an NPOV charge? This, any history article should state the facts, NOT THE OPINIONS, of the events. The outcome was decided by the participants of the war, NOT A HISTORIAN'S OPINION. The article should recite the events faithfully then give the results of the war, in this case, the Treaty of Ghent. The existing well-reviewed documentation proves this beyond contestation. There has, and I am guessing always will be, those that want to put a victory by one side or another to the outcome of this war. This article has been under non-stop assault for the better part of 20 years. This has to stop and editors that are not willing to stop should have a topic ban imposed. I fail to see how the view of a historian changes one elemental fact in the history of the conflict. I see it as nothing less than another of the endless attempts to "spin" the article in a specific manner. The page should be thoroughly reviewed, shortened, and kept to the known facts. Tirronan ( talk) 17:36, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Elinruby is mistaken when he says the article stated "British insults to American honor, etc. I have already flagged the article NPOV for this. " It was defeating the British invasions in 1814-1815 (New York, Baltimore, New Orleans) that did that. Historians agree that restoring US honor was a major cause & major result of the war for USA. I have supported that at length at https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:War_of_1812&diff=prev&oldid=964569672 Rjensen ( talk) 22:47, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

The topic of this thread -- "War of 1812" -- is about naming, the topic of a different thread -- "War of 1812 - Results in Infobox" -- is about who won. I will try to get back to the topic of this thread. Elinruby says there is a policy about this, but doesn't say where. I assumed it would be somewhere in WP:MOS, but so far I've found only a 2008 discussion and a 2019 failed proposal and a 2019 discussion. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 14:12, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@ Peter Gulutzan: thank you for coming back to this. I don't have time to look at your links this second, but I am interested and will do so. I found the policy, which is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes)#Self-identification. This deals with naming conventions for articles, but the broad principle is the same. If the term "Indian" is offensive, even if only to some people, why use it? We do have a growing consensus on the page (I think) that where possible we should say Shawnee, Six Nations, Muscogee and so on, but when there are multiple indigenous nations on both sides of the conflict, we do need a collective noun, and the usual and accepted terms within Canada and the US (First Nations, Native Americans) are specific to those countries and the article deals with history from before there was a border. My concern is merely that if I am going to replace "Indian" I don't want to replace it with something equally offensive. I would like some documentation of the contention that "native" and "tribe" are offensive to somebody, but if that is correct, we are left with "Indigenous". Elinruby ( talk) 17:29, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The guideline that you point to seems relevant, good catch, but there's another relevant guideline: MOS:IDENTITY. The regular talkers on the Manual of Style talk pages could have other ideas. There's also a short February 2020 query at American Indians - manual of style. And, although I myself mistrust "WikiProjects", your attitude may differ so you might want to join WP:Indigenous. My own interest is weak, I'm just pointing elsewhere because I think there might be better places than WP:NPOVN for discussing this. Peter Gulutzan ( talk) 01:07, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Your links are helpful, thank you. Elinruby ( talk) 16:41, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd like an expert opinion on this one please! The results of the war of 1812 are debated. At the moment, the war of 1812 article says there are two opinions, in the memory and historiography section. The majority view (more popular in the US) is that the war of 1812 was a stalemate/draw. The minority view (more popular in Canada) is that the war was a victory for Britain/Canada. Both these views are mentioned in the article, and both views are supported by mainstream historians. However, At the moment, only the majority view is listed in the results box. Is this against NPOV policy? Should both views be listed in the infobox (or something like "result disputed"?) the argument being that the one view sums up the views of the article incorrectly? Thanks Deathlibrarian ( talk) 03:31, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

My view is that it does not say that. It clearly states that In recent decades, the view of the majority of historians has been that the war ended in stalemate, with the Treaty of Ghent closing a war that had become militarily inconclusive. Then it talks about the minority view, which is that Some scholars hold that the war constituted a British victory and an American defeat. I am fine with this, but the infobox should reflect the consensus among historians and the de facto result of military stalemate (draw, inconclusive or other similar wording). Deathlibertarian base their argument on the flawed view that there is a national bias, but this request for comments clearly established there is not a national bias.

Deathlibertarian have also showed a clean misunderstanding of WP:Fringe, for example here. Per Calidum (that is the consensus of historians. It should be noted that the infobox had described the outcome as a draw (or a synonym) for many years until it was changed recently) and The Four Deuces (The info-box should say the outcome of the war was a draw because that is the consensus of historians), we should follow the consensus of historians that it was a draw (or similar wording). Per Rjensen, The Canadian-victory viewpoint was widespread decades ago but is no longer found in Canadian scholarly articles & books or university textbooks. It may still be taught at the high school level in Canada, but I think it's now "fringe" in mainstream Canadian reliable sources in 21st century. Old notions become fringe when the RS drop them.

Deathlibertarian propose that we link Memory and historiography of the War of 1812 but that it is not really helpful because (1) per Shakescene, Infoboxes are intended to give a short overview at a glance, which is hardly achieved by directing readers to #Memory and Historiography; and (2) it gives the false impression or imply that there is such a big dispute among experts, that there is not a consensus at all when that is not true. In other words, Deathlibrarian wants us to give equal weight to the minority view (fringe, per Rjensen and others) when that is undue and unwarranted as it does not express the consensus of the majority of historians (mainstream, per Calidum, The Four Deuces and others); and they are accusing me of pushing a view when I could not care less about it and I am merely trying to follow the consensus among historians. They are confusing the popular views (which see the Britain/Canada win viewpoint more widespread) with that of historians, whose majority consensus is that it was a draw or stalemate, which is exactly what de facto happened with the Treaty of Ghent and the status quo ante bellum. For what is worth it, this is my proposal for the infobox.-- Davide King ( talk) 04:20, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

(1), the views that Canada won, or the US had a draw IS popular within their respective countries. Davide King is bringing up a separate discussion about *historian's* views, not the popular views within countries (2) Davide King is conflating a majority view, with a consensus. The article states there are two different views, a majority view, and a minority view. They are both mainstream views, the majority US/draw view does not override the minority Canada won view. (3) The view that Canada won is fringe theory, is the view of Davide King and a few wikepedia editors who support the opposing view that the US won. NO RS supports that... The article certainly doesn't say it, and a number of respected, mainstream Historians who support the view that Canada won the war of 1812 I am sure would be shocked to hear they are being called Fringe theorists (4) - The idea of linking to the memory and historiography section, was not proposed by me, but in the case of where there is confusion about what is in the infobox, like in this instance, it is the recommended thing to do in this instance, and it states this in the template guidelines for the results section, for military history. Deathlibrarian ( talk) 05:45, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Again, you conflate popular views and the historians view. I never doubted or claimed that the view Britain/Canada won is popular within their respective countries; what I am saying is that we should follow the views of the historians, which even you admitted the majority view is that it was a draw; but you want to push the minority view as well and make the infobox looks like there is big issue and debate or no conesnsus among historians by claiming there is a national bias. The Korean War is a relevant example as both sides claim victory and are popular [views] within their respective countries, so what is the difference? Yet for the Korean War we follow the historians and de facto view that it was a military stalemate, which is exactly what happened here too; and this is in spite of the popular, not historian, claim that Britain/Canada won. Finally, the parameter for the infobox also suggests Inconclusive which is exactly the same thing and what we should say. The article is currently a mess, so any reference to how it currently is does not mean much; until 30 June 2020, it still included a national bias section despite you being the only one to support in a request for comments. Either way, this back and forth diatribe is useless unless uninvolved users step in, so let us stop and wait for them, shall we?-- Davide King ( talk) 06:06, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I think we agree that the majority of historians view the war was a stalemate, and the minority view (lesser number of historians) believe Canada won. The difference is, I see that both viewpoints should be represented in the results box, but you see that only the majority one should be. The Korean war analogy is not the same. The viewpoint that the war of 1812 was a stalemate is one view, the view that Canada won is the other. Simply putting the fact it was a stalemate in, just matches the popular US view, and ignores he Canada view. I agree, I am happy to wait for a third party to address the issue. Deathlibrarian ( talk) 06:16, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Again, Simply putting the fact it was a stalemate in, just matches the popular US view, and ignores he Canada view implies there is a national bias when there was consensus not to support that. I think the Korean War example suffices because both countries think they won.-- Davide King ( talk) 03:24, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Deathlibrarian is correct in saying that a mainstream view of the war is being ignored by editors who confuse minority opinions with fringe theories, on a par with the reading of entrails and voodoo. I am personally not even convinced that Canada didn't legit win the war. It not only repelled an invasion, it invaded the invaders and burned their capital city. But I am content to indulge the American myth that something or other; I actually am not too emotionally invested in the idea that Canada kicked butt, but this war was definitely part of how Canada came to be. And editors claim that this doesn't warrant a mention? That is where we are right now. The article needs major revisions and imho it really doesn't matter much what the infobox says until that happens, because I suspect this will need to be done again ;) Elinruby ( talk) 10:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Or maybe it is you and Deathlibrarian who do not understand WP:Fringe (an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field)? And you think or see fringe as a pejorative that represents pseudoscientific and wholly unreasonable views when it is also used to mean reasoned theories presented in academic papers (which I believe this is the case). You write but this war was definitely part of how Canada came to be. And editors claim that this doesn't warrant a mention? That is not my point or issue, which is the infobox. The infobox should say Military stalemate because that is what it was and is the consensus among historians. Popular views that see Canadians knowing they won [...], Americans somehow think they won, and the Indians [...] definitely know they lost are already in the main body and I do not really have an issue with that. Here, you write you like two infobox proposals which use Military stalemate, so what are you actually disputing?-- Davide King ( talk) 03:24, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

• Pretty sure that if Canada had won they would still be apologising. Just sayin'. Guy ( help!) 18:36, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

  That was just the laugh I needed today... Schazjmd  (talk) 18:45, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Kidd, Kenneth. "The War of 1812, from A to Z". Toronto Star. It's become axiomatic among historians that Canadians know they won the War of 1812, Americans somehow think they won, and the Indians — who'd continue to cede land to American expansion — definitely know they lost, despite fighting alongside British regulars and Canadian militia..-- Moxy 🍁 19:56, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I do not dispute that the popular views among Canadians, Americans and the Indians is that they know they won, somehow think they won and definitely know they lost, respectively. To me, that is what is saying; it is not about the majority historians views that it was a draw/military stalemate.-- Davide King ( talk) 03:24, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

welp, when you go look at the documentation for info box military conflict it says the entry should be accurate, and that it is better to leave it blank than argue about who won by how much. Considering that editors have been arguing on the page for over a decade and a journal article has been written about their intransigence, perhaps they should take this to heart. Meanwhile, it simply isn’t accurate to say that nobody lost any territory. Tecumseh lost, and Spain lost. It’s more complicated than that, but everything always is, and that is enough. Elinruby ( talk) 15:36, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

One of the problems in Wikipedia, is that when there is a conflict between expert opinion and a minority popular opinion with passionate believers, that the same points get argued over and over again. Climate change, intelligent design and fascism=socialism are great examples. The skeptics continue to argue that there is a debate among experts by either misreading sources or finding actual experts who do challenge the consensus. It takes a lot less time to Google search for a soundbite and post it than it does to read the source, interpret it and determine its relative acceptance in the literature. But it's important to do that, because having misleading articles about controversial topics hurts the overall credibility of the project. TFD ( talk) 19:39, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

This is kind of related to the recent discussion "Labeling modern descendants of nobility with theoretical titles: NPOV, BLP, NOR and other policy problems", roughly the same issues are present.

Consider Joan Bates, Paddy Roy Bates or Michael Bates (Sealand); all royalty of an imaginary nation/state within British territory - Principality of Sealand. They all have titles like "Prince" or "Princess" in their infoboxes - that's absurd.

A wider issue is that articles like Micronation or List of micronations use Wikipedia to try to give legitimacy to imaginary nations.

And the use of the word "micronation" on articles for "micronations" (e.g., Liberland) is itself very suspect: I ran a Google Scholar search for micronation and there does not seem to be any good results. The present results do not seem to be scholarly, and the most cited paper is cited only 3 times; except for the top result, which uses "micro-nation" and a completely different meaning than used on Wikipedia - applying the term to Liechtenstein. This suggests the neologism "micronation" is powered by cheap press, which may have just picked it up from Wikipedia anyway. Notrium ( talk) 04:30, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Certain micronations have a long history, and there leaders are commonly referred to by their titles, but the media and in interviews, magazines. It's the norm to refer to them by that title. Probably the best known case of this is Prince Leonard Casely (of the Hutt River Province) a factiva search, or a google search, you will find the majority of article refer to him as Prince. Even local govt beauracrats will refer to him as that. Deathlibrarian ( talk) 06:23, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Notrium, "styles himself as" would be fine, but using the title in Wiki-voice would be absurd. Guy ( help!) 09:39, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@ JzG: so you agree the infobox person parameter "honorific_suffix = Prince of Sealand" should be removed, as it implies that the title is recognized? Notrium ( talk) 18:09, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Notrium, fuck yeah. Guy ( help!) 18:35, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Agree. No "Prince of Sealand" needs a title in wiki-voice. "Sealand" is a retired UK military fort. Someone cannot just claim unused military land as their own land. If we recognise that nonsense where do we stop? "I hereby declare this NPOV/N article to be mine, and I am hereby the king. I require thee, my loyal subjects, to affix my great name to the head of this page, and affix "Prince of NPOV" to my userpage at once." ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 00:47, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

There has been a report by The Intercept that there was scrubbing at Kamala Harris. This issue was discussed in the section it got noticed. I've started a discussion on what editors believe is the best option moving forward to resolve the issues, namely being revert to last good version and readd in updates, or stay at the latest version and vet ~500-600 edits and undo/readd options as necessary. Input from editors is appreciated at Moving forward with NPOV issues. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 19:14, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, by "scrubbing" they appear to refer to minor tweaks to legitimately questionable material. The Intercept are immensely progressive, and Kamala really isn't their kind of person. Guy ( help!) 23:25, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

JzG, The Intercept probably has a bias, yeah. But I'm not relying on news coverage to call it scrubbing (the media never seems to understand how Wikipedia works anyway), just that they appear to have caught it before any of us did. I took a look at diff comparisons across chunks of their edits (harder to compare overall diff, due to structural changes). There was indeed lots of blanking of controversial content, and various tweaks of eg "Harris was criticised for her view in ___" changed to "Harris was reported to be ___". The article in its current form isn't neutral. I don't think the editor in question was a bad faith editor, or paid, but I do think they lack understanding of NPOV, and amongst their various good structural changes they have done some blanking and alterations to fit their admitted political views. On a good note, they did also remove some poorly sourced content (although, hard to say better sources didn't exist for that, since nobody else had the chance to try).

Some across the chunks Drmies reverted ( Special:Diff/956103125/956103478, Special:Diff/956103478/956103913), in which removal of sentences like "Harris also accrued negative publicity." is visible. Blanking and promotional-esque wording is visible in Special:Diff/956533236/956753152, removing of unflattering info ( Special:Diff/961922030) supported by RS including [25] [26] [27]. Unflattering content removal in Special:Diff/954310981. Removing examples of campaign contributions by Republicans in Special:Diff/958027492 (paragraph containing Harris was the only Democratic candidate for the Senate to receive a campaign contribution). Nicer wording in Special:Diff/954661588. To his credit, of course, he's removed a lot of garbage, like in Special:Diff/956351080 and Special:Diff/954310981. But I don't know how we can feel confident, given the amount of examples of POV edits, that this article can ever be free of neutrality issues. Even if the content is reintroduced (which itself is difficult, due to major structural changes), there's lots of little wording changes across 90k readable prose which makes a big difference. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 00:01, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, tbh, I don't see anything there that goes beyond a good faith reading of ensuring WP:BLP compliance. No article on any politician is ever likely to be entirely free of POV edits, one way or another, and that applies doubly when half the subject's party thinks they are a class traitor. Guy ( help!) 11:20, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

At Murder of Rina Shnerb several users have said that including material on the attack occurring in a spring seized by Israeli settlers is "justifying the murder" and "POV" and "UNDUE". The material is based on this Haaretz feature that discusses the killing of Shnerb within the context of the takeover of Palestinian springs at length and this NYT source that likewise discusses the springs being frequent hot points due to settler takeovers of the springs. It has been argued that these are "op-eds" (I think that is pretty clearly untrue). The edit in question has been this wholesale removal which has been removed without comment a couple of times before the above arguments were offered. Is it undue weight to include material cited to this Haaretz feature and this NYT news article or are these actually "two partisan op-ed" that demonstrate no weight? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nableezy ( talk • contribs) 18:27, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Just noticed this (above not signed, @ Nableezy:), not been involved in it up until now. There seems no reason why this material should not go in, is it necessary to wait for the outcome here before doing that? Selfstudier ( talk) 18:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

• Of course it's NPOV and UNDUE, firstly, you are relying primarily on one opinion, that of Amira Hass. Then, the proposed background section is not a background but an existing article. We have "see also" for a reason. If you want to include one or two sentences, that would be one thing, but including what Nishidani currently put in is indeed POV and UNDUE. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Amira Hass is not the author of either of the sources listed here. Are you even clicking the links to read the articles? Neither of those are opinion pieces, neither of them are written by Hass. nableezy - 20:44, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Most of the sources that dealt with the murder didn't include such background so its clearly WP:UNDUE -- Shrike ( talk) 21:33, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Can you explain what in WP:UNDUE says anything close to that. nableezy - 22:51, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE and textbook WP:SYNTH. That's interjecting unnecessary political opinions into this article. I can see why other editors would think that's an attempt to justify the murder. This is a complex political issue, we don't need Wiki-voice putting political opinions and making its own political analysis on the causes for the murder. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 11:51, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Except in cases of certifications or master-apprentice-type guilds, is it ever okay to start an article with [Firstname Lastname] was a master [occupation]"? I would say no, based on WP:Peacock and article precedents? ɱ (talk) 23:40, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

If a notable majority of reliable sources say someone is a "master chef" or some such, then I think it can be okay, though I would prefer to use "known as a master chef" or the like. -- A D Monroe III^{( talk)} 00:35, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree. TFD ( talk) 01:16, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Are there precedents you can find that support it? ɱ (talk) 01:21, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I haven't looked into precedents, beyond vaguely recalling a few "known as the father of X", etc. I don't see listing specific precedents as significant, since we're proposing a change to be followed from here on, right? -- A D Monroe III^{( talk)} 19:22, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

• Generally to be avoided, but remembering that in some areas, and especially in the past under the guild system, the term was not vague peacockery, but a very specific and important status, for which you had to pass exams etc. But I still wouldn't use it in the first sentence. At least in England, some 19th-century & maybe later census returns record people as eg "Master docker", which I expect was very different from being a "docker". Seamen still have master certificates etc, which are important. See Master mariner, Master seaman, Ship's captain (aka Master), Shipping master and so on. There are also a number of specific roles called "Master of...", notably the Master of the Rolls. Johnbod ( talk) 02:14, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

  See also Master builder. BD2412 T 02:18, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I know, that's why I started with "Except in cases of certifications or master-apprentice-type guilds". So outside of that it should be avoided?" ɱ (talk) 02:20, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Generally, yes. But Master builder or mason would be one exception, up to 1800 perhaps. It tended to be what they called architects before they had the word. Johnbod ( talk) 02:22, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

The case in question is Christopher Columbus, where "master navigator" seems to have been what they called some people at the time (piloto mayor). Columbus was not one of these figures. I don't believe, based on this discussion so far, that he should be given that peacock term when none of the articles on the most notable architects and other explorers use such wording. ɱ (talk) 02:31, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Amerigo Vespucci is as notable an explorer who did hold the title, yet he even hasn't had a mention of it anywhere in the article, nonetheless the lede. ɱ (talk) 02:32, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, if it's not an actual rank or role (or, if it is, but the person didn't hold it...!), it seems like modern peacockery, and I would avoid it, unless it's so commonly used in RS that it's due to say something like "known as a master x", as A D Monroe III suggests. -sche ( talk) 17:03, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

• Depends on historical status I'd say. Back in the mists of time, being a master craftsman was a thing. Now anyone can claim it. Guy ( help!) 12:11, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Resolved

I'd like to know what you think. about SETA, a Turkish think Tank linked to the Turkish Government and is used as a source in several articles. I'd say it is even more Government linked than the Anadolu Ajansi as it was founded by Ibrahim Kalin, a chief adviser to Erdogan. Press freedom is now not a strength of Erdogan and... They also like to write about YPG terrorists, and say HDP is carrying out the orders of the PKK. These are really just Turkeys views, and in most of the rest of the world, both organizations are viewed as opposing terrorism. I think, I've never read a neutral article of SETA. I think SETA can be used as a source to describe the Organization. But on other topics, if the subject is notable, it should also have an article in an other news outlet and we could then use this one as a source. Paradise Chronicle ( talk) 01:07, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I think you can close this discussion, as it is not included in an article in dispute for the moment. I just thought to have a general ruling would be good. Paradise Chronicle ( talk) 04:13, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Could be rather interesting, see Talk:War_in_Donbass#Recent_controversial_edits. Heptor ( talk) 19:09, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

According to some sources, the present the war in Donbas is hybrid war between Ukraine and Russia, where patriots of Ukraine fight the little green men invading from Russia. I go on out on the limb and say that reality is more nuanced, and the local discontent with the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, linguistic disputes and other divisions in Ukraine played a significant role in the events, and indeed that far from instigating the rebellion in Donbass and using it to destabilise Ukraine, Moscow has largely been reacting to events and trying to gain some control of a process which was originally almost entirely outside of its control. This is maybe a bit surprising to read for some people, but please check the references and consider sharing your opinion on the talk page. Thanks Heptor ( talk) 20:57, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Heptor, unlikely - there are compelling sources for the little green men, and Russia shamelessly annexed Crimea "because destiny". Guy ( help!) 23:13, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

sooo.. No chance we can have a little of both? Some shameless green men, some pissed-off locals because their votes got smacked in the revolution

The article already allows for 'both'. Indeed, we have a whole separate article on the protests. That's not what you're asking for: what you're asking for WP:FALSEBALANCE. RGloucester — ☎ 00:39, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

The article is presently very vague about the causes of the war. It only mentions the Euromaidan in passing, at the end of a rambling sentence. The article doesn’t mention anything about the divisions in Ukraine that led to this conflict, including the linguistic, cultural and political schisms that are widely studied in the literature. Heptor ( talk) 06:39, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Heptor, the fact that Russia exploited divisions it had stoked in Ukraine is not in doubt. Neither is the fact that this was not a "popular uprising", but an invasion. Guy ( help!) 10:09, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Let's discuss the literature? Heptor ( talk) 10:48, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

...no takers? Heptor ( talk) 11:20, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

More input would be very welcome at Talk:Genetic Literacy Project#RfC about the word nonpartisan for the Genetic Literacy Project. NightHeron ( talk) 15:50, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• English people (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

"The English people are a nation and an ethnic group native to England who speak the English language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Angelcynn ('family of the Angles'). Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who migrated to Great Britain around the 5th century AD.[8] England is the largest and most populous country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the majority of people living there are British citizens."

This is being used to argue that, for example, Idris Elba is not English.

As far as I can tell, this lead paragraph is a massive dose of WP:SYN. When addressing ewthnicity, for example, the Office of National Statistics uses "Whiote British", not "English". English is not an ethnicity and never has been. The idea that speaking English is a qualifying factor would have been an inc onvenience in the early days of the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha or even the early Hanovers. Common history and culture? The English national dish is either fish ands chips (invented by Italians in Glasgow) or chicken tikka masala. Then we get to the religion part. Anglicanism? Not according to Voltaire, who documented numerous religions including the Quakers, who were the last to abandon the familiar "thee" and "thou" of old English.

This article reads to me as a giant pille of WP:SYN. What do others think? Guy ( help!) 23:23, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't have viewed "English" as an ethnicity personally, I'd think of Anglo-Saxons or perhaps Britons for the ethnic group, but this isn't an area I understand too well. This seems to be a common trend across many European countries: French people, Germans, Italians, etc. ProcrastinatingReader ( talk) 10:23, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, if it's common then it needs fixing, but I am mainly concerned here witht he English people article, as that was what dragged me into this cesspit. I have started looking for academic sources that support "English people" as an ethnicity, but any that do so always qualify it as, e.g. white English people, which is in line with the Office of National Statistics ethnicity categories of white British, black British, British Asian etc.

I can't yet find a single reliable source that unambiguously defines the English (as opposed to white English or Anglo-Saxons) as an ethnic group. I would wager a small sum that there will be similar difficulties for France etc. Germanic people, maybe, but German people in a way that defines out everyone but the white? There's some historical precedent for that being a bit shitty... Guy ( help!) 11:25, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I think that at the source of this disagreement is the fact that "English people" can mean different things, which overlap but aren't always the same. Those meanings range from a civic sense of the term, to mean someone born in England, to a narrower, ethnic sense. If you have access, I'd recommend this source on some of these complexities. This also looks like it would be helpful, but I don't have access to a copy. Finally, I'd be wary of assuming that official classifications of ethnicity in the UK match up with sociologists' understandings of ethnicity ( Classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom#History and debate covers this a bit). Cordless Larry ( talk) 11:48, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Cordless Larry, yes, which is why sources clarify that "white English" or "white British" are the ethnic groups, and English is a nationality. Guy ( help!) 12:04, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Some do, but not all: see this and this. This source is also potentially helpful, explaining that Englishness "is a somewhat nebulous descriptor that hovers between ethnic and national identity" - which is basically my understanding too. Cordless Larry ( talk) 12:22, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Cordless Larry, e.g. within this narrative the countryside has tended to be deployed as an endangered and essentialised symbol of what Englishness is and this chapter has suggested that rural nature has been invested with the meanings and representations of English ethnicity etc - in other words, it's a narrative, not a fact (and the text goes on to make this even clearer). And that is pretty much my point: the idea of the "ethnic English" is a narrative, and one with a profoundly unattractive provenance. Guy ( help!) 23:27, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Given that we're discussing a social construct, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a fact to be found here. Ethnicity is all about narratives. Cordless Larry ( talk) 06:58, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Cordless Larry, I disagree. Anglo-Saxons are an ethnic group, white British are an ethnic group, English people are people who are English. Casting the definition of English people as an ethnic group comprising white people with white English culture is no doubt hugely popular with racists, but it';s not accurate. If you want an article on the ethnic group it would be white British or even white English. As it is, the article on English people effectively defines Englishness as synonymous with gammon, and that is a bit of a problem. Guy ( help!) 10:12, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't "want" anything here. I was just responding to your call for sources, by pointing out that there can be disagreement about whether the English are an ethnic group or a nation, or both. Cordless Larry ( talk) 10:35, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, on "common history and culture", sociologists generally argue that ethnic groups are characterised by belief in a shared history and culture, not a shared history and culture in an objective sense. As the ethnic group article puts it, "presumed similarities such as a common language, ancestry, history...". The presumed is important. Cordless Larry ( talk) 11:50, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Cordless Larry, I think that you'll find more agreement about common culture among Black British people in London than among British Asian people in Birmingham. It seems likely to me that at least some of this would be due to the difference between the heritage of slavery and that of empire, but that's my personal view. Guy ( help!) 12:07, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

And President Obama was not American, I am shocked, this is a bit highly offensive. The history of the England is a well known mix of people through out history. Yes the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians settled in what is now England and southern Scotland, but while they pushed some Romano-Celtic tribes to the west, the majority of the British celts stayed put, see Extent of the migrations, the invaders forming the upper levels of the society. Though the percentage of Celts increased towards the west and north, even in the 10th century in the East Anglican kingdom the were laws specifically relating to the local British population. But before the English came to England among the Romans, especially along Hadrian's Wall, the were legionaries from North Africa, Syrians, Algerians and Iraqis who mixed with the local population [ Borders folk may be descended from Africans] [ When Syrians, Algerians and Iraqis patrolled Hadrian's Wall]. After the Anglo-Saxons came further waves of settlers Danes, Norwegians, Normans, Huguenots, Jews (one lived in my small town in the 13th century) etc etc. And then Britain had its international Empire, with peoples from all round the world coming here from all round the globe and modern England has been multicultural ever since, the English society and customs have always been a mongrel mix. Sorry this is all well known, I was just shocked by the assertion that Elba was not English ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 13:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

(There is an essay, Wikipedia:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom, about this issue.) Since ethnicity is a social construct, not a biological category, we call people English if that is how they are described. This is particularly the case with Jewish people in the UK, most of whom are descended from immigrants, many of whom arrived as refugees from Nazism. Or royalty: most of Prince Charles' ancestors were German, but he is considered English. TFD ( talk) 03:00, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

This article seems biased particularly the political viewpoints. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:D08:1201:55D3:8D95:85A3:87B9:915E ( talk) 20:43, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Can you give some specific examples?-- 69.157.254.92 ( talk) 04:09, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I think in article McKenzie method violates the Neutral point of view. The essence of the dispute is set forth in here. The debate concerns mainly the chapter "Effectiveness". NDenPT ( talk) 11:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• You have been here under two weeks and have no edits outside this topic, so it's not a surprise that you would misunderstand the difference between WP:NPOV and "balance" for fringe topics. As Alexbrn and Roxy the dog have I think explained, the sources you promote do not counter the facts in the article. We have seen lot of this in relation to, e.g., chiropractic, where chiropractors come along with a paper that says "spinal manipulation as effective as NSAIDs for chronic lower back pain" when in fact what they mean is "NSAIDs don't work for chronic lower back pain and neither does chiropractic". Nothing works well for chronic lower back pain. The human spine is a clinching argument against intelligent design. Guy ( help!) 12:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• I don't think the sources quite present the positive framing the OP wants (who incidentally, is remaining conspicuously schtum in response to questions about a COI). For example, when a source says "There is moderate- to high-quality evidence that MDT is not superior to other rehabilitation interventions" then it wouldn't be right tor Wikipedia to say it's the "same as" those other interventions, as the OP seems to want. Anyway, once again: NDenPT, do you have a WP:COI to declare? Alexbrn ( talk) 13:13, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• JzG I do not promote sources, but use those that are. Alexbrn sources do not exactly indicate such a negative point of view, as it is presented in the English-language Wikipedia. And during this discussion, I studied all the available Wikipedia articles about the McKenzie method in different languages: none of them have so much negative information about the effectiveness of the method. While the sources used in most cases were similar. Regarding WP: COI. Alexbrn, this is your third time writing to me about this, although I answered you the previous two. Therefore, I repeat, I am a physiotherapist and use the Mackenzie method as one of the tools in my work. When I came across this page, I was very surprised at its contents, as I know how this method works and have an idea of ​​its effectiveness. Therefore, now my aspiration is to improve the content of the article so that it matches the encyclopedic style and displays a neutral point of view. I would attribute my role more to Subject-matter expert. NDenPT ( talk) 18:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  NDenPT, you say subject-matter expert, we see COI. You make money from this, and the science shows it to be just another dead end pet theory. Your aim, according to the Talk page, is to make the article reflect your view of the topic, but those who are disputing your edits are some of our most experienced editors of articles on fringe scientific and medical topics. Consider the possibility that we may in fact know more about how Wikipedia represents such theories than you do. Guy ( help!) 08:11, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Science does not show that this is a dead end theory. Unlike the english-language Wikipedia. NDenPT ( talk) 10:08, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

If that is the case, then you'll have no problem presenting references to support your assertions at the article Talk page, will you? That's all we've been asking for all along. You may be a subject matter expert, but you dont appear to know much about science, or how to understand clinical trials or reviews. Remember, we are Wikipedia experts. - Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 11:32, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

To be fair (and I'm not a subject matter expert) from the sources, the Method seems to be based around some fairly unexceptional exercises, despite some unfortunate links to the lunacy that is chiropractic [28]. Like many interventions for lower back pain there seems to be some not very good evidence the Method maybe kinda sort works, but maybe not more or less than other similar unbranded interventions. The executive summary for recent MEDRS on this topic would be "meh"; the OP wishes it to be "yay!". We can't ignore the sources. Non-English Wikipedias are of course unreliable sources and for fringe and medical topics ome of them really suck. Alexbrn ( talk) 12:22, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

All this discussion comes down to ensuring that the information on Wikipedia matches the information in available sources. For example, in some cases, its effectiveness maybe more or not less than other similar unbranded interventions. I think it’s important to talk about it NDenPT ( talk) 18:50, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

We say, per the sources, "Evidence suggests it may be better than some other approaches for chronic lower back pain, but this evidence is insufficient to inform clinical decision making." The sources won't allow anything much more "positive" than that. Alexbrn ( talk) 18:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Your position I understand. Will wait for new high-quality information. NDenPT ( talk) 09:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Alexbrn, yup. "Works as well as standard of care" for lower back pain is equal to "doesn't work". Guy ( help!) 09:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Let scientists judge it. Guy you are not a scientist? NDenPT ( talk) 10:40, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

NDenPT, this is Wikipedia, everyone here is an amateur. But I have a fair bit of experience of fringe medicine and pseudoscience. By a fair bit, I mean more than I would wish on my worst enemy. Guy ( help!) 18:14, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Why do you purposely paint the McKenzie Method in bad light on Wikipedia. Personally I have neither experienced nor used the method but I have several relatives who have suffered from bad back pain. After they had gotten treatment in various ways most of them attributed their recovery to the McKenzie Method. This interested me hence why I decided to check up on the method but all I find is that Wikipedia is filled with information about how untrustworthy and simply bad the method is. This lead me to the talk page and that showed me that people have come forward with trustworthy and neutral information about the methods apparent success. But every time people do that, others shut them down with arguably lesser sources. Even though you claim that newer and more neutral sources are better you seem adamant to paint the method in a bad light. I inquire of you: Why are you such a biased person who acts in bad faith against Wikipedia's universal NPOV? There seems like two or more of you (Guy, Roxy, Alexbrn) have a personal vendetta against the McKenzie Method. Whether it's because you have had personal bad experiences with it or not I don't think the two (or more) of you refusing the edits of experienced practitioners are acting in good faith. The only reason they aren't getting their viewpoints across is because you two have more experience with Wikipedia and is using Wikipedia as a form of Gate-keeping them from successfully getting their point accross. This is a gross violation of the NPOV and a clear furthering of your own agenda. Even going so far as to disregard every article in other languages. Doubly moreso considering one of you holds the admin position. MarqReg ( talk) 10:34, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

We need to summarize good sources accurately. That is all there is to it. No amount of hand waving and socking is going to change that. Alexbrn ( talk) 17:29, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi all, I hesitate to jump into what is clearly a heated debate, but I want to offer some sources that I believe speak to the viewpoints expressed here. Just in case it could be of help, here are the URL's for some articles from medical journal which speak to the efficacy of the McKenzie Method. Some of these may have been used in the article already up but some of them have not been. I hope this can add value and shed light on how the article can be made more robust. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29602304/ , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539720/ , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596425/ , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28701365/ , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421491/ , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16641766/ . In addition, there is also this review which looks at a few different studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6642883/ . Best wishes, Skubydoo ( talk) 03:31, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I would like to raise a concern about the label American “charlatan" on Dr. Mercola's Wikipedia page.

The reference used to support this claim is the Chicago Magazine article. The article used the word “charlatan” as a speculation of the writer, and not as a fact. Here is the direct quote.

"Warrior or quack, straight shooter or charlatan, the question is the same: How has a site built on ideas so contrary to mainstream science—so radical that even some staunch alternative health advocates are uncomfortable with some of his positions—become so popular?"

I believe this is a violation of Wikipedia's two core policies:

• WP:NPOV – Neutral point of view. The word “charlatan” is a derogatory term that signifies bias against Dr. Mercola. • WP:V – Verifiability. The reference that made use of the word “charlatan” as a matter of fact, and not opinion, is not factual.

I've brought this up in the Talk page, but editors have denied my request.

As a Wikipedia reader and user myself, I am aware that this site aims to disseminate information, and I am open to accepting criticisms as long as they are appropriately backed by reliable factual sources. But this seems like a direct attack on Dr. Mercola to unfairly taint his image in the public’s eye.

What I would propose is to strike out the label from the first sentence of the bio, and instead directly use the quote from Chicago Mag, so Wiki readers can see that it is a speculation/opinion, and not a fact.-- Lein23 ( talk) 02:49, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I think People accused of crime applies: "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction." Apparently he has received warning letters from the FDA, but there is no information that he has been convicted of fraud. TFD ( talk) 03:24, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I would also like to add that the writer of the Chicago Mag article, which was used as the source, isn't even claiming the charlatan label as his own opinion, but is stating it as one of several possibilities - none of which even he has established any certainty.-- Lein23 ( talk) 03:53, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales called all such people "lunatic charlatans", see WP:QUACKS. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 04:05, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Lein23, what's non-neutral about describing America's best known quack as a quack? Guy ( help!) 23:56, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Agree, there is no violation of WP:NPOV to state that Mercola is a quack. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 04:27, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales made no specific reference to Dr. Mercola when he said that statement, but instead was referring to his response to the Change.org petition. No doctors were named in that petition.

The main issue here would be the use of the label "charlatan" as it is taken from a reference that used the word as a matter of opinion, and not a fact.

If the Chicago Mag article will be used as a reference for the charlatan tag, then it should be posted in its entirety, rather than cherry pick a word the author used. That would count as information suppression, which is another violation of Wikipedia policies.-- Lein23 ( talk) 06:43, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

From the same article: Steven Salzberg, a prominent biologist, professor, and researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, calls Mercola “the 21st-century equivalent of a snake-oil salesman.” Which is synonymous with "charlatan". Tgeorgescu ( talk) 22:32, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The University of Alberta magazine Folio calls him a " wellness quack". An Irish Times article on quackery, snake oil salesmen and charlatans uses Mercola and Gwyneth Paltro as the marquee examples. The LA Times uses him as an example in the article titled " Reporting on quacks and pseudoscience: The problem for journalists". Gawker (remember them?) called him " Quack doctor Joseph Mercola". The Natonal Review, a fairly serious source, says that mentions " fearmongering quacks (such as Joseph Mercola, who has repeatedly been disciplined by the FDA)". The only substantive question I am seeing here is whether the lede should call him a quack or charlatan. ThatMontrealIP ( talk) 04:50, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Could the lead be changed to include both Quack and Charlatan? Both fit the subject of the article, and are WP:RS. - Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 12:20, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It was not Folio that called him a wellness quack, but a writer of a commentary piece they published, which therefore is not a reliable source. Gawker is considered generally unreliable per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, while there is no consensus for the reliability of the National Review. Ironically Gawker went bankrupt because of defamation judgmentss against it. Not a good example to follow. We've got to stop typing in "mercola" "charlatan" into a google search and list whatever comes up. Articles are supposed to summarize the information about someone, not whatever we think is important and can source. As I mentioned above, we cannot accuse living persons of criminal activity unless they have been convicted by a court. TFD ( talk) 00:28, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Ironically Gawker went bankrupt because of defamation judgmentss [sic] against it.

No, it didn't. Bollea v. Gawker involved "invasion of privacy, infringement of personality rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress", not defamation -- the sex tape was real, after all -- and Gawker could have appealed the $140 million judgment but couldn't afford the $50 million appeal bond to do so. Ironically, it's bad for someone suggest a source uses misinformation based on misinformation about the source. -- Calton | Talk 23:58, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Mercola is, by a wide variety of sources, a quack. He's gotten warning letters from the FDA, so it's essentially official. -- Calton | Talk 23:58, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi @TFD, the policy you cited WP:BLPCRIME does not apply to individuals who are public figures. Does Dr. Mercola meet criteria for being a public figure? If so, then WP:PUBLICFIGURE clarifies, “If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If you cannot find multiple reliable third-party sources documenting the allegation or incident, leave it out.” There are multiple sources documenting these allegations, so I think it’s fair to include that he has been accused of being a charlatan or quack, if he is indeed a public figure. Best wishes, Skubydoo ( talk) 03:59, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

More input is needed at White Fragility, and on its talk page: Talk:White Fragility#Overhaul. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:15, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Radhe Shyam ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

There is a dispute between whether there are 2 languages or 3 languages the film is being shot on and whether it is POV and OR as said by ThaThinThaKiThaTha. More input is needed on this talk page: Talk:Radhe Shyam#Original languages. SP013 ( talk) 16:38, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Though I've participated somewhat in trying to broker a resolution between people with differing opinions, one editor has argued that some content, if presented one way, constitutes POV, but I'm not even clear on what they think the non-neutral POV is here. So, sure, more eyes are always welcome in reading and interpreting the points of the discussion. Cyphoidbomb ( talk) 21:36, 21 July 2020 (UTC)