Essays Mid‑impact | ||||||||||
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Meh. I thought it was a good example, but it's your project so I wont object. BL 16:58, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I completely disagree with the assertion that "Articles need to be interesting" as it goes on to say "to attract and keep the attention of readers" while it may possibly be true that if you don't want the content you authored to be heavily edited you may want your content to be interesting, but no, articles do not need to be interesting and the day that they do is the day the sentence should be cut from the NPOV tutorial and pasted into the "Why Wikipedia has a reputation that more closely matches that of a Daily Newspaper and not an Encyclopedia" tutorial Dirtclustit ( talk) 04:54, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
It is a well known fact that the Christian Church burnt witches during the 17th century. Today most of us do not believe in the existence of witches and we feel that the witch burnings of the past were inexcusable crimes committed against innocent women. It is hard for us to understand how such things could happen. But before condemning the people who perpetrated those acts which we would now consider crimes, we should understand the full implications of our judgement. We should also ask whether we are wholly condemning the Church that stood behind those acts. To be concrete: though witches were burned, that did not make the whole Church an evil organisation, nor every Christian a wicked person. Even less can we say that because of the witch burnings Christianity is wholly a wicked religion and for that reason to be condemned.
Would this same reasoning argue that we cannot condemnn slavery or genocide as bad, because we cannot pass judgement on they who committed those crimes ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.44.103.90 ( talk • contribs) 10:13, 21 December 2003 (UTC).
I know it is very tempting to do that. But try hard to let the facts speak for themself. I think that any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that burning witches was a horrible thing but stating it in the article text is neither neccesarry or good (according to the Wikipedia NPOV policy). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ed Poor ( talk • contribs) 17:18, 25 September 2003 (UTC).
I have one minor quibble and one major objection:
Minor quibble: In Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Attribution vs. citation, I'm afraid that the criterion that a view can be demonstrated to be wrong may be abused. If a view is a widely-held error, then it's generally fine to explain why this is so. For example, many people believe that Harry S. Truman never used a period after his middle initial, but in fact he did, as documented by numerous signatures. However, in some situations, there will be people who are perfectly familiar with the sound reasoning against their position, but who nevertheless will not accept that reasoning. For example, many people believe in creationism, but in fact nothing of the sort ever happened, as documented by the overwhelming scientific evidence of evolution. (Ed may disagree with my example ... but that's part of the point! -_^) I call this a minor quibble, because I know that nobody intended to authorise this sort of thing. So can we change the language to something along the lines of "Is there indisputable evidence for the claim, which those who disagree with it are unaware of?"? (Or something like that, this isn't ideal yet.)
Major objection: In Whose view matters?, a definite preference is given to "experts". While there is a brief mention that this is not a well-defined class, I worry that this could easily lead to a bias in favour of established opinions (over new ideas) and the opinions of people with interests (since nobody knows more about genetic engineering than our friends at Monsanto). One possibility is to define "experts" so that it clearly includes a potentially wide variety of people: perhaps "people that have studied the matter a good deal" (whereas a bad alternative definition would be "people that know a good deal about the matter"). My preference would be to avoid relying on that word in the first place; either by replacing it with a more suitable term (any ideas?) or by supplementing it. One supplement (but we should think of more) could be "participant"; for example, an anthropologist might be an "expert" on voudun, but a practitioner might not be (for some interepretations of the word). Clearly, we don't want to permit the sort of biases that would result by ignoring the Haitian hougan in favour of the French scientist!
-- Toby Bartels 07:52, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I think this piece is a good approach to clarify things. I agree with Toby that the "expert" reference could be...a bit problematic. I think it will be very inspiring to me for a shameless translation. I wrote something one day, but can't find it back :-( To those who read french, I also propose that link, which hold the charter of another encyclopedia
http://agora.qc.ca/encyclopedie.nsf/Communiques/Charte#principe1
Anthère 16:18, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I don't think we should expect or demand a lot of patience from people who are in need of tutoring about neutrality. Hence, I think this article right now is way, way too long; in particular, because there exists and even longer article that's about NPOV and is not called a "tutorial," and because "tutorial" suggests a quick how-to. It might be O.K. to preserve all the excess (better to merge whatever isn't redundant into the main article), but in that case I think there should be a succinct how-to up top. In one short sentence preceding it the article can offer a link out to the longer one for readers who don't arrive with some knowledge of the term NPOV. 168... 03:17, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I changed the "good way to judge" part to ..
Gbog reverted and said this should be discussed first because it's a major change. I don't think it is, but if Gbog disagrees with this explanation, I would invite him to comment on it. If he fails to do so I will reinsert the new version. —Eloquence
I know people fight a lot over NPOV, but fighting over an NPOV tutorial... (shame there's not an emoticon for "shakes heads in bemusement"). Can you please stop this before the page needs to be protected? Now it's advertised on the Village pump, why not leave it a few days to see if other people have anything to contribute to this? Angela . 11:48, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Well, I don't care enough to fight about it. This is just a tutorial, after all. Feel free to take it out if it bothers you that much. —Eloquence
from the village pump
Eloquence feels the change clarifies that the suspicion that an article is POV is not always an indication that this is the case, as there may be cases where there is a large disparity between facts an opinions. He thinks it is an important (if minor) caveat.
Gbog explained that this relates to the FAQ section on the Mother Teresa talk page. Gbog would like to add a quote from the NPOV_tutorial to the FAQ, but Eloquence disagreed, stating that the quote was inappropriate and explained that "merely suspecting that an article is POV doesn't make it so, as on cases like Mother Teresa, quite a few people will have this suspicion."
Andrewa felt the issue provided support for the benefits of a filter project (see m:Talk:Referees for full comments).
Menchi reminded everyone that calling others incompetent was anti-Wikilove. Eloquence noted that censorship of negative views and a lack of understanding of our policies were worse than vandalism. Gbog thought that transforming Wikipedia into an anti-religious sandbox would be worse than vandalism.
If you read above, you will notice that there has actually been an edit war about the "NPOV tests" section already. The current version reflects a compromise. It acknowledges that "Would a reader suspect that this article was written by someone who was trying to push a particular agenda or point of view - either subtly or not-so-subtly?" is one question one may ask to find out whether an article is in compliance with NPOV, but to avoid abuse of this guideline, clarifies that we need not pander to beliefs which are clearly incorrect. For example, we don't need to write "Some experts claim that wrestling fights are staged" but we can write "Wrestling fights are carefully staged". We can acknowledge these misconceptions insofar as we mention them, but we don't need to soften our language to accommodate them.
I think this is a very important part of this tutorial, as it concerns a common problem: How to deal with false information. I'd rather elaborate on it than remove it entirely. —Eloquence 08:10, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)
I was surprised to learn what that section is supposed to be about, b/c it doesn't read that way to me. I agree we're in a sticky situation if the section reflects a hard-won compromise, but my naive assessment of it was that it was unfocused and unhelpful, so all things equal I think it needs serious revision or chucking. I think there's a big problem being glossed over here, which involves taking for granted what the rest of the article doesn't take for granted at all. The problem is: How do I know when my POV is worse than another user's POV? How do I know that I should just step aside and give their POV primacy because mine, though popular, is a fiction (i.e. that contrary to what it looks like to me and what my buddies all say, actually wrestling is staged). If you proved wrestling is staged on the pages of Wikipedia, what would that proof look like? Tell me that and I'll know when to back off. But the section simply assumes that proof is obvious to everybody (murderer proven innocent). But to some one who believes in the fiction despite the proof, plainly it's not proof. If you think that once a Wikipedian has told them of the proof they will realize it's proof, then you are talking about someone whose POV has been changed and they don't need this section to urge them to defer to the truth. How is this section helping anybody?
168... 08:33, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I like this latest version of the tutorial, and I commend Eloquence for having the foresight to recommend its initial creation. It's much better than I could have done myself. :-) -- Uncle Ed 14:47, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The passage:
bothers me. Is it in fact true that Pons and Fleischmann shocked the world? At the time I heard it, I thought it was mildly interesting, but I certainly wasn't "shocked." (Perhaps I was too young, and all adults that heard it were shocked?) It certainly seems like a non-factual observation, anyway. I don't think it really matters, but maybe a different example could be chosen. It caused a bit of cognitive dissonance in a place where it didn't need to occur. TreyHarris 00:48, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
I didn't realize this discussion had taken place about the cold fusion sentence before I put back "shocked the world" with the comment "'drama' is not inaccurate if it has not been offered as a literal depiction of something people found dramatic" [I've rephrased the comment, which I garbled when I made my edit] although I think my comments still stands in answer to the points in the discussion. This intolerant accuracy quibbling is totally subjective and the presumed authority and confidence with which people quibble is snobbish deference to the language of a prominent specialty or discipline. Language is inherently figurative, schematic and ambiguous, and the goal of education is inherently didactic. Some things aren't worth fussing over though, and some well meant fussing is counter productive. I contend "tap" in this context will lead _nobody_ to imagine the scientists used the energy powered a car or appliance, and please note that I do not mean "nobody." You know what I mean.
I've just added a section warning not to avoid saying things that some groups object to having stated if they're not disputing the facts. I've encountered this a couple of times recently, and it looks like people are misunderstanding NPOV, and so taking political correctness too far. I see earlier on this talk page there are a couple of mentions of other forms of this problem. I'm not entirely satisfied by my exposition of the issue; perhaps others here can devise a clearer statement of it. 195.167.169.36 16:49, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I removed the examples in this section. They weren't very useful and were poor examples of NPOV. Perhaps we could discuss better examples. Carrp 14:39, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have some concerns with the NPOV definition, specifically how it is being used to force small minority views into articles in large ways. Take, for example, the "sun case" used throughout the early part of the NPOV tutorial. I have seen a couple of cases where people have quoted this argument, and the explicit statement that 99% of the world seeing something may not make make it true, in a destructive way. Does anyone really think that there should be a disambugation link at the top of the article about the Sun (as suggested in "word ownership") saying "This article is about a large majority view of the Sun. For the view of the Sun by Apollo-Worshippers, see..."? This is clearly what the article implies. I would like to rewrite that example, and the example of "word ownership" to explain that consensus meanings DO have greater weight than very small minority meanings. Does anyone have any thoughts? -- Goodoldpolonius2 05:43, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
See my suggestion in Wikipedia talk:Words to avoid#Claim -- Irmgard 09:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Your "accusations" section has a high potential of being labelled as libel. As it currently states; ((Attribution and citation are especially important for claims against a person (" Michael Jackson is a child abuser")etc.... )) is basically presenting a very nasty association that is damaging and in many nations illegal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.122.255.117 ( talk • contribs)
Hmmm. I am rather concerned about the section of this page called "Article splitting" since it references Wikipedia:Content forking but then describes as mandatory a different procedure from what that page actually says. Wikipedia:Content forking says that when one subtopic is getting too large or too contentious, it can be split off into its own article, with a shortened summary left in the main article. This page claims that Wikipedia:Content forking claims for all subtopics of an article to be spun out at the same time. I am concerned that this misrepresentation will be used to oppose legitimate changes ("No, you can't spin off 'Criticism of King Loopdeloop' into its own article! Not unless you're willing to spin every subtopic, including the two-sentence 'Shoe size of King Loopdeloop', into its own article!"). I'd like to get comments on this, but if no one can explain a good reason why this particular procedure, not supported by either of the pages it references, should stay in its current form, I will change it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
You had replaced "every main section" by "every subsection" - which is not the same (e.g. a subsection with no more than three secondary "see also" links is not really a "main section" of the main article, is it?).The NPOV way of splitting articles is explained in Wikipedia:Content forking: every main section of the article is reduced in size, keeping to the "space and balance" principle as explained above, and an equal number of sub-pages is created using a technique as explained in wikipedia:summary style.
Well, that would be impossible to produce if after the split the main article were out of balance, in the NPOV tutorial sense (No wikipedia article in the article namespace is exempt of NPOV, including "space and balance" recommendations).Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, provided that all the sub-articles, and the summary conform to Neutral Point of View.
Currently we have a clarification on WP:NPOV, about how an article easily can be biased WP:NPOV in a hidden way. This was planned to be spun off to a separate help page (this goes back to the WP:NPOV talk page of November). However, it is just a list of examples that now is presented as "new policy", and as such it receives misdirected negative criticism. I don't think it will pass as "new policy", and I'm also against that: "no bias" and fair treatment of all notable POV's is the corner stone of Wikipedia, it's not "new" in any way.
An alternative would be to trim it back down and reinsert it on the NPOV page, but that would be a waste.
Now, as it's just a tutorial on how articles can be biased and there shouldn't be a wildgrowth of guide pages, personally I think that it is best placed here, after some more text improvement. See: Wikipedia_talk:Information_suppression Harald88 14:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I reverted your no-consensus intrusive change. -- Francis Schonken 06:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
1) I'll make a link to the essay in the "see also" section (note that your "information suppression" essay met some opposition too);
2) You had deleted one of the most often quoted paragraphs from this guideline, and several other rewritings which were no "consensus".
--
Francis Schonken 08:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
A common way of introducing bias is by one-sided selection of information. Information can be cited that supports one view while some important information that opposes it is omitted or even deleted. In this manner, the full range of views on a subject can be unfairly presented or concealed whilst still complying with Wikipedia:Verifiability.
Some examples of how editors may unwittingly or even deliberately present a subject in an unfair way:
Thus, verifiability, proper citation and neutral phrasing are necessary but not sufficient to ensure NPOV. It is important that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner and that each is summarized as if by its proponents to their best ability.
Would it be ok if I were to tag chinese ctities under Category:Taiwan as the goverment of Taiwan ( Republic of China) claims to rule mainland china? -- Cool Cat Talk| @ 09:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if anyone might take a look at the argument in Talk: Adolf Hitler#Goebbels quote from Steigmann-Gall? One party contends that a particuar sentence constitutes an assertion by a secondary source and, as sourced material, must be kept in. The other party contends that the sentence constitutes speculation and, not being based on fact, must be kept out. Apart from a long quote, the contribs (8 or 9) are short and clear (-ish), and raise the issue of how free the WP editor is to separate fact from speculation in a secondary source.-- shtove 20:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Of course Drogo only does that in some cases, whereas in other cases he has no problem in deleting referenced material that doesn't contain such twisting of words. Str1977 (smile back) 23:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
There should be a section in the NPOV article on how to add the POV warning tag. or at least a link to the how to page that has that information. I dont know how to do it so I cant add that. 67.23.60.92 21:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
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(See diff.) I think these changes need to be reverted. Wikipedia is not reporting the opinion of the magazine; the magazine is reporting the opinion of many Australians and responsible for the truth/reliability/etc. of this information. Wikipedia editors who read the magazine can then quote the article as the source where they have garnered the information. See also No original research. I'd like to revert straight away since the current text misinforms new editors but I'll hold back for a while pending input from other editors which would be most welcome. AvB ÷ talk 17:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I made some changes ( diff) that were reverted. I apologize for doing so without talking first, I hadn't anticipated there being objections.
Currently, the article mentions two rules for how to balance competing viewpoints. For cases of scientific, technical, or social problems, space should be balanced "it should do so in proportion to the credibility of the experts holding the various theses". For cases of morals, religion, faith, and politics, we should list all opinions.
I have run into NPOV disputes involving faith, religion, and morality where one faction in the dispute tries to use the expertise rule to justify having an article which gives one side of the debate a vast majority of the space, and the other side only a small fraction of the space. The thinking is that some religious leaders, like Popes, should be considered as the most credible experts, and that the article should reflects that. My thinking is that such issues are moral/faith debates-- issues of opinon, not expertise. As such, the "in proportion to experts" should not apply, and so long as the moral debate itself is noteworthy, Wikipedia should try to treat all sides equally.
As such, I try to add some language to clarify that the "in proportion of credibility of experts" rule exists for questions of fact, not for questions of moral opinion. In doing so, I wasn't trying to change the policy, only clarify what I _think_ is the intent of the current text.
So... first off, do I understand the policy itself correctly? i.e. should the expertise rule apply to sciencey questions more than opiniony questions? If so, what sort of language can be added to help future editors from misunderstanding it and thinking that religious leaders, as religious experts, should dominate articles.
-- Alecmconroy 19:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
For the matter of argument, because that is the way you present it, let's suppose there are two factions each about as big as the other, and both thinking that the credibility of the experts supporting their stance is paramount. Also, for the sake of argument, and while that is the way you present the issue, the credentials of these experts are comparable, then:
Where's the problem (apart from that in practice it's not completely mathematic of course, but I suppose you get the thrift)?
Maybe, you still got the problem who gets the first go? Then, look at the article name:
Can't be all that difficult can it? -- Francis Schonken 23:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
wikipedia is worthless. did you seriously believe that you wouldn't have problems with "vandalism" when you decided to let anybody who wants to edit something? not everyone's view matters. it is crazy that you dismiss truth just so as not to offend a 1% minority view. I can't count how many times I've seen (and from Americans) that an article is "biased" in favor of the American view. Guess what - compared to America's view, no other country's view matters. It doesn't matter what some lowbrow nobody in Togo or Ghana has to say about world events. They don't even know what a PC is. Let the leaders lead and toss this subjective truth nonsense in the garbage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.137.42 ( talk • contribs)
What is the status of this page? I would like to see a tag at the top saying what its status is. Is it an essay? A guideline? A policy? A proposed policy or proposed guideline or work-in-progress intended to be a proposed policy or guideline? A page whose status is disputed? Thanks! -- Coppertwig 13:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I have a comment regarding the suggestions about "noted", "explained" and "pointed out": often, these are the precise words needed, but I have seen some editors citing this page as a reason to change otherwise neutral statements. I don't know exactly how to formulate what I mean, but I have a great example in continuation of the main page's. If, for example, Duane Gish had referenced the bible to support his statement, the proper formulation could be
This is objective and pretty easily verifiable fact he's noting: I'm quite confident (without doublechecking) that the Bible does, indeed, state that God created the Earth. The fact that Gish is noting it is his argument; he isn't simply making the argument directly (ie, "Gish noted that God created the Earth"). However, I have seen this transformed into things like
This is obviously POV, since a reader unfamiliar with the Bible might assume it doesn't (or at least might not) say that. Besides, "said" gets very old about the umpteenth time you use it... wait... "umpteenth" is in the spell-checker?? Wow. Anyways...
I think this section could be clarified some, demonstrating that some (specifically limited) uses of those three versions of "said" are quite allowable, and sometimes very useful. It's a very subtle point, but there's a difference between directly claiming that something is true and pointing out that another source claims it (even if you only point it out to support your argument). Does anyone agree with me? Eaglizard 06:44, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
The following text looks like it contains some vandalism to me: "Such split can be performed in a POV way, for example by putting everything you don't like in a new article and then giving that article an un-common name, so obfuscating its whereabouts." Would someone please review? Royalbroil 21:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Traditionally, encyclopedias describe the world by dividing it into currently existing nation-states, and featuring the history of the currently dominant ethnic group which rules the nation state. Of course this is a nationalist and sometimes ethno-racist POV. However, WP has uncritically adopted this POV way of describing the world. There are alternate objective, non-POV ways the world could be described, such as economic or cultural regions which transcend nation-state boundaries, but it seems WP gets its marching orders from the CIA. Fourtildas ( talk) 07:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
…1:44 P.M.E.S.T. THANK YOU WIKIPEDIA FOR ALLOWING ME D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass TO CONTINUE WITH SOME EFFORT 1:46 p.m. David George DeLancey ( talk) 18:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
We have an interesting dispute here about which agreed upon facts should be included: Talk:9/11#(subsection to make editing easier) ; fact picking. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 03:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I work for Microsoft. I like it there and I like the work I do. I have also contributed to Wikipedia from time to time but I have always avoided topics that have anything to do with Microsoft. I figured that I ran the risk of tainting an articles NPOV merely by contributing even if my contribution was nuetral. I fear the IP scanners. I have been thinking about again. I have been reading some of the NPOV articles and I haven't seen this discussed yet. Is it possible for someone, from Microsoft, or Apple, or Starbucks, or Canon, or Oracle, or whatever, to contribute on a subject that touches their company. If so, what is the best way to do that? If not, ok.....writing about rivers is fun too. I would like to hear peoples' thoughts about this. Thanks.
Crackerbelly talk 03:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
The introduction to this tutorial makes it sound like it will go through the steps focusing on liberalism, but it only covers the topic a few times. I could reword the introduction to not make it sound like this, but it seems to me that this might be a good idea, that is, making the entire tutorial focus on one (hypothetical) article. It doesn't have to be liberalism. In fact, I'm not sure that that particular topic would fit all the subjects here. Anyone have any ideas on this, and does anyone with more experience with want to do this/willing to change the article? Asmeurer ( talk ♬ contribs) 04:15, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I think there are several significant verifiable facts that dispute the tenor of the subsection "Sexism at King's College" in the article on Rosalind Franklin. I have stated some of these in the most recent posts to the Discussion at this time. How do I start a respectful NPOV discussion? Can I just add a paragraph stating facts I think at variance? Michael P. Barnett ( talk) 20:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Let's not say "POV" writing when we mean "biased writing". It's not a good synonym, and it obscures the fact that a huge number of Wikipedia articles are about the clash between various opinions of points of view. See Wikipedia:OPINION for more information. -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 17:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
See current discussion at WP:VPP#How to write on moral/ethical acts/behaviors that are treated negatively today but not during the time of the original topic? -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 13:00, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
This may be nitpicking or just due to my less-than-native mastery of the English language, but doesn't "P states sth." imply that P claims the denoted state to be real, as opposed to "P says sth." or "P writes sth." which merely describe the communicative act of saying or writing the cited words? Isn't the way "to state sth." relates to reality closer to "to explain sth." (but without necessarily elaborating the details or reasons) than it is to "to say/write sth."?
If so, the latter wordings would be "safer choices" where neutral language is desired, whilst the former might be problematic, as it is not as clearly detached from the content of the statement made by P.
Any input about this from knowledgable speakers? Zooloo ( talk) 21:06, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
The section on Neutral language doesn't seem to make any mention of Evaluative language. Such an example would be "Tomas Edison introduced his brilliant invention of..." - while I would say that it is indeed a bright invention, using the term brilliant actually carries a non neutral presupposition that the invention is indeed a positive invention. Micsthepick ( talk) 09:19, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Essays Mid‑impact | ||||||||||
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Meh. I thought it was a good example, but it's your project so I wont object. BL 16:58, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I completely disagree with the assertion that "Articles need to be interesting" as it goes on to say "to attract and keep the attention of readers" while it may possibly be true that if you don't want the content you authored to be heavily edited you may want your content to be interesting, but no, articles do not need to be interesting and the day that they do is the day the sentence should be cut from the NPOV tutorial and pasted into the "Why Wikipedia has a reputation that more closely matches that of a Daily Newspaper and not an Encyclopedia" tutorial Dirtclustit ( talk) 04:54, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
It is a well known fact that the Christian Church burnt witches during the 17th century. Today most of us do not believe in the existence of witches and we feel that the witch burnings of the past were inexcusable crimes committed against innocent women. It is hard for us to understand how such things could happen. But before condemning the people who perpetrated those acts which we would now consider crimes, we should understand the full implications of our judgement. We should also ask whether we are wholly condemning the Church that stood behind those acts. To be concrete: though witches were burned, that did not make the whole Church an evil organisation, nor every Christian a wicked person. Even less can we say that because of the witch burnings Christianity is wholly a wicked religion and for that reason to be condemned.
Would this same reasoning argue that we cannot condemnn slavery or genocide as bad, because we cannot pass judgement on they who committed those crimes ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.44.103.90 ( talk • contribs) 10:13, 21 December 2003 (UTC).
I know it is very tempting to do that. But try hard to let the facts speak for themself. I think that any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that burning witches was a horrible thing but stating it in the article text is neither neccesarry or good (according to the Wikipedia NPOV policy). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ed Poor ( talk • contribs) 17:18, 25 September 2003 (UTC).
I have one minor quibble and one major objection:
Minor quibble: In Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Attribution vs. citation, I'm afraid that the criterion that a view can be demonstrated to be wrong may be abused. If a view is a widely-held error, then it's generally fine to explain why this is so. For example, many people believe that Harry S. Truman never used a period after his middle initial, but in fact he did, as documented by numerous signatures. However, in some situations, there will be people who are perfectly familiar with the sound reasoning against their position, but who nevertheless will not accept that reasoning. For example, many people believe in creationism, but in fact nothing of the sort ever happened, as documented by the overwhelming scientific evidence of evolution. (Ed may disagree with my example ... but that's part of the point! -_^) I call this a minor quibble, because I know that nobody intended to authorise this sort of thing. So can we change the language to something along the lines of "Is there indisputable evidence for the claim, which those who disagree with it are unaware of?"? (Or something like that, this isn't ideal yet.)
Major objection: In Whose view matters?, a definite preference is given to "experts". While there is a brief mention that this is not a well-defined class, I worry that this could easily lead to a bias in favour of established opinions (over new ideas) and the opinions of people with interests (since nobody knows more about genetic engineering than our friends at Monsanto). One possibility is to define "experts" so that it clearly includes a potentially wide variety of people: perhaps "people that have studied the matter a good deal" (whereas a bad alternative definition would be "people that know a good deal about the matter"). My preference would be to avoid relying on that word in the first place; either by replacing it with a more suitable term (any ideas?) or by supplementing it. One supplement (but we should think of more) could be "participant"; for example, an anthropologist might be an "expert" on voudun, but a practitioner might not be (for some interepretations of the word). Clearly, we don't want to permit the sort of biases that would result by ignoring the Haitian hougan in favour of the French scientist!
-- Toby Bartels 07:52, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I think this piece is a good approach to clarify things. I agree with Toby that the "expert" reference could be...a bit problematic. I think it will be very inspiring to me for a shameless translation. I wrote something one day, but can't find it back :-( To those who read french, I also propose that link, which hold the charter of another encyclopedia
http://agora.qc.ca/encyclopedie.nsf/Communiques/Charte#principe1
Anthère 16:18, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I don't think we should expect or demand a lot of patience from people who are in need of tutoring about neutrality. Hence, I think this article right now is way, way too long; in particular, because there exists and even longer article that's about NPOV and is not called a "tutorial," and because "tutorial" suggests a quick how-to. It might be O.K. to preserve all the excess (better to merge whatever isn't redundant into the main article), but in that case I think there should be a succinct how-to up top. In one short sentence preceding it the article can offer a link out to the longer one for readers who don't arrive with some knowledge of the term NPOV. 168... 03:17, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I changed the "good way to judge" part to ..
Gbog reverted and said this should be discussed first because it's a major change. I don't think it is, but if Gbog disagrees with this explanation, I would invite him to comment on it. If he fails to do so I will reinsert the new version. —Eloquence
I know people fight a lot over NPOV, but fighting over an NPOV tutorial... (shame there's not an emoticon for "shakes heads in bemusement"). Can you please stop this before the page needs to be protected? Now it's advertised on the Village pump, why not leave it a few days to see if other people have anything to contribute to this? Angela . 11:48, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Well, I don't care enough to fight about it. This is just a tutorial, after all. Feel free to take it out if it bothers you that much. —Eloquence
from the village pump
Eloquence feels the change clarifies that the suspicion that an article is POV is not always an indication that this is the case, as there may be cases where there is a large disparity between facts an opinions. He thinks it is an important (if minor) caveat.
Gbog explained that this relates to the FAQ section on the Mother Teresa talk page. Gbog would like to add a quote from the NPOV_tutorial to the FAQ, but Eloquence disagreed, stating that the quote was inappropriate and explained that "merely suspecting that an article is POV doesn't make it so, as on cases like Mother Teresa, quite a few people will have this suspicion."
Andrewa felt the issue provided support for the benefits of a filter project (see m:Talk:Referees for full comments).
Menchi reminded everyone that calling others incompetent was anti-Wikilove. Eloquence noted that censorship of negative views and a lack of understanding of our policies were worse than vandalism. Gbog thought that transforming Wikipedia into an anti-religious sandbox would be worse than vandalism.
If you read above, you will notice that there has actually been an edit war about the "NPOV tests" section already. The current version reflects a compromise. It acknowledges that "Would a reader suspect that this article was written by someone who was trying to push a particular agenda or point of view - either subtly or not-so-subtly?" is one question one may ask to find out whether an article is in compliance with NPOV, but to avoid abuse of this guideline, clarifies that we need not pander to beliefs which are clearly incorrect. For example, we don't need to write "Some experts claim that wrestling fights are staged" but we can write "Wrestling fights are carefully staged". We can acknowledge these misconceptions insofar as we mention them, but we don't need to soften our language to accommodate them.
I think this is a very important part of this tutorial, as it concerns a common problem: How to deal with false information. I'd rather elaborate on it than remove it entirely. —Eloquence 08:10, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)
I was surprised to learn what that section is supposed to be about, b/c it doesn't read that way to me. I agree we're in a sticky situation if the section reflects a hard-won compromise, but my naive assessment of it was that it was unfocused and unhelpful, so all things equal I think it needs serious revision or chucking. I think there's a big problem being glossed over here, which involves taking for granted what the rest of the article doesn't take for granted at all. The problem is: How do I know when my POV is worse than another user's POV? How do I know that I should just step aside and give their POV primacy because mine, though popular, is a fiction (i.e. that contrary to what it looks like to me and what my buddies all say, actually wrestling is staged). If you proved wrestling is staged on the pages of Wikipedia, what would that proof look like? Tell me that and I'll know when to back off. But the section simply assumes that proof is obvious to everybody (murderer proven innocent). But to some one who believes in the fiction despite the proof, plainly it's not proof. If you think that once a Wikipedian has told them of the proof they will realize it's proof, then you are talking about someone whose POV has been changed and they don't need this section to urge them to defer to the truth. How is this section helping anybody?
168... 08:33, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I like this latest version of the tutorial, and I commend Eloquence for having the foresight to recommend its initial creation. It's much better than I could have done myself. :-) -- Uncle Ed 14:47, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The passage:
bothers me. Is it in fact true that Pons and Fleischmann shocked the world? At the time I heard it, I thought it was mildly interesting, but I certainly wasn't "shocked." (Perhaps I was too young, and all adults that heard it were shocked?) It certainly seems like a non-factual observation, anyway. I don't think it really matters, but maybe a different example could be chosen. It caused a bit of cognitive dissonance in a place where it didn't need to occur. TreyHarris 00:48, 15 May 2004 (UTC)
I didn't realize this discussion had taken place about the cold fusion sentence before I put back "shocked the world" with the comment "'drama' is not inaccurate if it has not been offered as a literal depiction of something people found dramatic" [I've rephrased the comment, which I garbled when I made my edit] although I think my comments still stands in answer to the points in the discussion. This intolerant accuracy quibbling is totally subjective and the presumed authority and confidence with which people quibble is snobbish deference to the language of a prominent specialty or discipline. Language is inherently figurative, schematic and ambiguous, and the goal of education is inherently didactic. Some things aren't worth fussing over though, and some well meant fussing is counter productive. I contend "tap" in this context will lead _nobody_ to imagine the scientists used the energy powered a car or appliance, and please note that I do not mean "nobody." You know what I mean.
I've just added a section warning not to avoid saying things that some groups object to having stated if they're not disputing the facts. I've encountered this a couple of times recently, and it looks like people are misunderstanding NPOV, and so taking political correctness too far. I see earlier on this talk page there are a couple of mentions of other forms of this problem. I'm not entirely satisfied by my exposition of the issue; perhaps others here can devise a clearer statement of it. 195.167.169.36 16:49, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I removed the examples in this section. They weren't very useful and were poor examples of NPOV. Perhaps we could discuss better examples. Carrp 14:39, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have some concerns with the NPOV definition, specifically how it is being used to force small minority views into articles in large ways. Take, for example, the "sun case" used throughout the early part of the NPOV tutorial. I have seen a couple of cases where people have quoted this argument, and the explicit statement that 99% of the world seeing something may not make make it true, in a destructive way. Does anyone really think that there should be a disambugation link at the top of the article about the Sun (as suggested in "word ownership") saying "This article is about a large majority view of the Sun. For the view of the Sun by Apollo-Worshippers, see..."? This is clearly what the article implies. I would like to rewrite that example, and the example of "word ownership" to explain that consensus meanings DO have greater weight than very small minority meanings. Does anyone have any thoughts? -- Goodoldpolonius2 05:43, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
See my suggestion in Wikipedia talk:Words to avoid#Claim -- Irmgard 09:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Your "accusations" section has a high potential of being labelled as libel. As it currently states; ((Attribution and citation are especially important for claims against a person (" Michael Jackson is a child abuser")etc.... )) is basically presenting a very nasty association that is damaging and in many nations illegal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.122.255.117 ( talk • contribs)
Hmmm. I am rather concerned about the section of this page called "Article splitting" since it references Wikipedia:Content forking but then describes as mandatory a different procedure from what that page actually says. Wikipedia:Content forking says that when one subtopic is getting too large or too contentious, it can be split off into its own article, with a shortened summary left in the main article. This page claims that Wikipedia:Content forking claims for all subtopics of an article to be spun out at the same time. I am concerned that this misrepresentation will be used to oppose legitimate changes ("No, you can't spin off 'Criticism of King Loopdeloop' into its own article! Not unless you're willing to spin every subtopic, including the two-sentence 'Shoe size of King Loopdeloop', into its own article!"). I'd like to get comments on this, but if no one can explain a good reason why this particular procedure, not supported by either of the pages it references, should stay in its current form, I will change it. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
You had replaced "every main section" by "every subsection" - which is not the same (e.g. a subsection with no more than three secondary "see also" links is not really a "main section" of the main article, is it?).The NPOV way of splitting articles is explained in Wikipedia:Content forking: every main section of the article is reduced in size, keeping to the "space and balance" principle as explained above, and an equal number of sub-pages is created using a technique as explained in wikipedia:summary style.
Well, that would be impossible to produce if after the split the main article were out of balance, in the NPOV tutorial sense (No wikipedia article in the article namespace is exempt of NPOV, including "space and balance" recommendations).Summary style articles, with sub-articles giving greater detail, are not content forking, provided that all the sub-articles, and the summary conform to Neutral Point of View.
Currently we have a clarification on WP:NPOV, about how an article easily can be biased WP:NPOV in a hidden way. This was planned to be spun off to a separate help page (this goes back to the WP:NPOV talk page of November). However, it is just a list of examples that now is presented as "new policy", and as such it receives misdirected negative criticism. I don't think it will pass as "new policy", and I'm also against that: "no bias" and fair treatment of all notable POV's is the corner stone of Wikipedia, it's not "new" in any way.
An alternative would be to trim it back down and reinsert it on the NPOV page, but that would be a waste.
Now, as it's just a tutorial on how articles can be biased and there shouldn't be a wildgrowth of guide pages, personally I think that it is best placed here, after some more text improvement. See: Wikipedia_talk:Information_suppression Harald88 14:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I reverted your no-consensus intrusive change. -- Francis Schonken 06:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
1) I'll make a link to the essay in the "see also" section (note that your "information suppression" essay met some opposition too);
2) You had deleted one of the most often quoted paragraphs from this guideline, and several other rewritings which were no "consensus".
--
Francis Schonken 08:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
A common way of introducing bias is by one-sided selection of information. Information can be cited that supports one view while some important information that opposes it is omitted or even deleted. In this manner, the full range of views on a subject can be unfairly presented or concealed whilst still complying with Wikipedia:Verifiability.
Some examples of how editors may unwittingly or even deliberately present a subject in an unfair way:
Thus, verifiability, proper citation and neutral phrasing are necessary but not sufficient to ensure NPOV. It is important that the various views and the subject as a whole are presented in a balanced manner and that each is summarized as if by its proponents to their best ability.
Would it be ok if I were to tag chinese ctities under Category:Taiwan as the goverment of Taiwan ( Republic of China) claims to rule mainland china? -- Cool Cat Talk| @ 09:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if anyone might take a look at the argument in Talk: Adolf Hitler#Goebbels quote from Steigmann-Gall? One party contends that a particuar sentence constitutes an assertion by a secondary source and, as sourced material, must be kept in. The other party contends that the sentence constitutes speculation and, not being based on fact, must be kept out. Apart from a long quote, the contribs (8 or 9) are short and clear (-ish), and raise the issue of how free the WP editor is to separate fact from speculation in a secondary source.-- shtove 20:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Of course Drogo only does that in some cases, whereas in other cases he has no problem in deleting referenced material that doesn't contain such twisting of words. Str1977 (smile back) 23:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
There should be a section in the NPOV article on how to add the POV warning tag. or at least a link to the how to page that has that information. I dont know how to do it so I cant add that. 67.23.60.92 21:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
(See diff.) I think these changes need to be reverted. Wikipedia is not reporting the opinion of the magazine; the magazine is reporting the opinion of many Australians and responsible for the truth/reliability/etc. of this information. Wikipedia editors who read the magazine can then quote the article as the source where they have garnered the information. See also No original research. I'd like to revert straight away since the current text misinforms new editors but I'll hold back for a while pending input from other editors which would be most welcome. AvB ÷ talk 17:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I made some changes ( diff) that were reverted. I apologize for doing so without talking first, I hadn't anticipated there being objections.
Currently, the article mentions two rules for how to balance competing viewpoints. For cases of scientific, technical, or social problems, space should be balanced "it should do so in proportion to the credibility of the experts holding the various theses". For cases of morals, religion, faith, and politics, we should list all opinions.
I have run into NPOV disputes involving faith, religion, and morality where one faction in the dispute tries to use the expertise rule to justify having an article which gives one side of the debate a vast majority of the space, and the other side only a small fraction of the space. The thinking is that some religious leaders, like Popes, should be considered as the most credible experts, and that the article should reflects that. My thinking is that such issues are moral/faith debates-- issues of opinon, not expertise. As such, the "in proportion to experts" should not apply, and so long as the moral debate itself is noteworthy, Wikipedia should try to treat all sides equally.
As such, I try to add some language to clarify that the "in proportion of credibility of experts" rule exists for questions of fact, not for questions of moral opinion. In doing so, I wasn't trying to change the policy, only clarify what I _think_ is the intent of the current text.
So... first off, do I understand the policy itself correctly? i.e. should the expertise rule apply to sciencey questions more than opiniony questions? If so, what sort of language can be added to help future editors from misunderstanding it and thinking that religious leaders, as religious experts, should dominate articles.
-- Alecmconroy 19:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
For the matter of argument, because that is the way you present it, let's suppose there are two factions each about as big as the other, and both thinking that the credibility of the experts supporting their stance is paramount. Also, for the sake of argument, and while that is the way you present the issue, the credentials of these experts are comparable, then:
Where's the problem (apart from that in practice it's not completely mathematic of course, but I suppose you get the thrift)?
Maybe, you still got the problem who gets the first go? Then, look at the article name:
Can't be all that difficult can it? -- Francis Schonken 23:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
wikipedia is worthless. did you seriously believe that you wouldn't have problems with "vandalism" when you decided to let anybody who wants to edit something? not everyone's view matters. it is crazy that you dismiss truth just so as not to offend a 1% minority view. I can't count how many times I've seen (and from Americans) that an article is "biased" in favor of the American view. Guess what - compared to America's view, no other country's view matters. It doesn't matter what some lowbrow nobody in Togo or Ghana has to say about world events. They don't even know what a PC is. Let the leaders lead and toss this subjective truth nonsense in the garbage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.137.42 ( talk • contribs)
What is the status of this page? I would like to see a tag at the top saying what its status is. Is it an essay? A guideline? A policy? A proposed policy or proposed guideline or work-in-progress intended to be a proposed policy or guideline? A page whose status is disputed? Thanks! -- Coppertwig 13:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I have a comment regarding the suggestions about "noted", "explained" and "pointed out": often, these are the precise words needed, but I have seen some editors citing this page as a reason to change otherwise neutral statements. I don't know exactly how to formulate what I mean, but I have a great example in continuation of the main page's. If, for example, Duane Gish had referenced the bible to support his statement, the proper formulation could be
This is objective and pretty easily verifiable fact he's noting: I'm quite confident (without doublechecking) that the Bible does, indeed, state that God created the Earth. The fact that Gish is noting it is his argument; he isn't simply making the argument directly (ie, "Gish noted that God created the Earth"). However, I have seen this transformed into things like
This is obviously POV, since a reader unfamiliar with the Bible might assume it doesn't (or at least might not) say that. Besides, "said" gets very old about the umpteenth time you use it... wait... "umpteenth" is in the spell-checker?? Wow. Anyways...
I think this section could be clarified some, demonstrating that some (specifically limited) uses of those three versions of "said" are quite allowable, and sometimes very useful. It's a very subtle point, but there's a difference between directly claiming that something is true and pointing out that another source claims it (even if you only point it out to support your argument). Does anyone agree with me? Eaglizard 06:44, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
The following text looks like it contains some vandalism to me: "Such split can be performed in a POV way, for example by putting everything you don't like in a new article and then giving that article an un-common name, so obfuscating its whereabouts." Would someone please review? Royalbroil 21:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Traditionally, encyclopedias describe the world by dividing it into currently existing nation-states, and featuring the history of the currently dominant ethnic group which rules the nation state. Of course this is a nationalist and sometimes ethno-racist POV. However, WP has uncritically adopted this POV way of describing the world. There are alternate objective, non-POV ways the world could be described, such as economic or cultural regions which transcend nation-state boundaries, but it seems WP gets its marching orders from the CIA. Fourtildas ( talk) 07:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
…1:44 P.M.E.S.T. THANK YOU WIKIPEDIA FOR ALLOWING ME D.G.DeL-Dorchester Mass TO CONTINUE WITH SOME EFFORT 1:46 p.m. David George DeLancey ( talk) 18:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
We have an interesting dispute here about which agreed upon facts should be included: Talk:9/11#(subsection to make editing easier) ; fact picking. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 03:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I work for Microsoft. I like it there and I like the work I do. I have also contributed to Wikipedia from time to time but I have always avoided topics that have anything to do with Microsoft. I figured that I ran the risk of tainting an articles NPOV merely by contributing even if my contribution was nuetral. I fear the IP scanners. I have been thinking about again. I have been reading some of the NPOV articles and I haven't seen this discussed yet. Is it possible for someone, from Microsoft, or Apple, or Starbucks, or Canon, or Oracle, or whatever, to contribute on a subject that touches their company. If so, what is the best way to do that? If not, ok.....writing about rivers is fun too. I would like to hear peoples' thoughts about this. Thanks.
Crackerbelly talk 03:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
The introduction to this tutorial makes it sound like it will go through the steps focusing on liberalism, but it only covers the topic a few times. I could reword the introduction to not make it sound like this, but it seems to me that this might be a good idea, that is, making the entire tutorial focus on one (hypothetical) article. It doesn't have to be liberalism. In fact, I'm not sure that that particular topic would fit all the subjects here. Anyone have any ideas on this, and does anyone with more experience with want to do this/willing to change the article? Asmeurer ( talk ♬ contribs) 04:15, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I think there are several significant verifiable facts that dispute the tenor of the subsection "Sexism at King's College" in the article on Rosalind Franklin. I have stated some of these in the most recent posts to the Discussion at this time. How do I start a respectful NPOV discussion? Can I just add a paragraph stating facts I think at variance? Michael P. Barnett ( talk) 20:25, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
Let's not say "POV" writing when we mean "biased writing". It's not a good synonym, and it obscures the fact that a huge number of Wikipedia articles are about the clash between various opinions of points of view. See Wikipedia:OPINION for more information. -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 17:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
See current discussion at WP:VPP#How to write on moral/ethical acts/behaviors that are treated negatively today but not during the time of the original topic? -- Francis Schonken ( talk) 13:00, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
This may be nitpicking or just due to my less-than-native mastery of the English language, but doesn't "P states sth." imply that P claims the denoted state to be real, as opposed to "P says sth." or "P writes sth." which merely describe the communicative act of saying or writing the cited words? Isn't the way "to state sth." relates to reality closer to "to explain sth." (but without necessarily elaborating the details or reasons) than it is to "to say/write sth."?
If so, the latter wordings would be "safer choices" where neutral language is desired, whilst the former might be problematic, as it is not as clearly detached from the content of the statement made by P.
Any input about this from knowledgable speakers? Zooloo ( talk) 21:06, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
The section on Neutral language doesn't seem to make any mention of Evaluative language. Such an example would be "Tomas Edison introduced his brilliant invention of..." - while I would say that it is indeed a bright invention, using the term brilliant actually carries a non neutral presupposition that the invention is indeed a positive invention. Micsthepick ( talk) 09:19, 5 February 2024 (UTC)